On Rights and Liberties Protected by a Constitution

Jesse Jackson Jr. is apparently even more astounding in his speeches than his father. On the House floor he recently called for an amendment to the constitution to assert the right of every American citizen to housing, medical care, education and even an iPod and laptop! Probably more astounding was his assertion (or rather, rhetorical question suggesting) that enumerating these "rights" in the constitution would create jobs! "How many jobs would such a right create?" he kept asking...

Well, Jesse, I have an answer for you. None. Having government spend on such things or publicly provide them does not create jobs and does not improve living standards. Government must tax, borrow, or inflate the currency in order to purchase these goods and services. Taxing means the money comes from someone else who otherwise would have used that money in another way ("creating" just as many jobs); borrowing may "bring the money from the future" but it must eventually be paid for and in the meantime it will crowd out others from borrowing from the future and hence again not "create" more jobs than without it; and printing money to fund these purchases will only fuel inflation: government will buy the goods but the price will go up and you and I won't be able to afford as much on our own. No, Jesse, it's a nice thought, but asserting a 'right' to something does not create jobs.

But won't it help the poor? Well, despite all the calls for these 'positive rights', they have not proven to be helpful for the poorest in the given country either. Asserting a right to something also does not make it exist where it does not exist. If the only medicine that a country can afford is aspirin, it won't matter whether the constitution asserts a right to first-class medical care. And in fact the more that constitutions assert rights to this and that necessity, the less that natural rights to freedom, life, and property seem to be respected.

There is a good reason for this. If the state promises a right to medical care, then it might just try to come through on this promise - but this may be very expensive if the state would just give everyone a voucher that could cover existing costs. Hence, the state may then try to 'control costs' by setting the prices on medical products and on wages (which is allowed by a constitution which promises such positive liberties - after all, the government needs the power to achieve its promises). So, the state sets prices and wages, and tells the companies how they must provide care, and does the same for housing and for the other industries enumerated. And the more that is promised the more that is regulated and decided by the state - often spiralling out of control (to the extent that it is difficult for the state to afford everything--i.e., to the extent that the state faces an issue of scarcity*).

Of course, if enumerating rights in a constitution could magically create jobs, and if scarcity were completely eliminated, then sure - it would be lovely to have all these rights enshrined in our constitution. But, sadly, Jesse, that ain't the case.

* Scarcity is the fundamental problem of economics. If there were no scarcity, any economic system could work. Because there is scarcity, some systems work better and some worse in handling the forces and limits created by scarcity. Yet, very often people blame the system for something that scarcity has caused, and often suggest a remedy that could only work if there was no scarcity. One example of this is the call to eliminate money, which I discuss in Chapter 7 of Rediscovering Fire (draft version, buy the final book here).