Understanding the behavior of man

The captains of our society must have a clear understanding of the behavior of man both in the short run and in the long run. For their task will have to involve guiding people to prosperity and harmony, they must understand the intrinsic philosophy of man as regards the motives for doing good and wrong such as the act of altruism, rape, terrorism or ethnic discrimination of fellow men and women. This indeed ought to be part of our educational training in a modern society.

I wish to highlight in this post the behavior of man by looking at the character to which man converges in the long run for it instructs when dealing with the challenges of theft, murder, racism, rape, terrorism and so on all of which have come to dominate our news headlines years in years out. Understanding the long run convergence of human behavior implies that society must try to get or correct this long run behavior for if man is human in the long run, then guidance that looks at man from the long run perspective will be set to achieve superior results that can self-correct or self-address the short run man.

I understand that to get to the long run man is not a matter of a generation’s time: It may not be realized within our generation but will surely be realized in the long run. Therefore, the earlier we correctly understand man’s behavior in both the long and short run, the sooner we will get to the long-run man who I am persuaded would be nicer to live with.

What are the dynamics of man in the long run? Consider the 1970s work of the Nobel Prize winning economist Thomas Schelling in his Micromotives and Macrobehavior. Thomas Schelling documented that in survey studies, US citizens reported  that they preferred to live in a mixed racial neighborhood. However, most live in a predominantly white or black neighborhood. A social planner having observed that most US citizens prefer to live in a mixed racial neighborhood would be tempted to try to make this happen only to his disappointing realization that the outcome is one that is not stable.

My professor and I looked at this problem in class early April, 2013. We considered 100 White agents which have a monotonous distribution of racial tolerance. Of these those which accepted a White to Black ratio of 1 to 2 were considered the most tolerant while those which would not like to at all leave together with Black agents were considered least tolerant. The situation can be reversed for Black agents.

Agents were allowed to immigrate and emigrate the neighborhood depending on their racial tolerance on whether the white to black (and vice versa) ratio was higher than is currently observed. Provided that Black agents or White agents are satisfied with the current racial mix, the neighborhood will attract new residents from the pertinent group. If, however, the number of residents of dissimilar race exceeds the tolerance level of the one group, some members of this group will move out of the neighborhood.

The result we found on a computer simulation is that the system dynamics will converge to a situation that is far from a mixed neighborhood scenario: An all white or all black neighborhood will emerge instead. Why? Clearly the survey reports do not directly translate to the implied diagnosis by the social planner. Only when the social planner has no clear understanding of the long run behavior of his White and Black agents will he incessantly subscribe to the wrong diagnosis of a seemingly simple but inherently complex problem.

Before you answer the question posed think about a close example of Apartheid South Africa. Like in the US, black South Africans under the Apartheid regime of South Africa were subject of racial discrimination for centuries. The bitter stories were passed on down to younger generations which created hatredness among blacks and whites in the country. But consider Tanzania. Tanzania is arguably one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. With over 120 indigenous tribes, a good population of people of Arabic and Indian origins and roughly 40% Muslims and 40% Christians; these people for over 50 years of the country’s independence have coexisted together.  This is an achievement that even many of the world’s most advanced and most civilized countries cannot come to close.

However, a close observation and one that is related to Schelling’s study is that in Tanzania it happens that people of non-African origin mostly attend their own schools and hospitals. Are they racists? There is no racism in Tanzania. Making this observation I argued in class that it is due to economic reasons. Tanzanians of non-African origins are relatively wealthier than their counterpart African Tanzanians. For this reason they like to live in better serviced houses, schools and hospitals which others cannot afford. With the establishment of these neighborhoods, new businesses emerge and the cost of living becomes more and more expensive driving those without the economic means to afford such living out of the neighborhood to locations where life is relatively more affordable. This goes on and is natural. To me, I argued, this is a more compelling explanation than that of racism or others.

What do I learn of the behavior of man in the long run? Perhaps I have to look at a Western country. Consider Germany or Switzerland. In Germany, one can virtually walk home at any time of the night unharmed even in the remotest of places, for both genders. It’s in the very rare situation that one can be attacked by strangers. It is safe to say that Germany is a safe place. Try to do the same in a peaceful small country like Tanzania or in a civilized big nation like the UK or Italy. Life will not be the same (A friend of mine who studied in the UK, for instance, tells me that he was once approached by four or five guys on his way home from a bar at night who wanted to pick up a fight with him, for no apparent reason. ). Why do we observe these clear differences in these developed and Europe’s most civilized societies?

Writing in the 1930s at the climax of the Great Depression John Maynard Keynes believed that in the short run man is solely concentrated on solving his economic problem which relates the accumulation of resources and wealth for material being and necessities of life for subsistence and this may come at the expense of his fellow man. However, in the long run man’s problem is not the economic problem but that of how to “occupy the leisure, […] live wisely and agreeably and well.” He likened man to Adam of the Garden of Eden: “For many years to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will need to do some work if he is to be contented. [He] shall do more things for [himself] than is usual with the rich today, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, [he] shall endeavor to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!”

In the long run, as seen by Keynes, to which I subscribe, man will “return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue-that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanor, and the love for money is detestable, that those walk most truly in the paths of virtue and sane wisdom who take least thought for the [to]morrow. [Man] shall once more value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful. [Man] shall honour those who can teach [him] to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well, the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.”

The future behavior of man is bright. The captains of our society must understand this and should strive to sail us fast enough to get to the long run man for our destiny is not with the short run man. And yet the “world is not Utopia. Only optimists think the world is rapidly moving toward Utopia. But […] if we manage our collective destiny properly, the human race will move toward Utopia in the future.”