Got Trust?

    In reading a book called The Politically Incorrect Guide on Socialism, I was moved to thought by a marginalia, which posited that trust is more inherent in capitalism than socialism, and I was so stirred because it made clear to me a perplexing observation, that so many people I know have no faith in people or society at large. It now occurs to me that most of these same people are advocates of either socialist or welfare-statist ideas, whether knowingly or not. With capitalism, trust is required of a large group of people (consumers) to tell businesses and industries what they want and need, while with socialism, the trust is in a small group of people (central planners) to direct goods and service. I think people find it easier to trust a few people who are seemingly smart, philosopher kings who claim to know things the public simply can not, than a large mass that consists of a range from imbeciles to geniuses. We have, however, already run into the fatal flaw of socialism, which is that consumers know what they want and need and therefore businesses get direct intelligence on what to offer; with socialism, this direct communication is removed, and central planners, who can never have enough knowledge to know everyone's wants and needs, regulate things for the "average citizen" in the ideal case (if this can be called ideal), or, as is the frequent case in the real world, for some national ideal and egotistic purposes, i.e. personal gain and glory. Experience has shown that philosopher kings are anathema to a good, free society, because it is the will of the few over many, so trust in them is misplace.

   It really does trouble me that so many people lack fidelity in their fellow people. When ever they say that a group of people have been and are so easily led astray and do awful things, I think two things: first, that it was an individual or individuals (a cult of personality) that did such (Hitler's Germany, for example); and second, just as easily as they can be led astray, so too can they be brought down the straight and narrow way. However, I find it distasteful to speak of the need of leading anyone as such. People, in most cases, at least want to do good, and usually will when it suits them. "Ah," some will say, "that's the problem. If they only do it when it's good for them, then how are we to believe that they ever will?" For one thing, why would anyone do something bad for themselves? They may not see the long-term problems in some cases (eating all those cookies ruining your health and waistline), but if they can't derive immediate satisfaction (cookies are just so delicious), then they wouldn't do it all. But let's look at a large, long-term problem: pollution. Several people I know say the public can't be trusted to solve our pollution problems. Their view of solutions runs contrary to real world examples of what actually happened during the start of the Industrial Revolution that kept pollution at bay. If people are jealous of anything, it is their own property, and they will seek retribution if it is transgressed upon. When this happened in the early 19th century America, with the pollution of factories going downstream and harming people's land and waterways, the property owners sued successfully and the industries were required to somehow clean-up and deal with industrial waste. The threat of lawsuits therefore gives companies an incentive to invest in technologies that reduce waste and pollution. Then this was taken away by activist judges who claimed that, for public benefit, there was a certain amount of pollution that was allowable, since industries could therefore reap larger profits. This hasn't changed. All this is opposite of what many environmentalists propose as a solution, that is, government involvement in setting straight a wayward people, when it was actually these people who would have long ago had control of the issue if it weren't for government.

    I say, in short, that the common mistrust of society is gravely misplaced. The cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once said that "A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." She meant something uplifting, but I also find, in this context, the shadow of a painful truth, for plenty of small groups of "thoughtful people" have changed the world much for the worse.

    What are your thoughts? How much trust do you place in humanity? What are your reasons?

And now for a thing of beauty. All this talk of socialism leads me to think of Dmitri Shostakovich, who lived in fear under Soviet Russia (which practiced socialism's twin, communism). I'm really just going to pick a symphony at random; let's see. . . and. . . Symphony No. 11 it is, fourth movement.