From 1ae0306a3cf2ea27f60b2d205789994d260c2cce Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Christian Grothoff Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:29:45 +0200 Subject: add i18n FSFS --- .../blog/articles/en/self-interest.html | 210 +++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 210 insertions(+) create mode 100644 talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/self-interest.html (limited to 'talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/self-interest.html') diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/self-interest.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/self-interest.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9455325 --- /dev/null +++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/self-interest.html @@ -0,0 +1,210 @@ + + +Self-Interest +- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation + + +
+

Self-Interest

+ +
by Loyd Fueston
+
+ +
+

+Is Self-Interest Sufficient to Organize a Free Economy?

+ +

+The quick answer is, “No.” And few of the better-known +theoreticians of the free-market have ever thought that self-interest +was, or even could be, sufficient to organize, or long maintain, a +free economy. Among those theoreticians, Adam Smith is often regarded +as having been the primary philosopher of self-interest. In a book +written to correct a number of misunderstandings of Smith's teachings, +we find the following summaries of Smith's view about +self-interest:

+ +

+Far from being an individualist, Smith believed it is the influence +of society that transforms people into moral beings. He thought that +people often misjudge their own self-interest. +

+ +

+Even more directly to the point:

+ +

+[Adam Smith] regarded the attempt to explain all human behavior on +the basis of self-interest as analytically misguided and morally +pernicious. [1] +

+ +

+As Adam Smith certainly realized, self-interest will be one of the +principal forces organizing economic activities in any society, but +that is as true of the most repressive or brutal society as it is of +a relatively free and open society. Most of us will not like the +results of self-interest untempered by a respect for other creatures. +As a recent example, in running their country to the disadvantage of +most Soviet citizens, the leaders of the Communist Party and of the +Soviet military and intelligence services were advancing their own +self-interests, at least as they understood or misunderstood those +interests.

+

+The advantages enjoyed by Americans over citizens of the Soviet +countries, and the advantages we still enjoy over the nominally free +citizens of Russia and other eastern European countries, are those of +a society organized to allow a high percentage of Americans to act in +such a way as to serve both their self-interest and some substantial +stock of moral principles. Not only our habits and customs, but also +our positive laws — such as those of copyright — enter +into that organization of our society, for good or bad, but not in a +morally neutral manner.

+

+Self-interest is not necessarily evil, though it can lead people to act +in morally reprehensible ways. The love of self, and the consequent +development of self-interest, is one aspect of a creature who is also +a social, and hence moral, being. Self-interest itself can serve +moral interests in a free society so long as that society has the +proper foundations. The elements of those foundations include not only +a populace sharing a substantial body of moral beliefs and habits but +also the formal political structures, positive laws, and accepted +court decisions capable of supporting both social order and personal +freedom. Once those are in place, and once they have been +internalized by the bulk of the citizens, then self-interest will +provide a fuel of sorts to keep an economy functioning effectively +without leading to immoral results on the whole. The question is +always: Is our society organized properly, in its positive laws and +in the habits we teach our children and reinforce in ourselves, so that +self-interest and moral principles do not generally come into +conflict?

+

+Those people aware of modern mathematics or of programming techniques +should appreciate the recursive, and inherently unstable, interactions +between individual morality and social structure. To oversimplify in +a useful manner: People with substantial moral beliefs organize +societies along those beliefs and those societies then begin to form +the habits and beliefs of children, immigrants, etc. according to +those same beliefs. Always, it is a messy historical process which +can be destroyed or rerouted into less desirable paths. There is +inevitably a question as to whether we are straying from a proper path +and also a question as to how robust the society is, i.e., how much +of a disturbance it would take to destroy much of what is good about that +society.

+

+Sometimes, good people will decide that something has gone wrong and +it is time to fight for a moral principle even if it becomes necessary +to sacrifice, or at least qualify, their own self-interest. In the +words of Thomas Sowell, a free-market theorist of our time:

+ +

+There are, of course, noneconomic values. Indeed, there are +only noneconomic values. Economics is not a value itself but +merely a method of trading off one value against another. If +statements about ‘noneconomic values’ (or, more +specifically, ‘social values’ or ‘human +values’) are meant to deny the inherent reality of trade-offs, +or to exempt some particular value from the trade-off process, then +such selfless ideals can be no more effectively demonstrated than by +trading off financial gains in the interest of such ideals. This is an +economic trade-off. [2] +

+ +

+In context, Professor Sowell was not arguing against those imputing +some sort of moral power to self-interest; he was instead arguing +against those who think there should be an easy path to the reform of +a society which may have a particular moral defect. Those are two +sides to the same coin — serving self-interest may put a person +in conflict with moral values and the attempt to serve moral values +may lead to some sacrifice of one's self-interest.

+

+Self-interest can be a powerful fuel for a society, at least when the +citizens of that society are well-formed individuals, but there is +no mystical or magical aspect to self-interest that guarantees moral +results. Self-interest will lead to generally moral results to the +extent that moral constraints, external but mostly internal, guide +the actions of the self-interested parties. A society with the proper +constraints does not come into existence by some act of magic, but +rather by the acts of people who are aiming at a higher purpose, whether +the preservation of liberty in the society as a whole or the +preservation of a cooperative spirit within communities of +programmers, or maybe both of those at the same time.

+
+ +
+

Footnotes

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    +
  1. Both quotes are from page 2 of “Adam Smith: In His Time and +Ours”, Jerry Z. Muller, Princeton: Princeton University Press, +1993.
    2. +
  2. From page 79 of “Knowledge & Decisions”, +Thomas Sowell, New York: Basic Books, 1980.
    3. +
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