I
N THE
M
ATTER OF
M
AINE
H
EALTH
A
LLIANCE AND
W
ILLIAM
R.D
IGGINS
Comments of Citizens for Voluntary Trade
3
The FTC’s theory is that individuals must lose their rightswhen they band together to increase their
economic
power,because such economic power is inherently and inevitably
coercive. An HMO, in the FTC’s view, lacks the necessaryeconomic power to countermand the economic power of MHA.Thus, to preserve market “competition”, it is necessary to curtailMHA’s economic power through
force
, in this case the FTC’sproposed order. By taking this action, the FTC claims it hasremoved a coercive element from the marketplace, allowing forgreater competition.The FTC clearly does not make the proper distinction betweeneconomic and political power, and by extension theproperdefinition of coercion. Indeed, as we understand it, coerciondefines the difference between economic and political power, aswriter-philosopher Ayn Rand explained in the early 1960s:
[E]conomic power is exercised by means of a
positive
, byoffering men a reward , an incentive, a payment, a value;political power is exercised by means of a
negative
, by thethreat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction.
2
(Emphasis in original)
Political power, as defined above, is thus coercive. Moreimportantly,
only
political power is coercive; those possessing only economic power cannot, by definition, coerce others.
Consider the nature of MHA’s relationship to the HMOs itallegedly coerced. MHA possessed something of valueûphysicianand hospital servicesûthat the HMOs sought for their use. TheHMOs presented an offer to MHA’s members, who in turncollectively presented a counter-offer. The resulting negotiationsrepresented the efforts of both parties to influence the other intoaccepting certain terms of providing medical services for a fee.This entire process was a purely intellectual exercise. By theFTC’s own admission, MHA used purely non-forcefulmeans toadvance its arguments. The complaint describes MHA’ssupposedly illegal activities with such verbs as “urging”,“facilitating”, “discouraging”, and “warning”.
3
What thecomplaint does not describe, however, is any instance of MHA threatening or using
physical force
against any HMO. The
2
Ayn Rand, “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business”,
in
Capitalism: TheUnknown Idealat 46 (Sugnet, 1967).
3
Complaint at para. 29.
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