HW#7 Econ 108

A.
 An example of altruism  that was interesting to me was the one about saving a stranger child who is drowning over your own.  This document talks about how a truly altruistic person would decide to save another child over one's own. I doubt that anyone on the planet would want to save another child who is a stranger over their own. This example I found very interesting and proved the document correct that no one is the world can be completely altruistic.

Another thing that I found interesting was how individualism is beneficial to our society. The document explains well how thinking in one's self interest actually benefits all because it spurs more production and exchange. This changes how I think in that when I look at someone as greedy in my terms, maybe they aren't greedy at all. An example of  this would be that if someone doesn't donate to foundations and charitable causes, maybe they shouldn't be called greedy, because they might spend that money somewhere else creating economic growth that would help more people than by donating his money to charity and good causes. Maybe the person who donates money to charity is greedy because he is looking out for the well being of people who he believes are more important and need that money, when in reality it might help society more if the money went elsewhere.

B.
1. Are there societies that are completely altruistic? If so, how are they doing as a society?
2. If our world was completely altruistic, would we be as productive as we are now, or would we be better or worse off?

C.
This reading discussed the meaning individualism vs. altruism. It starts off by talking how the morals of the market economy cause us to benefit others, but this isn't the case because we intend to do so. It talked about how we benefit other because the market makes us act in a way that allows extended order to take place benefiting each other. Extended order is what happens when a system embraces specialization and trade making an information gathering process that know one of higher power can know how to obtain.

The reading then talked about how our moral obligations extend only to our own values. If I donate money to charity, I am not doing this as an altruistic action, but because of my values. Maybe I value human life making it in my best interest to donate money to charity.

The reading later talks about how to obtain wealth I have to produce and trade. This would benefit everyone else in the economy. This shows that one tries to act in his or her self interest, they are being altruistic even if they didn't intend to be. The document then talked about how altruism rejects private property. We learned in class though that property rights are necessary to economics because it gives people an incentive to work harder and produce and exchange more which improves societies.