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Life Is Full of Risk - So Let's Evaluate It Rationally

by Theresa Fritz Camoriano

In the past one hundred years, we have seen tremendous advances in the human condition.  Women now routinely live through childbirth rather than facing a high risk of dying.  Our children routinely outlive us by many years.  We have plentiful, fresh food and vegetables all year long, we live in homes that are climate-controlled, and we jet away to vacations in far-away lands instead of taking dangerous, dirty trips in a wagon.  Indeed, we live healthier, longer, more interesting lives than ever before. 

Unfortunately, our tremendous scientific advances and our increased prosperity have caused many of us to believe that our lives should now be risk-free.  And much of the emotional response from the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center was caused by the sudden realization that we are never completely safe.  But the reality is that life has always been a risky business.  People still die prematurely every day from crime, accidents, disease, and other causes.  Sometimes the crops still fail, tornadoes still hit, and houses still burn down.  And we would be very foolish if we dreamed that our lives could ever be risk-free. 

Since the Sept. 11 attack, some people are now willing to convert the U.S. to a police state, giving up their privacy and their right to self-defense, because it would make them feel safer.  However, we must be very careful to weigh the costs as well as the benefits of any steps we plan to take, lest we find our lives actually worse off (and even less safe).  Giving up our privacy and our right to self-defense certainly will not make us better off or safer.

These days, we frequently hear calls for the government to bail people out of their misfortune.  However, these bail-outs usually create even greater risks for greater harm.  For example, as we discussed last week, relieving the airlines of their risk of financial loss caused by their lack of security, and increasing the government's control actually will make flying more risky, not less.  It is important that the airlines bear their business risks in order for them to have the proper incentives to protect the public.  http://www.jeffersonreview.com/articles/2001/100101/why_bail.htm  Similarly, bailing out flood victims with taxpayer money simply increases the likelihood that people will build in flood-prone areas, resulting in greater risk of harm.  In fact, all government bailouts have similar negative effects, whether they are bailing people out of their responsibility to pay for their own medical care (which results in riskier lifestyles and poorer medical care), or whether they are attempting to bail out the economy with government spending sprees (which result in making the country poorer and thus more vulnerable to harm).  While the government should tend to its proper functions, which would make us better off, it should not overstep its proper bounds, because that will make us worse off.  We must continually engage in cost-benefit analyses and in rational thought in order to determine what role the government should properly play. 

While we may not realize it, we do informal cost-benefit analyses about safety every day in our personal lives.  For example, we know it is more dangerous to get out on the road than to stay at home, but we go out anyway, because we decide that the cost of staying home is too great.  (It would mean a loss of income, loss of freedom, and loss of companionship, for example.)  Similarly, we know that we increase our risk of disease when we go to places with large numbers of people, but we still attend concerts and football games, because we believe the benefit is worth the cost.  We know we risk poisoning ourselves whenever we eat or drink anything, but we are willing to take that risk in order to enjoy food and drink and avoid starvation.  And different people assess the costs and benefits differently, based on their own value systems.  For example, I question the rationality of people who jog or ride bikes along busy streets "for their health", but they obviously enjoy the exercise enough to be willing to increase their risk of being hit by a car.   

So, let's please be rational in our calls for government action both in response to the Sept. 11 attacks and in response to other problems in our society.  Of course we should demand that the government do its proper job of protecting us against murderers, thieves, and terrorists.  The Sept. 11 attacks have disclosed a tremendous failure of our intelligence agencies that must be remedied, and our government should cause the association that committed these attacks to pay a high price for its actions.  But let's not allow this situation or other "crises" to be the occasion for people to get into a panic mode in which they stop thinking, give up their personal responsibility and control, and start looking for someone to "take care of them." 

Remember:

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

-- Senator Barry Goldwater

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

- Benjamin Franklin

"A caged canary is secure; but it is not free. It is easier for free men to resist terrorism from afar than tyranny from within. Americans need to be very careful to not surrender liberty for the sake of security; for in so doing both are lost."

- Talk-show host Chuck Baldwin, "Chuck Wagon," 9/25/01