Self-Interest Rightly Understood

This is a pretty contentious topic, and I will confess that the view to follow is probably not a “politically correct” opinion. Nowadays this admittedly is not the most popular view to argue for, but I hope to stir up some good debate, especially with those who disagree.

The issue here is that of the obligation to uphold certain positive rights, and in particular for this post, the right to be free from hunger; perhaps it does not even warrant the title “right,” but giving it that higher station helps the opponent and, in good faith, I will give them the best argument they can muster. On a Google search, including quotation marks, the “right to be free from hunger" yields 573,000 results, and similarly, the “right to food” gets 642,000 hits. By clicking on any of these links, your heart will undoubtedly be moved by the pictures of terribly skinny children and touching appeals to save the world from starvation. Resources are scarce there, but very abundant for you here. So give a small donation and do your part to help out a little. Have a heart; it’s your duty as a human being – you owe it to those less fortunate than yourself.

And they are absolutely right in this regard. Do not yet misunderstand me: starvation is bad, and giving to charity is good. I’m not advocating complete solipsistic selfishness. Where the argument fails is after all of that. In the more extreme realms, some people and organizations out to do good call for the upholding of the right to be free from hunger by redistributing wealth, especially in the wealthy United States. The problem is that this makes the free choice of giving however much to who or what an individual decides and takes that liberty from them, now forcing whoever has an excess to share the wealth with those who have a deficit. Opponents may argue that force (or bribery with tax breaks, for that matter) is needed, for otherwise most people would not logically choose to part with their earnings. How cynical a view of humanity this is indeed! I do not believe altruism to be so foreign and unnatural an idea to many people. Though there is merit to the idea that people will give more when encouraged, governmental force is not the right way, either by our own country’s taxation or by even more remote demands placed upon the country as a whole by global organizations like the UN. (What is the right way, you may be asking? I’ll leave that for you to decide, or perhaps address it in a later post)

The extremists like to say that all lives are equal, that I’m not any more valuable or worthy to eat and have prosperity than someone over in Africa just because I was born here. We can’t really be about justice and equality if we think otherwise, right? We’re all equally deserving of the goods that any person or nature produce; it’s a small world and we’re all the same after all. I do not believe that all the do-gooders are really wishing for such total equality out of great desires of personal self-sacrifice or good will. Some (I’ll call them the Lip-Service Extremists) say such magnanimous things, self-deprecating and diminishing themselves by denying their extra-special worth. In their better-than-thou way, Lip-Service Extremists want to argue that, of course, I’m awesome, and you’re awesome, and everyone else in the whole world is just equally awesome human beings, aren’t we great? Because we’re all so awesome, we should not deny material things to those just as awesome as us. We’re not just accidents living between two abysses; we are capable of doing good for all humanity and we can have a wonderful utopia where everyone is worth the same and no one will be too wealthy and no one will starve or be bothered by thinking about pesky things like the rights to property and prosperity. But, really, our Lip-Service Extremists want to feel important themselves. By claiming that everyone is significant, they’re claiming that they too are significant. The more value they give all others, the more they attribute greater and greater worth to the whole human species, including more value for themselves. By saying that he is just as worthy as I am to live in equal prosperity, you’re implying that you yourself are really something special. Yet extreme equality does nothing to bolster the value of humanity as a whole. Quite the opposite, in fact, all redistributing the wealth does is work to equally devalue the individual. The irreducible, irreplaceable individual is not really unique anymore, he is no longer irreplaceable; his worth is no longer dependent on what he does or who he is.

People are not equal. You are (presumably) a better, more valuable human than, say, your average serial killer. It is simply a detrimental lie to revert to equalizing, and thus devaluing, everyone (Orwellians will attest to this). Your worth doesn’t depend on making another or all others equally awesome! There is, in fact, quite a contradiction with the very notion of equal awesomeness. You can still be important, caring, and unique without valuing all others as equally deserving of all things. Your worth is not contingent on anyone else, and you shouldn’t make it so – such dependence only works to devalue the distinctiveness of your individuality.

Zach on Value: A Justification of Ticket Scalpers

Greetings,

I'd like to present a theory on value; let me know what you think. I'll call it "Zach's Theory of Value"; someone else has most likely come up with it first, and as soon as someone points out who it was, I'll gladly note that in this topic. As far as I know, the work is original, but who knows-- I might have heard it in passing one day and forgot my source.

I argue that all value is subjective, and most value is subjectively relative. Let's stay with the simple, primary element for now, subjectively relative value. Rather than give a definitional or axiomatic argument, I'll argue by example.

Say that there are two parties: Band X and the Groupie. For now, assume that Band X directly sells the tickets; while in actuality the process is much more complex, the complexity can be accounted for by this system. For Band X, a ticket is worth, say, $30; considering their time and their investment(s), that's about the price point per ticket where it's worthwhile to them to have the concert. For the Groupie, a ticket is worth $75; they love Band X, and it's absolutely worth 10 hours of work to go hear the band. If Band X sells the ticket for $50, Band X gains $20 in subjective value (they sold a $30 ticket for $50), while the Groupie gained $25 in subjective value (they acquired a $75 ticket for $50).

Say that a ticket scalper decides to get in the fray. He purchases all the tickets from Band X for $50; thus, Band X acquires $20 in subjective value (they sold a $30 ticket for $50). The ticket scalper then sells the tickets to Groupies, for whom the tickets are worth $75, at $60 a pop. The ticket scalper gains subjective value (they sold a ticket that they paid $50 for at a $60 price point), and the Groupies gain subjective value (they gain a ticket that's worth $75 to them for $60).

I'm arguing that mutually beneficial voluntary free market transactions, such as the ones I described, generally result in the net creation of subjective value. The first transaction, without the ticket scalper, netted $45 of subjective value-- $25 for the Groupie and $20 for the Band. The second transaction, with the ticket scalper, netted $45 in value as well-- $20 for the Band, $10 for the Scalper, and $15 for the Groupie.

Therefore, transactions are capable of generating subjective value. Adding middlemen to the mix, such as ticket scalpers, redistributes that subjective value, but it does not actually decrease the subjective value generated.

There's all sorts of fun implications from this argument, and several places where we could go, but I'd like to start with that, and perhaps go further if there's interest in the issue. Thoughts?

Happiness and the Heart of Darkness

I’d like to begin with the following quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics describing why humans need happiness: “Clearly there must be some such end since everything cannot be a means to something else since then there would be nothing for which we ultimately do anything, and everything would be pointless.” (*Note: Taken from a photocopied excerpt of Book 1 read in a former class – I could not find the translator or page number.) For Aristotle, “happiness” was more analogous to the idea of excellence, something achieved with intent, with purpose and habit – a lifelong way of living. The final four words from that quote always jump out at me – everything would be pointless if there were no happiness? Life, then, is inextricably bound to this idea of happiness, which explains the restlessness of our souls. But what happens if we never achieve this happiness? Is the mere journey towards it enough, or without the achievement, is life simply “pointless”?

There are some who argue that happiness is really an unachievable ideal, but zealously and tirelessly pursued anyway – this is the view of humanity that is illustrated in Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece, The Heart of Darkness. In the novel, the narrator Marlowe discovers knowledge about humanity that he would rather have kept locked away, far out of reach. In his exploration into the wild hearts of men, he discovers humanity to be, ultimately, hopelessly depraved. Without the societal constructs of law, religion, accountability, community, and guilt, men revert to their innate, bestial inclinations. It presents a very Hobbesian state of nature where life is merely nasty, brutish, and short. The “savages” are completely unalterable from their bestiality. However noble the attempts to convert, all attempts are futile. One line, in fact, from one “civilized” man to another, is that they need to “exterminate the brutes!” which is ironic when Marlowe later realizes that all are as equally brutish as the “savages” to whom he refers; there really is no “them” versus “us.” Though even with this being the true state, most people cannot handle the weight of such knowledge. Most people choose to live in the comfort of artificial light, either due to obliviousness or denial, and go on with their ultimately pointless lives.

Marlowe goes on the journey to see what knowledge he hopes Kurtz (discussed later on) can reveal to him, supernatural knowledge about the meaning of life that no one else can possess. It turns out to be very different knowledge than he expected. In the beginning of the journey, he catches glimpses of this unpleasant truth himself, but decides to submerge himself in mediocre tasks to keep his mind occupied elsewhere instead. (Compare this to why most humans fill their lives with innumerable meaningless tasks.) He ultimately discovers that there is no real light outside of the impenetrable darkness, only artificial, society-created light. Kurtz was the most devoutly religious, idealistic, moral, promising, etc. young man who became the most successful manager for the British ivory company; and he died as the most corrupt savage imaginable. If he can fall from the “light” to his natural, innate, brutish human character, no one is safe. As Kurtz lay dying, Marlowe realizes the purposeless that can become of a wasted life, and as he returns to London, he sees that the “civilized world” is filled with hypocrites who pretend not to know better, and are satisfied. This is especially embodied in the character of the Intended, Kurtz’s fiancé, who represents the bulk of humanity living in society. She is hopeful, incessantly and wishfully romantic, and completely naïve, yet somehow content. In the end Marlowe decides to lie to her about the true nature of Kurtz to keep her in this illusory, idyllic world, and keep her from knowing the truth; he decides it is better for society to carry on in their fictitious bustling lives. Only a few really come to grips with the truth – the nihilistic void in their hearts. Ought he have shared his knowledge of the true light that is, really, utter darkness, or was he right to keep the people content?

The life we live is the only one we are given, so obviously we want to make it the very best that we can. We all constantly strive to accomplish: we set plans, make goals, and see them through. There seems to be a constant unrest within our very core telling us to keep trying to improve, not to settle, not to grow too complacent. We want to be something more than what we are now, and to have more than we now have. We seem to be continually discontent. Our human condition drives this; we know our own finitude and knowledge of death can motivate us. We are incessantly driven towards “the better.” Maybe this is a little hubristic, our thinking we can really change things and that we are somehow perfectible. Yet no matter how many things we accumulate or tasks we accomplish, there seems to be some residual feeling of incompleteness, an enduring sense of emptiness, a longing for more, and the bitter sting of idividualistic isolationism. As Conrad writes, “We live as we dream – alone;” and again I’ll ask, when happiness seems unreachable, is life just “pointless”? Maybe all of this working, all the busyness with which we fill our lives is in an attempt to divert this sense of nihilism. If I keep working and attaining, all will not be for naught – I will matter.