- Capitalism and Alternatives -
the doctor's freedom of action is again infringed.
Posted by: septimus ( Aus. ) on October 13, 1999 at 12:58:05:
In Reply to: you have understood. posted by Gee on October 12, 1999 at 17:04:17:
: : Now let's review. Person A is dying of cancer and can't afford a bone-marrow transplant. Person B is a doctor with a track record of successful performance of bone-marrow transplants, working in an adequately-staffed, equipped, and funded hospital. What prohibits the operation from taking place? I'll tell you what. It's the fact that Person A doesn't have "effective demand," that he or she cannot exchange something with Person B of "mutual value" with the value of a bone-marrow transplant. So people die needlessly under capitalism, because the production of life-saving operations must go whoring after "effective demand." : Your peculiar notion of 'whoring' to one side - yes SDF thats a reasonable assessment. The Doctor is not automatically obliged to the patient because he has the skills to save the patient. To have such makes the doctor a virtual slave, unable to choose when or upon whom ot under which provisions to operate. But surely in this case, under the present system as it operates in the good old U.S of A ('Capitalism' makes me cringe) the doctor's freedom of action is again infringed. The doctor may want to operate (let's just say 'out of the goodness of his heart') but is restrained by the system thusly; if he operates for free he is using time he may otherwise have used for a paying rhinoplasty patient. She needs to feed her children, philanthropy (under the present system) won't pay for this.
Society suffers in two ways; those in greatest need of aid are less likely to get it and those most willing and able to give it are restrained from doing so.
Libertarians are so concerned with being forced in to philanthropy that they restrain the capacity for individuals to give.
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