The French philosopher Auguste Comte is one of the “under appreciated” bad guys in intellectual history. It was Comte who coined the term altruism (which means “otherism”).
Writing about ethics, Comte said,
[The] social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth these obligations increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service…. This [“to live for others”], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are entirely.
Comte had tremendous influence on American progressives, for he was also the founder of sociology. At the time, Social Darwinists argued that society was an evolutionary process in which the most able survived and thrived. Comte believed that social scientists—sociologists—could guide the evolutionary process for the betterment of all.
As an example, Lester Ward served as the first president of the American Sociological Society. He agreed with Comte that society could actively intervene to eliminate or reduce poverty. Echoing Comte, he wrote:
To overcome [the] manifold hindrances to human progress, to check this enormous waste of resources, to calm these rhythmic billows of hyper-action and reaction, to secure the rational adaptation of means to remote ends, to prevent the natural forces from clashing with the human feelings, to make the current of physical phenomena flow in the channels of human advantage – these are some of the tasks which belong to the great art which forms the final or active department of the science of society – this, in brief, is DYNAMIC SOCIOLOGY… ” i.e., predict in order to control, such is the logical history and process of all science; and, if sociology is a science, such must be its destiny and its legitimate function.
To Ward, the natural evolution of society was too slow—society must actively seek to control and speed up that process. His means for this was a strong democratic government, which he claimed to be the only method by which individual freedom could be protected in an industrial society.
The progressives of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century embraced this interventionism as “scientific.” They believed that government planning was superior to the “anarchy” and “subjectivism” of the free market.
The conservatives of the time (as well as today) embraced altruism as eagerly as the progressives. Absent a moral defense of capitalism, they could offer nothing more than utilitarian claims that capitalism is more practical than the alternatives. But as Ayn Rand wrote, what one regards as practical depends on what one wishes to practice.
If altruism—self-sacrificial service to others—is the moral ideal, then capitalism is impractical. Capitalism is the socio-economic system that recognizes and protects the individual’s right to his own life, his own liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness. Capitalism protects the right of each individual to pursue his own self-interest.
To defend capitalism, one must reject altruism. To defend capitalism, one must defend the moral right of each individual to live for himself.