One of the most amusing arguments in the repertoire of the anti-automobile zealots is the “Obesity Argument.” You know how it goes: we should build more bike lanes, force higher urban densities, build narrower, “traffic-calmed” streets, increase fuel taxes for auto users, etc., in order to compel people to walk and bicycle more. Obesity is, after all, a major health risk, contributing to heart disease, diabetes, and other ailments.

One might wonder, of course, how and why the risks individuals choose to take with their health should fall under the purview of public policy wonks and government bureaucrats. I suppose that occurred somewhere in the wake of the government’s anti-smoking crusade, beginning in the 60s. Indeed, I recall warnings at the time that the precedent would quickly lead to further government intrusions into personal lifestyle choices — predictions we now see coming true.

The standard rationale for these invasions of privacy is that unhealthy lifestyles impose cost burdens on the rest of us, who will probably end up footing the bill for the resulting illnesses, either via higher taxes or higher health insurance premiums.

Alas, that is very likely true — because already the government has not only taken upon itself the role of health care sugar daddy for everyone who has opted not to obtain private insurance, but in several states now also fordids private insurers to take health risks and history into account when setting premiums (“community ratings”). So the government intrudes where it has no business in order to control costs of previous excursions into areas where it had no business.

It is important to keep in mind, though, that the cost rationale is just that — a rationale. The real driver is the insatiable appetite of politicians, bureaucrats, and government planners for power combined with the equally insistent demands of many voters for a free lunch. So they make a deal — voters confer more power on the pols and apparatchiks in exchange for more free lunches.

As Ludwig von Mises put it,

“[The planners] are driven by the dictatorial complex. They want to deal with their fellow men in the way an engineer deals with the materials out of which he builds houses, bridges, and machines. They want to substitute “social engineering” for the actions of their fellow citizens and their own unique all-comprehensive plan for the plans of all other people. They see themselves in the role of the dictator–—the duce, the Führer, the production tsar–—in whose hands all other specimens of mankind are merely pawns. If they refer to society as an acting agent, they mean themselves. If they say that conscious action of society is to be substituted for the prevailing anarchy of individualism, they mean their own consciousness alone and not that of anybody else” (The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science).

Or Jane Jacobs,

“[Ebenezer Howard’s] aim was the creation of self-sufficient small towns, really very nice towns if you were docile and had no plans of your own and did not mind spending your life among others with no plans of their own. As in all Utopias, the right to have plans of any significance belonged only to the planners in charge” (The Death and Life of Great American Cities, p. 17).

So naturally your waistline will fall under the scrutiny of Big Brother. Everything does.

Tags: individual freedom, Transportation, Urban Planning

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Transportation, Urban Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.