The Individual v. the Collective
More and more in American politics, I see an inherent struggle between the rational, self-interested individual and the self-sacrificing collective being. Both the health care debate and the mortgage meltdown provide amazing examples of this struggle.
First, in the health care debate, we can think of wasteful testing. Through out the debate, we heard numerous calls from both sides of the aisle to cut down on unnecessary, wasteful tests. The idea being that doctors are doing tests that aren’t really necessary and billing it to the individual’s insurance. The individual never realizes the cost and the doctor makes more money, this, in turn, raises premium costs. Therefore, at the macro-level everyone realizes we need to get rid of unneeded tests. But does this hold-up when we move down to the micro-level. Can an individual actually be asked to not do everything possible to help him or herself survive? For example, can we prevent women from getting mammograms until an age when the cost/benefits calculation makes sense? Probably not. The health care system is inherently suffers from a tragedy of the commons outcome.
The mortgage meltdown presents nearly the same principles. If everyone acts to maximize individual profits, the system ends up falling apart. Individual banks and bankers sought to maximize profits and ignored the effects of their actions on the larger system. This resulted in staggering profits for a while, followed by a staggering collapse of the system.
I know these aren’t new or unique thoughts, but in my view this individual v. collective problem, or social dilemmas, keep reappearing in American political culture.