I believe that altruism functions like a bomb in our society destroying everything in its wake. When this bomb explodes, the lives of everyone nearby are devastated. More than this, when the bomb is introduced as a constant presence into human transactions, it destroys reciprocal relationships, human cooperation and logical thinking.
Many people think that sacrifice is good, but bear with me. I am going to make real to you the most murderous idea ever; and hopefully, I will convince you that altruism has to be stopped.
When a broad abstract principle operates in a society, sometimes people are not educated by their teachers about its full implications and consequences. When society does not identify its abstract principles in terms of their actual premises and application, enlightened communication about them never takes place and the human action to which they lead is seldom correctly understood. Likewise, if a principle promises benign results but instead delivers deadly harm, the harm may become associated with other causes. The result is always a crisis of values.
The crisis of values in our culture today is real; the problem according to our leaders is that man refuses to sacrifice for others. Most say that our moral crisis is caused by capitalism and individualism. They bemoan the loss of collective joining to solve what they consider to be collective problems. They tell us that “it takes a village” or that “we are all in it together”. They claim that because people are more selfish today; more concerned about self-gratification and the acquisition of goods the world is in moral decline.
On the other hand, some people, like me for instance, think the problem is altruism and that most people don't understand its role in creating our moral crisis. I think that ours is not a crisis in the sense that people refuse to sacrifice for the common good. In my view, it is extremely “good” that they don’t and the extent to which they don’t is to our benefit. We should do no sacrificing. There is already too much of it. In fact, I think that the crisis of values exists today because many people blindly pursue altruism and are incapable of identifying its harm in their lives.
Whenever altruism takes over a society, whenever it becomes powerful enough to interfere in most private transactions; whenever it turns the bulk of those transactions away from the principle of self-interest and toward the principle of sacrifice, stock markets collapse, industries grind to a halt, small businesses die, machines break down, people scrape trash cans for a meal, children starve, governments become dictatorial, slave labor replaces free labor, murderous criminals kill and plunder, law disintegrates into street riots, genocide replaces normal standards of justice and bombs fall. The biggest bomb in history, even more destructive than an atomic bomb, is altruism, the idea that it is proper for men to sacrifice their energy, time and production for the sake of others. How does altruism do this? It replaces correct every day decisions about life and value with the decisions of moral authorities who demand that someone lose in every transaction. And then it expects that somehow the world will become a better place, even though they've destroyed the ability of people to prosper.
What is altruism? Why is it so prominent around the world? Why have so many people accepted it blindly without critical analysis?
“Altruism is selfless concern for the welfare of others.”(1) Yet, altruism is a philosophical concept that existed long before Auguste Comte, the French philosopher who defined it in modern times. In fact, it has been prevalent in human societies for centuries, having been the guiding principle of many cultures, primitive and advanced. Considered to be a benign expression of love for mankind as well as hope for the future, the idea has been used to justify virtually every brutal act of mass murder.
“What?” you say. “Not true.” I submit that in order to understand altruism, we have to understand what it is, how it works; how it is propagated and what happens when people practice it.
Here are some examples of altruism as it has been practiced through the ages:
• Human sacrifice – the sacrifice of life usually of the most beautiful for the sake of the “survival” of the collective.
• Faith – the sacrifice of the independent mind so it can be made blank and open to exploitation by the moral authority.
• Animal sacrifice – the sacrifice of an animal that is held to be the property of the individual for the sake of a theocracy or government.
• Taxation – the sacrifice of money or goods for the sake of a theocracy or government.
• Tithing – the sacrifice of a percentage of income usually for the sake of a theocracy to be re-distributed to the poor.
• Charity – the sacrifice of money or other possessions for other people, usually voluntarily – the effect of which is the re-distribution of income – usually done out of guilt because of the influence of the moral authority – sometimes done out of good will (which is not always a sacrifice).
• Duty – the sacrifice of desired action for the sake of the collective.
• Government programs – the sacrifice of tax payer dollars for the sake of social goals – usually accomplished through government coercion.
• Income re-distribution – the sacrifice of income for the sake of those with less or no income, usually done through government coercion.
• Progressive taxation – the sacrifice of more income from those who have more accumulated capital for the sake of those who have less, accomplished through government coercion.
• Government regulations – the sacrifice of normal business processes or desired business action to sacrifice smaller companies for the sake of established companies that favor the regulations – also used by government to force successful companies to bribe government officials.
• Slavery – the sacrifice of human energy and the ownership of one’s body for the sake of the government or government cronies – the forced sacrifice of labor to lower production costs for slave masters.
• Collectivism – the sacrifice of the individual of all property, energy and life for the sake of the collective.
• Monarchy – the sacrifice of individual sovereignty for the sake of a King or Queen.
• Oligarchy – the sacrifice of property by the individual for the sake of an entrenched group with coercive government power to control vital industries and limit competition.
• Fascism – the sacrifice of business goals and decisions for the sake of government direction of those goals and decisions and to accomplish “social goals” without regard to market forces and individual decisions – causing businesses to lose profits in the form of business loses and bribes to government. (Millions sacrificed for the sake of the Volk)
• Socialism – the sacrifice of property of major industries for the sake of government ownership of that property – to benefit government elites.
• Communism – the sacrifice of all property and individual rights for the sake of government ownership of the entire society – to benefit government elites. (Millions sacrificed for the sake of a future prosperity that did not arrive)
• The Military Draft – the sacrifice of individual freedom, rights and life for the sake of the enslavement of young men – to advance the goals of government elites. (Thousands of innocent lives sacrificed for an unnecessary war)
• Anti-trust prosecutions by the government – the sacrifice of economic success by successful companies for the sake of unsuccessful companies – accomplished by violation of the rule of law and coercive government.
• Progressive “social justice” – the sacrifice of real justice where the victims of crime are considered less important than the criminals and where justice is dispensed based upon a re-distribution standard where the less successful win large judgments when opposing rich corporations – accomplished by disregarding the facts of any case and considering the economic status of parties to a legal disagreement.
• Trade tariffs – the sacrifice by the consumer when he buys products that come from foreign countries, presumably to “save” local jobs – accomplished by a sacrifice of product quality, money and foreign companies on behalf of less productive local companies. The result is often retaliatory tariffs that cause a loss of jobs locally and force local companies to move to other countries.
Each of these forms of altruism is an expression of the idea that the individual should give up something of value for the sake of others.
Let’s identify altruism’s influence on some major issues today:
• The antipathy of many politicians toward free enterprise causes them to make more and more regulations over the free exchange of individuals and businesses. This is based on the premise that private businesses are doing something harmful to people in trading with them. The presumption is that instead of pursuing profits, they should act in the interests of society or the poor (which in fact they are doing in pursuing profits). This is altruism punishing self-interest and attempting to regulate it for the sake of the politicians’ views of what society wants. Anyone who is not operating according to the principle of altruism is to be controlled. Few people disagree with this and there are countless calls for government to punish successful businesses by regulating them, restricting them from acting, slowing them down, taxing them, breaking them up, sending executives to jail for making decisions that are in the interest of their company, etc. For instance, the DISCLOSE Act is intended to silence corporations from expressing their opinions before an election. How do politicians justify silencing the companies that the government seeks to take over? They are profit-seeking organizations and because so they should have no say in how they are regulated and otherwise dominated by the government. This requires that these companies sacrifice their self-interest to the machinations of plundering politicians which means more campaign contributions to the politicians.
• The government’s bail outs of the auto companies GM and Chrysler violated bankruptcy law and destroyed the contracts that investors had with these companies under the premise that the private investors should sacrifice for the sake of saving the economy. Here, sacrifice by the Chrysler investors was determined by the government to be in the best interest of society. These companies, in the long-run, will probably not survive because they are being directed by the government, the plundering unions and because many people will not want to invest in these companies.
• Government “social justice” programs such as welfare, the Community Reinvestment Act, Cash for Clunkers and many more re-distribute money from tax payers and banks for the sake of “saving” the economy or helping the poor. Again, corporations and tax payers are considered to be operating according to the principle of self-interest (by being productive and earning a living) and are therefore to be punished for the act of succeeding.
• President Obama’s dismissing of our allies, showing a willingness to talk to terrorists and apologizing for America’s actions over the last few decades is based on the fact that America should have been sacrificing itself to the poor nations all along. His outreach to dictators and his symbolic bowing before potentates sends a clear signal that the United States is now under the control of a person who has offered it up as a sacrificial lamb to be bled by sundry third world non-entities. When they start confiscating American property in their countries, the President will do nothing.
• The President’s unilateral canceling of the nuclear defense shield in Poland was a sacrifice of Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union and Iran under the hope that these nations would see the United States as magnanimous. The altruistic premise is that all opinions, even those of dictatorships, should be considered as morally equivalent to that of the United States. The result, if Obama is not stopped, will be the devastation and re-conquest of east European capitalist countries by the savages of plunder in Russia.
• The “ObamaCare” Health Care program will sacrifice the medical professions, reduce the number of hospitals, reduce the quality of health care, put many insurance companies out of business and increase costs while also raising taxes and rationing care. All of these companies and individuals are now required to sacrifice their services and income for the sakes of those who get their health care from government or for the sake of companies controlled by the government.
• The Cap and Trade Bill will create a large oligarchy of companies that will milk money (through government grants and stimulus dollars) from the taxpayer to build unproductive factories, producing unwanted products, creating subsidized and non-productive jobs, lowering energy consumption, reducing the output of other factories, destroying productive jobs, raising taxes and lowering our standard of living. The American tax payer will be forced to sacrifice his standard of living, his income, his comfort and his future for the sake of fake companies that will, in conjunction with the government, set up money laundering schemes from the tax payer to off shore accounts.
• Union Card Check will give unions the upper hand in shaking down businesses that will have to sacrifice production and profits. Here, the union workers will be portrayed as innocent victims of evil capitalist companies who are in some way out to exploit them. Companies and employees will be forced to pay into pension plans that will be plundered by union bosses. Another result, will be more company profits paid to politicians under a protection racket managed by politicians.
• The Obama Treasury Department removed the $400 billion financial cap on the money it will provide to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac afloat, further punishing the tax payer for a problem created by the government through the Community Reinvestment Act. Now banks and tax payers will keep alive the very companies who caused our financial meltdown. Presumably, the argument here is that these companies do a lot of good in helping poor people (altruism) and so they must be spared. The truth is that the Democrats are using altruism here to defend a company that paid heavy amounts to Democrat candidates and engaged in massive fraud by Democrat operatives. The American people are sacrificing, not for anything good, but to support and maintain corruption, no matter how much it costs and no matter how much damage is done to peoples’ lives.
• The President’s 2009 Jobs Stimulus Program cost almost $1 Trillion and amounted to one of the biggest re-distribution schemes in the history of the world. It sacrificed money from the private economy that could have been used by private business people to create resurgence and instead re-distributed it primarily to state governments to cover budget shortfalls. It also re-distributed billions of dollars to government “sacred cow” programs through grants to fund collectivist boondoggles that did nothing to create new jobs. The loss, the corruption, the lies, the utter disregard for common sense, the sacrifice of this much money for the sake of altruistic re-distribution is a scandal of monumental proportion. The incompetence that it took to even think that this might make things better is staggering when you consider that the economic knowledge that would refuted this move has been available for centuries.
If the above is not enough to make you question the morality of altruism, let’s look at the act of a young person sacrificing two years of his life for the sake of the poor. The extent to which this person chooses to forego his own education for the sake of supporting others is the extent to which his decision harms him. This decision causes him to lose valuable time in the development of higher levels of knowledge and skills, time that he cannot recover later in life. The stunting of his development by two years lowers the level of success that he could otherwise have achieved in terms of a full life time – further, it harms all mankind by keeping others from enjoying that higher level of development through trade with this individual. For instance, what could have been a renowned concert pianist becomes a music teacher for second graders. It is like refusing to save money early in life…the results are not seen until one experiences a lower standard of living later.
Another example: the person who willingly sacrifices two dollars for the sake of a hungry child may not see it as a sacrifice if the two dollars are not taken away from his own children, but when the two dollars is $5000, then the money that feeds hungry children could actually cause the life of the sacrificed individual if he is not thereby able to replace a bald tire on his automobile. It might even cause the life of the hungry children that were fed by the $5000.
Let’s assume that the person that receives the $5000 taken from the individual above uses that money to eat and feed her own child. Perhaps that child may someday become a productive citizen and this does sometimes happen. But, in this case, his mother made the decision to birth him in order to qualify for that $5000 from the government. This young child could just as easily grow up to become a thief or murderer because his mother never taught him the value of hard work, never having experienced it herself. She may even teach her child that it is his right to have his needs fulfilled by others. So he decides that he need not study in school because the government will provide for him while he wastes his time on television, video games or just hanging around the corner. He joins a gang and believes that gangs breed strength and that the entire neighborhood should sacrifice in order to ensure that he has a diamond ring and a luxury car to drive.
Or another possibility; perhaps the welfare child will someday meet his more successful benefactor, and seeing that he is well-dressed, blames him for his poverty. There is no reason, in his mind, why he should not take a gun and force the man to sacrifice an additional $100 before he shoots him in the head. The robbed man is, after all, the evil exploiter who is keeping him in poverty. The young killer sees evil rich people in movies all the time, hears politicians and his local gang leader talk about how evil and exploitative rich men are – so why not kill one? That original $5000 has just destroyed the life of the very benefactor that kept the young man alive all these years. This death is caused by altruism.
Let’s go back in time and wipe out the $5000 tax payment. Rather than call this man selfish and evil for keeping it, let’s assume that he is able to replace that bald tire and even use that money to take a course in business management. The $5000 makes it possible for him to become a business owner and manager. He makes so much money that he is able to hire a young woman (the soon to be young mother) to an entry level position. Because he has his own story of accomplishment, he sets up a benefit program for his employees and enables this young woman to get a college education. She becomes a business owner and eventually marries, has a child and teaches the child about the value of work and the possibility of success in life through production. All of this good happens because altruistic leaders did not take $5000 out of the young man’s income years before. So what is the value of altruism? Where is the moral crisis?
You might say that this example is not typical but I beg to differ. When you see the advanced society we live in compared to the most backward regions of the world, you see that the clear difference between them is the philosophy that they practice. The more affluent societies are those that have capitalism to a higher degree and the most backward societies are those where looting thugs use altruism to enslave their people, denigrate the United States and rule by the gun. Ideas do have consequences and no amount of blaming of poverty on the productive rich will obscure the fact that no one can get rich in a society ruled by brute force and looting thugs – thugs who believe that it is the altruistic duty of all members of society to sacrifice for them.
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Essentially, there are three parties who must participate in any act of altruism. The first party is the producer, the person who must sacrifice for others. This person is someone who has something of value, either money, products, knowledge, intelligence or his own physical energy and time. The second party is the moral authority, the person who has the ability to direct the first person to give up something of value for another person. And the third party is the so-called victim whose condition requires that someone sacrifice for his/her sake.
The ProduerThe producer is most often split between two moral codes. One code holds that he has a right to the pursuit of happiness and that self-sufficiency is the hallmark of a moral person. He believes in work and making his own way and he thinks that his value lies in his ability to create or make things. This code is contradicted by another code imposed upon him by the moral authority who tells him that his purpose in life is to relieve the suffering of other people who are victims of his success, who are made poor by his pursuit of happiness.
Using the moral code of altruism, the moral authority promises punishment if the producer does not give up his time, energy or production for the sake of the victim. He will either be ostracized on earth as selfish and evil or he will suffer in eternity for his pride and lust.
Guilt and ridicule imposed by the moral authority on the producer are so strongly expressed that few producers can bear the onslaught of hatred and animosity extended toward them and they often do whatever is necessary to satisfy the demands of the moral authority. The producer, because he is often attacked in this way, spends his life fearing the ire of others, refusing to think for himself and paying bribes to the moral authority and the victim to prove that he is not the evil monster they claim he is. The psychological consequence for the producer, when he is insulted for being selfish, is to freeze morally, to be totally disarmed because he has accepted the moral authority’s philosophy without question(For examples, see Gates and Buffet).
The altruist morality holds that man’s capacity for happiness is proof of his evil; it turns each man into his own worst enemy, his own accuser within the quiet reaches of his subconscious mind. The self-esteem he does not have, the normal acts he is not allowed to commit, the freedom he does not possess, give him only hatred of life and a jealous anger at other men who were not attacked in this way. Altruism kills self-sufficiency, pride and innocence.
Because the producer becomes morally frozen by the attacks of the moral authority, he is the ready target of anyone who would seek to exploit his thought, time and energy for his own benefit. All anyone has to do is tell him what they want, and he’ll provide it; hoping that his acquiescence gains approval.
There is only one solution to this loss of self-esteem. The statement he should utter is: “Enough. I will sacrifice no more.”
The Moral AuthorityThe moral authority, has preached the philosophy of altruism for centuries. His goal is to convince the producer that he has a moral obligation, first, to accept his authority, and secondly, to do as he is told. To accomplish this goal, he preaches that man is basically imperfect or evil, that his sin consists of pride and independence. He preaches the value of collective joining and attempts to convince the producer that “no man is an island”.
There are basically two types of moral authority. The first is the mystic who uses fear of “the ineffable” to cause people to lose confidence in their thinking abilities. He demands faith because he isn't sure that he knows what he's talking about; and without faith, he would not be able to fill the producer's and the victim's minds with the philosophy of sacrifice. The second is the brute who uses force and the threat of force to cause fear in people. He is also a mystic because he has no clue what goes on in the minds of the people he seeks to enslave and he knows that without force, no one will go along with his mindless lust for power. Sometimes, the mystic and the brute work together in plundering the productive people they enslave. Both need to reduce people to the status of unthinking slaves who will do whatever is demanded of them.(2)
Both types of moral authority send out among society their “moral police” to ensure that everone is sacrificing sufficiently. If you have ever criticized a young person for being too prideful, too happy, too selfish, too bright or too beautiful, then you have been the moral police.
The key to identifying the moral authority and his moral police are statements that reveal a negative moral evaluation of the producer and advocate higher taxes and more government programs to be paid for by the producer. Tell-tale statements include: "I have no problem with..." and finishing the statement with a coercive measure as if
his "having no problem" with government enforced morality somehow wipes out the opinion of people who do have a problem with it. A common question is "Are we going to be the kind of society that..." then finishing the question with a supposedly benevolent goal that requires coercive measures, as if
his deciding on the benevolent goal is a convincing argument for the coercive measures. That other people disagree with him is of no consequence. The end justifies the means.
The influence of philosophy in society makes it appear that the moral authority is not always present in human transactions. This is because people are educated, by altruist propaganda, to "voluntarily" sacrifice in every situation. This "influence" is so strong that many people are not able to develop other means of interaction that do not include or require altruism. The moral authority uses powerful examples of the altruistic premise in order to convince people that sacrifice is the proper thing to do in all circumstances. This makes altruism into a powerful influence in society, so powerful that most people think only altruistic thoughts...without the presence of an intervening moral authority. I call this the altruist cultural paradigm and once it becomes embedded in society, it automatically leads to a mindless "ritual" sacrifice and self-sacrifice.
The VictimThe victim is a non-entity whose lack of education and initiative has rendered him helpless in the work of survival. He is actually a victim of the moral authority, who has taught him to be passive and who has coddled him into believing that some harm has been done to him by the producer.
There is something that both the producer and the victim have in common. They are both told that they are deficient. The victim is told that he cannot survive on his own and the producer is told that he is the cause of the plight of the victim. Both are being lied to and this is particularly visible when one of the victims decides to educate himself and become a producer. He will most often be strongly discouraged from doing so.
One thing you will seldom see is the moral authority going to peoples’ homes asking them if they need something from government. The result is that many poor people languish, believing the propaganda of altruism but wondering what to do. In order to obtain the benefits of government, they will have to “apply” (beg) for their benefits. This often involves standing in line in a dingy government building, looking at the uncaring faces of people who can't be fired from their jobs, filling out forms and then being rejected by letter. Then they have to go back to the government office in order to appeal, stand in line again and be told that they have to fill out more paperwork. In time, their career becomes standing in line for benefits. The only real enjoyment they get is being able to watch television at the government office where the moral authority tells them how lucky they are that he loves them.
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What happens when the moral authority exerts his influence over the lives of people? In a society based on altruism, it is easy to call for sacrifice if it is the producer who must sacrifice. The problem is, when the producer must sacrifice his money, the so-called victims will soon be sacrificing their jobs and homes and cars.
First, the producer must give up a big part of his production for the sake of the victim while the moral authority skims some of it for his own survival and pleasure. Since the producer cannot use his profits to invest in new production, his life, as well as the lives of all other citizens, are harmed. But more than this happens: the producer must consider himself a slave, he must accept the role of draft animal whose life is slowly being bled. He must accept the constant drain on his energy and this has a negative pyschological effect upon him. There is no justice in life. In spite of the propaganda that tells him how happy he should be working for the good of the whole, he hates the endless hours spent just trying to survive in a society where the harder he works, the more is taken from him. Eventually the producer realizes that the only way to find relief is to hide his production, to slow it down and pretend to be a victim.
The moral authority, on the other hand, becomes fat and happy as he enjoys the plunder he has skimmed; while also becoming increasingly concerned about the fact that the producer seems to be providing less and less. He sends his “moral police” to shakedown the producer, to enslave him and impoverish him if necessary.
The fact that the producer is becoming poor does not stop the moral authority. He realizes the only way to survive and enjoy riches is to advance the idea of altruism even more perfervidly. He must invest everyone in society in following a grand vision where all sacrifice for all and everyone must give his utmost for the sake of society. So the appeal to altruism becomes louder and the means used to ensure sacrifice become more coercive. The state now becomes the oppressor of the people and, the producer becomes wise to the fact that “the good” is not what they are trying to accomplish. He realizes that the moral authority cannot do anything without his work and creativity, so he cuts his production even more. As the society descends further, conflict among victims increases as more and more people want to be taken care of. With too many victims and too few producers, the moral authority thinks he has no choice but to force people to work. So he creates concentration camps, huge building projects, purges, a justice system where you are guilty before proven innocent and summary executions to send a clear signal to the producers. Yes, altruism leads to dictatorship.
A further result is the loss of initiative, creativity, new ideas and new enterprises. The society is riding on the diminishing waves of the progress that was made before the purges and new economic policies.
Decline and destruction are always the result of altruism. You cannot find a society that succeeded without some effort to challenge altruism. The three most un-altruistic societies in history, and the three most successful were the ancient Greeks who, through their philosophers, waged a constant war against the tyranny of the majority, the Republic of Rome, built upon the rule of law, and the United States of America (also built upon the rule of law). All other cultures either failed miserably or they languished for centuries in poverty, disease and serfdom.
Now let’s look at a typical economic trade in a
free society. This transaction has only
two participants, the parties who trade with each other for mutual benefit. They do not need a third party to tell them about correct action. They each consider their long- and short-term goals and determine for themselves if the trade is in their self-interest and, once the transaction is consummated, they go about their business without guilt; neither of them thinks he has exploited the other.
This reveals another fallacy of altruism. An altruistic transaction,
must include the moral authority who intervenes between the two traders. Neither the producer nor the “victim” is allowed to consult his or her self-interest; they must merely do what the authority tells them and this always involves one of the parties giving up a value for the sake of the other.
Let's look closer, what argument must be made in order for the moral authority to actually
have the authority that would allow him to intervene in a normal transaction? Is it because he is close to God or is it because he wields the power of knowledge? I think neither. First of all, it is questionable whether any man could have a knowledge of what God demands. How do we know that we aren't being bamboozled by a charlatan? We should not merely accept the idea that someone knows what God demands. Secondly, if the moral authority has superior knowledge, what is the premise of that knowledge? Where did he get that knowledge and what gives him the right to assume that his knowledge is any better than any other person's? And with the multitude of different opinions held by men, what gives one person the right to decide what is best for me in my circumstance, at this particular point in my life and considering what I seek to accomplish? Why should I apply to anyone for approval of my decisions?
There is no moral authority with the power and the knowledge to correctly decide in every circumstance involving millions of transactions on any given day what people should do. My property is mine, created by me, and I should decide what to do with it. Likewise, for anyone with whom I trade. No one has the right to assume that he should tell us what is right by any standard. And he has no right to impose a "collective good" over my private good. All of his decisions, must, by their nature, be incompetent and ineffectual. There is no argument to justify my sacrificing my values for the sake of anyone...especially for someone that is not me.
The truth that has not been told about altruism is that its real victim is the producer. It is the producer who is vilified, ostracized, criticized, denigrated, insulted, hated, murdered, racialized, taxed, expropriated, discriminated against and lied about. The producer is the singular benefactor of mankind who has experienced the rage and the cruelty of the ages. Most of those millions massacred by the proponents of altruistic systems were producers. It is only altruism that could consider such a person to be evil. It is only altruism that would seek to wipe him out for the sake of brutes and witch doctors.
So why has altruism ruled history? I think it is a historical scam. The leaders of man, through the ages, assumed authority over him by means of ineffable powers that they supposedly possessed; powers of judgment and decision-making that made "average" people feel inferior. They established, in the minds of "the people" an impression that they had superior knowledge; and in their confused primitive states, average men let these moral brutes set up a society where they were required to do what they were told.
It is no wonder then that every decision and intervention of our leaders in the past involved sacrifice. It was a perfect way to steal the production of the people and to become rich at their expense. Today, altruism is used for precisely the same goal, to create emergencies that pool human energy and force men to sacrifice for the whole - thereby stealing their production.
Don't you think we're too smart for that kind of manipulation today? I submit the time for this dependence on moral authorities is over.
Altruism is the collectivization of morality, the focusing of human action on benefiting some people at the expense of others. This means that the individual, in order to be altruistic, must sacrifice a higher value for a lower value or a disvalue. This is the actual meaning of altruism. Otherwise it would not be a sacrifice but a gain. Why is this important? It means that altruism lowers the human potential of the producer and steals from him value that he has created through his own diligent thought. Neither of the beneficiaries, the moral authority nor the victim, could have created what the producer created and this means that they have little concern for the value of the producer and little understanding of what it took in terms of self-respect, knowledge, effort and investigation of reality to create the product that they have stolen. They are giving no value to the producer that he could not have easily earned himself through his own effort. In other words, they do not value the producer except as a slave.
Think about that next time you pay your taxes.
The problem historically is that altruism has never been studied from the perspective of the productive person. It has always been considered to be a transaction that has no negative consequence for the producer. Even today, all news that we watch on television is about politicians and their doings. On the other side are stories of people who are suffering under a "failure" of capitalism. Seldom do you hear about the successes of the people who actually feed the rest of us, the entrepreneurs and business tycoons who are responsible for so much good. If you do hear about them it is regarding anti-trust prosecutions and other invented scandals. Finally, you never hear any news stories about the failure of altruism, the squalor it creates, the incompetence of moral authorities (politicians and bureaucrats) and the loss of self-respect for beneficiaries of government largesse.
Human value comes from the mind, the esteem in which the individual holds his self, the thinking engaged in and the values that the individual selects. A proper morality requires a rigorous attention to the facts of reality, a dedication to truth and a focused effort to gain usable knowledge. More importantly, it requires a rejection of any idea or person that would prohibit and keep a person from achieving the good he has defined.
Collectivists/altruists/progressives miss the fact that altruism throws a symbolic bomb into society that destroys the relationship between sovereign individuals who engage in trade with each other. This crucial transaction, engaged in millions of times per day, is the crucial factor that makes society successful. To interfere with it is to destroy the possibility of mutual trade to mutual benefit. To interfere with it is to destroy free society. The altruism bomb clogs up the works of freedom and individualism. It creates an ideology of sacrifice that leads to exploitation through a narrative that eliminates the producer as a moral agent in society. And it monopolizes political discussion by making altruism the only valid solution to the problems of society; the result is that the problems of society are made worse.
Through altruism and the propaganda against self-interest, the moral authority creates Sumner’s “Forgotten Man”(3), the producer, and he enables the exploitation of creative man; thereby destroying human cooperation as thoroughly as does a bomb thrown into a market full of people.
To posit that the successful man is morally responsible for the unsuccessful is to posit that there is no difference between individuals and that one has been unfairly treated by the other…yet, this view is a contradiction that disregards the role of the mind in society and it assumes that the successful thinker is responsible for doing the thinking that the victim refused to engage. This is a reversal of responsibility; it means that one man, the producer, is responsible for his own thinking, if he is successful, and he is responsible for the thinking of the unsuccessful.
Properly, the full range of moral action must include reason, productivity, property acquisition, the pursuit of happiness, respecting the rights of others, none of which are considered moral according to the premises of altruism. This full range, in order to be experienced maximally, requires that the individual put himself first and that a proper society does not demand that he sacrifice himself, his values, his goals and his time for the sake of others. A proper society demands that the free individual be protected against having his property and time stolen from him by thieves of all types, street criminals, charlatans and politicians. In fact, there is no difference morally between requiring that an individual sacrifice for others at the point of a gun or at the point of suffering eternally in hell. The cause (sacrifice is a duty) and the result (overall impoverishment) are the same in either case.
People, individuals, must solve their own problems by means of work, thought, planning and improvement of infrastructure. Altruists, most often, will bring you a fruit basket or a turkey but they do not solve human problems. They claim they can bring you dams and power plants, but all they wind up bringing are finger paints, molded cheese and no hope that tomorrow will be any different. Tomorrow someone else will need a turkey and the person who got a turkey yesterday is out of mind and starving today. And if they truly wanted to alleviate suffering, they’d introduce logic and capitalism to those who cannot take care of themselves. They’d also go into the streets of those backward countries and fight against the dictators that are keeping people poor, not against the G20.
In analyzing the contradictions of altruism’s moral crisis, we must ask: if it is wrong for the individual, according to altruism, to do something for himself, why is that same act right when someone performs it for another individual?
Our crisis of values, the poverty and moral decline of millions of people, is created by global altruism and made possible by the fact that altruism does not and cannot achieve good. Altruism leads to immorality because it requires the immoral sacrifice of mind and body for the sake of others. The end (the immorality of dependence) does not justify the means (guilt, coercion and slavery).
Altruism, then, leads to global cultural and social contradiction. The replacement of that contradiction with reason and rational social institutions is the solution to our cultural moral crisis (Indeed, the strength of our society, such as it is, is that we don't practice altruism consistently – our middling commitment to the pursuit of happiness makes us the most moral society in history – and the most damned by looters (progressives), thugs and dictators).
Notice that altruists never ask the basic question of what “good” is actually done by altruism. That the problems of others continue to demand more sacrifice is lost to the evaluation – few conclude that altruism is not working (they would rather declare that capitalism is not working). And because altruism never preaches self-sufficiency, indeed considers it a sin, there is no hope that people will be saved as long as altruism dominates society. For altruists like President Obama, there will never be enough sacrificing.
Morality should not be something you do because you have to; it is something you should want to do with your whole being; something you want to run to, so to speak, because it is good for you, so beneficial and life-serving that it beats all the alternatives. This is why the morality of self-interest has always created better societies. They are better because they are based in objective law, individual rights and mutual trade for mutual benefit. The best societies outlaw altruism and favor the pursuit of happiness.
The ego is the good inside of you if you nurture it with clear thinking and pride. It is assertive hope seeking the best in life, it is selfishness without the comparison of one’s self with others – a pure form of self-regard that includes the basic conviction that one can pursue one’s happiness without holding back. The ego is the source of human freedom in society. It is freedom, a celebration of man and his capabilities. If we understand that the ego is the foundation of man’s emotional core, his free mind supplemented with knowledge, we learn to express it in a human way, not as a guilty pursuit of mindless pleasures, but as a pursuit of a happy life lived long-range without guilt and without regret – and especially without fear. The ego has nothing to do with “others” but is the essence of human striving and even the source of such positive emotions as good will and romantic love. The Ego is a natural quest to which the individual is drawn for self-understanding and self-fulfillment, in short, for happiness.
The successful person today should understand fully what success means: you are hated by progressives precisely because of your success. Those who hate success believe that you are evil; you have done something unthinkable to them: you have discovered or learned something that made you successful – you have learned that it is possible to succeed within a chaos of failure. In other words, you used your mind, they did not, and they intend to make you suffer for it. So they tell you, “Money is the root of all evil”, “Pride is a sin” in order to make you question your brilliance and your greatness. They believe that you must bear the burden of their prejudice against you and that you deserve to suffer. Hopefully, this does not happen in your private life; but it is happening wholesale in the public arena and it is affecting everything around you.
Yet, in spite of the progressives’ “world view”, the power of reason and egoism can be seen everywhere. Look at the clean cities, tall buildings, air conditioned offices, jumbo jets and space stations built by people in the United States and you see the power of men who can look at reality, who have confidence in the validity of their senses and use their minds to create technology that positively affects their own lives and that of others. Reason is released by political freedom, and because man is free, he can benefit from his own thinking; because he is free he can trade with others who see the value of his skills and products; because he is free he can make his own life and the lives of others better through production. This is the power that progressives hate. This is what they consider evil, this is what they consider to be theft – while they (the altruists) enjoy their beautiful multi-million dollar homes, limousines and private jets – given to them from money they have extorted through making honest men feel guilty.
Altruism never solved a social problem and all the millions of dollars wasted in failed efforts to alleviate poverty only keep the poor from lifting themselves up by diverting investment to consumption. Yet you hear no cries by those altruists who claim they care about the poor that we should establish and protect capitalism. One can only assume that they don’t care about the poor.
The only way to stop the disasters caused by altruism is to make altruism unpopular, to expose it as a false and failed idea and to make sure everyone knows that it is being questioned and challenged by thoughtful people. Once people realize that altruism is evil, we will be able to stop the wheels of fascism and dictatorship from moving forward.
Until we realize that altruism is our deadly, bloody, hateful enemy, we will never be able to save our society.
Please note: I want to acknowledge the achievements of philosopher and novelest Ayn Rand who, through her novels and writing, has exposed the evils of altruism. Many of my arguments are based upon my understanding of her writings on altruism as well as upon my own intellectual development. I alone am responsible for those understandings.
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism
(2)For a full description of these types see "For the New Intellectual, the Philosophy of Ayn Rand"
(3)See my blog post: "The Forgotten ism"
