social cooperation is the essence of morality

Thank you to Robert Wenzel

Mises Institute notes that, 

Henry Hazlitt considered The Foundations of Morality to be his most important work. The following two reviews of that book were found in one of the many boxes of papers generously given to the Mises Institute by Bettina Bien Greaves. Bettina wrote in a letter to Hazlitt "It seems to me this is your very best book and one that will live through the centuries." Unfortunately, The Foundations of Morality never received the audience recognition he would have liked, but as Bettina said, it is a book for the ages. Bettina was right because it remains immensely important today.

Codes to Live By

Rosalie Gordon writing in America's Future (April 1973):

It is particularly fitting that there now be re-issued (it was first published in 1964) this seminal work by one of America's most distinguished journalists, economists and philosophers. Henry Hazlitt is as far as one can get from that breed of "instant" analyzers and accepters of current modes, which is merely another way of saying he thinks — thinks things through. 

And in these times, when at long last great numbers of our people are beginning to question the so-called "new morality" (which is neither new nor moral), his book could provide a needed buttress for that questioning. Besides, it will outlast by many decades the screeds of the "instant thinkers."

As an economist, Mr. Hazlitt is a practical man. As a moral philosopher, he understands the need for a rational basis for an ethical way of life. Contrary to modern "new morality" preachings, civilized man must have codes to live by; otherwise all is chaos and barbarism. Mr. Hazlitt traces most interestingly man's search for such codes throughout history, down to the present day. And between the Scylla of complete self-interest and the Charybdis of complete altruism, he reaches what he calls cooperatism — not the misnamed "social cooperation" of the socialist-communist state which imposes its dictators' brand of thinking on the people, but the sort of cooperation which flows naturally from men and women (as nearly as can be expected of fallible human beings) living by an individual ethical code which, being best for them, in the end is best for the whole society.

He puts it this way:

... social cooperation is the essence of morality. And morality, as we should constantly remind ourselves, is a daily affair, even an hourly affair, not just something we need to think about only in a few high and heroic moments. The moral code by which we live is shown every day, not necessarily in great acts of denunciation, but in refraining from little slights and meannesses, and in practicing little courtesies and kindnesses. Few of us are capable of rising to the Christian commandment to "love one another," but most of us can at least learn to be kind to one another — and for most earthly purposes this will do almost as well.

We found especially discerning Mr. Hazlitt's analysis of the moral or ethical bases of capitalism and socialism. He sees clearly that because capitalism promotes freedom, justice and productivity it has far more right to be called "social" (or "moral") than socialism which in its despotism actually promotes a code of immorality.

He cites, among other disciples of socialism, Lenin, who declared: "We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth. We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, scorn, and the like toward those who disagree with us."

We cannot begin to indicate the wide scope of this study, save to say that the author delves deeply into the relationship of ethics or morality to law, economics, equality and inequality, freedom, rights and even (bless him — could anything be more necessary these days?) to good manners!

The Foundations of Morality
Bettina Bien Greaves writing in The Freeman (June 1973):

The many contradictions among different philosophical theories have caused much confusion over the years. Unfortunately, too few teachers and textbooks explain the basic principles that could help students discriminate intelligently among them and understand the ethical code which fosters freedom, morality and social cooperation. Thus, Henry Hazlitt deserves special credit for bringing logic and clarity to the subject. His book, The Foundations of Morality, was first published in 1964. After having been out of print for several years, it is again available thanks to Nash and the Institute for Humane Studies.

The author is primarily an economist, a student of human action. As a result, he is a strong advocate of individual freedom and responsibility. He has long been a close personal friend and associate of Professor Ludwig von Mises, the "dean" of free market economics, to whom he acknowledges a great intellectual indebtedness. With this background, he is well qualified to discuss the ethics of social cooperation. His many years of "apprenticeship" as essayist, book reviewer and columnist (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Freeman, National Review and many others) prepared him well for explaining complex matters simply. The reader may wish to pause, ponder and reflect from time to time on the ideas and concepts presented, but the author's reasoning is clear, his prose unambiguous and most chapters delightfully short.

Mr. Hazlitt's position is that "the interests of the individual and the interests of society," when "rightly understood" are in harmony, not conflict. His goal in writing this book was "to present a 'unified theory' of law, morals and manners" which could be logically explained and defended in the light of modern economics and the principles of jurisprudence. This reviewer believes most readers will agree that Mr. Hazlitt succeeded. He has marshalled the ideas of many philosophers and analyzed them with careful logic. He has explained many of the contradictions among them, thus disposing of much confusion. He has formulated a consistent moral philosophy based on an understanding of ethical principles, so frequently ignored in today's "permissive" climate, which promote peaceful social cooperation and free enterprise production.

Mr. Hazlitt points out that our complex market economy requires peaceful and voluntary social cooperation. The preservation of the market is essential for large scale production and thus for the very survival of most of us. Therefore, social cooperation is the very most important means available to individuals for attaining their various personal ends. This means that social cooperation is also at the same time a well worthwhile goal. Let Mr. Hazlitt speak for himself.

For each of us social cooperation is of course not the ultimate end but a means. ... But it is a means so central, so universal, so indispensable to the realization of practically all our other ends, that there is little harm in regarding it as an end-in-itself, and even in treating it as if it were the goal of ethics. In fact, precisely because none of us knows exactly what would give most satisfaction or happiness to others, the best test of our actions or rules of action is the extent to which they promote a social cooperation that best enables each of us to pursue his own ends.

Without social cooperation modern man could not achieve the barest fraction of the ends and satisfactions that he has achieved with it. The very subsistence of the immense majority of us depends upon it.

The system of philosophy outlined in the book is a form of utilitarianism, "insofar as it holds that actions or rules of action are to be judged by their consequences and their tendency to promote human happiness." However, Mr. Hazlitt prefers a shorter term, "utilism," or perhaps "rule utilism" to stress the importance of adhering consistently to general rules. He suggests also two other possible names — "mutualism" or "cooperatism" — which he thinks more adequately reflect the central role of social cooperation in the ethical system described.

The criterion for judging the consistency or inconsistency of a specific rule or action with this ethical system is always whether or not it promotes social cooperation. Mr. Hazlitt reasons from the thesis that social cooperation is of benefit to everyone. Even those who might at times like to lie, cheat, rob or kill for personal short-run gain can usually be persuaded of the longer-run advantages of social cooperation, i.e., of refraining from lying, cheating, robbing or stealing.

Even the most self-centered individual, in fact, needing not only to be protected against the aggression of others, but wanting the active cooperation of others, finds it to his interest to defend and uphold a set of moral (as well as legal) rules that forbid breaking promises, cheating, stealing, assault, and murder, and in addition a set of moral rules that enjoin cooperation, helpfulness, and kindness. ...

The predominant moral code in a society is compared with language or "common law." Society does not impose a moral code on the individual. It is a set of rules, hammered out bit by bit over many centuries:

[O]ur moral rules are continuously framed and modified. They are not framed by some abstract and disembodied collectivity called "society" and then imposed on an "individual" who is in some way separate from society. We impose them (by praise and censure, approbation and disapprobation, promise and warning, reward and punishment) on each other, and most of us consciously or unconsciously accept them for ourselves. ...

This moral code grew up spontaneously, like language, religion, manners, law. It is the product of the experience of immemorial generations, of the interrelations of millions of people and the interplay of millions of minds. The morality of common sense is a sort of common law, with an indefinitely wider jurisdiction than ordinary common law, and based on a practically infinite number of particular cases. ... [T]he traditional moral rules ... crystallize the experience and moral wisdom of the race.

But what about religion, you say? Doesn't a moral code have to rest on a religious bases? The fundamental thesis of this book as noted, is that reason and logic are sufficient to explain and defend the code of ethics which fosters and preserves social cooperation. Yet, the author does not ignore religion. He calls attention to similarities among the world's great religions and the contradictions in some of them. Religion and morality reinforce one another very often, he says, although not always and not necessarily. Here is his description of their relationship:

In human history religion and morality are like two streams that sometimes run parallel, sometimes merge, sometimes separate, sometimes seem independent and sometimes interdependent. But morality is older than any living religion and probably older than all religion. ... [W]hile religious faith is not indispensable [to the moral code] ... , it must be recognized in the present state of civilization as a powerful force in securing the observance that exists. ...

The most powerful religious belief supporting morality, however, seems to me ... the belief in a God who sees and knows our every action, our every impulse and over every thought, who judges us with exact justice, and who whether or not He rewards us for our good deeds and punishes us for our evil ones, approves of our good deeds and disapproves of our evil ones. ...

Yet it is not the function of the moral philosopher, as such, to proclaim the truth of this religious faith or to try to maintain it. His function is, rather, to insist on the rational basis of all morality, to point out that it does not need any supernatural assumptions, and to show that the rules of morality are or ought to be those rules of conduct that tend most to increase human cooperation, happiness and well-being in this our present life.

Mr. Hazlitt discusses many perplexing ideas and concepts such as natural rights, natural law, justice, selfishness, altruism, right, wrong, truth, honesty, duty, moral obligation, free will vs. determinism, politeness, "white lies." Anyone who has speculated on these problems without reaching satisfactory conclusions, as has this reviewer, will no doubt find his analyses and comments both stimulating and enlightening.

The book contains numerous quotations from the works of early and recent philosophers, which the author always analyzes for their consistency with social cooperation. Except for a few technical philosophical terms — such as tautology (repetition of the same idea in different words),  eudaemonism (the doctrine that happiness is the final goal of all human action) and teleotic (an adjective derived from the Greek meaning end, design, purpose or final cause) — readers should not find anything in the book really difficult to understand. As they follow the author's line of thought, they will discover that reason and logic come to the defense of morality; order and a common sense ethical code evolve from philosophical chaos.

Mr. Hazlitt has long been a noted free market economist — one of the very best. His introductory Economics In One Lesson is a long-time best seller. The Failure of the New Economics, a careful critique of Keynes, is a real contribution to economic theory. With the publication of The Foundations of Morality in 1964, he added another very important feather to his cap as a moral philosopher. It is good to have it in print again.

To summarize, the author explains again and again, in the course of the book under review, that the rules of ethics are neither arbitrary nor illogical. They are not mere matters of opinion. They are workable, acceptable, moral rules developed over long periods of time. They must be adhered to consistently and may not be willfully violated without detriment to social cooperation. In this age of permissiveness, when everyone is encouraged "to do his own thing" and few see any urgency in respecting the rights of others, it is a rare philosopher who recognizes that the consistent adherence to a set of ethical rules promotes social cooperation and benefits everyone in society. Perhaps a free market economist, whose very field of study encompasses the role of social cooperation, is the most appropriate person to explain the logic of this position. This book should live through the centuries.

The above originally appeared online at Mises.org.

 

DR. PIPPA MALMGREN: THE NEW ACCOUNTING IS BLOCKCHAIN, IT'S DIGITAL . .

I don't like what she is reporting.

Pippa Malmgren, Economist At The World Government Summit 2022
She states her belief that the world financial system is about to switch accounting systems & digital money. Not decentralized cryptos, but centralized CBDCs (central bank digital currency) pic.twitter.com/yu7cTuGdh8

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) March 30, 2022

From Robert Wenzel back on November 21, 2011 (the dude was so ahead of everybody else): 

Dr. Pippa Malmgren has just posted on her website her latest analysis of the eurozone crisis. I will point out, again, what I have pointed out in the past. They don't get more insider than Malmgren.

She served as financial market advisor in the White House and on the National Economic Council from 2001-2002, where she was responsible for financial market issues. She founded Malmgren and Company, in London, England in 2000 and was previously the Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS and the Chief Currency Strategist for Bankers Trust. She headed the Global Investment Management business for Bankers Trust in Asia. She has an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. She completed the Harvard Program on National Security. The World Economic Forum named Malmgren a Global Leader for Tomorrow, in 2000. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, the Economic Club of New York, and the Institute for International Strategic Security. She was the liaison between the Treasury and the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, aka, The Plunge Protection Team.

Her client list is completely amazing. She is advising every elitist corporation on the globe. Take a look.

So what is she advising them?  Here's part of her recent client letter (my emphasis):

All the options [surrounding the eurozone] are bad and costly. Market forces are increasingly determining what the options are and foreclosing on options policymakers thought they had. One option which is now under discussion involves permitting a country to temporarily leave the Euro, return to its native currency, devalue, commit to returning to the Euro at a better debt to GDP ratio, a better exchange rate and a better growth trajectory and yet not sacrifice its EU membership. I would like to say for the record that this is precisely the thought process that I expected to evolve,but when I proposed this possibility back in 2009, and again in September 2010, I had a 100% response from clients and others that this was “impossible” and many felt it was “ridiculous”. They may be right but this is the current state of the discussion. The Handelsblatt in Germany has reported this conversation, but wrongly assumes that the country that will exit is Germany. I think that Germany will have to exit if the Southern European states do not. Germany’s preference is to stay in the Euro and have the others drop out. The problem has been the Germans could not convince the others to walk away. But, now, market pressures are forcing someone to leave. Germany is pushing for that someone to be Italy. They hope that this would be a one off exception, not to be repeated by any other country. Obviously, though, if Italy leaves the Euro and reverts to Lira then the markets will immediately and forcefully attack Spain, Portugal and even whatever is left of the already savaged Greeks. These countries will not be able to compete against a devalued Greece or Italy when it come to tourism or even infrastructure. But, the principal target will be France. The three largest French banks have roughly 450 billion Euros of exposure to Italian debt. So, further sovereign defaults are certainly inevitable, but that is true under any scenario. Growth and austerity will not do the trick, as ZeroHedge rightly points out. Ultimately, I will not be at all surprised to see Europe’s banking system shut for days while the losses and payments issues are worked out. People forget that the term “bank holiday” was invented in the 1930’s when the banks were shut for exactly the same reason.

(Thanks2JosephBerkery)

"Social distancing may be inhibiting the proper development of children’s immune systems."

Robert Wenzel at TargetLiberty reviews an NYT article on how mitigation measures are wreaking havoc on our children's' immune systems to handle disease.  Titled "Quarantine May Negatively Affects Kids' Immune Systems" delivers a devastating blow to the paranoia that some exhibit in their rationale for wearing masks to locking down to quarantining themselves and to deny the warm joy of a holiday dinner with friends and family. 

He writes,

I often see parents in San Francisco with children who are wearing masks.

Talk about low information sheep. 

I love that. 

I wish they all would read the following which appeared, in of all places, The New York Times.

The authors are Donna L. Farber, a professor of immunology and surgery at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Thomas Connors who is an assistant professor of pediatrics there.

Here is an excerpt from the NYTimes article:

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is unwittingly conducting what amounts to the largest immunological experiment in history on our own children. We have been keeping children inside, relentlessly sanitizing their living spaces and their hands and largely isolating them. In doing so, we have prevented large numbers of them from becoming infected or transmitting the virus. But in the course of social distancing to mitigate the spread, we may also be unintentionally inhibiting the proper development of children’s immune systems.

Most children are born with a functioning immune system with the capacity to respond to diverse types of foreign substances, called antigens, encountered through exposure to microorganisms, food and the environment. The eradication of harmful pathogens, establishment of protective immunity and proper immune regulation depends on the immune cells known as T lymphocytes. With each new infection, pathogen-specific T cells multiply and orchestrate the clearance of the infectious organism from the body, after which some persist as memory T cells with enhanced immune functions.

Over time, children develop increasing numbers and types of memory T cells, which remain throughout the body as a record of past exposures and stand ready to provide lifelong protection. For other antigen exposures that are not infectious or dangerous, a type of healthy stalemate can result, called immune tolerance. Immunological memory and tolerance learned during childhood serves as the basis for immunity and health throughout adulthood.

Memory T cells begin to form during the first years of life and accumulate during childhood. However, for memory T cells to become functionally mature, multiple exposures may be necessary, particularly for cells residing in tissues such as the lung and intestines, where we encounter numerous pathogens. These exposures typically and naturally occur during the everyday experiences of childhood — such as interactions with friends, teachers, trips to the playground, sports — all of which have been curtailed or shut down entirely during efforts to mitigate viral spread. As a result, we are altering the frequency, breadth and degree of exposures that are crucial for immune memory development.

While the immune system is influenced by multiple factors, including genetics and everyday exposures to family members and pets, the long term effects of removing the social system that brings children in contact with other people, places and things remains uncharted territory. However, there is now substantial evidence that antigen exposure during the formative period of childhood is important not only for protection but also for reducing the incidence of allergies, asthma and inflammatory diseases. A well-known theory, called the “hygiene hypothesis,” proposes that the increased incidence of allergies and other immune disorders involving inappropriate immune reactions across industrialized societies is a result of the move away from agrarian society toward a highly sanitized urban setting.

Failing to train our immune systems properly can have serious consequences. When laboratory mice raised in nearly sterile conditions were housed together in the same cage with pet mice raised in standard conditions, some of the laboratory mice succumbed to pathogens that the pet mice were able to fight off. Additional studies of the microbiome — the bacteria that normally inhabit our intestines and other sites — have shown that mice raised in germ-free conditions or in the presence of antibiotics had reduced and altered immune responses to many types of pathogens. These studies suggest that for establishing a healthy immune system, the more diverse and frequent the encounters with antigens, the better.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & publisher of EconomicPolicyJournal.com and of Target Liberty, where he discusses issues relating to free markets, liberty, and Private Property Society theory.

A frequent guest on radio talk shows, he has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, ZeroHedge, LewRockwell.com, CNBC, and many other media outlets.

Wenzel is an Amazon Bestselling author and has written: 

The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, 2014. 

"Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person," 2018.

Problems With Modern Monetary Theory: A Comment on Stephanie Kelton’s "The Deficit Myth," 2020.

Dear Fellow Health Club Member, Please Leave Me the Hell Alone: An economic analysis of the water "shortage," 2017.

"Tony Fauci couldn't possibly have made his claim, that COVID-19 is 10 times more deadly than the flu, with any scientific basis."

Give this a full listen when you have a chance. 

Robert Wenzel has been posting terrific updates and sound, meaning logical, latest news on the COVID-19 and the government enflaming the concern.  Wenzel writes

The [above] interview of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University, by Peter Robinson, is awesome.

They begin by discussing the problems with current testing that I have been highlighting here and the fact that Trump's adviser Tony Fauci couldn't possibly have made his claim, that COVID-19 is 10 times more deadly than the flu, with any scientific basis.

Be sure to watch at least the first 9 minutes.

It is also good to know that Bhattacharya is about to start properly designed general population serological tests, which he discusses later in the clip. 

Until then, load up on vitamin D.

LIFE EXPECTANCY IN THE U.S. IS CRASHING, THANKS TO OBAMACARE

UPDATE BELOW

Bob Wenzel penned a post at Economic Policy Journal that should not shock any astute observer of government machinations.  The murderous machination to which I refer is . . . Obamacare or Pelosicare, however, you like your government sauce.  The title of Wenzel's post is "Crashing Life Expectancy in the United States."  By citing Gabriel Zucman, Wenzel reminds us immediately what life expectancy was like in the United States before Obamacare.  

Reminder: In 1980, life expectancy was the same in the US, UK, Germany, and France.

Now it's 3-4 years lower in the US.

And it is falling.

That's in a country that spends almost twice as much on health care than every other nation. pic.twitter.com/9ppnkvAo2p

— Gabriel Zucman (@gabriel_zucman) September 9, 2019

Wenzel asks, "Who would have expected it?"  Actually, he did.  In 2012, he wrote:

Why Life Expectancy Will Crash in the United States

It's coming. It will take some time before it shows up in the stats, but the socialization of medicine is going to have a dramatic impact on medical care---for the worse.

It doesn't matter what the Supremes rule on Obamacare. If they rule against it, it will just slow things down, but socialist thinking surrounds the medical industry, especially among the "big thinkers", the interventionist minded, central planning focused bioethicists.

And the sad news is that it is now only happening at the margins. It will get worse.  -RW 

What this means is what this has always meant--stay away from government-run gigs and people.  Government lies.  They do this by individual and institutionally.  Good people have become government administrators and they are taught to lie, cheat, distort, distract, deflect, and otherwise dupe the tax-payer.  In fact, one of the reasons that so many inside government have so much contempt for the tax-payer is that the gov't agent looks down on the tax-payer as some uncritical, helpless rube in a rigged tax game.  

The instruction then becomes clear.  You need to take care of yourself.  Start with a powerful multivitamin, Molecular Multi.  See other essential vitamins for vigor.

Take vitamin C daily.  You'll live longer.  

UPDATE to Wenzel's post on socialized medicine.  Some pushback. This just got interesting. 

Bob –  When you write below that this is a result of the socialization of medicine you leave yourself open to the counterpoint that Europe has socialized medicine and is not experiencing this drop off in life expectancy.  In my view, the largest reason for this is due to the American diet and resulting in obesity levels.  The US has an obesity problem that far outstrips other first-world nations.  The carb-rich and erroneously dangerous USDA food pyramid is the primary culprit.  Worse, our medical community resorts to drugs to treat this epidemic (largely in the form of diabetes, high blood pressure, and other cardiovascular drugs).

The ”socialization of medicine”, while a big problem in and of itself and the primary cause in rising healthcare costs, it is difficult to make that argument when other socialized medicine countries are not seeing the same reduction in life expectancy. 

Read Wenzel's reply here.

OBAMACARE: REPEAL IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE

By Dom Armentano  [Via Robert Wenzel @ EconomicPolicyJournal]

Obamacare was sold to the American people as a humanitarian attempt to provide health insurance to the poor and to individuals with a pre-existing medical condition who had been denied coverage. If you were not poor, did not have a pre-existing condition, and already had health insurance and were satisfied with its coverage and rates, you were repeatedly assured that you could keep your plan and doctors. Right.

We now know that the selling of Obamacare was a giant con job. After all, if its proponents had really been sincere, they would have argued that the alleged poor simply be provided vouchers (similar to food stamps) to help purchase insurance; further, a simple one-sentence piece of legislation could have required that insurance companies not automatically exclude potential customers based on some pre-existing medical condition. Done deal. Instead, what we all got smacked with was a 906 page regulatory and tax monstrosity that amounts to a federal makeover and takeover of the entire health care industry.

Can we repeal Obamacare? Defenders of the law, and even some moderate critics from both political parties, assert that repeal is impossible at this point. After all, Obamacare was passed by both houses of Congress, signed by the President, and parts of the law were declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. Moreover, billions of federal tax dollars have already been spent on the bungled website and countless bureaucrats (including those in the IRS) to administer the new regulations and taxes. Thus, defenders assert, there is simply no precedent for repealing a federal law that’s this important and complex.

Nonsense to that. There is, in fact, major precedent for repealing important and complex federal law that destroys personal freedom and raises costs and prices to consumers: The Supreme Court’s de facto “repeal” of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA) in 1935.

It is difficult now, looking back, to appreciate the full scope and complexity of the NRA (1933). Yet the NRA was the legislative centerpiece of the Roosevelt Administration’s attempt to end the Great Depression and return the country to prosperity. Its major objective was to end “ruinous” price competition (deflation) throughout the economy by the creation and enforcement of so-called “codes of fair competition.”

These codes–created by industrial trade associations and enforced by the federal government–allowed business competitors in any given industry to collude legally and raise prices…with the antitrust laws conveniently suspended. Industrial firms, wholesalers and retailers that wanted to price their own products in defiance of the legal code were forbidden from doing so by law. To encourage labor to go along with this unprecedented government support for economy-wide monopoly, separate NRA codes also encouraged the formation of labor unions and mandatory collective bargaining. There were also separate provisions in the NRA for command and control regulation of the petroleum industry.

The NRA and its distinctive symbol (the “Blue Eagle”) struggled to fly for two years until it unceremoniously crashed to earth in 1935, declared unconstitutional by the High Court. (Roosevelt was so incensed by the decision that he threatened to “pack” the Court by appointing additional judges). The entire gargantuan enterprise, much like Obamacare, floundered badly under the weight of an inefficient NRA bureaucracy, labor union strife and strikes for recognition, endlessly confusing and changing “code” regulations and the eventual loss of political support from working-class households. Besides, there was no evidence that the NRA promoted recovery; indeed, its restrictions on commercial liberty made economic growth far more difficult.

If the NRA could be dismantled and tossed in the legislative scrap-heap, so can Obamacare. The alternative to Obamacare (when Congress repeals it) is the creation of a competitive market for both health insurance and health care. Insurance companies must be free to compete across state lines, free to offer a diverse menu of coverage’s and deductibles and free to price their product based on estimated risk. And health care providers must be free to treat patients absent government licensing and regulation. If we’ve learned anything from the NRA experience, or the “glitch” over the Obamacare website, it’s that government regulation makes almost every economic problem infinitely worse.

Dr. Armentano is professor emeritus in economics at the University of Hartford and the author of Antitrust and Monopoly (Independent Institute, 1998) and Antitrust: The Case for Repeal (Mises Institute, 1999). His first workplace experience was picking strawberries at a commercial farm for 6 cents a basket in the 1950s.

Copyright © 2014 Dom Armentano. 

WE HAVE THE ANATOMY OF A COMMITTED HERBIVORE

h/t to that internet maven, property rights champion, Robert Wenzel.  

As an African-American physician focusing on preventive medicine, Dr. Mills has delved into some of the environmental and societal influences affecting the health of African Americans and other racial/ethnic minorities. Dr. Mills has lectured and given research seminars across the United States and in Mexico and Canada on such topics as the negative impacts of meat and dairy consumption on human health, nutrition and HIV/AIDS, nutrition and cancer, and the dietary needs of various ethnic groups.  

He answers the question that if we don't get our protein from animal sources, where do we get our protein?  And he's right that you get your protein from plants and vegetables.  In fact, your body does a better job of distributing plant protein throughout your body than it does with animal protein.  And the reason for that is that animal protein is like a blast or overwhelming infusion of protein, whereas with plant protein your body takes and converts what it needs.  When we're young we can handle animal protein; hell, we prefer it.  We're active, running around, jumping around, playing sports, and so forth, so an immediate repair with a burger or steak or any animal protein is perfect . . . when we're young.  I would still advocate for eggs.  The terrific fat that you get from eggs is an excellent energy source.  The diseases that Dr. Mills mentions--cancer, diabetes, and so forth--are all conditions that people get with age. Those are age-related diseases.  So if you've been eating meat most of your life, you may want to consider incorporating blood-letting in your routine or add the iron and heavy mineral chelator, IP6, to your diet.  You, in fact, consume that between meals.  You will feel better.  But moving to fruits and vegetables is a healthier way.  Your energy will rise.  Your health with improve.  Your performance and productivity will find its rhythm again.  

HEROIC: NON-LICENSED DOCTOR SAVED THOUSANDS OF INFANTS AND CHANGED MEDICAL HISTORY

By Larry Getlen @ The New York Post

Martin Couney shows off one of his rescued babies, Beth Allen.  Find that baby, now an adult, pictured below.

When Marion Conlin gave birth to twins earlier than expected in a Brooklyn hospital in May 1920, one of her babies was already dead. Her doctor bluntly told the woman and her husband, Woolsey, “Don’t rush to bury that one, because you will need to bury the other one too . . . She’s not going to live the day.”

But Woolsey was not giving up on the other so easily.

The couple had honeymooned the previous year in Atlantic City, and Woolsey recalled a sideshow exhibit featuring prematurely born babies whose lives were saved right there on the Boardwalk. Resting in new machines called incubators, the babies made medical history while serving as a prime attraction for gawking tourists.

Woolsey also remembered hearing that the same doctor had set up a similar exhibit in Coney Island. So while their own doctor tried to convince them that all was lost, Woolsey grabbed his 2-pound daughter, ran from the hospital and hailed a cab, hoping the Coney Island sideshow could save her life.

A new book, The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies, by Dawn Raffel (Blue Rider Press), tells the story of Martin Couney, a self-appointed “doctor”—his credentials turned out to be nonexistent—who nonetheless saved thousands of infants, and introduced incubators to the modern world.

What little is known about Martin Couney is that he was born in Prussia in 1869 as Michael Cohn and changed his name after immigrating to New York at 18.

He does not appear to have had any medical credentials, and while he often claimed to be a protege of the world-renowned French doctor Pierre-Constant Budin, who popularized incubators in Europe, there is no evidence for this claim.

What is true is that whatever his motive, he spent 40 years as the only medical hope for parents of babies born too early in New York City and beyond. Raffel estimates he saved between 6,500 and 7,000 lives.

Incubators were invented in Europe in the late 19th century, the evolution of innovations from Russia, Germany and France. Couney claimed that in 1896, Budin, an actual pioneer in the field, sent him to display incubators at the Great Industrial Exhibition of Berlin. Rather than stand next to empty machines, Couney, referring to the displays as “child hatchery,” said he realized how much more effective it would be if they housed actual babies being saved for the public to see.

The truth about where Couney first encountered these machines, and his motivation for making them the great cause of his life, is unknown. Raffel believes he did not attend the 1896 exhibition at all, but heard about it, and became associated with the machines soon after.

“The exhibition in Berlin made a big splash,” Raffel says. “It was written up in newspapers all over the place, including the United States, and showmen started becoming interested in it.”

However it began, Couney toured the machines around America and established a show in Coney Island in 1903, one block away from the Luna Park amusement park.

The exhibit ran in that general area for the next 40 years. Visitors were charged a quarter to view the babies, and the money went to their care.

As one might expect, people didn’t know what to make of the exhibit at first.

Beth Allen today.  She was one of the babies Martin Couney rescued. 

 

A reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, in a story headlined “Strangest Place on Earth for Human Tots to be Fed, Nursed and Cared For,” wrote that the idea of “haranguing the passing throng in an effort to divert its shekels for a spectacle so serious, not to say sacred, strikes one as questionable, almost repellent.” But by the end of the piece, the author’s impression had turned positive, praising the care the children received.

Couney hired barkers to stand outside the exhibit and attract customers, screaming slogans like, “Don’t forget to see the babies!” In 1922, one of his barkers was a young British actor named Archibald Leach, who later changed his name to Cary Grant.

Couney himself developed into quite the showman, hamming it up for the press and the crowds.

“Every blistering, footsore day, he would station himself at the door to his show — ‘All the world loves a baby! Once seen, never forgotten!’ ” Raffel writes. “He never got tired of talking to the public, not even the Dummkopfs who deduced he’d made the little critters. (‘Hiya, Doc, where’dja get the eggs?’) Sometimes they wanted to order one fresh for themselves.”

But for all his showbiz, Couney was in the lifesaving business, and he took it seriously. The exhibit was immaculate. When new children arrived, dropped off by panicked parents who knew Couney could help them where hospitals could not, they were immediately bathed, rubbed with alcohol and swaddled tight, then “placed in an incubator kept at 96 or so degrees, depending on the patient. Every two hours, those who could suckle were carried upstairs on a tiny elevator and fed by breast by wet nurses who lived in the building. The rest [were fed by] a funneled spoon.”

A photograph of an incubator at Dr. Martin Couney’s Coney Island incubator sideshow.

Even the nurses — whose genuine medical degrees helped make up for the absence of Couney’s in instances such as signing death certificates — understood that maintaining the show business of it all was key to keeping the operation alive. They would often feed or bathe the babies where people could watch, and one nurse would “flash a diamond ring and slip it over an infant’s wrist, all the way up its skinny arm, to demonstrate scale.”

While Couney couldn’t save every baby, Raffel writes that “most of the patients went home in a couple of months.” It’s unverified since Couney never published anything or left any records of his work, but he claimed an 85 percent survival rate, once saying most deaths occurred within 24 to 48 hours of his receiving a baby.

“If we have a child for seven days in our charge,” he said, “we never lose it.”

Despite Couney’s success, there were numerous ways this type of endeavor could lead to tragedy. When St. Louis planned their 1904 World’s Fair, they decided they wanted an incubator exhibit, but not Couney.

They contracted the lowest bidder, a doctor named Joseph Hardy who “was fully licensed and apparently utterly ignorant of how to care for a preemie.” After the exhibit had been open for a bit, a Humane Society examination found that out of 43 children cared for, 39 had died. Couney published an open letter in the New York Evening Journal calling it “the crime of the decade” and claiming Hardy and his staff “did not know the difference between an incubator and a peanut roaster.” While changes were made, including hiring a new doctor, the exhibit stayed open.

In time, Couney offered genuine evidence of his success. He held reunions, inviting children who been saved in his incubators. In 1909 in Chicago, he even held a “best preemie” competition.

“That Sunday morning, the children were brought in dressed in their finest attire,” Raffel writes. “Ruffles and ribbons, buttons and bows. Martin, fluent in baby talk as any other tongue, was having the time of his life.”

The winner, a 3-year-old named Burton who was judged the “healthiest, handsomest, and best-developed,” was awarded a little red wagon.

Sometimes, his successes came to him. At the 1939 World’s Fair, he was approached by a 19-year-old woman who said she was one of the babies he had saved. Her name was Lucille Conlin. She was Marion and Woolsey Conlin’s surviving daughter. She went on to become a nurse.

Throughout his decades of saving babies, Couney understood there were better options. He tried to sell, or even donate, his incubators to hospitals, but they didn’t want them. He even offered all his incubators to the city of New York in 1940 but was turned down.

Raffel offers several possible reasons for this. The difficulty of operating the machines was one.

“Doctors didn’t have the resources or trained personnel to use [incubators] properly,” she says. “An incubator is a labor-intensive process. You had to have specially trained nurses and a low nurse-to-patient ratio. It was too much work for them.”

Given the popularity of eugenics in the US at the time, there also wasn’t much sympathy for these children.

“You had a raging climate of eugenics which did not directly target preemies, but did directly target children who had severe disabilities,” Raffel says. “It was an environment where we only wanted to produce the fittest babies. That was a very strong cultural undercurrent. People just felt like these children were not worth saving.”

Couney died in 1950 at age 80. That he had closed his exhibit only seven years prior is a testament both to his dedication to helping children, and the failure of the medical establishment to take on the crucial job of saving their lives.

“In 1943, Cornell New York Hospital opened the city’s first dedicated premature infant station,” Raffel writes. “That same year, Dr. Martin Couney closed his show for the final time. He said his work was done.”  

Martin Couney's Coney Island Exhibit was reviewed in The Atlantic back in 2015.  The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies, Dawn Raffel, 2018.

h/t Robert Wenzel @ EconomicPolicyJournal, "Screw Government Licenses: The Non-Licensed Fake Doctor Who Saved Thousands of Babies That Hospitals Couldn't."