In the book Auberon Herbert: Writings of a Reluctant Anarchist Herbert discusses a wide range of topics. At one point he discusses the rise of insurance which, while existing in one for or another for quite some time for business, was becoming available to individuals as well.

But the matter goes far beyond the range of what exists at present. No man can foresee today the full development in the future of the system of insurance. If it is allowed to grow naturally, without disturbance from the politicians, without impediment of any kind, in response to the wants that are calling it into existence, it is possible that in a certain number of years a man, without taking on his shoulder any great burden, may find himself sheltered, as far as shelter is possible, from much the larger part of the world’s material troubles.

One might naturally ask if what he wrote was true, why do we hear so much about how fast health insurance rates are increasing, the supposed reason for implementing Obamacare. Herbert gives a good explanation as the quote continues.

But this development of voluntary protective organizations can never take place unless trade becomes wholly free, having ceased to be half strangled by taxation and official interferences, and unless personal enterprise and voluntary associations of all kinds are allowed to mutually stimulate each other to the full, so as to produce the richest results.

If there is one thing I am certain of, it is that the burdens on trade have done nothing but grow over the last 120 years, or more. From rising taxes to suffocating regulation, businesses are lucky if they can get started and survive and are certainly not being allowed to “mutually stimulate each other to the full.”

I cannot even imagine what the state of insurance, of the world, would be if our society had been more free during the last century but there is one thing I am certain of. We would have been far more advanced and prosperous than we are now.