The article deals extensively with the issue of equity and egalitarianism. I found it interesting how Haidt talked about the communal effort during the wars as I simply can't see such a selfless, coordinated effort happening today on a societal scale. Incentives drives effort in the same way that lack of incentives discourage effort. In reading the article, I thought, kids share marbles, yes, but these are young toddlers who have yet to experience societal pressures, expectations and competition. Moreover, these are merely marbles which hardly equates to the same worth as, say, money. So is it really suitable to draw such a parallel comparison between the social experiment and society? What if the toddlers were replaced with adults and marbles with things of monetary value, could they replicate the same results? When we study indifference curves in economics, one of the primary assumptions is that more is better. Hence what drives the rich and powerful to resort to underhanded methods to obtain even more money. When referencing procedural fairness, what exactly does Haidt propose? Is it possible to establish a fair system that can fairly allocate resources, and what would the determining factor be? Hours spent? Quality of work produced? Or something entirely different?
During one of my summer internships, I was part of a team that had to produce a detailed market analysis for a new product targeting a specific consumer group. The start of the project was brainstorming and coming up with ideas. We used a software similar to google docs which allowed team members to share ideas, but no credit was given to who wrote it unlike google docs which displays the name of the contributor after the sentence. Progress was slow and no one really paid attention to the document. Each week however, the team held a meeting in which we planned and discussed key information gathered in front of the project leader who was a lot more senior than the group members. I still remember, the day before the first meeting, there was scarcely half a page of idea and material posted onto the document. But come time for the meeting, everyone was throwing around what types of research articles they found, competitor information and similar market studies. Part of me (the cynical part) thinks this was due to the fact that during the meeting, the project leader would applaud good finds and ideas by personally mentioning the person's name while the document was simply available to all of the group members and was anonymous. For selfish reasons, it therefore made no sense for members to extensively share with each other the precious information they found through combing the internet and company archives. This experience I think ties well with Haidt's example of his mom hanging around his grandparents to collect the foil from the cigarette packages. Such action would realistically be of no personal gain to her as she would not be recognized for the effort, but nevertheless she did it for the sake of the greater good. That's what was truly striking about the article when I read it because I feel that kind of mentality is becoming rarer and rarer today.
Let me take on your very last sentence. How would you know whether acts to benefit the greater good are becoming rarer? Here I have in mind two issues. One is whether such acts, when they do occur, are largely invisible to outsiders? Let's call these things quiet acts of kindness. If they happen, how does anybody else hear about them? Would making those acts overt and therefore much more visible impinge on the good being created itself?
ReplyDeleteThe other issue is whether the world seems one way for the Econ major (or Business major) but may seem quite different for other students, say somebody majoring in International Studies. Some students do volunteer work immediately after college - Peace Corps, Teach for America, etc. I really don't know what the numbers are for this sort of thing, but I'd guess that Econ Majors are less likely to participate in them than other students. Might your views on this be influenced by that?
I don't know what Haidt proposes on the fairness front, but in the recent debate among Democratic Presidential hopefuls, Denmark came up as a possible example for the U.S. to emulate. (Bernie Sanders was for this, Hillary Clinton didn't think it an appropriate comparison.) Isn't this sort of question what Haidt had in mind?
This makes me think back on when you said economics majors tend to be more cynical and selfish, I certainly hope it has not made me that way. Perhaps I worded the last sentence badly, what I meant to express is that I believe a national coordinated effort on the scale seen during the great wars referenced by Haidt could not be emulated today, but then again we are living during peace times so that in of itself might be a naive statement.
ReplyDeleteI concur that as a economics major, I do not come into contact with volunteer work organizations and personnel often which might skew my worldview.
Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton are quite relevant examples to this discussion. Sanders strikes me as an idealist, while his ideas are often noble, some seem far fetched. On the other hand, Clinton seems like a more pragmatic, experienced politician. Hence the difference in opinions.