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<title>Self-Interest |
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- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> |
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<div class="article reduced-width"> |
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<h2>Self-Interest</h2> |
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|
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<address class="byline">by Loyd Fueston</address> |
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|
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<p> |
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Is Self-Interest Sufficient to Organize a Free Economy?</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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The quick answer is, “No.” And few of the better-known |
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theoreticians of the free-market have ever thought that self-interest |
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was, or even could be, sufficient to organize, or long maintain, a |
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free economy. Among those theoreticians, Adam Smith is often regarded |
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as having been the primary philosopher of self-interest. In a book |
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written to correct a number of misunderstandings of Smith's teachings, |
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we find the following summaries of Smith's view about |
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self-interest:</p> |
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|
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<blockquote><p> |
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Far from being an individualist, Smith believed it is the influence |
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of society that transforms people into moral beings. He thought that |
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people often misjudge their own self-interest. |
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</p></blockquote> |
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|
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<p> |
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Even more directly to the point:</p> |
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|
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<blockquote><p> |
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[Adam Smith] regarded the attempt to explain all human behavior on |
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the basis of self-interest as analytically misguided and morally |
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pernicious. <a href="#fn1">[1]</a> |
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</p></blockquote> |
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|
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<p> |
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As Adam Smith certainly realized, self-interest will be one of the |
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principal forces organizing economic activities in any society, but |
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that is as true of the most repressive or brutal society as it is of |
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a relatively free and open society. Most of us will not like the |
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results of self-interest untempered by a respect for other creatures. |
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As a recent example, in running their country to the disadvantage of |
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most Soviet citizens, the leaders of the Communist Party and of the |
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Soviet military and intelligence services were advancing their own |
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self-interests, at least as they understood or misunderstood those |
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interests.</p> |
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<p> |
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The advantages enjoyed by Americans over citizens of the Soviet |
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countries, and the advantages we still enjoy over the nominally free |
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citizens of Russia and other eastern European countries, are those of |
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a society organized to allow a high percentage of Americans to act in |
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such a way as to serve both their self-interest and some substantial |
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stock of moral principles. Not only our habits and customs, but also |
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our positive laws—such as those of copyright—enter |
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into that organization of our society, for good or bad, but not in a |
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morally neutral manner.</p> |
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<p> |
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Self-interest is not necessarily evil, though it can lead people to act |
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in morally reprehensible ways. The love of self, and the consequent |
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development of self-interest, is one aspect of a creature who is also |
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a social, and hence moral, being. Self-interest itself can serve |
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moral interests in a free society so long as that society has the |
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proper foundations. The elements of those foundations include not only |
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a populace sharing a substantial body of moral beliefs and habits but |
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also the formal political structures, positive laws, and accepted |
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court decisions capable of supporting both social order and personal |
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freedom. Once those are in place, and once they have been |
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internalized by the bulk of the citizens, then self-interest will |
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provide a fuel of sorts to keep an economy functioning effectively |
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without leading to immoral results on the whole. The question is |
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always: Is our society organized properly, in its positive laws and |
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in the habits we teach our children and reinforce in ourselves, so that |
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self-interest and moral principles do not generally come into |
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conflict?</p> |
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<p> |
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Those people aware of modern mathematics or of programming techniques |
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should appreciate the recursive, and inherently unstable, interactions |
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between individual morality and social structure. To oversimplify in |
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a useful manner: People with substantial moral beliefs organize |
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societies along those beliefs and those societies then begin to form |
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the habits and beliefs of children, immigrants, etc. according to |
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those same beliefs. Always, it is a messy historical process which |
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can be destroyed or rerouted into less desirable paths. There is |
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inevitably a question as to whether we are straying from a proper path |
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and also a question as to how robust the society is, i.e., how much |
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of a disturbance it would take to destroy much of what is good about that |
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society.</p> |
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<p> |
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Sometimes, good people will decide that something has gone wrong and |
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it is time to fight for a moral principle even if it becomes necessary |
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to sacrifice, or at least qualify, their own self-interest. In the |
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words of Thomas Sowell, a free-market theorist of our time:</p> |
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|
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<blockquote><p> |
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There are, of course, noneconomic values. Indeed, there are |
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<em>only</em> noneconomic values. Economics is not a value itself but |
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merely a method of trading off one value against another. If |
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statements about “noneconomic values” (or, more |
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specifically, “social values” or “human |
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values”) are meant to deny the inherent reality of trade-offs, |
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or to exempt some particular value from the trade-off process, then |
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such selfless ideals can be no more effectively demonstrated than by |
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trading off financial gains in the interest of such ideals. This is an |
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economic trade-off. <a href="#fn2">[2]</a> |
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</p></blockquote> |
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|
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<p> |
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In context, Professor Sowell was not arguing against those imputing |
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some sort of moral power to self-interest; he was instead arguing |
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against those who think there should be an easy path to the reform of |
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a society which may have a particular moral defect. Those are two |
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sides to the same coin—serving self-interest may put a person |
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in conflict with moral values and the attempt to serve moral values |
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may lead to some sacrifice of one's self-interest.</p> |
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<p> |
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Self-interest can be a powerful fuel for a society, at least when the |
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citizens of that society are well-formed individuals, but there is |
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no mystical or magical aspect to self-interest that guarantees moral |
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results. Self-interest will lead to generally moral results to the |
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extent that moral constraints, external but mostly internal, guide |
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the actions of the self-interested parties. A society with the proper |
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constraints does not come into existence by some act of magic, but |
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rather by the acts of people who are aiming at a higher purpose, whether |
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the preservation of liberty in the society as a whole or the |
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preservation of a cooperative spirit within communities of |
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programmers, or maybe both of those at the same time.</p> |
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<div class="column-limit"></div> |
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|
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<h3 class="footnote">Footnotes</h3> |
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<ol> |
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<li id="fn1">Both quotes are from page 2 of <cite>Adam Smith: In His Time and |
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Ours</cite>, Jerry Z. Muller, Princeton: Princeton University Press, |
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1993.</li> |
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<li id="fn2">From page 79 of <cite>Knowledge & Decisions</cite>, |
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Thomas Sowell, New York: Basic Books, 1980.</li> |
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</ol> |
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<p>Copyright © 1998 Loyd |
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Fueston <a href="mailto:fueston@banet.net"><fueston@banet.net></a></p> |
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<p class="unprintable">Updated: |
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$Date: 2023/05/10 10:41:16 $ |
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