 Thank you, thank you. Hello and welcome to Harvard University. My name is Michael Sandell. Very soon, Americans will choose a president. Barack Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney seem to agree on one thing at least. This election offers a fundamental choice between two different visions of the role of government and of America's future. I'd like to invite those of you gathered here, students and members of the general public, and our radio audience and the BBC, to listen to two contrasting statements about the meaning of individual success and about who owes what to whom. Successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something. There are a whole bunch of hard-working people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we had that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. I know that there are some people who believe that if you simply take from some and give to others, that will all be better off. It's known as redistribution. It's never been a characteristic of America. Just a tape came out a couple of days ago with the president saying, yes, he believes in redistribution. I don't. I believe the way to lift people and to help people have higher incomes is not to take from some and give to others, but to create wealth for all of us, to create an economy so strong it lifts everybody. This idea of redistribution follows from the idea that if you have a business, you didn't build it. Someone else did that. It's the same concept that, see, government is responsible for everything that's going on here, and therefore government can take and give as it chooses. It's an entirely foreign concept that will not work, that has not worked, that has never worked anywhere in the world. Now, the first statement by President Obama was widely viewed as a gaffe. Republicans have mocked the notion that the successful owe their success to somebody else or to the government. The second statement by Mitt Romney came on the heels of a gaffe of its own. A secretly recorded video, showing him tell, a secretly recorded video, showing him telling wealthy donors that 47% of Americans pay no income tax, are dependent on the government, believe that they are victims, and believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it. An astute observer once defined a gaffe as when a politician inadvertently says what he actually believes. I go further. These two so-called gaffes actually represent a rare moment in this campaign when the two candidates were caught expressing thoughts that verge on political philosophy. Much of the debate in this campaign revolves around taxes and healthcare. President Obama favors higher taxes on the wealthy. Governor Romney favors tax cuts for everyone, including the most affluent. And then there is the recently enacted healthcare reform, commonly called Obamacare. Romney wants to repeal it, Obama wants to keep it. But lying just beneath the surface of these debates are big questions of political philosophy. What is a fair society? Who is entitled to what? And what is the moral significance of individual success? In a market economy. Let's begin with healthcare. Let's put aside the complex details of the recent healthcare reform and focus on a question of principle, a question about entitlement. Considering the following statement, every American is entitled to decent healthcare regardless of his or her ability to pay. Let's see what people here think about that statement. Do you agree or do you disagree? Let's see by a show of hands. How many agree with the statement? Every American is entitled to decent healthcare regardless of his or her ability to pay. Raise your hand if you agree with that statement. And how many disagree with that statement? All right, here at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the majority agree with that statement. A minority disagree. Let's begin with those who disagree about everyone being entitled to healthcare regardless of their ability to pay. Why do you disagree? Who will get our discussion going? Who else? Yes. In the back. Hey there, my name's Aaron. I disagree with this because it implies if they're entitled to a service or a product that someone else is going to be providing that for them. And I am one of the someone else's. And I don't feel that I or anyone else should be forced to have to pay for anyone else's services and products. You're one, Aaron, you're one of the someone else's. And you don't want to be forced to be coerced to pay for somebody else's healthcare. Yes, do you agree? Well, my name's Andrea and the point I want to make is first of all, I don't understand what decent healthcare means. That to me is, I don't know what you're saying, but I know I ever come from a family of doctors and my sister, some of her college friends were very bright and they actually worked at Bain Capital with Romney and went and made tons of money. She worked very hard and went to medical school and slept on a bed that was wrapped up with cords because she didn't have any money. And she's now in her fifties and is finally making some money. And she's very bright. She's one of the best and the brightest ones to the best school. It's not Harvard, but the other medical school that is often considered the best in the country. And she doesn't feel like she should be punished right now. And she gives 20, I think it's more than 20%. I think she gives 30% of her time for free as part of the services that she offers as a doctor and she doesn't feel like she should be penalized anymore. And she's willing to help people, but why should doctors be punished? And if you want decent healthcare, you have to have decent people. You know, you want the best and the brightest to be your brain surgeon or to be your heart surgeon or to care for you. And if you're punishing those people, you're not gonna get those kind of services. And now why do you think, Andrea, why do you think that it necessarily would involve punishing doctors? Suppose the government taxed. The taxpayer is generally at a sufficient level to be able to pay all doctors a handsome, generous amount. That wouldn't be punishing doctors, would you be for that? That's not what Obama said. No, but wait, wait, wait. He said doctors made too much money, didn't he? But my question is, would you be in favor of that? If doctors were very well paid by the government, by the taxpayer to look after everyone's health, would you be against that in principle? I'm not against that in principle, but I don't really think doctors are not trained in nutrition, and I've had personal experiences in that, and they're good when you're really sick, they're not good as preventative. Okay, thank you for that. Who else disagrees with the idea that every American is entitled to decent health care and that the government should tax people if necessary to provide it? Who else disagrees with that idea? Yes. When we talk about entitlements, we talk about rights, and a right to health care being created by force is never a right. A right cannot be extorted from somebody else at the point of a knife at the payer's throat. A knife, you're not referring to what surgeons do. Well, I mean, well, there's a certain point, but this leads away from the principle of rights. All right, so you would say, and what's your name? Klaus. Klaus, you would say that there is no right to health care. Well, we have to define what is a right. Well, is there a, do you think, on your definition of a right, is there a right to health care? No, because a right is only a right to action. Read the Declaration of Independence. There are a few enumerated rights in the Declaration of Independence. I remember them. We say it's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yes, yes, and these are principles of action. Life is action because you pursue the values that sustain your life. Okay, who else takes a similar view? Go ahead. All right, and then we'll come down here. Again, my name's Jay. I think my opinion kind of comes to a similar degree as the woman who spoke earlier about that coercing someone to offer a service to someone else isn't necessarily fair, but given your premise that everyone is being paid, the other concern would be, at what level does decent health care become, like, does everyone have a right to live forever? Do you have a, does the government have a right, like have an obligation to pay for everything forever? Is that a system that can possibly work or possibly be sustainable? What about services normally provided in hospitals which don't include infinite longevity? Is everyone entitled to those, Jay? Again, it becomes very complicated because you can have like heart transplants and all, there are any number of things that are possible with modern medicine that just become, it becomes extravagant at some point. It's unfa, it's not, it doesn't seem right, but you have to make a decision about distribution. Hi, my name's Corinne. Not only is it coercive to the people who are being forced to pay for this and being forced to provide these services, but it's also coercive on the people who are receiving these services. In a lot of places where you have universal medicine, there's often not a lot of options about what you're able to choose and what you're able to choose is right for yourself. And so- So let's stick with the idea of coercion. Your name is? Corinne. Corinne? Corinne. Corinne. Corinne. It's coercive to whom? To tax people for healthcare, to the taxpayer. Right, everyone. And all right, let's take that question of coercion. It's come up a couple of times and let's hear if there is someone who has a reply to it, someone who believes that everyone is entitled to healthcare. Keep the microphone there and let's hear who has a reply. Yes. Hi, my name is Duval. Regarding coercion, I think if you take this idea, if you extrapolate this idea of coercion and you apply it to taxes and you're against coercion when it comes to taxes, it also means that you're against any kind of taxes to begin with, right? So then you're asking for a government that has no revenue from taxpayers at all. So that actually goes beyond healthcare, right? Is that what you believe in? I am often not in favor of a lot of coercive taxes. There's a lot of ways to generate revenue that don't involve taxes. So you think government should not have any revenue whatsoever from any kinds of taxpayers because that's coercive? There's a lot of ways you can get taxes that don't involve tax on the income tax, for example. I don't support an income tax because that generates taxes from someone else's productivity. Generating taxes from, say, consumption, I think I would be more in favor of a consumption tax. But for healthcare, yeah, it's coercive to take people's money and then tell them how to receive health, the health that they want. But aren't you electing government to make the decision on where to apply whatever taxes they generate? So you're saying there might be some kinds of taxes that would be okay to get. But then you're kind of saying, but it's not okay for the government who's getting that tax from whatever kind of income it's coming from to decide what it should be doing with it. Well, there's taxes that go to protecting people's rights. I support taxes that go to protecting people's rights. So protecting people's right to property, for example, as defined in the Declaration of Independence. So you support a police that protects people's right to own their property. It protects the protection of people. Those kinds of taxes are in favor of, but saying you're taking taxes to apply them to people for healthcare that they're necessarily not in favor of in telling people how to have healthcare, telling people what kinds of healthcare they're allowed to have is not right. So here we have a position, in the U.S. what is a familiar libertarian position, and Ron Paul, the libertarian candidate for the Republican nomination articulated it. The libertarian position that taxation in order to protect property rights, to protect people from force and coercion, to provide for national defense, perhaps in the courts is one thing. But taxation for the sake of redistribution or for the sake of providing healthcare to everyone, to provide for welfare is a different matter and it's wrong because it's coercive. Do I have it right? Yes. All right, now who would like to reply? Who disagrees with that view of taxation for healthcare and can explain what you see is wrong with it? My name is Roba. I'd like to go back to what someone said previously about the right. Healthcare is not a service or a product. It's a basic dignity human right for everyone. And along with those rights, along with those rights come responsibilities. I prefer one don't wanna live in a society that doesn't base the human dignity of life and to be a decent standard of living for everyone. I would like to live in a society where we have that responsibility for one another. I wouldn't wanna live in a society where we throw our poor sick people into the street because they can't afford it. And that's the type of society I expect my government to give me. So along with that right that I want to give everyone to have decent basic, maybe let's call it basic if not decent, a basic healthcare, I take on that responsibility of giving whatever contribution I have to give so that I can have my children raised in a society that is decent to all human beings. And let me ask you, how do you answer the libertarian objection to what you've just said? That it might be a wonderful idea to provide healthcare to everyone, but doesn't it involve coercing people by taking their money, their resources against their will? How do you answer the coercion argument? You pay for what you get for. If I'm not paying anything, then I don't expect to live in a decent society. A decent society is one that's judged on how they treat their most vulnerable. I will pay to live there. So I don't feel coerced if I'm getting good value. I'm getting good value in that I'm in a stable, safe society where I can raise my kids as decent human beings. That for me is not coercion. I would gladly pay for that. Who disagrees with Ruba? On the issue of coercion, who disagrees with Ruba? Yes. Hi, my name's Sean. I agree with a lot of what was just said, actually. I think it would be a terrible thing to live in a society that let people be destitute on the street, let the sick go unhelped. And I think that's, most people in this room agree with that. And I think that's exactly why you don't need a government to do it. Everybody agrees that it would be horrible to do these things. Charitable organizations are designed to deal with these types of things. Religious institutions are designed to. Historically, fraternal societies have been able to do these things. There's no problem with helping people. There's no problem with providing aid to the poor. The problem is with the coercive mechanism used where you take from people involuntarily through taxation, through government, to provide benefits to other people. As long as it's done voluntarily, these are very worthwhile, great goals. And Sean, why is it a bad thing if it's a worthwhile goal for private charities? Why is it not also a worthwhile goal for collective state action, for people of a democracy to tax themselves to advance those worthy goals? There's nothing wrong with people donating to the government. The very fact that we have taxation is proof it's not a donation, because it's forced. The government is willing to accept charitable donations, but you don't give it there. If in fact it's not a very effective way to do it, you'd be better off giving it to American Red Cross, to giving it to Catholic hospitals, to giving it to other institutions that could do it more effectively and more efficiently. This is why people don't donate to the federal government. They donate it to actual institutions that are much better able to handle poor. All right, so it would be a good thing for private charity to help people with their healthcare needs, but the government should not coerce people, should not coerce taxpayers to provide for this end. What do you say? I'm Yael, and I would go back to the notion of the social contract. And if we pay taxes and we go to war, to go to war you need to be alive. So the first basic argument is to be alive and to be healthy in order to leave the basic notion of alive, but decent life. So if you're paying taxes for going to war, I mean, that would be coercive, much more than paying taxes to have a decent healthcare. And tell us about the social contract. Tell me your name again. Yael. Yael. The social contract you point to, Yael. Now some people have referred to here, defenders of libertarianism here have referred to the US Declaration of Independence, which says that there is a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now you, Yael, have referred to the social contract. What is the social contract exactly and when did we sign up for it? Well, it comes from the French first. But it comes from the French people. I think the origins we can trace them back, track them back to the French people. But once you have the Declaration of Independence and you have these three things, I mean, the pursuit of happiness and being alive, they're there, so being happy also. But wait, wait, wait. I still wanna know about the social contract. What is it exactly? Well, you give away. You give away some of your rights. You give it to the state, you give away that and the state respects those rights and not only respects those rights but provides for security, provides for health, provides for other basics that the human to live a decent life. And is there one social contract for the whole world? Does each nation have its own social contract? Did people actually sign up for it or is it something that we just imagine? Well, as we're multiple human beings with different basic beliefs, it varies. And every country, every state has a different notion and interpretation of the social contract. I can tell that some countries have adopted those notions into the Declaration of Independence, such as France and the US. Yes. My name is Sheru and back to the idea of coercion. I would say that a society that allows the majority of the poor to go without basic necessities would in fact be coercive because it would be inducing poverty. So there is coercion in allowing poverty and desperate economic necessity to persist. There's coercion in that. Yes. If people live lives that are under the shadow, under the burden. Yes, and this stems from a lack of... Yes. Then they're coerced. In what sense are they coerced? I would say that this stems from a lack of equal opportunity because I believe that when we talk about the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that doesn't really, that is only in an equal society. And if we aren't all born into equal means and equal opportunity, then there will be no pursuit of happiness for some. Yes, what do you say? Hi. I personally kind of agree. My name's John. I believe that a society that does not provide for the poorest part of the population is essentially... I mean, there's a lot of coercion going on in the society that we don't think about. There's the property rights. If I go into your garden and you call the police on me, they will coerce me out of the garden because you have the right to that house. The society is a massive entity that has stuff you give and stuff you take back to the social contract. And I just feel people just too easily bind to this argument that the people who get entitlements are the people who don't work. That, I mean, you have so many injustices that have accumulated over the years. The redistribution makes sense on... Sorry, I'm just rambling. You're passionate at it sounds. I do think there is a lot of coercion in the society, even just basically with property rights. If we are enforcing that, we should give back to people. If it's a give or take. So you say, you agree with the suggestion earlier that there is coercion built into society and people who are sick and can't get healthcare are effectively coerced. The people who are poor and can't send their children to get an education are coerced. They're not living free lives. Is that what you're suggesting, John? If they are trapped in poverty, if they cannot find a way out, if you're not giving them the opportunity to educate themselves, if you're not giving them the chance to be because sickness is random, it can happen to anyone. You can do dumb things, you can increase the risks, but sickness is random. And if it can happen to anyone, when it happens to the poor and when you don't give them the chance to get decent medical treatment, you essentially give them a disadvantage. And so you coerce them into staying down and just keeping them down. Keeping them down and therefore people who are ill and can't get healthcare lack the opportunity to rise. People who don't have enough to eat and aren't provided for lack genuine equality of opportunity and likewise with education and welfare, you would say. And what's interesting here is that on both sides of this argument about healthcare and for that matter about the welfare state, the value being appealed to, as I hear the discussion, is the same value. There are different versions of it, but the value at stake seems to be freedom as against coercion. There's a disagreement about what counts as coercion. The libertarian voices that argue against an entitlement to healthcare say that taxing people to pay for other people's healthcare is coercing them. The defenders of a right to healthcare also invoke the freedom coercion idea and they say people who lack the basic necessities of life including healthcare are not truly free but are in effect coerced. I wanna see if there are any other arguments in favor of a right to healthcare in favor of the idea that the members of a society owe one another good healthcare and welfare that does not rely on the idea of freedom or its opposite coercion. Is there anyone who has an argument in favor of healthcare that draws on other values? Yes. Good night, my name is Juan Pablo. I'm from Colombia and I'm sorry if I will be emotional but this is a topic that involves a lot of feelings and more if I'm coming from a very poor country with what you are talking about and I'm really surprised that actually there are some people that could question that statement that you firstly appointed. You're surprised that some people are against a right to healthcare. Yeah, exactly. I'm like very, very surprised. And why do you think it should go without saying that there is a right to healthcare? What would be your reason? Well, I don't believe that any people in any person should be not able to access to healthcare. I will, it seems like the people who are in favor of not having a healthcare they don't see what is going on around. I will invite them to go to Colombia and see these people, they don't have anything. And but I think that you can go like some corners and you will see homeless people that need some help. And it could be just a thing of human rights. You see it as a fundamental human rights. It's a fundamental human rights. Let's see what others have to say. Yes. My name is Ben. In the United States, many of us believe that public education, especially for children is a very important foundation for a thriving democracy that one cannot effectively participate in democracy without an adequate education. I would extend that and say without an adequate healthcare system, our democracy cannot thrive. I think that there's also a national security basis for that. In an age of being interconnected in a global world in an age of pandemics and other mass diseases that affect public health, we cannot allow people to go untreated. If one person is suffering, not only is that an injustice for that individual, but it also endangers the general health of a society and a global wellbeing. Let me ask you about your argument from democracy. Why does democracy require that everyone in the society be provided healthcare and education? So democracy, one of the assumptions that I think the founding fathers in the United States discussed, Thomas Jefferson and so forth, argued that we need informed, knowledgeable people. If we have people that are misinformed or uninformed that are participating in a deliberative decision making process, the deliberations will not be informative. So we have to have a basis of common standards. People have to understand that two plus two equals four, et cetera. And I would argue that if you're not adequately healthy, you cannot engage in that deliberative process. If you're too sick to participate in a political process, democracy suffers. What do you say? Say it again. I'm Joyce. And I can understand that people think, look at the person who's sick and wants the person to get well. And I'm not, I don't have a lot of information about healthcare, but I have about housing and the government involvement in housing in my business ended my business. I bought a piece of property, I lived there. I was so completely harassed by HUD. People, I could no longer, in a year and a half I had to sell the property. People paid twice, two extra months rent because of HUD's involvement. So you think that government regulation is a precedent. And I don't want the government involved with healthcare, it's too important. And I cannot imagine that the government, in fact I worked for the government and I was a warranted contracting officer. I know what goes on in a government office. It seems like a good thing. I think there are a lot of social programs that start out with a good intention. But when you let the government do it, it really doesn't work. Let me ask you this, Joyce. And the amount of money he spent. Let me ask you this, Joyce. The Medicare is a program in the United States providing government funded healthcare for people who have retired, people 65 and older. And this has been in place since the 1960s. Do you think government should get out of Medicare? Should the US drop the Medicare program? The Medicare program I honestly just don't know about. But to start having all the healthcare in the country and having people dependent more and more on the government which really, really doesn't work. I think the intention might be good but I think the results will be awful. Thank you, yes. Say it again. Alex? I'd like to start with the issue of coercion that was going around and I think I can end at a different note. I think most people are talking about with regards to coercion, the notion of forcing unwilling taxpayers against their will to provide healthcare for people who are in need. And I think it's been mentioned a couple times in this room so far and I think it kind of gets to the root of the logic behind that way of looking at it is people describe it as people taking my money and giving it to somebody else. That idea of some other citizen. You've got to repeat that but start again with the microphone closer to your mouth. Okay. Just the last two sentences. I think people have mentioned the notion of being coerced into giving their money to somebody else and I think that notion kind of goes against a very kind of core value in the American culture of citizenship. It's not somebody else who's receiving your money. It's a fellow citizen of America who's receiving your money and I think by looking at other citizens as some other entity who's not really part of a more perfect union with you. Although that is, it's very a matter of opinion but I think that kind of gets to the core of why there's that different view and we talked about the government's responsibility in defending basic human rights and the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and I think the question there is is whether or not they're responsible for merely providing the potential for those three rights or if they're responsibility for helping with the maintenance thereof. All right, let me ask you a question and tell me your name. Alex. Alex. You say that the case, Alex, for healthcare, government supported healthcare or welfare is not really a matter of asking taxpayers to pay for somebody else's needs, health or welfare or housing. Correct. It's asking people to support their fellow citizens so it's not really someone else. Correct. Now can you explain, because you've heard there are critics here of this idea So I've heard, yeah. Who do consider that taxing some to provide healthcare for others is a violation of the rights of those who are taxed. Why should we, and by we I assume you mean the citizens of a country, why should we not regard our fellow citizens as somebody else, but instead as people for whom we're responsible? Well I think it goes back to the declaration of independence and that notion of forming a more perfect union which is capable of ensuring the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of all of those who are a member of the union. Well let's take, let's put aside the declaration of independence. The language of forming a more perfect union actually is from the preamble to the US Constitution. So Alex you've introduced the idea of forming a more perfect union where we don't regard our fellow citizens as somebody else but as it's part of us, is that the idea? Correct and I think people might underestimate how dependent we're all on each other with regards to maintaining our own personal rights and I think by assuming that one is capable of maintaining those rights solely on their own as an individual without the help of that greater union it's questionable. It sounds like, it sounds almost like the idea, your idea of citizenship almost sounds like the idea of a family if I'm looking after, if I provide healthcare for my son or daughter or a family member that doesn't feel like paying for somebody else's healthcare. Do you think that citizenship is kind of like being a member of a family, is that what you're suggesting? I think it can be considered like that and it can be considered otherwise and in that respect there's truly no right or wrong answer. And what do you do Alex if people say, I don't feel as though I'm connected in some deep way to people who live 2,000 miles away from me, whom I've never met, even though they are fellow Americans. What would you say to them? I would say they underestimate their dependency on the welfare of each and every citizen in this country in order to sustain their own personal rights. I think there's more mutual dependency than they might think. So shared identity has something to do with mutual dependency. Correct. And that provides an idea of commonality that you think argues for the obligation to provide everyone with healthcare and welfare and maybe education. Correct. What do you say? My name is Skyler and I would like to argue that the utility associated for all of us with providing universal healthcare is significant. I think that the quality of my life depends on the quality of everyone else's. So if we provide preventative care now, then the cost of expensive treatments down the line will be lower. And if we provide care to everyone, I won't be exposed to contagious diseases as much. So I think that universal healthcare is a matter of increasing the common good of the entire society. And you say Skyler, it's a matter of increasing the common good because it will promote public health, it'll prevent epidemics, that sort of thing? Exactly. And what do you think about Alex's suggestion that the common good requires that members of a political community see themselves as being responsible for one another? Do you agree or disagree with that idea? I think you can even be more selfish about it if you need to be. It's not about feeling some sort of kinship with the people around you, very simply by providing this care, it will increase your own utility and help you to live a healthier existence. Are you happy with that, Alex? Well, I think sometimes when you justify it, even on that selfish level, you get bogged down in the numbers and the details. And I think the most solid argument that you could make for it is just truly in that ideological context of the common good. I think when you start estimating how much your own livelihood will be benefited by your specific dollar donations to the common good, I think you'll be very hard pressed to come up with a solid piece of palpable gain, at least in this lifetime, but I think it just comes down to that ideological difference of that. All right, so we've actually heard three different arguments in favor of taxpayer-supported healthcare of one kind or another. I should mention that Obamacare is not a single payer system. It doesn't create national health services in the UK. What it does is it leaves the private insurance companies in place. It requires those companies to accept everyone who wants to apply for healthcare, regardless of pre-existing conditions. And in return, it tells the health insurance companies, you'll get a lot more customers because we are also going to require that everyone must carry health insurance, must buy health insurance of one kind or another. But I've heard here three different arguments in favor of government-supported healthcare. One argument is a practical argument. It's a public health argument that costs will be lower and the public health will be higher if everybody's covered. That's an argument which doesn't require any strong moral claims about the common good or anything of the kind. It's a practical argument. The second argument is in the name of individual freedom and individual opportunity. It's the idea that if people are burdened with illness or the risk of falling ill without the ability to pay, then they're not really free. They're not really free to choose their own way of life for themselves. This, you might call it, is the freedom argument is a reply to the libertarian argument about coercion. And so we have a disagreement about what respecting freedom consists in. The libertarians say the taxpayer is coerced if they have to pay for healthcare for everyone. The defender of healthcare who makes the freedom argument says, no, but people who live under the shadow of illness where they can't get healthcare, they're not truly free. And then there's a third argument beyond the practical argument and the freedom argument. There's an argument in the name of the common good. It's the argument suggested by Alex that says taxing some to provide healthcare for other people is the wrong way of putting it. What really is involved is we're in this together. We share a common life and mutual responsibilities for one another. So it's not really a matter of paying for somebody else's healthcare. It's a matter of recognizing a mutual obligation of citizens to look after one another for the sake of the common good. Now one of the arguments that is still unresolved is an argument that has to do with the idea of redistribution. We've heard the idea of redistribution debated between President Obama and Governor Romney. And so I'd like to put another question to this audience. Is taxation for redistribution morally legitimate? Those who succeed in a market economy, some say are entitled to their earnings and so it's wrong to redistribute a portion of their earnings to the less successful. We've discussed this to some extent in our healthcare debate just now, but let's look more generally at the idea of taxation for the sake of redistribution. And let's see what people here think. Let's imagine some people who are very successful indeed, who've made a lot of money, who would come to mind. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook, or maybe a famous sports star, like Wayne Rooney. You haven't heard of Wayne Rooney? How many here, so that the BBC Radio 4 audience can hear how many people at Harvard have heard of Wayne Rooney, applaud if you have. And those who haven't, you applaud now. All right, so it sounds to me like the majority haven't heard of him. Well, he's a famous, well, we would say here, soccer player, football player in the UK. Makes huge amounts of money, but you can think instead if you like of Michael Jordan. All right, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Jordan, they're very successful. They make a lot of money. Now, let's see what people think about the moral status of those earnings. How many would agree with the following statement? Those who succeed in a market economy are entitled to their earnings, and so it's wrong to redistribute a portion of their earnings to those who are less successful. How many agree with that? Raise your hands. And how many disagree? All right, let's first hear from those who disagree. Why do you disagree? Why isn't morally legitimate for the state to redistribute some of the earnings of those who are successful to those who are less successful? Yes. My name is Alexander, so I have three arguments to bring up for this evening. Three arguments? Yes. You're well armed here. So first I would go back to John Locke and his concepts of government and say that when he defined government, he said that when people join a certain government and they stay within its jurisdiction, they voluntarily relinquish some of their right to property, and they allow this government to do whatever it deems necessary with that part. So... All right, well let me stop you on that one, Alexander. You're bringing up the idea, John Locke's idea, of the social contract. Earlier we had some discussion of the social contract, and your idea is that since we all entered into a social contract, somehow or other, part of that contract was to let the government tax some, the successful, to help the less successful, is that the idea? Yes. And Alexander, when did we enter into the social contract, exactly? Well, some people might bring the counter argument that we were essentially forced by birth. But wait, wait, wait, wait, back, before we get to counter arguments, when did we enter? When did you enter into the social contract? Did you ever sign it? Well, I didn't sign it, but I was born under a certain jurisdiction, and if I stay there, I tacitly agree with what it does. So, with the government that operates that jurisdiction. So... Whatever they do, you tacitly agree with? Well, so long as I don't do anything against that government, I agree with it. Does that mean you agree with all of the policies of the government? Well, not necessarily with each and every single one of them, but if I agree with the majority of the policies, and I agree with the basic idea of the government. So, Alexander, you would say, though you didn't actually sign a social contract, the fact that you haven't picked up and left gives tacit agreement to the basic system of law that prevails in the country where you live? Yes. All right, so, and that that is enough to justify taxing the successful to help the less advantaged? Well, I would say so. All right, and you had another argument, what's that? I was going to refer back to the idea of economic equitability and that, as long as some people make a certain sacrifice and as long as they work as hard as they can, they deserve to get something in return. And if this involves taxation, then it is all right, because in addition to efficiency, we also have to ensure equitability and taxation is one of these ways which government can use. All right, but we're trying to get at the question whether government should promote equality at all. Equality of income or wealth or condition. You think the government should, why? Well, yes, I believe that the government should because a big portion of how we take advantage of our opportunities and equal opportunities is luck and luck doesn't favor everyone. And if two people work as hard, it doesn't necessarily mean that they will reach the same point because of the luck factor. So the fact that two people have worked as hard as they can and one had the benefit of the luck doesn't mean that the other person should not get at least as much as he deserves for the hard work. All right, so you're invoking luck, Alexander. So when we look at successful people like Bill Gates or Wayne Rooney or Michael Jordan, you're saying that part of their great success is due to luck and therefore they don't deserve it to keep it all? Not necessarily, but... What's the luck involved? What's the luck? They had the benefit of luck. The way everything happened in their case could have happened the same way in someone else's case if luck was on his side, but it didn't. So I do believe that essentially they all some part of their... People face trade-offs and one trade-off for getting that much luck is probably giving a little bit of your income to society. All right, thanks. So the idea of luck, yes. What do you think? Hi, my name's Alana and I just wanna say that terming it redistribution for taxation purposes, it's a red herring term and frankly irrelevant. Warren Buffett, he drives on roads that are funded by the government. He pumps his car with gas that is funded by the government indirectly through government support for the oil industry. Warren Buffett everywhere he turns is benefiting from giving his tax money to the government. So it's a simple matter of he's not entitled to hold on to his earnings because he's benefiting from what the government is doing with everyone's taxed earnings, period. Who has a reply? My name is Bettina. I have here in my hand an iPhone and I have a pen that says Google on it. Both these companies have benefited our lives immeasurably. How many of us have made a Google search today? How many of us used our iPhone or our smartphone to get here? That is worth so much more than the money that Steve Jobs or whomever Bill Gates has made in their lives. Sorry, it's Alana again. I want to say that proves my point because the companies she knows have benefited immeasurably from government support indirectly, but yes. How so? Who forced me to buy an iPhone? Google gets tax breaks. Hi, my name is Ann and I would argue that each of us are given so many opportunities. I myself in getting here to where I am studying. So many people were involved in my education ensuring that my health and welfare were taken care of in making sure that the roads were paved so that the school bus could take me to school from South Central Los Angeles. To ensure from even scholarships from Bill Gates and Warren Christopher to ensure that I could learn more about energy and whatever else happened to be of interest to me to pursue a bigger public good. And beyond that, there's so many other public goods that happen to benefit. It takes a village, right? They say, to raise a child. Well, it also takes a village to maintain that child in wherever he or she may be. Even Bill Gates, the roads that he drives on like people were saying earlier, are maintained by us. But roads, let's take the example of roads which come up again and again. In fact, it was one of the examples that President Obama used when he said, you didn't build it. I imagine that a libertarian would say, all right, we can pay for roads. There is such a thing after all as a toll road. We can support it through user fees. So everyone who uses a road pays for it by paying a toll. Put roads aside. Why are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Michael Jordan and successful people? For that matter, why are we, and indebted, to other people or our fellow citizens who may have had nothing to do with themselves with the roads we ride on? Why are we indebted to them such that the successful should have some of their resources transferred to help with the less successful? Because their wealth shouldn't be a measure of their potential. Everybody's health or each and every person who has touched their lives has helped them get to where they are. But that shouldn't mean that those people who have been of support in some sort of way should not also reap in some sort of way the benefits, whether they be financial or otherwise from their success. All right, so we have two arguments so far that I've heard for redistribution and it's emphasizing a kind of general indebtedness to society at large. Roads are sometimes the symbol of that. Important teachers along the way, another symbol which President Obama referred to and he said you didn't build that. So there's the indebtedness argument and there's the luck argument we heard earlier that those who are successful aren't wholly responsible for their success but they enjoy a lot of luck along the way. So we have the argument from indebtedness, the argument from luck. Are there any other arguments and then we'll let the libertarians in the room reply. Any other arguments in favor of redistribution? Yes. My name is Peter. I would look back to the economic coercion argument that we were looking at before and say that when the government is redistributing wealth, it's not just saying that group A is paying for the welfare permanently of group C. It's saying the government is providing a guarantee of everyone that you're gonna have a minimum standard of living. So if you lose your job, you're not going to starve to death. So it's not saying that Michael Jordan will always pay for people in the lower income to not be poor. It's saying that if Michael Jordan were poor, he would also be provided with that standard. Now obviously it's very unlikely that Michael Jordan is really gonna be in danger of starvation in the near future. But we also don't say that people who live in areas that have low crime rates don't have to pay for the police because they're not using that service. We're saying that there's a benefit that's provided to everyone in the society, not just a given group in the society by the government and therefore everyone should pay for that because they are potential beneficiaries of it. Because I might need those services if I fall on hard times. Yes. But why can't I take out a private insurance policy? That's the same idea that people have a right to those services. Just as you could hire someone to protect you from crime rather than having to pay for everyone to have the police. But we say that everybody has a right to not have certain harms inflicted upon them. Yes. My name is Dave. I'm not a libertarian. I am not happy at being painted with a brush that painted Ron Paul. I'm an originalist for the Constitution and I believe an individual initiative and I think that it was wrong to take the argument away from my sister here and counter it with species arguments on behalf of redistribution. The sovereignty of the individual is at the foundation of the Constitution. And I believe the argument that people who are taking initiative in the society are providing a benefit way beyond the measure of their private results from that enterprise is an argument fully compatible with what this young man said. And we need not pose specious, contrary arguments against the Constitution. Yes. What would you say? Yes. In addition, I would also like to argue. Tell us your name. Oh, I apologize. My name's Nicole. I'm coming from a purely libertarian standpoint. I would like to argue against this idea that we have entitlements to help out those who generally help out society, to those who have benefited society. As I would argue that their efforts have already been benefited through their income or through, if they did build roads, they were paid for that. They didn't do it out of the goodness of their heart. If they were teachers, they received pretty good benefits from the government. Of course, not a good enough salary, but nonetheless, they were paid back as we as a society deem necessary. If we think that those people should deserve more money than, say, Michael Jordan or the other famous individuals, then we should, as a society, also focus on gifting or redistributing our money that way by paying them more, rather than by taxing me and giving them away the money. All right. So, Nicole, you're really offering a reply to the indebtedness argument. You're saying it's true everyone uses the roads, but the people who built the roads were paid. It's true that people rise thanks to the wonderful teachers they had, but those teachers were paid. They weren't working for free, so those debts, if I hear you right, those debts you're saying have been paid through the price system, through the market, through the compensation that these helpers have already received. So what else is there to the idea of a continuing, a persisting debt to society? Do I hear you right, Nicole? Yes, I think that this idea that there's- Say it, I'm sorry. So do I hear you right? Yes, I do totally believe that. I think the only other argument that you could say to the indebtedness is that there's this concept of luck, but I don't think that just because Michael Jordan was lucky enough to be born tall means that he's suddenly indebted to every other individual who gives their money with consent to pay for their tickets. I don't think that because he's lucky to have that ability requires that he give away his money. Oh, all right, now you're addressing the luck argument. All right, and let me see if I understand your reply to the luck argument. You're saying, yes, Michael Jordan is lucky to be a gifted basketball player. Sure, he worked hard, but I could work equally hard and never be as good a basketball player. So yes, there is some luck, but that fact you're suggesting does not give society as a whole a claim on his earnings. Yes, because if we allow, I think that if we allow a claim on his earnings, then that leads to a very slippery slope in which if we say that we have a claim to the fruits of his labors, which we would be if we're taxing his earnings from his income, then we are also saying that we have a claim over his body and his work, which I don't necessarily think that a lot of people would be able to make that claim. And I think that's important. All right, let me ask you this, Nicola. It's a powerful argument. Would you say, though, that the luck argument, which you concede about Michael Jordan's talents, let's say, doesn't that undermine the idea that he morally deserves to keep all of the money he makes playing basketball very, very well? I don't think it undermines it. I think it's almost a corollary. Yes, he was lucky, but I don't think that that means that he's suddenly morally obligated to give this up. Okay, thank you for that. Yes, what do you say? Hi, my name is Guido. I was wondering if you could also see healthcare as an investment. Just imagine a taxi driver in New York. He's just a new citizen. He's trying to make his money and he breaks his arm. Would it be a better investment to give him some healthcare so he can fix his arm, drive his car again, and contribute to society? Or would you rather have no healthcare and maybe you'll go down be somebody annoying on the street asking for money all the time? What would you rather have? So I'd rather see it as an investment healthcare. Yes, and that's an argument for universal healthcare. It's an argument definitely for basic universal healthcare. Yes, what do you say? My name is Kevin and I'd like to pose a question to those who believe that there should be no redistribution. And the question is, given that we live in a society that is highly unequal and one in which if you're born poor, you're very, very likely to live your entire life poor, what's the moral justification for a society in which so many are so poor and so persistently poor? All right, stay there. How would you like to reply? It's Aaron. Yeah, this is Aaron. How you all doing? All right, speak directly to, is it Peter? Kevin. Speak directly to Kevin. Kevin, it's pretty simple. I do not want to be forced to give money that I've earned. And I wanna address a really important point. Okay, this is fundamental to the principle that the country's founded on. Freedom and protection of specific rights, mainly the right to property, is critical for people, it's important for people in order to pursue happiness and to maximize their happiness. If I work for money, which I go out to buy food, if you take the money from me, then I have less money for food. Therefore, it's harder for me to survive. I might have to work twice as hard or get three jobs to make up for that. So forget the basic rights. You could always debate about what's basic, what's basic for survival. It's a gray area. People should be able to keep everything they earn to maximize their happiness. If I wanna buy 50 flying saucers, flying cars, if I wanna buy trips to space on these new spaceships, I should be able to do that to maximize my happiness. And no one should be able to take any of that from me. All right, does that address your point, Kevin? No, in fact, it doesn't address my point. My question was, what is the, so we have a system, so we have a system which is enforced by our state, which allows for a great deal of inequality. And so the burden of justification in this conversation has fallen upon redistribution. But if we turn that question around and ask, what is the moral justification for a system that allows for such inequality? I don't understand that question. Can you rephrase that? Well, let me- Do you also wanna speak on that? All right, well, I'll give it a try. Yeah, please. Aaron, do you think that there's anything wrong with the inequality that worries Kevin? Anything wrong with what inequality? The inequality of income and wealth that's quite pronounced in many societies, and especially this one. Is there anything wrong with that? Okay, so is there anything wrong with the fact that I have less money than you probably do? Is that what you're saying? Is there anything wrong with the fact that the, that the top 1%, that the top 1% in the United States own more wealth than the bottom 90% put together? I don't see anything wrong with that, no. But Kevin, you do. Yes. Why? I think it returns to the issue of what constitutes a free society. A free society. Absolutely. And why does it make the society less free if there are inequalities of income and wealth? Because I think that it's absolutely clear that without some basic equality, the rights that you have legally cannot be exercised and enjoyed in a way that are consistent with the values which I think in this room we all share, which are a participatory democracy. Yes. Hi, my name's David. I think what we're wrestling with, to some degree, are some basic fundamental questions about how we wanna live in a society, right? And some of the basic ideas that I've certainly grown up feeling as being a member of this country and society is there should be, at a bare minimum, some kind of equality around opportunity, right? So that feels very real to me of equality of opportunity. We don't all need to have the same amount of money, but there should be some basic equality of opportunity. And to achieve that, you will need to pay for it. So we're not talking about whether someone takes money away or not. You're a hard-earned money away. We're talking about how much. And the second piece of that is there's a basic principle here that those who have more have a greater ability to give more. So we're not saying, you made it, it's mine, I'm taking it away. We're saying we all need to pay in to some degree. There should be a quality of opportunity in that those who have more are able to give more. And some would go much further, such as Warren Buffett and others, who are saying they have a right and a moral duty to give more. All right, I can see there are a lot of hands up. People are eager to get into this discussion, but I wanna step back from the discussions that we've had on healthcare and on taxation for redistribution. And notice a couple of things about the arguments that we've had. What we've really been having is not only a debate about who built it, but also a debate about the moral legitimacy of the welfare state. Now the shape of that debate, the underlying philosophical ideas animating it, are different in the US than they are in many European countries. And they're different in ways that I think have been brought out in this discussion. Notice how much of the debate we've just had has focused on competing conceptions of freedom and coercion. Those who oppose universal healthcare paid by the government, and those who oppose taxation for redistribution, argue not only that it will disrupt incentives, they make a moral argument that that kind of redistribution is at odds with freedom. It's a form of coercion. It's forcibly taking from some their hard-won earnings, and giving those earnings to someone else. And that's coercion. Those who defend a right to healthcare, who support redistribution, disagree in large part by disagreeing with that idea of freedom and coercion. They invoke a rival notion of freedom. They say we're only free as persons and as citizens if we're not burdened by illness when we can't get healthcare, or poverty, or lack of education. We're not really free if we lack equality of opportunity to learn and prepare and train to compete effectively in the marketplace. And so much of this debate has been about competing ideas of freedom and coercion. This is a different debate from the one that goes on in much of the world about taxation and redistribution in the welfare state. There was a second kind of consideration that came up around the edges, having to do with the common good. One of the arguments we heard for the welfare state or for a right to healthcare is that it's not really paying for somebody else's healthcare or support or welfare. It's really a way of recognizing the mutual obligations we have to our fellow citizens. It's an expression of what we share. It's required in the name of the common good. The freedom argument and the argument in the name of the common good. If you look at the history of the American welfare state and the history of American liberalism, one of the striking things is that for the most part the advances in the American welfare state have been made by liberals. This goes all the way back to Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s in the New Deal in the name of the freedom argument because this idea of individual freedom and equal opportunity and the right to pursue our own destiny and vision of the good life, this runs very deep in American public life. So much so that the first and the sturdiest instrument of the American welfare state, the social security system was enacted by Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, not in the name of the common good, not in the name of the mutual responsibilities of citizens for one another, but it was designed to resemble a private insurance scheme. Everyone would be required to have a certain amount of their paycheck withheld to support, it was said, their retirement in dignity. Now in practice, the US social security system does have an element of redistribution built into it, but FDR said at the time, we made it based on payroll contributions, not the income tax, so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, FDR said no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Now, his program has persisted. It's one of the most fixed features of the American welfare state, and it's interesting to remember that its moral basis was an individualistic one. It wasn't about taking responsibility for everybody's old age and retirement. And we saw something similar with the next phase of the American welfare state. In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson's great society program, when Medicare, the health insurance program, government-sponsored health insurance for retirees, was enacted, his war on poverty, but here's how Lyndon Johnson defended it. He said, we have diligently worked from social security to the war on poverty to enlarge the freedom of man. This was in 1964 in his great campaign debate with Barry Goldwater, a libertarian. And as a result, Lyndon Johnson said, Americans tonight are freer to live as they want to live, to pursue their ambitions, to meet their desires that at any time in all of our glorious history. So in many ways, American liberalism in the case, the liberal case for the welfare state has taken its shape in the encounter with libertarian ideas and has based itself largely on the individualist idea of freedom that says, as FDR once said, necessitous man are not free men. Now this may seem strange to Europeans who draw typically for their welfare states on stronger notions of social solidarity and the common good. In America it seems we conduct these debates differently. And so this brings us back to those two quotations from the presidential candidates from Obama and Romney with which we began. You didn't build it, said President Obama. And what he seemed to be invoking was the idea of indebtedness and maybe also luck. You relied for your success on all sorts of help that may not be visible, but that matter morally. And then Governor Romney says, redistribution is not the American way. We don't take from the successful and give to the unsuccessful. That's not the way we do it. Governor Romney says in America. Now in many ways, what you didn't build it really means, I think is this, if you're successful, recognize your luck, recognize your indebtedness and don't inhale too deeply of your success. It's not only your own doing in the thoroughgoing way that you might think. I think that's the message of you didn't build it. Many people here have suggested that there is considerable moral force in that argument. And yet it's worth asking a question if we step back from this. It's worth asking a question if we step back from this debate and ask, is that a persuasive argument? Is that an adequate argument? Is that an adequate argument for the welfare state? To say that freedom, individual freedom and equality of opportunity require it. And does American liberalism pay a price by not articulating and embracing more fully than it does? Other moral ideas drawn from traditions of social solidarity in the common good. Other arguments drawn from social solidarity in the common good. I want to thank the audience here at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. And I also want to thank the audience on BBC Radio 4. Please join me next week in Dallas, Texas where we'll be debating the vexed issue of immigration and asking how far should an open society go in accepting outsiders. And shall I do the second? And I also have to give you thanks in another way. Thanks to the audience here at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. And thanks to our audience on BBC Radio 4 for listening to this second and final debate in the American edition of our series, The Public Philosopher. Thank you all very much. It's okay to cough now. You can all cough. I'm sorry about this, but if you could just all hold on for just a few minutes, we're going to have to ask you to wait around for a little bit. But on the plus side, you'll get to see some of the magic of radio because you're gonna see that we're gonna do a few retakes. So just hold on and bear with us for a minute and we'll be back with you in about a minute's time. You talk amongst yourselves. We're coercing you to say, we're not coercing you to say sorry. It was really, really good. So very good. What do you mind doing?