Risk vs Freedom

From EconoSpeak: Risk = Freedom?:

Ample unemployment insurance makes it easier to work for a startup or switch jobs in general rather than being held down by too strong a need for job security.  A stronger public pension system encourages entrepreneurship: people can hazard their savings by starting a business rather than hoarding everything for old age.  Social guarantees for basic needs make it possible for artists to risk making art their day job.  Professors with tenure (big time risk reduction) can take more controversial positions on public issues.  (I don’t say they always do this, but they do it more than they would if all professors were temps.)  In each case there is a real tradeoff between freedom and security at the individual level, but society can create programs that relax it, so it takes less courage to live freely. 

That’s what I don’t like about the nanny state rhetoric.  Yes, of course the state can go too far and overprotect us from risks we would do better to face ourselves.  But the state we actually live in goes too far in the other direction.  With a stronger safety net we could have less risk and more freedom

And ,... universal health care would translate into less risk and more, not less, freedom for workers. It would encourage entrepreneurship since workers could leave current positions to try their ideas without sacrificing their current employer-provided insurance. It would allow those in the 60-65 age group to retire earlier since many are working now only for the insurance coverage until Medicare kicks in.


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