Is universal healthcare a right? And if not, how else can we think about it, let alone justify it?
Is the adversarial model, associated with the state of nature and the subsequent transition from asocial to social arrangements, still applicable once we move to consider civil societies? More importantly, perhaps, can we extend the notion of compromise, and that of “taking an insurance policy,” to cover the manner in which most of the human rights have been won? Can we construe other rights and social gains on analogy with how the basic rights, such as the right to life and property, have been secured in the course of the aforementioned transition? Is the model still applicable once we’re past that transition?…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Cindy
This article reads like a fairytale of presumption. I recommend not reinventing reality. What is the benefit of a model based on false assumptions?
27 - Cindy
24
See, that is a presumption about 'state of nature'. Where did you get that idea? Can you defend it with factual information? Or is it 'just a model', i.e. invented fiction?
28 - Jeannie Danna
Roger, Have you checked your E-Mail lately? where did you get the link in #22?
29 - roger nowosielski
It's not a false assumption to say that people have different and divergent interests and that conflict is part and parcel of human experience. The very fact that every social gain - whether by way of voting rights, civil rights, any kind of right - even the upcoming Healthcare debate - is proof positive to the effect that conflict rather than peace and harmony is the order of the day. It would be a false assumption and an exercise in wishful thinking to imagine otherwise and see the world through rose glasses.
30 - roger nowosielski
It's Yahoo News, Jeannie, from Yahoo homepage.
31 - Jeannie Danna
Well Cindy :# and Roger :( I seem to be butting into your conversation here and I don't think I'm adding very much to it...I need to go change some info now!
32 - roger nowosielski
Here's the link I was talking about, in particular, the part when it says (see the end):
On health care, Obama left open the door to abandoning his demand that people under any revamped system have the option of choosing coverage from a government-funded program.
"We are still early in this process," he said. "So, you know, we have not drawn lines in the sand other than reform has to control costs and that it has to provide relief to people who don't have health insurance or are underinsured."
33 - Cindy
30
Please defend your state of nature with some sort of factual evidence. You seem to be both backing up and moving sideways.
Your claims are very specific (and I may add commonplace). It's an old argument that seems to be given credibility because it might intuitively seem reasonable.
It needs to be questioned and challenged. If you can defend it, please provide a proper defense.
When criticized with claims of being theoretical and non-factual, another theoretical, non-factual rationalization will hardly work. Wouldn't you agree with that much?
34 - Cindy
Jeannie,
You're not interrupting anything. As far as I know these threads can hold unlimited different conversations at the same time. :-)
35 - roger nowosielski
State-of-nature is a construct. In all likelihood, there has never been a situation of total enmity. It's a construct whose purpose is to account for the socialization process, why people tend to coalesce together and form a community.
36 - roger nowosielski
It is, BTW, a very commonplace argument. But simply because it's commonplace is no reason for restating it. Conflict and conflict-resolution are ever present elements in any community. And these basic facts are complicated by a whole array of other concepts such as rights, benefits, obligations, membership, morality, and so forth.
37 - roger nowosielski
"is no reason for NOT restating it"
38 - Arch Conservative
The NYT times can put out as many bogus polls as they want and ABC can do infomercials for Barry until the cows come home but we're not going it's looking like we're not going to be getting Barrycare anytime soon and if we don't get it anytime soon we will never get it. Thank god for small miracles.
39 - Jeannie Danna
Roger, Your writing is,shall we say, a little too thick for me. I have been using my dictionary here and wow! It's very advanced in your thread.
I'll just hang out here and read what you and Cindy are talking about...
A student tonight!
40 - Jeannie Danna
Oh, look what the cat dragged in.:(
41 - Cindy
35
It's a wrong ideological construct. What 'socialization process'--whatever that means?
When beginning with an accounting that is wrong, what kind of argument can be made? Just your assertions about socialization processes alone seem biased. I don't know what you mean by that? Are you suggesting that having the opera and medicine and the X-files on TV is more 'socialized' than being an Inuit or an Australian aborigine?
37
I did not say merely because it is commonplace is a reason for not restating it. That is the sort of thing you have stated in the past. Remember?
I'll reword it. It is an argument that has been taken for granted since it was presented. It needs to be examined and defended on factual grounds.
To continue to take for granted flawed constructs will not get us anywhere.
I'm asking for a defense of the construct on a factual, not strictly theoretical, basis. Defend it with history, with anthropology, begin with those closest to living in a state of nature.
It's a philosophical construct that is old and tired and has been shown to be flawed by the history and social science that has come after it. Yet, it is used as a model, for what? mythological explanation?
It is not challenged because it fits nicely with what we are supposed to believe. So, I challenge it as false.
Can you defend it with anything other than theoretical argument based on your presumptions?
42 - roger nowosielski
I thorough agree with you about this piece. It took me a week to conceptualize it and it should have been a draft; but I was too tired of it and wanted to see it disappear.
I should have taken my time and restate the argument in simpler terms.
All I'm really doing is the lay of the land: we're living in a society ridden with conflict of interests and desire to hold on to the status quo. And yet, social change is not only possible but a living reality. The UHC that's on the table now is going to pass, just as the Civil Rights Act had passed and other social gains which benefited all those who were previously disenfranchised.
So the question is - how come these things happen at all, given that those who hold power and are against any kind of social change are neutralized and have to acquiesce.
Essentially, that's what I'm trying to do: provide a general kind of answer to this question - the possibility of social change in an adversarial environment.
43 - ma r k
Rog, you say in #11 I think the notion of class has been rendered outmoded, especially in the West, by virtue of material progress.
The concept of 'class' and the act of classification are fundamental even to your program of 'drawing important distinctions', yet you expect me to accept that when it comes to political theory and economics the notion is 'outmoded'?
That's convenient for the owning class.
44 - Cindy
we're living in a society ridden with conflict of interests and desire to hold on to the status quo
I agree with this.
For the sake of closure to my objections, I'll say this: Everything I have studied tells me that the closer one gets to cultures in a 'state of nature' the more socialized they are. The more 'civilized', the more antisocial.
Those are my personal conclusions based on information I have looked at so far.
45 - roger nowosielski
A construct, by its very definition, doesn't have to be defended on factual grounds - only in the context of the kind of work it is supposed to do. I has been part of modern political theory, and it's purpose has been to allow the theorist to define the features of a minimal state. And to the extent that the state-of-nature construct enabled us to thing about the minimal requirements of the minimal state, it was and continues to be a useful one.
What these requirements are, the fundamental reason(s) why people form a community rather than live in a state of mutual hostility and enmity - I spell out in Part I, as well in a series of past articles on state of nature, the Politics and Ethics series, Part I and II.
46 - roger nowosielski
"to think about..."
47 - mar k
A construct, by its very definition, doesn't have to be defended on factual grounds...
...unless you wish to claim that it explains anything about the world in which we find ourselves.
48 - roger nowosielski
Mark, #43
I'm not saying Mark that the notion of class doesn't have any theoretical value - only that it doesn't appear to have much cash value in the context of political theory which has the values of "liberal democracies" and the concept of "rights" as their centerpieces.
If you now want to make a "foundational" move and argue that political theories of that ilk are merely ideologies of the ruling/owning class, you're free of course to do so. But you do know that that's not really a counter-argument, and that to defeat the theory of "liberal democracies" you must show it to be inconsistent, incoherent and flawed.
49 - Cindy
I read your articles. One might say they're inspirational. Thus, I am challenging what you're claiming.
I reassert that false constructions LEAD to false conclusions. Say what you will about 'not having to be defended'. That is the consensus of the myth-making club, I suppose. It's nothing more than a sophisticated version of myth creation. (not unlike creation myths)
50 - roger nowosielski
State-of nature construct - whether by Hobbes's, Locke, or Rousseau, take your pick - has done it's job to enable the theorist to define the minimal state; the fact that you don't believe in the necessity of the state is no reflection on the usefulness of the construct.
The ancients did not feel the need to resort to the construct because in their thinking, the state and the political community was a most natural development - not only because of environmental/demographic/economic constraints (such as defending against the enemy, building fortifications, etc) but also arising out of the morality of the individual, resulting thus in formalization of the established rules of conduct and mores via laws to be enforced in the context of the political community.
51 - roger nowosielski
#44: I don't understand this:
"Everything I have studied tells me that the closer one gets to cultures in a 'state of nature' the more socialized they are. The more 'civilized', the more antisocial."
52 - roger nowosielski
#49:
State of nature IS a myth. But the existence of states definitely it's not. Further, to deny the myth is not to deny the present reality. It would be like saying that because the creation account (as given for example in either Genesis I or Genesis I) is a myth, therefore we don't exist.
53 - Cindy
Defining a minimal state? Is that what you are doing in this article?
That doesn't seem right to me. It seems to me you are making a justification. You are justifying your argument based on this presumed state of nature construction.
The state of nature construction seems like a justification for a state. Start with a state then work backwards to justify it. That's what I see it as.
54 - roger nowosielski
I am quoting here from page 2, Part I:
Consider the business of “offering protection,” surely the first if not the foremost concern which would make a person give up some of their “perfect” freedoms and enter a social contract. Prior to these arrangements, it would be up to the individual to protect their life and property. And whilst ‘tis true that any number of individuals so moved would be apt to join forces for the express purpose of protecting their interests " a “mutual protection agency” is the term in use " it’s also true that any such agency and the interests it’d purport to represent could also be challenged. Hence the solution: a “dominant protection agency,” to encompass every member of the society in order to guarantee a nonviolent resolution of all conflicts and offer equal protection to each and everyone alike " in short, a “minimal state” in the jargon of political philosophy (see Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia).
The proposed solution, the formation of a (minimal) state, is not a result of moral deliberation but is born out of (social) compromise. It’s utterly functional in basis, having nothing to do with what’s right or wrong, only with what’s to everyone’s advantage."
55 - Cindy
51
Restated: In reality, cultures without states better serve social needs. Hunter- gatherers are/were better at meeting the needs of the community. States don't enter the picture because of a social contract. They enter the picture because of some form of domination and protection of assets of those who are dominating.
P.S. Hobbes and Locke were dead before Darwin was born. Even the apes we descended from had communities. There was never a theoretical human who banded together with others to form a social contract. We were always social.
56 - roger nowosielski
The notion of "social contract" is also a construct and a myth (that's why it's in quotation marks) - a kind of shorthand.
And yet, even hunters and gatherers form a community - which is based on certain cooperation and to a sense, structure. They hunt and gather together, not in isolation.
A community is a prototype of a state. It's a matter of degree and formalization.
57 - roger nowosielski
I'm retiring for a stretch. Will respond later.
58 - Cindy
Yes, hunter-gatherers work/ed together, in community. The state of nature construct presumes everyone against everyone. The social contract is some means of gaining protection from harsh, dangerous conditions.
It's backwards. The harsh, dangerous conditions begin with the state, or its equivalent.
So what do you get by basing arguments on these particular myths? What does it serve? Or whom?
59 - Cindy
I hope for a response to #43.
60 - Dave Nalle
The notion of "social contract" is also a construct and a myth (that's why it's in quotation marks) - a kind of shorthand.
The social contract is just a way of describing something which happens naturally in all societies. Putting a label on it doesn't create it, it just pins it down for easy reference. And it does exist and is certainly not a myth.
As for rights, no matter what you may try to argue there are still just the three fundamental rights. Others derive from them and are less absolute. The "right" to healthcare derives from the right to life. But your life cannot be preserved at the cost of the fundamental rights of others. So if keeping you alive requires depriving others of their life or their liberty or their property, then there is a problem and the right to "healthcare" is not really an absolute because it has serious limits.
Certainly everyone has a right to equal access to healthcare if they can pay for it. But do they have the right to force someone else to pay for their healthcare? A lot of people think maybe not.
Dave
61 - roger nowosielski
"And it does exist and is certainly not a myth."
A myth, Dave, in the context of the "fictional" passage from state-of-nature to a political community. Not a myth if we want to talk about the forming of the Union, with the U.S Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
And BTW, I haven't argued (yet) that UHC is the kind of right like say, right to life or property. I believe there is a way of arguing on behalf of UHC without invoking that "rights" business. And I intend to do in part III.
62 - Cindy
Dave,
And it does exist and is certainly not a myth.
Please show me my social contract, I'd like to see where I signed it. Dan(Miller) seems to have misplaced it.
If you cannot show it to me, I will reassert that it is a myth.
Where do you get the three rights from? And what are the other two?
63 - roger nowosielski
#43 has already been dealt with in #48, to which I now have the following to add:
the theory of "liberal democracies" with the notion(s) of freedom and rights as their key, centerpiece concepts are, almost by definition, antithetical if not foreclosing with respect to the "class" concept - if for no other reason that the idea of human rights of a certain kind, specifically rights which are central to the notion of persons, trump and transcend all class and class distinctions.
Vice versa, perhaps, a political theory that would feature the notion of class as its central concept would in a very important sense trample on or severely limit the notion of rights that are proprietary to the concept of persons.
Which is to say, these two kinds of theories are essentially incompatible. It would be interesting, however, to see the extent to which they can be integrated, if possible.
Interesting question in its own right. So here is an assignment for you Mark; and for me, too.
64 - Cindy
Not a myth if we want to talk about the forming of the Union, with the U.S Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Yes a myth even then. I may be mistaken. But do you think it's right for a few rich guys to decide how the whole country will work?
Is that a 'social contract'? A bunch of thieves making a constitution and devising a state to protect their assets?
Your argument just fell apart. Both of you.
65 - roger nowosielski
Well, your fathers and forefathers have signed it on your behalf, in absentia.
You can renege by stepping outside the society and become "an outlaw."
66 - Cindy
Well, your fathers and forefathers have signed it on your behalf, in absentia.
Really? Sounds awfully fishy to me that you people are trying to proclaim that humankind makes a social contract based on a few rich people taking over and making a state. (Which is what I have been saying happens.) And that somehow before I was even born I agreed to this social contract.
You can renege by stepping outside the society and become "an outlaw."
That a state is a bully and oppressor has nothing to say about its legitimacy.
I suggest reading Lysander Spooner's No Treason.
He had some different views of social contracts and rule of law (being a brilliant lawyer himself)
Indeed I
67 - Cindy
The last unfinished line is erratum.
68 - Cindy
Forget me. How about back then when this contract was made? How about all the people that were in what is the U.S. then, did they all sign this social contract even then? Did the all the people have a say and agree to this? Even then?
69 - Bliffle
Perhaps I missed Daves rationale for this, so I don't get it:
The "right" to healthcare derives from the right to life. But your life cannot be preserved at the cost of the fundamental rights of others. So if keeping you alive requires depriving others of their life or their liberty or their property, then there is a problem...
Why is one persons 'right' to healthcare subordinate to another persons right to property? How did we go about ranking 'rights'? Who decided, and when and where?
Is the 'right' of my squalling infant inferior to my right to spend my property as I please? Shall I dash it against the rocks to stop it's demands on my purse and assert my superior property right?
As for the 'social contract', perhaps it is not true that any social contract we might devise is superior to the social contract of peoples we might call 'primitive'.
This pleasant Alpine Valley that I am staying in for the summer was inhabited by Yako indians for 6000 years. No wars. No interneccine battles. No murders. Hunter-gatherers, they lived off the land, mostly from the abundant Oak tree acorns. They had about a one hour workday. 3000 years ago they had a life expectancy of 45 years while the inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent on the mediteranean and the egyptians had a life expectancy of 24 years. They had no notion of property and practiced birth control so that there were never more than about 60 people in the valley.
But the 'civilized' peoples of the Fertile Crescent, crowded in upon each other by their damned agricultural and personal fertility had to devise property rights and the slavery that goes along with it to survive the incredible overpopulation they unleashed.
And then...later.
70 - Cindy
Oh right life, liberty, property. The three universal rights of the universe.
Dave,
I was born on this planet. That means that I should get to use it. That's just natural. If you own it how can I use it?
You have no right to own land. It deprives all people without wealth and future people without wealth from rightfully using the planet they were born on.
71 - roger nowosielski
"That a state is a bully and oppressor has nothing to say about its legitimacy."
Legitimacy or not, you're taking all the advantages of being a member. Where you live, the utilities provided, the employees you hire, the fire and police protection you may call upon, garbage disposal - all these are the amenities that the illegitimate society provides for you, the elements of so-called social contract you're a signatory to, whether you have signed it in person or not.
There is a way out of course. To check out.
72 - Cindy
By that logic prisoners are taking advantage of their living accommodations, meals, you get the picture.
So, I guess they had a different clause in their 'social contract'.
Apparently one that might say they cannot make barrel monsters without taking advantage of the prison social contract.
This social contract is starting to sound like something a used car dealer drafted.
73 - roger nowosielski
You're not a prisoner. Checking out of society is an option that it open to you. And if you're really convicted, you ought to disavow yourself of all the amenities that are available and you make use of. It's not like the Eagles' song - you are free to leave.
74 - roger nowosielski
In addition, your continuous presence in the US and your availing yourself of the society's amenities only adds to its legitimacy. Not to see that is either to live a lie or to persist in a state of denial.
75 - Dave Nalle
Cindy, property is not necessarily land. Property is more correctly defined as those things acquired as fruits of one's labor. The argument would be that if you work and establish a value for that work you have the right to keep whatever that earns you. In our society that includes land, which can be bought and sold like any other commodity and to which you have as much right as any other person.
And whether you like it or not, or choose to opt out or not, you ARE subject to the social contract so long as you willingly accept the benefits of the society in which you take part. I support the idea of allowing you to declare yourself to be outside of the social contract, to set aside your rights, declare open-season on hunting Cindy for sport or enslaving her and all that comes with giving up the social contract, but I bet that when push comes to shove you really aren't willing to go that far despite your lip-service to the most hypocritical of all political philosophies.
And it's not a matter of your ancestors signing on to the social contract. You sign on to it too when you accept the idea that people should not be allowed to kill one another or take the fruits of each others labor or enslave each other. You do believe in those things, right? Well, that's the social contract at its most basic level.
Dave