Disability

Answered by William Thomas

What about workers taking responsibility for their own lives and well-being by either buying insurance, pooling their resources with other workers in, say, a voluntary union, or by refusing to work for firms that do not provide adequate disability insurance?

Objectivism holds that each of us should take responsibility for living an independent life. Other members of society are not responsible for our risky behavior.

Are others morally to blame if you take a dangerous job and fail to take account properly of the risks? No. In fact, others have the moral and political right to live their own lives, for their own sakes.

Taxes to pay the costs of injured workers therefore are a violation of our rights. These taxes are based in a moral view that denies personal responsibility and views man as a sacrificial animal that only exists to serve others.