Guest Post by Eric Peters
The following is an example of the Augean Stables that will have to be mucked out before there is any hope for a rebirth of liberty in this country. It was submitted by what I fear is the typical American nowadays – the reflexive authoritarian, moral illiterate and market economics ignoramus EPautos readers refer to as a Clover (more here).
The subject matter is mandatory insurance. In this case, car insurance. But the principle applies generally (its acceptance is the reason why we now have mandatory health insurance and probably soon mandatory life insurance, with much more to come, if the principle is not identified and rejected) and so is of general interest.
“As you stated 35 thousand dollars is not enough anymore but at least 35k goes toward the injured party. Car insurance is a competitive business. Insurance companies do not make thousands of dollars off of you. If Libertarians were right that car insurance companies make a fortune off of you then wouldn’t you think Eric would open his own insurance company and make millions of dollars? Eric my insurance for my car is about $580 per year with $300k coverage. Only a fraction of that bill goes toward liability. Eric that is far from getting rich off of me due to the costs that insurance companies have but as Eric says, an imbecile never did understand finances. I also pay extra so that I am covered up to a million dollars if I cause harm to others. I am not like a Libertarian and make the innocent go bankrupt and lose everything when you hit them. If we had your world a guy can be stopped at a stop light and lose everything he has. Eric that is why I do not want a Libertarian society. I know, you enjoy harming the innocent.”
Clover,
In the first place, a “competitive business” does not need to force people to do business with it.
When you cannot say no to a transaction, you have almost no negotiating power.
Geico and Progressive are like the Lucchesi and Gambino families. Maybe you can choose to pay tribute to one of them rather than the other; but you will pay, regardless. So – by definition – you pay more (when you would have preferred to pay nothing for a “service” you don’t need or want) and what you pay will necessarily be more, regardless, precisely because there in no option to say “no.”
Do you really maintain that the cost of a thing is reduced when people are required to buy it – provided they are allowed to buy it from more than one government-backed mafia? That the cost of a hamburger would be less if government required everyone to buy one each week, but allowed us to buy it from either McDonalds or Wendy’s?
In fact, the cost of a hamburger is low because both McDonalds and Wendy’s must live in perpetual dread of people electing to not eat there at all.
The insurance mafia is one of the most profitable government-backed cartels in existence because it has a captive market. When everyone is forced to pay in, the price goes up – not down.
If insurance is so fabulous, so desirable, why, pray, must the mafia force people to buy it?
Clover writes: “Insurance companies do not make thousands of dollars off of you.”
Really? Let’s see. I have been forced to pay the mafia on average $1,000 annually to “cover” all my vehicles. I’ve been doing so, under duress, for decades and have yet to cost them a cent in losses. But being forced to buy insurance has cost me tens of thousands of dollars. I would literally have at least $30,000 in my bank account right now – and that’s not factoring in the lost opportunity cost of that money. I could have used it to buy property, for instance. Property that might have tripled the initial investment.
So, in fact, the insurance mafia has made a small fortune off of me. As it has off of millions of other people, none of whom have ever caused any harm to anyone. Yet who have had harm done to them – via being compelled to purchase mandatory insurance.
You justify this on the basis of pre-emptive punishment. Your position is that the possibility of harm-caused justifies the assumption that harm will be caused. On this basis, it is acceptable to force people to indemnify against what has not actually occurred – even if it never occurs.
Logically, on this basis, there also ought to be mandatory Murder Insurance, since it is equally possible that any of us might, at some point, commit a murder. Murders are costly to society, too. Therefore, everyone should be required to buy mandatory Murder Insurance. And so on.
But this – logic – does not penetrate your numb skull.
Clover writes: “If Libertarians were right that car insurance companies make a fortune off of you then wouldn’t you think Eric would open his own insurance company and make millions of dollars?”
No, Clover. And do you know why? It is because Libertarians do not believe in thuggery. Do not use violence to steal people’s money – as insurance companies do.
As you do.
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