Evolutionary argument against socialism

[Carl-Richard]

NOTE: this is not an endorsement, just a curious inquiry.

JF's argument is an evolutionary one and is essentially that welfare leads to selection of weakness, which is why we should shy away from collectivist ideologies (socialism) and adopt a firmly capitalist ideology. His argument seems strong on the surface, but I believe that SD can provide some context:

Human society has been strongly collectivist for ~50 000 years (technically millions of years). Pre-agricultural tribal societies gave individuals a minimum safety threshold even though their value contribution was variable. Sure, if you were found out to be a leech, you would be cast out, but there are also systems in place for that today (e.g. welfare employment programs). Capitalism arose only after ~10 000 years of agricultural feudalism. If the weakness selection pressure argument holds up, JF must differentiate between archaic/tribal collectivism and modern/governmental collectivism (which I don't think he does in this conversation). 

He also prides himself on using a theory with few assumptions but underestimates the depth of each assumption. It's not that clear whether or not the selection pressure for weakness in one specific area (helping people in deep poverty) will dominate the wide range of selection that is made available by solving the problems that are in fact caused by deep poverty. Let's say JF got some welfare while he was poor. Would the JF we see today really be diminished because of that or would he actually have been enhanced? Let's say he skips 5 years of poverty and gets a headstart on his career compared to today. Even if we granted a level of weakness induced by having received welfare, wouldn't that headstart possibly be a net benefit? Stuff like that.

The general conception is that his argument is rather strong but that he goes way overboard with the conclusions (given that he doesn't particularly specify the scale of the problem, only the possibility of its existence). It's true that even though welfare could provide net social benefit or even some evolutionary benefit, it could degenerate the entire system if the weakness selection is strong enough. Any other ways to come at this?

Edited June 5, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[StarfoxEpiphany]

People have been taking care of the disabled and providing welfare for the poor since classic liberalism and even before that with the Church.

[Windappreciator]

Spiral dynamics can fix the bug in JF's mind.

[Opo]

His argument seems very simplistic. 

If you don't give a child enough "welfare" it will die but if you do the same thing for someone until they are 30 they'll end up depressed and suicidal. 

It's a balance. 

Sry if this was already covered. I'll watch the video later. 

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Opo said:

His argument seems very simplistic. 

I shortened down my take on it:

The original human societal organization was intensely collectivistic for the majority of evolutionary history (pre-agricultural, tribal societies), where a base minimum safety was provided for people with variable value contributions, and somehow that didn't lead to a dominant, self-terminating weakness phenotype.

So-called "individualism" didn't come online before ~10 000 years ago (agricultural, feudal empires), and the less exploitative version of that (capitalism) came even later. The supposed selection pressures created from a couple centuries or millenia of individualism is comparatively speaking homeopathic to the millions of years of collectivism from our evolutionary history.

JF must 1. clarify why modern collectivism would be more detrimental than archaic collectivism, and 2. clarify the exact level of expression that would create a dominant, self-terminating phenotype. So far, he has provided a couple of big "ifs" but relatively few "hows".

[Epikur]

I guess it depends where you lived back in the time. There might be environments where people were nice and peaceful collectivists though some were I guess a bit more "energetic"
 

4,3

[PepperBlossoms]

Great question - is welfare a net positive or net negative?

I would say welfare can be a net positive IF DONE RIGHT.  IF.

You are going to want to have the welfare money be enough for food/water/shelter/electricity (to survive) but still be much lower than what minimum wage would make to incentivize people to work in order to have more flexibility with their spending and buy things that they want to experience with.

Minimum wage needs to be high enough that people can live off of it without having to go onto welfare - as the community is basically subsidizing the companies who are not paying their employees enough.  If a company says it can't afford to pay their employees a livable wage, it shouldn't be in business then.

Getting people's needs met will reduce crime, violence, and anxiety and improve mental and physical health.

The economics behind the welfare will have to be looked at.  Can the economy AFFORD to have this kind of welfare?  Is it reasonable and feasible?  Taxes, money supply, spending, etc. need to be looked at to ensure that it is sustainable.  Is the economy padded enough to offer welfare or can it only survive if absolutely everyone works?  It depends.

We could say that the welfare could be available to anyone who needed it regardless of need - whether that is from being sick, disabled, elderly, young, keep on getting fired, no desire to work, no one willing to hire you, needing to take care of family members, wanting to take a break from work, having gotten laid off of work, wanting to try out a new business idea, wanting to take care of a newborn child, etc.

Again, the welfare will need to be lower than the minimum wage so that people are incentivized to not stay on welfare and to move to the working world when they are ready and willing - - but yet by providing the welfare, it is improving the quality of life for the society as a whole and takes pressure off of someone - to know that if everything goes to shit, I won't starve to death because the government refused my welfare application and I won't have to start stealing from the neighbors just to buy food.

Minimum wage needs to go up and keep up with inflation.  We could argue that we could try to get rid of minimum wage jobs anyway but there can be unskilled people who have no interest in getting skills that are fine with minimum wage jobs and companies are fine to offer and utilize them and need them as part of the services they offer.

If someone can't get a job because they keep on getting fired, have a criminal record and can't seem to find work, no one is hiring, whatever - if they get poor enough - they will start to resort to stealing, crime, violence, etc. to stay alive --- so by having that extra padding and not having embarrassment about it - such as if the welfare just went to everyone - then it would reduce crime and improve the quality of life of everyone.

Some people will have no desire to work - but we may need to support them even if at the bare minimum - to keep the overall community quality of life up - not everyone will be like that and just because a parent has no desire to work doesn't mean that the kid will want the same lifestyle for themselves.

I think welfare produces a net positive.  It moves the responsibility to take care of the sick/disabled/elderly from the individual to the community.  But it also gives the community more flexibility and have a back up plan.