Moral “taste receptors” are adaptations to long-standing threats and opportunities in social life. They draw people’s attention to certain kinds of events (such as cruelty or disrespect), and trigger instant intuitive reactions, perhaps even specific emotions (such as sympathy or anger). Let’s explore the Care/Harm Foundation.
Reptiles get a bad rap for being cold—not just cold-blooded but coldhearted. Some reptile mothers do hang around after their babies hatch, to provide some protection, but in many species they don’t. So when the first mammals began suckling their young, they raised the cost of motherhood. No longer would females turn out dozens of babies and bet that a few would survive on their own.
Mammals make fewer bets and invest a lot more in each one, so mammals face the challenge of caring for and nurturing their children for a long time. Primate moms place even fewer bets and invest still more in each one. And human babies, whose brains are so enormous that a child must be pushed out through the birth canal a year before he or she can walk, are bets so huge that a woman can’t even put her chips on the table by herself. She needs help in the last months of pregnancy, help to deliver the baby, and help to feed and care for the child for years after the birth.
Given this big wager, there is an enormous adaptive challenge: to care for the vulnerable and expensive child, keep it safe, keep it alive, keep it from harm.
Mothers who were innately sensitive to signs of suffering, distress, or neediness improved their odds, relative to their less sensitive sisters. And it’s not only mothers who need innate knowledge. Given the number of people who pool their resources to bet on each child, evolution favored women and (to a lesser extent) men who had an automatic reaction to signs of need or suffering, such as crying, from children in their midst (who, in ancient times, were likely to be kin).
The suffering of your own children is the original trigger of one of the key modules of the Care foundation. This module works to meet the adaptive challenge of protecting and caring for children.
Your mind is automatically responsive to certain proportions and patterns that distinguish human children from adults. Cuteness primes us to care, nurture, protect, and interact. It gets the elephant leaning.
Your instinct is activated when you see a child or a cute animal facing the threat of violence.
Political parties and interest groups strive to make their concerns become current triggers of your moral modules. To get your vote, your money, or your time, they must activate at least one of your moral foundations.
The moral matrix of liberals, in America and elsewhere, rests more heavily on the Care foundation than do the matrices of conservatives. Conservative caring is somewhat different—it is aimed not at animals or at people in other countries but at those who’ve sacrificed for the group. It is not universalist; it is more local, and blended with loyalty.
Jonathan Haidt – The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
The moral roots of liberals and conservatives – Jonathan Haidt
Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed. They want change and justice, even at the risk of chaos.
Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions. They want order even at some cost to those at the bottom.
The great conservative insight is that order is really precious. It’s really hard to achieve, and it’s really easy to lose.
The social order is a moral order
Many of the earliest legal texts begin by grounding the king’s rule in divine choice, and then they dedicate the king’s authority to providing order and justice.
Human authorities take on responsibility for maintaining order and justice. Authority has a role in creating moral order.
Like chimpanzees, people track and remember who is above whom. When people within a hierarchical order act in ways that negate or subvert that order, we feel it instantly, even if we ourselves have not been directly harmed. If authority is in part about protecting order and fending off chaos, then everyone has a stake in supporting the existing order and in holding people accountable for fulfilling the obligations of their station.
Current triggers of the Authority/subversion foundation also include acts that are seen to subvert the traditions, institutions, or values that are perceived to provide stability. As with the Loyalty foundation, it is much easier for the political right to build on this foundation than it is for the left, which often defines itself in part by its opposition to hierarchy, inequality, and power.
In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama showed himself to be a liberal who understood conservative arguments about the need for order and the value of tradition. When he gave a speech on Father’s Day at a black church, he praised marriage and the traditional two-parent family, and he called on black men to take more responsibility for their children. When he gave a speech on patriotism, he criticized the liberal counterculture of the 1960s for burning American flags and for failing to honor veterans returning from Vietnam.
Human flourishing requires social order and embeddedness. Social order is extraordinarily precious and difficult to achieve.
Political ideology: Left or right
Here’s a simple definition of ideology: “A set of beliefs about the proper order of society and how it can be achieved.” And here’s the most basic of all ideological questions: Preserve the present order, or change it? At the French Assembly of 1789, the delegates who favored preservation sat on the right side of the chamber, while those who favored change sat on the left. The terms right and left have stood for conservatism and liberalism ever since.
John Stuart Mill said that liberals and conservatives are like this: “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”
Source: Jonathan Haidt – The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
It is important to know precisely what economics is and what it’s all about.
Thankfully, it’s very simple. Economics is all about “stuff.”
Professors might make it more complicated. The news and media might make it so much more complex. And politicians will insist only they are smart enough to understand it. But all of the books, all of the formulas, all of the statistics, and all of the research that economics entails is simply about one thing, and one thing only.
Stuff.
This might be a bit confusing at first, as most people think “money” or “riches” is what economics is all about. But participate in a simple mental exercise and imagine:
a world with no stuff, but…
tons of money.
Precisely what would you do with the money? Nothing, because there’s no stuff to buy with it. You could be sitting on top of a billion dollars and two billion in gold, but without anything to buy or services to purchase, the gold and the money are completely worthless. Ergo, economics is not about “money.” It is 100%, COMPLETELY ALL about the stuff it can buy. Money simply serves as a tool of exchange.
Elon Musk: “Some people have this absurd view that the economy is like some magic horn of plenty. Like it just makes stuff. There’s a magic horn of plenty and the goods and services they just come from this magic horn of plenty. And then if somebody has more stuff than somebody else is because they took more from this magic horn of plenty.
Now let me just break it to the fools out there: If you don’t make stuff there’s no stuff. Yeah. So if you don’t make the food, if you don’t process the food, you don’t transport the food, medical treatment, getting your teeth fixed… there’s no stuff. I would become detached from reality. You can’t just legislate money and solve these things. If you don’t make stuff there is no stuff.”
Therefore, the true measure of how “wealthy” or “rich” an economy is, is not the amount of money it has. It is the ability of that country to produce stuff or what economists call “wealth.” This is why Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations,” not “The Money of Nations” (though I would have preferred “The Stuff of Nations”). He was not speaking to a country’s ability to mint gold or print currency. He was talking about the country’s ability to produce things that would support and improve the lives of its people. If you can understand this, then you already are light years ahead of most people when it comes to understanding economics.
The next step is how do we produce the stuff? What is the optimal economic system that produces the most amount of stuff and therefore enriches the most amount of people?
And it is here there is a bit of debate.
Capitalism vs Socialism
In the olden days, understand, there was no debate. Wealth was gained either through theft or slavery. You would be working in your village one day and the Vikings or the local warring tribe would come in and take your goats, bread, and a lot of times, your women. Or, you would be in your village, and soon a raiding party would grab you, drag you off to some faraway land and force you to build their stuff for them for free. But after the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, the Civil War, two world wars, and other significant historical events, society has evolved to the point the debate about producing stuff falls into two general camps today – capitalism and socialism.
Capitalism is the idea that the individual produces the stuff and gets to keep the vast majority of the stuff he produced.
Socialism is the idea that everybody should produce as much stuff as they want, but then all the stuff is redistributed equally or at least “more fairly.”
And to be blunt, one is based in mature adult reality and the other in child like idealism.
The reason for such a confident and patently biased statement is because capitalism stands up to logic, history, empirical data, and evidence, whereas socialism does not. And if you try to understand economics through socialism, you will simply fail. Economics and the road to a rich and prosperous society will forever elude you. This is not to brainwash you one way or another. Nor is it to advance a political agenda. But it is to have the decency and respect to treat you like a full grown man, not waste your time, and tell you how the real world works. You should, by all means, confirm and verify everything I state here (even try to prove me wrong) for your own convincing, but in the meantime, for the sake of expediency, we cannot treat socialism with the same level of impartiality and dignity as capitalism. It just doesn’t hold muster.
1. Incentives
First, the most obvious failing of socialism is logic. You don’t need to be getting your Master’s in Logic (real degree, not kidding) to quickly realize that if all the income is spread around to the point everybody makes the same, then why would anybody work? You’d make just as much money as a janitor as you would a surgeon, so why try? The natural consequence of these perverse work incentives is people pursuing easier professions or just refusing to work at all, which further translates into little to no stuff being made. This is why there were always shortages of bread, cars, toothpaste and everything else in the Soviet Union, while American grocery stores were filled to the brim. Since it didn’t matter how much or how little you worked, most Soviets logically chose to work less which lowered the overall economic production of their economy and gave them standards of living a mere third of Americans.
2. History
Second, you just have to look at history. Bar some Scandinavian countries, socialism has a horrible track record. It has killed more people during peacetime than the Nazi’s purposely did during war. And for those people it didn’t kill it severely lessened their standards of living compared to their capitalist counterparts.
East Germany suffered standards of living 2/3rd’s less than their Western German counterparts.
China experienced economic growth of only 3.65% per year under communism vs. 8.24% post Deng Xiaoping’s capitalist reforms.
Cuba only enjoys a GDP per capita of $9,500 vs. another Caribbean island, Bermuda, which has $69,000 in GDP per capita.
And perhaps the “purest” comparison we have in the field of economics is the Koreas. North Korea has an abysmally low GDP per capita of $1,800, while the South enjoys a standard of living 18 times that $32,800.
3. Statistical evidence
Third, statistical evidence. While the above figures are indeed statistical evidence, they are anecdotal (though compelling unto themselves). When you look at all the countries with enough historical economic data and compare the size of their governments (as measured by spending as a % of GDP) to their long term economic growth there is a negative relationship.
Additionally, within the United States, as the government has grown larger (again, as measured by spending as a % of GDP) our long term economic growth rate has slowed.
Both data sets only make sense because as the government consumes a larger and larger share of the economy, it by default must crowd out the private economy and thus slow economic growth.
4. Morality
Fourth, morality. Realize the only way genuine, tyrannical oppression of people can occur is through the “state” or the “government.” Yes, one person can individually oppress another (say a possessive husband, or an overbearing wife), but the only entity capable of oppressing an entire nation of people is the government because it is the ultimate monopoly of society and (more importantly) controls the military. Our American forefathers knew this and is why they wrote so many rules into the Constitution and Bill of Rights, limiting the power of government. But when people vote for socialism, regardless of what the constitution might say, they consciously or not give the government more money and more power. Sometimes (though rarely) this power isn’t abused (e.g. – the Scandinavian countries), but more often than not it is. The Soviet Union’s KGB was no different than the Nazi’s Gestapo, arresting and killing people for merely disagreeing with socialism. The East German “Stasi” would regularly spy on its citizens, murder dissenters, and even have children spy on their parents. North Korea flagrantly oppresses its people when it’s not too busy killing them in concentration camps. And Cuba celebrates a mass murderer like Che Guevara. This isn’t to say voting for socialism guarantees a country will immediately devolve into a totalitarian dictatorship, but that historically governments have been so predisposed to become tyrannical, that in voting for socialism you do at least enable them to do so.
5. Faith in the state
Finally, there is a gapping flaw in socialism. It simply puts the cart before the horse. Ask yourself the question – what came first? The government or the people? You’ll logically conclude that people came first and not government, because without people, why would you have a government? What would it govern? Where would it get its taxes? Therefore, it is the government that relies on the people, and not the other way around.
This is an important point to make because it shows that people are the ultimate source of production, economic growth, and success. Therefore, if you are going to have an economic system it needs to focus on the people, not the state. Socialism simply fails to do this. Socialism believes the state is not just the source of economic growth, but the solution to all of society’s problems.
Economic growth is slowing?
“The government must do something!”
Poverty is increasing?
“The government needs to give more money to the poor!”
Oil prices are too high?
“The government needs to stick it to Big Oil!”
It is never the people that must do something.
Capitalism, however, does the opposite. It realizes the government is merely a tool of the people. That the only role government should serve in society is that of “governance” and not “engine for economic growth,” simply because it can’t. Capitalism, therefore, focuses its efforts on incenting the people to produce with things like low taxes, economic freedom, property rights, and other things enumerated in our founding documents. It is, therefore, no surprise that capitalist economies, which are based in reality, always manage to produce more wealth than socialist ones, which erroneously put their faith in the state.
***
Psychology of socialists
If you take what I’ve said at face value, you may ask why is there even a debate? If capitalism is so patently, empirically, and obviously superior to socialism, then why are most western nations drifting towards socialism? Why is there so much passion, argument, debate, even violence on the news and in society when it comes to the debate as to “how to produce stuff?”
And it is here psychology enters the equation.
Realize while you may have the intellectual honesty and temerity to study economics, conduct your own research, and unbiasedly discover the truth for yourself, most people don’t. Most people are too lazy to study economics or put forth the effort required to thoroughly and fully think through their ideology. Worse, some of these people start to take on an emotional attachment to their political beliefs. These people usually live inadequate lives, have nothing else to offer society, and find a mental solace, even purpose or meaning in political ideologies much like zealots do in religion (for example, environmentalism, feminism, veganism, organic, etc.). Thus, when you encounter them, be it in person or watching the news, it is a guarantee they are going to disagree with you, often violently.
But understand why there is disagreement.
It’s not because you’re right and they’re wrong. Or that they have the right data and you don’t. It’s because you are arguing from empiricism, logic, fact, and math, while they are arguing from feelings, emotions, simpleton logic, even a zealous faith. In other words, it’s like mixing oil and water. You’re not even on the same page and therefore will never be able convince them, just as they will never be able to convince you.
The reason I bring up this impasse between capitalists and socialists is because if you don’t realize this it can be maddening to try to understand economics and politics. You will have all the data, you will have all the research, you will have thoroughly thought through your economic philosophy to the point it’s airtight. But you will still get vehement resistance from your socialist counterparts. This will make you think they’re either insane or you completely missed something in your economic analysis, when in reality, the entire debate about economics is couched not in empiricism and research, but emotion and psychology.
The truth is economics is quite easy to understand. Just takes a little research, a decent understanding of the basic principles of “stuff” and “wealth,” and an intellectually honest mind. The hard part, and where the forefront of economics and politics is being played out, is in understanding the emotions and psychology of socialists, leftists, and people in general. That is where you will cut your teeth as an economist.
Source: Aaron Clarey – Bachelor Pad Economics: The Financial Advice Bible for Men
– I think the biggest problem is when the host is talking and you keep talking over the show descends into chaos. I think that was the issue she was running into.
– This would be my advice for shows: A lot of people talk over a lot of people but when the host starts talking you gotta chill, because if you talk over the host too much that will get you kicked off. That’s just what I’ve seen on shows.
– So do you think I was in the wrong in that situation?
– I think so just because it was her podcast, it was her house. She does have the right to talk over because she’s the host.
– I think if you have problems with a host then the best way to bring it up is afterwards.
– If you do it on the show the host is always going to win. It’s like fighting with the cops. You can never be the winner at that point.
– So you guys think just because she’s the host she can be disrespectful to people?
– In a way yeah, she can be. Because it’s their show. You’re like in their kingdom. It’s like their world.
– It’s like your boss at work. You’re not gonna talk over him.
– I’m just so upset because I felt so powerless.
She disregarded the first law of power, Never outshine the master, and the King (Queen in this case) cut off her head.
When people within a hierarchical order act in ways that negate or subvert that order, we feel it instantly, even if we ourselves have not been directly harmed. If authority is in part about protecting order and fending off chaos, then everyone has a stake in supporting the existing order and in holding people accountable for fulfilling the obligations of their station.
The current triggers of the Authority/subversion foundation include anything that is construed as an act of obedience, disobedience, respect, disrespect, submission, or rebellion, with regard to authorities perceived to be legitimate.
As with the Loyalty foundation, it is much easier for the political right to build on this foundation than it is for the left, which often defines itself in part by its opposition to hierarchy, inequality, and power.
Jonathan Haidt – The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Kevin Gallego 