Capitalism's Pillar: Self-Responsibility

LFET ^ | George F. Smith

[Sir Gawain]

Capitalism's Pillar: Self-Responsibility

by George F. Smith

"The United States was the first country in the history of the world to be consciously created out of an idea — and the idea was liberty."
— Nathaniel Branden

For over forty years, psychologist Nathaniel Branden has told us about self-esteem and the crucial role it plays in how we experience our lives. Self-esteem is the reputation we have with ourselves — it is what I think of me, not what others think of me — and entails feelings of self-efficacy and self-worth. According to Branden, we strengthen our self-esteem with an unreserved commitment to mental clarity and self-examination, which includes six fundamental practices. He refers to these practices as the "Six Pillars of Self-Esteem," which very briefly are:

1. Living consciously — facing facts, refusing to live life in a fog.
2. Self-acceptance — being willing to experience who we are, even if we don't always like the experience.
3. Self-assertiveness — the ability to stand up for ourselves.
4. Living purposefully — developing self-discipline and working for goals.
5. Integrity — acting according to our deepest beliefs.
6. Self-responsibility — gaining control of our lives by recognizing we are responsible for our choices and actions. [1]

It's this last pillar — self-responsibility — that plays a major role in determining the kind of social system we live in. If we abandon it, we become followers and dependents, turning control of our lives over to others. If we accept it, our biggest need is to be left free so we can create the life we want.

While an attitude of self-responsibility comes from within us, the social environment we live in can do a great deal to encourage its practice or stifle it. On his web site, Branden includes a chapter from his book, "Taking Responsibility: Self-Reliance and the Accountable Life," that discusses the incentives we can create for practicing self-responsibility in child-raising and in society at large. [2]

He sees the traditional values of individualism, self-reliance, self-discipline, and hard work as arising, in part, from our roots as a frontier society in which everything had to be created. The sense of community people shared was never a substitute for self-responsibility, however. Everyone was expected to carry their own weight, and no one was encouraged to claim they had a right to any sort of "entitlement."

The Declaration of Independence set down the principle of inalienable rights, which essentially banned force and fraud from human relationships. Though never practiced consistently, the principle of inalienable rights defined what America stood for: "The individual as an end in him- or herself, not a means to the ends of others, and not the property of family or church or state or society."

The key element of inalienable rights, Branden notes, is the fact they are negative in character — they are not a claim on "anyone else's energy or production." To Americans in early America, rights meant "hands off." Though there were institutional injustices — government restrictions, slavery, and legal discrimination against women — the United States was predominantly free throughout the 19th century, resulting in a flood of material production and invention. "By closing the doors to force," Branden writes, "capitalism threw them open to achievement."

The harsh conditions of life during capitalism's early years were not a failure of freedom, but a result of so little wealth in the world. Left free, individuals applied their ingenuity to production and raised the standard of living "to heights that a century earlier would have been judged fantastic."

"But there was a price," Branden concedes. Liberty comes with no guarantees. It demands self-responsibility. He reminds us that life itself is a risky business, "and uncertainty is inherent in our existence." We more readily accept these risks if we have decent self-esteem — if we feel confident in coping with life's problems. When self-esteem is low, self-responsibility can be a terrifying prospect. Instead of freedom, we seek a guaranteed "Garden of Eden" existence, in which our needs are met by others.

To bring about their utopias, the medievalists and the socialists each took aim at the quasi-free market in the 19th century. While the medievalists wanted to abolish capitalism, the socialists wanted to take it over — "to retain the effects, material prosperity, while eliminating the cause, political and economic freedom."

Rather than offer relief from self-responsibility, capitalism counted on it. "It was a system geared to self-esteem."

Branden points out that the concept of rights under capitalism produces no "great drain on the public treasury" to secure them. As our society became wealthier, people began to want things without having to pay for them. Eventually, their desires turned into "rights." Government was the agency that could make this happen.

Branden refers to Peter Drucker's book, The New Realities, in which the author cites the research of George J. Stigler, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Economics, who found that not one of the government's regulations of the economy ever worked. Not one. They either did nothing or achieved the opposite of their intention.

To a bureaucrat, Stigler's findings spelled success. Government programs aren't created to improve conditions, they're made to entrench them. Success is measured by intentions, not outcomes.

What has this brought us? Runaway crime, unfathomable debt, and insensitivity to actual human suffering. It has fostered widespread cynicism, antagonism between races and groups, and a general deterioration of the quality of life.

Our welfare system tells us we are not responsible for our lives. Our legal system tells us we are not responsible for our actions — getting away with murder has never been easier.

We are now governed by pressure groups who use the government to grant them favors at everyone's expense. The founders alerted us to this danger, Branden notes. "In the Federalist Papers, No. 10, James Madison warned of the threat represented by special-interest groups when democracies are not limited by individual rights. Special-interest groups prevail, he cautioned, because the benefits they receive from the government are concentrated, while the costs they impose on the taxpayers are diffuse."

Branden advocates phasing out all welfare programs in combination with other "political corrections" to minimize stress in transition. He suggests holding government responsible for every piece of legislation they enact. If the legislation or agency doesn't deliver within a specified time-period, it should be abolished. But it's hard to see how anything government abolishes wouldn't also be replaced with one more expensive and intrusive. The state is also expert at selling an abysmal failure as a promising undertaking in need of more funding.

He stresses that voluntary action to help those who legitimately suffer is the only form of compassion consistent with the respect due others — respect for their rights. He notes the irony and disgrace of calling those who protest coercion as "cruel" and "reactionary," while referring to those who embrace it as "compassionate" and "progressive."

Most people have trouble thinking about a laissez faire society, Branden admits, because there "are no famous 'authorities' to sanction it. There is no widely esteemed group in our culture with which such an idea is identified. It is certainly not 'conservatism.' It has nothing to support it except — I am convinced — objective reality."

He believes that a "culture of self-responsibility is not the best chance we have to create a decent world. It is the only chance." He notes that people understand individualism and self-responsibility appropriately and practice it correctly some of the time. Our future depends on us doing it more consistently.

Branden's essay is an indispensable introduction to understanding the value of self-responsibility in a free society.

---

References

[1] Healthy Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D., http://www.nathanielbranden.net/ess/ess07.html

[2] A Culture of Accountability, Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D., http://www.nathanielbranden.net/ess/exc02.html

---

George F. Smith is a freelance writer. His other articles may be found in the Writer Index.

[Sir Gawain]

-

[First_Salute]

While I'm flat out against the "legalization of drugs;" yet I am also flat out against the Long-Term Capital Gains Tax.

In the spirit of tough compromises, perhaps the Congress can actually do something about writing a simple bill, which has three parts:

(1) End the "war on drugs."

Leave the States to regulate the flow of "substance abusing" drugs through the traditional pharmacological supply chains, requiring prescriptions from two separate medical doctors with which a State-issued license for six months duration (renewable) is also acquired --- all three items required to make a drug purchase.

Drug users must surrender any and all transportation licenses --- that's right, no: driving, flying, boat, train, tractor, nor any other kind of motorized, solar-power, nor wind- operating vehicle, etc., and they cannot own nor keep such vehicles. They cannot own, keep, nor bear Arms.

(2) End the Long-Term (one year or more) Capital Gains Tax.

No reporting of Gains nor of Losses, for this year, and henceforth.

The country sorely needs the breathe of fresh, long-term investment, especially as a form of savings.

(3) End income-taxes on pass-book savings accounts.

(4) Begin a phase-out tax rate for seniors' interest income; as they get older, they pay a lower and lower income-tax rate on their interest income.

[First_Salute]

OK; it's four parts.

In the spirit of Self-Responsibility.

[First_Salute]

And outside our borders, wherever we are asked to keep fighting the "war on drugs," we continue our support; we cannot leave those people hanging; they will require an even greater effort to police the drug users.

Basically, a drug user is going to be facing his or her acceptance of life in the form similar to having a suspended sentence and being on parole, which ends whenever he or she quits.

[Pistias]

I thought the Main Pillar of Capitalism was good ol' fashioned greed. Or at least the love of comfort.

[First_Salute]

Bah!

Forget "(1)."

Stick with "(2)" ... etc.

You cannot trust a person on drugs; they tell lies and live a lie, constantly; and they also apologize quite a lot for having screwed up ... and then they go screw up again.

[joanie-f]

Thanks for the ping, Mike (your R3, R5, R7 are right on the money), and for the wonderful post, Sir Gawain.

Just a few comments:

(1) To the degree that they are not held accountable by someone else, people inherently tend to credit their own success to their personal aptitude or effort expended.

(2) They likewise tend to discredit their failures by attributing them to factors external to themselves (society, God, ‘fate’….).

One of the strategies that socialism (or anti-capitalism in general) uses in order to break down the human willingness to accept responsibility for its own behaviors is to play off of both ends of the above.

As regards (1), the socialist society inculcates into its masses the belief that mediocrity is a desired end.  Success/excellence are (covertly, of course) pictured as somehow unfair.  How many public school systems have opted to grade their students on a pass/fail basis? …. How many workplaces have instituted automatic seniority raises rather than those based on merit? …. How many sporting events are somehow ‘handicapped’ so that those who might excel at the sport are forced to take a figurative back seat in order that those who are not as capable might take part (sometimes even under different rules)? …. How many people are hired every day, over better-qualified people, because of the color or their skin, or their gender? …. Why is there a graduated income tax? …. Why has the National Merit Scholarship exam now been ‘weighted’ so as to de-emphasize mathematics? …. What is the primary purpose of most American unions? …. What is the real purpose of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission? ….

Answer to all of the above: We are being programmed to believe that one person’s excellence causes another person’s sense of inferiority.  And making someone else feel inferior is so much to be avoided as to cause excellence to be deemed a negative attribute.

As regards (2), the socialist society depends almost entirely upon its subjects believing that they are often hapless victims who must perpetually rely upon someone greater than themselves to obtain justice for their imagined victim-hood.  The modern American entitlement state, and the omnipotence of the legal (if you aren’t happy, sue someone) system have done more to bring our once-proud republic to its knees than has any external enemy.

The moral concepts of self-responsibility and self-reliance are sliding toward extinction.  And we can thank decades of willingly-swallowed socialist societal engineering for the downward alterations in our expectations, outlooks, and resultant behavior.

It used to be that personal weaknesses (inability to succeed, inability to provide for oneself, mental illness, criminal behavior ....) were rightfully acknowledged as either a character trait that was unfortunate and had to be endured, or one that was undesirable and had to be changed.  Now, more often than not, they are considered as evidence of inequality or injustice in a society which (crassly, they would have us believe) rewards success and demeans un-success.

I wrote this paragraph as part of a post on another thread a couple of weeks ago.  It also seems to apply here:

Back in the old west, when a stagecoach was held up by desperados, and the 'guy in charge of seeing to it that the stagecoach and its occupants/contents were defended' (don't know what his technical name was at the time, so let's call him 'Fred' from here on in, for brevity's sake) accidentally shot a passenger, did the passenger's surviving relatives run around looking to sue 'Fred' (or the stagecoach line .... or the company that made Fred's bullets .... or the company that produced Fred's gun .... or the chicken who laid the eggs that Fred ate for breakfast that morning .... or the anesthesiologist who provided relief for his mother on the day that Fred was born .... ?)  The answer is no.  Because lawyers were not stagecoach chasers in those days, and Americans were not yet conditioned to believe that, when something goes wrong (be it intentional or not), if you don't somehow (preferably with the help of a $300/hour attorney) find someone at fault and make him pay through the nose you are somehow shirking your family/civic duty.

Smith sums his excellent essay up best in just a few sentences:

What has this [unwillingness to accept personal responsibility] brought us? Runaway crime, unfathomable debt, and insensitivity to actual human suffering.  It has fostered widespread cynicism, antagonism between races and groups, and a general deterioration of the quality of life.

(a sad) Amen.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Big Bump!!!

[Sir Gawain]

thank ya

[First_Salute]

From the article:

"In the Federalist Papers, No. 10, James Madison warned of the threat represented by special-interest groups when democracies are not limited by individual rights. Special-interest groups prevail, he cautioned, because the benefits they receive from the government are concentrated, while the costs they impose on the taxpayers are diffuse."

James Madison's writings offer a stance from which to observe the poignant(?) contrast: how a political group will move away from its principles as the members move away from their's.

He was nearly the Federalist champion of the Constitution, in their views, his work helping to establish the new government and cement the Union. Right on up to where the Federalists became enthralled with economic matters of self-interest, in the first years of the Republic, when their swift, polarization on bills and treaty-making activities financially favorable to them, affected a mirrored "Republican" reaction, roughly dividing the country along North - South lines.

Yes; that is when the conflict began.

The Southern States and western frontiers played "second fiddle" while the North[Eastern Corridor] remonstrated about their needs for "free trade" and such being shackled to the international disputes between England and France.

The Southern States, left holding the bag with not much compensation for supporting the Northern States during the War for Independence, were doubly upset by how swiftly the Northern States cozied up to the British.

Did we struggle to merely exchange the King George Board of Directors for another of New York Businessmen? And then return to business as usual? Where would be the protection from special- interested- government?

Well ... James Madison stuck with his principles and watched the Federalists wander off.

[joanie-f]

Excellent comments, Mike.

Three further excerpts from Madison that seem to have been almost prophetic in their explanation of some of what ails us (or what we need to return to, or face probable demise) today:

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? …. Federalist, no. 10

The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust …. Federalist, no. 57

As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind? …. Federalist, no. 63

Just an addendum: The most valuable forty-four (to my mind) words in our Declaration:

….when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them [the citizens] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

[First_Salute]

Joanie,

The growth and establishment of cultural roots and plants which nourish the spread of individual responsibility, in my view of what lessons history teaches, is what has advanced mankind.

Therein is that formula, about which I wrote to you a couple months back, by which man asserts his freedom, to live as free as possible along with a free government, in order to be free to create and produce and speak and think ... all the while, within the self-disciplines of individual responsibility.

That, to me, is the manifestation of individualism, about which Ayn Rand spoke, thought, and wrote (and lived, ate, and breathed, apparently); yet so-called "scholars" more truthfully to be known as leftists, socialists, communists --- what I have taken to calling the lesser performing artists, many of whom fashion and fancy themselves to be "experts" with "expertise" --- would have people face only their definitions on things:

That individualism is pure selfishness, pure dictatorship, and yada, yada, yada ... they do go on, lost in, what I also now call "wordity."

Such re-definition-istas purposefully define what is, in the world, to be what is not; so as to trick people into subjigation, all the while stripping slowly away, the peoples' individual responsibilities, their sense of individual responsibilities, and the foundations which nourish individual responsibilities ... many, among those things which humanize our efforts.

The leftists are de-humanists --- what they claim everybody else to be.

Yet as some among them seem to be people who wish for humanity, but many of them will refuse to accept their own, individual responsibilities to work for it. Rather, they want humanity now, "something must be done about it(!)," and they want some great power --- that Utopian conception in their minds --- to make it happen now.

Since God is not responding immediately, then define Him, too, not to be ...

[My reply at: The American People deserve a better leader, Jerusalem Post, July 4, 2002, by Hannah Nasir (posted July 10th by SJackson) ... ]

[In the article, posted:]

" ... an elected leadership of their own choice ... "

To be free and prosper, a people must be determined, and they must be self-determined to sacrifice their lives to establish justice which adheres to the rule of law and to the peoples' soverign authority. Once established, or at least in formation, the benefits of capital investment will bear out through dedication (otherwise known as "hard work").

What America has that is so fleeting to the rest of the world, is our living democratic-republic and rule of law; though what the world sees is wealth.

We have been giving away some of our wealth, when we should have instead been instructing, not as much about money markets, but about the business of such foreign peoples' helping each other to establish and enforce their own democratic-republics.

It's not as simple as achieving a popular vote; communist countries have a popular vote. A choice from among a barrel of rotten apples, is still a rotten apple, especially when all you have is a choice ... you are without the many avenues of petition and redress, and very much destitute the authority to fix things.

The success of a democratic-republic is more complex; and understanding the formula, and knowing how to teach it --- that is what we have to offer, and in my humble opinion we should.

[From my reply 6 at It's All America's Fault: The cargo-cult mentality., National Review online, June 14, 2002, by John Derbyshire (posted by xsysmgr) ... ]

What's missing is the knowledge ... of what drives people to further their freedom and the fruits that manifest.

I claim that what makes America work --- what makes, therein, capitalism work --- is that we people are the authorities, not just as "soverign people," but as individuals. At our level, we have quite a lot of authority; or that is, we once did.

So the question is:

Can a runway be built and then airplanes land, spewing forth cargo, and thus "do good" in the long-term; in a land where people still are subjects, or are not far removed from having been subjects, nor are they inclined enough to affirm their removal from being subjects?

History says no.

The "engine of democracy" is more accurately an engine of individual liberty and determination to have both liberty and property in support of furthering both. Such is the formula for growth.

We grow to have and have to grow. Our wealth is assets, not money, not style, not cargo.

Those three cannot be given and then expect from any combination thereof, these: growth, sufficient, but especially self-determination, sufficient.

We commune and we establish justice to help each other survive the business and perils of our growth; and we use our authority --- which is our willingness to risk life and limb --- to preserve our communing and justice, and we do that by enforcing over both, our rule of law.

We do the growing. We do the preserving. We do the enforcing.

To make efficient our communing and justice, we elect governors of such offices and departments in our lives; and they, and all officers therein, are subject to our authority:

That they administer their posts in accordance with what we have directed as the responsibilities and enumerated as the powers of their office, not of, nor for, them, we thereby --- trusting in a higher authority --- temporarily and temporally delegate to them, and limit them, to certain duties, at their peril to perform, or exercise, anything otherwise.

This is a mystery to many people, especially "over there," because to behold the possibilities, that their "leaders" are also their office holders and subjects --- their servants --- is frightening; it means that for such a shift in individual authority to be so, the people must be willing to risk life and limb, and organize accordingly.

For Prosperity, Liberty and Justice for All.

Just like that, the formula.

Mike
(a.k.a. First_Salute)

[First_Salute]

Bumper sticker:

God Almighty, call your office!

[joanie-f]

A brilliant post, Mike. Thank you.

Just a few more thoughts of my own (didn't think you'd get away without hearing my two cents, did you? :)

Woodrow Wilson, though not my favorite president, sometimes made some mighty profound statements. This is one that has always stuck with me:

I have always, in my own thought, summed up individual liberty, and business liberty, and every other kind of liberty, in the phrase that is common in the sporting world: free field, and no favor.

That is all I (or you, I dare say) would ask from this life. And that is all I would hope anyone would ask. That we simply be allowed the unfettered use of the free field that was created for us by Him, and that neither we, nor anyone else, be granted favor in its use. Then, what we do, and who we become, is a matter of choice, intent, and work .... not force, indoctrination, and largesse.

Government's originally limited role (basically to provide for our defense) filled a need which we, as individuals, could not fill for ourselves. Everything beyond that that government does is nothing more than an encroachment on our free field. In America 2002, the field is no longer free; it has been fenced in with barbed wire, and setting foot on it has been declared a privilege for which we must pay homage.

And favors (a.k.a. entitlements/quotas/grants/pork/tax breaks and the like) have become a way of life. We have all been programmed to vie for them like chickens scrambling after their feed.

As Claire Wolfe once said, 'When did we get to be so bloody compliant? On what day did we all decide to go along with the fiction that the government 'requires' obedience of us -- rather than that we require obedience of it?'

Therein is that formula, about which I wrote to you a couple months back, by which man asserts his freedom, to live as free as possible along with a free government, in order to be free to create and produce and speak and think ... all the while, within the self-disciplines of individual responsibility....First Salute

The principles that formed the basis of English common law laid enormous emphasis upon the duty and responsibility of the individual. No society can function efficiently or humanely, and no civilization can long endure, without this precept. But it must be remembered that the responsibility applies to the individual-- not society.

Law based on individual moral responsibility provides a very limited role for law. But, sadly, a significant part of modern American law is not based on individual fault or individual responsibility. A significant part of modern American law is based on societal equality, fairness and social justice considerations. Individual responsibility has been declared secondary to social/societal responsibility. And therein lies one of the cancers that is eating away at the American legal system. And, since the power of that system is approaching omnipotence, the cancer has infected all of us to one degree or another.

American law and American government have become perversions of their original intent. And, to the degree that we have allowed both to enclose and shrink the field, and dispense favors that should not exist, we have relinquished a precious God-given gift, handing it over to mortal men, who appraise it and declare it worthless.

~ joanie

[First_Salute]

Bumps all up and down.