The epistemological basis for the set of fundamental rules and principles for peace and justice is the ownership of one’s own body, because if people do not have the legitimate right to decide about it, what legal or moral reason would anyone else have to respect their will over their bodies? As libertarian philosopher Hans-Hermman Hoppe explains:
“This ‘ownership’ of one’s own body implies one’s right to invite (agree to) another person’s doing something with (to) one’s own body: my right to do with my body whatever I want…includes the right to ask and let someone else use my body, love it, examine it, inject medicines or drugs into it, change its physical appearance and even beat, damage, or kill it, if that should be what I like and agree to.”
In all interpersonal relationships, risks are perceived individually, depending on each person’s awareness, character, and concerns. A risk is the possibility that an undesirable event may occur. But the possibility that something or someone could harm a person’s body is not the same as a threat. The plausibility of a threat is implicit in an action that represents imminent aggression, or explicit in the announcement of an aggression. That is, threats cannot be based on remote or indirect criteria, nor on any alleged risk determined by an actual aggressor as an excuse for his “preventive” aggression. Otherwise, as libertarian economist Murray Rothbard wrote:
“Once we bring in ‘threats’ to person and property that are vague and future…then all manner of tyranny becomes excusable. The only way to guard against such despotism is to keep the criterion of perceived invasion clear and immediate and overt. For, in the inevitable case of fuzzy or unclear actions, we must bend over backwards to require the threat of invasion to be direct and immediate, and therefore to allow people to do whatever they may be doing. In short, the burden of proof that the aggression has really begun must be on the person who employs the defensive violence.”
A historical example of confusing risk and threat was Prohibition in the United States from 1920 to 1933, when the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages were outlawed. One of the main arguments for this, as Rothbard recalled, was that alcohol consumption increased the likelihood of people committing crimes. But what was presented as a “defensive” measure was, in fact, a clear violation of people’s right to produce, sell, buy, and consume alcoholic beverages.
The world is a place full of risks beyond human control. These can even be microscopic, such as those posed by pathogens, which are biological, physical, or chemical entities capable of causing disease. People can mitigate these risks to the extent of their abilities, desires, and possibilities—and especially to the extent of their knowledge of such risks. But pathogens are not actors. They are not a threat in themselves that can justify the use of force against people. Only the actions of people should ultimately justify the use of defensive force. Thus, for someone to aggress with a pathogen, it is necessary to exercise at least some control over how that pathogen is intended to be transmitted, and the context for this must be as clear as in any other form of aggression. For aggression involves an intentional act in a given context, not just the perception of a risk. Furthermore, pathogens are generally already in contact with or present in people without the carriers being aware of it until the disease appears. Accordingly, due to this normal condition of human life, transmissions are overwhelmingly unintentional, and all interpersonal relationships occur under the general inevitability of pathological risks.
In conclusion, no person as such can be correctly considered a threat to another simply because of the possibility of transmitting pathogens, unless specific actions and contexts are involved. If this were not the case, it would be impossible to differentiate aggression from other peaceful acts in terms of pathogen transmission in all human interactions.
The burden of proof that the alleged pathogen carrier, and therefore potential aggressor, is threatening another person lies with the person or group of people who intend to use defensive measures to protect themselves from the hypothetical aggression. But since there is no violence yet, as the defensive action is directed at a perceived threat, the standards of proof must thus be very high. And the transmission of a pathogen for aggressive purposes is also a conflict that may require the same tasks as any other effort to bring justice. Hoppe can clarify this point by highlighting the subjective aspect of aggression:
“Both the establishment of property rights and their violation spring from actions…However, in addition to a physical appearance, actions also have an internal, subjective aspect. This aspect…must be ascertained by means of understanding…The task of the judge cannot—by the nature of things—be reduced to a simple decision rule based on a quasi-mechanical model of causation. Judges must observe the facts and understand the actors and actions involved in order to determine fault and liability.”
Vaccination is supposed to protect those who receive it from the potential harm that a specific pathogen would cause them if they became infected. But for people to be contagious, they must first catch the pathogen to be able to transmit it and pose a risk. So, as remaining unvaccinated does not equate to being infected, the unvaccinated cannot logically represent any real risk to others with regard to a specific disease—unless infection is proven, as is usually understood from the symptoms of the disease itself. And given that the risk of catching a pathogen is a reality that does not normally depend on people’s intentions, the responsibility for protecting oneself from any pathogen falls on individuals who wish to protect themselves from infection.
In any case, given that states have always presented themselves as guardians of their people, protection against certain diseases was an easy way to convince the majority of the advantages of implementing mandatory vaccination programs, thus coercing those who do not wish to be vaccinated. Independent of compliance with these programs, even today many people consider it reasonable for the state to require everyone to be vaccinated against certain diseases, arguing, for example, that not doing so increases the incidence of those diseases. Nonetheless, the same people would probably consider it unacceptable for the state to impose daily limits on a certain variety and proportion of foods that increase the incidence of overweight. And yet, mandatory vaccination programs are as arbitrary and unjust as the case of prohibited amounts of food.
The sacrifice of individual rights is supposedly justified for the collective good. But who decides what the collective good is and according to what criteria, and which rights should be sacrificed, cannot be established with objective criteria. And since mandatory vaccination is a crime, for it violates the fundamental right to control one’s own body, it is these mandatory vaccination programs that constitute an eventual aggression on people’s rights and well-being.
In the present day, vaccine manufacturers operate within a mixed public and private healthcare system dedicated to vaccinating the population from the earliest days of life. States purchase vaccines from manufactures at a price agreed upon by both parties that has nothing to do with actual consumer valuations. Thus, a global industry driven by state privileges and protected by the scientific establishment has been responsible for the design and production of vaccines for decades. This industry benefits from a vicious circle of mutual alliance between state power, the profits of pharmaceutical companies, and the vested interests of the academic and medical classes. Hence, when claims about the benefits and absence of risks of vaccines come from the same classes, people are right to suspect that the enormous profits allow pharmaceutical companies to buy off not only politicians, but also members of the academic and medical classes.
To make matters worse, vaccine quality control falls mainly to those interested in maintaining or increasing the economic success of this industry, outside the real market. A key factor for this in the United States is the legal immunity enjoyed by vaccine manufacturers. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (1988) establishes a no-fault system to compensate individuals injured by CDC-scheduled vaccines. And the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (2005) provides broad liability protections to vaccine manufacturers, distributors, and administrators during public health emergencies.
Everything became very clear during the COVID-19 crisis. Pharmaceutical companies rushed to produce vaccines using dubious technology, knowing that their sales were guaranteed and that they were shielded from responsibility. Nevertheless, as we have seen, millions upon millions of people around the world rejected COVID-19 vaccines despite the penalties and social pressure they faced. Many people never got vaccinated, but many also succumbed to coercion when they otherwise would not have. Others gleefully got vaccinated at first, but then refused additional doses. Billions of doses of these vaccines would have never been purchased on the market. But everybody, as taxpayers, regardless of their stance on these vaccines, contributed to the historic enrichment of several pharmaceutical companies.
In recent years, the number of people who refuse all vaccines has increased dramatically. More and more parents no longer want to vaccinate their children. And parents are fully within their rights to refuse vaccinations for any reason, as they are the only ones who can claim the right to decide on the upbringing and care of their children until they develop sufficient independence to negotiate with their parents’ authority or to fully exercise their rights as adults. This rejection of vaccines should not necessarily be understood as an opposition to technology and medical progress, nor to vaccine production and its quality control in a free market. Rather, this rejection may be indicative of the fact that many have lost confidence in the vaccine establishment, which has the audacity to defend the status quo by blatantly dismissing people’s right to decide about their own bodies.
In reality, to an extent, the benefits of vaccines will always be uncertain. Because if vaccines work, those vaccinated will usually never know when the protection is successful or if they ever needed that protection. On the contrary, the damage caused by some vaccines is certain, as there is an overwhelming amount of studies and historical records on the subject. Therefore, injecting people with what the vaccine establishment recommends is by no means unquestionable. Especially since, with funding and consumers guaranteed by force, vaccine manufacturers have not only prospered but have ventured, in the midst of this same perverse context, to invent new vaccines over the years.
Be that as it may, the global development of vaccine production had a predictable and necessary outcome. Once states became their main customers and implemented mandatory vaccination programs, production and prices had to increase and quality had to decrease, at least in relative terms.
