The Free Market and the Death of Compassion.

George W. Bush called himself a compassionate conservative. Which suggests that compassion is a virtue. And is recognized as such even by the most conservative of voters.

I believe in compassion myself. I think the world would be a better place if people were more compassionate.

What is compassion?
1. sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. (Oxford American Dictionary)
2. The deep feeling of sharing the suffering of another in the inclination to give aid or support, or to show mercy. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Anyway, the Republicans value compassion (or say they do); the Democrats value compassion (or say they do).

I have compassion. And that's one reason the American condition--the U.S. condition--sickens me: I feel concern for the sufferings of others. There are many suffering, and the dominant discourse is not a discourse of compassion at all. It is a discourse in which "the free market" dominates.

The free market is looked upon as an inevitable force of nature: as long as we let the market alone, it will drive innovation, and thus improve the lot of all. This, at least, is the crude version.

Or here's how it was represented to me by a friend of a friend in a little Facebook debate:

Free Market. I know those on the left think the free market is evil but the free market has produced tremendous benefit for the US and thus for mankind. Is it perfect? Of course not and it's a common trick of the left to wheel out examples of the disadvantaged or downtrodded as evidence that the entire system needs to be dismantled. But, this is absolute nonsense in that it ignores the overwhelming good that comes from the free market. Where in your examples is anything approaching the innovation of the US and it increasingly threatened free market system?

Note the belief in an "overwhelming good that comes from the free market."
And actually, you can see in the long quote exactly the pathology that I want to discuss: notice how the author dismisses the difficulties of the disadvantaged and downtrodden. Their individual concerns are nothing in the face of the "overwhelming good."

Let us assume for a moment that the free market does in fact lead to such innovation that it produces overwhelming good. My objections to that facile claim are numerous, but let's ignore them for a moment and accept that the free market does produce overwhelming good.

I want to focus on the relationship between the free market and compassion. Let's look at Adam Smith's own words, where he invokes the famed invisible hand, in the passage that describes how the free market will lead to improvement of the social good:

He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security ; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

-- Wealth of Nations, Book IV, chapter II

We can see repeated through this passage the notion that "he" (whose role is not entirely defined here, but has been defined variously by Smith and other economic theorists) is selfish. He is not thinking about the public good. He is thinking about his own gain his own situation. Smith says that concern for the public good is not common among merchants, and he suggests that this is not a problem because it promotes the overall good.

So this notion that that overall good is promoted matches the earlier claim that the free market leads to "overwhelming good."

Let us assume that all this is true. Where is compassion in this? Does not Smith explicitly say that people should act in their self-interest without concern for the social good? Does, in fact, the system not depend on people acting without compassion?

We can certainly see that this is a reasonable conclusion--one drawn by the great economist John Maynard Keynes: "foul is useful and fair is not; avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods" (quoted in E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful).

So what we have here is a description of society where the social good is maximized when everyone acts in their selfish interest and without concern for the social good. In otherwords, a society without compassion. Read what Keynes says again: "avarice and usury... must be our gods"! It's all very well for Keynes to say it, but then he was an agnostic. How does that sit with a Bible-reading Christian?

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

-- Matthew 6:24

What kind of society would be best: one where everyone is wealth, but all compassion, all interest in the difficulties of others has been banished? Or one where wealth is less, but all tried to help the other?

The notion that one cannot serve two gods is not just a biblical injunction--in many cases it is logical imperative. Economic theory--including all free market theory--relies on the notion of opportunity cost, which is essentially the same concept: either one can put your money into the bank to earn interest, or one can invest it in another project. But one cannot do both. Similarly, one cannot make the free market work without abandoning compassion.

And so, in the name of the greater good, apparently we will leave those less able by the wayside to die. The free market insists on it. And the free market is going to serve our ovewhelming good.

Thus the death of compassion.

Wouldn't it be great if people thought that a society with less wealth and more compassion would be better? Wouldn't it be great if people worked together to solve our problems?

I don't have time for it now, but a discussion of how free market attitudes lead to the tragedy of the commons is a worthy effort, too.