All Modern Dictators Believe in Social Security, Especially in Coercing People into Governmentalized Medicine

Perhaps the most spectacular “social” aspect of Nazism was its emphasis on health, as part and parcel of a racial nationalism. That was not accidental. The health, or rather sickness, propaganda employed by Bismarck elevated that aspect of social welfare to a prime political issue. Just why were such ruthless men as Bismarck and Hider so profoundly interested in the physical well-being of their subjects — and in high birth-rates! — while totally indifferent, nay, inimical to their mental integrity? But after a fashion so were their predecessors in the Mercantilist age, especially the ministers of the imperialistic Bourbons and the power-lusty Hohenzollerns. And so are their successors to this day.

Evidently, more than humanitarianism was at stake. Watching the world-wide growth of compulsory health insurance, from Icelandic fisherman to coal miners in China, I noticed something that seemed to be overlooked: that all modem dictators — communist, fascist, or disguised — have at least one thing in common. They all believe in Social Security, especially in coercing people into governmentalized medicine.

A selected list of men who have claimed credit for, or have been credited with, introducing or strengthening and expanding governmentalized medical care reads like an extraordinary Who's Who:

• Prince Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany (1884);
• Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria (1888);
• Franz Joseph I, King of Hungary (1891);
• Wilhelm II, “the kaiser” of Germany (1911);
• Admiral Miklos Horthy, reorganizing the scheme as Regent of Hungary (1927);
• Nicholas II, Czar of Russia (1911);
• Vladimir Lenin-Ulianof, founder of modern dictatorship in Soviet Russia (1922);
• Joseph Stalin-Dzhugashvili, almighty Prime Minister and dictator of the U.S.S.R.;
• Joseph Pilsudski, Marshal and para-dictator of Poland (1920);
• Alexander I, King and dictator of Yugoslavia (1922);
• Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, the professor-dictator of Portugal (1919 and 1933);
• Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister and the Duce of Italy (1932 and 1943);
• Francisco Franco, military dictator of Spain (1942 and 1945);
• Yoshihito, Mikado of Japan (1922);
• Hirohito, Mikado of Japan (1934);
• Carol II, pseudo-constitutional King of Romania (1933);
• Joseph Vargas, President and would-be dictator of Brazil (1944);
• Juan Peron, President and boss of the military junta of Argentina (1944);
• Adolf Hitler, Chancellor, the führer of Germany (1933, etc.);
• Pierre Laval, Prime Minister of France (1930), later executed for his fascist activities;
• Ambroise Croizat, Communist Minister of Labor in France (1945);
• Georgi Dimitrov, the late chief agent of the global Comintern, Premier of sovietized Bulgaria (1948);
• Josip Broz, alias Tito, Prime and Foreign Minister, dictator, general secretary of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (1947);
• Boleslaw Bierut, President and dictatorial figure-head of Satellite Poland (1947);
• Klement Gottwald, President of the Sovietized Republic of Czechoslovakia (1948).

This list of power dynamos — or symbols of power — with bleeding hearts for human suffering is by no means complete.

—Melchior Palyi, Compulsory Medical Care and the Welfare State (Chicago: National Institute of Professional Services, 1949), 18-19.