The Common Good

The most popular alternative theory to natural rights as the foundation on which to build society is the theory of common good, where society is seen as a large organism with an overall aim rather than the interaction of individuals with no other aim than to profit for themselves.

The natural rights theory makes the assumption that humans are makers of things and traders that interact with others in order to profit from their interaction. This is the nature of humans and cannot be altered, so it follows that society needs to make laws that take this natural behavior into account. Humans have a natural right to defend their life, freedom and property, and all laws have to recognize this.

Proponents of the common good theory tend to criticize the natural rights theory, as simply a cruel and selfish human invention. They argue that laws should not protect such selfish rights, but aim to maximize good and minimize bad. Property should be distributed to those who need it, and work should be performed by those that can do it. Individual freedom, property and even life are secondary to the common good.

The proponents of the common good theory are particularly opposed to the right of individuals to protect their property, and profit making is often viewed as theft, or at least deeply immoral. The market place where free individuals exchange goods and services is suboptimal, since it does not necessarily bring the goods and services to those who really need it, like the sick and elderly. Individual wealth is therefore a sign of an unfair society, and redistribution of such wealth is desirable.

Being faced with two different theories, we should test these and make an evaluation of how well they work. I suggest we start with a hypothetical example, so that we can make some predictions, and then look to history to see if this confirms or refutes our predictions.

Let us assume that you are a skilled potter and have recently arrived in a town where there is a market and several craftsmen and traders and you want to find your way in this new society. Before making any choices, you observe the behavior of the various individuals, and you use the natural rights theory to guide your judgment.

What you see is that there are some people making things, bringing them to the market, and exchanging these things, and you conclude that these are people you can trust and work and trade with. You also see that there are thieves that try to steal the products, but they are kept away by force, being beaten and sometimes even killed. But never do you see a trader beat another trader, and you conclude that you have no reason to fear the traders unless you try to steal from them, so you remain confident that you have more to fear from the thieves than the traders.

You set up shop, you arm yourself against the thieves, and you prosper due to your skills and hard work.

Now let say you reject the theory of natural rights and use the common good theory instead. You refuse to make judgments based on the idea that people have a right to defend their property, but look solely for maximum good and minimum evil. What you now see, is that the thieves are not thieves at all, but people with needs. They are not stealing, but simply redistributing the wealth. Taking goods from those who have the skills to make them and distributing them among their friends and family who have a need for these products. The traders who are beating these people and sometimes even killing them are clearly very selfish and in opposition to the common good, and you decide to join the cause of justice and join the redistributors.

You take part in the revolution, shut down the market place, remove the traders’ ability to defend themselves and redistribute their products for the maximum good. The traders are still rather selfish, so the redistributors make sure they stay producing their products and lock them up to make sure they do not escape. You set up schools to teach them how wrong natural rights are and how just and good redistribution is.

Being a skilled potter you show off your skills one day, and you are promptly set in chains and forced to produce the wares for the common good, and you end your days poor and enslaved.

The common good theory results in a society of slaves, force and poverty, while a society based on natural rights will result in poverty only among those who do not produce goods or services, but wealth among those who produce and trade freely. So much wealth, in fact, that charity is enough to cover the needs of the truly unfortunate and deprived.

And if we look to history as the ultimate testing ground, we see that our conclusions hold true. States that base their laws on natural rights have consistently outperformed those that base their laws on common good. States that have been run solely according to natural rights have always prospered, while those that have been run solely according to the common good have failed.

States with mixed laws tend to do better with stronger natural rights, and worse with more emphasis on the common good. Europe is doing less well than the US, but much better than North Korea. China is doing much better with strong property rights than it did with weak property rights.

The US has introduced a health reform to the common good, and we can expect the US to do less well after this introduction than it did before. Norway has steadily moved towards more emphasis on the common good, and its infrastructure is now falling apart.

The common good theory is clearly lacking, yet it is still a very popular one. It sounds noble and good, but is in fact a recipe for inefficiency and failure. Not because it is inherently evil, but because it fails to recognize human nature and the importance of natural rights.

Nature is the ultimate test of any theory, and the common good theory should logically have been dismissed a long time ago, but such is human nature too, that we like to think ourselves above nature itself, and so we go on arguing for the virtues of the common good despite all the evidence that it does not work.