Self Interest

I've always thought it was right and proper for individuals to base their decisions primarily on self-interest. After all, who better than oneself to know one's own needs and wants? We invented and have been tinkering for millennia with this idea of government to try and find a way so that my self interest can exist harmoniously with yours. Or even better, that our self interests can complement each other's. In the US, as is the tendency of democracies, some are more equal than others and can, in the pursuit of their own self interest, gradually appropriate for themselves a disproportionate share of control over the levers of government and wealth. This is a failure of our checks and balances hiding mainly behind the Shield of Personal Freedom. I think this is why we have in some measure lost sight of our shared responsibility to try to cultivate a society where quality health care and education are attainable by all ordinary people and where no exceptional mind need ever go uncultivated, nor grievous ill health untreated, because of poverty. In our peculiar, Ayn Rand style of pathological individuality, we have lost a vital connection to the social contract which recognizes that everyone is benefited when all people have abundant access to the resources they need to make a successful life for themselves.

How do we restore a measure of respect for this social contract?

1. To have a healthy, decent, civilized society, the stronger should help the weaker; the healthy and capable should not be content to see the aged and infirm suffer privation. We all were born weak and vulnerable, and most of us will at some time be injured, ill, or grow infirm with age. Part of the social contract is that as a member of the society, when you are at your weakest, you won't be abandoned and when you are strong, you will bear a fair, reasonable, predictable portion of the costs. After all, we never know how or when the tables will turn and the strong will become the weak. This contract works along two dimensions, we invest in the well-being of society now to help those who need help. And we invest with an eye to the future so that those who come after us will find the field plowed and fertilized, ready for them to be productive. That is to say, wouldn't it be nice if we were responsible stewards over the earth's natural resources and focused on long-term sustainability rather than short-term gains at the expense of sustainability? And wouldn't it be good to leave our descendants with robust, solvent, reliable institutions to administer programs that benefit the public good in a fair, even-handed fashion? And isn't that really the decent, American thing to do? We have been successfully trained to hear ideas such as this and recoil with horror at the prospect of Socialism, by which we have trained ourselves to mean a horrible, slippery slope leading inevitably to universal poverty and degradation. However, just as a farmer spends time, effort and money to cultivate and fertilize his field so that his plants will grow better later on, investments made in providing proper health care and educational opportunities will also always provide a significant return on the investment. It will not be cheap or easy -- nothing of value is. But, just as research and development pays off, so does having a healthy and well-educated populace. And the return will be a much better place for everyone to live.
   
2. We need to tone down the political rhetoric. In our excess of spite, we have essentially poisoned the well we all drink from. The one-dimensional political tug of war we are engaged in keeps everyone's attention directed toward a straw man enemy and virtually guarantees that no good ideas can ever emerge alive from the deliberative process. Yes, every idea should be vigorously vetted and debated, but when we are so embittered that we reflexively reject any idea that does not originate from our narrow ideology, regardless of how much merit it may possess, then we all are impoverished.
   
3. We talk endlessly over the financial condition of the country; seemingly insurmountable debts, deficits, and budget impasses are the norm. No one wants to have their programs cut because real people would be affected. And it's true. And yet, somehow we ignore those really huge line items, such as ruinously expensive wars, billions of dollars of oil and agricultural subsidies that warp the markets, corporate tax breaks that are nothing more than naked political favors, unregulated financial institutions that, as we discovered, are capable of bringing the world's financial markets to the brink of total disaster, and other egregious excesses and abuses of our political system. Influence has always been a potent force in politics and will always be so. In earlier times, we had some protections against these things, but we systematically dismantled a number of those protections: 
1. We deregulated the financial industry and removed the controls that were put in place after the great depression to prevent another such occurrence. We had a canary in the mine in the form of the Savings and Loan debacle in the 1980s and 1990s, but we ignored the warning signs. The result was the terrible financial crisis that started in 2008 from the unregulated use of complex debt derivatives. Our economy will recover only slowly from the damage caused by that event. I wonder if we will learn from the experience.
2. We gave corporations the status of individual citizens with the same rights to free speech. This was a terribly disastrous move and paved the way towards the rampant and unfettered peddling of political influence to the long term detriment of everyone. This needs to be taken away by constitutional amendment to make sure that it cannot occur again easily.
3. All these things bring valuable short-term gains to politicians and to those on whose behalf they act. It can be difficult or impossible for us to muster the political will to make long-term decisions that will benefit ordinary people for the long term. Not all societies have these problems, and so we know that they can be solved. Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and other places have been able to make responsible choices that have brought long-term benefits to their citizens, so we know that it is, in principle, possible to take the longer view.

So, to bring this back around to self-interest. How do we act in our own self interest and bring about a renewal of our commitment to the social contract, for the general benefit of the public good? Some people want the government to leave them, and their money, alone. They are happy to care for themselves. I have talked about that viewpoint in another blog post. We are somewhat good at looking out for our interests. However, we do easily fall into the trap of believing that if we can keep all our money and keep the government out of our lives, we'll be just fine. We have a strong belief that the government is nothing but the poster child for wastefulness and profligacy. And without vigilant supervision, that can happen all too easily. But when we take that short term view, then I believe we do damage to our institutions to the long-term detriment of everyone.