Government versus Private Vaccine Mandates
A major controversy during the Covid pandemic revolved around vaccine mandates, imposed by both governments and private entities, such as employers. Much of the debate failed to distinguish between the two types, treating all mandates as a single issue, whether in support or opposition. An example is Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s executive order, which prohibited all organizations, public or private, from enforcing vaccine mandates of any kind.
Libertarians, however, distinguish between government-imposed mandates and those set by private entities, emphasizing the unintended and potentially harmful consequences of government mandates. For instance, one study suggests that such mandates eroded public trust in government institutions and, paradoxically, made vaccine-hesitant individuals even less willing to get vaccinated.
That said, libertarians defend the right of private entities to require vaccinations for employees, customers, or other stakeholders.
A recent study illustrates the effectiveness of this private-sector approach:
Our findings reveal that employer vaccine mandates significantly increased staff vaccination rates. This had life-saving effects on the health of nursing home residents, who experienced reductions in both COVID-19 cases and mortality. For every two facilities that implemented a mandate, approximately one life was saved. Given that a typical nursing home houses only 100 residents, this impact is substantial.
The success of voluntary, decentralized measures underscores the power of market-driven decision-making. Employees and customers retain the freedom to choose where they work and shop, allowing best practices to emerge naturally, without state coercion.
In short, when private companies take the initiative in protecting public health and safety, they provide a viable alternative to broad, government-imposed mandates.
 | A guest post by
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Can we assume that you actually analyzed the study in order to determine if their results are, in fact, correct? Two quotes from the abstract suggest that this study might not be serious:
1) "Our findings reveal that employer vaccine mandates significantly increased staff vaccination rates. "
Don't need a study to confirm that threatening to fire people without the vaccine will increase employee vaccination rates, so this statement alone is ridiculous and pointless to include in a "research" paper.
2) "This had life-saving effects on the health of nursing home residents, who experienced reductions in both COVID-19 cases and mortality. For every two facilities that implemented a mandate, approximately one life was saved."
Did they assume, as many other studies have done, that vaccinations saved lives, and use that fact as a part of their model to find out whether vaccinations saved lives? Or did they actually have evidence that the vaccinations were the direct cause of the reduced mortality, rather than increased knowledge over time of best practices to reduce virus transmission and treatment?
I'm no statistician and the studies are behind a paywall, but seems to me that their abstract includes enough to make the casual reader suspicious of their conclusions.
Have you read John Garen’s paper arguing that libertarians can reasonably oppose private mandates due to (among other reasons) common law contract rights protecting employee privacy & autonomy? https://isfe.uky.edu/sites/ISFE/files/research-pdfs/Free%20Enterprise%2C%20Employer%20Vaccine%20Mandates%2C%20and%20Bans%20on%20Employer%20Mandates_0.pdf