Taking a little break from other series which you can see the last part here. I’ve been thinking about writing a post about this topic for awhile. I know that everyone can relate to this post because we’re all going through it at the moment. I believe some people are probably experiencing less dramatic situations than others. The current event, a pandemic of proportions not unseen in history, has created a lot of government power grabbing. You may or may not know someone who has this virus or who has succumb to it. The inevitably of people dying is not something that humans can remedy. So this post will not focus on finding the cure or anything like that.
First, I feel like I should thank any front line nurses, clinical laboratory scientists, doctors, truck drivers, grocery store clerks and many others who must put their lives at risk. From my own perspective, I do know people with the virus. I do live in NYC and it does have the most infections. Personally I don’t have it, nor does anyone close to me. I have a distinct point of view because my wife and mother in law are both front-liners. I drive them to work in Brooklyn nearly everyday. Often times, they tell me its been a pretty constant 50 percent rate of positives. They are clinical laboratory scientists, their job is to quite literally run the Covid-19 test. They have to deal with live samples of it in the thousands each day. Words really don’t do their efforts justice because they work 6-7 days a week for usually 12 hours a day. Not an easy gig.
Bad Government Handling
Many people feel underwhelmed by the government’s response to this pandemic. Others feel overwhelmed by it. I think the handling has varied depending on the place. Some governments have handled it better than others. But overall, I’d say that generally government does a bad job at handling stuff like this. The reason is because they try to apply policies that may or may not be effective to everywhere. The problem with blanket solutions is that sometimes that blanket doesn’t cover every situation. Take for example, in New York State, there are two distinct areas of New York State: Upstate and Down State. Upstate New York is mostly rural with lower population density. Down State contains New York City, a city inhabited by 8.6 million people with the highest population density in the USA. (Its ranked 8th in the world for population density of city proper) The State government in the beginning just spit out general regulations that were probably fine for upstate but in the city it wasn’t going to be enough.
I don’t think its a stretch to say that population density is a big factor in how fast this virus spreads. So its clear that here in the city, we would have need to be stricter on “social distancing” due to the close proximity of literally everyone. Especially baffling is the failure of the city to identify that public transit like subways are a hot bed for spreading. It took nearly a week or two before they decided it was a good idea to actually sanitize the train cars. (FYI they usually don’t clean subway cars in NYC, ever) In addition to all this, we’ve seen government bailouts which creates other problems that is probably entirely different post. However, I will address the mass unemployment.
Personal Responsibility
The goal of this post is to see how a voluntary society would handle such a pandemic. Let’s say that government didn’t exist. I think there are immediate changes that right off the bat would make a difference. First, without government there wouldn’t be shortages of medical equipment or hand sanitizer because there would be no restrictions on the production and release of those products to market. Second, without government there would be no food shortages, because the price of food goods would adjust to market value. While price gouging might seem unfair, its actually a protection for the supplier of that good. When the government tries to keep prices down artificially, it hurts the suppliers. It also hurts consumers because rather than having that good, its just sold out completely. Its better to have it especially in the case of something like bread, milk or eggs for a higher price. Instead with price gouging protections, we see high demand items sold out. Its because the producer or supplier can’t afford to make more, it makes no sense to put more out if they can’t get full market price. Its a loss for them.
I think the less obvious yet more important difference in a voluntary society would be how people and businesses go about protecting themselves. The main tool they would use would be personal responsibility. Remember there is no government to tell anyone what they should do or shouldn’t do. So it would be up to each individual to decide what is best. I know a majority will immediate disagree with me here by arguing that “nobody listens to government rules, what makes you think people will just naturally be responsible?” Sure its true that people don’t listen to government rules. However, the mindset of voluntary society is vastly different to compared to our current society. In a voluntary society, people aren’t complacent, they would be used to relying on themselves rather than on government for everything. But in order to answer these questions, we need to dig deeper into what personal responsibility actually looks like.
The personally responsible person would ideally take precautions, first and foremost for himself or herself. This person would use common sense methods to prevent themselves from contracting any virus. Things like washing your hands, limiting public interactions, and generally just keeping themselves healthy. Now think about it: Keeping yourself healthy has additional benefits to society because if you aren’t sick then you can’t possibly spread the sickness. The same goes for businesses. A business can figure out how to operate without shutting down completely. We live in a world with technology beyond imagination. Surely nobody can tell me that technology can’t fix the government policy of total shutdown. Of course, before any business can innovate a way forward, the government steps in and subjectively rules between essential and non essential. In a voluntary society, businesses would only shut down if they absolutely had to. Technology would be able to cover gaps. I think in 2020, we have no excuses.
Let me also address something that media seems to find quite interesting: “No Libertarians in a pandemic”. Okay, first of all, excuse me but if you lose your principles on any basis like “an emergency” then you weren’t a REAL libertarian in the first place. Second, actual Libertarians and Anarchists don’t call on the government to do literally anything except shut itself down. Third, if your a libertarian or anarchist, and you think its rebellious to unsafely break “social distancing rules” then you are a part of problem. Listen, I’m not saying you should follow government guidelines because the government said so. I’m saying you should take some PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. It doesn’t matter what anyone says. Keep yourself healthy and keep others healthy too!
Conclusion
Last thing, I know that even in a voluntary society there would massive layoffs. A lot of business requires face to face interactions. Whatever technology can’t remedy, unfortunately some people would lose work. I have imagined that without government there would be a solution to this problem. Since without government, there would be no welfare state. Instead I think unemployment insurance would exist. It could be a multiple company, multi-trillion dollar business too. An unemployment insurance company needs to have very deep pockets to start or a large customer base. Either way it would work quite similarly to welfare.
In normal times, you would sign up by paying an upfront fee probably anywhere from 50 to 150 dollars. This fee would go straight to the company. Then on an app from your phone you would be able to set the amount deducted automatically from your paycheck. It would have to be in percentages with the lowest being probably 10-20 percent. That money deducted would be built up over the months and years that you work at any given job. A percentage deduction also means that the more money you make, more money you’ll receive if you do lose your job. Keep in mind that taxes wouldn’t exist so just imagine you get to choose how much is taken out. I would also think that a cool feature could be a retirement option. Let’s say you work 40 years without ever having to use this unemployment insurance. You could opt it into a 401k or IRA for retirement since you obviously put in the money and should be able to take it out eventually.
The moral of this post is that personal responsibility can be used in both a voluntary society and in today’s world. If you protect yourself then you will protect those around you too. Stay safe out there.
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