The new American ethic that our lives should be essentially free of all risk and that society and government are responsible for ensuring our health and safety is a recent phenomenon in our culture. This ethic has now become molded into an obsession that amplifies our anxieties and fears and empties our pocket-books.
This utopian desire for a risk-free society is one of the most debilitating influences in America today, resulting in oppressive government regulations, industrial fear of liability for both old and new products, economic lethargy and an increasingly noncompetitive, uninventive American society. The pernicious moral consequence of America's growing fear of risk is the assertion that science, technology and society itself have betrayed us and failed to protect us from natural and human acts.We must now seek safety and well-being through government regulation and legal redress.
The loss of courage and individual responsibility that was cherished by our ancestors has manifested itself in many ways, including unjustified fear of new technologies (nuclear power, recombinant DNA), rejection of radiation based medical treatment for cancer, retreat in scientific exploration such as the near collapse of the space program because of the Challenger disaster, excessive environmental concern for trivial impacts (the snail darter) and overreaction to hazardous and radioactive materials (asbestos abatement despite industrial dislocation and increased risk of fire) and a growing service industry staffed by environmentalists, regulators, inspectors and many lawyers.
The orchestration of this "ultraphobia of risk symphony" has many players. There are now over 75 national environmental groups and many other special interest "risk aversion" coalitions sedulously promoting America's call for risk reduction and an entire legal discipline of lawyers and lobbyists to service these groups and promote their interests. These vast special interest service groups manufacture nothing, are indifferent to economic well-being and are insensitive to real societal risks, unemployment and job displacement.
The declared motive of these groups is to protect our safety and ensure our health, but what are the real incentives for these people who promote intolerance of any risk in America, deny individual responsibility (and thus limit our freedom by ever increasing government intervention), and for the most part identify and select those risks that governments should legislate and regulators enforce? Although "risk aversion" is a symphony with many movements, the promotion of tort law is the basic orchestral theme.
Tort (or liability) law was firmly established in the 1960s and 1970s by a new generation of lawyers and judges who recognized the potential for exploitation of fear of risk. They grew rich and famous in marketing their service to enforce "risk aversion rights" that they had fostered and promoted. The growth of this risk cancer has been swift, and the "tort tax" now levied on the American economy amounts to about $1,000 per person in America. This hidden tax accounts for 20 percent of American medical costs, 35 percent of the cost of a step ladder and 95 percent of the cost of childhood vaccines.
The most important issue for Americans to resolve is has this burdensome use of tort law and cultivation of risk aversion actually made life safer and improved the health for Americans in view of these major economic and societal costs? In truth, the benefits of this new culture have been very minimal, and the economic costs far exceed the actual value delivered. I assert that the development and use of new technology, expanded scientific developments and faith in our abilities and the capacity to take reasonable risks will contribute far more to our improved health and increased safety than an army of special-interest groups dedicated to and remunerated by the "risk aversion" agenda.