Have the rich and powerful lost their altruistic instincts?
Humans are the most altruistic and good of all the animal species, yet at present, our rich and powerful allow the poorest of us to starve to death by hoarding their wealth. This is unheard of in the animal world.
Generally speaking, in ancient days the rich and powerful insured that the poor were taken care of to the best of their ability. In the past, the rank and file demanded that the rich and powerful live up to that good altruistic trait by revolting against them. The French Revolution is a good example of this. Have the rank and file lost their altruistic and good characters by allowing the rich and powerful to let people starve to death while doing nothing?
Are the notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity dead in the world?
Is mankind at the point of losing the altruistic instincts that has made us the greatest animal that the world has ever produced?
It’s unheard of in the animal world? In the animal the weak are left behind the heard to be easily picked off by predators. In the animal world the smaller bird is often pushed out of the nest and killed by the fall so the two stronger birds can compete better for the food. IN the animal world mother animals often reject their young because there is something wrong with them. In the animal world it is kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. And they are the altruistic ones in your scenario? Come on Man!
The virtue of mutual self interested exchange is what allowed mankind to progress beyond being a mere animal, foraging on the plains for bugs and tubers and small animals.
Maybe the younger people in our society don’t know any better, but if you lived through the 80s you have to know things have gotten worse. Back then someone straight out of high school could get just about any decent paying job they wanted. Everything was available. Water company, Phone Company, Gas Company, Toll collector, UPS, Post Office, the list goes on and on. Now many of these entry level jobs that paid a decent wage are either non existent or almost impossible to get. We’re left with service jobs that pay almost nothing.
Back in 1984 I dated a girl that was a Shoprite cashier. She made $12.50 an hour. They don’t make that now. So yeah, that video was no surprise to me. But there’s really nothing anyone can do about it.
Let’s take an example. If we have one male–or female, I suppose the gender doesn’t matter, but let’s stick with one male–with billions of dollars, then what motivation does that one male have to help others? Any dollar that one male might give to the poor and needy might better be spent, in that one male’s view, on himself.
We need government to force that guy to be his better self, by taxing the everloving â– â– â– â– out of him and using some of that dough to help those who need the money more than he does.
Yeah, after the Johnstown flood.