The Gospel of Wealth Fails the Inequity Test in Primates

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/11-6



Fairness is the basis of the social contract. As citizens we expect that when we contribute our fair share we should receive our just reward. When social benefits are handed out unequally or when prior agreements are not honored it represents a breach of trust. Based on this, Americans were justifiably outraged when, not just one, but two administrations bailed out the wealthiest institutions in the country while tens of thousands of homeowners (many of whom were victims of these same institutions) were evicted and left stranded. It smacked of favoritism, the corruption of politics by corporate money, and it was also just plain unfair. But isn’t that the way the world works? Isn’t it true, as we were so often told as children, that life is unfair?

The American financial tycoon Andrew Carnegie certainly thought so and today’s economic elite have followed his example. In 1889 he used a perverted form of Darwinism to argue for a “law of competition” that became the cornerstone of his economic vision. His was a world in which might made right and where being too big to fail wasn’t a liability, it was the key to success. In his “Gospel of Wealth”, Carnegie wrote that this natural law might be hard for the least among us but “it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.”

We accept and welcome therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.

In other words, his answer was yes. Life is unfair and we’d better get used to it, social contract or no social contract.

[aquart]

1. Turns out he was wrong.

Alpha males do NOT have more offspring than beta males. And while alpha is beating his chest and pushing other apes around, lady apes have been sneaking around with the beta who minded the kid for an hour and then brought her some grapes. Turns out, nice guys do finish first.

Altruism studies also make a self-justifying idiot of poor, rich Andrew. The people who survived the concentration camps are the people who formed networks to help each other. Which is also how New Yorkers survived Sandy.

Andrew should have paid more attention to the Midas story. There IS such a thing as too rich.

[Locrian]

2. Carnegie is an idiot

Life and evolution consists of not only 'competition' but 'cooperation'.

His version is more akin to the theory that cancer is the natural order.