| | This whole idea of "altruism" in government is full of so many ironies. The first, in my opinion, is that so many of the people who propose to practice "altruism" to the greatest degree absolutely despise the sources of their beliefs!
In The U.S.A. it was Christians who started this whole idea of pushing altruism on other people through the force of law. If the story stopped there, one might be forgiven for assuming that the great voting block of fundamentalist Christians in The U.S.A. would be solidly on the left side of the political spectrum when it comes to economic social issues. In reality, a new ideology came along that was glad to take over the Christian views toward forced altruism, but was firmly against other social views that the church was in the habit of forcing upon its neighbors. Some proponents of this new ideology, such as Karl Marx, even went so far as to say that the church must be torn down lest it stand as an authority in opposition to the ultimate power of the workers' government.
These days the church still tries to influence the law to reflect its beliefs. Somehow, though, it has mostly gotten over this idea of forced altruism. Ask most church people today, and they will tell you that yes, altruism is a great thing, but it's not really altruism if it's forced upon you, and it's not moral to force it upon anybody. That would just be socialism, and socialism is evil (because it opposes the church!). The reasons for this transformation could probably be explored in book-length arguments. In any case, the reasons probably aren't monolithic across the entire church. My best guess is that it came about as combination of two factors. One is that a self-identified enemy of the church started claiming those "forced altruistic" values, putting the church in the position of either supporting a major plank of its enemy's platform or dropping that subject. A second likely reason is that people within the church started to see the evil that arises from "forced altruism" only when other people, with values different than their own, started to push it.
So, we have this ironic situation where the Christians who first pushed "forced altruism" in The U.S.A. are the avowed political enemies of the people who are currently pushing that exact idea. However, there is a deeper irony even than that. This irony is that, according to their own sacred works, the Christians never should have been forcing altruism in the first place! A thorough study of the New Testament of the Christian Bible will not reveal a single incidence of God or Jesus or any of the saints who wrote various parts of it giving Christians any authority whatsoever over non-Christians. In fact, there are multiple warnings against such actions. The only authority over other people that Christians were given in the New Testament was the authority to regulate their own church, and that authority was limited to a stern talking to or exclusion from the church for people who refused to follow its rules.
If Christians in old Europe and in The U.S.A. had been doing their job properly over the ages, we may never have had a Karl Marx cherry-picking their ideas and bringing a newer philosophy of forced altruism to The U.S.A. in the first place. I know that most Objectivists would prefer to see the church simply cease to exist. Personally, I'd be happy if Christians would just learn from their mistakes, follow their own sacred texts, and remember that forcing their ideas on other people is not supposed to be a part of their religion.
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The other day I had a conversation with a co-worker about politics. At one point I said I don't really think it matters who wins the next election, because the real war is not being fought on that level. I explained that politics is an extension of ethics, and as long as our culture embraces altruism, you can never expect a real improvement.
