Home › Forums › Politics › Another glorious nonsensical back and forth between Health and Ubiquitin › Reply To: Another glorious nonsensical back and forth between Health and Ubiquitin
Ubitiquin,
1. The point is that socialism destroys medical care just as it destroys everything else. In every country (including Israel) that junked it the economy soared. Just to give one example here, when the phone company was part of the Ministry of Communications it literally took years to get a line. Privatization knocked it down to a couple of weeks and in the main cities even less.
2. The Torah definitely does support capitalism, that is to say, private ownership of the means of production (thus workers’ cooperatives are also a form of capitalism). The ideal of the messianic age is
…וְכִתְּתוּ חַרְבֹתֵיהֶם לְאִתִּים וַחֲנִיתֹתֵיהֶם לְמַזְמֵרוֹת לֹא יִשְׂאוּ גּוֹי אֶל גּוֹי חֶרֶב וְלֹא יִלְמְדוּן עוֹד מִלְחָמָה. וְיָשְׁבוּ אִישׁ תַּחַת גַּפְנוֹ וְתַחַת תְּאֵנָתוֹ וְאֵין מַחֲרִיד כִּי פִי ה’ צְבָאוֹת דִּבֵּר (Micha 4,3-4).
In fact, according to Halacha (unlike, lehavdil, secular law) an employee may waive rights that accrue to him by force of custom. The government in enjoined not to overtax (Nehemia 5:15, Midrash HaGadol Shemot 21 Introduction to parasha, Ple Yoetz “tikkun”, Rav S.R. Hirsch “Horev” 95:604). Some poskim have even ruled that rent control is not binding as dina d’malchuta as it is robbery of property owners enacted by people influenced by communism and socialism (Responsa Havetzelet HaSharon 2 CM 8 d”h v’nira d’harav miTarana and Responsa Maharshag 3, 125). Even those halachot that protect employees can be seen as property protections – the employee has a proprietary interest in his job.