We get the government we deserve. This is a well-known phrase, and it's considered to be cynical. Even though it could mean that if we're good we deserve good government, it tends to be used only when someone is saying that the government sucks because the people suck.
As for me, I think it's true, and this is the way it should be. The government represents the people, and if the people are well-intentioned, well-informed, and reasonably intelligent, then the government will reflect this. If the people are selfish, ignorant, and stupid, then this too will be reflected in government. Isn't that the essence of democracy?
These days, people on the left have been gnashing their teeth over Sarah Palin's description of end-of-life counseling provisions in the evolving health care plan as 'death panels'. However, a recent poll showed that 45% of Americans believe that the health care proposal will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care to the elderly. I have to believe that this number would have been somewhat lower if the question had been asked before Palin's comment, but I suspect it would have gotten at least 20%, mostly the people who believe Obama wasn't born in America.
To the media's credit, it tended to correctly report that the idea of 'death panels' was false. To its discredit, it broadcast the false charge loudly and often, because it was an incendiary charge made by a politician who's better than anyone in America at getting both sides stirred up with her every utterance. (And, naturally, such things are good for sales, ratings, page views, etc.) Without the amplification of the mainstream media, the charge would have been picked up mainly by right-wing radio and Fox News. So, this is the problem: a lot of people don't read much further than the headlines, and if the headline didn't say it was false, then it might be true. This sort of thing is what makes advertising work. We might buy a new toothpaste based solely on the ad campaign. Now, if someone bought a new car based on no other information than the word of a car ad, car exec, or car salesman, we'd think they were gullible and/or stupid. Of course, you do research before making such a big purchase.
If government reflects its citizens, then this is as good an example as any. If every citizen read the news diligently, and carefully sorted out false charges from true information, the percentage of people who believed the 'death panels' charge would be 0%. But clearly, that does not happen. People like Palin who spread stuff like this know that, and they know the best way to exploit people's fear of change of this magnitude is to muddy up the waters with lies, the bigger the better. (And it's not as though Democrats have never done this; the Republicans are simply better at it.) But to me, in the end, the blame lies with the people: the correct information is out there, but many don't seek it. Many don't understand, or make any effort to understand, the distinction between the media reporting what someone said and reporting facts.
Now, people have busy lives, and I can understand why people don't want to come home from a hard day at work and pay close attention to what's true and what's not in the health care debate. But much as not researching a car before you buy it may lead to the purchase of an inferior car (or one unsuitable for your needs), the collective result of being ill-informed on a crucial government policy is the creation of one that at best is less than perfect, and at worst serves the interests of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and politicians more than it serves the interests of sick people.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Self-interest
Everyone does what's in his or her own self-interest.
It seems to me that this is almost axiomatic and utterly uncontroversial. 'Duh, of course,' one might respond. But one thing I like to do is take an idea that seems like a given and try to unpack it. Why do we do that? Why do we take it as a given?
A more specific version of the above might be: it's perfectly acceptable to do what's in one's own self-interest as long as it causes no harm to others. I was prompted to consider this question about a year ago when I saw an article in the New York Times about Costco. The article said that Costco paid its workers a fair amount more than the industry average, and some investors were complaining about this. The gist of it was that if Costco paid the industry average, profits would increase, causing stock prices to increase, which would mean more money for the investors. Costco, they said, was not doing all it could to maximize profits, and the obligation of a publicly traded company was to do just that.
In this case, this blog entry's first sentence could be rephrased as: Everyone is perfectly entitled to do what is in his or her self interest even if it harms others, provided no law is broken. I believe that most traders would take this as a given. I would hope that most people in general would frown and consider the investors' attitude disgusting, but I'm not sure how public opinion would fall on this issue. After all, many people would probably do a similar thing in similar circumstances, or they would pay the going wage with no apology. It's just that in our daily lives, we don't get many opportunities to do what benefits us while seeing the harm it does to others. We can see the same thing in today's health-care debate. It's not hard to find Medicare recipients who are opposed to doing anything to change the current health-care system. Why? Because any change *might* change their current benefits, and they'd apparently rather that 45,000,000 people continued to go without health care than take the smallest chance that anything about their current system would change. Intelligent people say this publicly, names attached, apparently unashamed.
Of course, to an extent, acting on self-interest is natural; we wouldn't have risen up through evolution if we weren't programmed to do that. Millennia ago, being self-interested could mean the difference between life and death. Now, especially for those of us in Western societies who are middle-class or higher, we could easily afford to oppose our own self-interest for the common good, and many do. But there is still a culture in which it's perfectly fine to consider your own self-interest as more important than the common good, and politicians pander to those focused on their own self-interest rather than telling them to consider the needs of others.
My current feeling is that the things we got from evolution–aggression, competitiveness, self-centeredness–served us then and don't serve us now, but now that we're beyond the need for them, they're not that easy to get rid of. We might lose them if our civilization lasted thousands of years, as the lack of a survival-of-the-fittest mechanism helped breed not only the aggressive and self-interested, but I do wonder if we can make it that long. It seems to me that changing our culture is a lot like changing our character: something we do deliberately, that we consider important, and that we focus on strongly. If indulging in one's own self-interest when not absolutely necessary became a social evil rather than a cultural norm, petty indulgences in self-interest such as the Costco thing might go the way of racism: disappearing, though slowly. It takes time, and new generations. But first, we have to notice that something is wrong with it.
Costco apparently makes perfectly good profits while paying its workers enough to make a decent middle-class living. What's wrong with that? How did we get to a point in our society where this would be criticized? I wish the investors who complained would take a moment to think about that. I'm not holding my breath, though.
It seems to me that this is almost axiomatic and utterly uncontroversial. 'Duh, of course,' one might respond. But one thing I like to do is take an idea that seems like a given and try to unpack it. Why do we do that? Why do we take it as a given?
A more specific version of the above might be: it's perfectly acceptable to do what's in one's own self-interest as long as it causes no harm to others. I was prompted to consider this question about a year ago when I saw an article in the New York Times about Costco. The article said that Costco paid its workers a fair amount more than the industry average, and some investors were complaining about this. The gist of it was that if Costco paid the industry average, profits would increase, causing stock prices to increase, which would mean more money for the investors. Costco, they said, was not doing all it could to maximize profits, and the obligation of a publicly traded company was to do just that.
In this case, this blog entry's first sentence could be rephrased as: Everyone is perfectly entitled to do what is in his or her self interest even if it harms others, provided no law is broken. I believe that most traders would take this as a given. I would hope that most people in general would frown and consider the investors' attitude disgusting, but I'm not sure how public opinion would fall on this issue. After all, many people would probably do a similar thing in similar circumstances, or they would pay the going wage with no apology. It's just that in our daily lives, we don't get many opportunities to do what benefits us while seeing the harm it does to others. We can see the same thing in today's health-care debate. It's not hard to find Medicare recipients who are opposed to doing anything to change the current health-care system. Why? Because any change *might* change their current benefits, and they'd apparently rather that 45,000,000 people continued to go without health care than take the smallest chance that anything about their current system would change. Intelligent people say this publicly, names attached, apparently unashamed.
Of course, to an extent, acting on self-interest is natural; we wouldn't have risen up through evolution if we weren't programmed to do that. Millennia ago, being self-interested could mean the difference between life and death. Now, especially for those of us in Western societies who are middle-class or higher, we could easily afford to oppose our own self-interest for the common good, and many do. But there is still a culture in which it's perfectly fine to consider your own self-interest as more important than the common good, and politicians pander to those focused on their own self-interest rather than telling them to consider the needs of others.
My current feeling is that the things we got from evolution–aggression, competitiveness, self-centeredness–served us then and don't serve us now, but now that we're beyond the need for them, they're not that easy to get rid of. We might lose them if our civilization lasted thousands of years, as the lack of a survival-of-the-fittest mechanism helped breed not only the aggressive and self-interested, but I do wonder if we can make it that long. It seems to me that changing our culture is a lot like changing our character: something we do deliberately, that we consider important, and that we focus on strongly. If indulging in one's own self-interest when not absolutely necessary became a social evil rather than a cultural norm, petty indulgences in self-interest such as the Costco thing might go the way of racism: disappearing, though slowly. It takes time, and new generations. But first, we have to notice that something is wrong with it.
Costco apparently makes perfectly good profits while paying its workers enough to make a decent middle-class living. What's wrong with that? How did we get to a point in our society where this would be criticized? I wish the investors who complained would take a moment to think about that. I'm not holding my breath, though.
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