self-interest.html (9077B)
1 <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> 2 <!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 --> 3 <!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html --> 4 <!--#set var="TAGS" value="thirdparty" --> 5 <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> 6 <title>Self-Interest 7 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> 8 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/self-interest.translist" --> 9 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> 10 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> 11 <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> 12 <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> 13 <div class="article reduced-width"> 14 <h2>Self-Interest</h2> 15 16 <address class="byline">by Loyd Fueston</address> 17 18 <p> 19 Is Self-Interest Sufficient to Organize a Free Economy?</p> 20 21 <p> 22 The quick answer is, “No.” And few of the better-known 23 theoreticians of the free-market have ever thought that self-interest 24 was, or even could be, sufficient to organize, or long maintain, a 25 free economy. Among those theoreticians, Adam Smith is often regarded 26 as having been the primary philosopher of self-interest. In a book 27 written to correct a number of misunderstandings of Smith's teachings, 28 we find the following summaries of Smith's view about 29 self-interest:</p> 30 31 <blockquote><p> 32 Far from being an individualist, Smith believed it is the influence 33 of society that transforms people into moral beings. He thought that 34 people often misjudge their own self-interest. 35 </p></blockquote> 36 37 <p> 38 Even more directly to the point:</p> 39 40 <blockquote><p> 41 [Adam Smith] regarded the attempt to explain all human behavior on 42 the basis of self-interest as analytically misguided and morally 43 pernicious. <a href="#fn1">[1]</a> 44 </p></blockquote> 45 46 <p> 47 As Adam Smith certainly realized, self-interest will be one of the 48 principal forces organizing economic activities in any society, but 49 that is as true of the most repressive or brutal society as it is of 50 a relatively free and open society. Most of us will not like the 51 results of self-interest untempered by a respect for other creatures. 52 As a recent example, in running their country to the disadvantage of 53 most Soviet citizens, the leaders of the Communist Party and of the 54 Soviet military and intelligence services were advancing their own 55 self-interests, at least as they understood or misunderstood those 56 interests.</p> 57 <p> 58 The advantages enjoyed by Americans over citizens of the Soviet 59 countries, and the advantages we still enjoy over the nominally free 60 citizens of Russia and other eastern European countries, are those of 61 a society organized to allow a high percentage of Americans to act in 62 such a way as to serve both their self-interest and some substantial 63 stock of moral principles. Not only our habits and customs, but also 64 our positive laws—such as those of copyright—enter 65 into that organization of our society, for good or bad, but not in a 66 morally neutral manner.</p> 67 <p> 68 Self-interest is not necessarily evil, though it can lead people to act 69 in morally reprehensible ways. The love of self, and the consequent 70 development of self-interest, is one aspect of a creature who is also 71 a social, and hence moral, being. Self-interest itself can serve 72 moral interests in a free society so long as that society has the 73 proper foundations. The elements of those foundations include not only 74 a populace sharing a substantial body of moral beliefs and habits but 75 also the formal political structures, positive laws, and accepted 76 court decisions capable of supporting both social order and personal 77 freedom. Once those are in place, and once they have been 78 internalized by the bulk of the citizens, then self-interest will 79 provide a fuel of sorts to keep an economy functioning effectively 80 without leading to immoral results on the whole. The question is 81 always: Is our society organized properly, in its positive laws and 82 in the habits we teach our children and reinforce in ourselves, so that 83 self-interest and moral principles do not generally come into 84 conflict?</p> 85 <p> 86 Those people aware of modern mathematics or of programming techniques 87 should appreciate the recursive, and inherently unstable, interactions 88 between individual morality and social structure. To oversimplify in 89 a useful manner: People with substantial moral beliefs organize 90 societies along those beliefs and those societies then begin to form 91 the habits and beliefs of children, immigrants, etc. according to 92 those same beliefs. Always, it is a messy historical process which 93 can be destroyed or rerouted into less desirable paths. There is 94 inevitably a question as to whether we are straying from a proper path 95 and also a question as to how robust the society is, i.e., how much 96 of a disturbance it would take to destroy much of what is good about that 97 society.</p> 98 <p> 99 Sometimes, good people will decide that something has gone wrong and 100 it is time to fight for a moral principle even if it becomes necessary 101 to sacrifice, or at least qualify, their own self-interest. In the 102 words of Thomas Sowell, a free-market theorist of our time:</p> 103 104 <blockquote><p> 105 There are, of course, noneconomic values. Indeed, there are 106 <em>only</em> noneconomic values. Economics is not a value itself but 107 merely a method of trading off one value against another. If 108 statements about “noneconomic values” (or, more 109 specifically, “social values” or “human 110 values”) are meant to deny the inherent reality of trade-offs, 111 or to exempt some particular value from the trade-off process, then 112 such selfless ideals can be no more effectively demonstrated than by 113 trading off financial gains in the interest of such ideals. This is an 114 economic trade-off. <a href="#fn2">[2]</a> 115 </p></blockquote> 116 117 <p> 118 In context, Professor Sowell was not arguing against those imputing 119 some sort of moral power to self-interest; he was instead arguing 120 against those who think there should be an easy path to the reform of 121 a society which may have a particular moral defect. Those are two 122 sides to the same coin—serving self-interest may put a person 123 in conflict with moral values and the attempt to serve moral values 124 may lead to some sacrifice of one's self-interest.</p> 125 <p> 126 Self-interest can be a powerful fuel for a society, at least when the 127 citizens of that society are well-formed individuals, but there is 128 no mystical or magical aspect to self-interest that guarantees moral 129 results. Self-interest will lead to generally moral results to the 130 extent that moral constraints, external but mostly internal, guide 131 the actions of the self-interested parties. A society with the proper 132 constraints does not come into existence by some act of magic, but 133 rather by the acts of people who are aiming at a higher purpose, whether 134 the preservation of liberty in the society as a whole or the 135 preservation of a cooperative spirit within communities of 136 programmers, or maybe both of those at the same time.</p> 137 <div class="column-limit"></div> 138 139 <h3 class="footnote">Footnotes</h3> 140 <ol> 141 <li id="fn1">Both quotes are from page 2 of <cite>Adam Smith: In His Time and 142 Ours</cite>, Jerry Z. Muller, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 143 1993.</li> 144 <li id="fn2">From page 79 of <cite>Knowledge & Decisions</cite>, 145 Thomas Sowell, New York: Basic Books, 1980.</li> 146 </ol> 147 </div> 148 149 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> 150 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> 151 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> 152 <div class="unprintable"> 153 154 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to 155 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. 156 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> 157 the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent 158 to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p> 159 160 <p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, 161 replace it with the translation of these two: 162 163 We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality 164 translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. 165 Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard 166 to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org"> 167 <web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p> 168 169 <p>For information on coordinating and contributing translations of 170 our web pages, see <a 171 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations 172 README</a>. --> 173 Please see the <a 174 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations 175 README</a> for information on coordinating and contributing translations 176 of this article.</p> 177 </div> 178 179 <p>Copyright © 1998 Loyd 180 Fueston <a href="mailto:fueston@banet.net"><fueston@banet.net></a></p> 181 182 <p>Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is 183 permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.</p> 184 185 <!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" --> 186 187 <p class="unprintable">Updated: 188 <!-- timestamp start --> 189 $Date: 2021/10/01 10:44:35 $ 190 <!-- timestamp end --> 191 </p> 192 </div> 193 </div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include --> 194 </body> 195 </html>