The Primitive Soul of a Socialist

The following letter appeared in the Reader's Forum of 9/8/09 NJ Star-Ledger.

Primitive health care

As a species, we seem to believe we are highly evolved. But when I take a closer look, it becomes quite obvious we are really still very primitive because we labor under layers of illusions that allow us to severely mistreat each other.

A dollar bill is a piece of paper, nothing more and nothing less. We allow ourselves to believe a piece of paper with "one hundred" printed on it is more valuable than a piece of paper with "one."

We are smart enough to realize that money is only paper, yet we are willing to allow millions of our fellow humans to live without access to a primary care doctor simply because they lack the proper number of pieces of paper.

Pain and disease is true reality, the need to have constant access to a caring doctor is true reality. Holding back health care from people because they don't have enough paper is an illusion that only a primitive group would allow. We must strive to evolve to the point that everyone has access to care regardless of how much paper they possess.

Perry Leandro, Cranbury

My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 09/08/09 at 4:50PM

Perry Leandro of Cranbury writes:

"A dollar bill is a piece of paper, nothing more and nothing less."

Then why do you receive those pieces of paper in exchange for the real products and services your productive work provides for others? And why can you then exchange those pieces of paper for real products and services you need and want, but that are produced by still others?

A civilized man sees money as a noble medium that stands for something - wealth that has been produced by human beings and made available to other human beings through the voluntary mutually advantageous transaction called trade. By making it possible to work for one person and purchase the work of another, the discovery of money led to the division-of-labor market economy that in turn made possible the huge advance from the primitive witch doctor to modern medicine.

A savage sees only that "A dollar bill is a piece of paper, nothing more and nothing less."

Perry Leandro says:

"Holding back health care from people because they don't have enough paper is an illusion that only a primitive group would allow."

There is nothing illusory about earning your own keep. As every civilized man knows, if you can't afford the price of another man's labor, you basically have only three moral choices - increase your earnings so you can afford it, rely on voluntary private charity, or do without. No one else is obligated to provide you with the necessities of life. As every civilized man knows, all wealth is produced and belongs to the individual human beings that earned it, not the primitive tribe. As every civilized man knows, you cannot consume that which you have not produced, nor consume more than you have produced (earned). And above all, you cannot acquire what others have produced except by voluntary, uncoerced means.

A savage sees providing for his own needs by his own efforts ... earning "enough paper" ... as an "illusion". A savage sees human evolution as returning to the brute force rule of the jungle or the cave dweller, where need is a license to steal rather than a spur to productive work - where "everyone has access to care regardless of how much paper they possess."

A savage sees an ant colony, not a human civilization that has discovered the capitalist market economy governed by the justice of voluntary production and trade, the principle of individual rights, and the nobility and vital necessity of money (which should be gold or gold-backed). A savage sees a primitive tribe that can confiscate and redistribute the property of its members at will, rather than a benevolent, non-coercive association of free individuals whose property is protected by a government of laws and not of looters.

The current healthcare debate reveals that we still have a lot of mental savages among us who long for the primitive world of witch doctors and the rule of the jungle. I'm sure that Perry Leandro is not one of them, just an uninformed soul who needs to grasp the primordial implications of what he is saying.


*For a comprehensive explanation on the moral and practical importance of money, read Francisco's "Money Speech" from Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged.