The Virtue of Selfishness

Ayn Rand - in Manhattan in 1957

Ayn Rand wrote a book by that title in which she justified the selfish choices everyone makes. She went on to condemn altruism as incompatible with the requirements for human life and happiness.  She was a brilliant lady, an atheist and objectivist who insisted on "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Selfishness is both necessary and morally right, she tells us, and a person's reasoning is the only law.

Is she right?  Is altruism just wrong thinking?

In the book, she compares the industrialist/producer with a bank robber, both pursuing personal fortune.

• The producer is virtuous, she says, despite having the same motivation of greed.  She offers us, “Yet . . . there is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery...."  She's perhaps right about the industrialist/producer, of course.
• She considers the robber's behavior to be sub-human and the producer to be noble.
• She encourages the wealthy to pursue more, motivated by healthy greed.
• And personal sacrifice is abhorrent.

So, did she notice that business motivated by such greed is likely to be abusive?   We know that problems may arise when you consider the capitalist model in which the industrialist operates.

• The industrialist/businessman can look exactly like the robber with the only difference between the two being the legality (or illegality) of their behavior.  
• It is illegal to rob a bank.  
• It is legal, however, 
• to underpay employees, 
• to limit hours to avoid paying benefits, 
• to avoid regulatory compliance by offshoring artificial transactions, 
• to target (neuromarketing) advertising to children, 
• to misrepresent (lie about) a product's value and utility, 
• to extract wealth from the economy without providing benefit in return.

Is business good or bad?  To be fair, there are those who innovate and improve our world, and there are those in business who do harm.  Some contribute wonderfully, and some suck the life out of us.  It would appear that Rand's observations of greedy business were perhaps idealistic, ignoring the depth of unconscionable practices common in the business community even during her formative years.  The only 'ethical' criteria applied to such practices was (and is) profitability and avoidance of legal repercussions.

She arrived at her basic thinking as a teenager, she tells us.  Born in 1905 in Russia to a middle class family, she and they were devastated by the revolutions of the time.  The family business was confiscated, and they were driven from their home.  They fled for their lives, nearing starvation on multiple occasions before finally settling in the U.S.  Today ...

"Her ideas permeate contemporary American policies and institutions. Hundreds of former protégés, including Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan, Libertarian Party founder John Hospers, former Barron’s editorial director Robert Bleiberg, and best-selling psychologist of self-esteem Nathaniel Branden, lead government agencies, publications, corporations, and popular movements. Forbes and Fortune regularly mention Rand as a present-day hero of young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Television hosts and Tea Party activists invoke her name. Hundreds of campus study groups and clubs continue to debate her views."

“A trader,” she writes, “is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved.  He does not treat men as masters or slaves, but as independent equals.  He deals with men by means of a free, voluntary, unforced, uncoerced exchange - an exchange which benefits both parties by their own independent judgment.”

Ah, there we come to the heart of the matter.  Ayn Rand is quite clear that her view of capitalism is precise and ideal and virtually unrelated to modern business practices.  There is nothing wrong with capitalism, but capitalists can be lying, murderous sub-humans, not unlike the bank robber in her earlier description.

Wealth distribution in America in the years since Ayn Rand

"Pure capitalism," she concludes, "has never existed: but in the countries that approached it, with America in the second half of the nineteenth century leading the way, the individual was able to flourish. This is because capitalism is the only system that fully recognizes that man is the rational being who 'has the right to exist for his own sake,' free from coercion by others."   

And there you have it.  We perhaps came close, briefly. Ayn Rand died in 1982, just as explosive inequality and the GAP began to infect the world marketplace.  The nation she knew had been growing with opportunity for most.  Subsequent years saw opportunity and gains going exclusively to the wealthiest 10% at the expense of everyone else.

I don't agree with Rand and her followers on many issues, but on this one point (and perhaps only this one), we agree.

"We've never seen pure capitalism."  

Perhaps that's because there are no pure capitalists, and some (not all, but some) are these greedy sub-humans that are willing to get rich at the expense of other's lives, literally.

As for altruism, well that's another story entirely. I suspect she may have disagreed with herself on that one. 
Thanks and a hat tip to my friend Joel for provoking this re-review.

Note: Ayn Rand is rather famous for being slightly off the mark in her attacks. Take a look at her website and see if you can spot any misidentification of opposing values and subsequent off-target responses.

By way of example, she tells us her opinion of the communists who took over her homeland when she was a child; "The advocates of collectivism are motivated not by a desire for men’s happiness, but by hatred for man . . . hatred of the good for being the good; . . . the focus of that hatred, the target of its passionate fury, is the man of ability." 

Notice how, as she attacks this group, ...

• she ascribes a root motive (hatred for man),
• then she ascribes a behavioral rationale (hatred of the good for being good), 
• and identifies a hypothetical innocent victim (their target ,,, the man of ability) 
• for the group's irrational and evil behavior (that hatred, passionate fury).   

She passes judgement on the basis of her critique, but each attribution is oddly unreasonable and unsupported by available evidence.  Still, she's popular, and not for her objectivity but for her literature; all wonderfully illustrative and engaging.  Needless to say, she's been a controversial voice.

Academic philosophers have mostly ignored or rejected Rand's philosophy.^[ref]  Nonetheless, Objectivism has been a significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives.^[ref]

Thoughts on her contribution to our culture?

Rising Inequality

Rising Inequality: How to Reverse It.


DEVELOPMENT & SOCIETY : Sustainability, Poverty, Economics, Social Development
2014•11•10 Annett Victorero and Dominik Etienne, United Nations University

The last decade has witnessed a revival of concern over the impact of high-income concentration on economic development and wellbeing. The global distribution of income has for decades resembled a ‘champagne glass’, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Distribution of world GDP, by quintiles; richest 20% top, poorest bottom. Source: Ortiz and Cummin (UNICEF, 2011).

Today, the top 20 percent receive more than 70 percent of the global income, and the top 1 percent (70 million people) earn as much as the poorest 3.5 billion people — that is half the world population. Some positive news can be found, for example in the case of Latin America, but progress is much too slow. At the current rate of progress it would take 800 years for the bottom quintile to get even 10 percent of the global income.

To discuss why it is crucial to integrate the economic equity perspective into national and international development processes, UNU-WIDER, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) organized a policy seminar and shared examples of policies that have worked.

On 23 October more than 50 representatives of over 20 international organizations — among them 13 UN agencies and bodies — and permanent missions to the UN joined in the discussions with an expert panel consisting of Isabel Ortiz, Richard Kozul-Wright and Giovanni Andrea Cornia. The meeting was chaired by Tony Addison, Deputy Director and Chief Economist of UNU-WIDER.

Inequality must be a cornerstone of the development agenda post-2015

According to Ortiz the case for equity is now enormous; it is not only about social justice. Equity contributes to growth and builds political stability. Indeed some countries in Asia and Latin America have been focusing on cutting inequality in order to foster national demand and consumption.

But in order to bring equity into the development agenda and policy advice of international organizations the key will be to mainstream it systematically into all sectors — from agriculture, education and health to finance, trade, industry and others (Figure 3). It is not enough to simply be undertaking a few interventions in selected areas.

Sector	Typical interventions with equitable outcomes	Typical interventions with inequitable/regressive outcomes
Education	Universal free education; scholarships and programmes to retain students	User fees; commercialization of education; cost-saving in teacher’s salaries
Energy and Mining	Rural electrification; life-line tariffs (subsidized basic consumption for low- income households); windfall social funds; contract laws ensuring local benefits from natural resources	Untaxed oil/mineral extraction
Finance	Regional rural banks; branching out to local areas; managing finance (regulating financial and commodity markets, capital controls)	Financial liberalization; rescue of banking system (transfers to large banks); subsidies to large private enterprises
Health	Universal primary and secondary health services; nutrition programmes; free reproductive health services	User fees; commercialization of health; tertiary highly specialized clinics that benefit a few (e.g. cardiology centers)
Housing	Subsidized housing for lower income groups; upgrading of sub-standard housing	Public housing finance for upper income groups
Industry	Technology policy to support competitive, employment-generating domestic industries, SMEs	Deregulation; general trade liberalization
Labour	Active and passive labour programmes; employment-generating policies	Labour flexibilization

 These excerpts are from a longer article that first appeared in WIDERAngle newsletter.  United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER).  This work is licensed under a CC BY NC SA 3.0 IGO License.  Included here for perspective on shared concerns.

Progress!

See the problem?

In 1820, survival was difficult and most of the world was harshly poor.  Perhaps 900+ million lived in what is today described as absolute poverty, living on less than the equivalent of $2 per day.

After almost a hundred years, we've made incredible progress, but now there are more than one billion in that poverty grouping.  There are more people in deadly poverty today than there were a century ago.

Population has grown, of course.  There are 7 times as many people in the world than there were in 1820.  One reason for the growth, a smaller percentage of people in absolute poverty means folks are living longer and children are more likely to survive to adulthood.  That part is encouraging, of course.

How much folks have to live on - from 2015 data for population, productivity, and share.

On the less encouraging side, we still have hundreds of millions who are left out of the progress so many of us enjoy.  It is difficult to grasp the life circumstances they face.  It's hard to imagine holding your children in your arms and knowing you don't have enough food for them.  We've made progress; the problem can be solved.

In a world filled with difficult challenges, dealing with human suffering should perhaps be at the top of the list.

Thoughts on the subject?

BREXIT

Should I stay or should I go?  The UK is in the process of deciding whether to leave the EU or stay.  Being a member has changed their view of themselves as a nation; their identity has been diluted, according to some.  Economic issues, sovereignty issues, political and ideological issues ... and the migrants.

One party supporting Brexit ('Britain's Exit' from the EU) has published the poster (right).

It has been displayed in the media, on billboards, and on the sides of busses, suggesting that refugee immigrants are the last straw in the decision to abandon the EU.  Sound familiar?

Parties opposed to leaving the EU have pointed out the incitement to racial discrimination, segregation, and an abandonment of humanitarian values.  It has even been noted for similarity to Nazi propaganda. The offered arguments are indeed similar and perhaps equally misleading.

The UK discussion on the EU sounds much like the run-up to the election in the states this year.  People here are voting 'with their middle finger', as one southern gentleman has suggested.  And the migrants are an emotional issue. One commentator offers that folks are fed up with 'experts' on economics and politics and with lack of representation.  Exaggerated fear mongering is everywhere.

Times of distress, particularly economic distress, can cloud common thinking on the issues.  The stakes are raised as national impetus for a solution escalates.  In Germany following WWI and the Great Depression, times were hard, and it was a perfect opportunity for popular change.  In retrospect, we see how people lost contact with reality and bought into the promises of the National Socialists.  They blamed their problems on one ethnic minority and became participants in the outcome, a perhaps cautionary reminder.

We have perhaps some choice in the matter, at least in our own thinking.  There is no single decision, no one politician that will resolve all the difficulties and return things to an easier form.

For the record, most difficulties we face today have developed over decades, and are unlikely to be fixed by some knee-jerk popular choice or simple decision.  It's worthwhile to be thoughtful in our choice of leaders and representatives, and we, at least, needn't be fear mongers.

(In the U.S., the fact that neither presidential candidate is particularly appealing is troublesome, but they aren't the only contest being decided on the ballot.)

What's on my mind? Orlando.

49 killed, 53 injured by gunman in Orlando nightclub

While speculation in the media abounds, we know that neither religion nor gun regulations are the cause.

In the news, one candidate blames the Muslims, another blames the gun laws, and someone raises the issue of inadequate mental health care as the cause. Despite the claims of leaders who, for whatever purpose, blame this group or that, science has demonstrated that the phenomenon of 'us against them' is rooted in selfishness and in fear of loss.

Confusing cause and effect, it's easy to suggest that Islam is the cause of terrorism.  Similarly, we could say that Christianity caused folks to crusade and slaughter for hundreds of years. Both cases, however, are examples of extremist thinking by leadership and by followers, perhaps many of whom are deceived. By the time such behavior is chosen, the ideological origin has been morphed and adapted by the participants.  What follows is from power players, broken values, and corruption.

'Self above others' and 'self at the expense of others' are normally identified and corrected, at least initially, during the childhood years by family and community.

When a culture (whether political, religious, or national) supports the standard, peace follows as we saw along the Niger river for more than a thousand years.

When a culture fails the standard, the culture is warped violently, and civilization is at risk.*

Guess what the solution might be. :)**

Norman Rockwell's painting reminds us, the ethic

of reciprocity and tolerance is taught in every major

religion.  That's every major religion including Islam.

*E.g.: 'self above others' and 'self at the expense of others' give us racial discrimination, religious discrimination and persecution, class discrimination and elitism, intolerance, political polarization, oppression, disenfranchisement, and social ostracism. And bullying. It's all deadly.  

A civilization's fall, while not precisely predictable, appears to be inevitable, and with an average lifespan of around three centuries.  So the folks living along Africa's Niger river were a persistent civilization for more than a thousand years, how did they do that?

**Next question: at the very core of self and identity, what does it take to change us for the better?

Science tells us we're all bent this way or that, and most of the time, we're not even aware that our thinking is less than objective, that our judgement is self-serving, and that our criticism of others is often inaccurate and unwarranted. So what's the way out?





You might appreciate: Civilization's Reasonable Rise and Cities Without Citadels

Paying attention

"Did you notice?  You have to look back just a bit.  For nearly 50 years, as our country got richer, our families got richer -- and as our families got richer, our country got richer.

And then about 30 years ago, our country moved in a different direction. New leadership attacked wages. They attacked pensions. They attacked health care. They attacked unions. And now we find ourselves in a very different world from the one our parents and grandparents built. We are now in a world in which the rich skim more off the top in taxes and special deals, and they leave less and less for our schools, for roads and bridges, for medical and scientific research -- less to build a future." Elizabeth Warren

While I don't share Senator Warren's political leanings, she's correct.  Do your own research on changes in wealth, income, inequality, family, etc.  Take a look at The century's deadliest idea.

And yes, J.P.Morgan is one of the players responsible for the economic difficulties that plague
most of the world.  They received billions from government bailout programs so they could
stay in business. They spend millions each year on political contributions (purchasing
legislation) and millions more on lobbying. They have a voice in our government
while the typical citizen (non-billionaire) does not.

Real income, inflation adjusted        

Inequality in the U.S. in both income and total wealth is higher than most developed countries.  The effects of such disproportion are now visible as change in both the economy and in the culture.

What might those effects be?

• A decline of the middle class
• A decline of economic mobility
• Stagnant wages for the bottom 90%
• Persistent poverty in the lowest quintile
• An accelerating gap between the top quintile and all the rest
• Increase in corruption and white collar crime
• Increase in urban crime and incarceration 
• Increase in wage and benefit theft by employers
• Decline in integrity in the financial sector
• Decline in fiscal stability for middle class communities and urban regions
• Economic abuse of the working poor
• Increased impediments to economic advancement by minorities
• Widening quality gap between the top decile and the rest for quality of services available; e.g., education, healthcare, security, representation

So how might we minimize the damage and correct our course forward?