Saving Lives: Why We Should Opt-In to Opt-Out

By JC (Property Rights) - In the US, 18 people die every day while waiting for available organs.  The organ transplant waitlist is over 100,000.  We are facing a medical crisis in this country.

It’s easier than ever to sign up to become an organ donor: many states only require an additional signature while processing your new or renewed driver’s license.  Two check boxes pop up on the screen; you get to choose one.  Could it get any easier?

However, a recent survey found that most Americans are willing to donate their organs after death but only 38% of registered drivers are registered to do so.  What drives this disparity?  Research suggests that misconceptions about the donation and registration processes are two of the primary factors that create this difference.  Some people fear they are not healthy enough or are too old to donate viable organs.  Others believe doctors will not work as hard to save their lives if they are organ donors.  Some even fear having their organs sold on a black market after donation.

Even I suffer from these misconceptions.  I’m open to the idea of organ donation—who wouldn’t want to save a life if it’s within his or her power?  Yet, I’m not a registered organ donor and don’t go out of my way to register.  Whenever I’m renewing my driver’s license, I usually breeze through the organ donation screen with a quick check in the “NO” box.  Why?  This is usually after over an hour of wait time; I don’t know if there are additional screens after the first organ donation one if I check “YES.”  All I know is that I want to get out of the MVA as fast as possible—and I do not feel strongly about organ donation so any extra time spent on the process creates negative utility for me.

This is why the US should have an opt-out organ donation policy.  An opt-out policy will have great gains in donation rates amongst currently unregistered people who are either willing to donate or are indifferent about organ donation.  Changing the program from opt-in to opt-out eliminates some structural and bureaucratic inefficiencies, thereby increasing the availability of organs anywhere from an estimated 16% to 50%.  When organ donation is the default assumption, it will take extra effort to remove oneself from the program and only those who are strongly against organ donation will take the time to do so.

Furthermore, the current US organ donation policy is inconsistent with its other property destruction policies: the US has historically denied individuals the right to destroy.  Courts are concerned with the waste of resources available to society as a whole; they generally try and prevent the negative externalities that would result from the destruction of one’s physical or financial property.  A physical house might be worth $1,000,000.  Yet, the average estimate of the value of a statistical life for a middle aged worker is $7,000,000.  Why should someone be stopped from destroying his or her house but be not only allowed, but systemically encouraged by government policy, in destroying his or her kidney that could save someone’s life?

US policy regarding organ donation boils down to the societal norms.  Our society treats the human body as sacred and is not educated on the realities of organ donation.  Mass media and hippie yoga teachers hand us whey kale shakes and whisper seductively in our ears: “Our bodies are sacred.  Let us worship at their shrines.”  It would be different to become an organ donor—it’s not the norm.  Consequently, there is not a widespread push to change the current policy and policymakers are reluctant to even approach the subject.  
Yet, can a dead person’s kidney really be more sacred than a living human’s life?

The US would not be the first country to adopt an opt-out organ donation policy; France, Spain, Australia, Belgium, and Portugal all have varying forms of presumed consent policies, along with significantly higher organ donation rates.  If the US follows their progressive lead, we can fight our medical crisis and save more lives, one kidney at a time.    

Post-Mortem Selfie

To whom it may concern:

                        When I die, please make sure my profile picture is me wearing a bowtie.

Facebook profiles after death

By Eric Wessan (Property Rights) - When a friend dies, it can be extraordinarily difficult to deal with.  In addition to all of the emotions that build up, comforting the bereaved can be tough on a personal level.  But now it seems almost as important for acquaintances of the dead to post thoughtful messages about their time together, or lack thereof, on the Facebook wall of the recently deceased.

Just a few years ago, it was unclear what happened to a Facebook profile, its pictures and the information contained within, upon someone’s death.  The question did not come up until both larger numbers of people started to die and Facebook became central enough to online identity that people cared about what happened to the profile. Could it be willed to someone else? Was it the property of the corporation? As the number of older people using this resource increased, and more importantly the number of dying people, it became apparent that there were questions around digital property after death that must be resolved.

These questions about digital property rights do not end at the Facebook profile page.  Tens of millions of Americans have an ITunes account, millions more an account on Amazon and Google Play.  People buy songs, videos, book, games and all sorts of digital property on these accounts.  While they are alive it seems fairly clear that these purchased possessions belong to their owner.  But what happens to this digital property when the owner dies?

Unfortunately, the surprising answer is that for the most part the digital rights do not transfer.  When I die, the hundreds of books on my kindle may stay on my kindle, but the ownership of the books does not transfer.  I cannot leave ‘Catch-22’ to a friend nor can I will my collection of ‘Twilight’ books to my sister.  Digital property bought through these tech giants never truly belongs to the purchaser, it is just theirs for the duration of their life.  In a fitting but entirely unsatisfying sort-of-way, the content cannot be transferred post-mortem.  Reminiscent of the ancient Pharaohs or the Emperor in Xi’an, your digital property will be buried with you to serve in the afterlife.

            When I first heard that this was the case, that my carefully curated collections that I have spent close to a decade completing would effectively die with me, if I were to die today, I was aghast.  This seems contrary to the American way! When something is mine it should belong to me and no company, government or group should be able to take that away.  But as I have had time to grow used to the idea, the initial anger has receded. 

Now, when one dies on Facebook a loved one with proof can make their page a memorial.  While it seems a touch macabre to allow a representation of a dead man to grin out of his profile picture into eternity, hopefully it provides support to those still alive.

Perhaps given enough time, these companies will continue to adjust to the ever-shifting digital world. But I will not be waiting.  Resigned to the current reality, I understand that when it comes to the intellectual property and the copyrighted material these companies produce they are trying to grasp on to whatever vestige of control they have.  My distaste for such grasping remains, but my ire has faded.  I can just give the password on my Amazon account to my sister. Just don’t forget to write something on my wall.

Eminently Wrong: On the Supreme Court’s dangerous precedent from Kelo v. New London

By Jonathan Godoy - (Property Rights) - Travel to New London, Connecticut and one will find, along the city’s shore with the Thames River, a large 70-plus acre plot of unkempt, largely abandoned land. Now frequented by feral cats and covered by untamed weeds and grasses, the lot stands as an odd and out-of-place blot in a otherwise generally developed area.

Yet, this was not the fate once ascribed to this land. Back in the late 1990s, the city approved a plan that would have converted this unassuming lot into a $300 million plus office and retail complex, complete with a theatre, restaurant, park and new offices for the pharmaceutical company spearheading the proposal Pfizer, Inc. The plan, as presented, was largely benign and, given the potential economic benefits that it would afford the area, should have garnered general approval and little controversy.

That would have been the scenario that played out had there not been one complicating factor: the lot, contrary to its current state, was once developed, privately-held land.

At the time of the approval of the plan, this land was dotted with single and multi-family homes, not unlike the one’s found in the surrounding area today. As Pfizer, Inc. began planning its development, it started buying up land from the residents in that area.

Many of the residents willingly and voluntarily accepted the payments for their property and moved out. However, a few “stubborn” residents refused to accept the offers. The project, as proposed, could not proceed without control of the entire land and the company was not in a position to forcibly take the land itself or coercively demand that these few residents accept their offers.

But where the private company lacked power, the city government found a policy loophole by which it can justify such land grabs: eminent domain. While the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution protects citizens against unlawful and arbitrary seizures of property, it does allow for the government to take privately held property for public use with “just compensation.” 

The practice is a controversial and rarely used one in the United States. Questions surrounding the government’s definition of “public use” and what constitutes “just compensation” have plagued previous uses of this power and made for numerous court battles.

In this case, the city government of New London took a broad and liberal view of “public use,” justifying the land grab on the basis of the economic and fiscal benefits that such a project would have for the city. As planned, the estimates called for the creation of over 3,100 new jobs and would have generated $1.2 million in new tax revenue. The argument, taken to its furthest extent, claimed that such benefits vastly outweighed the costs incurred by the few residents who were forced out of their property and would help the city of New London as a whole.

One of the stubborn residents, Susette Kelo, took the case to court, which ultimately found itself in the highest court of the land. In Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision in favor of New London, stating that the economic benefits presented a legitimate form of “public use.”

This view is patently wrong.

Foremost among the problems latent in this argument is that it conflates the difference in meanings between “public use” and “public purpose” or “benefits.”

The phrase “public use,” as it should so narrowly be defined, includes only those products and services for which the public has open access to. “Public purpose,” on the other hand, is a necessarily more vague term and is taken to include broader social implications and considerations – i.e. large-scale economic benefits. Such a consideration, while perhaps noble, was not the original intention of this law and should be restricted.

Under the conception of the phrase given by the Supreme Court, the government would be allowed to confiscate private property on behalf of another private citizen or organization.  The problems with this are twofold.

First, taken to its most extreme interpretation, this definition of “public use” would allow for any government to justify the confiscation of property purely on an economic basis. Such a policy would theoretically allow for a city government to tear down an entire residential area to make way for a venture that is more economically productive and prosperous, the likes of which may include a factory, theme park or mall.

Secondly, it allows for the government to play a redistributionist role, but not in the progressive sense. It is unlikely that economic considerations would incentivize a government to take control of a corporate office or retail center to make way for a series of low-cost, middle-class family homes. Such a project would likely produce a net loss of jobs and tax revenues and create an environment hostile to businesses.

The Kelo case is a perfect example of this potential problem in action. The city government of New London, presumptuously asserting its own more “holistic” view as superior to the private considerations of a few isolated residents, disregarded their personal rights and privileges in the name of a perceived “social benefit.”

And yet, despite their successful efforts to arbitrarily amass power and impose their centralized economic plans, the project proved ultimately futile. A casualty of the 2008 recession, the multi-million project was cancelled and the lot left deserted.

The Supreme Court’s far-reaching and irresponsible decision has left a dangerous precedence with respect to the government’s powers over private property. If nothing more, the ultimate fate of the New London lot should be proof enough that such a power grab is unnecessarily expansive and inefficient.