HINDU REINCARNATION AND LIBERTARIAN/REPUBLICAN SELF-RELIANCE

If I understand correctly, the Hindus believe in reincarnation. This isn’t as some westerners conceive of it. You can’t wish that, in your next life, you will be a star baseball pitcher. You will come back as what your karma dictates. Your karma is based on all the good and bad things you do in each life, as measured by the standards of the class into which you were born. The goal is to do well in each life so that you keep coming back in higher and higher classes. Eventually, you reach the highest class (Brahmin, I think). If you do that perfectly, you win and escape the cycle of eternal rebirths. You meld with the universe and become nothing.

If you were born into a warrior class then you are judged as a warrior. Being a great monk will not help you in that life.

A person in a lower class than you does not need pity or compassion. (S)he is where (s)he needs to be. To interfere with their life does them a disservice. They need to live the life they have, to play the hand they were dealt. Your only obligation to them is, perhaps, to throw them some coins, to give alms.

You should not be jealous or envious of those classes above you. You are where you need to be — your karma has decreed it.

Society is stable. People are where they need to be because of their own prior actions. They (and you) have no right to complain. It is all our own fault and only we can improve our lot. A single lifetime in a lower class is a short time compared to the eternity that this has been going on and compared to the eternity that it will continue.

Compare this with the Libertarian idea of Self-Reliance.

In the Libertarian ideal, it is improper for a government to take money from one person and give it to another person, especially as in welfare. It is acceptable for people to voluntarily donate to non-government organizations to help others, but it is not a function of government. If you have welfare, you will create a class of people dependent on welfare, that accept a low level of income in exchange for work. You will also create a class of criminals, the welfare cheats. If you take away their welfare benefits, you encourage them to seek meaningful work. To give them welfare, which seems compassionate, is to do them a disservice as it encourages them to stay home and collect benefits.

It is the duty of every person to be self-reliant, to be responsible for themselves. They need to work hard, put their nose to the grindstone, to lift themselves up by their bootstraps, etc., and make something of themselves. They dismiss talk of lack of a level playing field and white (or other) advantage. Here they usually say something about how they “worked hard and made my money, so they can work hard and make their own money.  They shouldn’t have my money.”

Since it is the responsibility of every person to take care of themselves and hard work always yields success, then I need not feel compassion for those less well off. In fact, for me to help them is to make them worse off. I need feel no responsibility for them.

In summary, I see an essential similarity between the Hindu reincarnation idea and the Self-Reliance ideal. Both would appeal to those with wealth, power, and status who want to protect their wealth, power, and status. Their selfishness is justified.