​The Failure to Allow Failure

 

Competition is the engine of improvement. It is the way in which alternatives are tested and compared.  Those that are most successful are kept, and the losers are discarded. This is the natural selection process that applies not only to biological evolution, but also to the improvement of almost everything such as social structures, products, business practices, forms of government, athletes, and so on.

 

Without competition, and the opportunity for success and failure, ongoing improvement stagnates.

 

Truth Versus Demagoguery

It is common for people to use catch phrases to justify what they want when it is not supported by reason. We will examine a few of them, including “fair share”…

 

The truth is, each person’s “fair share” is what he or she has, and it doesn’t include something that belongs to someone else.  A person’s fair share contribution to government is about the same amount for everyone based on the premise that everyone receives about the same level of benefit from the government. However, for practical reasons lower income people contribute less than their fair share, and higher income people give more than their fair share.

 

The Right Stuff

The preamble of the US Declaration of Independence states …

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these Rights are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

Of course this also means that in exercising our rights we must not impose on or diminish the rights of others.

 

There is considerable confusion about what are rights of ours, and things that are not rights but rather services provided by the government.  The Constitution enumerates certain rights specifically. … these are rights to be free, to make our own choices, to determine how and by whom we are governed, to enjoy our material possessions, and dispose of them as we choose. In short, to pursue happiness as we choose. On the other hand government supplied benefits are not rights. And in fact they usually diminish the freedom of one group to benefit another group. If someone gets something they don’t pay for, then it comes at a cost to someone else.

 

However, even though free services are not a right, it is beneficial to society to provide reasonable levels of security, education, health care, food, and so forth to promote productivity, and to be humanitarian.

 

Ideal Idealism

Idealists want a better life for everyone. Few of us would argue with this idea. Unfortunately, many idealists promote policies that are unrealistic or are inconsistent with human behavior. In so doing they ultimately achieve results that are the opposite of what they seek. These policies are generally based on the idea that to help the less fortunate, more successful people should contribute ever more of what they have.

 

This is zero-sum-game thinking in which someone has to lose for someone else to win. It is an easy but inherently wrong answer to a fundamental question. Namely, how can people in need be helped in a way that everyone wins?

 

Self-Interest

Self-interest is often confused with selfishness. Self-interest is actually a good thing, as it enables us to survive and prosper. In fact we all have self-interest, along with every other creature on the planet. If there were ever creatures that did not have an interest in their own well-being, they would have died out quickly when they became a predator’s meal ticket or had to compete for scarce resources.

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With Enlightened Self-interest a person seeks his or her well-being and enjoyment while understanding that by contributing to others enhances his or her life and the lives of others. It is the social evolution from which we are humanitarian, cooperative, and work together to achieve more than we can alone.