HIGHLAND, UT | 14 July 2008 | The EPA, of all agencies, regularly publishes a calculation on human life value. They reported recently that over the past five years this value has dropped. What is the EPA doing calculating human life value? Turns out that many government agencies calculate this value, all for their own purposes and all having a different value to serve those purposes. The EPA uses theirs to help determine what regulations the government should impose upon environmental issues. The higher the value the more restrictions they feel justified in demanding.

Critics say the lowering of the value was politically motivated so the Bush administration can get away with not creating more environmental regulations, but others, including Rush Limbaugh callers-in believe there is more behind the numbers: the government can then regulate the amount of entitlements it doles out to different groups of people. Say, senior citizens needing operations that will end up costing more than their human life values at that time of their life.  

So, what does this mean for the common American? Well, since Human Life Value is the source and creator of all property value, and since everyone’s HLV has dropped, this means that each person’s ability to determine property value is suddenly much lower. Perhaps it also means that the government has more authority in helping each one of us in making those determinations.

But seriously:

Key Points

• Human Life Value, as defined by the FreeCapitalist Project:

…the capitalized monetary worth of the earning capacity resulting from the economic forces that are incorporated within our being: namely, our character and health, our education, training, and experience, our personality and industry, our creative power, and our driving force to realize the economic images of the mind (Huebner, 5).

• Definiteness of Purpose and having a Definite Chief Aim are two of the best ways to recognize a person’s HLV because it is the best indicator of whether person will have the character and develop other aspects necessary to become successful in a given field of life. Napoleon Hill explains:

One of the most startling facts brought to light by those 16,000 analyses was the discovery that the ninety-five per-cent who were classed as failures were in that class because they had no definite chief aim in life, while the five per cent constituting the successful ones not only had purposes that were definite, but they had, also, definite plans for attainment of their purposes (Hill, 32).

• A person able to aptly define a definite purpose easily recognizes the value of things in his life and can quickly decide upon his willingness to exchange for them.
• In contrast, Seth Borenstein of the AP reports that the EPA determines HLV as follows:

The EPA figure is not based on people’s earning capacity, or their potential contributions to society, or how much they are loved and needed by their friends and family—some of the factors used in insurance claims and wrongful-death lawsuits.

Instead, economists calculate the value based on what people are willing to pay to avoid certain risks, and on how much extra employers pay their workers to take on additional risks. Most of the data is drawn from payroll statistics; some comes from opinion surveys [very scientific]. According the EPA people shouldn’t think of the number as a price tag on a life.

• Thus, the EPA’s calculation appears to be more of what the average HLV in America determines as the property value of these risks rather than an assessment of the HLV itself.

Conclusion

Have no fear. In spite of what various government agencies might think HLV is not declining, that is, as long as an individual seeks to improve his life based upon the 9 or 10 aspects defining that value.

Action Steps

Seek to increase your HLV. Below are some possible ways of accomplishing this.

1. Enroll in a class you’ve been thinking about studying.
2. Take on a new skill.
3. Develop the habit of reading at least 30 minutes every day. “Leaders are readers and readers are leaders.”
4. “Discover your strengths,” your unique abilities, and develop definite purposes around those strengths. Seek to create value for others in these respects.
5. Don’t worry how the government defines HLV, they don’t know anyway. :D 

MRFC Principles: 6 (4, 6) 

Sources

Seth Borenstein (AP Science Writer), An American life worth less today,SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle), July 10, 2008.

S.S. Huebner, The Economics of Life Insurance, 3rd Edition, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. 1959.

Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons,Lesson 2, Wilshire Books, Facsimile Edition, 2000.