As Sanders shows, there is a growing altruism in politics. And some articles and books---Junger's Tribe, for example--are purporting to show that the altruism of small groups is inherent to us, part of our DNA. This is complicated, of course. We are not a hunter-gather species now. What new elements have been added to us in our growth? What new emergent qualities have...well, emerged? Not that altruism is unreasonable; nor is it necessarily subject to Naturalistic Fallacy arguments. What is curious is the proposed agent of these arguments, the executor of these plans: The State.
Has there ever in history been a benign State, a State where altruism would be compatible? Even the Americans, whose State created a new baseline in human freedom and whose founding documents were actually suspicious of itself, had to compromise with slavers--the essence of anti-freedom--to create it. How is it that people are able to dismiss the brutality and callousness of every State ever created and assume that some remarkable ideal change is going to occur in their State to facilitate their optimism?
Or is that ideal State only the State of Their Minds?
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