From a reader in Cambridge, ON, Canada:
RE:The Real Right To Medical Care….
[T]hanks for the fantastic article on real medical care vs. socialized medicine. I am writing this email because I am a young Canadian who has a socialized medical system. While I cannot argue your logic for a true free market medical care system, I did finish your piece feeling like there is one hole. Not to say the idea is flawed, by no means, but if individuals have a right to life, and had an illness that was fatal if not treated but could not afford said treatment, where does that leave doctors? You mention charity, and I’m sure to a degree that would exist, but if you were a practicing medical doctor, and knew you could save a life with a simple procedure, how many could you turn away based on cost? While I wholeheartedly agree with the principles you outline in your piece, I found it fascinating, I did get the sense that the issue was not broached for that reason. Now I realize this may only be a small percentage of the population in a truly free market, but a life is a life at the end of the day. I hope you find the time for at least a modest response, if I somehow missed you stating said circumstance in your piece, please simply direct me to said section.
Dear Reader:
Thank you for your note. The right to life is not a right to be kept alive by other people, against their will. If there were such a right, then you and I and everyone else not in poverty would have to be devoting our lives to keeping alive countless numbers of impoverished people all over the world. To the contrary, paraphrasing Ayn Rand, the right to life is the right of an individual to take all of the [peaceful, non-coercive] actions that sustain and promote his life. This understanding of the right to life is incompatible with the notion of people having a right to be kept alive at others’ expense.
Of course, people may wish to give to charity within the limit of their perceiving that doing so enhances their own lives. The funds raised through charity together with the time doctors were willing to provide to charity patients would undoubtedly be concentrated on cases in which all that was necessary were relatively simple, inexpensive procedures that would save life or limb. But this cannot be a solution for all those medical problems requiring more complex and costly treatments that are beyond the means of patients and of the willingness and ability of people to provide charity.
What the solution for these medical problems is, is economic progress, which continuously improves medical care and makes it less and less expensive, while at the same times making practically all other goods and services better and less expensive as well, thereby freeing up more income to be spent on medical care if necessary. The foundation of economic progress, of course, is individual freedom and capitalism.
Always, however, there will be some people who will die because still more and better care, that others might have provided, was beyond their reach. There is simply no way to avoid this. It’s an aspect of the fact that man is mortal.
Trying to avoid it by compelling everyone to devote his life to keeping other people alive, beyond his perception of the personal, value to his own life of doing so, destroys the incentives to produce and advance, and thus ultimately does no good to anyone.
Because of this destruction, attempts to enforce such an obligation always stop short after a time. In fact, this is what we are seeing right now in the United States in the proposed roll backs in Medicare and denial of treatment to the elderly. It’s what already has taken place in Great Britain, and, I believe, in Canada and everywhere else that medical care has been collectivized long enough.
The government simply lacks the means to provide everyone with unlimited medical care. Eventually, it has to impose limits. But its limits entail depriving people of medical care who could have afforded it, if left free to use their own resources for that purpose. Its limits entail aborting further progress in medical in order to hold down the cost of operating its collectivized system.
There are two sorts of limits to medical care. One is reality, which encompasses the state of scientific and technological knowledge, the state of capital accumulation, the resulting productivity of labor, and the relative performance of different individuals cooperating together under economic competition and the pursuit of individual self-interest. Under capitalism, as the result of the pursuit of self-interest and competition, this limit is continually pushed outward and the level of care for everyone continually improves. (See my book Capitalism, chap. 9, for further discussion of this.)
The other kind of limit to medical care is arbitrary government fiat. The government takes over medical care and it decides who is to receive care and to what extent. Under government control, the limit to medical care tends to be frozen, indeed, declining. Progress in medical care is largely prohibited as a threat to the government’s budget and decline accompanies the coming to the fore of doctors who are content to be mere tools of government policy; it also accompanies the general economic decline that results from related government policies that are hostile to capital accumulation and economic efficiency.
There’s undoubted more to be said. But I hope that these remarks serve to address the matters you raised.
Sincerely,
George Reisman
________________________________________
From a reader in Perth, Western Australia
Subject: stupid Samaritan patsy
“It should be obvious that such an arrangement entails the utter perversion of the right to medical care.”
Dear Dr Reisman,
I find it astounding that a man who can write some many thousands of words on a topic, in apparently grammatically good English, can have the whole concept so wrong.
Altruism, empathy – those are the core concepts of society, not the market place. Health care is part of the altruistic nature of society, and it arose not out of purely commercial needs, it arose because most people on this planet have empathy for those who are sick, those who are unwell. People form collective societies for exactly that reason, to share the common burdens and chance misfortunes in life equally and fairly between those can and those who can’t afford it.
I assume you are basically an anarchist with your attitude. All people are free from obligations to any other person, no matter what their circumstances. Hence the idea of Government to provide common services is unnecessary. I guess you probably believe that education should also be a purely commercial domain as well.
It scares me that you may have been teaching these attitudes to your economics students, the world is a poorer place if you have done so. Did you ever lecture or write on the economics of altruism or is it so far away from your moral centre that you can’t
understand the concept?You are one of the people who left the man in the ditch for the stupid Samaritan patsy to come along and waste his good economic resources of food, water and labour on the man who for no reason of his own was in dire needs.
Your attitude may seem intellectually clever, put it is morally poor.
As a contrast, here in Australia we have fine collective system of medical care that works extremely well for the citizens of Australia. It is affordable, and we have better health care than the USA.
So, Dr Reisman, I think you need to look at the poor, the unemployed, those born with impediments such as lower intelligence, mental or physical disabilities and try to apply your huge mind to putting yourself into their position. It is probably difficult for you to do so, but should you be successful, you will hopefully feel remorse for your shockingly selfish position on health care.
Dear Reader:
Altruism is a philosophy of misery, suffering, poverty, and the hatred of man for man. It is the philosophy that ruled the Dark Ages and underlay such accompaniments as the Iron Maiden, the rack, and burning people alive at the stake.
Civilization is founded on the philosophy of egoism and recognition of the individual’s right to the pursuit of his own, selfish happiness and the corollary recognition that the means of accomplishing this is voluntary, peaceful social cooperation under the division of labor. The gains from the division of labor give to each individual a rational self-interest in the existence of other people and in their individual freedom and right to the pursuit of their own happiness. This is the arrangement that progressively increases the supply of goods and services and improves life for everyone. (For elaboration, see Ludwig von Mises’s Socialism and my Capitalism.)
Under this arrangement–i.e., capitalism–the individual comes to regard other people with benevolence, because their existence improves his existence. In such conditions, people are prepared, within limits, to help others who suffer through no fault of their own. Thus, they help victims of earthquakes, floods, and all other natural disasters. They help people who cannot help themselves, including those who are stuck in a ditch. But that is not their primary goal or, as a rule, a major goal. It is secondary and rests upon their pursuit of their own happiness.
In contrast, when altruism prevails, each individual must regard all other individuals as a source of loss and misery. Their existence is a constant claim against his wealth and time and thus against his ability to enjoy his life. In such circumstances, the individual easily reaches the conclusion that he would be better off if those others did not exist. He would then be free of the burdens they impose.
Historically, the United States was characterized by the individual’s freedom to pursue his own happiness (a basic right enumerated in our Declaration of Independence). Thus, not surprisingly, it was also known for the goodwill and benevolence of its citizens. In contrast, the Dark Ages and the Soviet Union, two leading exemplars of altruism, were known for their hatred and barbaric treatment of human beings. What results from the prevalence of altruism is conveyed in a widely told story in the Soviet Union. It was the story of the Russian who is asked by God to wish for something that he would like God to do for him, on the understanding that whatever God does for him, he will do twice as much for his neighbor. After hearing this offer, the Russian asks that God pluck out one of his eyes, so that his neighbor can lose both eyes. (The story was reported by Hedrick Smith, in his book The New Russians, New York: Random House, 1990, p. 204.)
So much for altruism.
George Reisman
P. S. For elaboration on the contrasting natures of egoism and altruism, see the writings of Ayn Rand, in particular, Atlas Shrugged and The Virtue of Selfishness.
P.P.S. Concerning education, I believe that it should be stricly private. Schools would be legally free to operate on a commercial or non-commercial basis, as they chose. Individual would be free to support non-commercial schools and to provide scholarships for students attending for-profit schools. The main thing is that the government should not be allowed to attempt to improve students’ minds on a foundation of pointing a gun at anyone’s head, such as unwilling taxpayers, unwilling parents, and unwilling students.
Finally, I am not an anarchist but a supporter of government that is limited to the defense of the rights of the individual against the initiation of physical force, including fraud.
George Reisman’s replies to readers are copyright © 2009, by George Reisman. George Reisman, Ph.D. is the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (Ottawa, Illinois: Jameson Books, 1996) and is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute. His web site is www.capitalism.net and his blog is www.georgereisman.com/blog/. A pdf replica of his book can be downloaded to the reader’s hard drive simply by clicking on the book’s title Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics and then saving the file when it appears on the screen. The book provides an in-depth, comprehensive treatment of the material discussed in this post and of practically all related aspects of economics.
{ 49 comments }
Wow. Dr. Reisman, I don’t think your screed against altruism is going to convince the above correspondent, and I would like to point out that one does not have to be anti-altruist, much less a Randian, to be a libertarian.
The simplest answer to socialist objections regarding the right to life is to take them to their logical conclusion. The right to life, as socialists see it, would require the right to food, as well as the right to drugs or medical care, since food is necessary for life. This would make the farmer, the pharmacist, and the doctor, slaves to the human race, or make everybody who must pay in taxes for these goods and services slaves to everybody else. Then what would the right to life mean? The right of all to live as a slave to everyone???
The right to life is not a positive right to food, medicine, etc. It is a negative right; it simply means that people have the right to live as they wish, as long as they do not violate the rights of others to do the same. In other words, the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are just three ways of saying the same thing.
“Altruism is a philosophy of misery, suffering, poverty, and the hatred of man for man. It is the philosophy that ruled the Dark Ages and underlay such accompaniments as the Iron Maiden, the rack, and burning people alive at the stake.”
Uber-non-sequitor or at least clueless to the meaning of altruism.
I have noticed that here in Australia there is a general attitude that all educated and intelligent people should assume the responsibility of looking after and making decisions for those less able.
“Hence [you think] the idea of Government to provide common services is unnecessary… I think you need to look at the poor, the unemployed, those born with impediments such as lower intelligence, mental or physical disabilities”
As shown above there seems to be a belief that babysitting society is the job of government which necessarily represents the will and charity of all those better off.
“I find it astounding that a man who can write some many thousands of words on a topic, in apparently grammatically good English, can have the whole concept so wrong.”
I think the reader from Perth was politely saying that such opinions can only be held by rednecks and hicks.
I do not know what caused this massive prejudice against free market ideas, but it seems to be everywhere.
Simple wisdom such as the fact that by creating more goods for cheaper in a competitive market raises living standards and does more for yourself and your fellow man than any dollar in any collectivized hands seems to have long been forgotten or at least willfully ignored
Also being an Australian who lives in Sydney I can guarantee you that I am very unsatisfied with our public hospitals and I can guarantee you that I have switched to private alternatives.
Dr. Reisman,
Your use of the word “altruism” seems to refer to compulsory altruism. Which is fine, because altruism in government health care is indeed compulsory. But I think your point would be more accessible if you this were more explicit.
REISMAN’S REPLY
Thank you for your comment, Jonathan. I think altruism implies the use of compulsion and beyond a point absolutely depends on it. This is because most people will not voluntarily sacrifice and certainly not to a point sufficient to satisfy the advocates of altruism.
For example, in a free society, without government interference, an individual might be willing voluntarily and eagerly to contribute, say, 5 percent of his income for charitable purposes. Under a continuing barrage of propaganda denouncing him as evil for not doing so, he might be willing reluctantly to add a second 5 percent to silence his critics and perhaps assuage the guilt he has been made to feel. But hardly anyone will be willing voluntarily to contribute a quarter or half of his income. Thus, today’s income tax, inspired by altruism, depends on the threat of jail for everyone who does not pay it.
People voluntarily and eagerly do things they perceive as benefitting them. Only reluctantly and then under force do they do they things that they perceive as harming them. Altruism as a way of life is systematic pain and suffering. Few will tolerate it except by means of compulsion.
Sincerely,
George Reisman
@Jonothan
I do not want to speak for Dr. Reisman but I am quite sure he means altruism as altruism full stop.
In my reading of Reisman and based on some familiarity I have with his and Rand’s works I get the general impression that their belief is that altruism can only be irrational.
I will also personally contend that when you give people charity voluntarily you are doing it because of selfishness and egoism. This is rational. You do the action knowing it makes you happier and better off and not because you feel an obligation to “other individuals… a source of loss and misery” which would be irrational
I think this is what Dr. Reisman means when he says:
“In such conditions, people are prepared, within limits, to help others who suffer through no fault of their own. Thus, they help victims of earthquakes, floods, and all other natural disasters. They help people who cannot help themselves, including those who are stuck in a ditch. But that is not their primary goal or, as a rule, a major goal. It is secondary and rests upon their pursuit of their own happiness.”
i.e that charity in order to be good, beneficial charity can only be in the pursuit of a selfish end.
Thus altruism exists only if the individual is irrational or alternatively if such engaging in such actions is coerced upon him.
Either way it still holds that as Reisman points out altruism only leads to “misery, suffering and poverty”
I am no philosopher so I apologize if my comments are out of line or ignorant. I am just giving my own interpretation of what I think Dr. Reisman meant when he said altruism. i.e that his comments apply to altruism that is compulsory as well as altruism of any other kind
Randism can be so off-putting.
@Jonathon:
I don’t think Dr. Reisman means compulsory altruism, because that is arguably not really altruism at all, but what I call compassion fascism. What I think he means by altruism is the idea that living for others is a higher ideal than living for oneself.
Here is a quote from Ayn Rand on altruism:
“The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice – which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction – which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.”
I personally do not care if a person is altruistic in this sense, if he chooses freely to be so. Dr. Reisman apparently finds even this offensive. This is silly to me; the human race would die off if altruism of parents towards their children did not exist. But at least Ayn Rand was consistent, and did not reproduce.
Russ:
I thought your comment was helpful up to its last two sentences. There are parents who take care of their children out of a sense of altruitistic duty. Perhaps every parent does so occasionally. But, hopefully, the great majority of parents, the great majority of the time, positively love their children and consider their lives and well being as essentail requirements of serving their own self-interest. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, the mother who buys her child food rather than buy herself a new hat, is not engaged in self-sacrifice. Her action would be self-sacrificial only if she in fact valued the hat above he child. If she values the child above the hat, the real sacrifice would be buying the hat.
The problem here is in the definition of altruism, and I think Ohnoitsavram illuminates the issue with his identification of the true motives behind a charitable disposition.
A question I like to ask some people is this: which is the better person- one who gives away everything he owns until he is no better off than the poorest amongst us, or the one who voluntarily gives about 5% of his income each year?
Reisman used the definition of altruism as employed deceptively by his correspondent to mean communism. He correctly demonstrated that under communism the social outcome is for humans to be competitors for resources, and for the death of another human to be a benefit to someone, and therefore that no true altruistic sentiment can develop under communism. For example, under a communistic medical care system, I am better off if old people are not given care that can extend their lives if that means that I will be denied care that can extend my much shorter life. I am better off if they die and therefore will come to resent their existence.
Under individualism and capitalism the existence of others does not create a competitive threat to my own existence, but makes my existence more secure. Therefore societies based on individualism will develop altruistic sentiments as the survival of all humans will be in an individual’s best interest.
Disclaimer: I am not an objectivist nor have I ever read any Ayn Rand book.
Reisman is most compelling and inspiring when he is educating on technical economic matters. However, the normative material comes off as if he is channeling Rand, which is swell if you are an objectivist but unfortunately comes off as condescending and fanatical if not.
George Reisman wrote:
“… But, hopefully, the great majority of parents, the great majority of the time, positively love their children and consider their lives and well being as essentail requirements of serving their own self-interest….”
Dr. Reisman,
This is certainly not the common-sense meaning of self-interest. Unless those children can later be of some use to them, as children were in traditional farm families where the children worked the farm for no pay, or in more traditional families today where the children care or provide for parents in their senescence, then the parents’ behavior is not selfish. That is, it does not serve the parents’ own selfish interests, it serves their *non-selfish* interests. If one defines a self-interested act as anything that furthers one’s subjective values, then a psychological masochist who values the feeling of superiority he gets from sacrificing his life to others is still acting in a self-interested fashion, and so he is not an altruist. This renders the terms “self-interest” and “altruism”practically useless. It also seems to me to be a very *subjective* definition of self-interest, while the “common sense” definition seems more *objective*.
I would not bother with this semantic quibbling, but I believe that using the common sense meanings of altruism and self-sacrifice would be much more productive when used in polemics aimed at those not familiar with (and not interested in) Randian philosophy.
Russ:
You seem to believe that if an action is undertaken for the benefit of anyone else, it is automatically precluded from being selfish in any objective or “common sense” meaning of the term.
I want to challenge this idea, which, of course, is the prevailing view, by means of a few examples.
Assume someone owns a car. If he wants the car to run, he needs to put gas in it, change its oil every so often, and perform all other necessary maintenance and repairs.
Everything he does of this kind is for the good of the car. Is the car’s owner acting unselfishly in caring for his car? Is the money he spends in doing so at the expense of his self-interest?
I think the obvious answer is that if the person’s self-interest is served by the car, it is also served by doing what is necessary to maintain the car and that it would be objetively harmed if he spent his gas money on, say, losing lottery tickets and then had to walk miles and miles in great discomfort.
Take another example. Millions of people own pet cats or dogs. Many of them greatly like their pets, indeed, love them. And they’re prepared to spend thousands of dollars in veterinarian bills to keep them alive and well. Is their action unselfish or selfish? Can you conceive of anyone attaching a value to a pet comparable to the value people attach to their automobiles and TV sets? If you can, then, in such circumstances, isn’t it the selfish thing to do what is necessary to maintain the pet, and wouldn’t it be profoundly unselfish, indeed, downright self-destructive, to let the pet die in order to have the money for some trivial satisfaction instead?
Now let’s turn to the value people attach to their children and spouses. People love pets in large part precisely because of their close resemblance to small children. Isn’t it conceivable that a parent might love his own children even more than pet owners love their pets and that keeping his children alive might be selfishly more important to him than his car or house, which, after all, can be replaced, while a child, in his individuality, cannot be?
If the selfish value of a child or spouse to a person really were determined only by the earnings the child or spouse might bring in, which you seem to suggest, then shouldn’t we expect to see people relieved by the death of children and spouses who were not a source of financial gain? But in fact, what we almost always observe is profound grief and despair in such cases. That’s because the loss is an enormous loss from the point of view of the emotional and psychological requirements of one’s own existence.
I think the reason people assume that action for the benefit of others must be altruistic and self-sacrificial and cannot be selfish is because altruism has so poisoned the atmosphere that it leads people to see others exclusively as a set of beggars with nothing of value to offer and capable only of collecting sacrifices. On such a view, other people appear as a source of nothing but loss and deprivation, thus making it impossible to value them selfishly. This is why altruism causes hatred and hostility rather than good will toward others.
the wannabe good-samaritan (whose largesse is the taxpayers’) from perth clearly never reads
“the west australian”, nor visits any perth hospitals. there are always swollen waiting lists for non-life-threatening surgery. (“shadow” waiting-lists were used to mask the real numbers under the previous west australian state labor government).
the system works to the extent that it is not totally socialized – unlike canada, private insurance and exist, though highly bureaucratized. the federal health system (medicare) is a hungry monster that will eat all other budget items in time.
I agree with you RWW and that’s after reading the following comments.
But, of course, why charity either? Charity just like welfare creates learned helplessness and well as scam artists. Why not ignore beggars so they can learn to self-sufficient?
Its not altruism if people are forced to do it.
If Robin Hood steals from the Prince or Aragon and distributes it among the poor, does that make the Prince altruist?
In fact it cannot really be said with certainty that Prince is not altruist. Who know Prince would have given that money to the poor anyways?
Robin Hood takes away the chance of being altruist to people, so at least he should not talk about making people altruist.
Now Robin Hood is a thug. Although an altruist thug, but not an altruist human(he is altruist for a thug for giving away his loot to poor people, but he is not altruist for a human because he robs people at the first place).
to gil:
so you give to beggars indiscriminately? take a trip to the third world, and good luck with your travel budget.
to renegade:
perhaps your robin hood yearns for the adulation of the poor, or perhaps he wants to be a character in a fable. who’s to say what his motives are?
to newson:
Huh?
great article by dr reisman. but he left one elephant in the room – the cost of the intellectual property framework, and the way it shapes both innovation and implementation of medical procedures (maybe stunting rapid, but incremental development of drugs in favour of large-budget, greenfields pharmaceutical research projects promising rich monopoly rents, and favouring drug therapy over other remedial techniques).
i’m assuming he shares the orthodox randian view.
If people genuinely want to help others, there is no better way than to provide goods and services at the lowest possible cost and create well-paying jobs. That’s why some economists credit WalMart for helping the poor more than any state program.
Suppose someone is dying of disease that could be cured by an expensive surgeon but the ill person doesn’t have the money to pay for the surgery. Socialists focus on the need for the state to pay the surgeon or for the surgeon to perform his work without pay. But libertarians ask “why is the surgery so expensive?”
In a free market, any activity that earned as much as surgeons earn would attract competitors who would reduce the price until just about everyone could afford it. In a free market, unaffordable medical care would be extremely rare and charity could take care of it.
What socialists want (surprise!) is more state control over income, wealth and health care in order to make up for the disaster they created in health care with their past stupid policies. If socialists truely cared about poor people, they would become libertarians.
Dr. Reisman has done an outstanding job in both of his recent articles on healthcare. Thanks!
After reading them, I am even more convinced that libertarians should support President Obama’s healthcare initiative and here is why:
Socialists have managed to create a socialist health care system in the US over the past century while simultaneously passing it off as free market health care. Hardly anyone in the country besides libertarians recognizes our current mess as socialism. And as Dr. Reisman pointed out in 1994, the current mess is unsustainable.
Few people in the US are willing to consider freer markets because they believe we have free markets in healthcare today thanks to dishonest socialists. So what we need to do is give them real socialism so that they will understand what it really is. Only then will voters be willing to consider freer markets.
The problem with altruism is that it tends to condemn poor people for pursuing their own “selfish” ends and not sacrificing to the State.
Dr. Reisman mentioned the Dark Ages as an example of altruism reigning over society. Although he did not explain it very well, I think the reason lies in something called the Crusades that followed the first millenium apocalypse craze.
During that time, almost everyone in the Christian world was fixated on the idea that the Judgement Day was close at hand and humanity must pay for its sins. The only way a soul could avoid hellfire was to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where Jesus Christ was to return and create a kingdom of heaven in the world to come. The priests were happy that people were paying attention to their sermons, while feudal leaders, far from sharing into this feeling, were likewise eager for an excuse to loot and pillage the exotic foreign lands. Everyone was in on it, for their own reasons. But to the majority of the barbaric masses, this was a chance to purify their sinful lifestyles and find an easy way to achieve salvation. So great hordes from all over Europe, women and children alike, set out in what was to become to greatest and most pointless mass migration of peoples in human history. And if the Holy Land was held by infidels, infidels who built their culture and civilization on those grounds for centuries, they would carry out His divine will even if they had to drown the entire place in blood.
There were some naysayers who tried to appeal to basic human reason, who said that maybe it’s not such a good idea to abandon land and homes out of religious zeal. But their voices were dismissed as heretical and ignorant of the divine intent God had for the human race, which was to march for thousands of miles and set up camp in Palestine. Those that spoke out in opposition quickly learned to remain silent, since their words were interpreted as nothing more than a blatant rejection of the spiritual wellbeing of their peers, singling them out as targets of violence. So focused was the entire society on the idea of absolving its sins through military campaigns that it was considered madness and heresy of the rankest extent to question it.
The historical parallels to today are glaringly obvious.
The reason why I’m saying this is that the Crusades, amongst countless similar events in history, were a perfect example of humanity attempting to improve its mutual condition through forceful and coercive means with an altruistic goal in mind. Perhaps it was a good thing that people were accepting Christian teachings. But the way they brought them to reality was far from good and far from Christian. In their drive to achieve redemption for mankind, they caused constant misery to themselves and other peoples. Their stubborn zeal to do what was right to them at any cost prevented them from seeing the reality of their actions. They began to rationalize evil things and deeds as being necessary to achieve their goals. This motive would repeat itself countless times throughout human history, and it would be defeated by reality every time. Just like crusaders, imperialists, nazis and communists after them, time after time again the complexity of the natural order of things always overthrew man’s attempts to subdue it to his will. This is why all coercive intervention in human society, even in the name of good (and in what other name has it ever been?) is doomed to failure.
In conclusion altruism is not a bad thing by itself. Losing your head over it while ignoring all other things is.
Man is by his very nature selfish and self-serving. Read Aristotle’s politics for a clear explanation. Altruism (in any form or guise) is antithetical to human nature. This is the reason that all collectivist forms of government, communist and fascist, have always been totalitarian, brutally repressive, and horribly violent towards its subjects (citizens are free people in a free society).
Altruism can only occur through force and coercion. In fact, man does not “choose” free markets and capitalism, they are the natural outcomes of free men. Men always and everywhere will pursue their self interest and will always and everywhere engage in peaceful and mutually beneficial trade. That is an historical fact. This was as true in ancient China and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica as in modern western societies. This inalienable fact could only be abrogated or abolished by the coercive state.
Those societies, such as some American Indian tribes if you will, that chose cooperative and collectivist arrangements, lived in a static and non-improving world. It was also enforced by strict and rigid authoritarian oversight. That is a fact. No progress ever comes from societies such as these. They lived in a world of meager existence, subject to the ravages of nature. Life was tenuous at best, disastrous at worst. By denying the lot of the individual, they denied the lot of the whole.
The true rebel is he who thinks for himself and only of himself. And he is society’s greatest treasure. The accomplishments of man, for his own sake and betterment, benefit others in immeasurable ways. That is true altruism – to be the best at what one does, to make the most of one’s life, for one’s own sake.
For when the farmer or doctor or carpenter is the best, then the rewards are unevenly distributed. Make no mistake about it, I benefit far more from the best doctor or carpenter than he does from me. My compensation is temporary to him. His service to me lasts much longer.
No greater service to mankind can ever be done than for man to do service to himself first and foremost. And only.
@ fundamentalist
I agree with you on an academic basis. The only way for the mass of people to come to see why socialism is a menace is to have it inflicted upon them.
However, the price is that many will suffer or die and I just can’t support anything that will cause such anguish.
The sad truth is, eventually there will be a single payer system. Maybe not this bill, but eventually, some president will make it happen and the people will get their education anyway.
live in Quebec, Canada. Here is how the Canadian Supreme Court described our socialist heath care system (Chaoulli v. Quebec):
“The evidence shows that, in the case of certain surgical procedures, the delays that are the necessary result of waiting lists increase the patient’s risk of mortality or the risk that his or her injuries will become irreparable. The evidence also shows that many patients on non‑urgent waiting lists are in pain and cannot fully enjoy any real quality of life. The right to life and to personal inviolability is therefore affected by the waiting times.”
http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2005/2005scc35/2005scc35.html
@ Russ:
“This is certainly not the common-sense meaning of self-interest. Unless those children can later be of some use to them, …, then the parents’ behavior is not selfish.”
Have you never read “The Selfish Gene” by Dawkins? A biological being, humans included, have a natural investment in close relatives and tribes-men, by means of shared genotypes. The strongest natural selfishness is to seek to leave as many children to reproduce themselves.
This may be a ‘base’ instinct, and some individuals may value, rationally or otherwise, other legacies than that based on DNA, but certainly it is a rational basis for someone to be purely selfish in their actions in not only successfully rearing children but also in helping siblings, cousins, countrymen, and even strangers who, being humans, are still 99% identical to the selfish man.
If you have a short-sighted view of selfishness that doesn’t go beyond satisfying immediate wants, it is your loss, and this shortfall should not compel Dr. Reisman to sugar-coat his message.
George: Liked your responses. But why do you support (limited) statism?
Why not take liberty to its logical conclusion?
Heroic!
However fundamentalist – why not say people should be working and not to expect they can get charity if things go wrong? Why not expect people to work hard ahead of time to pay for unexpected then rely on charity? Why not say Walmart and Nike has does more the poor than Mother Teresa or Worldvision ever did?
Continuously implies a constant state of progress, in other words, without pause.
Perhaps the term needed in the beginning of the disciple of Ayn Rand is continually, which does refer to breaks or non-constant movement.
Surely, the blogger of this post knows that there is not constant progress within this entire debate over who should receive medical care. Of course, the response from a libertarian is easily predictable: “blame the whole damn thing on the government.” Let us know how that works out for you…
Dear Reader:
Take note of the “do not give into evil…blah blah blah” at the headline of this website. It’s slightly misleading to presume these folks have moral backbones. I suspect many of the followers here are devout atheists, given the incessant blabber about Ayn Rand. All this talk about good versus evil, where does knowledge of good and evil come from? Your self-righteousness? Ayn Rand’s interpretation of life?
Please do not get to frustrated with the sophistication by which the original author responds to you with. Moral decay? Moral bankruptcy? Call it whatever, but engaging these folks will lead to nowhere fast…There is no shared reality, so it’s easier to simply ignore all their talk of how the government is the evil, yet they are so righteous.
I agree with the gist of fundamentalist‘s comment in regard to supporting Obama’s plan. While I wouldn’t actually lend support to it in any way, I do quietly cheer it on for the same reasons explained before.
It seems to me that politics inevitably drifts in one direction — toward more state control — until a revolution occurs. After the revolution, there is a chance for greater freedom to take hold, at least until the next cycle heats up. Since it seems that the best we can hope for under the current system is for the progress of tyranny to slow to a crawl, and since the current tyranny is already unbearable, I just want to get on with the end of the cycle.
So come, “universal health care”! Come, hyperinflation! Come, cap and trade!
Chris, it’s hard to make sense of your comment. Are you trying to make some kind of argument?
Although I’ve recently finished Atlas Shrugged, I haven’t read the Virtue of Selfishness or much of Rand’s philosophical work, so I’m just a bit curious.
When Rand uses “altruism” is she automatically refering to “collective forced altruism”?. The Selfish Gene was mentioned before (fantastic book), which ironically shows that human’s psychological interest may be different from our interest of self-preservation, explaining “altruistic” behavior.
My desire to give five bucks to a homeless person may be genetic miss-firing, but it is still in my self interest. To be fair, no one here is suggesting that charity is bad, only forced charity. If I am a farmer, and I lobby to get a certain crop subsidized, I have acted selfishly. The tax-payers who pays for the subsidy are not being altruistic, merely acting in their own self-interest to not be arrested.
So, simply, is Rand at war with evolutionary psychology, or does “altruism” only mean forced extraction of money?
I am a provider of medical care in the USA. I believe that we have the best physicians and the most competent physicians and support staff in the world. The US research and development system – aka, colleges, universities and supported infrastructure- have led the world for decades. The reason for these advances is simple: private enterprise, private venture capital, private businesses develop drugs and equipment that improve outcome for patients.
Secondly, one would assume, if one listened to or read pundits, that people are dropping over dead in the back of pickup trucks from diseases like appendicitis, pneumonia, or H1N1 flu. Nothing could be further from the truth. EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the USA has access to health care if they know where a hospital is, they can get care for an acute illness. Certainly there are rare exceptions to this rule, but there are reasonable explanations for the exceptions.
Thirdly, it is not acute illness that is the problem in this country. (I cannot speak for any other system, but assume that the same standards hold elsewhere – i.e., Western Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.) The problem lies with chronic disease management and end-of-life care. We spend incredible amounts of money treating diabetes, cancer and degenerative diseases. As long as we continue to allow everyone unlimited access to unlimited medical interventions we will be saddled with unlimited expenses.
I applaud Dr. Reismann for his efforts to clarify a poorly understood phenomenon, namely, the counterintuitive notion that the problem with government is the government itself. Which is to say that the problem with government is the governed.
As has been proven repeatedly, democracy is self-destructive. The wild fiddles of legislators are not in tune with the sad songs of history.
Rob Mandel,
You obviously do not know the nature of what it is to be human. Instead of locking yourself in your room and reading thousand year old books written by people who believed in ligtning bolt hurling gods (not that I dislike Aristotle), I suggest you go out and experience the world. You may very well find that you are in a position to help another person merely for the sake of helping THEIR life and helping the advancement of their own self interests.
To say that we should ONLY pursue our own self interests isn’t human. I find it laughable that you consider yourself a scholar of “liberty” when you have clearly demonstrated that you lack the very quality that makes a human a true, pure human.
I like Mises.org for the economic critiques of the state, but I think the people here take individual freedom way too far and trust the common man way too much. Just because humans have the right to be free, something I agree with, does not mean that we should not help our brothers. I am sure many people here think charity is not an evil act, but the man to whom I am responding clearly shows that man should ONLY help himself. I do not care how much economic growth can be sustained through selfish behavior. If you see someone in trouble, you help, simple. And don’t bring up any arguments like “so you would jump in front of a car to save a stranger?” Rarely does charity involve risking one’s own property.
I reckon you are not well educated in cosmology (as is evident through), but if you were, you would realize that your Ivory Tower philosophy of man might not be as accurate as you may think.
Here take a look at this picture: http://www.fossilizedcustoms.com/vultureJPEG.jpg
Tell me honestly you would not help that kid. The person who took the picture didn’t. He committed suicide out of guilt.
If you come back labeling this attempt at proving your own morality as a logical fallacy then I will know I proved my point.
Tell me honestly you would not help that kid. The person who took the picture didn’t. He committed suicide out of guilt.
So… it would have been in his own self-interest to help the child?
to o.q.:
i won’t speak for mandel, but i don’t think anyone here denies the goodness of charity, merely it cannot be imposed without being denatured.
For some reason, I am logged on on every page but this one…and this is the one I want to be logged on…
Anyways, I just wish to remind people here that economics doesn’t define what the worth of anything is. That is of the realm of psychology (and sociology for the economics of groups working together). If you truly believe that basic needs are the only things worth going for, you need to stop reading this for awhile, and look more into psychology. For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs gives a brief, and I think, somewhat misguided view of the Pyramid. Avoid section three (self-transcendental) and you should be fine. I’m not sure where taking care of children lie in there. It used to be in safety along with marriage, but that has changed (one benefit of capitalism). All I know is that it is on there, and it has gone up at least one level meaning fewer people will have children now (which is evident from the trends).
I am a follower of Rand when it comes to coercion and objectivism, but I don’t know what she defined for herself as self-interested or if she thinks they apply to everybody. She is probably misguided on her definition of self-interest if she does think it applies to everybody. The line of objectivity and subjectivity is usually muddled for many. This is especially so with ethics and morality.
Each branch of knowledge teaches us one basic facet in life. The answer to life, the universe, and everything is well, a synonym for knowledge. Mathematics quantifies the knowledge. Language describes it. Logic shows how to deal with knowledge. Science gives a system for disseminating knowledge. Physics, Chemistry, and a bunch of sub-fields define the limits of the world. Biology answers what is life. Psychology answers what life wants. Economics answers they life gets what it wants in the limits set by the physical world through the usage of logic and science. Knowledge of all these fields is needed to be good at economics.
What am I trying to say here? I am saying that many of you are too focused in your view of the problems. Your mind fits around reality, and if you try to fit it too narrowly, your arguments become fanatical. Broaden your views. Try to add outside knowledge to it, and stop trying to imply something that is obviously not true. If the evidence is overwhelmingly against you, check your premises. You’ll see that more often than not, you are at fault.
Of course, when peddling ‘selffishness’, why take into account other peoples’ survival or rights? Doubly if you’re an atheist. Since a hardcore atheist doesn’t believe in any afterlife then why act in any one else’s interest for any reason? If your life requires you to initiate force & fraud against someone else why not? For example, a hungry person who steals food from someone who actually earned the food they have. If the hungry potential thief says to himself “if I kill the person and eat his food then I’ll survive for a day or two more but I shouldn’t because it’s wrong” then how is such a thought ‘selfish’? He’s sacrificing his life so the morality of ‘no initiating force & fraud’ can be maintained.
OQ,
First, Aristotle is almost 2500 years old.
If you bothered to read what I wrote, or bothered to think about it, you’d see that the problem with altruism as a primary objective is that it runs counter to man’s basic instincts. It can only happen through force.
The desire to help others in plight is not only a human instinct, but morally just. And no lover of liberty and freedom would ever question such acts.
In fact, you might find it odd, but the greatest givers of charity in the US are in the reddest of states. Sacre Bleu!! The least charitable states are also the bluest. Interesting, the left wing version of charity: taking others’ property through force, but never voluntarily giving their own.
In fact, the US had vast charitable organizations in the 19th century, long before being crowded out by the state. There never was the mass of poverty and despair in the US of the kind that led to such great social upheavals in Europe.
You missed the point altogether. When man acts in his own self interest, he benefits society to a far larger degree than he benefits himself. The farmer who produces more food feeds more people. The farmer who produces less, fearing theft from the state, still feeds himself but impoverishes society.
I’ll take greedy, selfish farmers every time. Wait a minute, farmers aren’t the best example, especially when one considers farm policy the last 70 years!!
Let’s look at Bill Gates. Now, I’m a Mac guy. However, forget all of Bill’s billions, how much better off is society because of Microsoft? I’d say that if Bill received even a small fraction of what society has gained, he’d be 100 times wealthier.
It is true that people donate to charity and that they receive pleasure for doing so. Is that so bad? In fact, it is only the vast wealth created that allows them the luxury (yes, luxury) of charitable contributions.
“the problem with altruism as a primary objective is that it runs counter to man’s basic instincts”
and
“The desire to help others in plight is not only a human instinct, but morally just”
….
Ok. So why are we worried about altruism when it is “counter to man’s basic instincts” anyways?
My problem with the whole “be selfish, because it is actually good for everyone” argument, is that every sane human already acts selfishly. Unless I am missing something, the only serious concern is whether or not (or to what extent) the selfishness infringes upon the well-being of others.
As far as there not being a “mass of poverty and despair” in the early United States, the genocide of Native Americans, Slavery, indentured servitude, and child labor seem to fit the criteria….Mostly the result of exploitation by selfish people.
Objectivism just seems to be a philosophical cop-out to prevent the debating of real issues. I think it was actually Rand herself who said that the logical extent of altruism is suicide. Real altruism doesn’t exist, so it’s hardly an enemy worth fighting. This all seems to be a very elaborate way to say that people should not be forced by the government to pay money to help other people, which is still a very simple way of puting the issue, but more direct.
Turn a great mind toward the pursuit of…suffering? To be rewarded with…remorse?
WHY!!?
Just why!?! That’s all there is to say to people like this. Its just another permutation of “You’re a leper, I’m surrounded by numerous people who agree with me, you should be ashamed, blah blah…empathy, compassion, numerous other emotionally charged but meaningless words, blippity blippity blah…” No definite moral basis, no logic or reason…and nothing to say in response, save for “Why?”
JD: “I just can’t support anything that will cause such anguish.â€
I know it’s hard and perverse. But the question is not “Will we have greater socialism?†but “Will we have it now or later?†The longer we oppose the tide, the longer it will take to get through the destruction it will cause. Think of it this way: getting the socialist phase over with as soon as possible will reduce the number of casualties. It’s like war; the shorter the better.
Gil: “…why not say people should be working and not to expect they can get charity if things go wrong?â€
Libertarians have been saying things like those for at least a century with little success. Americans refuse to learn from reason or the experiences of others. They simply have to experience the disaster of socialism for themselves before they will change.
The root of this ‘problem’ lies in the subtle fraud of conflating virtue with obligation, and the same fraud misinforms most criticisms of the free market. its far wider than healthcare.
the fraud comes in when a noble or selfless act ( a ‘virtue’.) is compelled by force of law, and everyone concerned congratulates themselves on what a ‘wonderful ‘, ‘progressive’, ‘enlightened’ , ‘humanitarian’ etc law they have enacted. But however noble the intention, the very virtue intended is neutralised. The moment it is compelled, a charitable act becomes incapable of being virtuous:
It confers no moral credit on the actor (who is only acting under duress, so can’t claim karmic kudos).
And it definitely confers no virtue on the enforcer, who has …
1. No objective or legitimate basis on which to balance the hardship his enforcement imposes on the giver against the benefit it confers on the reciever, and
2. no claim to moral superiority of his own, in that the costs of the charitable act he is enforcing are borne by other people and not by himself.
Charitable and compassionate acts derive their moral virtue from the very fact that they are remarkable, exceptional acts of unilateral altruism, exemplified by the fact that they are freely chosen courses of action, taken in spite of th epersonal costs ( whether time, money or effort) borne by the giver. Their very virtuousness is inherent in the fact that they are voluntary departures from expectation.
Theres hardly a religion anywhere which does not regard selfishness as a sin and altruism as a virtue, but this ignores the the primary duty of every living organism, sentient or not, to assure its own survival first. This responsibility is neither ‘selfish’ nor ‘evil’ ( at least in so far as the preservation of self interest is not pursued at the unwilling expense of another). but is necessary before any sort of reciprocal altruism ( co-operation to mutual benefit) can be considered. It is unreasonable to expect or demand the virtue of selfless altruism from everybody. Or anybody.
Unilateral altruism, enforced by law, ( viz. compelling anyone against his will to subordinate his interests or even his life to the needs of another person), if carried out successfully and completely with no exceptions, (as required by most utopian social schemes) must necessarily lead to human extinction in a single generation.
It is enough for the law to ensure that nobody may harm another. Forcing person A to incur an expense to protect person B from a harm not of A’s making is manifestly inconsistent, for it entails imposing harm on A. Sometimes it seems callous when viewed too narrowly.
Mundel and all
I view altruism to the anonymous or general society as a luxury that is akin to upgrading your driving experience in the Mercedes by funding the repair of potholes in the road. It is an excess of luxury, where the diminishing returns apply – joining and contributing to a society for fixing the .potholes will provide far less per dollar contributed than the upgrade from the Taurus to the Mercedes.
Similarly, one can put effort and funds into assisting a pauper in obtaining education and work and surviving in the interim in order to feel powerful or in order to eliminate the blight you perceive the pauper to be on your surroundings, or in order to buy your ticket to heaven – if you happen to believe so. Perhaps because of all of these. Surely there are less “passive aggressive” and cheaper ways to feel powerful, improve your neighborhood, or some form of missionary work or prayer to achieve acceptance at the pearly gates. However, the additional effort is a luxury beyond that – a luxury one can afford because of the satisfaction of one’s greater values by efficiency and efficacy in a high paying endeavor.
The application of large outlays in funds or effort in this are a low return application of ample resources. Without the plenty there would not be the altruistic outlay, the abundance born of capitalism and individual pursuit of selfish goals allows “altruistic” actions that benefit the beneficiary so much more than the giver. The giver is simply pursuing his diminishing marginal returns because he has the wherewithal. The resources are not available to the beneficiary on his own and have a much greater impact on him.
Viewing things this way can explain many things in the “altruism as selfish act” analysis before we need to resort to explanations that are a bit of a stretch and overly stress some subjective values that experience has shown most of us as not that high.
Now let us work instead on fixing the Austrian interest rate theory to reflect non-abitrageable short discount rates and actual bond interest rates, as well as the material distinction missing between capital and income as producing interest regardless of the time preference for existing versus future goods. Give Antal Fekete a good reading. The concern is legitimate.
Also needed is a further thinking into monetary theory outside of monetary quantity to include the quality of money regardless of its quantity, and the relationship of monetary demand to debt and non-monetary uses of a commodity money.
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