I have to say that I have been a
student of human nature since I was twelve. Not that I knew I was
studying human nature at that tender age, but looking back from 44
years later I see that even then I wondered what made people tick,
what made them do what they do. Not that I was delving into
individual behavior so much as human behavior in general.
Over the years I've realized that much
of human nature cuts across all cultural and racial lines. There are
cultural differences, but for the most part the variations are minor
compared to baseline human nature.
I'm not going to get deeply into this
subject as it could easily exceed 100,000 words. Besides, I know you
do not have either the patience or the time to red something that
long. I won't be dealing with psychology as I have no expertise in
that area.
Before I continue let me state that I
am in no way professionally trained. All of my 'expertise' is derived
from over 4 decades of observation, personal experience, and
deductions derived from that. Please keep that in mind as you read
my non-scholarly scribblings.
First and foremost, people will act in
their self-interest or the interests of their family and friends
above all else. Altruism, as nice as it sounds, is something that we
humans will express now and then, and then only under certain
conditions or circumstances. No one can be altruistic 24/7. It isn't
possible as it makes them either doormats or slaves to others wants
and needs to the detriment of themselves or their families. Yet this
little bit of human nature is something oft ignored. Over centuries
there have been many attempts to create altruistic societies, some by
mutual agreement and others by force of arms and 're-education'.
Every single attempt has failed.
One of the better documented attempts
at all-altruism-all-the-time took place in the American Colonies,
specifically in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the early 1620's. They
predated Marx's axiom “From each according to his ability. To each
according to his need” by 350 years. All colonists would supply the
common larder and all colonists would draw from that larder as
needed. The problem this created was that more people were willing to
draw from the larder than to fill it. It lead to famine and the
colony almost died out. Only help from the local Indian tribe
prevented them from starving to death. Once they abandoned that
philosophy and went back to doing things on an individual basis did
the colony flourish.
Over the centuries other countries and
cultures have tried the same thing and all their 'experiments' have
ended the same way – utter failure, economic collapse, and many
times, armed revolution. We've seen it again and again just in the
20th century: the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Cambodia,
Nicaragua, Cuba (falling apart), and Venezuela (also falling apart).
The People's Republic of China, while still a Marxist state, has
abandoned most of the Marxist economic policies because they knew
they didn't work and saw the results of not making a change. And
while their economy is now more capitalist and the economic riches
they have brought has made China an economic powerhouse, they still
cling to some of the Marxist economic oversight/planning and much of
the political baggage that goes with it. In the end it is still
likely to come apart as world economics change around them.
And now we get to the crux of the
matter – politics. It is here where politicians of all stripes get
it wrong in regards to human nature. (Well, not all
politicians. Just most of them.) And because of this lack of
understanding, much of what they do at the local, state, and federal
level falls prey to the Law of Unintended Consequences. This in turn
tends to create more problems that what they thought they were fixing
(if indeed anything really needed to be fixed in the first place).
During the 20th century a
number of attempts have been made to improve the conditions within
our society. Some have worked. Many have not. Those that succeeded
tended to work with human nature. Those that failed chose to ignore
it, or worse, those supporting them believed that human nature could
be changed.
Many of the welfare programs that
existed prior to 1965 worked, for the most part. Both control and
funding were provided locally and the welfare officials knew their
clients. Except for those truly incapable of supporting themselves,
most folks weren't on welfare long. In fact, the welfare rolls had
been decreasing starting just before the Korean War. The welfare
system as it was was working. True, there were more than a few that
weren't very good, but they were the exception, not the rule. Then
came along Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society,
a massive takeover of welfare by the federal government. It's theme
was “The War on Poverty.” It looked good on paper, but it
overlooked human nature in regards to how the programs were regulated
and structured. While the new welfare system was supposed to help
those in need, it ended up trapping many of them in poverty,
providing too much in the way of help and making remaining one
welfare preferable to working. The laws and regulations also had the
effect of breaking up many families as too often the only way a
family with children could receive assistance was if the father was
absent. Other 'incentives' such as increasing benefits with each
additional child perversely created more single parent homes with
each child fathered by a different man. This was not the original
intent of the Great Society (at least I'd like to think it wasn't),
but that's what we ended up with. The people 'stuck' in the welfare
system decided it was in their best interest to stay within the
system rather than taking jobs that provided far less than their
welfare benefits.
And so
it is with many other 'gifts' bestowed upon the populace by the
government. Things that were supposed to help end up making the
problem worse as more people come under the sway of things that
appeal to their self-interest, not realizing that by taking advantage
of these gifts they are giving up some things even more important,
namely their independence and self-respect. How often has it happened
that the very folks who are 'helped' come to resent those who have
provided the help in the first place? How often do they come to feel
perpetually entitled to that help? Call those but two of the many
unintended consequences of political action taken to fix a problem
that didn't need to be fixed.
Then
there are policies, laws, regulations, and taxes that move business
owners to do just the opposite of what was intended by those same
policies, laws, regulations, and taxes. As we have heard over the
past four years all of the government's efforts (or should we say the
President's efforts) have had just the opposite effect of what was
intended. Call this another example of what happens when you don't
understand human nature.
When
success is punished by heavier taxation, when laws are passed that
make it more attractive to do business elsewhere, when regulations
make it difficult if not impossible to do business, one of two things
will happen – businesses will move elsewhere or businesses that
might have thrived will close. Yet those who figured these laws,
regulations, and taxes that burden businesses would be gladly
shouldered by them are surprised when they find it isn't so. But
anyone who understands human nature knows they won't. We've certainly
seen that in a number of places over the past few years. All we need
to do to see examples of businesses giving up is to look to
California, the EU, Argentina, Venezuela, and a host of other
countries and states. If government goes against human nature when
dealing with business, everyone loses as businesses flee or pull the
plug and close their doors. It's happened again and again, yet the
Powers-That-Be fail to learn the lesson: punish people enough for
being successful and they'll stop being successful or move someplace
else and be successful there.
Ayn
Rand outlined that issue in Atlas Shrugged,
where government took all kinds of actions “for the good of the
people”, yet every action they took made things worse. All those
efforts by the government had exactly the opposite effect, and
businesses and business owners “went Galt”, meaning they refused
to support the government and went on strike, denying the government
the fruits of their labors. The business owners acted in their own
self-interest – as is human nature – and told the government to
go screw itself. The result – the economy, and with it the
government, headed for collapse. (Rand certainly seemed to understand
human nature as evidenced by Atlas Shrugged
and The Fountainhead.)
OK,
enough said. I haven't covered anything I haven't covered before. But
with the upcoming elections I have to remind everyone that the one
thing we have to keep in mind is that one party has a somewhat better
understanding of human nature than the other, and it's not the party
that presently holds the US Senate or the White House. If nothing
else they have ignored human nature and taken a course of action that
has deepened the recession, driven prices up across the board (except
for housing prices, which have collapsed), and made it very
unattractive to do business here.