Most people assume that political idealism is a virtue. We encourage the young to be idealistic, to believe in the essential goodness of human nature. Above all, we admire those who devote their energies to a cause. A cause (in this sense) is always an altruistic goal: improving the environment, saving animals, helping the world’s poor, protecting the vulnerable. Who can possibly be against that? Our public discourse encourages idealism. We tell our children to become involved, to shake off their lethargy –in short, to have a passion for activism, to make a difference.

While idealism can often be virtuous (as when we practice charity toward the needy,) it can also be corrosive. For idealism can evince a number of vices. First, it may encourage symbolic behavior to the detriment of causally effective behavior (a topic already discussed on this venue.) All too often, it is more important to the idealist to show her commitment to the cause than to actually advance the cause.  Second, the idealist disdains self-interested behavior that can nonetheless be beneficial. To her, Adam Smith’s reminder that we have bread in our table, not because of the generosity of the baker, but because of his desire for profit, is incomprehensible. Someone who makes bread for profit cannot possibly qualify as a good person, because good intention can only be altruistic. There is no such thing, for the idealist, as an ethics of wealth creation.  And finally, the idealistic attitude is sometimes (not always) accompanied by a certain fanaticism about the cause that the idealist espouses. Because being an idealist means being emotionally committed to a cause, the idealist often has trouble considering possible objections to her proposals or (worse) to the soundness of the cause itself. The idealist tends to have a reduced capacity for rational argument and for dispassionate evaluation of the evidence. This is why many idealists are economically illiterate.