But Doesn’t Disobeying Mask Mandates Make You Anti-Property Rights?

A reader writes:

The other day while I was walking with my wife, we were discussing your advice (I believe it was your advice (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/09/allan-stevo/my-wife-has-surgery-im-not-wearing-a-mask-what-do-i-do/)) for a man not to acquiesce to a hospoital's demand that he wear a mask while waiting for his wife's surgery (let's assume that the surgery was required for the wife's sake).

My wife argues that the hospital is a private institution and he has no right to tell them how he will behave on their property.

I don't know if hospitals are private or not, but I could not deny that she had a point--if the woman wanted the surgery and the hospital was not public, then her husband would have to conform to the hospital's wishes. (This is assuming that there are no other hospitals that were available to them for the surgery, etc.)

How would you have responded to her?

A Reader

—

Common question. Basically you are asking if those who object to face masks are antagonistic to freedom. I would like to ask you to have a look at the last 1/2 of this recent piece that goes into property rights. It is a piece written about a Trader Joe’s manager telling me what I can and cannot speak about in his store (neither religion nor face masks).

I will paste that portion on property rights below to save you a click:

It’s Not A Property Rights Issue — This Manager Was Out Of Line 

I believe many of the problems in life come down to disrespect of property rights. That is not everything, but it is many things. It is good for all when individuals clearly own things and when the owner has the final say over how that property is used. Many problems could be solved by better honoring that simple principle. Some might say that I am being disrespectful about property rights here. 

Before anyone attacks me about property rights, Trader Joe’s does not have a corporate customer anti-religion policy. Trader Joe’s does not have a corporate anti-mask conversation policy. Quite the opposite. I suspect several people at Trader Joe’s corporate are very embarrassed about how this manager acted. I gently stood my ground and because of this, the manager will not likely be treating anyone else this way. And who knows, my video may even be added to a training that Trader Joe’s does for managers as an example of how not to treat customers. This is a rogue manager who does not represent the corporate policy of Trader Joe’s. 

Property Rights Get Muddied Around Corporate Governance — Necessary Ethical Questions To Ask 

Property rights are muddied when it involves a large corporation, because it involves questions of corporate governance. 

If you are a shareholder, what role do you have to correct an out of line manager? What obligation do you have? 

If you are a customer, what role do you have to correct an out of line manager? What obligation do you have? 

If you are a neighbor, what role do you have to correct an out of line manager? What obligation do you have? 

If you are an employee, what role do you have to correct an out of line manager? What obligation do you have? 

Obedience To Authority Is Not The Same As Property Rights 

Obedience to authority is not the same as property rights. Yet many libertarian and conservative thinkers find themselves arguing in favor of mere obedience to authority and inaccurately calling it property rights. Sometimes obedience to authority is a component of property rights. Sometimes it is not. It comes down to a question of the legimtimacy of the authority and the legitimacy of orders. As we all know, “I was just following orders,” or “I was just doing my job,” simply doesn’t cut it. 

A Few Reasons Why The Most Important Thinkers Of Our Day Get This Wrong 

These questions of corporate governance are not simple questions to answer and are often left out when it comes to conversations on property rights. This happens for three reasons: 

1.) many libertarian and conservative thinkers on these topics have very little experience with corporate governance 

2.) what experience they do have is strongly aligned with being obedient to a superior, 

3.) the overwhelming majority of conservative and libertarian scholarship on this issue is funded by big corporations or organizations aligned with big corporations. 

A bias often comes into play and the bias so blurs the lines between corporate governance, property rights, obedience, and authority.

So, dear reader, my answer to your wife would be this: it is not a property rights issue at all, but a corporate governance issue. On top of that, it is very hard to claim that any of these mandates are from private institutions. The mandates are governmental in origin and alternately can be seen as a combination of government and private interest (a far more accurate reading at this point). And additionally, it is very difficult in this era to call a single hospital in this country private.

The fights against face masks and other health mandates are a fight against the monopoly on force that we give to government and which we have allowed the politicians and bureaucrats to extend to their benefactors. This is merely one method for demanding that power be given back to the rightful spot in society it was taken from. Government has no place telling you what health mandates to follow. And that is exactly what is happening.

—

To learn how to never wear a mask again, read  my bestselling book “Face Masks in One Lesson.” (https://www.amazon.com/Face-Masks-Lesson-Allan-Stevo/dp/1953847005/) To learn why to never wear a mask again read “Face Masks Hurt Kids.”(https://www.amazon.com/Face-Masks-Hurt-Allan-Stevo/dp/1953847153/)