In his work A Critique of Interventionism, Ludwig von Mises concluded that an endless progression of interventions was the inevitable consequence of otherwise well-intentioned policy makers
“In a private property order isolated intervention fails to achieve what its sponsors hoped to achieve. From their point of view, intervention is not only useless, but wholly unsuitable because it aggravates the “evil” it meant to alleviate…. If government is not inclined to alleviate the situation through removing its limited intervention and lifting its price control, its first step must be followed by others.”
In short, interventions beget interventions.
There is a lot of talk going around at the moment about the blood and organ shortages in healthcare. As we are not allowed to sell such goods on any legal market, those in need must rely on the charity of others to donate the relevant body parts.
Of course, as with any shortage the price must be hampered from functioning freely. In blood and organ markets the relevant price is set at zero, since one is not allowed to sell them for pecuniary gain. Like other similar markets (like rent controlled apartments), there is a large amount of people who want organs when the price is free and very few want to give them away. It’s not just an economic disaster, but a healthcare one as well.
Canadian composer and 16 time Grammy award winner, David Foster, is aggressively pushing the opt-out idea for organ donation.
Opt-out, really, it makes so much sense,” Foster said in an interview from Los Angeles. “Hey, you’re an organ donor unless you say you don’t want to be one. That makes perfect sense.
We don’t have an opt-out clause in any other goods. Your clothes aren’t donated to the needy when you die unless you explicitly say otherwise. Your car does not go on the market to alleviate the “car shortage”, and your home doesn’t automatically get given away to someone without a home.
The shortage in the organ market is caused by poor incentives and a lack of economic signals. With no price to work its magic, no one knows what a kidney, or liver, or whatever organ, is worth. Without the possibility of being remunerated for their time and goodwill, very few want to go through with an organ donation.
Forcing people to donate unless they explicitly say they don’t want to is not a solution. It’s the creation of an unnecessary law, or intervention, to fix a problem caused by another intervention. Mises was right. Don’t let another healthcare failure beget even more.
(Cross posted at Mises Canada.)
