Distribution of Wealth

Throughout all time and in all societies, the distribution of wealth has been and will always be a problem. I doubt there will ever be a solution that will satisfy the masses. 

It was the English philosopher John Locke who was known as the “Father of Liberalism.” He believed that a person should be able to enjoy individual freedoms, and that the government should protect those freedoms. Locke preceded Adam Smith who was known as the “Father of Capitalism.” Smith also believed that the government should not intervene in the workings of the marketplace. Smith’s ideologies are spelled out in his book The Wealth of Nations. From the problems of the Industrial Revolution came the idea of Socialism: that wealth should be distributed equally. Capitalism seemed to produce too many losers and not enough winners. 

For over fifty years, I have struggled personally with the unfair distribution of wealth. Having come from both a famous and wealthy family, I always feel the need to take care of those less fortunate than myself. Over the past thirty years, I now have had enough experience to realize that people who are really motivated to succeed in life will do so, regardless of their economic circumstances, and that there are people who are willing to accept as much help as you give them, never intending on trying to better their lives along the way. 

                                                                                       Image credit: flickr.com

The irony of my situation is that my dad began as one who did not have many resources to help him fulfill his dream. At age six, he decided that he wanted to be a cartoonist. He served three years in World War II, and upon returning, he began to do all he could to fulfill his dream. His Peanuts comic strip was syndicated in 1950, and he went on to become the most famous cartoonist the world has ever seen. 

Being a part of that legacy causes me to favor the idea of capitalism. The world is filled with people like my dad who would not have been able to contribute to society if it had not been for the freedom to do so. That being said, dad was always bothered by the income he received from drawing the strip. It did not seem fair to him that although he did the same thing every day, for fifty years, his income increased constantly. But, isn’t this what capitalism is? Dad created a product that the world loved. It was the choice of the Peanuts fans that caused his income to increase. 

As a human race, we are here to dream, however big or small. Capitalism allows the dreams of one to be enjoyed by many.  

Empiricism and Modern Entertainment

“Our observation employed either about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected upon by ourselves, is that which supplies our understanding with all the materials for thinking. These two are the fountains of our knowledge, from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring.”

 -John Locke, "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" 

Fully subscribing to empiricism, we are only what we experience. Although we may be able to create new experiences, they have to be based on some reflection or foundation of something that we’ve already come to know. For us to understand how it feels to walk on the moon, we have to understand how gravity affects us here on Earth. 

I would submit that the majority of our problems as a human society come from a simple lack of knowledge to a blind misunderstanding of how the world around us works. But, although identifying the root of our problems might be simple, the remedy is not. We just don’t live long enough or learn fast enough to absorb everything we would need to fairly treat those around us. We can only have so many conversations, go so many places, and see so many sights. If Locke is completely right, then we’ll never be able to fully solve our problems.

However, our modern entertainment can help us get a little closer to this unreachable goal. Good entertainment pulls us out of our day to day lives and allows us to experience other points of view. Through a movie, you can fill your blank slate of a mind with complex moral and ethical decisions without having to leave the couch. When used right, our entertainment can help us practice how to be human before being human has real consequences.

Image credit to Diraen

Social Contract of the New World

The writings of Locke were highly influential in the creation of the current government that exists in the United States today. The social contract is a concept that had been breached by degrees in the past, however, it was usually only under extreme pressure that power or liberty is ceded to another.

One of the earliest examples that I find is the Magna Carta. in 1215 King John was forced to sign a document giving certain rights to some of his rebellious nobles. In the past, kings were all-powerful within their realm. Because of abuses, the rich barons rose up and overpowered the king, forcing him to sign over certain rights to religion, freedom, and power that had not existed in the past.

A more modern example is the social contract that exists within most governments today. The declaration of Independence used by the United States to formally secede from the British Commonwealth was written by Thomas Jefferson. This document was strongly influenced by writers such as John Locke.

At the time the Declaration was written, the "United Colonies" were in no position to bargain with the British. However, the Declaration and later the Constitution combined would eventually make up a document that is not too different in content from the Magna Carta. It would define specific liberties that the government or "king" could never take away. In exchange for these rights, the common people promise to follow the law, pay taxes, etc. otherwise these liberties would be revoked. This was the contract between the government and the governed that would directly affect how we interact with governmental institutions today.

Image credit: by WikiImages: Declaration of Independence, Pixaby licensed under CC by 2.0

"That all men are created equal."

When John Locke wrote his Second Treatises: Of Civil Government and Thomas Hobbes wrote The Leviathan, intellects were still trying to unpack everything the sovereign individual idea had to offer. It was generally accepted by both Locke and Hobbes that all men were equal (Even though "man" was a pretty exclusive group, but it was more progress than ever before), but they were equal in different ways.

John Locke

Locke believed that men were all equally good and needed very little authority to govern them. According to Man's "State of Nature," no one has power over another and all are equally free to do as they please so long as they don't infringe on other's freedom. Locke had a relatively optimistic outlook on human nature.

Thomas Hobbes

Hobbes, on the other hand, thought that man needed a parent authority to create "good laws" that he could abide by. He determined that because people were continually in competition for honor and dignity, they tended toward envy and hatred. Hobbes also generally believed that people were equal despite their differences because no matter how weak, the "weak" person could still use strategy to have a "strong" person killed.

The Hybrid

Over the weekend I attended a lecture by a well-known psychology professor from the University of Toronto. He analyzed the line from the declaration of independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." We know that all men are not "created equal" socially or economically, and the founding fathers who owned slaves obviously didn't think so. So what did they mean?

At the lecture, Dr. Peterson said that the self-evident truth is not that all people have equal opportunity when they come into the world, but that they all have equal capacity for good and evil. This could be thought of as a hybrid of the thoughts of Hobbes and Locke. He explained because all people have equal capacity for good and evil, they have an equal responsibility to the collective not to pursue evil and to seek out good. Because the state is made up of sovereign individuals in a free society, whether or not the state is inherently good depends on the individual.