![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mullings and musings on the nature of greed
I'm basically a nice guy. I like helping people. I think everyone should be looking out for everyone else, in an optimal world. For some reason, however, economic systems that are based on selflessness always seemed *wrong* somehow.
It finally hit me *why*.
Any economic system for a population above a fairly small size that *relies* on people being nice, selfless, and sharing is doomed. Why? We're not. We just aren't. You can try and teach people to be so, and you can even do a damned good job of it with much of the population, but unless you enforce it at the point of a gun, it'll never work. All it takes is a few people playing by their own rules of greed to blow the whole thing out of whack. Like, say, the people with the guns. Such systems *can* work wonderfully for very small populations, like co-ops, communes, and such, but the first time someone with enough chutzpah or social issues steps up to manipulate it, the thing is borked, the community breaks down, drahma ensues, etc. We've all seen it.
An economic system, however, that *uses greed against itself* is going to succeed in the long term. Free markets fit the bill. If every seller is trying to get the sale by finding a way to drop prices, then they're all in competition, and an equilibrium is found. If every buyer is trying to find the highest quality for the price, then they're all in competition, and an equilibrium is found. The buyers and sellers are also in competition with each other, and an equilibrium is found. Everything balances and checks everything else *because* of greed. You have to respect a mechanism that uses, and in fact *relies* on our worst natures to propel everyone forward. The very traits that destroy other economic systems become a *strength*. I'm reminded of when I was a kid, and my brother and I would be fighting over a piece of, say, cake, that needed to be halved. "One cuts, one chooses." The child cutting is going to make *sure* that they make it as even as possible, out of greed, because they know that the other child will pick the one that is even *microscopically* larger, again out of greed. Net result? Equilibrium. No trust, no sense of selflessness, no attempt at sharing... and yet the optimal solution is reached. Clever.
It doesn't propel everyone forward the same amount, and absolutely, some people will go backwards. I'm okay with that, as long as the balance of the total sum moves forward. The long view, and all that - I'm thinking centuries, not years. Going back to the cake scenario, it *was* possible to take advantage of the situation, or be taken advantage of, if the cutter did it in such a way that the portion of the pieces that was uneven was hidden from view. Each child has that happen to them probably once, and exactly once. Each child has also probably attempted it at least once, with a net loss over time. Net result? Learning to find out all information before making a decision, that trying to continually screw people over will bite you in the ass in the end, so it actually pays to try and be fair... out of greed. In the long run, as adults, it helps with critical thinking and analysis of costs and benefits beyond the moment.
In the short term, it can cause problems as the children figure out that there really isn't any way to cheat the system without shooting themselves in the foot, and those lessons can be hard. In the long term, however, not only does the 'cake economy' even out and hit a steady-state of fairness, but it prepares the individuals with tools to apply to other areas of life.
Of course, the problems occur when the free market slides into a non-free market. Imperfect information flow results in buyers and sellers shooting past each others price points, or simply not finding each other. Price fixing occurs when sellers set aside their competition and greed to gang up on the buyers. Monopolies can arise when buyers don't use all the information at their disposal, and make snap decisions based on mob mentality that may not be greedy *enough*. It seems to me, however, that those few problems are acute, not chronic, and recoverable when they occur. The issues in other economic systems, on the other hand, appear to be inherent to their very nature, and inextricable. No checks, no balances, except those that can be externally enforced. That's not sustainable without sliding into totalitarianism.
So yeah, I'm a free-market libertarian, if a label has to be applied. I think that the idealized government of the left is about as likely to work as a caregiver for society as the idealized God of the right. I fail to see much of a difference, to tell the truth - they both require a giving over of self and worth to 'someone else' so that 'someone else' can provide. In both cases we dehumanize ourselves and give up on our own strengths just to turn our lives over to a nebulous abstraction... which just happens to be run by people with power dreams. Politicians, clergy... they both want your obedience, your heart, and your money, and gosh darnit, they'll take care of you. Just trust them.
Bollocks.
I don't think we have a perfect free-market system, nor that such a beast is really possible without a serious leap in information flow and decentralized industries, but I'll take an imperfect free market over an imperfect control system, be it inspired by God or government. The beauty of the 'cut/choose' approach to the cake economy is that it requires no intervention by the authority of the parents - it's self-sustaining, self-regulating, and self-correcting.
Call me a cold-hearted bastard if you will, I can live with that. I'm more interested in the large-scope for the species than I am the prosperity of myself, my city, my state or my country... and really, isn't that about as selfless as you can get? I know my life would be a hell of a lot easier if I had comprehensive health care, free housing, and the last 24 years of college had been free... but I think that long term, such a path will drive us all into precisely the dystopia the extreme left fears from capitalism run amok. I will admit to a certain annoyance that those who seem to call the loudest for equalizing society in the name of selflessness are those who will benefit the most in the short run, to the probable detriment of us all in the long term... but I can't really be upset with them being greedy, now can I? I just wish they'd call a spade a spade so the ensuing debate can be handled honestly. Everybody wants their piece of the pie, I guess, regardless of what you call it. Seems greed will be with us for a long while - so why not use it as a positive force?<\lj-cut>
It finally hit me *why*.
Any economic system for a population above a fairly small size that *relies* on people being nice, selfless, and sharing is doomed. Why? We're not. We just aren't. You can try and teach people to be so, and you can even do a damned good job of it with much of the population, but unless you enforce it at the point of a gun, it'll never work. All it takes is a few people playing by their own rules of greed to blow the whole thing out of whack. Like, say, the people with the guns. Such systems *can* work wonderfully for very small populations, like co-ops, communes, and such, but the first time someone with enough chutzpah or social issues steps up to manipulate it, the thing is borked, the community breaks down, drahma ensues, etc. We've all seen it.
An economic system, however, that *uses greed against itself* is going to succeed in the long term. Free markets fit the bill. If every seller is trying to get the sale by finding a way to drop prices, then they're all in competition, and an equilibrium is found. If every buyer is trying to find the highest quality for the price, then they're all in competition, and an equilibrium is found. The buyers and sellers are also in competition with each other, and an equilibrium is found. Everything balances and checks everything else *because* of greed. You have to respect a mechanism that uses, and in fact *relies* on our worst natures to propel everyone forward. The very traits that destroy other economic systems become a *strength*. I'm reminded of when I was a kid, and my brother and I would be fighting over a piece of, say, cake, that needed to be halved. "One cuts, one chooses." The child cutting is going to make *sure* that they make it as even as possible, out of greed, because they know that the other child will pick the one that is even *microscopically* larger, again out of greed. Net result? Equilibrium. No trust, no sense of selflessness, no attempt at sharing... and yet the optimal solution is reached. Clever.
It doesn't propel everyone forward the same amount, and absolutely, some people will go backwards. I'm okay with that, as long as the balance of the total sum moves forward. The long view, and all that - I'm thinking centuries, not years. Going back to the cake scenario, it *was* possible to take advantage of the situation, or be taken advantage of, if the cutter did it in such a way that the portion of the pieces that was uneven was hidden from view. Each child has that happen to them probably once, and exactly once. Each child has also probably attempted it at least once, with a net loss over time. Net result? Learning to find out all information before making a decision, that trying to continually screw people over will bite you in the ass in the end, so it actually pays to try and be fair... out of greed. In the long run, as adults, it helps with critical thinking and analysis of costs and benefits beyond the moment.
In the short term, it can cause problems as the children figure out that there really isn't any way to cheat the system without shooting themselves in the foot, and those lessons can be hard. In the long term, however, not only does the 'cake economy' even out and hit a steady-state of fairness, but it prepares the individuals with tools to apply to other areas of life.
Of course, the problems occur when the free market slides into a non-free market. Imperfect information flow results in buyers and sellers shooting past each others price points, or simply not finding each other. Price fixing occurs when sellers set aside their competition and greed to gang up on the buyers. Monopolies can arise when buyers don't use all the information at their disposal, and make snap decisions based on mob mentality that may not be greedy *enough*. It seems to me, however, that those few problems are acute, not chronic, and recoverable when they occur. The issues in other economic systems, on the other hand, appear to be inherent to their very nature, and inextricable. No checks, no balances, except those that can be externally enforced. That's not sustainable without sliding into totalitarianism.
So yeah, I'm a free-market libertarian, if a label has to be applied. I think that the idealized government of the left is about as likely to work as a caregiver for society as the idealized God of the right. I fail to see much of a difference, to tell the truth - they both require a giving over of self and worth to 'someone else' so that 'someone else' can provide. In both cases we dehumanize ourselves and give up on our own strengths just to turn our lives over to a nebulous abstraction... which just happens to be run by people with power dreams. Politicians, clergy... they both want your obedience, your heart, and your money, and gosh darnit, they'll take care of you. Just trust them.
Bollocks.
I don't think we have a perfect free-market system, nor that such a beast is really possible without a serious leap in information flow and decentralized industries, but I'll take an imperfect free market over an imperfect control system, be it inspired by God or government. The beauty of the 'cut/choose' approach to the cake economy is that it requires no intervention by the authority of the parents - it's self-sustaining, self-regulating, and self-correcting.
Call me a cold-hearted bastard if you will, I can live with that. I'm more interested in the large-scope for the species than I am the prosperity of myself, my city, my state or my country... and really, isn't that about as selfless as you can get? I know my life would be a hell of a lot easier if I had comprehensive health care, free housing, and the last 24 years of college had been free... but I think that long term, such a path will drive us all into precisely the dystopia the extreme left fears from capitalism run amok. I will admit to a certain annoyance that those who seem to call the loudest for equalizing society in the name of selflessness are those who will benefit the most in the short run, to the probable detriment of us all in the long term... but I can't really be upset with them being greedy, now can I? I just wish they'd call a spade a spade so the ensuing debate can be handled honestly. Everybody wants their piece of the pie, I guess, regardless of what you call it. Seems greed will be with us for a long while - so why not use it as a positive force?<\lj-cut>