In Defense of Selfishness by Peter Schwartz

Author:Peter Schwartz [Schwartz, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466878907
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

To Be Taken Care of Is To Be Controlled

But if people have to be taken care of by the state, if they cannot be left on their own, then they cannot be trusted to make decisions by themselves. If they are to be fed, they must be told what food is to be permitted them. This is why, for example, we are given state-approved nutritional requirements by the Department of Agriculture, in the form of “food pyramids” and “food plates,” which must be followed by all schools participating in the National School Lunch Program. This is why the government tells food packagers to reduce the salt content in their products—it is why restaurants in various localities are prohibited from serving dishes containing trans-fats—it is why the mayor of New York City demanded a ban on the sale of large cups of sugared soda.

Our politicians rule with a paternalistic mentality. It is under this mentality that edicts are issued against gambling, against smoking cigarettes, against riding motorcycles without helmets and against buying liquor on Sundays. It is under this mentality that a social services agency locks up a 400-pound man in a mental institution’s eating-disorder unit, because his extreme obesity is not “in the interests of that person’s health or safety.”4 It is under this mentality that the Bowery Mission, a soup kitchen in New York City, is forced to throw away donations of fried chicken for the hungry—because the food was cooked with trans-fats.5

The premise of paternalism is the premise of control.

The welfare state seeks to shape the lives not just of the poor, but of everyone. The altruist philosophy regards man as essentially helpless. Since we are deemed incapable of meeting our needs without the sacrifices of others, we must be not only ministered to, but directed by, the collective. Do we, for example, need to put aside money for our retirement? The government gives us Social Security, but prohibits us from opting out and relying entirely on a private system of savings. Do we have a need for mail delivery? The government provides it, but bars us from having regular letters delivered by carriers other than the Postal Service. Do we need schools? The government establishes a public education system, but refuses to allow parents the choice of taking the money being spent on public schools and using it instead to send their children to private schools.

We must be managed by the state, the collectivists insist. Just as the unsupervised child, they argue, will always choose a dinner of ice cream and cookies over one of fish and broccoli, the unsupervised adult too will follow his desires of the moment. We cannot be trusted to do what is best for us, since we are unable to exercise rational thinking. As a New York Times editorial contends, adamantly opposing the idea of giving parents a choice of schools: “What of parents who are unable or unwilling to choose? . . . Some parents will always lack information or initiative.”6

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