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About Security

by Theresa Fritz Camoriano

As I was finishing high school and beginning college, I took batteries of tests to determine my interests, abilities, and character traits.  These were supposed to help me decide upon a course of studies and a career.  I remember, for example, receiving a negative score on interior decorating, which is probably reflected in my home, even today!  Upon entering college, we met with counselors, who helped us interpret some of these test scores.  I distinctly remember the meeting I had with my counselor, because, although she said there were no right or wrong answers on the test, she made it very clear that she thought it odd that I scored high on the desire for security.  Of course, at that age, the last thing I wanted was to be considered  abnormal, but I did have to admit that I thought security was important. 

I wasn’t interested in becoming rich, but I did think it important to make sure that I would be able to take care of my own basic needs and those of anyone else who might be depending upon me.  This interest in security meant that I was not going to embark upon a career that guaranteed poverty.  It also meant that I did not share the interest of many of my classmates in becoming drunk or getting high on drugs, because I always wanted to be able to have my wits about me so I would be fully able to react to any emergency that might arise.  In case there were a fire in the dorm, for example, I wanted to have the ability to use all my faculties to get myself and others around me out safely.  I would not want to be restrained or impaired from using all my faculties to deal with a dangerous situation by being in some kind of a drug-induced stupor.  This did not make me the life of the party, but, on the other hand, I was always able to cope with any problems that arose.

Now, as I listen to the current political debates, it appears that almost everyone is interested in security!  Politicians are promising us security if we will vote for them and support their policies, and they tell us that their opponents are engaging in all kinds of risky schemes, which will make us less secure.  Of course, all this talk of security is music to my ears, as it makes me think that, for once, I am not the abnormal one.  However, as I listen more closely, I realize that I am still far from the mainstream (formerly known as abnormal), because neither major political party is proposing policies that would make me feel secure.  Instead, I see both major political parties as proposing policies that would restrain and impair us from using all our faculties and resources to deal with our problems, much as drugs or alcohol would do, which makes us less secure.

So what would really make us more secure?  Certainly, one way each of us can become more secure is to spend less than we earn and then save and invest the rest.  That gives us a cushion that can be very helpful in case of an emergency.  Also, we should buy certain forms of insurance, such as life insurance, to protect our young children in the event that we die before we are able to amass enough savings to take care of them, and health insurance to make sure we can afford medical care in case of a serious illness or accident.  Government also has a role to play in making us secure.  For example, it can help protect us against thieves and murderers.  It can also maintain a rule of law, which makes our contracts and investments more secure.  

However, when government goes beyond those roles and begins to promise to provide us food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, and a steady income in our old age, it actually makes us less secure.  But how can that be?  How can promising us these forms of security actually make us less secure? 

Well, let’s take as an example “social security”, which is a promise to give us an income in our old age.  In order to make that promise, the government forcibly takes money from every paycheck we earn.  In fact, between the “employer’s contribution” and the “employee’s contribution”, both of which are earned by the employee, the government takes about 13% of everything we earn just for social security.  This money is not put into a savings account or mutual fund with our name on it.  Instead, it is immediately spent to provide an income to someone who is already old or to pay other government expenses.  So what we really get for 13% of our income is an unenforceable promise from the government.  When we become old, it will be up to the politicians to decide what they want to give us.  Since this scheme is fiscally unsound, it is very likely that politicians will continually change their promise as they already have, raising the age at which we are eligible to receive social security payments, refusing to give us benefits if we have other assets or other sources of income, and so forth.  This makes us very much less secure than if we had been able to invest 13% of our income throughout our working lives in our own accounts.  In Chile, for example, where workers have been able to invest in their own accounts for their old age security for the past twenty years, even people earning relatively low wages have been able to amass very substantial investments, which they own, and which they can pass on to their children, providing them real security.

Okay, so we all know that social security is a pyramid scheme, but what about the other government promises of security, such as a “free” education?  As with any other “free” government program, there is no such thing as a “free education”.  What a “free education” really means is that the government taxes us to pay for the program and then “gives” us what it thinks is appropriate.  Just as taking drugs to get high impairs our ability to take care of ourselves, this system of taxing us to provide a “free education” actually impairs our ability to provide a good education for our children.  If the government did not tax us to provide a “free education”, then we would have that money and would have many options as to how we wanted to spend it in order to educate our children.  We would even have enough money left over to provide scholarships to needy children.  We would not be stuck, as we are today, with a monopoly system in which bureaucrats choose how our children will be educated and are not accountable to their consumers.  So this government security in the form of a “free education” is a great restriction on us, preventing us from having the freedom and flexibility to spend our own money as we think best for our children’s education.  If our children have difficulties in the government school or are not thriving there, we are greatly limited in our ability to remedy the problem, just as being in a drug-induced stupor greatly limits our ability to react in the event of a fire.

The same can be said for any of these government promises of “security”, from government-provided health care to government-provided housing.  By taxing us to pay for these programs, the government greatly limits our ability to use all our resources as we think best to solve our problems and meet our needs.  Instead of protecting us, these programs actually restrict our freedom and ability to provide for our own security, much as a drug-induced stupor restricts our ability to care for ourselves in an emergency.  While these programs are often promoted as being needed to protect “the poor”, or “the children”, or “the helpless”, the fact is that these programs make us all poorer, and more helpless, and less able to care for those who need our help.  And when we look at the kind of help that the truly helpless actually receive from the government, such as crumbling inner city schools, where over half of third graders cannot read, or government housing that is full of drug dealers and violence, or veterans’ hospitals, where the level of medical care is frequently not what we would want for ourselves, we can see clearly that this so-called government security is not really security at all but is instead more like a drug-induced limitation on our ability to cope with problems.

So, I guess I have not changed much from the days when I was considered abnormal to be interested in security.  I still put a high priority on security.  I would still like to see every person housed, clothed, educated, and receiving good medical care.  And I see that, when government forcibly takes our resources, thereby limiting and restricting our ability to use those resources as we think best, it is harming us all and making us all less secure, just as we would be less secure and less able to cope if  our faculties were impaired by alcohol or drugs.  It’s time for us to sober up as a society, so we can use our faculties and our resources as we think best to care for ourselves and those we care about.  It’s time to “just say No” to the temptation to accept government handouts and to “just say No” to the promises of government-sponsored “security” that really make us all much less secure and more helpless.