Intergroup Interactions

Science ^ | October 26 2007 | Choi and Bowles

[expatpat]

Explaining the origin of altruism and parochialism has posed a challenge for theoretical biologists. Choi and Bowles (p. 636; see the Perspective by Arrow) describe a simulation based on interactions between groups in a game-theory framework in which hostile intergroup interactions lead to war and nonhostile interactions lead to trade. Groups composed of individuals who are both altruistic and parochial--who favor members of their own group and disfavor outsiders--are more successful than groups that are either only altruistic or only parochial.

[expatpat]

The liberals seem to be the groups that are only altruistic, the Buchanan isolationists the groups that are only parochial.

[Wuli]

"Groups composed of individuals who are both altruistic and parochial--who favor members of their own group and disfavor outsiders--are more successful than groups that are either only altruistic or only parochial."

Just look at America's religious sects.

Notice that all the major religious groups that expend the LEAST TIME AND EFFORT preaching that the government is not taking enough of your money for some "benevolent" reason have one or more of these qualities among their group:

either no one, or hardly anyone, in their group is on public assistance and they easily share with each other (Mormons, Amish, Jehovah's witnesses and most Orthodox Jewish sects for example);

or they stand among the highest charitable givers in the U.S. (social-conservative Christians);

and they often have the highest rates of stable (successful) marital relationships (all the above).

While those religious groups who complain the most that NOT ENOUGH of your money is being taken by government for "benevolent" reasons, have no shame concerning how many of their own members are on or need public assistance (demonstrating their paramount "altruism" does not even extend to their own, because it is a demand that their benevolence be subsidized by others (liberal Protestants, Jews and Catholics).

While "liberal" Christians claim they speak correctly in their belief that Yeshua would have been a socialist, they do not even marshal their own resources among themselves to take care of their own (those "horrible" Mormons actually tithe their ten percent faithfully and the Church takes care of any Mormons in need). I believe that Yeshua and the early Christians (before the institutional Church) were communualists (shared as needed among each other) and altruists to others outside their group when possible but NONE of them or Yeshua would have ever said: "Let's go make a demand on Caesar that he give us the power of his sword, to take from all the "rich" and give it to us to distribute to the poor." No, they would not have wanted that power involved in their "giving" at all. It would not be a gift.

The difference is that true Christian charity "takes" nothing from anyone; its resources for "giving" come from those who give, by their own conscience not by government oppression. Socialism, "democratic" or otherwise, is not "altruistic" because it is not based on the altruistic concept of giving; it is based on the principal of taking. A legal demand that you "give" with legal penalties for failure to "give" is an act of "taking" by the government, not an act of giving by you and therefore not an act of altruism by either the government or you.

The conceptual error of the socialists is the wholesale replacement of what is a "societal" good with what is a "government" good, as though government is and should be the major point of expression of society, as opposed to the free associations of people.

If all the liberal Protestants, Catholics and Jews did as others do and were altruistic in every sense among their own, first and completely, then how many would be left in "society" with a need for "government" assistance.

Socialism is not altruistic. It seeks to take from others to fund your altruism. That taking nullifies any compassionate intent.