Aristotle maintains that we humans are special. That is, we aren't here on earth just to be, we are here to live a good life. We are meant to be happy.
The New York Times published an op-ed Sept. 28 by Richard Easterlin entitled "When Growth Outpaces Happiness." It discussed an unsettling finding - that since China moved to a free market economy starting in 1990, the Chinese have been less satisfied with their lives.
The statistics are surprising, because the Chinese standard of living has increased tremendously over the past 20 years. Commodities that were once luxuries in Chinese homes are now commonplace, such as color TVs, refrigerators and washing machines. But this increase in standard of living has not necessarily translated into a better quality of life. Easterlin argues the loss of job security for oneself and one's children and the increase in competition is the primary cause of the decrease in happiness.
No one, including Easterlin, would advocate for a return to socialism. But the numbers are evidence of why any society that aims to promote the happiness of its members cannot rely solely on the mechanisms of free market capitalism to provide it. And it is in this light that we should reconsider the current political debate over those programs that compose America's safety net.
Free market capitalism operates under the notion that if we make choices solely with ourselves in mind, the market will organize those choices to create overarching order. Fiscal conservatives propose that this order is presumably the most efficient conclusion of this perpetual process, and therefore just.
The question is then, should laissez-faire economics serve as the "moral" philosophy that defines our age? That depends on what we reckon it means to be human today. The free market recreates a sort of state of nature, and so its sense of justice is in line with a Darwinian view of our natural world. Humans, like all species, are responsive to their environment - our choices are determined by the laws of supply and demand. So this system favors the strong and crushes the weak. Is this not also how a meritocracy works? We got into Brown because presumably we were the strongest swimmers in the pool, and we finished first.
If we are to accept this notion of justice, we must also accept a natural hierarchy in our economy and its human participants. Like the food chain places sharks at the summit and plankton at the bottom of the web, our market places the strongest at the top supported by the weaker. The problem is, the free market makes a food chain out of just one species.
Aristotle asserts natural superiority among humans - some are naturally masters and others slaves. The relationship between a master and his slave, according to Aristotle, is just as necessary for the continuation of the race as the relationship between man and woman.
Today slavery is an institution that we no longer have to defend by way of philosophy or jurisprudence. But in our modern industrialized world slavery still exists in certain employer-employee relationships. We will all have choices as to what we do with our lives after Brown, but there are millions of workers living in poverty who have no choice over their occupation that probably doesn't even pay a living wage. Such workers aren't enslaved by a code of laws, but by economic necessity.
This is justice as defined by the free market, Aristotle and Confucius. But we don't live in antiquity, and this is not just - in fact it isn't even natural. We assert global doctrines of human equality and human rights. I would hope we can agree to uphold these notions of human integrity for our fellow Americans.
Paul Ryan may be a libertarian of sorts. And he is right when he says we are at a fiscal tipping point. We need to control government spending. And he is also right when he says we are at a moral tipping point. We need to treat Americans not as animals, but as human beings endowed with a sacred promise: the pursuit of happiness.
Most Americans still believe in the American dream. That dream is not possible if we condemn the poorest of us to desperate poverty, the kind that gives them no control over what they do, what they eat, where they live or if they can access health care.
There are solutions to fixing our fiscal problems without dismantling the safety net. How about closing tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy? Or better yet, cutting federal farm and oil subsidies?
If we cut social programs, we admit that human needs are no different than our animal counterparts. And that would be to deny that we have made any progress as a civilization.
As the products of capitalist and meritocratic institutions, we Brown students may be increasingly inclined to use the free market to justify acting in our own self-interest. But we aren't degenerates who fell from grace to live enslaved to competition and self-interest. We are highly educated, free-thinking, moral human beings. The free market, a state of nature, is not the answer to our problems. So starting in November let's continue to make progress by defending the creed of our founding fathers and the rights of millions of Americans to a happy, meaningful existence.
Since Claire Gianotti '13 moved off-campus, she often thinks of happiness as manifested in the form of a dishwasher.
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