Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The Common Good
I believe the "common good" is a cute idea, but unrealistic. This actually sounds like the ideology behind communism. You are always going to have lazy people, who are more than willing to let others pick up their slack. I say this because I know some of these people first hand. With the loss of incentives, you would see even more people who realize whether they carry their weight or not, they're still going to get the same benefits. Humans are by nature competitive. We want people to see us be successful and we want to reap the benefits of our success. So when you take away the competition, what is the motivation? I'd be a lot less likely to be doing this assignment right now,if it didn't count towards my grade and was just going towards "the good" of our class. The big reason this idea will never work is because citizens will never work as hard to support random people, as they would for themselves or their family. And, why should they? People need to learn that the world doesn't owe them anything.
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It seems like you think there should be people who win, and people who lose. I agree that success should be brought on by hard work. However, I also believe that those who benefit from society should give back in order to advance that society. Basic rights (like healthcare, a clean environment, and human dignity) should be provided for all citizens as a starting point. They should be able to further their success if they want. No great empire was ever created by a bunch of citizens that didn't work together. Citizens can be incentivized to act towards both their own good and for the good of society.
ReplyDeleteI giggled at the fact that you think it is a cute idea, because i can agree. I have been viewing the issue in a different light, but when i saw your idea that it is equivalent to communism, it made me think. If people are expecting the best out of everyone, you are right in the assumption that those who are lazy will in fact act accordingly, therefore causing extra workload on those who have to "pick up the slack". It is kind of a scary thing from seeing all of the different pessimistic views on our country, but they are all made with educated backup and very realistic reasoning. That fact in itself is proof that there is currently no common good, because nothing too productive and "Commonly good"* can come out of a country with so many people doubting its national goodness.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up a great point with motivation. Motivation and competition are the driving forces behind the success of America. They are great for business, they promote ideas that work, and reward the hard workers. You are entirely correct that motivation is the incentive that makes people excel.
ReplyDeleteHowever, for somethings like healthcare, we need the government to help everyone. I don't think the government should control business. Businesses should compete to make better products and better services. Although, for something like healthcare, I think the government should control it. The government should control the essentials; the basic needs of the people to enable them to compete. Healthcare, education, welfare, etc are all examples of government institutions that allow for the success of the citizens. Those services keep people from dying and living awfully, but don't completely keep people from not wanting to work. We need these buffers so people can enter the competition without having to try and catch up.
For somethings like the environment, which need to be protected; capitalism doesn't allow for doing whats best in the moment. Protection of things not financially lucrative in the short term is required for the continuation of the system. The common good doesn't take away motivation, as it prevents people's interests from ruining things and each other.
Competition is in human nature, but human nature has an unfortunate tendency to overlook whats best in the long term. If the government protected the long term, than the system will be able to live on.