Subject:
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Re: Do market based societies select for virtue? (was Re: Will Libertopia cause the needy to get less?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 30 Nov 2000 03:54:08 GMT
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Viewed:
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737 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
>
> I've said it before and I'll say it again, I just can't buy this "people are
> basically bad, and societies that depend on honesty are doomed to fail"
> argument that comes from so many corners. (those that want police to
> restrict us, those that insist we must use a belief in higher power to
> overcome our nature, etc...)
>
> I've tried in the past to construct arguments showing why people ARE
> (mostly) fundamentally good, and why societies that depend on honesty will
> do better than those that don't... starting from first principles. Didn't
> get very far. Sigh.
>
> Friedman came at it from a completely different angle. He argues in these
> two articles that most people are honest/nice/polite/charitable/<your
> favorite virtue>, because it's an efficient (utilitarian) survival strategy
> to do so, and that actually being honest/n/p/c/yfv is easier than pretending
> to be. No matter what the society type. Even the cruddy totalitarian states.
>
> http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Libertarian/Virtue1.html
> http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Libertarian/Virtue2.html
>
> But I think the most amazing result comes in the second article where he
> shows that a market based society skews the proportion of virtues *higher*
> because the honesty/n/p/c/yfv advantage is higher in those sorts of societies.
>
> Is it all wet? I dunno. But note the novelty here. Unlike me, he doesn't
> suppose anything at all about basic human nature. He just shows how things
> tend to come out and why, and how when you measure for the right things, you
> get what you measure for.
While I do subscribe, theologically, to the idea of the "depravity of man" I
must say that I also agree with Larry's assessment here that most people are
basically decent, honest folk - especially since working thru the state of
Nebraska and into Colorado and now in Washington state - it's like
Pleasantville out here. I hear the Andy Griffith tune everywhere! Coming
from gang-infested Miami this is quite a culture shock.
I think the difference is a matter of which standard we are measuring by. On
a human standard, yes, most people ARE basically decent and polite. Yet,
assuming the existence of Holy Diety, by His standard of course man would
seem depraved. It is a matter of perspective only.
Yet, it also has to be admitted what role the religion of a majority of a
societies population has had upon the assessment of decency. By saying that,
I am not referring to Christianity alone, but to any society that has a
dominant faith. Atheistic societies are far more barbaric than those
dominated by Islam, Budhism, Hinduism or any flavor.
Bill
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