This is Part 4 of a 4-part series, in which I replied to comments made under the op-ed by Frayda Levin, an Americans for Prosperity board member, titled I'm A Proud Koch Brothers Insider. For a deep, integrated history of capitalism, I recommend The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein.
“Fact is, while individual humans are decent, as a group they're aggressive, exploitative, oppressive, violent, selfish, and dangerous. The evidence is in our history.”—Get Real
My Reply:
This makes no sense. A group is made up of individuals. Some individuals are “aggressive, exploitative, oppressive, violent, selfish [in the conventional sense], and dangerous.” But most are industrious, respectful, benevolent, cooperative, and no threat to others; i.e., rationally selfish [at least to some extent]. Man is not predisposed either way. The evidence is that the freer a country is, the more people achieve and coexist peacefully. Only with the arrival of “big government” did America begin its descent into predatory balkinization, as “progressives” transformed our government from one limited to protecting individual rights to a rights-violating tool of pressure group factions. When government (the power of the gun) is given the power of aggressive force, the bad type of people organize to use that aggressive power. Then others follow, either in self-preservation or for their own predatory purposes. Special interest politics proliferates. When people are forced into tribal conflict, what does one expect? Blame belongs to the collectivist/statist system the progressives built, not human nature, which is only suited to individualism and limited government.
Related Reading:
For the New Intellectual—Ayn Rand
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