[SteveA]

Quote by: Boetie To say that the end of social institutions is happiness, is to say that they have no common end at all.

Social institutions aren't happy or sad, in themselves. It's how they affect individuals that determines whether they are beneficial or detrimental.

Obviously many people have common goals and benefit from interacting, and that's how social institutions can benefit people, but there isn't a single form of this that will work for everyone (except a form that allows multiple social institutions to exist).

For happiness is individual, and to make happiness the object of society is to resolve society itself into the ambitions of numberless individuals, each directed towards the attainment of some personal purpose.

:)

Looks like you already "get it". Thanks

Such societies may be call Acquisitive Societies, because their whole tendency and interest and preoccupation is to promote the acqusition of wealth.

I don't think wealth describes it well. People have different goals and want to work toward different things. Some people desire more personal freedom, possibly in the form of more "free time" and manners in which to enjoy this, some desire to live according to religious principles for social or afterlife rewards, and a few likely even desire simply to be left alone and though physical sustainence or prosperity is a relatively common desire for most people (it must be to some extent, even if it's merely to assure survival), even on such a common foundation not everyone will agree how to assure this.

If a group of people desire to have others assist them, they need to offer something of value in this association. We can't force people to attend a church, nor should we think we have a right to forcibly teach other peoples children our views, or expect people to fund an endeavor we desire against their interests. If these associations are beneficial then they should stand on their own merit and attract people to this cause, not enslave people into the system.

A simplified example might to consider a hermit who prefers to live alone and live on some bare sustainance, versus a society where people can specialize and insure others against unforeseen circumstances. I agree that the people working together will likely (though nothing is guaranteed) benefit greater from their associations. The key is to realize that just because the society happens to be numerous and wield greater power, shouldn't be the motivation to force the hermit to join in this. Instead, the salespitch should be of the benefits received by being part of it. In reality we have few hermits but we do have different social institutions of which some people might support and others they are effective a social hermit with regard to. Though physically there might not be as much isolation, ideologically there might be a difference larger than a mountain range, but that doesn't mean people need to pass laws and use police to start a war. Not everyone lives on the same side of the rocky mountains but we can still get along fine.

The real reason why it's so important to allow this independence in various social realms is because there are always people that desire the power to control others, even to their detriment, and it's very easy to drift away from a society that benefits people to a society that harms people if we ignore how society affects those individuals that compose it and remove their freedom to associate in ways they feel best serves their interests (and that doesn't specifically regard wealth either, though most everyone would include this to some extent). A lot of people see specific issues and feel some people are taking advantage of others while others see the same problem but in the opposite direction, whereas the real problem is the idea that people need to be forced to interact in areas they can't agree on. (Sometimes it might be unavoidable and we need to resolve the dispute one way or the other, but most the time it's not necessary and just because 51% of the people feel one way and 49% feel the other doesn't really mean anything other than that's what a public opinion poll says. In itself it doesn't justify using police etc. to start a war over something that there's little need to fight over - that's not a beneficial aspect to society, so we need to rethink what the purpose of "society" was).