Why has ethnic violence broken out in so many countries that were once part of Yugoslavia or the USSR? Why was much hatred bubbling beneath the surface of what was touted to be a socialist paradise?

While the roots of the hate can be traced back for hundreds of years, most of the people doing the killing were born after the great socialist revolution. They were raised in a socialist state, attended socialist schools, and were dosed on a daily basis with socialist propaganda that proclaimed the principles of internationalism and the unity of the masses. Furthermore, the state did everything possible to destroy all religious belief and to suppress all cultural distinctions. Yet, now, years later, we find Muslims and Christians killing each other like they were still back in the middle ages. How was the hate kept alive?

Socialism not only didn't create the new socialist man, it did nothing to alleviate ancient community hatreds. To understand this failure, we need to look at some basic attributes of human nature.

Humans are social animals in which each individual enhances chances for survival by cooperating with other humans. We are born with tools like the capacity for human speech that facilitate cooperation and we are designed by nature and culture to get a great deal of pleasure out of working and playing with other people.

As much as we may enjoy it, our nature doesn't tell us to cooperate for the good of the species, nor even a common good. Our instincts evolved to tell us to cooperate with others because that's the most effective way to achieve our own survival and reproduction. Humans participate in cooperative efforts with the expectation that they will get a greater reward through cooperation than they would get by going it alone.

Because all humans are basically selfish, there are only four ways that we can get another person to do something that benefits us.

1. We can find someone who wants the same thing we want and who is willing to work with us to achieve the goal and share the benefits. This is the basis of all voluntary cooperative efforts. It's why the entire town turns out to stack sandbags on a levee threatened by rising water. The greater the mutual need, the more likely that cooperation will occur regardless of whatever differences might otherwise keep people apart. Two men who have hated each other their entire lives will work side by side stacking sandbags if they both own houses the levee protects.

2. We can make a bargained exchange. We give the other party something in exchange for their cooperation. As Adam Smith put it, the baker may not care a whit for whether I survive or enjoy life, but he will put bread on my table in anticipation of the coin I will pay him for the bread. I may not enjoy the work I do, but I do it well because I need the money the boss will pay me which I will use to buy the bread.

3. We can fool (defraud) others into doing what we want them to do by convincing them that they ought to want the same thing we want when they have no good reason to want it, or we can promise to give them something in trade when we have no intention of fulfilling our promise. We can also manipulate people with moral arguments that promise heavenly rewards which we can't guarantee, or with appeals to their prejudices, hates, and fears.

4. We can force someone to do what we want, provided we are stronger, we have better weapons, or there are a lot more of us than there are of them.

Voluntary cooperation and bargained exchange are always zero plus games. Even though we each must do what someone else wants us to do, perhaps something we don't like doing very much, we do it because we expect to get more out of the cooperation or the exchange than we would have won by a solo effort.

Cooperation and bargaining only work when mutual trust exists, especially when the rewards may not be achieved until some future time. Therefore, humans naturally prefer to cooperate or bargain with people they know and have good reason to trust such as close family and old friends. Human prejudices, hates, and a natural fear of strangers tend to discourage cooperation. However, if some stranger can perform a service our family and friends can't perform for us, we have good economic reasons for building bridges of trust and understanding. The more successfully we cooperate and bargain with others, the more trust we build as a basis for future cooperation. Because both sides gain an advantage, each side has good reason to put aside past hatreds and prejudices that might get in the way of cooperation. There is good historical evidence to suggest that the longer that strangers live in close proximity in circumstances in which they must cooperate with each other in order to survive, the less they hate the differences in each other.

Because of our perverse human nature, we would all prefer that other people give us the things we want without requiring any contribution on our part. Most humans will use fraud or a threat of violence to ensure that other people do their bidding if they have reason to believe they can get away with it. It may not be the morally correct decision, but it makes perfect economic sense, provided others are so ignorant that they don't understand they are being fooled or are too weak or cowardly to fight back against force.

Fraud and force are always zero minus games. There is always a loser, someone who gets less out of the cooperation than he or she puts into the effort.

Fraud and force always carry significant risks. If people discover they are being fooled, they stop cooperating and all the gain made to that point can be lost. The violence of force is always dangerous and often counterproductive. Those subjected to force can fight back, they may flee, or they may engage in deliberate sabotage.

Both manipulation and force always produce an increase in anger, distrust, and hate. The more that people are fooled or forced into doing things they wouldn't otherwise do, the more they will distrust and hate the people taking advantage of them. Manipulation and force always break down social bonds; voluntary cooperation and honest bargaining always strengthen social bonds. It's not surprising therefore that almost every human culture and religion places great moral value on honest, peaceful cooperation and exchange while condemning violence and fraud.

This brings us to the role that government plays in organizing cooperation. The sole purpose of government is to marshal force in order to achieve socially desirable ends. Government depends on force to achieve everything that government does. No matter what social goal a government wishes to achieve, the only reason why the government takes on the task is because the government leaders believe that force is required in order to insure that every individual citizen does his or her assigned share.

Governments also can and do use fraud to avoid using the violence of force. Politicians, bureaucrats, and their supporters churn out propaganda trying to convince the citizens that paying taxes, obeying business regulations, and performing civic duties will produce greater personal benefit than the personal cost. However, anyone who doesn't believe the propaganda and who resists government orders will be violently subdued and possibly killed.

Any time a government takes on the task of providing any good or any service, the government removes the requirement that the citizen bargain for the good or cooperate with others to achieve the desired good. If the government guarantees that we will have food, education, a job, and health care, then we don't have to bargain with anyone for those good and services. We expect the government will force someone else to provide those promised things for us.

Socialism is a system in which the government provides every single necessity to each individual citizen by forcing other to do the work. Because every need is met through the collective use of force, no one in a socialist system has any need to bargain with anyone else nor any need to search out and voluntarily cooperate with others who desire some common good. There is no reason to attempt to understand nor to tolerate anyone who is different in any way, because there is no personal nor economic benefit to be derived from learning to trust one's neighbor. If your neighbor doesn't want to share the bread he bakes, a government official will force him to give you what you need or to sell it to you at a price the government sets.

Because forced cooperation is always a negative sum game, any society depending on the use of force for the production and distribution of goods and services will be a society in which there is always a shortage of necessary items. What is produced will be a shoddy product made by workers who have no reason to do better.

If one doesn't have what one wants and needs, one never turns to a neighbor, but always looks to a government official for a solution to a personal problem. If you have more than a neighbor has, it is never because you were smarter, more industrious, nor even luckier, but only because some government official unfairly favored you over your neighbor.

Problems of ethnic and cultural differences that existed prior to the imposition of a socialist system can only fester and grow. Not only do people in different ethnic and cultural groups have no reason to cooperate together, the majority ethnic groups will usually influence the government to favor that ethnic group over those minority ethnic groups which further fuels the cycle of hate and envy.

Moreover, what cross-ethnic contact does occur, occurs only under the auspices of more government force. The government forces people who don't like each other to sit side by side in school, to work in the same factory, to line up for the same medical services, and to live in the same cramped apartment buildings. There is never any economic benefit and little social reward to be gained by learning to speak the language the neighbor speaks, building a tolerance for a neighbor's religious belief, nor even for developing a sympathy for the neighbor's plight and tragedies.

When things go wrong, when flood threatens, when earthquakes tumble down the house, when fire breaks out, or when the food for the year is eaten before the end of November, one never turns to the neighbors even though they may share the same plight. One always calls on the government. If the government doesn't have enough to give to all, which is always the case, then the neighbor becomes the enemy as each individual and small family group clamors to be the ones who first receive the government's favor.

People not only have no good reason to learn to get along with people who are different, it serves best the purposes of the politicians and bureaucrats that every citizen distrust his neighbor so that they must look to government for protection. Often, the government will deliberately encourage every citizen to distrust and fear his neighbor, especially the neighbor who is different, in order to keep the people from uniting against the government.

The storm of violence that now burns through Eastern Europe is the result of a system that offered no rewards for people to cooperate and bargain with their neighbor but instead encouraged each individual to depend on the government's monopoly of violence to satisfy every human need and demand.

This is where socialism fails the human spirit and why it must always fail.

A free enterprise system encourages good behavior toward people who are different. A businessman doesn't have to like his customers, but he does have to act like he likes them if he wants to keep them as customers. People who have to work for others in a free enterprise system quickly discover that if they don't get along with their fellow workers, if they don't respond politely when the boss speaks, if they dress in an outrageous manner, or if they don't treat the customers right, they suffer immediate, undesirable consequences.

A free economic system doesn't guarantee that people with different customs, racial characteristics or political ideas will learn how to live together in peace, but it does create a situation in which it can happen.

As more and more laws promise Americans that the government will force other people to provide whatever they need, be it the right to an education, health care, a well- paying job, a stress free work place, or a guaranteed retirement income, we see exactly the same perversities of human nature at play that are now producing the tragedies of Eastern Europe.

The more the government promises to do for us, the more we will no reason to stop hating each other.

[NOTE: We have obtained permission from the author to republish this article on BuildFreedom.]

Copyright 1996--Mack Tanner. This original work may not be copied or distributed in any format without the specific consent of the author.

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