Were People More Altruistic in the Past? (3/4)
· Prof. Dr. Ömer DEMİR
The Role of Help in Balancing Work and Opportunities Embarking on a task relying solely on others to meet all your needs is only feasible for a very minimalist lifestyle. The most fundamental condition for multiple people to work together is the establishment of mutual trust. Trust is the belief that each party will react in accordance with the expectations formed by the other. This state of belie
The Role of Help in Balancing Work and Opportunities
Embarking on a task relying solely on others to meet all your needs is only feasible for a very minimalist lifestyle.
The most fundamental condition for multiple people to work together is the establishment of mutual trust. Trust is the belief that each party will react in accordance with the expectations formed by the other. This state of belief, which usually takes a long time to develop, is essential for establishing any lasting relationship. Because permanence in a relationship, even in its nascent form, carries an optimistic expectation about future events. Therefore, even in the smallest community, the family, where 'unconditional' [1] relationships are most intense, it is impossible to organize healthy intra-family production without a division of labor based on mutual trust.
When a division of labor is implemented in a work process, individuals in the chain of relationships actually 'help' each other in a 'balanced' manner by each contributing to the effort. It is not without reason that we draw attention to the concepts of *balanced* and *help*. Balance implies direct or indirect reciprocity, and help signifies short or long-term benefit. Whether the benefit is short or long-term, or direct or indirect, does not change the essence of the work but can lead to differences in perception. Creating a benefit for someone else in anticipation of a return in an uncertain future, and voluntarily contributing to a division of labor, are forms of mutual aid where the return is not guaranteed but at least expected to be positive. We say 'expected' because if there are differences in intention, expectation, and time within the work, certainty is not always achievable despite strong desire.
Let's illustrate what we want to convey with an example of two people, and others who might join them, fishing and cooking together in a camp setting. Let one person be responsible for creating small pools by diverting the stream to make fish visible and catchable, while the other gathers dry wood from the forest to start a fire, and finally, the fish are cooked. The common tasks of our campers could be catching fish together, gathering wood together, and starting the fire together. In this case, a division of labor occurs by performing different parts of the same task. If the caught fish are only enough for the daily meal of two people, there will be no problem storing them for later consumption, and these two campers will live day-to-day by doing the same tasks every day. If one or both of them get sick, or if the weather conditions do not permit fishing, they will unfortunately go hungry. To avoid going hungry when they don't go to work, they need to produce more than their daily needs and find a way to store it so it can be consumed the next day.
Now, imagine many campers set up camp side-by-side. If they all caught the same fish, only enough for themselves, and used the exact same cooking methods, there would be little opportunity for a friendly relationship of 'you give me some, and I'll give you some, let's taste each other's.' This is because friendship is a type of relationship that involves additional benefit. If one person grills and another fries, or if one prepares a raw fish menu with salt and spices, there will be a reasonable basis for exchange between neighbors because the final consumable product will be different. Or, if there is a time difference in catching and cooking the fish, that can also create a reasonable basis for exchange between neighbors. When a plate of fish is offered to a neighbor with the words, 'Ours is cooked now, yours will be ready in an hour; we'll taste yours when it's done,' there is a situation of creating additional benefit here. [2] Otherwise, everyone will cook and consume their own catch, and mutual aid will only occur within the team of campers who have divided the labor among themselves while performing the tasks. This is because there will be no surplus production to facilitate the act of helping. As we said at the beginning, there must be something to give for help.
If the neighboring camper is going to starve because they don't know how to fish, they can be 'helped' in several ways. The first way is to give them some of the caught fish. If our initial campers have enough fish to meet their own needs and also provide for the neighbor every day, giving a portion to the neighbor is a direct form of help. If the neighbor cannot fish because they don't know how, they can be taken along for a day and taught how to do it through practical training. Not asking for anything in return would be direct help. [3]
Instead of teaching the neighbor who doesn't know how to fish on their own, if they are included in the division of labor, making the two-person team a three-person team and creating a new division of labor accordingly can increase the fish harvest. Thus, instead of fishing every day, fishing every two days can be done, freeing up additional time that can be used for other purposes. Even if fishing occurs daily, the time spent fishing can be reduced due to the division of labor, creating free time for the rest of the day, or reducing the fatigue of fishing during the day, or if division of labor is also applied to other non-fishing activities, the time spent preparing meals, for example, can be further shortened. That is, three people can achieve a more effective division of labor and consequently more production than two people. Now, you might ask, what does this have to do with 'we used to be more helpful, but now we don't like helping'? Be patient, it has a lot to do with it, you'll see.
We have obtained three options in possible interactions with the neighboring camper in the adjacent tent. 1. Giving them a share from what is produced, calling it the neighbor's right. 2. Teaching them how to fish, enabling them to fend for themselves and contribute to their own sustenance. 3. Including them in the division of labor, making it a three-person fishing effort instead of a two-person effort, and cooking and eating together (those too sick, disabled, elderly, or children to participate in this process and division of labor are a separate matter).
Let's expand our example a bit with new campers. Imagine a camper setting up camp to our left, who also cannot fend for themselves in terms of fishing and cooking. Help can be provided to them just as it was to the camper on the right. If the first option is applied to both of them (giving a share from the caught fish), there might not be enough fish left for the primary producer, meaning if they give to both neighbors from what they have, our fishermen might become weakened and unable to go fishing the next day. This time, all three neighbors might go hungry. This new neighbor can also be taken along for a day to teach them how to fish, or the team can be reorganized as a four-person team. [4] With four people, there might be an opportunity for a more effective division of labor, and as before, one or more of the options of increased production, time savings, or reduced fatigue may come into play.
Let's expand the example a bit further. Imagine dozens of campers settling on both sides of us, and all of them are in the same situation. If they cannot agree on an effective production method for feeding themselves, direct aid will not be sufficient to solve the problem. Let's recall the initial definition: for help, there must be something to give.
Now we come to the critical question: Which of these three options is the most valuable? That is, should some people remain outside the production process and others directly help them (the first option), should the training and work system be spread to the base, enabling everyone to participate in production (the second option), or should individual work capabilities be combined within an effective division of labor to achieve increased production, time savings, or labor savings (obtaining the same meal with less fatigue and less time)?
When we say help, the first option often comes to mind. However, in the other options, we are also helping the neighboring camper. In the first, we give them a small share even though they do not participate in production at all. In the second, we teach them the methods and enable them to fend for themselves; in the third, we give them work and in return, they become partners in our production. It should be noted that if the latter two are not present, the first option becomes more necessary. If everyone can produce enough to meet their own needs, there will be little need for *direct aid* in terms of receiving a share without contributing to production or committing to do so. There will be more ceremonial exchanges, like 'tasting,' among neighbors who are not meeting a fundamental need.
Direct aid is the first solution that comes to mind to resolve the tension arising from unbalanced production. When indirect aid systems cannot resolve potential or actual tensions that arise between people living together, direct aid immediately comes to the forefront. However, when interpersonal tensions are resolved through indirect aid systems, the need for direct aid decreases. In fact, although somewhat complex, indirect aid processes are a better problem-solving method for reducing tensions that arise during people's coexistence. Equipping individuals to fulfill each other's tasks now or in the future with reasonable compensation, starting with meeting their current needs, and encouraging and glorifying 'unconditional help' in places where institutional structures are weak, based on the assumption that this equipment exists, is closely related to eliminating threats, especially instability, caused by inequalities. In short, it is more reasonable to expect direct aid to be an exceptional situation that arises when indirect aid processes do not function well and create problems, rather than being a part of life's routine.
To be Continued Next Week: No Community Can Be Formed Without Help; Lasting Solutions Cannot Be Created With Unconditional Aid
[1] Considering the relationships of good and bad parents or children, it can be seen that even in relationships coded as 'unconditional' within the family, there is a deep expectation of reciprocity. The long-term nature of the expectation and its not being explicitly stated does not eliminate reciprocity.
[2] Those with an economics education will immediately notice that a plate of fish cooked in the same way provides more benefit to those waiting for their meal towards the end of the meal (due to the principle of diminishing marginal utility) than to those who have just received the offering. This is because one person receives the offering at a time of high hunger need, while the other receives the same offering when they are nearing satiety. The same fish is less valuable to the latter as it satisfies a less intense hunger need.
[3] Teaching a neighboring camper to fish cannot be said to be done without any expectation of return. If they go hungry, there is always the possibility that they might steal your limited fish, or if they feel capable, they might openly conflict with you over the fish you caught. As our ancestors said, 'a hungry dog will break into a bakery'; 'if you leave them hungry, they become thieves; if you talk too much, they become insolent.' The modern political version of this is 'there is no government that an empty pot cannot overthrow.' Furthermore, the avoidance of negative feelings that would arise from witnessing your neighbor's starvation, illness, or even death, or the possibility that the neighbor you taught to fish might provide you with fish when you are sick or cannot fish, can be considered a significant return. Helping for the sake of feeling good also increases one's own well-being.
[4] Here, a constant returns to scale assumption has been made, where production can be increased by increasing the number of people. In real life, the situation may not be like this at all. Ultimately, if the stream has a reproduction rate and it is only sufficient for catching enough fish to feed one fisherman per day, this cooperation scenario collapses entirely. No one helps anyone.