Posted on 07/20/2005 9:12:57 AM PDT by A. Pole
Individualism
Smith derived his much of his approach to moral questions from his teacher Hutcheson, but he also broke with his mentor on a central point. Hutcheson had grounded the moral sense exclusively on benevolence, which promoted the greatest happiness of the greatest number (He appears to have been the first to formulate the utilitarian calculus), and he regarded self-love or, as we should say now, concern for self interest or self esteem as contaminating any virtuous motive. Smith, by contrast, thought this left too little room for the power of self-love: “Regard to our own private happiness and interest, too, appear on many occasions very laudable principles of action. The habits of economy, industry, discretion, attention, and application of thought, are generally supposed to be cultivated from self-interested motives, and at the same time are apprehended to be very praiseworthy qualities…” Obviously, he says, a man takes care of his health, his life, his fortune out of a desire for self-preservation, and that is a good thing. (TOMS 481-2).
Smith’s departure from Hutcheson’s somewhat simplistic theory was caused in part by his reading of another, quite different moral theorist, Bernard de Mandeville, celebrated for making private vice the source of public virtue. While critical of Mandeville’s celebration of the virtues of selfishness, he nonetheless conceded that Mandeville—who anticipates Ayn Rand—borders on the truth. What Mandeville taught Smith is to focus on the individual and his self-interest, and this rational individualism—after rational objectivity—is the second aspect of the Enlightenment’s fatal mistake.
Rationalism
At the heart of this philosophical tradition is John Locke’s conviction—derived from Descartes—that moral behavior is really a question of rational decision-making: “And the great principle and foundation of all virtue and worth is placed in this: that a man is able to deny himself of his own desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as best.” This self-restraint derives from a rational understanding of certain clear and abstract principles, which
would . . . if duly considered and pursued, afford such foundations of our duty and rules of action as might place morality amongst the sciences capable of demonstration: wherein I doubt not but from self-evident propositions by necessary consequences, as incontestable as those in mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out to anyone that will apply himself with the same indifferency and attention to the one as he does to the other of these sciences.
Morality, concedes Locke, may be a more complex matter than geometry, but this is partly owing to the imprecision of language, and this problem “may in good measure be alleviated by definitions.” Some day, Locke hoped, the symbolic methods of algebra might be used to simplify ethical questions, and this hope was realized within a generation in the moral equations drawn up by Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson. Hutcheson was, in many respects, a wise man who looked back to older ethical traditions, but his “let ‘G’ stand for goodness” approach (derived from Leibniz and Descartes) is no less comical than the symbolic formulas of more recent academic philosophers.
In Locke’s own lifetime, however, there were other moral philosophers who were still studying, case by case, the sorts of dilemmas that ordinary people might conceivably face, and this branch of philosophy, still known as casuistry, had become a highly technical art. But in Locke’s view, a rational morality does not require the professional skills claimed by the practitioners of casuistry; even the simplest men and women can make sense of their obligations, if they will only attend carefully to the meaning of words. Adam Smith takes a very similar position toward casuistry in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Descartes and Locke were content with suggesting that an algebraic model could be constructed for ethics. Other philosophers went farther. Leibniz, for example, called for a universal language of philosophical discourse that could express thoughts about anything with the abstraction and lack of ambiguity of mathematical symbols.
I do not know to what extent Francis Hutcheson was influenced either by Descartes or Leibniz, but even he, though certainly no ultra-rationalist, was not free of this rationalist taint. In his famous 1725 essay, “An Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil,” Hutcheson distinguishes between the love we have for the morally good and the quite different feelings excited by those who possess merely natural advantages like wealth and property and from whom we might hope to derive some advantage. This feeling of love he ascribes to an intuitive moral sense. In our own personal case, love of virtue may be intermixed with self-interest, but when we look at others, we approve actions only insofar as they are moral, as if we were concerned with a universal love of mankind.
When we judge the actions of other people we approve of them on moral grounds when the motive is benevolence, which he calls “the Foundation of all apprehended Excellence in social Virtues.” (sect. III.3, p. 153). All of this, however simplistic, might be the foundation of a moral system that takes account of the feelings of ordinary people. But then he makes a fatal turn, supposing that every moral agent considers himself as part of a rational system based on this principle of benevolence. We can be innocently solicitous of ourselves and consistently benevolent towards others, though not necessarily at considerable harm to our own interests. We may admire another man’s natural abilities but we hate those very abilities if turned to malicious purposes.
How to sort out these tangled conflicts of interest and benevolence without the aid of a casuistic science that considers each case? The answer: “To find a universal Canon to compute the Morality of any Actions, with all their Circumstances, when we judge of the Actions done by our selves, or by others, we must observe the following Propositions or Axioms.” (3.12, p. 168). Let me just take the first axiom—one of the simpler:
“The moral Importance of any Character, or the Quantity of publick Good prod’d by him, is in a compound Ratio of his Benevolence and Abilitys: or (by substituting the initial letters for the words, as M=Moment of Good, and mu=Moment of Evil) M=B x A.”
I promised only one but I cannot resist a more complex example: H (hatred)= mu (moment of evil)+ or – I (interest) over A (action). QED
This care-free assumption of Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, and Hutcheson, that mathematical methods could be applied to moral questions would have alarmed thinkers of an earlier age. After all, Aristotle (Eth.Nic. I.3, 1094b) had drawn out the distinction between exact sciences, capable of demonstration, and the fuzzier disciplines that study human life (such as ethics and politics) where we must be content with partial truths and rough outlines, for “it is the mark of an educated man to seek precision only so far as the nature of the subject admits. To demand logical proofs from rhetoric is the rough equivalent of expecting mathematics to use the language of persuasion.” More recently, Howard Gardner, in summing up recent researches in cognitive psychology and anthropology, came to a similar conclusion: “Pure logic . . . which developed long after our survival mechanisms had fallen into place . . . may be useful under certain circumstances . . . But logic cannot serve as a valid model of how most individuals solve most problems most of the time.” Science, in other words, now refutes one of the Enlightenment’s scientific assumptions.
Here are some facts about man known to science and history but not apparently obvious to modern moral philosophers. Man is a rational animal but he is also an animal. We are impelled by biological instincts to eat and procreate and once we have procreated we are compelled to take care of our offspring who represent our natural immortality. We are not individualists because our genes and hormones tell us that three children are worth more than one of me, since they represent 150% of my genetic material. The family, and the society that grows out of kinship and friendship, is natural and not artificial, and the very fact that man is a curious hybrid, dominated by biological impulses yet capable of rational thought and free will means that no abstract science of morality or science is possible. We can, of course, study human behavior and make certain tentative conclusions, but we cannot predict what this or that person will do, any more than we can be completely objective about ourselves and our friends.
Universalism
Rationalism in ethics leads to objectivity and individualism but these principles also encourage a belief that all individuals should be treated the same, regardless of, religion or friendship or nationality. Few Scottish intellectuals even in the late 18th century would have subscribed to such a bloodless point of view, and even David Hume, in his History at least, reveals more than a little Scottish patriotism. Some of their friends in France, however, just as they were devising the venomous nationalism that would turn the French revolution into a plague on all of Europe, were also dreaming dreams of universal peace in a world state. The paradox is that the same person could hold such opposing thoughts. Rousseau, for example, whose theory of the General Will of the people is the theoretical basis of nationalism, also shared the vision of The Abbé de St.-Pierre, author of Projet de Paix Perpetuelle. St. Pierre was a typical—perhaps stereotypical—Enlightenment intellectual with an unbounded faith in the goodness of human nature and the blessings of progress.
Where did Adam Smith stand on this question of globalism. He is frequently invoked as the godfather of the free-trade globalism advocated by both American political parties today, and although this is hardly fair to a man who wrote of the wealth of nations and not of global corporations, we should not be too quick to exonerate him. The impartial spectator who rises above all personal concerns gives off a decidedly universalist and globalist odor. And what of the mysterious mechanism that Smith uses in The Wealth of Nations to explain the workings of the market—the Invisible Hand?
Smith says that every individual “endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value.” This selfish activity thus raises the overall income of the society and contributes to the greater good. How does this miracle take place? The individual who intends only personal gain “is …led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”
In TMS Smith had anticipated this argument:
“The rich … are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. When providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition. These last too enjoy their share of all that it produces. In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.” (TMS IV.1.10)
Smith’s latterday disciples, prone to interpret any invocation of God or even nature as Christian, are usually uncomfortable with the invisible hand, which they insist is merely a metaphor for competition and market forces, but they have nothing to worry about. Indeed, from the Christian perspective, Smith’s famous invisible hand looks to be either mysticism or deceit. Deceit, because despite all the defenses made of Smith by American conservatives, he is clearly not an Orthodox Trinitarian Christian. That is clear from the decidedly ideologlical account he put out of the peaceful and saintly death of David Hume, which occasioned the famous interchange between Smith and Dr. Johnson: “Sir, you lie,” declared the Dr., to which Smith replied: “You are a son of a bitch.” As it turns out, Johnson was probably right, at least in part, since a servant of Hume is known to have said more than once that her master was only calm in the presence of visitors, but was in great distress as soon as they left.
Like other religious skeptics Smith likes to invoke the deity or providence as the ultimate justification for his views, but he never invokes Christ—except to misquote or misinterpret him—and only speaks of religion per se in deprecating tones. He was also no mystic, but, despite his cautionary remarks on Epictetus, he had been powerfully influenced by ancient Stoics and their famous doctrine that one should live according to nature. This nature was a rational cosmological system—the logos, a cosmic fire. To live according to nature means ultimately to despise all those things that are personal and peculiar—distinctions of rank or nationality—and the Stoic goal was to be a cosmopolites, a citizen of the world.
I want to suggest, then, Adam Smith, philosophically if not politically, was an “enlightened” globalist. First, he invokes the impartial spectator as a means of rising above the personal and local point of view, and then he turns to the invisible hand as a force of nature—or the deity, if you prefer—that turns unregulated international trade and global commerce to the advantage of the human race. Even if it were to fail, from time to time, Smith’s theory would make those failures trivial in comparison with the cosmic order that makes everything turn out for the best. This is the point at which Leibniz’s argument that this is the best of all possible worlds converges with Scotland’s residual Calvinism that denied all secondary causes and attributed everything that happens, including apparent evil, to the direct will of God.
Liberalism
There is much that is useful in Hutcheson and Hume, who correct many errors of the Enlightenment, and there would be little point to denying the significance of Adam Smith as the first person who comprehensively demonstrated the superiority of the free market over all the deluded wise men who think they can regulate and plan an economic system: Although we are free to reject the selfish individualism of Mandeville and Smith, their analysis gives us true insight into the way social and economic systems actually work. It is quite another thing to say that it is our human destiny to be prisoners of such a system.
Smith’s fundamental problem lies not with his economic theory but with a moral philosophy that permitted him to be indifferent as to the ends of human life. As an analysis of how markets work, WON is a magisterial book, but the end of life is not merely to live but to live well, and, as Aristotle—whom Smith despised—showed long ago, the purpose of property and wealth is to enable us to live well. The wealth of nations is thus only a means to an end, the happiness of nations or rather of the people who make up the nation. Smith did not see this problem because he was convinced that his own flawed moral philosophy had settled such questions. Later liberals—Bentham and Mill, Humboldt and the Austrian School—would wrestle inconclusively with this question, but at the heart of all classical liberalism is a rational and universalistic individualism that causes the disintegration of human society and invites, inevitably, the nightmare of socialism.
Free market bump!
Excerpted and condensed from:
Of Restraints upon the Importation from Foreign Countries
of such Goods as can be produced at Home
"There seem, however, to be two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry...
As there are two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry, so there are two others in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation; in the one, how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods; and in the other, how far, or in what manner, it may be proper to restore that free importation after it has been for some time interrupted....
- The first is, when some particular sort of industry is necessary for the defence of the country....
- The second case, in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry is, when some tax is imposed at home upon the produce of the latter. In this case, it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed upon the like produce of the former....
- The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods is, when some foreign nation restrains by high duties or prohibitions the importation of some of our manufactures into their country. Revenge in this case naturally dictates retaliation, and that we should impose the like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all of their manufactures into ours....
- The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation, how far, or in what manner, it is proper to restore the free importation of foreign goods, after it has been for some time interrupted, is, when particular manufactures, by means of high duties or prohibitions upon all foreign goods which can come into competition with them, have been so far extended as to employ a great multitude of hands. Humanity may in this case require that the freedom of trade should be restored only by slow gradations, and with a good deal of reserve and circumspection. Were those high duties and prohibitions taken away all at once, cheaper foreign goods of the same kind might be poured so fast into the home market as to deprive all at once many thousands of our people of their ordinary employment and means of subsistence. The disorder which this would occasion might no doubt be very considerable....
bump to myself
"The second case, in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry is, when some tax is imposed at home upon the produce of the latter. In this case, it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed upon the like produce of the former...."
Therein lies the problem with our current tax system. We burden our domestic production with corporate income and payroll taxes, making them less competitive than they should be. However, trying to correct that via import duties is like putting lipstick on a pig. You end up with WTO sanctions, alienated trading partners, etc.
The solution, of course, is to stop discriminating against US producers in the first place, then you don't have to worry about how to compensate for that, when the attempts to compensate create yet another round of problems.
Tax consumption, not income, and the problem is solved.
The income tax is not the only economic burden placed on domestic production by federal mandate.
Federal regulatory restrictions (OSHA, EPA, etc.) all qualify for compensating tariffs under Smith's assertion.
One recent critic of Smith's modern proponents argue that he was in favor of capitalistic societies, not anonymous inputs and outputs. In other words, the reputation of capitalists, and intent behind their drive for wealth and power would be factors. Much of this has been stripped out of the equation by international capitalism that fuels the military machine of China, and floods an islamofascist state like Saudi Arabia with oil wealth.
What many forget is that Smith did not support letting businessmen run amock. He definitely would not have supported outsourcing or relinquishing trade policies to global trade boards.
This is garbage. Smith justified self-interest by pointing out everyone is better off in a society motivated by self-interest. That is moral.
The economic order which Adam Smith challenged was called Mercantilism. Mercantilism was the communism or socialism or planned economy of the 17th and 18th centuries. The nation was covered with a network of minute regulations controlling every stage of manufacture and exchange, and the controls were brutally enforced, as they must be in every planned economy; in a 73-year period in France, 1686 to 1759, approximately 16,000 people were put to death for some infraction of the government regulations over the economy.
Adam Smith set out to free the economy with what he referred to as his “liberal plan of liberty, equality, and justice.” (p. 628)It is more than a coincidence that The Wealth of Nations and the Declaration of Independence appeared within a few months of each other, in the year 1776. The Declaration endorses the Whig political vision whose main features were voiced by Jefferson in his First Inaugural: “Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none . . . freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus,” and so on. This was the political and legal framework laid down by the Whig theorists, within which Adam Smith’s free market economy, or capitalism, had the freedom necessary if it was to function-his “liberal plan of liberty, equality and justice.” - LINK
Smith's agnosticism inexorably leads to the Libertarian position on wealth.
You can put a lot of scruples under the ground if there's no God...
read later
Adherents of the free market are not indifferent at all to human life. The argument against altruism is that if one spends their money on "selfish" ends instead of charity, it supports and employs other men who in turn put their money into the economy, which in turn employs other men, and on and on. It keeps them from needing charity. Planned economies tend to have the opposite effect.
This isn't to say that charity isn't necessary even where a free market exists, but that the free market produces wealth and reduces the need for charity. In addition to helping preserve the freedoms and liberties that we all cherish.
I think it fair to say that opponents of the free market are often interested not in freedom, but in control of one kind or another.
Some excerpts from an NRO book review of The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
You know Adam Smith, the economist . . .
but what about Adam Smith, the moralist?
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
by Smith, Adam
How many conservatives know that Adam Smith’s thinking stretched far beyond his classic economic primer The Wealth of Nations - that Smith was in fact, a moral philosopher concerned not only with how people prosper, but with how they should live?
Smith’s answer: Through the precepts revealed by God and by the example of noble-spirited men.
Here then, is the second volume of the Conservative Leadership Series, Adam Smith’s long-neglected masterpiece, The Theory of Moral Sentiments - the original Book of Virtues - with his mature thoughts on the nature of “propriety,” “duty,” “merit,” “virtue,” and much else. The Theory of Moral Sentiments is not a simple retelling of Biblical truth. The task Smith assigned himself was both more difficult and more dangerous – to establish for scholars and other educated men in “the age of reason,” the reasonableness of morality, the necessity of the fruits of antiquity. It is, then, proof to skeptics of the importance of morality; and an antidote to those who think that free-market economics can be divorced from a moral society.
His success can be measured by the praise offered by the famous British historian Henry Buckle who held The Theory of Moral Sentiments as of equal importance and value to Smith’s landmark treatise The Wealth of Nations. As Buckle said, “To understand the philosophy of this, by far the greatest of all the Scotch thinkers, both works must be taken together, and considered as one; since they are, in reality, the two divisions of a single subject.”
That subject is the subject of every conservative – man, and how he can live a free and moral life.
The moral wisdom of Adam Smith . . .
For true religion, not trendy self-esteem: “As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour . . . or as our neighbour is capable of loving us.”
On virtuous conduct:”Wise, prudent, and good conduct was, in the first place, the conduct most likely to ensure success in every species of undertaking; and secondly, though it should fail of success, yet the mind was not left without consolation. The virtuous man might still enjoy the complete approbation of his own breast; and might still feel that, how untoward soever things might be without, all was calm and peace and concord within.”
On individual liberty: “Every man, as the Stoics used to say, is first and principally recommended to his own care; and every man is certainly, in every respect, fitter and abler to take care of himself than of any other person.”
On the evil of covetousness (read: socialism): “There can be no proper motive for hurting our neighbour . . . To disturb his happiness merely because it stands in the way of our own, to take from him what is of real use to him merely because it may be of equal or of more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at the expence of other people, the natural preference which every man has for his own happiness above that of other people, is what no impartial spectator can go along with.”
On justice: As every man doth, so shall it be done to him. . . . The violator of the laws of justice ought to made to feel himself that eveil which he has done to another. . . .”
Another review from NRO:
To truly understand Adam Smith's economic masterpiece "The Wealth of Nations", one must understand its moral foundation. Without Smith's essential prequel, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", the more famous "Wealth of Nations" can easily be misunderstood, twisted, or dismissed. Smith rightly lays the premise of his economics in a seedbed of moral philosophy--the rights and wrongs, the whys and why-nots of human conduct. Smith's capitalism is far from a callous, insensitive, greed-motivated, love-of-profits-at-any-cost approach to the marketplace, when seen in the context of his "Moral Sentiments." [Note: This book is a "page for page reproduction" of a two volume edition published in 1817, which is reflected in my pagination references.]
Smith's first section deals with the "Propriety of Action". The very first chapter of the book is entitled "Of Sympathy". This is very telling of Smith's view of life, and his approach to how men should conduct their lives. "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it." (p 1:1). Later Smith asserts that this "sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish principle." (p 2:178)
This propriety of conduct undergirds all social, political and econonmic activities, private and public. When Smith observes that "hatred and anger are the greatest poisons to the happiness of a good mind" (p 1:44) he is speaking not only of interpersonal relationships but of its moral extensions in the community and world. Smith treats the passions of men with clinical precision, identifying a gamut of passions like selfishness, ambition and the distiction of ranks, vanity, intimidation, drawing examples from history and various schools of philosophy. He extols such quiet virtues as politeness, modesty and plainess, probity and prudence, generosity and frankness--certainly not the qualities of the sterotypical cartoon of a capitalist robber-baron. Indeed Smith is contemptuous of the double standards employed by cults of fashion or celebrity: "The great mob of mankind are the admirers and worshippers...of wealth and greatness" paying lip-service to wisdom and virtue, yet Smith observes, "there is scarce any man who does not respect more the rich and the great, than the poor and the humble. With most men the presumption and vanity of the former are much more admired, than the real and solid merit of the latter. It is scarce agreeable to good morals or even good language...that mere wealth and greatness, abstracted from merit and virtue, deserve our respect." (p 1:79) Tragically, the wealthy or popular celebrity foists a dangerous pattern upon the public, "even their vices and follies are fashionable; and the greater part of men are proud to imitate and resemble them in the very qualities which dishonour and degrade them." (pp 1:81-82) For Smith, wealth is not the criteria of real success. He laments the political-correctness of his day: "Vain men often give themselves airs...which in their hearts they do not approve of, and of which, perhaps, they are not really guilty. They desire to be praised for what they themselves do not think praiseworthy, and are ashamed of unfashionable virtues....There are hypocrites of wealth and greatness, as well as of religion and virtue; and a vain man is as apt to pretend to be what he is not, in the one way, as a cunning man is in the other." (p 1:82) Smith, the moralist also warns that taken too far such trendy fashions of political-correctness can wreck havoc on society: "In many governments the candidates for the highest stations are above the law; and, if they can attain the object of their ambition, they have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it. They often endeavor, therefore, not only by fraud and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal; but sometimes by the perptration of the most enormous crimes...to supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their [supposed] greatness." (p 1:83)
With such salient observations Smith embarks in a survey of vices to avoid and passions to govern. He describes virtues to cultivate in order to master one's self as well as the power of wealth or position. These include courage, duty, benevolence, propriety, prudence and self-love [or as we would say, self-respect]. He develops a powerful doctrine of "moral duty" based upon "the rules of justice", "the rules of chastity", and "the rules of veracity" that decries cowardice, treachery, and falsity. The would-be-Capitalist or pretended-Capitalist who violates any of the rules of moral duty in the accumulation of wealth and power in or out of the marketplace is a misanthrope who may dangerously abuse the wealth and position he acquires. Smith describes a moral base rooted in sympathy not selfishness as the basis for an economic system which has been labeled Capitalism. The real Capitalist operates with a strict sense of moral propriety without purposely harming other men, beasts or nature; in this sense capitalism is more a stewardship than an insensitive, mechanistic mercantilism or a crass commercialism. This book is a vital component to any reading of "The Wealth of Nations". "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" is the life-blood or soul of "The Wealth of Nations". Without "Moral Sentiments" one is left with an empty, even soulless, economic theory that can be construed as greedy and grasping no matter how much wealth may be acquired.
For a Christian, there is no arguement against altruism.
Altruism is a moral necessity of anyone with means to alleviate the plight of those who do not, or for whom they are lacking.
No specious arguements about profligate spending enabling greater employment and similar nonesense can vitiate this truth. And I say specious because there is no reason to believe that a dollar spent by a very wealthy man has greater economic impact than a dollar given by a very wealthy man to a poor man and then spent by the poor man. At the end of the day, someone has spent one dollar.
Of course, the greatest capitalists in our American history have also been among our greatest altruists - Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Pew, Drexel, etc., undoubtedly from the Christian concept of Noblesse Oblige.
It's hardly specious to maintain that discretionery spending provides jobs and keeps people from actually needing charity.
I will concede that altruism is still necessary, however, and even a moral obligation, as you say. There will always be those who can't get by without help. But an economy based on altruism or egalitarianism will require quite a bit more charity than a free market economy.
No, it isn't moral. And it is false. I will give you one example: in the light of self-interest dying out for the country is FOOLISH. The country for which nobody is willing to sacrifice is doomed to perish.
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." (Thomas Jefferson)
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