Two of my always well-thought commenters, Jehu + RightSaidFred, suggest that low-ingroup focus in ethics leads to extinction. I'd like to nuance that position a bit.
The Aretae position is that which ethic is appropriate is fundamentally a question of what kind of world we live in.
Jane Jacobs suggested that folks whose job it is to protect (Military, Police, Firefighters, perhaps doctors) need one ethic, while folks whose job it is to trade stuff (Merchants, business folks) need another ethic.
Much later, Robin Hanson proposed an analagous ethical pairing: Forager/Farmer. Fundamentally, folks who are rich need a different ethic than folks who are poor. This is observable by noting that in fact folks who are rich (Rich Americans now, comparatively rich hunter/gatherers of 20,000 years ago) have very different ethics from folks who are poor (normal Americans 75 years ago, Egyptian peasants 5,000 years ago).
I will argue that it comes down to a relatively small distinction: Do we live in a world of high scarcity, and low possibility, or the opposite.
If we live in a world where survival is questionable, and where the primary questions in survival are distributive justice, because we're already awful close to our Malthusian limits....in that case, to not follow a high ingroup-morality is group-destructive.
If, on the other hand, we live in a world far removed from the malthusian limits, and the questions in life are about flourishing or wealth-creation, then a high-ingroup morality is nuts...in that case, the quality of life one experiences is significantly to substantially a question of how effectively one trades. Wealth (the mega-metric) is fundamentally a question of trading. The tighter your ingroup ethic...the less you get along with the fact that comparative advantage (interacting with folks who are unlike you, and the more unlike, the better ) is the basis of economic growth.
In different words...I am with Virginia Postrel...the fundamental dispute is not liberal-conservative....it's wealth-creation dynamism vs. wealth-maintenance stasism.
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Actually, the relevant choice of ethics is based on what your effective competition believes. The reality of scarcity, Malthus, etc is distinctly secondary to the perceptions of competing groups. In a world where pretty much everyone has libertarian or universalist/utilitarian beliefs, such beliefs can be 'optimal'. However, in a world where most of the world has ingroup loyalty prioritized highly, such is optimal. Ever hold any elective office in an environment where there are multiple parties without any single one holding a majority or anything like it where monetary goodies are at stake? I have, but only in the 1-10 million dollar a year category. Witness what happens when one group has a bloc vote agreement (i.e., ingroup loyalty) but the others just 'vote their consciences'. It's not pretty and it's an experience I wish I could give more idealistic youngsters.
Jehu,
Did you just say that the evils of redistributive government require ingroupism?
I will agree that government is a zero-sum game where who controls the thugs with guns.
As to voting blocs, last time I held elective office was in elementary school. I was 10, ran the game theory, and recruited my 5 friends to run a bloc-vote agreement, which ran the house against the rest of the class.
Shows me that political power is necessarily screwed up. And reinforces my libertarian position that power to the politicians is THE problem, not a solution to anything.
In economic situations, the situation isn't tilted the same way. Basically, the insular groups get poorer, and the more inclusive ones get richer.
Aretae,
If you want to defend yourself against other groups in the political (or military, but I'm of the opinion that politics is the continuation of war by other means) arena, yes, you need ingroup-ism. You can't compete with other groups that have it without it. You also can't get out of the game (at least presently, there have been some historical periods where a group of people who didn't like the rules and having to sully themselves with such competitions could feasibly set up shop elsewhere, and it's not inconceivable that such times might return again in the future). In such conflicts, you don't choose your side so much as your opposition chooses your side for you.
Most of the time, government is negative sum in any decision it makes, but lack of government is usually worse unless your preexisting government REALLY seriously sucked.
Economic interactions favor dealing with people not like yourself---e.g., people who want to save benefit from the trade with people who'd rather spend now. This is, of course, until the debtors decide its easier to get the government to go after their lenders.
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