According to Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, theft is "selfish," while trade is "mutually altruistic." If genes and people are "selfish," as Dawkins believes, why does mutual altruism, which includes all forms of cooperation, ever happen? He replies that it happens because mutual altruism benefits the parties more than "purely selfish" behavior would. This is an astounding acknowledgment. If that's so -- and I believe it is -- why not call cooperation mutual selfishness, mutual self-interest, or something like that? Why introduce the idea of mutual altruism if in fact such actions...
social cooperation
What Social Animals Owe to Each Other
Hooray! Announcing the publication of executive editor Sheldon Richman's new book, What Social Animals Owe to Each Other! These essays, written over the past 20 years, have a single underlying theme: namely, that we human beings, as social animals, need individual freedom to fully flourish. The equation is simple: individual freedom = social cooperation = individual and social flourishing. Many corollaries follow. To pick one, the freedom to choose with whom we will cooperate entails competition among those who wish to cooperate with any given individual. So the imagined conflict between...
TGIF: Is Self-reliance a Libertarian Ideal?
An Associated Press article published a few days ago reported on disagreements among libertarians over what, if anything, the government may properly do about the coronavirus pandemic. My purpose here is not to comment on the quotes from the various libertarians. I prefer to focus on just one sentence by the author, Hillel Italie. It's this one: "Libertarian principles of self-reliance and minimal government have been around for centuries." Only the part I emphasized -- the reference to self-reliance -- interests me today. At first, that term may seen unexceptional -- even to many...
Tyranny and Cooperation
Social phenomena -- both good and bad -- cannot happen without cooperation -- that is, without people doing things uncoerced. This is especially clear with bad phenomena. How much havoc could a Stalin, a Hitler, a Mao Zedong, or a Pol Pot wreak alone or with just a few trusted deputies? Obviously, a ruler needs many others to cooperate with him. Importantly, cooperation does not require understanding. Most people will not grasp the tyrant’s project, much less endorse it. But one way or another they will go along actively and passively (abstaining from resistance). Why? Because they have...
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