People seem to think that they are owed the work someone else does. They demand that successful people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos give people their money, which is really their time and labor, without having to do any work for it.
Here’s a transcript of our conversation:
Emma: Hi, Brittany.
Brittany: Hi, Emma.
Emma: So, today I wanted to talk about this concept that I hear all the time right now. And it comes from this phrase, you know, you can kind of fill in the blank, but such and such is a basic human right. And I can almost hear Bernie Sanders a basic human right, you know, going on and on in the AOC types. They love to just call everything that they think is good, a human right. And I really wanted to break that down and dig into what they are actually saying there. And I think it actually counteracts with a lot of the ideas that they tell people they believe in, which is that, you know, labor should be voluntary, well, not voluntary, but just they’re huge on this labor stuff. And like this idea that everyone’s a laborer and we’re all working in it together and we’re in the trenches and we need to organize and have unions and all this stuff. But it’s funny because when you say something like, let’s take an example and maybe Brittany after this, we can go through a couple of other examples and kind of break ’em down. But the one that comes to mind for me is healthcare. That’s the big one that we hear right now is that healthcare is a human right. But the interesting thing is that when you claim that healthcare is a human right, you’re basically claiming that you have a right to a doctor’s labor, which, you know.
Brittany: That’s a really good point.
Emma: That’s pretty preposterous. It’s pretty crazy to say, Hey doctor, you spent 10 plus years in college, probably
Brittany: Probably some loan debt.
Emma: Yeah, you took on all this student loan debt with the expectation that you would be paid very well for your intellect and for your work and all the work that you put in into become a doctor. And when you say something like healthcare as a human right, you are assuming that doctor owes you something. Just because you exist, the doctor owes you his thoughts or his healthcare or his, you know, whatever his work. And that’s what I find really, really crazy about this whole idea that there are all of these human rights and it’s so hard to argue with someone who believes that everything is a human right. Because you’ll say, well, why do you think that? And they’ll just go, well, it is, this is just a basic societal norm.
Brittany: Because it would be wrong if people don’t have it. Like, we want people to have these things, therefore human.
Emma: Right. Well, and that’s the interesting thing too, is there’s a distinction that can be made where you say, well, yeah, people should have healthcare, it’s a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that they have a right to force someone else to give them healthcare. I mean, can you imagine how crazy it would be if you just went into the grocery store and said, food is a human right, and you just filled your cart up with groceries and just ran out the door?
Brittany: I feel like people do try to do that of ways.
Emma:
That’s actually true. Yeah. Yeah. That happens a lot in, California especially right now. But it’s preposterous to say that you have a right to something else, therefore it’s your property. And it’s this weird, like, it’s so funny to me because socialists, like Bernie Sanders, like AOC, they call capitalists, they call, you know, these businessmen and free marketers, they call us greedy all the time. And I find that so ironic because there is nothing to me greedier than saying, I have a right to someone else’s labor. Right. Or I have a right to someone else’s property. That is the ultimate example of greed. So Brittany, I don’t know, is there anything else that comes to mind for you when you think of quote-unquote human rights that kind of people call for?
Brittany: Yes. I think we’re seeing this right now with corporate taxes or billionaire taxes as they’re saying and it’s very atlas shruggy, you know, in nature. Yeah. So people are moving outta California because Californians and others are saying, we have a right to people like Elon Musk, these very wealthy people, we have a right to your money because it’s a human right. That we have healthcare because it’s a human right. That we have all this stuff, you have to pay for it because you have more money than us. And it’s like, hold on, let’s think about the risk Elon took to become successful. Yeah. He didn’t just wake up one morning and be successful. If you read his biography, which is a great, I read one, it was fantastic. And you know, he’s been working, he’s had these big dreams since he was five years old. People remember him having these dreams when he was a kid and he had to put in a lot of work and he had to fail a lot of times for these things to happen. So we look at these people and just see like, oh, well they’re rich, therefore they need to pay their fair share. I have a right to their labor, which is really saying you have a right to their time because money is the time you are putting into something the literal labor you’re putting into something. So that’s really people saying like, no, I own your time. Yeah. And so that’s, it’s so crazy to me that that’s the kind of world we live in where people think that they have a right to your stuff through taxes. And the problem is, if you call it taxes, I think people have so many misconceptions of like, yeah, taxes are a general good or they’re for the greater good and every way if you don’t pay your taxes, you’re not a good citizen. Yeah. And so that.
Emma: Patriotic.
Brittany: It’s patriotic. Exactly. So it makes robbing from people, it makes stealing from them sound better. So I think that’s one of the greatest or worst examples we’re seeing these days.
Emma: Totally. And another one that I always think of too is college, right? Yes. Everyone has a right to go to college and for free, but what are you actually saying about college professors when you say that you’re telling them, Hey, you may have put all this time and work into, you know, being an expert on a certain subject or whatever, but that doesn’t matter because everyone else has a right to learn from you and not pay anything. You’re actually devaluing all the time and all the effort that they have put into becoming an expert. And I actually find that very ironic too, because there are so many college professors that are like totally drinking the Kool-Aid on this human rights stuff, and they’re like, oh yeah, we need free college, free this and that. And if they were to do that, you know, the college system is, has a lot of problems and I have many, many issues with the way that it’s run. But I do think it would be considerably worse. I guarantee you that professors would be paid less if all colleges were just seized by the government and turned into a public utility, it would be probably a lot more like the post office, which we complain about the post office cuz you have to pay twice. I have a feeling it would look something like that. And again, it would be college professors who would be forced to give their labor to students for free or, you know, for taxes or something that’s been stolen. So I find it very vain and very, upsetting when, when these, you know, kind of left-wing socialist types will claim that everything is a human right. Just because I want it, it’s a human right. Because when you say that, remember you are saying that those other people owe you something for all of the work that they’ve put in. And that’s why capitalism and why free markets are such a big deal to us on this show and on the Tuttle Twins team is because capitalism actually rewards that hard work. And if you put in time and you put in effort and energy and maybe you invest your own money into something and it works and it serves other people, it’s going to be a fair exchange. Like Jeff Bezos is not stealing from people to make Amazon work. He does get some government subsidies and I don’t like that. But you know, on a basic level, he’s not coming to you at gunpoint and saying, buy something on Amazon Prime right now, or I’m gonna, or I’m gonna shoot you, you know? No, he’s right.
Brittany: There’s no gun to your head. No, exactly. But I love that two-day shipping, so.
Emma: Exactly. And you know, if you don’t like Amazon or if you don’t like their business practices, guess what? There are a lot of other companies that you can shop from. And you know, it’s funny, my parents and I always talk about this, they don’t like Amazon’s business practices and they don’t like really their, model and all of that. And they tell me that they want to support small business so good for them. They put their money where their mouth is and they shop at small businesses and sometimes that means they have to wait way longer to get their stuff in the mail or they have to go drive down to the store and find it in person. And to me, I look at that and I say, well, that’s way too much work for me and I’m okay with giving Amazon my money. And that’s just one example of how, you know, different people can make different choices and there’s that human action element, right? Mesis wrote a whole book called Human Action and it’s all about how we all make these little voluntary decisions and how important they are. And when you take that element out of something as important as healthcare or as college or whatever it may be, you are robbing a lot of people of their dignity and of recognition and reward for all the hard work that they’ve put in. So that’s why it’s so wrong to demand other people’s labor.
Brittany: Yeah, I agree. And another thing that really pops in my mind is the minimum wage. So absolutely. When you have to tell employers like, you must pay people $15 an hour, but you’re like, wait a second, who’s paying that? You are not paying that. You know, the government’s not paying that. I’m paying that Yeah. Out of my own earnings. So that right there is another example of people saying, you owe us your labor. And it’s terrifying to me that we are seeing more of this, you know, it was bad when I was in college, but I feel like even more now, you hear all these young kids wanting to change the world to be that way. Yeah. And it really, really scares me because that’s not how we get to economic freedom. That’s not how we get to prosperity. It just doesn’t work that way. You don’t have the right to someone else’s labor. Yeah. Imagine if we went to a college and we said, you know, this person studied really hard, this person doesn’t, I have a right to your grade. Yeah, exactly. You know, that would be silly, right? You don’t have a right to anyone else’s achievements. You just don’t. So I think that’s, yeah, this is a really important topic.
Emma: Yeah, totally. And you can’t mandate your way to prosperity, you can’t force your way to having more people living a high-quality life or having good healthcare or any of that. We’ve seen this over and over throughout history countries that try to force their way into a, you know, a healthy way of living or into a, you know, prosperous age through communism and through Marxism. It doesn’t work. And it’s been tried so many times and it doesn’t work. But you know, what does work is letting people make their own choices and not forcing other people to give up their time, talents, and energy just because someone else really deserves it or really wants it. Yeah. So we’ll wrap it up there guys. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you all again soon.
Brittany: Talk to you soon.
iTunes
Stitcher
Spotify
TuneIn
Google Podcasts