Is "People are Evil", the cornerstone of Liberal thought?

[blindpig]

A little something posted by a friend of mine a little while back, food for thought.

Is "People are Evil", the cornerstone of Liberal thought?

Edited by anaxarchos on Fri Jul-24-09 04:59 PM

For that matter, is it the cornerstone of Progressives, Conservatives, Libertarians, and American political thought in general?

If the word, "evil", is the wrong one, then how about, "greedy", "stupid", or any other similar descriptor?

Every discussion about Progressivism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Capitalism, Foreign Policy, you name it... seems to come down to "human nature". This "nature" also seems to sit at the core of virtually the entire debate, though it is described differently each time. Sometimes quasi-religious "original sin", other times pseudo-scientific "hard-wiring", here thinly veiled Social Darwinism, there insistent promotion of the wrong "lessons of history" - always relying on a "general agreement" which is gossamer thin and defies examination - is that all there is?

Is the only real disagreement in American Politics, the question of what to do about this "self-evident truth"? Is the entire spectrum of "policy", from the need for "personal growth", to the maintenance of independent bodies and institutions which are somehow abstracted from those very same people (law, religion, the state, civil society), to the "recognition of reality" which underlies every defense of the nature of economic society, is every political construct grounded in this jive-ass cynicism, without a shred of supporting evidence?

And, if that is true, how can anybody who advances this theory exempt themselves?

If the people are "sheeple", why aren't you bleating?

[tekisui]

1. Conservatives believe people are evil and that the

free market is benign or even noble. Liberals believe that people are good, and will be their best if society enacts the proper support systems. Liberals know if markets are left to their own devices, they will corrupt and oppress.

[ananda]

3. Agree.

Liberals also believe in the value of altruism as opposed
to the awful conservative memes of self-interest and the
free market.

[Wizard777]

12. Exactly!

[philly_bob]

19. Well-refuted. Liberals believe man & society can improve themselves...

Conservatives believe change is destructive. Conservatives believe in Original Sin.

[blindpig]

20. I don't see how you can say that..

Because very often when conversing with liberals I am told that 'socialism will never work because of human nature'.

Ya'll can't have it both ways.

[anigbrowl]

30. I proffer a detailed liberal explanation of this position in post #29, if you are interested. nt

[philly_bob]

41. Liberals say Socialism won't work because of human nature? Huh?

Are you sure you're not talking to conservatives?

Many liberals are friendly toward the idea of "socialism" -- i.e., using the government to increase equality, opportunity, prosperity, and security.

[blindpig]

43. Oh, they want to make nice..

but only to the point that it doesn't upset the engine of misery, capitalism. What good is that?

[warm regards]

58. That doesn't make any sense at all. If people were good, it wouldn't

matter what sort of government or economic system we used.

Anything would work.

[the other one]

2. Empty calories.

You will starve on this type of food for though.

[RainDog]

5. agreed. n/t

[RainDog]

4. power corrupts. absolutely power corrupts absolutely. balance of power contains abuse

that's the basis of our govt.

[Echo In Light]

10. Without having to write a thesis on the subject, yes. Agreed.

[blindpig]

17. Really?

Then why are the rich running roughshod over us?

The problem is that we separate the economic from the political and pretend that one does not affect the other. This is a very useful charade for those with economic power and if we go along with it we are complicit in our own oppression. The economic will always dictate the political, it cannot be any other way, it is where real power is, political power derives from it.

[RainDog]

22. I didn't say it was HOW our govt operates

but that was the intention of the balance of powers.

you really can't school me about the way of the world in the U.S. right now. I'm fully aware of how disgusting it is.

We need to overthrow the divine right of capital to correct current abuses. I won't hold my breath.

[marshall]

6. I think both sides basically believe people are evil

Both liberal and conservative alike believe people need to have their natural tendencies toward self interest controlled. It's how that contol is implemented that brings the conflict.

[blindpig]

25. You see?

It is that 'self interest' thing, it fully serves the interests of the ruling class. What of the interests of the community, the commonweal?

That viewpoint makes for divide and conquer writ large.

[Political Heretic]

32. I don't see evidence to suggest that humans are not inherently self-interested.

And I have a metric butt-ton of developmental theory that says exactly that.

So... am I just to take your word for it that humans are not natural self-interested, or can I get some sort of evidence?

[blindpig]

40. Egalitarianism is in our self interest.

It is the way our species has lived over the vast majority of it's existence. It is in our genome. Self interest as the mainspring of human motivation is a fiction, looking through a telescope backwards, assuming the present to be the past. Like the old man said, "The ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class". We are so encompassed by these ideas that we can't see them.

Studies of extant hunting gathering peoples all point to this. A more historical study is to be found here:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/morgan-lewis/ancient-society/

As far as developmental theory goes, with some(great) trepidation I might refer you to the work of Paul Shepard.

[blindpig]

42. So they are essentially the same...

in supporting the current state of things. The main difference being a preference for velvet glove or iron fist, and there is always an iron fist under that glove.

[kenny blankenship]

7. On the contrary, liberalism assumes a better world can be constructed if people engage each other

and reason together about what to do. Liberalism is optimistic about our ability to achieve a "domestic tranquility" through ensuring fairness in the distribution of opportunity and otherwise letting people do whatever they want without materially hurting each other.
Conservatism on the other hand proceeds from the assumption that there isn't enough of anything in the world and that human beings are too stupid and greedy to be trusted to work out a fair plan among themselves for sharing the goods of the world, and so the poor have to be beat down into accepting that they are born with an evil fate. Conservatism is pessimistic about human nature, along with being pessimistic about nature in general. Everything is a war with conservatives, and the eternal, primeval war is the war of the haves to keep what they have from the have-nots. Violence/warfare always being the theoretical basis of life for conservatives, they naturally assume violence and criminality to be the nature of the have-nots, their class enemy. Domestic tranquility for conservatives consists in maximizing the destitution of the poor so that they don't have the strength to rebel. So conservatives want a prison on every corner, which you'll notice is nearly the state of things in America today. When poor people resign themselves to the idea that they are born to suffer and die, and the not-rich are resigned to obediently serving the rich, then the conservative idea of domestic tranquility is realized. Outside of the walled estates of the rich it will look a lot like a vast open air prison, but conservatives actually want this.

[marions ghost]

8. can you please

boil your questions down to one simple sentence-- and kindly leave out the quotes, because I can't tell what's "real" and what's not with you.

Thanks. :)

[OHdem10]

9. Conservatives believe in the "fallen nature of man". This is why they

are so quick to believe the worst in people. People are
guilty even before any proof is offered.

True Liberals tend to look for the good in people.

This is the most basic difference between Liberals and
Conservatives.

[Maru Kitteh]

11. It's my observation that fundamentally deficient people are more likely to hold that belief

i.e., "I am a person with more shadow than light, ergo everyone is like I am."

[Orsino]

13. Liberals believe that people deserve to be protected from more powerful people. n/t

[blindpig]

15. Why should there be 'more powerful people'?

Why do we allow the economic disparity which gives the few power over the many?

[Orsino]

16. Our organizational ability is insufficient even to reign in the most powerful...

...much less make everyone equals.

[blindpig]

18. I wouldn't say 'ability',

will perhaps. And that will come, the harder they push us the sooner.

[Echo In Light]

21. Social conditioning, de-politicization, indifference, consumer culture, etc

... plus a lack of mass organizational abilities among the wary

[blindpig]

23. These are all things which can be overcome.

It has been done in societies in worse shape than ours, why can't we?

I wouldn't worry about the consumer culture so much, seems like that is going to be restricted to the top 10%.

[Echo In Light]

24. Over the span of generations, sure. No quick fix

[blindpig]

26. Dunno about generations but it ain't gonna happen yesterday,

despite the crying need and a potentially catastrophic environmental dilemma. All the more reason to get serious, get busy. The time, it is getting late.

[anigbrowl]

29. Because it reflects the natural order of things

Human abilities vary, and with them our degree of power. Physically, intellectually, economically, militarily and so on. You could define power as the ability to effectively pursue your goals. Said goals could be good or bad.

So you could look at the history of world War 2 (as the largest power conflict in history) and say that the axis powers were more powerful at one point, but then overreached themselves and the Allied powers were more powerful by the end of the conflict. Afterwards the allies fell out and there was a long power struggle between the major capitalist and communist powers with one side or the other holding the advantage at different times.

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that resources are limited and lifeforms compete for those resources with varying degrees of success. That sounds very abstract, but consider smallpox (a disease which only affects humans and no other animals); humans turned out to be more powerful, to the point of eliminating smallpox entirely, but before doing so, smallpox was a major threat to human life, killing hundreds of millions of people during the 20th century alone (about 5-10x as many as the total number killed in WW2). This is a fine thing from a human point of view, not so much from the point of view of the smallpox bacterium which will never get to discover its evolutionary potential. Being a human rather than a bacterium, I'm happy to be on the winning side of this particular conflict.

I do not believe that any economic or political system will result in total equality of outcomes, ever. Natural phenomena, including economics, obey what is known as a power law distribution in which power (as a measure of energy) is inversely proportional to frequency (in this case I'm referring to specific power law distribution known as '1/f'). In economic terms, that means if we consider money as a form of spending power, there will always be a small number of entities who hold a large amount of money, and a much greater number of entities who hold a small amount of money (I say entities rather than people because states are economic entities too).

This doesn't mean that money is bad - money is just a method for counting the degree of economic power, in the same way that watts are used as a measure of electrical power. It provides us with a useful method of valuing different things, saving debate over questions like whether a pair of pants is worth more or less than a pair of shoes.

Now this distribution (a few very large things, a lot of very small things) shows up throughout nature. It appears in galaxies. It explains why hydrogen (the lightest element) is also the most abundant in the universe. Waves. Earthquakes. Animals, both inside individual cells and as whole organisms (a few giant blue whales, a vast number of tiny bacteria). In economics it is often known as a Pareto distribution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution - warning: math-heavy after the first few paragraphs). To quote the film Pi, which discusses it in the context of pure mathematics, 'My new Hypothesis: If we're built from Spirals while living in a giant Spiral, then is it possible that everything we put our hands to is infused with the Spiral?'

In short, unequal distribution (of anything) is a fundamental law of nature. It is literally woven into the fabric of the universe, the solar system, the land on our planet, our DNA, and everything we do. The evidence for this is overwhelming, and it finds its highest expression in mathematics - most famously in the distribution of prime numbers, which is a proven theorem. Note, please, that all these examples are dynamic systems: the exact configuration of any system (energy, mass, population, money, whatever) is in constant flux but remains very true to this power law distribution over time.

So while the biggest city in the world has changed numerous time throughout history, say, what remains the same is the fact it is about twice as large as the next biggest city (at any given time). If you aggregate the results of sports races (with everyone starting out from the same position), the finishing times will obey a power-law distribution. And so on.

To sum up, economic disparities are a reflection of the natural order. Nature does not go in for even distributions, it goes in for power law distributions. No matter what economic rules you implement, over time disparities will emerge that reflect a power law distribution. Not only will they occur across the system as a whole, they will occur within the components of that system. There is no need to engineer this: it emerges naturally, and inevitably, as a component of any dynamic system. We do not allow it: rather, we are powerless to prevent it. In any system that attempted to force an even distribution of wealth over time, more and more resources would have to be spent to prevent such disparities occurring, and the concentration of resources to achieve that end would itself result in disparities of power.

This is exactly what happened in the USSR, where an attempt to enforce even wealth distribution resulted in an extremely authoritarian system where all power was concentrated in the hands of a very few people and the majority of the population exercised almost no political power at all. Like pushing down on a water bed, the attempt to smooth out economic disparities just gave rise to a political disparity instead. In the west, we go to considerable lengths to smooth out political disparities (in the sense that everyone has a single vote to 'spend' at the polling booth) but they still exist - one president, 100 senators, ~500 members of Congress, and correspondingly lower amounts of power at the state and municipal levels. It's possible that our attempts to establish total political equality actually increase economic disparities insofar as money can be converted into political influence.

Any attempt to engineer a uniformity of outcome is subject to interference from external factors and will come to resemble a game of whack-a-mole, and are thus more wasteful of resources than a purely competitive system. One might argue, then, that analysis of the Pareto distribution suggests that spending about 20% of our resources on governance will result in the greatest degree of freedom for about 80% of the people. Kindly note that this a conjecture on my part rather than a fully developed hypothesis.

I doubt that this is the answer you expected, or wanted. But I am pretty sure that it is the most truthful answer to your question.

[blindpig]

46. That is quite a reach.

In fact, it is absurd and seems to be a convoluted excuse for maintaining the status quo, capitalism. Reductionism beyond the pall.

[anigbrowl]

47. Well, perhaps you'd like to address where you thinkt he argument is flawed

I'm not sure if you've fully understood what I'm saying, and I appreciate that it's extremely wordy and abstract. So if it's opaque, that's my fault.

A key point, which perhaps I could have explained better, is that exactly the same outcome tends to happen in economies that are nominally socialist: if variations in the distribution of money are artificially held constant or reduced, you just get wildly unequal distributions of political power instead. I cited the soviet Union, and a similar thing is happening in North Korea: so much power is concentrated at the top that you end up with a totalitarian regime. NK might be a better example than the USSR, since they very actively manipulate their economy; unfortunately, like all totalitarian societies, they're very secretive and it's hard to perform a detailed numerical analysis.

It's important to remember that this phenomenon can limit capitalism as easily as it can enable it. If an excess degree of wealth is concentrated in so few hands that the distribution diverges significantly from the norm, a revolution or similarly drastic change may occur, as has happened many times throughout history. In numeric terms, a normal Pareto distribution results in about 80% of the wealth being controlled by about 20% of the people. Now if that increased such that, say, 90% of the wealth were being held by only 10% of the people (which is arguably happening in the US at present), such a situation could not last very long.

The essence of what I'm saying is that in a dynamic system (by which I mean one where you take the results of each iteration and use them as the inputs to the next) equal initial conditions tend towards unequal results.

It's nothing to do with good or evil, it just arises naturally. Nobody decreed that prime numbers should be distributed a certain way, they just are. If you examine fantasy stock market games where everyone starts out with the same amount of play money and is subject to the same rules, the play money ends up being unevenly distributed.

It's important to appreciate that change can still occur in such a system. Again with the example of a fantasy stock market (where we can freely and quickly experiment with different rules and strategies), being in the lead at one time is no guarantee of success in the future, another player may gain that position later. But the distribution of resources across the total number of players, without regard to their individual identity, will remain roughly the same.

Or if we consider the results of a large number of marathon races, the identities of the winners will vary from race to race, but the distribution of finishing times across the whole set of races will remain much the same. In fact, if we consider open marathon races (where anyone can run, regardless of ability) with competitions where only elite athletes participate (like the Olympics), the distribution of finishing times will still be roughly the same, even if the average finishing times in the elite race are lower than in the open race. That is, if you graph the results of different large races, the graphs will have more or less the same shape. If you only graph the finishing times of the top or bottom 10% of runners, the same shape will emerge (in mathematical terms, this is known as fractal behavior). I use marathons as an example because we're used to seeing them on TV and seeing the runners get very spread over time. Everyone starts out int he same place, everyone is subject to the same rules, different people may be in the lead at different times during the race, but the final results will be unevenly distributed.

You can see it right here on DU. If you can persuade Skinner to do some statistical analysis on DU posts, I'm willing to bet that you'll find that about 20% of the people make 80% of the posts. About 20% of the posts will garner 80% of the recs. 20% of the members will account for 80% of the donations. About 205 of DU posts will get 80% of the replies. If you look at all the text on DU, regardless of the posters, about 20% of the words will make up 80% of all the text. I will go further, and predict that the word 'the' will account for about 7% of all words posted on DU, with the next most popular word being 'and', which will account for about 3.5% of all words posted.

If you examine any large set - the amount of money held by people in the economy, the different words in Das Kapital, the population of different animal species, the size of islands and continents, or the size of different objects in the solar system, you will find that they all follow a power law distribution. This is not a reductionist analysis. By definition, it is a holistic analysis because what I am asserting depends on being able to step back and look at the overall pattern. In scientific terms, it is an empirical law, one which derives from observation rather than theory.

I am not saying that human nature is good or evil. I am trying to define what human nature is - a reflection of nature in general - and explain why the state of society throughout history arises from that. Nowhere in this argument have I criticized your beliefs or opinions.

...

Now, I appreciate that you don't like me telling you this. but I've gone to such lengths and time in explaining because I took your original question, and this thread you started, very seriously. I think the questions you raised were so important that they deserved a really comprehensive answer. Your question about 'why do we allow unequal distributions of wealth' goes to the very heart of moral philosophy and economics and I applaud you for bringing it up.

If you think I'm wrong, please take a little time to explain why. Quote Marx, rope in some like-minded thinkers, take as long as you need to reply - whatever you want. But please tell me what it is that you actually disagree with.

[Kid Dynamite]

50. I am trying to define what human nature is - a reflection of nature in general - and explain why the

The OP is questioning both whether this is a valid project -- trying to define "human nature" -- and also whether such a project is driven by a scientific method of research and discovery or whether it is agenda driven.

What I disagree with is paper thin "reasoning" that goes in only one direction -- backward -- and exists solely as a justification thereof.

We observe that society is uneven, so therefore such uneveness must be the natural state of affairs, the universal order of Nature. And since Man is part of Nature, QED.

The rest is sheer sophistry and dilettantish dithering.

I am trying to define what human nature is - a reflection of nature in general - and explain why the state of society throughout history arises from that.

[anigbrowl]

52. Hmm, that's not really what I'm saying

What I disagree with is paper thin "reasoning" that goes in only one direction -- backward -- and exists solely as a justification thereof.

Well, I'm not going to apologize for using inductive reasoning, as economics offers little or no basis for a priori statements.

We observe that society is uneven, so therefore such uneveness must be the natural state of affairs, the universal order of Nature. And since Man is part of Nature, QED.

Well, that would certainly be a circular argument, but it's not the one I made. You are restating part of my premise as if it were the conclusion of my argument, when in fact I justified that premise with empirical evidence.

The rest is sheer sophistry and dilettantish dithering.

I would be perfectly happy to restate it more rigorously in mathematical form if you like, but have avoided doing so as my experience is that people on internet forums generally dislike parsing mathematics. You can call it dilletantish if you like, but the Zipf-Mandelbrot law has excellent empirical foundations.

as far as agendas go, I am only motivated by the pursuit of truth. I arrived at my view via my interest in mathematics, and am not connected with or invested in the financial industry in any way - I don't own a single share or bond, or have a brokerage account. For that matter, I grew up in a fairly socialist European country and spent time in the Soviet Union prior to its collapse, so I'd say I'm much less rooted in capitalist tradition than most people at DU who grew up in the USA. Personally, I think that attempting to define or make predictions about human nature is an entirely valid project as long as it sticks to empirical methods.

[Kid Dynamite]

48. Since you brought up the subject of tl;dr, right back at ya

Human abilities vary, and with them our degree of power. Physically, intellectually, economically, militarily and so on. You could define power as the ability to effectively pursue your goals. Said goals could be good or bad.

A wonderful start here, almost a textbook example of begging the question. Lets talk about power. Ok. Here's how we're defining power.

But lets set that aside and move on.

So you could look at the history of world War 2 (as the largest power conflict in history) and say that the axis powers were more powerful at one point, but then overreached themselves and the Allied powers were more powerful by the end of the conflict. Afterwards the allies fell out and there was a long power struggle between the major capitalist and communist powers with one side or the other holding the advantage at different times.

Except that the Allies were hardly the most tightly knit group to begin with, were they? Hitler/Stalin Pact? US/British stalling on opening a second front? Disparity in civilian casualties? Miltiary casualties? Post-war devastation. I highlight this because it is the first in a string of instances where we'll be glossing over the historical details in favor of hand-waving our way towards some vague assertion or another. Which is a great segue to..

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that resources are limited and lifeforms compete for those resources with varying degrees of success.

So we have an assertion by you that sounds like it could be scientific and might be plausible, packaged as a maxim. Once again, I highlight this because it is the first in a series of instances where we employ this tactic.

I do not believe that any economic or political system will result in total equality of outcomes, ever.

And now we're talking about what we "believe". OK

This doesn't mean that money is bad - money is just a method for counting the degree of economic power, in the same way that watts are used as a measure of electrical power.

Now we're talking about good and bad (which you might have noticed, was the target of a rather scathing OP) and we're back on the "power" wagon and then we draw another somewhat less than substantiated analogy/maxim.

I'll skip ahead since this is already reaching tl;dr status

Maxims asserted by you in this post:

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that resources are limited and lifeforms compete for those resources with varying degrees of success. (WHAT ultimately comes down to that fact?)

I do not believe that any economic or political system will result in total equality of outcomes, ever. Natural phenomena, including economics, obey what is known as a power law distribution in which power (as a measure of energy) is inversely proportional to frequency

Corollary: In economic terms, that means if we consider money as a form of spending power, there will always be a small number of entities who hold a large amount of money, and a much greater number of entities who hold a small amount of money

Now this distribution (a few very large things, a lot of very small things) shows up throughout nature.

In short, unequal distribution (of anything) is a fundamental law of nature. It is literally woven into the fabric of the universe, the solar system, the land on our planet, our DNA, and everything we do. The evidence for this is overwhelming, and it finds its highest expression in mathematics - most famously in the distribution of prime numbers, which is a proven theorem.

To sum up, economic disparities are a reflection of the natural order. Nature does not go in for even distributions, it goes in for power law distributions. No matter what economic rules you implement, over time disparities will emerge that reflect a power law distribution. Not only will they occur across the system as a whole, they will occur within the components of that system. There is no need to engineer this: it emerges naturally, and inevitably, as a component of any dynamic system. We do not allow it: rather, we are powerless to prevent it. In any system that attempted to force an even distribution of wealth over time, more and more resources would have to be spent to prevent such disparities occurring, and the concentration of resources to achieve that end would itself result in disparities of power.

I could go on but..you already have. At some point we're left to wonder whether we're simply grafting a scientific gloss onto an ideology that is all too familiar, all too en vogue, and all too reactionary.

What you're attempting to "deduce" here (and it is indeed an attempt to go from the general to the specific) differs from Malthuses ideas on scarcity how? Food rots in ports while people starve, and we opine that its simply the natural order, not enough to go around.

[anigbrowl]

54. Thanks for the reply...

...which I appreciate for it's being considered. I'll quote you in turn as it's the easiest.

A wonderful start here, almost a textbook example of begging the question. Lets talk about power. Ok. Here's how we're defining power.

Quite so. Frankly, I didn't plan on writing a mini-essay when I started, and hence I began with very general terms.

Except that the Allies were hardly the most tightly knit group to begin with, were they? Hitler/Stalin Pact? US/British stalling on opening a second front? Disparity in civilian casualties? Miltiary casualties? Post-war devastation. I highlight this because it is the first in a string of instances where we'll be glossing over the historical details in favor of hand-waving our way towards some vague assertion or another. Which is a great segue to..

Does that really matter? The only point being made here is that the focus of power shifts dynamically, so that who is 'on top' at any given time is not necessarily destined to remain in that position. It's not offered as a historical synopsis, nor does it pretend to completeness.

So we have an assertion by you that sounds like it could be scientific and might be plausible, packaged as a maxim. Once again, I highlight this because it is the first in a series of instances where we employ this tactic. (...) And now we're talking about what we "believe". OK

Uhuh. The first statement is axiomatic and self-evident. There is no tactic here: there are limits on resources, and there is competition for resources. The second is clearly presented as my personal opinion. You don't seem to be making any point here...

Now we're talking about good and bad (which you might have noticed, was the target of a rather scathing OP) and we're back on the "power" wagon and then we draw another somewhat less than substantiated analogy/maxim.

Ah, I was specifically disclaiming moral weighting. You might also have noticed that the OP is scathing on the question of whether people are good are bad, and I'm talking about money, which I regard as only an accounting tool and lacking any kind of moral agency of its own. Obviously you don't think much of what I've said so far, but again you don't seem to be making any particular point.

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that resources are limited and lifeforms compete for those resources with varying degrees of success. (WHAT ultimately comes down to that fact?)

The existence of conflict and disparities in power.

(after extensively quoting from my argument) I could go on but..you already have. At some point we're left to wonder whether we're simply grafting a scientific gloss onto an ideology that is all too familiar, all too en vogue, and all too reactionary.

Well, I didn't start out with the economic belief and then look for science to validate it. Rather, I was interested in math and science to begin with and didn't develop a serious interest in economics until much later...which I then came at via statistics and first principles rather than reading economic theory, which I did last. Not the most efficient approach, but not an ideological one either. I grew up in a European social democracy and rather took command economics for granted, but after I started thinking seriously about economic issues I came to favor free trade and market economics.

So while I find your criticisms quite stylish, they're not terribly well founded, nor do they address the substance of my argument - rather, you seem to be examining it in aesthetic terms, as if it were hanging on the wall of an art gallery.

What you're attempting to "deduce" here (and it is indeed an attempt to go from the general to the specific) differs from Malthuses ideas on scarcity how? Food rots in ports while people starve, and we opine that its simply the natural order, not enough to go around.

Well, I don't share Malthus's views on demographic disaster, nor do I think that there are rigid upper bounds on future supply, because invention and technology continually offer us new ways of increasing productivity while reducing waste, allowing for the expansion of supply to keep pace with population growth. On the other hand, we clearly don't have infinite supplies of land, food, and so forth. Even though air is so abundant that we take it for granted, the supply is limited enough that industrial pollution can significantly reduce its quality, for example.

As for food rotting in ports while people starve, I am certainly not endorsing such a thing or saying that it is an unavoidable fact of life that we should just accept. In fact, I think such situations are one of the most powerful arguments for free trade. I come from a country that suffered a catastrophic famine due to crop failure, but whose (colonial) government refused to give up its protectionist policies against the importation of food and let people starve instead. They were so protectionist, in fact, that they blockaded food aid sent from other countries, claiming it would undermine the livelihood of its domestic farmers. So a quarter of the population died, and another quarter were forced to emigrate, and the population never recovered. 150 years later, it is still only half what it used to be.

As I've said already, my basic thesis is that wealth and power, to the degree that they are interchangeable, will always tend towards a power-law distribution regardless of what ideological -ism is implemented in a given economic system. It is the shape of the distribution which is invariant, not the identities of its constituent data points. This observation is not a prescription for passivity, but its widespread recognition might increase the sum of human productivity and happiness.

[FarCenter]

14. Evil doesn't exist

However, people tend to act more in their self-interest or to satisfy their own desires than they act in an altruistic and dispassionate way.

Much of economic theory depends on it. The US government system of checks and balances is designed with that in mind.

Liberals tend to have a more optimistic view of human nature and human institutions than do conservatives.

[kctim]

27. The 'cornerstone'

of liberal and conservative thought is: "people are helpless and are unable to think for themselves."
It is always "God" or "Government" who should decide how people live their lives.

Thankfully, moderates are still the majority.

[blindpig]

28. What the hell is a 'moderate'?

Someone in the middle of the liberal-conservative spectrum? God or government are both proxies for the will of the ruling class, as is the suzerainty of the market for the libertarians.

Believe me, this is no time for moderation.

[kctim]

35. Moderates are those who

believe in a healthy balance between individuals and government. They do not believe in govt involvment to the same degree as liberals, nor do they believe in limited govt to the same degree as conservatives. They believe good govt is possible, as liberals do, but they also know govt cannot be good unless it respects individual rights, as conservatives do.
They are the reason single-payer is impossible at this time and why gay marriages are slowly becoming possible. They are the reason abortion is legal and why govt does not finance them. They are the reason we are not a European nanny-state and why we are not a bible thumping theocracy.

Most importantly though, moderates are the majority.

[anigbrowl]

31. Bump. I think this thread deserves more attention than it has received.

Despite my having a completely different view of the world from the OP, this is one of the more thoughtful threads to have appeared on DU this whole year.

[ashling]

33. The cliff's notes version of liberalism, and other stories

First of all, young Skywalker, you must realize that the term liberal is similar to the Force in that there is a light side and a dark side. The modern political use of the word describes the light – good, the progress of humanity, the common or public good, etc. The dark side is embodied in classical Libertarians – greed, selfishness, private purpose.

Now before I go any farther, I should note that I am not talking about civil libertarians – if you are under 30 you might think that being a libertarian means, essentially, keep the gov’t. out of my pot… I reject this definition for Libertarian. Libertarian refers to the philosophy of Ann Rand, Robert Nofzick, Pat Buchanan, Anne Coulter, etc. (in other words, the dark side) (Coulter often says “there is no such thing as “the common good.”) So don't give me any grief!

It all goes back to the enlightenment and Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature Briefly, this was merely a thought construct referring to the state of man in nature pre-civil society. Good ole Thom, was writing philosophy at the beginning of the restoration of the monarchy in England (being employed by the King) and at the end of the thirty years war which was very bloody and very long (thus the name thirty years war – it was the first all European Tournament, but it was heads, not soccer balls they were kicking around) Hobbes reasoned that in nature, life was brutal and short because men were evil and would not trust each other.

The point of this was as a starting point for his idea (developed largely from earlier philosophers, including Machiavelli) that man was entitled to his own freedom, but that, due to that scary state of nature thingee, he would choose to give all the rights to a powerful king in return for the king providing for his safety as long as he was obedient to same)Thus is born –ta da- the social contract.
Then comes along another philosopher dude named John Locke. He was familiar with all of this state of nature faldarall, but he wasn’t employed by the king. As a matter of fact, he was not a big fan of the whole king thing. So Johnny got to work thinking about this social contract thing. It seemed pretty reasonable, but he also thought that the king owed something more than merely protection. Something, in fact akin to a fiduciary duty. (Note that modern conservative banksters are not familiar with the concept of fiduciary duty) He rejected Thommy’s “ brutal and short” state of nature. He figured that it wouldn’t really be that awful, because people would get along and work together.

This, then, is the cliff notes version of the beginnings of classical liberalism and the social contract theory. (I apologize if I have offended anyone’s intellect with my whimsy. )Today’s Libertarian thinkers of a philosophical bent still hold on to the Hobessian concept of a state of nature. As a matter of fact, they railed and screamed to high heaven when John Rawls – a 20th century philosopher – developed an approach to the social contract that started from a different thought construct he called “the original position.” I am not going to go into Rawls here, but mention him just to point out that Libertarians have got to have their brutal state of nature where people are driven by greed and ego and are out to do the other person in.

Modern political Liberals are concerned more with how to get along than how to keep the other guy from benefiting from what is theirs.

I hope this helps. If it has you are welcome to it. If it has not, you got what you paid for it.
:hi:

my office hours are by appointment only :rofl:

[ShortnFiery]

36. Outstanding!

I bow to the master. :-) :hi:

[blindpig]

37. Gee, thanks...

It is interesting that defenders of privilege always seem to assume a condescending Churchillian attitude. However, I am not your young Skywalker,so piss off on that account. It is noteworthy that your little lesson completely ignored the entire school of socialist thought.

Libertarianism as we know it is a reaction to socialism, a construct made to order for the preservation of the current economic order. What does this have to do with liberalism? Only that liberals also wish to preserve this same economic order only in a kinder, gentler fashion, when possible, but none the less. When not 'possible', well, we can see what is happening now. Dog fucked with some sweet nothings.

What this has to do with the OP is simply this, that this assumption of the people's inability to do for themselves, to coexist in an equitable manner, that people must be ruled, that the current order is a 'natural' one, serves the need of the status quo. Considering that the current order ill serves the vast majority of people, creating poverty where there was once subsistence, consuming and wrecking the source of our sustenance, adherence to this idea is disastrous, monstrous.

[ashling]

53. I certainly did not mean to offend

The Luke Skywalker thing was a lead in to talking about the dark side. If you think I have a Churchillian attitude, that is your right, but I am in no way a defender of privilege. I really don't know where that comment came from.

Your original post asked about whether liberals believe people are evil. That would be the dark side of classical liberalism: Libertarians ... their political theory goes back to Hobbes state of nature believing that people are no damned good, dog eat dog, etc. Root, hog or howl, and the devil take the hindmost.

I would say that Liberals believe that people are good, or at the least are neutral on the point. They feel that all people are deserving of distributive justice. True Liberals are open hearted, open minded, and open handed. (speaking for myself anyway)

I didn't bring in Socialism because it was not pertinent to the question. Neither did I bring in Communism, Communitarianism or a lot of other stuff. However, since you bring it up, I agree that Libertarians react to socialism, but Libertarianism did not evolve as a reaction to Socialism. Classical liberalism is the basis for Libertarianism has earlier roots than modern socialism. In fact, Socialism is more of a reaction to Libertarianism.

Some of the Communitarians, like Amatai Etzioni have even grouped liberals like John Rawls in with Libertarians like Robert Nofzick, though I believe that he has somewhat modified that view. Rawls has a strong streak of distributive justice which is diametrically opposed to Libertarianism.

[davidthegnome]

34. Good question

But most answers will vary. At the core of liberal ideology, I believe is a common view that we can accomplish more by helping others and working together than by selfish self interest.

Now, would this be so if we believed we were all inherently evil? Perhaps, perhaps in an effort to save ourselves from our own nature. Personally, I think we can determine our own nature, being good or evil isn't set in stone. Inherently self interested, yes, but so is every living thing that I'm aware of. There's nothing wrong with self interest so long as it is not to the exclusion of all other interests. On an extreme level, self interest leads to bizarre greed, corruption, and what I consider to be true evil. But without some level of it our species wouldn't survive.

I believe that, more than anything, empathy is the cornerstone of liberalism in general. As for liberal thought... I'm not sure if there's an actual cornerstone, just a few cores beliefs, that I feel are good ones.

[Mercuryman]

38. Must of touched a nerve

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LIBERAL AND A LEFTIST

I offer this a starting point.

A Leftist says that the fundamental organization of our society is intolerable because it leads directly to war, poverty, oppression, and environmental destruction. The Leftist argues that a new and different framework is necessary.

A Liberal says that the basic organization of our society is reasonably good, and should therefore be accepted, and that any efforts at further improving society should come from working within the already-established framework. IOW, the liberal wants slight modifications to what already exists, believing that its basic structure is reasonably sound.

Liberal- will blithely be assimilated.

Leftist- will likely be assassinated.

Liberal- possesses a quaint notion that one can reform hierarchical power structures.

Leftist- desires to completely unravel and eliminate the functions and forms of hierarchy.

Liberal- wishes to reform The Bank into The People's Credit Union.

Leftist- sees the need to turn the tables of the moneychangers and smash the marketplace.

Liberal- says "Living Wage".

Leftist- says "Solidarity".

Liberal- willingly shells out $4 for a glass of carrot juice.

Leftist- sees Root Vegetables as sustenance and metaphor.

Liberal- outside the coffee shop talks about the need for the Cappuccino Revolution but balks at acting out for fear this would endanger his/her daily cappuccino.

Leftist- reuses the same coffee filter, paper towels or odd socks when all other options have been exhausted in an attempt to squeeze one more cup from yesterday's grounds.

Liberal- wants to 'get out the vote'.

Leftist- recognizes voting as a nominal form of political activity meant to validate the Democratic State and convince the political consumer that they are a participant in governance.

Liberal- can often be seen mouthing the "education is the answer" mantra particularly in the rarified atmosphere of the Citadels of Expertise. Revels in being near theory or people 'doing theory' in the academy.

Leftist- sees education as social engineering and cultural imperialism. Education Academies seen as the proving grounds for the future ruling class.

Liberal- users of 'all natural' deodorant. The armpits are fresh particularly during commercial breaks.

Leftists- recognize deodorant as one of the essential pillars of Empire. Will often raise their armpits in tight quarters due to quixotic impulses.

Liberal- writes lengthy position papers on the plusses of developing more efficient killing machines (See Amory Lovins for more details).

Leftist- sees the Techno Warfare State as one of the great life destroying mechanisms in the history of Mankind and understands the relationship between war and oppression. The "Health of the State" being that which kills everything else.

Liberal- true believers in the New Economy and Seattle (the city) home of Microsoft, Boeing and Starbucks.

Leftist- acknowledge a different Seattle (the Amerindian prophet)

Liberals- have recently been experiencing a population explosion which seems to have been caused by a grey form of technocratic inbreeding. Liberalism is now a major growth industry much like Cancer. Much of this exponential proliferation of this well-groomed disease seems to emanate directly from Academia.

Leftists- an endangered species. Said to be only 723 remaining in the contiguous 48 states of the United States of America. For years they have been scooped up and exiled to the Periphery. To date all efforts to exhume the spirit of Eugene Debs have fallen on deaf ears.

______________________________________________

Both liberals and socialists empathize with the suffering of society's weaker members, and are sensitive to "man's inhumanity to man." However, the liberal is basically at peace with the socioeconomic system that produces this suffering, while the socialist recognizes that the system itself is a core cause of the suffering.

[Starry Messenger]

39. Welcome Mercuryman.

Excellent starting point, IMO.

[blindpig]

44. Great post.

Said it better than I ever could.

[Dhalgren]

45. Hey, Mercuryman! I wish I could K&R indivdual posts!

Great work! I will, however, K&R blindpig's OP.
There is a class war going on, right now, and there are only two sides: the workers and the rulers. Everyone is on one side or the other, whether one knows it or not...

[anaxarchos]

49. In place of a thousand words...

[maryf]

51. Bump

Thanks for a great thread! So sorry I missed it 'til now!

Sadly the people are bleeding, not bleating...and that is evil...

[eShirl]

55. The belief people are innately good is opposed to belief in original sin (people are innately evil).

Conservatives believe people are innately evil.

[Juche]

56. Who are people?

Depends on how you define people. Conservatives tend to feel that the weak or non-mainstream (non-whites, non-christians, non-heterosexuals) are evil. Liberals are more likely to feel the powerful and wealthy are evil.

[anigbrowl]

57. An astute observation. .nt

[maryf]

59. Read comment 38, think you got your term wrong...

"Both liberals and socialists empathize with the suffering of society's weaker members, and are sensitive to "man's inhumanity to man." However, the liberal is basically at peace with the socioeconomic system that produces this suffering, while the socialist recognizes that the system itself is a core cause of the suffering."