Rational Self Interest, Morality & Liberty

How do we reconcile public morality and personal liberty?

“poverty does not create our social problems; our social problems create our poverty.” – Marco Rubio, US Senator-Florida

In a post last week, I observed that the British looters were acting in their rational self-interest, and Bastiatarian took me to task, albeit in a polite and friendly way…

Bastiatarian:
I don't really think the looters are acting in their rational self-interest, though. I believe that they think they are, but it's a very short-sighted self-interest. At the very least, they don't take into consideration the deep and lasting damage done to their characters by such behavior.

So true.  I could not agree more, and I appreciate Bastiatarian's professorial mien.

What I meant was that those lost souls (on both sides of the Atlantic) live in their own narrow world of the id-driven here and now.  Cash, a flat screen and new sneakers are everything, and a little smashy-smashy to get them is just payback to the store owner for being rich.  That is the incentive system the social engineers have put in place.  Get it all while you can, and getting it at someone else's expense makes it all the better, be it free electronics, housing, money or sex. 

We've imprisoned them...
... with shoddy schools and no expectations.  They cannot see over the horizon; there is no future.  We could preach morality, but we have that embarrassing little issue of the DC-NY bandits in suits looting trillions with impunity.


So here we are in the creeping jungle, staring helplessly as it reclaims the space that Western Civilization had cleared

Anyone who has ever raised children or trained animals (remarkably similar activities!), knows that morals are the foundation of individual and societal success.  It doesn't have to be a religious thing.  Simply teaching people age-old virtues that predate Christianity and holding them up as the ideal would get us most of the way there. 

Trestin:
The truth is society needs a combination of the morality championed by social conservatives and the individual liberty championed by libertarians. Freedom does not work without morality, and morality can not exist without freedom.

Bastiatarian:
Exactly right. Without agency (freedom), there is no ability to choose between right, wrong, or anything else. Regardless of the specific system, morality implies that there is also immorality, and vice versa. One requires the opposing other. Otherwise, it would merely be one big clump that is neither morality nor immorality […]

If I have no choice, my actions are neither good nor evil, neither moral nor immoral. They may be beneficial or damaging for somebody, but those actions do not make me moral or immoral.

What about liberty?

Bastiatarian:
Authority without accountability is tyranny.
Accountability without authority is slavery.
Only when authority and accountability are combined can liberty exist.

If the Marco Rubio quote is too high minded for you, here's one from British writer James Delingpole.  He applies it to his home country, but it fits here almost as well:

For those of us who never got to experience the Second World War, this is the beginning of the most dramatic, turbulent and terrifying era of our lifetime. The rules have changed; the old keep-whistling-cheerfully-and-pretend-it’s-all-going-to-go-away political bullshit is no longer valid currency. (Delingpole - What are the Police Good For?)

For an even more provocative take, see conservative David French's short article, The Sources of Poverty.  Be sure to read the comments as well.  Lots of liberal dissenters showed up and made some valid points to the contrary.

For a concise and entertaining treatise on rational self-interest, see:  UNC - Economicae:  Rational Self-Interest 

Poverty and Immorality go Hand in Hand

We have really screwed our lives up with our rampant irresponsibility

"The typical homeless family, HUD reported, is a mother with two children." (Catholic News Service - A Mom and Two Kids)

A man pays no price for impregnating a woman and running away. The woman pays a scant cost, and government forces the rest of us help her shoulder the burden.

There used to be a social bargain, an old man once explained to me. Women had the good stuff, and men had the strong backs to bring home the bacon. Man and woman entered into marriage and exchanged these gifts to make a family, a fundamental building block of the community.

A particularly odious scoundrel was a man who got a woman pregnant and took off. He broke the social agreement. She gave him something, but he failed to uphold his end of the bargain by forsaking all others and assuming his responsibility as head of the family. Worse, he condemned his mate and the child to a life on the margins. Today, that bargain is broken. Women give it up for free and men can be perpetual little boys.

Family has now been redefined so that it means nothing whatsoever, contributes nothing to society, and cannot even sustain itself.

I read another heart sob story about a woman and her children in a homeless shelter.

Jasmine turned to the shelter in mid-June, after she and her boyfriend decided it was time to go their separate ways." (Catholic News Service - A Mom and Two Kids)

Imagine that!  They just decided to go their separate ways! …And stick the taxpayers with the bill by throwing themselves upon the mercy of Catholic Charities and various taxpayer-funded federal, state and local agencies.

Her first mistake was getting knocked up, twice, by a man she was not married to. What has turned so many of our women into brainless tramp-stamped candy stores? Her second mistake was letting the little boy pretending to be a man walk away without a care in the world.

The article goes on to explain how single moms saddled with a litter of illegitimate kids and no job skills can't afford an apartment. No kidding.

Your Right to Immorality ends at My Pocketbook

Am I being moralistic? Hell yes! I am a libertarian, but your business becomes my business when government shakes me down because you're fertile, averse to marriage, and like to get jiggy.

Forty percent of births in America are to unwed parents. Broken down by ethnic group, the figures are 30 percent among whites, 50 percent for Hispanics and 70 percent for blacks.

Marriage patterns are creating a caste system in a country that had traditionally enjoyed relative equality. Among the well-educated, marriage rates have remained very stable over the past several decades.

College graduates are thus (mostly) rearing their children in orderly, supportive environments in which kids are taught to study hard, delay gratification and plan for the future. But 54 percent of the children of high school dropouts are illegitimate. Their parents' lives are marked by financial stress, conflict and turmoil. (Mona Charen – Wrong Marriage Debate)

The sad fact is that we have a growing self-selecting underclass with no morals. Marriage means nothing, kids are accidents that get in the way of a good time. And those kids grow up stupid because the nuts don't fall far from the tree.

Educated people and people in the skilled labor force get married, stay married, and see that their progeny do the same. They avoid drugs, sexual license and financial irresponsibility, and teach their kids to do so as well. They may not be driven by Jewish or Christian faith, but they have nonetheless adopted the traditional values of these great religions and are successful as a result. This creates a virtuous cycle, while our new underclass is trapped in a downward spiral.

Regardless of where they come from, morals do matter

Since the 60’s, radical elements in this country began trashing “traditional morality” and deploring the “Christian theocracy,” screaming that we should tear it all down man! Well, you stinking, immoral hippies, you've succeeded.  You’ve torn it all down man!  But for all your talk of morality without God, you failed to replace the old morality with something new.

Nihilism has filled the void. Congratulations.