I finished Economics in One Lesson last night. It’s justly called a classic; Hazlitt uses simple examples that don’t need actual statistics to prove their point. In fact, statistics can show only correlation, not causal connection; Hazlitt, instead, shows why government intervention must lead to consequences beyond what the brains behind it intended (that is, if we give them credit for making honest mistakes rather than willfully proceeding with their plans in the knowledge that some pressure groups will be temporarily benefited at the expense of others).

However, I won’t be using “Talk to me after you’ve read Economics in One Lesson” as ammunition when I argue with liberals about health care. Here’s why.

The “one lesson” that Hazlitt teaches over and over again, through numerous examples in different contexts, from inflation to minimum wage laws to price fixing, is that all the consequences of a given intervention need to be considered. A government intervention is usually meant to benefit one group of people in the short term, but inevitably, such interventions have negative effects on other groups, and will look different over the long term than the short. So, to paraphrase one of his examples, if the government places a tariff on foreign-made sweaters, American sweater makers will temporarily benefit because they can stay in business despite not being as efficient (and therefore able to profitably charge a lower price) as their foreign competitors. But the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker will be worse off, because consumers who buy a sweater will have less money to spend on beef, cupcakes, and candles, to name just one bad consequence (there are many others).

Hazlitt is great at making this point, and showing that artificially propping up one industry or artificially increasing that industry’s demand, necessarily hurts other industries. It’s hard to argue with such simply presented cases as his — at least, I think it is.

The problem is that, with most liberals I know, Hazlitt’s argument wouldn’t matter — because it fails to make a moral case. “Yes,” I can see friends of mine* saying, “it’s true that getting the government into health care would cause an increased demand for health care providers and products. And that demand would lead to less consumption in other industries, because taxing the wealthy or making people who don’t have insurance buy it would mean they have less to spend on other things. But how is that a bad thing? People need health care. They don’t need diamonds or SUVs or steakhouse dinners. I don’t see a problem with taking money from luxury industries to pay for necessities.”

That’s why the practical argument against government intervention in health care must be accompanied by a moral argument. Not only will further government intervention in health care not work, it is wrong on principle because health care is not a right. We need to have the courage to say that Grandma’s brain cancer does not mean Paris Hilton has to give up one of her Balenciagas; the homeless man on the street does not have a right to the profits of the coffee shop around the corner to pay for his HIV medications; a child with spina bifida does not have the right to expensive treatments at the price of his next-door neighbor’s not having a bicycle. It is perfectly all right for sympathetic people to help out in such situations through private charity — but it is not the right of the poor and the sick to take from the healthy and wealthy.

Hazlitt’s arguments are excellent, but they are not enough. We need, too, the ideas of Ayn Rand.

* Yes, I do have liberal friends — lots of them — but boy, does it drive me crazy talking politics with them!

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