A fundamental insight to be gleaned from studying aid to developing countries is that healthy institutions lead to healthy economies; countries with undeveloped or corrupt institutions invariably have struggling economies.

Even countries with prodigious supplies of natural resources do not benefit if they do not have strong institutions. Wealth is extracted, it flows to a few individuals, and then to other nations. Most citizens remain impoverished.

What sets flourishing nations apart is the mediation of wealth creation and distribution by healthy institutions. Schools, universities, government, laws, courts, banks, churches, media, families, libraries, service clubs, hospitals and neighborhoods all serve, when functioning properly, to bring people together in a common cause, protect people from exploitation, and provide opportunities for developing and exercising gifts and talents.

IIn the 1970s and 80s, institution was a bad word, especially among liberals. The movement to reform society, to make it more just, less racist and sexist, was pursued through rejection of the establishment. Traditional ways of doing things were suspect simply because they were traditional.

The modern conservative movement rose in response to the liberal reforms of those years. People like William F. Buckley and George Will advocated incremental change when needed, but not wholesale rejection of traditional forms of society. Conservatives tended to be pro-business, pro-religion, pro-family and pro-education. They supported traditional moral values: honesty, courage, faith, humility, hard work, duty and self-sacrifice.

That all changed during the past decade with the rise of the Tea Party. The Tea Party rejected traditional conservativism and replaced it with profound distrust of institutions of all forms.

The intellectual and historical underpinnings of the Tea Party movement can be found in the writings of Ayn Rand, in books like Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead and The Virtue of Selfishness. Rand criticized institutions, especially government institutions, because they restrict personal freedom. She believed society is best served by allowing individuals to pursue their own paths and not requiring them to put their own interests aside for the sake of the common good.

Rands influence on contemporary American politics is far-reaching. Prominent politicians like Rand Paul (who is named after her) and Paul Ryan shaped their early careers in light of her philosophy, and others such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and business leaders John Mackey and Mark Cuban have acknowledged her inspiration as a factor in their success.

But Rands influence is not to be measured by the number of disciples, rather it can be seen in the profound changes in attitude we are witnessing in society today.

It can be seen in the growing antipathy toward government in all its forms, in the disrespect shown toward professionals in education, journalism and health care, in the rise of conspiracy theories, in the decline in church membership and service organizations, in the antipathy toward science, in the glorification of the violent hero, in the prominence of the cynic.

But there is another, albeit smaller, movement in America today, a movement started by a contemporary of Ayn Rand named Robert Greenleaf.

In 1972, Greenleaf wrote an essay entitled The Servant as Leader in which he expressed an attitude diametrically opposed to Rands Objectivist philosophy. That essay gave rise to the Servant Leadership movement, a movement encouraging the development of individual talents not for self-interest but to serve the common good. He believed this was best done by working diligently to ensure that core institutions are healthy and ethical.

In The Institution as Servant he wrote:

This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.

Greenleaf understood that when core institutions are weakened, it creates a void filled by the cult of the personality. Instead of society working slowly and consistently to fix its problems with long-term solutions, it tends to chase after a succession of quick fixes proposed by whoever happens to be most persuasive to the masses at the time.

That is precisely the situation in which most third world countries find themselves mired; it is the situation toward which America seems to be heading.

It is unfortunate that there are no strong conservative voices in American politics today. As a result, we have no political party that seeks, first and foremost, to protect and sustain core institutions as the foundation of democracy.

But there is hope. As long as we have a critical mass of people who believe in the common good, who are willing to sacrifice some of their own interests for the sake of others, who are willing to teach others children as if they were their own, and who are willing to share their vision for positive future, there is hope for a healthy, flourishing, ethical society.

Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University. He also is a member of the Tribunes editorial board.

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Richard Kyte: Institutions can bring people together - Chippewa Herald