Not all relationships are transactional: any relationship you have with family and friends is free and clear. We should take care of all of our people to an extent. Feed the hungry, house the homeless who want housed, provide basic income to everyone, etc.
BUT
Society is transactional. If you want to get something you need to give something. Why? Go find a libertarian. Ask them what services they use they don’t want to pay for and they will give you a list. Then ask them what services they DO use they are paying extra for and wait for the stunned silence.
Why can’t you get anything for free? Because everybody saying “oh no don’t be transactional!” is on the take. Please prove me wrong and tell me about all the social services and general good doing you do with no strings attached. If you push a religious viewpoint, those are strings attached.
Everybody wants something, barely anyone just wants to give something. Ergo you give a promise to work, a promise to teach, a promise to give back, because otherwise MOST people only take. Call me a pessimist, but I’m waiting for the first libertarian who wants to pick and choose what they pay for so they can contribute to what matters, and not get something for nothing.
EDIT:
To put a finer point on it, why should you WANT to take without giving something back? That is a gross violation of the reciprocity principle which is basically a bedrock of society in general.
Society is transactional. If you want to get something you need to give something. Why? Go find a libertarian. Ask them what services they use they don’t want to pay for and they will give you a list. Then ask them what services they DO use they are paying extra for and wait for the stunned silence.
Society isn’t strictly transactional either. That is a big part of the reason why libertarianism is such a fundamentally flawed, swiss cheese ideology.
To give you a gigantic counterexample: when social security started nobody had paid a dime into it. The first seniors to receive social security received it directly from the people that were working and paying into it. The same kind of thing happens today. Despite ignorant insistence that social security should be a “bank account” of some sort, it is not. Today’s seniors receive their checks from today’s tax payers.
Please prove me wrong and tell me about all the social services and general good doing you do with no strings attached.
The idea that altruism isn’t simply rare but completely non-existent is simply…incorrect. There are multitudes of examples of it throughout history and if you look closely enough those continue into the present.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that humans are mostly good – like Penn Gillette-style libertarians often do when their arguments are pressed upon. But I wouldn’t say they’re all inherently selfish goblins either. In large parts, we are on top of the food chain because of our ability to cooperate with each other. Evidence of the cooperative spirit of humanity is all around you if you look closely enough.
(As I type my reply into an open-source browser on a decentralized platform on an open-source OS.)
The idea that altruism isn’t simply rare but completely non-existent is simply…incorrect.
Here we have hit on the issue. People can be, and are to a surprising degree altruistic. It is not a normal form of operation though because it isn’t guaranteed, and out certainly isn’t the norm for how we all interact with each other. There are homeless shelters, food banks, soup kitchens, and this sort of thing help the most disadvantaged, but those provide services until they run out of space or materials and that’s it. The ones that run on donations and that are funded by angel donors are indeed altruistic.
By and large though, services provided by society to its members are not handled that way. Social security has its flaws, but it’s not altruistic because the first seniors got it for free: they were lucky. It’s entirely transactional because everyone is obliged to pay a portion of their income into the pool. For countries with free education it’s the same thing: everybody pays in so students can go at little or no cost.
And here is the rub and the original point: educators don’t and SHOULDNT be expected to work for free. Leaving aside the facilities and support staff that also needs paid at a university, it would be unconscionable to expect to go for free and just let those people figure out how to eat. Scholarships are another form of altruism which is loosely relevant, but generally speaking I think what you are considering non transactional situations to actually be those that have been collectively paid by our taxes. Socialized, if you will :).
Make no mistake though, we are all expected to put money in if possible, and then we all benefit at the end.
By and large though, services provided by society to its members are not handled that way. Social security has its flaws, but it’s not altruistic because the first seniors got it for free: they were lucky.
I don’t consider any system as being altruistic even if the people involved in the system are supposed to be. So, I will not argue that social security is or was altruistic.
An implied point I’m making is that “society” is just a bunch of people. It contains systems that we made, use, and maintain. Many (or perhaps most) of those systems have been – intentionally or unintentionally – designed to be somewhere along the spectrum between simply transactional and outright hostile to altruism. For example, we still have laws on the books against people going out to the parking meters and feeding them for others whose parking is about to expire.
But these are choices. The rules of society and its systems – policies and their implementations – are built and arranged by people. These are not the only possible choices, and these are not the only possible systems.
I guess I didn’t know what outcome(s) you would like or expect?
I think “we should provide education free of charge (paid by taxes)” is great and would be beneficial at all levels.
Contrarily, I think “I should get free education and not have to pay for it or provide any effort at reciprocity” sounds and feels super entitled and shitty. It sounds exceptional, and like the libertarian examples before to me.
Not all relationships are transactional: any relationship you have with family and friends is free and clear. We should take care of all of our people to an extent. Feed the hungry, house the homeless who want housed, provide basic income to everyone, etc.
BUT
Society is transactional. If you want to get something you need to give something. Why? Go find a libertarian. Ask them what services they use they don’t want to pay for and they will give you a list. Then ask them what services they DO use they are paying extra for and wait for the stunned silence.
Why can’t you get anything for free? Because everybody saying “oh no don’t be transactional!” is on the take. Please prove me wrong and tell me about all the social services and general good doing you do with no strings attached. If you push a religious viewpoint, those are strings attached.
Everybody wants something, barely anyone just wants to give something. Ergo you give a promise to work, a promise to teach, a promise to give back, because otherwise MOST people only take. Call me a pessimist, but I’m waiting for the first libertarian who wants to pick and choose what they pay for so they can contribute to what matters, and not get something for nothing.
EDIT:
To put a finer point on it, why should you WANT to take without giving something back? That is a gross violation of the reciprocity principle which is basically a bedrock of society in general.
Society isn’t strictly transactional either. That is a big part of the reason why libertarianism is such a fundamentally flawed, swiss cheese ideology.
To give you a gigantic counterexample: when social security started nobody had paid a dime into it. The first seniors to receive social security received it directly from the people that were working and paying into it. The same kind of thing happens today. Despite ignorant insistence that social security should be a “bank account” of some sort, it is not. Today’s seniors receive their checks from today’s tax payers.
The idea that altruism isn’t simply rare but completely non-existent is simply…incorrect. There are multitudes of examples of it throughout history and if you look closely enough those continue into the present.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that humans are mostly good – like Penn Gillette-style libertarians often do when their arguments are pressed upon. But I wouldn’t say they’re all inherently selfish goblins either. In large parts, we are on top of the food chain because of our ability to cooperate with each other. Evidence of the cooperative spirit of humanity is all around you if you look closely enough.
(As I type my reply into an open-source browser on a decentralized platform on an open-source OS.)
Here we have hit on the issue. People can be, and are to a surprising degree altruistic. It is not a normal form of operation though because it isn’t guaranteed, and out certainly isn’t the norm for how we all interact with each other. There are homeless shelters, food banks, soup kitchens, and this sort of thing help the most disadvantaged, but those provide services until they run out of space or materials and that’s it. The ones that run on donations and that are funded by angel donors are indeed altruistic.
By and large though, services provided by society to its members are not handled that way. Social security has its flaws, but it’s not altruistic because the first seniors got it for free: they were lucky. It’s entirely transactional because everyone is obliged to pay a portion of their income into the pool. For countries with free education it’s the same thing: everybody pays in so students can go at little or no cost.
And here is the rub and the original point: educators don’t and SHOULDNT be expected to work for free. Leaving aside the facilities and support staff that also needs paid at a university, it would be unconscionable to expect to go for free and just let those people figure out how to eat. Scholarships are another form of altruism which is loosely relevant, but generally speaking I think what you are considering non transactional situations to actually be those that have been collectively paid by our taxes. Socialized, if you will :).
Make no mistake though, we are all expected to put money in if possible, and then we all benefit at the end.
I don’t consider any system as being altruistic even if the people involved in the system are supposed to be. So, I will not argue that social security is or was altruistic.
An implied point I’m making is that “society” is just a bunch of people. It contains systems that we made, use, and maintain. Many (or perhaps most) of those systems have been – intentionally or unintentionally – designed to be somewhere along the spectrum between simply transactional and outright hostile to altruism. For example, we still have laws on the books against people going out to the parking meters and feeding them for others whose parking is about to expire.
But these are choices. The rules of society and its systems – policies and their implementations – are built and arranged by people. These are not the only possible choices, and these are not the only possible systems.
I guess I didn’t know what outcome(s) you would like or expect?
I think “we should provide education free of charge (paid by taxes)” is great and would be beneficial at all levels.
Contrarily, I think “I should get free education and not have to pay for it or provide any effort at reciprocity” sounds and feels super entitled and shitty. It sounds exceptional, and like the libertarian examples before to me.