Do we own our bodies?

Yesterday morning the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority announced that it would increase the ‘fees’ it offers for women to donate eggs from £250 to £750. (At the taxpayer’s expense, of course.) There is a serious shortage of eggs so HFEA wishes to encourage more women to come forward. HEFA argued that the increase is to cover costs and not act as an ‘inducement’ which is prohibited under EU rules.

We should consider the unfortunate consequences of the prevention of financial inducements for the sale of eggs. Firstly, there is a shortage of eggs so potential parents are being denied the ability to have children – surely that is also unethical, or at least unfair? Demand exceeds supply – in economic terms we need to allow the market to set a price which would increase supply (of course, this may make infertility treatment via the NHS more expensive, but that is merely an argument against nationalising such services). Secondly, as with all prohibitions, are the unintended consequences which lie in the creation ‘fertility tourism’ and probably an illegal egg trade. Naturally, such a trade endangers the health of both donors and recipients. If the sale of eggs were legal, the egg trade would be both cheaper and far more subject to oversight and safety.

In essence, we have a situation where people are being denied the potential of having children whilst at the same time donors are being exploited and inducements are being offered, which is exactly what the ban and its advocates seek to avoid. This situation is clearly the worst of all possible worlds.

What startled me most in reading about this were the views of those opposed to allowing women to sell their own eggs. For instance, this comment by Dr David King, Director of Human Genetics Alert that; "Ethically, it's wrong to make part of the human body a commodity... The body should not be part of commerce."

I fundamentally disagree with such a position – and I think the same applies to blood and organs as much as eggs or sperm. If individuals wish to sell their eggs freely, that should be their choice. I would argue that it is fundamentally unethical to deny individuals the freedom to do so. It is also worth observing that even if a market in eggs were created, there is no reason to suppose that some women would not choose to donate eggs charitably.

There are many other activities which, by prohibiting free markets, governments deny us the rights to use our bodies as we see fit - narcotics, smoking, prostitution and others. Such prohibitions not only invariably fail but they also create opportunities for criminals and harm the most vulnerable, thereby necessitating more government intervention in the form of law enforcement as John Meadowcroft’s excellent book Prohibitions shows (On this topic there is a chapter by Mark Cherry addressing the specific issue of organs).

But there is an even more fundamental issue at stake. By denying the ability to use our bodies in the way in which we see fit the state is denying us property rights over our bodies and staking a claim to ownership. A person who does not have ownership over their own body is usually referred to as a slave.

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Property rights and the 'Occupy' protest

The 'Occupy' protest around St Paul's Cathedral in London raises interesting questions about the nature of property rights. When a few anti-capitalist activists started pitching their tents on the forecourt of the Cathedral, the first thought of the police was to step in and tell them to move on. But then the Dean of St Pauls, the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, told the police that it was the Cathedral's private property, that the Dean and Chapter approved of the right of people to protest, and that the police should clear off. Which they did.

Since then, however, with 180-odd tents pitched round it and more arriving by the day, the Cathedral has had to close some of its facilities and restrict access to visitors. A bit unfortunate if you happen to be on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to London and you cannot actually experience the magnificent interior of Wren's Masterpiece. And unfortunate if you live or, more probably, work around St Paul's and are inconvenienced with noise and congestion as a result of the protest.

There's also a public health consideration. There is no water or sanitation in the encampment, of course, and St Paul's is not known for its lavish shower and toilet facilities. Plus the fact that, like the years-long encampment on Parliament Square outside the House of Commons, the protest is, well, a bit of an eyesore.

It's a point noted by Milton Friedman nearly 50 years ago in his Capitalism and Freedom that, for all we liberals or libertarians believe in property rights, the ownership of property does not necessarily allow people to do anything they like with it. He asks, for example:

Does my having title to land, for example, and my freedom to use my property as I wish, permit me to deny to someone else the right to fly over my land in his airplane? Or does his right to use his airplane take precedence? Or does this depend on how high he flies? Or how much noise he makes? Does voluntary exchange require that he pay me for the privilege of flying over my land? Or that I must pay him to refrain from flying over it? Does my having title to land, for example, and my freedom to use my property as I wish, permit me to deny to someone else the right to fly over it?

Friedman's point is that property rights are not indisputable, but are a matter of convention, settled over long periods by public debate, court decisions, and laws. Dr Fraser and the protesters should no more expect to be able to do anything they like on the Cathedral's land than travellers can expect to be permitted to form a settlement at Dale Farm without the same planning permission that everyone else must apply for. The forecourt of St Paul's Cathedral is, in an important sense, as much public property as it is private.

I'm all in favour of people being allowed to protest – the last government's blanket ban on demonstrations within a kilometre of the House of Commons was an absolute outrage – but I'm not in favour of allowing people permanently to occupy public space, or even private space if it has adverse effects on the public. If we were looking for a new convention, the easiest might be a 24-hour rule: demonstrations on public land, or on private land that might impact the public, are OK as long as they pack up the next day. Then at least we, the public, might be able to reclaim what is supposed to be ours, instead of having to endure permanent eyesores around our main tourist attractions.

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On "compassionate" taxation

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

Penn Jillette

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Quote of the day, 20th Oct 2011

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

Penn Jillette

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Paying for Localism

Charles Moore makes a good point in The Spectator:

The government is very proud of its commitment to localism, and has fought hard to get its controversial Localism Bill despite numerous objections in the House of Lords. Yet at the same time, it orders another annual freeze of council tax and everyone applauds. If localism is not locally paid for, it is only a game. It reminds one of people who love the ‘self-sufficiency’ of living in tents and foraging for food, but retreat to their comfortable homes whenever it rains.

I agree – the general principle ought to be that each level of government should itself raise the money it spends. When local authorities are just spending bodies, reliant for the most part of the largesse of the central government, they lack accountability. They also face skewed incentives – why should they economize when money is being handed to them by Whitehall? If anything, they’ll want to be as profligate as possible in attempt to justify a bigger grant the following year.

Financial autonomy, or at least something closer to it, would encourage greater fiscal responsibility and more rational policymaking. It ought to be a central part of any localism agenda worth the name. How exactly you do it is open to debate. Some favour greater reliance of property taxes, while others advocate a local sales tax. Personally, I think the best approach would be to cut every national income tax rate by six or seven percent, and then let councils set their own flat rate income tax.

The beauty of that approach is that it would introduce domestic tax competition where it is needed most. Councils who set lower taxes rates might attract more residents and see revenues rise, which would encourage other councils to follow their example or else risk losing out. At last, then, there might then be some countervailing pressure on income tax rates – which would be a very good thing indeed.

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The unintended consequences of socialist architecture

An article in Planning in London makes a fascinating point about this summer’s London riots:

It has been suggested by others that there is a link between riot locations and the nearby presence of social housing. We think this can be more accurately defined.

Hillier’s earlier work suggests that the proximity of riot activity to large post-war housing estates may not be the result of social housing in itself but the type of social housing: most post-war estates have been designed in such a way that they create over-complex, and as a result, under-used spaces. These spaces are populated by large groups of unsupervised children and teenagers, where peer socialisation can occur between them without the influence of adults. This pattern of activity, and the segregation of user groups, is not found in non-estate street networks.

The trouble with so much architecture from the post-war period is that the state was the client – architects designed housing projects with little or no concern for the people who would actually live in them. The design of housing estates did not reflect the way people lived, worked and played. Rather, it reflected a utopian socialist ideology which central planners wished to impose upon them. Of course, that attempt failed miserably.

Opposition to post-war architecture tends to focus on aesthetic concerns. And, certainly, much of it is appalling ugly, almost to the point that merely looking at it fills you with despair. But its mostly deeply pernicious effect is surely the way in which it has affected people’s behaviour, by forcing them to live in an environment which is cold, desolate and practically inhuman. Naturally, I am not suggesting that post-war architecture caused the riots. But the idea that it was a contributory factor certainly has the ring of truth about it.

Incidentally, the picture I’ve used here is not actually from a post-war London housing estate. It is a photo of the Vele di Scampia estate near Naples, which was the setting for the stunning, shocking film Gomorrah. If you’re sceptical about the social consequences of bad architecture, I’d challenge you to watch that film and, bearing in mind that it is based on real events, ask yourself whether many of the things depicted would be possible in a traditional street layout. For me, it’s a shining example of brutalist by name, brutal by nature.

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What the Immigrant Saw

There's a great new book just published by JP Floru. It's What the Immigrant Saw, and describes his adventures and experiences since he first arrived on these shores from Belgium and decided to make Britain his home.

The book is superlatively written, and carries the reader along effortlessly with its narrative as JP struggles with local councils, with UK politics, with the NHS, with housing, and with busy-body bureaucrats. He writes in an engaging first-person style, edging his insights with wry humour as he encounters our ways.

He treads the path of a foreigner looking at our foibles with an affectionate eye, a path trod by George Mikes in "How to Be an Alien" over half a century ago. But there is a political punch to the book. JP puts across the essence of what Thatcherism meant, and how it had to fight vested interests and the blinkered ideology of socialism and officialdom. His causes are those of liberty and free markets, and he wears their favours well.

The book is a must read, entertaining and amusing, but informative too. Buy copies for your friends and spread the word.

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The myth of government cuts

At an Adam Smith Institute dinner with Lib Dem MP (and former Chief Secretary to the Treasury) David Laws earlier in the week, the conversation turned – as it does so often at such events – to the speed of the 'cuts' in government spending. Without resorting to Google there was no way to resolve the argument, but next morning a City economist friend of mine gave me the actual figures.

It turns out there haven't been any 'cuts'.

Here is what the most up-to-date figures show. Total government spending (or as economists put it, general government expenditure on goods and services) in the April-June quarter of 2011 was 3.8% higher than in the same quarter of 2010. That's in straight cash terms (current prices). If we adjust for the effects of inflation (constant prices), the rise over the year was 1.3%.

Looking at Whitehall, and taking just the most recent month for which we have figures, central government spending (ANLP in the jargon) for August 2011 was a remarkable 7.2% higher than a year earlier.

In other words, despite all the howls about austerity, government spending is still growing, and growing fast, in both cash terms and real terms. True, some capital projects are being cut: but not enough to bring down the total amount that government spends.

With tax receipts stuttering because business is so flat, the government will struggle to get its borrowing down and hit is deficit-reduction targets. The problem with that is that foreign investors may come to the conclusion that for all the UK's fine talk, it cannot actually get its books to balance. If investors get the jitters, or the rating agencies downgrade the UK's creditworthiness even a fraction, the government could find itself having to pay significantly higher rates of interest on its massive borrowings. And that would make it even harder to balance the books.

Sometime soon, we really need to grit our teeth – end the bluster, and make real cuts in public spending.

[Update: As some commenters have pointed out, the initial current and constant prices figures for government spending were muddled. This is now fixed, thanks to all who pointed this out – ed.]

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Think piece: The future of long-term care

As the encroachment of government grows larger and larger, so does corruption, greed, and dictatorial behaviour grow likewise. The dumbing down of state education ensures that “we the people” will become less and less knowledgeable about what is a proper role for government.

A case in point is the issue of Long Term Care (LTC) – a crisis which has been building up for decades, at the same time as we the people have come to expect a growing NHS and, in many cases, would now expect the NHS to expand as necessary to cover long term care of the elderly. Nor have governments done anything to abuse us of that impossible notion any more than has the NHS which, on the contrary, has encouraged it and advertised “NHS continuing health care” as “a package of continuing care provided outside hospital, arranged and funded solely by the NHS, for people with on-going healthcare needs”.

Governments don’t do long term. Few readers may recall that way back in 1997 LTC funding was made a priority by the Labour government, with a Royal Commission reporting in 1999 – at which point it was thrown into the long grass. Pension schemes (similar in many respects to LTC) have been peppered with reams of rules and regulations throughout my long career in that industry and get worse by the day. The 1997 raid on occupational schemes by Gordon Brown via changing the ACT tax rules virtually killed off final salary-related schemes in the private sector. This raid was upon existing assets, which were backing promises in respect of years of service already accrued, so naturally it plunged many thousands of schemes, large and small, into insolvency. (1, see references below) This is a crucial matter because pensions and LTC have many similar features. It is all too easy to see that another “Brownian raid” may hit LTC providers retrospectively. [Continue reading]

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Global inequality and the "99%"

Scott Sumner has a superb piece up today, on the different kinds of inequality:

2. Inequality of talent. Some people are blessed with the ability of a Michael Jordon, or a Brad Pitt.

3. Inequality if liberty. I know one Chinese person who used to listen to Russian classical music very quietly, least the neighbors overheard. It was viewed as counter-revolutionary, and she could have gotten in a lot of trouble. Least we think America doesn’t have these problems, think of the many 100,000s of people in prison for using drugs.

4. Inequality of money (i.e. income/wealth/consumption.)

5. Inequality of personality. I know one part time instructor who always looks happy. He always whistles while he walks, and greets people with enthusiasm. He’s about 85. And I know lots of grouchy professors making 5 times more money.

6. Inequality of mental health–actually just a more extreme version of point 5–but a big driver of utility. . . .

13. Inequality of preferences. I am cursed with expensive taste. If I walk into a rug store, my eyes are immediately attracted to the most expensive oriental carpet. My daughter just bought a teal shag carpet from Target that she likes. Lucky her.

14. Inequality of pain. A hugely underrated factor in utility. And let’s not forget the poor hypochondriacs. There is no statement more stupid in the entire English language than “it’s all in your head.” Everything is all in your head, including pain. See the studies of phantom limbs. Pain is pain.

And so forth. The whole list is required reading, because it underlines the strangeness of some people's preoccupation with inequality of money. (Sumner says these people are economists, but I've known plenty of non-economists for whom that's true as well.) He concludes:

It’s important to keep in mind that there is much more to life than income inequality, and much more to the world than the US. In the grand scheme of things, tinkering with government programs to help the poor, pitiful, beleaguered American middle class isn’t likely to make much difference, at least from a utilitarian perspective. We need to broaden our outlook.

That's more or less my main problem with redistributionist rhetoric in Britain. OK, you want to improve the lives of the worst-off – good for you. But why do you only focus on Britain when we know that even the poorest Britons are better off than the "Bottom Billion"? If I was a socialist, I wouldn't care about the NHS, the welfare state, or the "99%". I'd be fighting for more free trade, more open borders and (in the US especially) more liberal drug laws – things that will benefit the truly worst-off. Indeed, those are already the things that I try to fight for – they are so fundamental to improving people's happiness that they should transcend ideological lines.

There are lots of different inequalities and wealth inequality is an important one. Caring about the poor shouldn't stop at a border's edge, and shouldn't prioritise people who are nearby over people who are far away. Especially if they're still among the richest people in the world.

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