User:JustinBaugh
They taught me that life is constant fear. I taught myself not to carry such burdens.
People sometimes look to leaders for a definition of their role in the society they live in. While I agree that approval is sometimes necessary for the actions of individuals in a family or small community environment I can find no satisfactory reason that this kind of socialist mindset in a society made up of hundreds or even thousands of families and individuals is necessary or wise. Especially when that society depends on the division and specialization of labor that stems from capitalism to provide the goods and services that sustain their lives on a daily basis. An individual seeking approval from those they see as above them is, at best, unhealthy. A paternalistic society is one of children seeking recognition for the deeds they do; chaotic and dependent on the "go-ahead" from some eminent figure or table of men that seem to be running things. Nothing could be further from natural.
It has been asserted that the physiological needs of all men are of the same kind and that this equality provides a standard for the measurement of the degree of their objective satisfaction. In expressing such opinions and in recommending the use of such criteria to guide the government's policy, one proposes to deal with men as the breeder deals with his cattle. But the reformers fail to realize that there is no universal principle of alimentation valid for all men. Which one of the various principles one chooses depends entirely on the aims one wants to attain. The cattle breeder does not feed his cows in order to make them happy, but in order to attain the ends which he has assigned to them in his own plans. He may prefer more milk or more meat or something else. What type of man do the man breeders want to rear--athletes or mathematicians? Warriors or factory hands? He who would make man the material of a purposeful system of breeding and feeding would arrogate to himself despotic powers and would use his fellow citizens as means for the attainment of his own ends, which differ from those they themselves are aiming at. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, pp. 243-244.