In this age when everyone gets a trophy, trying is as good as doing. And we keep trying, all kinds of trying, not just in sports, but in academia, government agencies, and professions. And one “try” with no “do” is achieving the universal Good, that is, all-inclusive egalitarian good. And fair warning, this is a critique because I don’t have any answer on how to provide equally for all. I do know that all previous attempts have been little more than attempts because there are always some people who are “more equal” than others. I’ve written about this before, giving brief accounts of attempts like Brook Farm, the nineteenth-century American Transcendalists’ failed “utopia.” But given the history of failures of communes like that and Marxist states, people still pursue “good for all,” to make just one more attempt to bring everyone into the fold of sustainable prosperity.
Let’s see how close we are to achieving Good for All.
Erasmus University Rotterdam lists among its research goals the pursuit of “initiatives” on the “Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity.” In their own words, they mean “enabling as many people as possible to benefit from increasing prosperity, whilst minimising [sic.] the negative consequences.” Could there be a more noble humanistic cause? The research institute wants to find ways to “organize society and companies to be better equipped for [a sustainable] future.” Surely, that’s praiseworthy. And speaking of inclusiveness, the initiatives bring together philosophers, technologists, lawyers, anthropologists, entrepreneurs, and executives to reach the projected goals. It’s one big happy family of academically led altruists, I’m guessing. The DoIP (yes, they have an acronym for Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity) either falls under the aegis of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or meshes with it.
Do I live in a world of platitudes and unrealities? A world where ideals exceed reals?
You’re thinking, “Is this guy a pessimist or nihilist? Is he a medieval nominalist? Doesn’t he recognize the existence of universals? Aren’t there ideals toward which we should strive? Is he thinking we shouldn’t provide the ‘Best for the Most’? Must be one of those capitalist types. Disgusting self-centeredness.”
Contrary to the charge of pessimism an self-centeredness, I’m optimistic, but not Pangloss optimistic, and I believe voluntary charity is an ethical and moral Good. I’ve seen an abundance of altruism, of people helping other people share in the common wealth. Heck, I live in Pennsylvania, technically not the “State of…,” but rather the “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” I live in a political entity where the largest city is Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love—ignore the murder rate and stay out of those 15 neighborhoods known for crime. Yes, Pennsylvania is a true commonwealth. Shouldn’t the DoIP researchers start their research in PA? Doesn’t PA have the answers they seek, the methodology that sustains the maximum benefit to all? Look, during the pandemic of 2020, the PA government shut down as many businesses as it could in its desire to ensure the greater good. Who needs to keep his business open anyway or hold a job if there’s a contagious disease? Especially during a pandemic when the chance of survival is only—according to the CDC—in the range of 94.6% for people over 69 and over 99% for everyone else. Shades of the Black Death that reduced the populations of Hamburg, Bremen, Florence, and Paris by half! For the Greater Good, for the Commonwealth, “Individuals” in charge of Pennsylvania determined what is in the best interest of the people. (Look at the states that are not “commonwealths,” like California, where the mayor of LA and the Governor proclaimed what is the ideal for the people yet practiced a real individualism, quarantining others and closing businesses while attending social gatherings and living on the wealth of the collective, that is, on tax-dollar salaries. Wait! What’s that you say? “PA’s officials have also ‘gathered’ during shutdowns.” Maybe they have, but I’m sure they have everyone’s welfare in mind. The officials in medieval cities did nothing of the sort, and look what happened in the 14th century)
Okay, let’s take the Erasmus U’s researchers seriously and stop the sarcastic recriminations. They fall into a long western European tradition that harks to the fall of monarchies and the rise of democratic principles colored by remnants of split Christianity—you know, both Catholics and Protestants maintained the moral efficacy of that “love your neighbor as yourself” commandment (as long as the neighbor wasn’t a member of the other sect). And the Erasmus researchers also fall under the influence of Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism. Give me a moment for another digression here. (Isn’t life full of digressions, anyway?)
Ask yourself if you agree with this statement: “The only ethical act detrimental to the life of another is the act of self-protection.” Or what about this statement? “The ultimate ethical goal is the equality of all.” I’m pretty sure that John Stuart Mill, a guy with a purported IQ of 200, held both statements as true. I’m guessing that even if you would like to modify them, you don’t find those two statements repugnant. That 200 IQ of Mill aside, his notion of the greatest good for the greatest number of people seems to be a concession to the impossibility of total equality. Someone is always left out. So, even a world filled with Panglosses isn’t the Best of All Possible Worlds. Some people, even in the most egalitarian of societies and political systems, become “more equal” than others. There’s the bit of reality that seems to have crept into the mission statement of Erasmus University: “enabling as many people as possible.” That “as possible” suggests the impossibility of including everyone in “inclusive prosperity.” And yet, there are people who still try. Jolly good. Nothing attempted, nothing gained. Maybe all those previous attempts to achieve ideals failed because of the individuals involved.
I wonder whether the researchers simultaneously accept and reject “universals” like some nominalist philosophers. Are they the product of medieval nominalism that rejected the “universals” represented by monarchic rule and Church dogma and authority?
The fall of medieval European social and political structure and the advent of the Renaissance, of schisms like Protestantism, and of parliamentarian representative government meant that voices once unheard gained an audience. No longer did the elite born-to-rule nobility control the destiny of the masses. Mercantilism flourished and individuals became important for no other reason than that they were individuals, all supposedly of “equal value”—though not of equal economic worth. Aren’t the Dutch inheritors of that individualism, of that entrepreneurship. The Dutch are known for their avant-garde individual lifestyle and thinking, that is, free lifestyles and thinking. Think Amsterdam as much as Rotterdam’s Erasmus university, where serious people like those well-intentioned researchers dream of a better life on a sustainable world. The Dutch gave us Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek who started us on the road to microbiology. They gave us Hans Lippershey whose telescope started us on the road to astronomy, and van Eyck, who started artists down the road to perspective painting. They explored the world, built up global trade, and provided opportunity at home and abroad. The list of Dutch individuals who started us on the road to our modern world is long. Praise the Dutch for helping usher in the modern world. Their twenty-first century intellectuals seem poised to usher in the sustainable future in which the greatest good goes to the greatest number.
Now, the Netherlands seems to be a pleasant enough country for tourists. Tulips and windmills, canals and dikes, shops that offer all kinds of stuff: Licorice, wooden clogs, delftware, bikes, Heineken, and Leiden cheese. One might think Dutch towns are the epitome of Pleasantville. They don’t even allow cars in Utrecht where people walk or bike. And the readily available drugs? Oh! The drugs. These are not an ultraconservative people, not to mention the famous red light district with prostitutes displayed behind street windows. And yet…Things must always have been occasionally unpleasant. Why else is Zuid Holland known for a one-ear painter?—And why do they pronounce his name vahn Hochhff (my best guess at the sound)?
I don’t have access to the most recent statistics, but the Netherlands in 2016 had over one million people at or below the poverty line in a country of 17 million. Do the math for the percentage. And economists have predicted that 250,000 children in poverty during that year would remain in poverty throughout their lives. Come on, Erasmus guys, charity begins at home, the neighbors to love are the actual neighbors.
Where’s the sharing? I’m sure one of those comfortable DoIP academicians could share some Gouda and Edam, you know, give a kid a sandwich. Or maybe the Dutch government should keep behind some of that 100-billion-Euro’s worth of food that the country exports from its ports every year, $10 billion of which the Dutch grow on their fertile lowlands. Surely, when the researchers meet in one of Rotterdam’s 900 restaurants to discuss how the world can become better for as many people as possible, they can save their doggy bags of excess for some poor kid. Sorry, I forgot, we’re looking at the Big Picture here, the ideal of universal equality. Those who run the floating “sustainable” farm project in Rotterdam intend to use leftovers collected in electric vehicles from local restaurants for livestock feed. No doubt the poor kids will get to see on a school field trip the wonders of that farm and the well-fed cows munching on leftover stoopwafels.
Anyway, sarcasm aside, I see the conundrum the researchers face and why they won’t reach total parity among any population. How does one balance the individual against the collective? How does one prevent the individual from desiring to distinguish himself or herself and declaring, at least in his or her mind, a greater beauty and intelligence, ownership and economic success, and social status and happiness. Is utilitarianism that seeks the greatest good for the greatest number just another form of Marxism? Is it all just an idealistic pipe dream in the minds of well-fed academicians who accept the idea of a “universal” while personally practicing a specific and personal reality funded by a guaranteed job in an ivy-covered ivory tower?
Is there a comparable group in the United States, people that practice individual aggrandizement while proposing “equality” that they interpret as the ideal?
Can there be a social ideal, a universal, without individual sacrifice? What does one do with all those misdirected and unintended consequences of a utilitarianism that stresses equal results over equal opportunity? Look at the consequences of the well-intended Affirmative Action legislation in the United States. Someone in control determines arbitrarily who has opportunity and who doesn’t. Someone, an actual individual, makes the decisions for the many. Isn’t that the very evil that the proponents intended to avoid? Should everyone be entitled to enter Harvard and consequently be admitted? What’s that, you say, “There’s not enough dorm space”? Think online courses, silly.
Equality of outcome is an ideal implied in the DoIP. Yet, the real dynamic of individuals that make up a collective always results in inequalities.
Look at all the good that the search for equality has produced, like taking kids out of their neighborhoods on buses bound for other schools. No unintended consequences there, right? And after years of pumping trillions of dollars into Johnson’s War on Poverty, the United States has eliminated poverty, right?
Overriding the ideal is the real. The Dutch taste for raw herring and bitter-balls isn’t universal. It’s an acquired taste. And the definition of poverty is also acquired. Are members of an American family living “in poverty” with only one television and an ageing car the “ideal” poor?
Are the homeless on the streets of San Francisco the “ideal” poor? Is the family living on $55,000 poor compared to one living on $65,000. Is poverty an absolute or sliding scale?
“No,” you say. “There are absolutes. No one should be as rich as Croesus, I mean, Bezos.”
Let’s say we rail against the rich. “Rich people should share.” Okay, that’s noble if they do. It’s ideal even. And, fortunately for those less fortunate, many “rich” people do share. But then, what of those who are “less rich” but who still have more than an ancient king by way of comfort and luxury, a TV, for example, a Big Mac, radios too numerous to count, and shoes, Oh! the shoes! Have a guest room in their houses? Is it empty? Do any of those participating in the DoIP project have an extra room they could share with the less fortunate? Any extra stoopwafels to hand out?
You say, “But I drive an electric car, not a Tesla, mind you, but a Volt. I reuse store bags to save on plastic consumption. I even compost and take recyclables to the recycling center. I’m doing my part for sustainability and equality. I love my neighbor, too, and I can prove it because he has my lawnmower. I treat everyone with respect, and I don’t overbuy at Costco things that will go to waste. I take the clothes I don’t want any longer to Goodwill centers, where I get a receipt for tax purposes (I’m charitable, but not stupid).”
Pat yourself on the back. What you do individually no amount of research on ideals can ever do. Governments have tried imposing the “greater good” on entire populations only to find that in making some things equal, they inevitably generate inequalities. Look at the pandemic lockdowns, where in California the number of COVID cases has surpassed two million while small businesses have gone belly up. In saving the most, officials have condemned the many to near or complete poverty.
“But look at the lives they have saved!”
Maybe. That 99% survival rate tells me that 99% survive regardless of any measures taken for the common good. The disease is serious, indeed, given the belief in the worth of the individual. One percent death rate from a single virus can decimate a specific family. But the ideal of keeping everyone safe or of limiting the infections has also driven officials to condemn families to bankruptcy, with some business owners committing suicide and others turning to drugs and alcohol. It’s disrupted a generation of school kids. It’s changed interpersonal relationships. It’s sparked universal distrust and fear as much as any other “universal.”
As I said at the outset, I have no grandiose ideas that would achieve the greatest good for the greatest number, the best for the most. In that, I’m not a pessimist, but rather a realist. The only solution I can offer is that which Christ offered about a couple of millennia ago: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If everyone did…
Let’s see how close we are to achieving Good for All.
Erasmus University Rotterdam lists among its research goals the pursuit of “initiatives” on the “Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity.” In their own words, they mean “enabling as many people as possible to benefit from increasing prosperity, whilst minimising [sic.] the negative consequences.” Could there be a more noble humanistic cause? The research institute wants to find ways to “organize society and companies to be better equipped for [a sustainable] future.” Surely, that’s praiseworthy. And speaking of inclusiveness, the initiatives bring together philosophers, technologists, lawyers, anthropologists, entrepreneurs, and executives to reach the projected goals. It’s one big happy family of academically led altruists, I’m guessing. The DoIP (yes, they have an acronym for Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity) either falls under the aegis of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or meshes with it.
Do I live in a world of platitudes and unrealities? A world where ideals exceed reals?
You’re thinking, “Is this guy a pessimist or nihilist? Is he a medieval nominalist? Doesn’t he recognize the existence of universals? Aren’t there ideals toward which we should strive? Is he thinking we shouldn’t provide the ‘Best for the Most’? Must be one of those capitalist types. Disgusting self-centeredness.”
Contrary to the charge of pessimism an self-centeredness, I’m optimistic, but not Pangloss optimistic, and I believe voluntary charity is an ethical and moral Good. I’ve seen an abundance of altruism, of people helping other people share in the common wealth. Heck, I live in Pennsylvania, technically not the “State of…,” but rather the “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” I live in a political entity where the largest city is Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love—ignore the murder rate and stay out of those 15 neighborhoods known for crime. Yes, Pennsylvania is a true commonwealth. Shouldn’t the DoIP researchers start their research in PA? Doesn’t PA have the answers they seek, the methodology that sustains the maximum benefit to all? Look, during the pandemic of 2020, the PA government shut down as many businesses as it could in its desire to ensure the greater good. Who needs to keep his business open anyway or hold a job if there’s a contagious disease? Especially during a pandemic when the chance of survival is only—according to the CDC—in the range of 94.6% for people over 69 and over 99% for everyone else. Shades of the Black Death that reduced the populations of Hamburg, Bremen, Florence, and Paris by half! For the Greater Good, for the Commonwealth, “Individuals” in charge of Pennsylvania determined what is in the best interest of the people. (Look at the states that are not “commonwealths,” like California, where the mayor of LA and the Governor proclaimed what is the ideal for the people yet practiced a real individualism, quarantining others and closing businesses while attending social gatherings and living on the wealth of the collective, that is, on tax-dollar salaries. Wait! What’s that you say? “PA’s officials have also ‘gathered’ during shutdowns.” Maybe they have, but I’m sure they have everyone’s welfare in mind. The officials in medieval cities did nothing of the sort, and look what happened in the 14th century)
Okay, let’s take the Erasmus U’s researchers seriously and stop the sarcastic recriminations. They fall into a long western European tradition that harks to the fall of monarchies and the rise of democratic principles colored by remnants of split Christianity—you know, both Catholics and Protestants maintained the moral efficacy of that “love your neighbor as yourself” commandment (as long as the neighbor wasn’t a member of the other sect). And the Erasmus researchers also fall under the influence of Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism. Give me a moment for another digression here. (Isn’t life full of digressions, anyway?)
Ask yourself if you agree with this statement: “The only ethical act detrimental to the life of another is the act of self-protection.” Or what about this statement? “The ultimate ethical goal is the equality of all.” I’m pretty sure that John Stuart Mill, a guy with a purported IQ of 200, held both statements as true. I’m guessing that even if you would like to modify them, you don’t find those two statements repugnant. That 200 IQ of Mill aside, his notion of the greatest good for the greatest number of people seems to be a concession to the impossibility of total equality. Someone is always left out. So, even a world filled with Panglosses isn’t the Best of All Possible Worlds. Some people, even in the most egalitarian of societies and political systems, become “more equal” than others. There’s the bit of reality that seems to have crept into the mission statement of Erasmus University: “enabling as many people as possible.” That “as possible” suggests the impossibility of including everyone in “inclusive prosperity.” And yet, there are people who still try. Jolly good. Nothing attempted, nothing gained. Maybe all those previous attempts to achieve ideals failed because of the individuals involved.
I wonder whether the researchers simultaneously accept and reject “universals” like some nominalist philosophers. Are they the product of medieval nominalism that rejected the “universals” represented by monarchic rule and Church dogma and authority?
The fall of medieval European social and political structure and the advent of the Renaissance, of schisms like Protestantism, and of parliamentarian representative government meant that voices once unheard gained an audience. No longer did the elite born-to-rule nobility control the destiny of the masses. Mercantilism flourished and individuals became important for no other reason than that they were individuals, all supposedly of “equal value”—though not of equal economic worth. Aren’t the Dutch inheritors of that individualism, of that entrepreneurship. The Dutch are known for their avant-garde individual lifestyle and thinking, that is, free lifestyles and thinking. Think Amsterdam as much as Rotterdam’s Erasmus university, where serious people like those well-intentioned researchers dream of a better life on a sustainable world. The Dutch gave us Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek who started us on the road to microbiology. They gave us Hans Lippershey whose telescope started us on the road to astronomy, and van Eyck, who started artists down the road to perspective painting. They explored the world, built up global trade, and provided opportunity at home and abroad. The list of Dutch individuals who started us on the road to our modern world is long. Praise the Dutch for helping usher in the modern world. Their twenty-first century intellectuals seem poised to usher in the sustainable future in which the greatest good goes to the greatest number.
Now, the Netherlands seems to be a pleasant enough country for tourists. Tulips and windmills, canals and dikes, shops that offer all kinds of stuff: Licorice, wooden clogs, delftware, bikes, Heineken, and Leiden cheese. One might think Dutch towns are the epitome of Pleasantville. They don’t even allow cars in Utrecht where people walk or bike. And the readily available drugs? Oh! The drugs. These are not an ultraconservative people, not to mention the famous red light district with prostitutes displayed behind street windows. And yet…Things must always have been occasionally unpleasant. Why else is Zuid Holland known for a one-ear painter?—And why do they pronounce his name vahn Hochhff (my best guess at the sound)?
I don’t have access to the most recent statistics, but the Netherlands in 2016 had over one million people at or below the poverty line in a country of 17 million. Do the math for the percentage. And economists have predicted that 250,000 children in poverty during that year would remain in poverty throughout their lives. Come on, Erasmus guys, charity begins at home, the neighbors to love are the actual neighbors.
Where’s the sharing? I’m sure one of those comfortable DoIP academicians could share some Gouda and Edam, you know, give a kid a sandwich. Or maybe the Dutch government should keep behind some of that 100-billion-Euro’s worth of food that the country exports from its ports every year, $10 billion of which the Dutch grow on their fertile lowlands. Surely, when the researchers meet in one of Rotterdam’s 900 restaurants to discuss how the world can become better for as many people as possible, they can save their doggy bags of excess for some poor kid. Sorry, I forgot, we’re looking at the Big Picture here, the ideal of universal equality. Those who run the floating “sustainable” farm project in Rotterdam intend to use leftovers collected in electric vehicles from local restaurants for livestock feed. No doubt the poor kids will get to see on a school field trip the wonders of that farm and the well-fed cows munching on leftover stoopwafels.
Anyway, sarcasm aside, I see the conundrum the researchers face and why they won’t reach total parity among any population. How does one balance the individual against the collective? How does one prevent the individual from desiring to distinguish himself or herself and declaring, at least in his or her mind, a greater beauty and intelligence, ownership and economic success, and social status and happiness. Is utilitarianism that seeks the greatest good for the greatest number just another form of Marxism? Is it all just an idealistic pipe dream in the minds of well-fed academicians who accept the idea of a “universal” while personally practicing a specific and personal reality funded by a guaranteed job in an ivy-covered ivory tower?
Is there a comparable group in the United States, people that practice individual aggrandizement while proposing “equality” that they interpret as the ideal?
Can there be a social ideal, a universal, without individual sacrifice? What does one do with all those misdirected and unintended consequences of a utilitarianism that stresses equal results over equal opportunity? Look at the consequences of the well-intended Affirmative Action legislation in the United States. Someone in control determines arbitrarily who has opportunity and who doesn’t. Someone, an actual individual, makes the decisions for the many. Isn’t that the very evil that the proponents intended to avoid? Should everyone be entitled to enter Harvard and consequently be admitted? What’s that, you say, “There’s not enough dorm space”? Think online courses, silly.
Equality of outcome is an ideal implied in the DoIP. Yet, the real dynamic of individuals that make up a collective always results in inequalities.
Look at all the good that the search for equality has produced, like taking kids out of their neighborhoods on buses bound for other schools. No unintended consequences there, right? And after years of pumping trillions of dollars into Johnson’s War on Poverty, the United States has eliminated poverty, right?
Overriding the ideal is the real. The Dutch taste for raw herring and bitter-balls isn’t universal. It’s an acquired taste. And the definition of poverty is also acquired. Are members of an American family living “in poverty” with only one television and an ageing car the “ideal” poor?
Are the homeless on the streets of San Francisco the “ideal” poor? Is the family living on $55,000 poor compared to one living on $65,000. Is poverty an absolute or sliding scale?
“No,” you say. “There are absolutes. No one should be as rich as Croesus, I mean, Bezos.”
Let’s say we rail against the rich. “Rich people should share.” Okay, that’s noble if they do. It’s ideal even. And, fortunately for those less fortunate, many “rich” people do share. But then, what of those who are “less rich” but who still have more than an ancient king by way of comfort and luxury, a TV, for example, a Big Mac, radios too numerous to count, and shoes, Oh! the shoes! Have a guest room in their houses? Is it empty? Do any of those participating in the DoIP project have an extra room they could share with the less fortunate? Any extra stoopwafels to hand out?
You say, “But I drive an electric car, not a Tesla, mind you, but a Volt. I reuse store bags to save on plastic consumption. I even compost and take recyclables to the recycling center. I’m doing my part for sustainability and equality. I love my neighbor, too, and I can prove it because he has my lawnmower. I treat everyone with respect, and I don’t overbuy at Costco things that will go to waste. I take the clothes I don’t want any longer to Goodwill centers, where I get a receipt for tax purposes (I’m charitable, but not stupid).”
Pat yourself on the back. What you do individually no amount of research on ideals can ever do. Governments have tried imposing the “greater good” on entire populations only to find that in making some things equal, they inevitably generate inequalities. Look at the pandemic lockdowns, where in California the number of COVID cases has surpassed two million while small businesses have gone belly up. In saving the most, officials have condemned the many to near or complete poverty.
“But look at the lives they have saved!”
Maybe. That 99% survival rate tells me that 99% survive regardless of any measures taken for the common good. The disease is serious, indeed, given the belief in the worth of the individual. One percent death rate from a single virus can decimate a specific family. But the ideal of keeping everyone safe or of limiting the infections has also driven officials to condemn families to bankruptcy, with some business owners committing suicide and others turning to drugs and alcohol. It’s disrupted a generation of school kids. It’s changed interpersonal relationships. It’s sparked universal distrust and fear as much as any other “universal.”
As I said at the outset, I have no grandiose ideas that would achieve the greatest good for the greatest number, the best for the most. In that, I’m not a pessimist, but rather a realist. The only solution I can offer is that which Christ offered about a couple of millennia ago: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If everyone did…
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