About intervention

One of the themes in my PhD thesis which I'm working on is medical intervention.  

Actually some chapters in my thesis involve the related philosophical aspects such as reductionism and naturalism in medicine.
Indeed, quite often I find a certain similarity between medical intervention and economic intervention.
In some sense, Hydropathy: Or Hygienic Medicine by E. W. Lane has a similar meaning for me to that of Human Action: A Treatise on Economics by L. V. Mises. 

Above all, one of my curiosity is about the ambivalent attitude of the public towards the political and economic intervention by government. 

I think that every individual person knows that they should enjoy freedom in their personal life, regarding their choice or decision about their own body, private property and their thought (and its expression as well).  

But when it comes to political debate or discussion, people often put more weight on the necessity of suppressing individual freedom for social justice or other social purposes, and this attitude lead them to agree with various kinds of governmental intervention projects. 

For instance, people are so easily persuaded by the claims that governmental intervention is necessary for tackling inequalities in wages, access to health cares, chances for education, and so on. 

Minimum wage (or even limiting maximum wages as well) has continued to be a controversial issue and it seems to become a sort of barometer to discern one's social and political view as to whether it is inclined towards socialism or (classical) liberalism. 

Concerning the issue of access to health care also, socialists argue for nationalisation of health care services. 

Education? Of course, socialists insist that all sorts of regular educational institutions should be accessible free of any tuition fees, and the lunch also should be provided. 

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However, in order to set minimum wages, government should enforce employers to give up their freedom in managing their own business.
When employers decide the amount of wages, they usually consider and calculate many complicated factors at the same time, including employment, investment, long-term prospect, risk factor, insurance, pension, bonus, holiday as well as financial state of their business, economic situation of their society. 

The most typical adverse result of minimum wage policy is the decrease in the number of regular employees, and the increase in the number of short term contract employees. 

Why? 

Because, when the business goes bad, the employers have to react the situation by cutting off irregular employees if they cannot react by reducing the amount of wages for their employees. 

Apart from minimum wages, many labour-friendly regulations lead to similar situations.

It is no surprise considering that if employers have little room to do about their employees then the employers will most likely avoid hiring regular employees, with whom employers are to work until the employees' retirement and to provide pensions after their retirement. 

Ironically, in employer-friendly labour markets, however, not only employment becomes high, but also the amount of wage becomes high. Historically, in the industrialising stage of any countries, people moved to cities for job opportunities. 

Even though, in such an early industrialising period, the condition for employees were very bad, why did people constantly move to cities to seek jobs? 

Because the proper amount of wages are not decided by political ideology or government's plans, but decided by the economic state of the society and its members. 

In other words, those labourers got paid higher at least than did those who worked in the rural areas at the time.  

Simply put it, the proper amount of wages can only be decided by the labour market. 

You might be recalling the dark images of labourers and their families that are depicted in 19th century literature, like Charles Dickens's novels or Victor Hugo's ones. 

Of course, if you compare them with the present state of you, then you might feel that capitalism and the employers were the main cause of all the social evils. 

You need to look at the economic reality of history.  

What kind of state do you think the peasants in Korea or other colonised African or Asian countries were like, compared with those British and French labourers' state in the same period, the 19th century? 

Even today, in many parts of the world, people still live in a worse state than those labourers who appear in Jean Val Jean.
Fortunately, however, a large number of Chinese people could improve their state to the degree that surpassed the level of the Victorian labourers over the past several decades, mostly by help of the change of their communist government's economic policies from social control to market autonomy. Meanwhile, many young people in other countries had to suffer from high unemployment rates and had to give up their hope and dream mainly due to socialist parties' policies.

There is no better example than South Korean economic situation over the past three decades.
People in South Korea call their country 'Hell Joseon', suffering from varied sorts of short term contract employments, but they do not know the fundamental reason why they have been placed in such a frustrating economic situation.
They do not know that since the early 1990s South Korean economic policies have been increasingly socialistic regardless of political parties.
They are now brainwashed by the media that feed them with almost (severely biased) essays rather than news reports. No wonder that they are supporting the current ruling party and its 'Feels Good' policies, whose political ideology and philosophy are actually national socialism. (http://blog.daum.net/baeminteacher/311)
It might take time to wake up from the delusion by which they got caught as did Germans from their totalitarian ideology.

As I mentioned in my last post, money flows from richer to poorer like water from higher to lower, as long as the principle of the market works. 

However, if those 'feels good' policies of the government keeps interfering the price system of the market (or wages of the labour market), most likely investment (or employment rate) will fall and the very victim of this result becomes no one but the young unexperienced job seekers. 

Labour unions of big companies do not care about that, and socialist politicians do not know (or deliberately ignore for their political ideology) why those most vulnerable groups have to be the victims of their policies. 

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If the employers are government, then will it be okay to provide its employees with as much favourable condition as possible? 

Then, the situation gets worse than it does in the private sector, because the cost for the employment in government comes mostly from the general public, not from consumers. 

Government will most likely take money out of their budget when there is a deficit in their organisations, and the budget is actually the amount of opportunity cost of all the possible investment that otherwise the private sector might have provided in the market. 

Civil servants are nothing but the aristocracy today like some other aristocratic groups in the present society.  

They do not have to work 'to earn money'. 

They just take money (or gets tenure) as much as they wish from the budget as long as they can persuade politicians, in other words, as long as their interests are in accordance with those of politicians. 

No problem. Socialist politicians will faithfully support them, as can be seen in the fact that one of the primary manifestos of the current South Korean government during its election campaign was the promise of employing tens of thousands of new 'civil servants'!

Both those civil servants and socialist politicians share the same motivation to pursue a big government. 

Their 'big' - only in terms of political ideology - government will absorb all the energy of the market, and this will make the market become shrunk and smaller.
As a result, ironically the government which pursued becoming a big one will become a small government because there is not enough budget from which they can take money. 

Of course, the government and its civil servants will try to exploit the market more harshly so as to make up for the increase of deficit, and this leads to the budget and the government even smaller.
This vicious circle is what really happened in Korean history in the 19th century. (http://blog.daum.net/baeminteacher/304)

As national wealth increases not so much by mercantile policies but rather by liberal trades, the absolute size of a government can increase not by tax raise or exploitation of its citizens but only by the increase in the scale of the market.

In summary, if the government tries to be generous as an employer to its employees (civil servants), then this is the sure short-cut to the destruction of the society, and this is also 'The Road to Serfdom'.

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Then, why are people so in favour of governmental intervention in anonymous individuals' lives or in social aims and activities, although they themselves want to enjoy a full degree of freedom in their life or that of their loved ones and groups?

Probably are we not confusing the individualistic ideology of classical liberalism with the infinite affirmation of self-interest, despite the fact that the essence of the former is the respect for others' thoughts and their freedom, and of the strict protection of others' property and their rights? 

I'd like to discuss this when I have time in the future.  

A group of people with flags in front of the building of National Archives of Scotland:
Is Scotland's Socialist Party needed in Scotland as they argue?
I think that a nation's relatively strong collectivistic tendency (such as nationalism or socialism) among its public tends to be fueled by its stance that resists against their rival nation.