Lab Liberty

Hello! Welcome to labliberty.com. Enjoy our student political writings made voluntarily

  • ANALYSIS: Eileen Burke State’s Attorney Election

    by Oliver Wilson
    Apr. 8, 2024

    Eileen Burke recently won the primary race for State’s attorney in Illinois on March 29th against her opponent Clayton Harris. This win was not necessarily a surprise, but holds very large implications as to where the minds of Chicago and Illinois voters are, especially concerning crime and punishment.

    Eileen Burke will likely replace the incumbent Kim Fox, another Democrat State’s attorney finishing a second term. Eileen Burke stands in stark opposition to her opponent Kim Fox, demonstrating a rejection by Chicago and Illinois voters of her progressive crime and punishment policies.

    As a State’s attorney, Kim Foxx defelonized shoplifting of amounts less than $1000 of goods if the offender has less than 10 prior felony convictions, whereas criminals could have been felony charged for goods amounting a worth as much as $300-500 previous to her implemented policies.

    Kim Foxx claimed that her reforms would not sacrifice safety and civilization for her progressive policies, mentioning on her site that she instigated a decrease in violent crime while not punishing lower-level crimes.

    Despite this, Walmart pulled most of its business out of the Chicago area. The notice came, closing 4 separate locations, after an announcement on April 11th 2023. And this move was reflective of a greater trend, Ken Griffin announced Citadel’s departure in 2022 due to the rise in crime, along with more crime-reactive corporations like Tyson foods and potentially McDonalds whose leaves can be attributed to the increase of crime arguably due to the progressive Foxx policies.

    In fact, since Kim Foxx replaced her less progressive incumbent, violent and lower level crimes increased disproportionately compared to other cities.

    How Chicago’s crime compares to other cities.
    source: WTTW

    Perhaps Chicago, the largest voter in the Illinois ballots, grew tired of the lawlessness, choosing Attorney general Burke who promises a more conservative criminal justice system.

    Some of the proposals that Eileen Burke put forth are ensuring more punishment for retail thieves, and an emphasis on crime reduction.

    These changes are met with scrutiny from Clayton Harris, representing their large differences in criminal justice policy. Clayton Harris mentions that the recent progressive policies do not sacrifice public safety. In addition, he hopes to keep the $1000 dollar theft felony threshold, and decrease ”wage theft”, all of which are reminiscent of Kim Foxx’s progressive narrative.

    Despite the thin margin that Eileen Burke won by, Kim Foxx, who proposed unheard of progressive policies compared to her office’s past candidates, was elected for two terms, starting her first in 2016.

    In all, there is a possibility that Chicago voters were simply fed-up with the continuation of progressive State’s attorney policy, which have clearly increased crime and hurt impoverished areas most.

  • Lab Liberty Declaration

    by Oliver Wilson
    Apr. 2, 2024

    My name is Oliver Wilson, and I founded Lab Liberty in pursuit of a greater Lab community, free of the need to conform to one specific ideological position. The Lab Liberty Freedom Forum is a completely free speech space for publishing anything, especially concerning economic policy. 

    Staying true to the University of Chicago principles which I hold to be some of the most effective ways of ensuring a cohesive society, my aim is to cultivate open-mindedness and a better-informed lab populace. 

    I’ve noticed a concerning trend of contempt for non-progressive ideals in the Lab community. How are we meant to express ourselves freely when we are effectively coerced into regurgitating progressive talking points? Despite official policy, I have experienced too many instances where speaking our own truth has adverse consequences. Labliberty.com offers students and others an outlet for free expression, an honest exchange of ideas, and an intellectually diverse environment, all of which will lead to improved education. The right to speak, even to express opinions that may be in the minority, does not only hold the capacity to open minds but also aids us in arriving at the most informed decisions and opinions. After the launch of the website, I was pleasantly surprised to see the number of people reading the content. One instance that highlighted the desire for alternative views at Lab was when I saw students intrigued by the economic perspective of a piece advocating for the abolition of the minimum wage and visiting the website to read that specific article even days after we had posted it. 

    When thinking of the benefits and risks of free speech, it is common to ponder the extremes-the prospect of bigoted opinions. Lab Liberty finds the question not to be ”what if there are bigots” but rather finds it important to ask who those supposed bigots are. Advocates of eugenics? Totalitarians? Fiscal conservatives, perhaps? The notion that freedom of speech should be regulated in fear of offense breeds division and polarization. I have felt this firsthand as my freedom-oriented political articles have been labeled as ”hateful” and bigoted in the first week the website was even up, even preventing an airing of an interview pertaining to the website being posted by a club. Excluding speech on the basis that it is ”dangerous” is inherently anti-freedom. I liken this experience today to what the founding fathers stood against when the monarchs of England were afraid of the danger of a public gathering in protest of the monarchical leadership so as not to have their power similarly questioned. 

    The website may be slightly rough at the moment – after all, we just launched it. Please bear with us. But please respond constructively.

    I encourage everybody in the Lab community and beyond to engage with Labliberty.com. Perhaps you would like to explore a libertarian topic and would like to submit an opinion piece. Or perhaps you have read something on the website that you disagree with. That’s great too – I encourage you to submit a rebuttal. The only rule is that it must be civil and must further the dialogue as we work together to broaden our understanding of important topics and promote freedom of expression.

  • Report from Illinois polls

    by Oliver Wilson 
    March 29, 2024

    Eileen Burke, a democrat candidate for the Illinois State Attorney’s office, won the Illinois primary election against her democrat opponent, Clayton Harris. 

    The win was accomplished by an extremely thin margin, even standing at about a 1,638 vote lead at the end of the day on Wednesday. 

    Given the small level of supporting evidence, and unable to disclose the anonymous source, we will be releasing a longer analysis during the week of April 1st, when the ballot has been confirmed by government officials.

  • On the Private Funding of Healthcare

    by Guest: ”Lamp”, CAN
    March 29, 2024

    It is a common belief that healthcare is something that must be fully funded by the state with the use of taxpayer dollars in order for the most vulnerable members of society, namely the homeless and disabled, to be able to access such life-saving services. With that knowledge in mind, one can understand why privately owned institutions that provide health services with the intention of wealth creation are looked upon with distrust. Common examples of countries whose governments publicly fund healthcare include Canada, in opposition to the US, which has neither free nor universal healthcare. Contrary to the belief that privately funded healthcare leads to worse outcomes, economic history and present studies of the workings of the healthcare industry show this to be implicitly false. There exist three such points in favor of the private funding of healthcare, those being government regulation stifling the private market, the comparatively low quality of publicly funded healthcare, and the existence of effective forms of private healthcare in the present day from which we can use as models.

    medicare

    source: The Economist

    Though the American healthcare market is criticized worldwide for being inequitable, leaving many poor families in debt while trying to pay for pharmaceutical and surgery bills in a country where childhood obesity and health problems run rampant, this is not a result of the private market but rather, a market regulated by a central authority.
    While services in America are mainly private, the ways in which doctors are allowed to operate on their patients are more similar to a command system by which organizations such as Medicare force doctors to employ billing codes that restrict the ways they can provide services (”How Government Killed the Medical Profession,” 2013). When doctors do offer alternative forms of payment for the uninsured and those who seek low-cost healthcare outside of government and employer-issued health insurance, they risk breaking state-enforced insurance regulations. Take the example of New York doctor John Muney who offered his customers a monthly plan of $79 accounting for unlimited office visits, along with minor forms of surgery, physicals, and a variety of other services until he was prevented from doing so by the state insurance department (”NY doctor offers flat-rate care for uninsured,” 2009). Not forgetting conventions such as FDA-imposed price controls on drug manufacturers and patents on specific products that make it costly to manufacture, distribute, and import cheaper variants of drugs such as insulin without being taxed heavily or sued by larger, more established firms (”A Government Guide to Keeping Insulin Unaffordable: 3 Easy Steps to Hogtie a Market,” 2019). The universal/single-payer system, on the other hand, is even worse. The Canadian model, for example, though regarded as a prime example of this system and the most equitable in the modern world, is also one of the most inefficient and wasteful. As a whole, Canada suffers from a lack of equipment, with 6.2 MRI units and 12 CT scanners per million people in opposition to Americans having access to 26.5 MRI units and 33.9 CT scanners per million people in 2006 (”The Hidden Costs of Single-Payer Health Insurance: A Comparison of the United States and Canada,” 2008). Closer to the present day it is known that 2.9 beds per 1000 people and 1/4 of Canadians waiting 4 or more months for elective surgery is one such issue (”When do we admit Canada’s health care system just isn’t working?” 2022).
    This is especially troubling when one considers that Canada spends 10.6% of its GDP on healthcare services at $6666 per person and $300 billion in the last year (”Record spending: Canada expected to dole out more than $300B on health care in 2021,” 2021). When assessing the situation, government-originated single-payer systems are simply not sustainable or capable of allocating resources effectively and efficiently in a way that treats their clients as people with individual needs. Knowing the existing restrictions caused by government intervention in the healthcare system, it might be considered impractical to move to a fully privatized system due to the lack of real, working examples of privately funded healthcare. Thus one may seek a middle-of-the-road solution in the mixed healthcare systems of the Netherlands and Singapore. However, there remain credible and enduring examples of low-cost, market-based healthcare in the past and present day. 
    Prior to the nationalization and regulation of healthcare across the bulk of the developed world there existed many mutual aid societies that sprang up across Britain and the United States and offered checkups at the price of an average blue-collar worker’s daily wage, competing only by churches as the main form of charity for the needy (”From Mutual Aid to Welfare State: How Fraternal Societies Fought Poverty and Taught Character,” 2000). This took place until federal authorities crowded them out. Today, in the American states where healthcare regulation is relatively relaxed there exist forms of Direct Payer Care by which patients can receive direct access to their family doctor at a price of $74 a month (”Why Patients Should Consider Direct Primary Care (DPC),” 1994). As of late, there have also been moves to implement systems of crowdfunding such as the up and coming ”CrowdHealth” through which community members crowdfund services over $500 for their fellow members. This is especially helpful for preventing the accumulation of debt resulting from multiple surgeries or emergency visits and offers monthly subscription plans of $325 for adults ages 55-64 in opposition to the average cost of monthly health insurance at $541 (”Average Cost of Health Insurance (2022),” 2022). 

    When contrasting the benefits and positives of public and private funding of healthcare, it remains clear that it is the implementation and expansion of market-based alternatives coupled with deregulation that result in the most equitable results for the users and has done so in the past. The history of healthcare funding is a testament to the belief in the rational self-interest of individual actors and the ability of a myriad of entrepreneurs working within a market to fit their lifestyles and salaries. Knowing this, we cannot trust third-party actors such as government employees who claim to work in the public interest in deference to profits while both restricting the ways in which the people can purchase market-originated goods and services while also forcing citizens to pay for and fund government healthcare services that they may not need.

    Bibliography:

    Cato. (2013, May 3). How Government Killed the Medical Profession. Retrieved from https://www.cato.org/commentary/how-government-killed-medical-profession
    Reuters. (2009, May 7). NY doctor offers flat-rate care for uninsured. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/health-usa-newyork-idUKN0739070020090507
    (2019, March 25). A Government Guide to Keeping Insulin Unaffordable: 3 Easy Steps to Hogtie a Market. Retrieved from https://fee.org/articles/a-government-guide-to-keeping-insulin-unaffordable-3-easy-steps-on-how-to-hogtie-a-market/
    Fraser Institute. (2008, September). The Hidden Costs of Single Payer Health Insurance: A Comparison of the United States and Canada. Retrieved from https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/HiddenCostsSinglePayer.pdf
    The Globe and Mail. (2022, January 5). When do we admit Canada’s health care system just isn’t working? Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-when-do-we-admit-canadas-health-car%20e-system-just-isnt-working/CTV/
    (2021, November 4). Record spending: Canada expected to dole out more than $300B on health care in 2021. Retrieved from https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/record-spending-canada-expected-to-dole-out-more-than300b-on-health-care-in-2021-1.5651634#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20data,cent%20of%20the%20country’s%20GDP.
    Heritage Foundation. (2000, July 27) From Mutual Aid to Welfare State: How Fraternal Societies Fought Poverty and Taught Character. Retrieved from https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/mutual-aid-welfare-state-how-fraternalsocieties-fought-poverty-and-taught
    Forbes. (2021, October 28). Why Patients Should Consider Direct Primary Care (DPC). Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2021/10/28/why-patients-should-consider-directprimary-care-dpc/?sh=62aa6d318446
    ValuePenguin. (2022, Feb 15). Average Cost of Health Insurance (2022). Retrieved from https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-health-insurance

  • For a Freer Curriculum: Teachers Must Stay Objective In Teaching

    by Oliver Wilson 
    March 26, 2024

    Traversing through bustling halls and classrooms full of discourse, one phrase alone stood out in the direct aftermath of a terrorist attack on Israel: ”Mashallah”. Though the phrase, which translates to ”God has willed it” is not an inherently offensive term, the implications of this message in the wake of the then recent attacks, and the lack of opposing views, are stark, and shine a light on the failure of Lab to encourage diversity of expression.

    Every Lab faculty member had used the same narrative regarding this conflict: the oppression by the Israeli government. This biased emphasis on the past wrong-doings of the Israeli government in the context of the October 7th massacres is a distraction and a mere justification of the terrors of the Hamas-orchestrated attacks. We must realize that although the actions of Hamas that past weekend do not represent the Palestinian people, they certainly do not deserve undisputed and biased justification, especially in the face of murdered children, raped women, and elderly hostages, from Lab faculty. 
    Having walked down the halls and hearing what sounded like resounding support for Palestine despite these gruesome attacks indicates the dire need for the creation of an environment in which diverse perspectives can be expressed. We must realize that the personal views of a high school teacher do not provide educational value, and these subjects should be taught objectively.

    Although I personally believe that these atrocities were not willed by any divine force but were instead godless acts, we must nevertheless embrace freedom of expression. As the Chicago Canon on Free Inquiry and Expression preface by Paul Alivisatos states: meaningful conclusions can only be a product of the belief that ”ideas are not only a matter of individual genius, but collective conversation which an academic institution has a duty to nurture.”

    In order to encourage diversity of expression, we must revert to an objective standard of teaching, in which teacher bias and selective material is eliminated.

  • Abolish The Minimum Wage(and Maximize Happiness)

    by Dread Pirate Roberts 
    March 25, 2024

    Writer’s note: this forum is devoted to absolute freedom of speech and mind. One such motivation was the refusal to publish this piece to other sites. We now publish it to hail a victory in the battle(but not the war) against censorship. Thanks for reading ❤

    Greedy corporations, evil businessmen, and savage capitalism. These are all popular narratives held amongst most students at Lab and, most notably, the editorial board of The Midway. Throughout all this strongly worded opposition it becomes increasingly difficult to have faith in markets and their practical applications to everyday life, especially minimum wage.

    The minimum wage is a farce supported by the idea that markets and businesses will exploit workers if they are allowed. On the contrary, however, the implementation of the minimum wage has had many adverse consequences and increases economic disparities.

    In fact, several data points prove that the minimum wage decreases employment while placing the burden of higher wages on businesses, crowding out smaller businesses and decreasing employment.

    The explanation for the resulting consequences of the minimum wage is as follows: Businesses are forced to pay a minimum price for the labor of a worker. The worker, in turn, must produce the sufficient amount of labor for the business to be profitable, otherwise the business risks bankruptcy.
    The business or employer must then only hire workers they believe will be highly productive, disproportionately denying many who either cannot be burdened with working a full time or less experienced workers a job under the concern they cannot produce the sufficient amount of labor required to be profitable for the business. In some cases the minimum wage even prevents harder working employees from earning more because expenses are being put toward paying minimum wage for less productive employees.

    minimum wage

    Source: iza.org 

    One study in 2022 even suggests that an increase of minimum wage in Montgomery would lead to the loss of 47,000 jobs, Most of which are low-wage positions.

    Additionally, the minimum wage strips individuals of their autonomy. By exempting businesses from allowing themselves to hire who they see fit the minimum wage infringes on fundamental liberties.

    Murray Rothbard, a renowned Austrian economist once wrote ”[L]iberals are supposed to be in favor of any voluntary actions performed, as the famous cliche goes, by ‘two consenting adults.’ Yet it is peculiar that while liberals are in favor of any sexual activity engaged in by two consenting adults, when these consenting adults engage in trade or exchange, the liberals step in to harass, cripple, restrict, or prohibit that trade. And yet both the consenting sexual activity and the trade are similar expressions of liberty in action.”
    By restricting the wages paid to a worker, the minimum wage is fundamentally disallowing anyone to engage in full voluntarism. The minimum wage intrudes on liberties by interfering with any trade that two consenting adults may take part in, restricting their exchange to a certain minimum dollar amount. Why should we not allow people to exchange freely amongst themselves?

    As of now, the minimum wage is nearly uncontested in Chicago politics but we should prevent the devastating effects of its continuous raise.

    In pursuit of a growth of economic and personal wealth, the minimum wage should be abolished and the free market should decide fair wages.