Why do some people insist that their government be the primary instrument of sharing? Why does an egalitarian ethos run so strong in some people?
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby believe that most people are wired by evolution to be what I refer to as "slow traders". That is to say, small clans on the Stone Age steppe benefited much more from sharing behavior. While impartial trading occurred, the primary means of survival among small groups was reciprocal altruism: "You scratch my back today, I'll scratch yours tomorrow." As I've written elsewhere:
The late philosopher Robert Nozick pointed out that when people compare themselves to one another, they are disposed to feel one of two emotions -- guilt or envy. Guilt when someone has a lower station than you; envy when someone has a higher station than you. I would add a third to this mix: indignation. That's when you compare someone of a higher station to someone of a lower station, and feel that something is wrong. I refer to this complex of emotional responses to unequal life-stations as the "Stone Age Trinity."
My conclusion about political struggle errs on the side of pessimism:
So what does all this mean for a truly liberal society? A society of freedom, private property, and markets? Of complexity, pluralism, and personal responsibility?
It means we are likely to remain in a protracted struggle against Paleolithic instincts -- which, of course, translate into the zigzag of everyday politics. None of this is to argue that guilt, envy, or indignation are emotions we would always be better off without in contemporary Western society. But I would suggest that we'd all be better off localizing these urges within the confines of family and community. And we should continually ask ourselves in precisely what contexts these emotions are appropriate.
Given the tremendous good that is brought about by self-interested market exchange, it seems we'll have to teach ourselves time-and-again the intellectual lessons of prosperity in a complex economic order. We will also have to fight turf wars with those who think the sentiments of Stone Age Trinity can be wrapped up in intellectual claptrap (like Marxism), force fed to our students in the ivory towers, sold to us on the evening news, or foisted upon us inside marble domes.
In the video above, Cosmides and Tooby explain not only why these kinds of sentiments run so deeply, but why people may feel hostility to impartial transactions and faceless forms of organization.
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