Leading the Revival of Individualism & Self Reliance

Posts

Our Sociopathic Political Leaders – Bloodless And Totally Devoid Of Human Empathy – Are Further Divided From The People They Rule Than Ever.

/in /by

Why watch COVID press conferences and briefings by politicians? They are just upsetting. These people seem to have no clue about why the virus is ignoring them. They keep issuing strange and arbitrary rules that they make up, change by the day, all enforced by intimidation and compulsion. They posture in this silly way as if their edicts have this virus under control when they clearly do not.

Even worse, and what chills me to the bone, is the strange absence of normal human emotion in their public performances. With day-to-day human communication in the presence of uncertainty, there would be some admission of the possibility of being wrong, of mistakes made, of the difficulty of knowing, of the limits of information to make informed decisions, of the pain wrought through such disruptive governance.

You don’t see any of this in these governor’s announcements. Despite all evidence, they act as if they have got this under control. They don’t admit error. They don’t admit ignorance. They stare straight at the cameras and issue edicts, without even an apology for all the lives they have ruined and continue to ruin. They talk down to us. Condescension in every word.

You are welcome to watch a typical case here, but no need since you know exactly what I’m talking about.

We don’t talk this way to each other. Instead, we share stories of how our lives have been affected. We share pain with each other, and frustration at how destabilized we feel, how we’ve been separated from family, how lockdowns have led us to dark places, how caged we feel. We worry about our finances, our loved ones, our very futures. We are astonished at how quickly and radically our freedoms have been taken away. And in sharing these stories with each other, we come to understand more and feel a bit of healing perhaps.

In short, we have empathy. The politicians on the other hand show none. They have glassy eyes that reflect cold blood. Even worse, they come across as bloodless, like generals who order troops around knowing with certainty that many people will die.

They rarely if ever talk about what they are doing in human terms. They talk about data, restrictions, trends in infections and hospitalizations, and death, but not as if any of this involves real humans or tradeoffs. They preen with certainty that is not really believable.

Adam Smith explained empathy as a feature of the human personality. “As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel,” he wrote, “we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel like in the situation … By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments … and become in some measure the same person with him.”

That’s what real life is like. But political life today seems to seek to banish that very human feeling. It’s as if they are playing a video game featuring all of us but we are mere figures on a screen programmed to do what they want. They have no obligation to understand us, much less worry about the pain they inflict, because, like figures on a gaming screen, we surely don’t feel pain at all.

And that is also how the media has come to talk of this calamity. Its numbers, charts, and trends, all highly alarmist and always with the same conclusion: the political class needs to impose more restrictions on us to make this virus go away. We sit helpless watching all of this unfold day after day, astonished that our rulers could be so impervious to what has taken place before our eyes.

The emotional gap between the rulers and ruled has never been wider in modern times. It seems completely unsustainable. It’s like they aren’t even trying to connect with people.

Politicians are no great shakes in normal times but they seem worse than ever now, throwing out law, tradition, morality, and even the appearance of caring about how their lockdowns have destroyed so many lives.

The question is why. Here is my attempt at an answer. The lockdowns have all been based on an implausible claim that viruses can be controlled via coercion, same as people can be. But they cannot. And it is not surprising to find enormous evidence, accumulating by the day, that everything they have done has achieved nothing.

Below is a chart that compares COVID deaths per million around the world against Oxford University’s government stringency index. If lockdowns achieved anything you could expect there to be some predictive power here. The more you lock down, the more lives you save. The lockdown countries could at least claim to have bolstered the lives of their citizens. What you see instead is: nothing. There is no relationship. There is the virus. There are lockdowns. The two operate as seemingly independent variables.Source

The political class has started to intuit this. They suspect in their heart of hearts that they have done something horrendous. They worry that this realization is going to spread. Then they will be held accountable, maybe not right away but eventually. And this is rather terrifying to them. Thus are they spending their days trying to forestall this moment of truth in hopes that the mess they made will eventually go away and they escape blame.

Which is to say: they are lying. Then they lie more to cover their previous lies. If you are going to push such a line in the face of the mounting evidence showing them to be frauds, if you are going to lie with impunity to keep the game going, you will have to steel yourself against emotion and empathy. You become a sociopath. This might be enough to account for their bloodless posturing.

There is another factor too: the more pain you inflict on people, the worse of a person you become. Power is dangerous even when not used, but deploying it brutally and pointlessly rots the soul. This is a good description of almost the entire ruling class around the world today, save a few civilized countries that never locked down.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research. This article appeared at aier.org.

The Driving Force Of Free Markets Is Empathy. Only The Entrepreneur Who Prioritizes Other People’s Needs Can Be Successful.

/in /by

Both capitalists and anti-capitalists frequently accuse capitalism of being a system driven by selfishness and greed. Capitalism’s defenders sometimes say: “By nature, man is selfish, which is why socialism will never work. Capitalism better reflects the fundamental characteristics of human nature.” Anti-capitalists claim that capitalism promotes the worst characteristics in man, especially greed.

But are greed and unbridled selfishness really the driving forces of capitalism? Human self-interest is one—not the only—driving force of all human action. But this has nothing to do with a particular economic system. Rather, it is an anthropological constant. In capitalism, however, this self-interest is curbed by the fact that only the entrepreneur who prioritizes other people’s needs can be successful.

There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that empathy, rather than greed, is the true driving force of capitalism. Empathy is the ability to recognize and understand another person’s feelings and motives, and this is the most important characteristic of successful entrepreneurs.

Take Steve Jobs as an example. He came up with the iPhone and other products because he understood modern consumers’ needs and desires better than anyone else. Under capitalism, consumers can (and do) punish companies that behave selfishly and lose sight of the needs of their customers.

The same applies to Mark Zuckerberg, today one of the world’s richest people. He created Facebook because he knew better than other entrepreneurs what people wanted. Like all successful entrepreneurs, it was consumers who made Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg so rich. For many years, the Albrecht brothers were the richest people in Germany. They earned their fortunes from the food discounter Aldi, which was founded on the principle of offering good quality products at very reasonable prices. This was the same recipe for success followed by Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, who was consistently one of the richest people in the United States.

Consumers’ purchasing decisions confirm that Jobs, Zuckerberg, the Albrecht brothers, and Sam Walton had correctly understood their customers’ desires, needs, and emotions.

Of course, under the capitalist system, there are also examples of companies that have acted selfishly and lost sight of the wants and needs of consumers.

One example is Deutsche Bank, which has faced thousands of lawsuits. Such companies are punished under capitalism, not only by the law but far more so by the market. Deutsche Bank lost its position as one of the world’s leading banks because it put the interests of its investment bankers above those of its customers and shareholders.

Even companies that appear omnipotent today, such as Google or Facebook, will not retain their power forever.

A company’s most important asset is its image, and companies that behave like Deutsche Bank end up incurring massive damage to their images and reputations; their customers lose confidence and flock to their competitors.

In socialist systems, on the other hand, consumers are powerless and at the mercy of state-owned companies. If a state enterprise acts with no regard for the needs of consumers, they have no alternative under socialism because there is no competition.

Under capitalism, consumers can (and do) punish companies that behave selfishly and lose sight of the needs of their customers. Every day, customers vote on the company with their wallets—by buying its products or not.

Monopolies under capitalism are a temporary phenomenon. Even companies that appear omnipotent will eventually be ousted by new competitors as soon as they overreach their power and lose sight of their customers’ needs.

Ever since capitalism has existed, anti-capitalists have criticized the system’s inherent tendency to create monopolies. Lenin wrote over 100 years ago that imperialism and monopoly capitalism are the last stages of capitalism. But the monopolies he criticized at the time no longer exist. Even companies that appear omnipotent today, such as Google or Facebook, will not retain their power forever. Other companies and ambitious young entrepreneurs will seize the opportunity as soon as Google or Facebook starts to act too selfishly.

What is strange is that socialists who criticize capitalism for its tendency to form monopolies are in favor of state-owned companies. After all, the state is the most powerful monopolist of all, with the ability to brutally trample on the needs and wishes of its citizens through its means of coercion and because there are no alternatives for the customer.

The fact that people and companies pursue their own interests is the same in every society. This is not a specific feature of capitalism.

Under capitalism, though, only those entrepreneurs and companies who prioritize their customers’ interests rather than their own self-interest will achieve success in the long-term. Companies that fail to understand and respect what consumers want will lose market share and may even disappear entirely as they are driven out by other companies that better meet their customers’ needs.

Empathy, the ability to recognize the desires and needs of others, is the true basis of capitalism—not unbridled greed and selfishness.

 

Dr. Rainer Zitelmann is a historian and sociologist. He is also a world-renowned author, successful businessman and real estate investor. His most recent book, The Power of Capitalism, was released in 2019.

 

Adam Smith Conceived A Complex Synthesis Of Morality, Sociability and Economics. Sympathy And Fellow Feeling Motivate Us All.

/in /by

Born in Scotland in 1723, where he lived most of his life and where he also died in 1790, Adam Smith is a mythical figure who fathered the modern discipline of economics, embraced unbridled self-interest, and fought against the government to promote capitalism and the interest of business and the rich.

Jesse Norman’s goal in his recent biography, Adam Smith: Father of Economics, is to show that the mythical Adam Smith is, well… a myth. His tools are the availability of an immense body of scholarship and an awareness of current events.

But how it is possible? Adam Smith did coin the idea of “invisible hand” and claimed that we don’t get our dinner from the benevolence of the butcher, baker, and brewer, but from their self-interest.

True, we do not get dinner from the benevolence of the butcher, baker, and brewer, but that does not mean they are not benevolent, or that benevolence does not exist (or worse, should not exist), and it does not even mean that morality (or anything other than self-interest) is nowhere to be found in markets. “The reason why humans and not dogs can make ‘fair and deliberate exchange’ of one thing for another is because exchanges presuppose a shared context of fairness… ” (page 181).

In fact, Smith’s first published book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments [1759], is a study on how we humans develop shared ideas of fairness and morality. Our morality is not derived from a divinely inspired moral sense, as Smith’s teacher Francis Hutcheson suggested, nor is it a sham to cover our self-liking as Bernard Mandeville suggested. For Smith, it is the result of a triangulation between an actor, an action, and a viewer (being either real or imaginary). Morality and sociability are thus entangled, natural, and not corrupted by society, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau had claimed instead.

As a matter of fact, the more society advances, the more commercial it becomes, that is, the more customs and mores refine and soften, rather than corrupt. Brutality and violence decrease. Women are better treated and increasingly recognized as equal. If in the past they were legally discriminated against, it was because men were the ones making the laws. (We still have a long way to go, given that in 2014 in the United States only 12% of the economists in academia were women). Slavery is also increasingly condemned. It faces the upward battle against our desire to domineer, but its inefficiency and the growing recognition of human equality that commercial societies foster brings hope.

“Smith’s attacks against crony-capitalism are even more remarkable when we think they were written before what we today call capitalism.”

But Smith is not Pollyanna. He recognizes the “pathologies” of commercial societies. Our tendency to admire the rich and powerful may blind our judgment. And our desire to better our condition may create powerful special interests that successfully lobby to create and maintain benefits for themselves at the expense of society. The entire “mercantile system” is an example of this pathology. The British built the system of tariffs and subsidies, as well as the entire colonial apparatus, to benefit themselves at the expense of a higher universal opulence which would have been present in their absence. Smith’s attacks against crony-capitalism are even more remarkable when we think they were written before what we today call capitalism.

The problem with mercantile special interests is that they also have asymmetric bargaining power compared to the working poor. The merchants and manufacturers can hold out for a long time, while the working poor can hold out only for a few days at best. The masters can and do maintain exceeding low wages and poor working conditions, and manage to do so with the backing of the law. The working poor, on the other hand, work from a very young age for long hours at repetitive tasks so much so that they eventually experience a sort of “mental mutilation.”

So while it is true that Smith loudly calls for government non-interference in the economy, when that interference is dictated by cronyism and special interests, it is also true that he does not hesitate to call for government intervention to favor the working poor. Compulsory education, with possible provision for building schools, and support for public diversions are examples to offer remedies to the possible deformation or destruction of the moral imagination and judgment of the working poor. Not to mention a series of public works—mostly of infrastructure but also a ban on small denomination notes and a cap on interest rates—that would facilitate commerce and thus bring that universal opulence that benefits mostly the poor (among whom child mortality was still astonishingly high).

Even the mythical invisible hand of the elegant mathematical general equilibrium or of the promoters of laissez-faire is not to be found in Smith. Smith’s invisible hand is more of a complex evolutionary phenomenon of historical markets, embedded in a political society which co-evolve with institutions, laws, and manners. Commerce, and the competition within it, not laissez-faire, does bring about both universal opulence and freedom. Global inequality is decreasing indeed. But the pathologies are not to be ignored, as the rising inequality within the most developed countries indicates. The “science of the legislator”, rather than the actions of “that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called… politician” (page 334, citing Smith) is thus a possible solution to contain the pathologies of commercial societies while keeping them flourishing and bringing all their unintentional and unplanned benefits.

Norman’s book is a remarkable analysis that shows both the complexity of an 18th century intellectual and his relevance for today. Even more so, given that this author is not a formal Smith scholar, but a British politician. Or shall we say, a legislator?

Norman’s prose is accessible to non-specialists and offers a fairly rounded and balanced picture of Smith. Specialists will not find any ground-breaking analysis. Yet they may find the book a valuable and complete general account of the state of the literature on Smith today as well as its continuous relevance. Even if the references in the text are extremely sparse, the bibliography is rich. And given the amount of secondary literature produced even just in the last decade, Norman had to pick his battle: he focuses on books, rather than articles, probably a wise choice as the number of articles is in the thousands. A stimulating book, worth reading.

Jesse Norman. Adam Smith: Father of Economics. Basic Books, 2018.

Maria Pia Paganelli is associate professor of economics at Trinity University.

Adam Smith Knew That Empathy Is The Core Skill In Economics, And, As It Turns Out, Baseball.

/in /by

We have often emphasized that empathy is the core skill for entrepreneurs. It’s the mindset that focuses on understanding customer wants, needs and dissatisfactions from their point of view. Getting inside their heads, it’s sometimes called. Walking on their shoes. Adam Smith captured it in the Theory Of Moral Sentiments.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.

Empathy is the principle on which capitalism is based, the emotion on which the 3000% increase in standards of living that capitalism has brought us is built.

Now we find that empathy is core to baseball as well, or at least to the engine of the game, which is the pitcher on the mound and the catcher behind the plate. One of the most valuable catchers in baseball is Jeff Mathis. He is an expert at “game-calling” – “the process of determining which pitches his pitchers throw and in what location”. It’s a skill that is impossible to observe but has an enormous impact on a team’s success.

“In the catching fraternity, he is revered for being the best at what they all want to be the best at“, said Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels (who just gave Mathis a two-year, $6.25 million contract.

When asked about Mathis, pitchers talk about their trust in him. They seldom shake off his calls. How does Mathis explain his ability to generate such trust?

“It’s them knowing that you genuinely care for what’s happening to them on the mound,” Mathis said. “It’s getting to know them inside and out – their family, what they like to do, what they like to eat.”

Adam Smith couldn’t have said it better.

PHOTO: CHARLIE RIEDEL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Four Ways Capitalism Makes Us All Better People.

/in , /by

The left wants young people to believe that free market capitalism is an exploitative and corrupting system. This despite the fact that capitalism has dramatically and universally raised living standards for the economic citizens of developed countries. Today, everyone enjoys comforts and conveniences that are far more elevated than the life of kings in the past. Pshaw! says the left. Comfort is beside the point. Capitalism makes us bad people: winners and losers, exploiters and exploited in a moral war of all against all.

That argument is 400 years old, articulated by Thomas Hobbes, who got his politics right (the political class has always been immoral and exploitative and still is) but his economics wrong. We look to Adam Smith for the right economic perspective, which he achieved by combining interpersonal morality and economic self-interest, an insightful synthesis that the left still doesn’t understand, and never will. Smith shows us how capitalism ennobles human nature and makes us better people.

His starting point is that people are innately collaborative. He uses the word “sympathy” to describe the common understanding we all have of each other’s needs and wants, and the sensitivity we feel to others’ successes and disappointments. The first line of The Theory Of Moral Sentiments, although expressed in 18th Century language that sounds strange to our ears, is mind-opening:

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.

He recognizes the cynicism of the left (“How selfish soever man may be supposed”) and substitutes the happier perspective of empathy.

From the foundation of natural empathy, Smith builds, in Theory of Moral Sentiments and his later work, Wealth Of Nations, a system of moral capitalism that improves not just standards of living, but also the quality of life. There are four pillars to his argument that capitalism ennobles our nature:

  • Empathy develops a social conscience – what Smith calls “the impartial spectator, a guardian of correct individual behavior – within each of us, and capitalism universalizes the impartial spectator in the structure of the market.
  • Capitalism simultaneously develops self-command and humanity within us.
  • Capitalism nurtures virtue in people, and Smith provides plenty of examples.
  • Capitalism develops a set of general rules of conduct – the kind that F.A. Hayek later called for us all to focus on – that lead to moral activity.

Smith’s capitalism is a society of entrepreneurship, non-violence, voluntary exchange, limited government, collaboration, interconnectedness and spontaneous order. It rests on just property rights and the right to be free from aggression by other people, including other people in the guise of government. It is a society of contract, because the right of ownership includes the right to exchange, and the free market system is the sum total of all voluntary, and therefore mutually beneficial, exchanges. The only way to get ahead is by economic means: production and exchange in accordance with the needs of other people. The more value other people place on an individual’s productive activity, the greater that individual’s monetary gain. This income allows him or her to expand production and co-operate with more people in exchange. Individuals earn higher income when they are more productive to others. In capitalism, wealth is created and, once in existence, it is channeled into more of the activities that are most highly valued by society.

The opposite society, according to Smith, is the society of status. In such a society, all people are not extended equal rights. Some – including those who call themselves the State or the Government – are given superior rights, leaving all others with inferior rights. The former gain wealth by the political means.

How does capitalism produce a society of empathy, humanity and virtue? Smith explains the concept of the impartial spectator to guide us.

The impartial spectator is the creature of the entrepreneur’s greatest attribute: what Smith calls sympathy and we call empathy – the sense of fellow-feeling that gives us the ability to understand, share and respond to the needs of others. It’s a kind of imagined switching of roles. We put ourselves in the other’s case, as Smith phrases it. This sympathy has its greatest strength when it is mutual. It forms bonds between people. It gives rise to virtuous actions. It promotes the “harmony of society”.

Each of us has an impartial spectator inside. This spectator does the role-switching for us, and guides us to gain the voluntary co-operation of the other party with whom we are exchanging. Buyers and sellers come together on an agreed exchange at an agreed price such that each feels a benefit, and each feels good that the other has benefited.

The market is the sum of all participants’ evaluation of all others’ activities. It is the external impartial spectator – not the one that’s inside each one of us, but a summation 0f the empathy in all economic exchanges. The market guides us all, impartially, to the right behavior. Any intervention in this impartial guidance – by governments for example – produces disorder and prevents the impartial spectator from developing.

The impartial spectator, both internal and external, results in what Smith called “amiable virtues” such as self-command and humanity. Empathy gives rise to:

“that great discipline….: a regard to the sentiments of the real or supposed spectator of our conduct.”

Those engaged in business, says Smith, “never dare to forget for one moment the judgment which the impartial spectator would pass upon his sentiments and conduct”.

Capitalism provides the environment necessary for the development of the empathic virtues. These virtues are unique to capitalism: the system where an individual can further his or her goals by furthering the goals of others. Each exchange in the system of free voluntary markets gives benefit to both parties. The individual engaged in exchange must exercise the self-command that results in trust and respect, to enable exchange to continue into the future. Kindness is a mutual advantage, so capitalism tends to spread beneficence. Capitalism develops virtue. Virtue produces prosperity. Wealth goes to the virtuous, and others, aspiring to wealth, follow the virtuous example of the capitalist.

To read more, see this paper by Dr. Jeffery Herbener, Chairman of the Economics Department at Grove City College: An Integration of The Wealth of Nations with The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

 

 

Collaboration Has Replaced Competition In The Capitalist Lexicon. Maybe Now The Anti-Capitalists Will Come Around.

/in /by

One of the attributes of the anti-capitalist mentality is a tragic misunderstanding of the concept of competition. The enemies of capitalism describe competition as a never-ending dog-eat-dog slasher movie, in which the most vicious weaponized players utilize uncompromised tactics in destroying any entity that vies with them for market share or revenue. They see capitalism as red in tooth and claw, to quote Tennyson.

Metaphors Influence Our Beliefs And Our Behaviors.

Metaphors are important ways we shape our understanding, and they influence our behavior. The language of war becomes the language of business: Marketing Warfare was the title for a popular 1980’s business strategy book, and Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War was fashionable to quote in the 1990’s. Today, a book like Red Team tells us to refer to anyone who doesn’t think like us as The Enemy.

This kind of talk about competition is a perversion of economics. True economics is an information system in which consumers provide feedback to producers about which goods and services please them and which do not. Positive feedback results in more production of those services that please; some entrepreneurs will seek and find ways to make those services even more pleasing, at either higher quality or lower cost or, sometimes, both. This is the true form of competition.

Negative feedback tells producers that their efforts did not quite hit the mark. Consumers have found that they can fulfill their needs better via another service from another provider. They don’t buy the one that they deem inferior. Producers that are not favored by consumer acceptance have a choice of responses. Maybe they decide to shift businesses and move into a field where they can do a better job of earning consumer approval. Maybe they look for ways to further improve their current offering to ask again for consumer adoption and purchase. In any case, the negative feedback function of the consumer economy results in improvement of the consumer experience.

Entrepreneurs And Corporations Are Servants Of Consumers.

The consumer is boss. A tough boss. The consumer insists that their demands are met, otherwise they move on to an alternative offering. The successful entrepreneur is not an ogre of aggressive and vindictive market behavior. He or she is what Ludwig von Mises described as

“a servant of the consumers, bound to comply with their wishes. He cannot indulge his own whims and fancies. But his customers’ whims and fancies are for him ultimate law. He is under the necessity of adjusting his conduct to the demand of the consumers.”

Capitalism is best thought of as a system of co-ordination, bringing consumer demand and producer output into alignment. It’s a system of dynamic efficiency, using feedback to get better and better at service.

Competition Is The Wrong Metaphor For The Networked Economy.

Now that networks are the common organizational form for business, and communications across networks is becoming faster, more accurate, and more available to all, the system of dynamic efficiency is changing in significant ways.

For example, individuals will not compete for jobs (although they might still use that metaphor if they don’t refine their network strategies and skills sufficiently, and feel like they “lost” opportunities). The integration of the right people in the right jobs exercising the right skills in the right project will be a task for profile matching software, not interviewees jousting with interviewers. The profile-matching bot of a project will sort through individual profiles to find the best match and secure a new member for the project team. It’s important for individuals not to use the “compete” metaphor, but its opposite, the “uniqueness” metaphor. How do my skills and experience make me unique? How can I best communicate my uniqueness?

Similarly, commercial strategy will no longer use the metaphor of competition and fighting for market share, in constructs like “ Where To Play, How To Win”. Firms will be asking the network economy questions, “Where Do We Fit In”” and “How Can We Contribute?” They’ll find answers based on their own uniqueness in meeting the specific needs of a highly specific target audience. They won’t compete, they’ll serve. Governments call this unique service offering monopoly. Peter Thiel called it the only sane way to build a business.

Entire economic sub-systems will adopt this new metaphor and become re-shaped and rebalanced around customer-centricity. Healthcare is a great example. As consumers take more and more control of their own healthcare data, such as their own individual DNA map, and become empowered to make their own decisions about which medical services to select, the matching process will revolve more around which providers can offer for consideration the service attributes and knowledge that are most highly customized to the individual patient. The patient chooses. This is not “competition” it is collaboration between patient and provider to discover the best match of unique service to unique needs. These knowledge-mediated exchanges will happen millions and billions of times, and the healthcare service provider universe will evolve into a finely tuned community of unique (i.e. non-competitive) suppliers of customization to a unique set of patients.

We Should Adopt The Collaboration Metaphor, Based On Interpersonal Empathy.

The collaboration metaphor extends to the patient community. Patients will exchange their learning and their experiences with fellow-patients through a rating system or some similar kind of knowledge sharing. This is becoming standard practice in the platform delivery of service, knowledge, and information from amazon.com to tripadvisor.com.

Dog-eat-dog is no longer a valid metaphor for commercial rivalry to improve the customer experience. Competition is a term to be struck from the lexicon of capitalism. Collaboration is a better, and more applicable term.  It functions as a result of the most important attribute of service: empathy.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.

(Adam Smith, The Theory Of Moral Sentiments, 1759.)

 

Write for CFI