Self-Interesting: Fairness And Equality Are Rational Choices

*Is it me this time? Am I the one on crazy pills?*

It seems obvious to me that wanting a State that actually treats all people fairly and equally is the rational, self-interested, choice.

But that doesn’t seem to be a majority opinion.

Most people who would even use a term like “rational self-interest” seem to think that it should involve grabbing all you can get your hands on right now.

But that only makes sense if:

you can personally get your hands on the State,
you plan to die before you experience any adverse consequences and
there’s no one else you care about who might outlive you.

That really doesn’t describe very many people.

It probably does accurately describe Trump, damn his name, and maybe a few of his richer and older cronies, but it doesn’t even cover most other folks high up in his regime.

They’re mostly too young for the second point, at least.

And the decision to support this regime makes even less sense for anyone outside the inner circle.

Only a negligible percentage of Trump, damn his name‘s supporters will ever get to personally influence much less control the State.

Almost all of them will outlive him, and given the fractious nature of his coalition it’s not likely that whatever part of his movement they support will remain in control after he’s gone.

And presumably they have people they care about?

So what rational sense does their behavior make?

Seriously, in a fair and equal State you get to live in a place where you can be confident that no one will corruptly use the mechanisms of the State to harm you and literally all you have to give up for that is your own ability to corruptly use the mechanisms of the State to harm anyone else.

That seems like an obvious choice to me even for folks with some chance of getting into real power themselves; they may get the chance to play dictator for a bit, which I guess they would enjoy while it lasts, but odds are they or their family would end hanging from a lamppost at the end. They have a chance to give up a risky shot at using the State to hurt someone for the security of knowing that no one else would be able to use the State to hurt them.

And it seems even more obvious a choice for the vast majority of people who will never actually get any chance to personally yank the levers of power. They give up nothing, since they never had a chance of achieving personal control over the State, for the knowledge that no one else can either.

How is this not a no-brainer?

You trade a low/no-probability shot an being able to use State power to harm someone else and get a certainly that no one can use State power to harm you.

I guess maybe there’s just no one I hate enough to pass up on such an obviously beneficial deal?