Me Vs We

Jeremy Bentham is most associated with utilitarianism a philosophy which can be boiled down to "the greatest good for the greatest number"

It is the basis for any number of rationing systems with Pharmac and drug buying being a good example in this country.
Some drugs don't get purchased and some people go without treatment because the drugs are really expensive and would therefore use up the budget which could be better spent helping a larger number of people with less expensive drugs. Until the day that you need the expensive drugs people generally accept this as a reasonable basis for decision making, the greatest number of people are assisted within the budget available.

The rights of the individual have an even longer history which from an english law perspective can trace their origins back to the Magna Carta signed in 1215 which established the rights of the subjects vs the powers of the king.

But which is supreme, the rights of the individual or the rights of the society, or group. How you answer this question may well tell me which side of the political spectrum you are likely to fall on.

Those to the right of the spectrum tend to champion individual, you know individual responsibility, reward for effort, my money not the states taxes, small government, big market (a collection of individuals effectively)

Those to the left tend to champion collective goods or groups, increased taxes to assist... (insert group of choice) Protection of the enviroment, gay rights, womens rights etc.

Of course these domains are not clear cut and plenty of "right wingers" can be concerned about gay rights etc but if you listen to the way the ideas are discussed it is effectively group (we) vs the individual (me).

The possible reason why left wingers seem more virtuous as they care about "others" or groups, right wingers appear to care only for themselves "individuals"

This is a bit simplistic though isn't it, both groups seek to advance all, it is where the emphasis goes that counts.

That all men are created equal

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

If it needs introduction then the above is the opening line from the US Declaration of Independence. It was drafted by Thomas Jefferson who was clearly no dummy. In such a short sentence there is much to consider, I for one have always enjoyed the clever construction of the first clause “We hold these truths to be self-evident” In other words I don’t propose to explain it to you and if you don’t get it you are clearly an idiot as it is “self evident” What a fantastic way to shut down a debate before it has even begun. In fairness to Tom to all “right thinking folk” as he knew them the following statements probably were just a statement of common sense.

But the clause that interests me for today “that all men are created equal” This statement has been used to support any number of ideas in the US and along with the results has been clearly influential in other jurisdictions. But what did Jefferson really mean, did he for example mean that, what he would have called, Blacks should vote (remember slavery was still common and Jefferson had slaves of his own when this was written). Well we don’t need to guess as he spelt it out as “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This was not a phrase he dreamed up in some brain storming session but is the accumulation of thought that stretches back to Aristotle, where many philosophers have applied their minds to the idea of natural laws or what others might call human rights. The last phrase being more encompassing and so the original Natural Laws title is probably more apt.

He did manage to put his own spin on this with the “pursuit of happiness” bit whatever that might mean I think a more appropriate replacement would be freedom of thought which has a far longer lineage. In fact it could be considered the first inalienable right in that you can’t really stop people thinking things, no matter who much the politically correct brigade try. You can stop them saying them but that is a different matter entirely.

Interestingly this is about it for a list of Natural Laws as far as I can tell, there are people both famous and obscure who have added various twists on this like Jefferson with his “pursuit of happiness” but the generally agreed list is fairly similar and short.

We have gone on to draw up much longer lists, such as freedom of religion (which could be viewed as an extension of freedom of thought but does not imbue religions with the freedoms they generally enjoy in western society) or equality of the sexes, which I guess could be an extension of Jefferson’s pursuit of happiness but doesn’t imply that women should be admitted to the army (as a random example).

The lists we now prepare (including the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights) are more properly a “social contract” which is a set of man-made rules that we agree are useful for the fair and efficient operation of our society. This is an important distinction as I am a bit fed up with people claiming or inferring some “right” or other. Next time some one tries this remind them that they are actually generally relying on a social contract and what is man made can be man unmade. Lean to heavily on your “rights” and you might find society takes it away. This is particularly so when you fail in your responsibilities which a lot of people seem to forget is the other side of the “rights” coin.

Animal Farm

“All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others” a very famous line from George Orwell’s Animal Farm a book I was forced to read at high school, however unlike some of the other compulsory reads this one was quite interesting albeit my interest in social constructs and politics was still fairly low at that time.


For those that haven’t read the book it is George’s commentary on Communism, where the animals on a farm revolt and throw off the oppression of the human farmer and run the farm themselves. I can’t recall how the book ends but given that George was not a fan of communism it probably ends badly for the animals.

I was reminded of this line for a couple of reasons but principally because I was listening to a radio article on poverty in America. The setting is only of passing interest as the commentary was probably applicable to most developed western economies. They were discussing the outcomes of various assistance programs, who were the clients, how they could be helped and if that help worked long term after the programs were withdrawn.

In part they were talking about LBJ’s (Lyndon Johnston) “war on poverty” which was a group of programs he initiated. It seems that US Presidents are keen on “wars” as another one had the “war on want” and of course we have had the “war on terror”. War is a very emotive term of course but it also carries connotations of direct, goal focused action with certain outcomes. LBJ’s war was really a skirmish as he lost the next election with his opponents attacking the idea of big government versus personal responsibility, a fairly constant battle ground in US and other democracies, and dismantled a lot of his programs.

The idea of poverty as a personal responsibility is relatively recent and arose with the erosion of the class system in England on the back of the industrial revolution. Previously you were either born poor or rich and as there was no movement between the classes it clearly wasn’t your fault you were born poor, it was just your burden lot to bear. Once we had the rise of commerce and “self made men” then the conclusion became “if they can do it so can you” This idea is very powerful today and we all have a bit of “if they just got their act together” thinking in our attitude to the poor.

So what struck me about the tone of the conversation was the mostly unspoken but implied contrasting views on what constituted poor. This lead me to consider my own definition and the one that sprang to mind was the media sound bit phrase that anyone earning less than X% of the average wage was “in poverty”. But this isn’t a real definition of poverty is it, it is really a statement about a standard of living expectation.

Given that the basis for the measure is a statistical normal curve of income levels what this really argues for is a narrowing (?) of the bell curve. i.e. a taller curve so that everyone is more closely aligned to the centre. In fact the logical conclusion of this type of measure is that we should all earn the average and hey presto no poverty.

But are all animals created equal should we all be paid the same. I suspect most people would answer no we shouldn’t all be paid the same (especially those on higher incomes). So that means the pigs (the authors of the opening quote in the book) were right some animals are more equal than others. If one person is “worth” more than another it is hard to argue we are all equal. And if we are not equal what does that say about some other ideas founded on the basis we are all equal, like universal suffrage for example.