THE TWISTED CONSERVATIVE MIND, CIRCA 1932

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) is an early 20th Century prophet of the Free Market Fairy and is still a source of inspiration for many of today's conservatives. I recall reading one paragraph by von Mises which simply demolished Communism but I have not been able to find it so far. In my search, I did come across his analysis of accident and health insurance and he's just as barbaric as a modern day Free Market Fairy conservative. These excerpts are from his SOCIALISM: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, translated from the 2nd German edition of 1932, pages 476-77.

The destructionist aspect of accident and health insurance lies above all in the fact that such institutions promote accidents and illness, hinder recovery, and veryoften create, or at any rate intensify and 'lengthen, the functional disorders which follow illness or accident.

Insurance against diseases breeds disease.

By weakening or completely destroying the will to be well and able to work, social insurance creates illness and inability to work; it produces the habit of complaining which is in itself a neurosis — and neuroses of other kinds. In short, it is an institution which tends to encourage disease, not to say accidents, and to intensify considerably the physical and psychic results of accidents and illnesses. As a social institution it makes a people sick bodily and mentally or at least helps to multiply, lengthen, and intensify disease.