Self-interest misunderstood

[phantom power]

It's this entirely self-serving attitude, in which executives see themselves as the value in the economy whose personal wealth the system is designed to maximize, that is so galling.
These people are not only killing the economy, they are killing their own companies with their greed. But why shouldn't they? In this culture you're considered a chump if you leave money on the table for any reason and in business there is no tomorrow.

I'll just repeat my favorite Joseph Stiglitz quote:

Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

Randism only works on the pages of a pot-boiler novel. In reality these Galtian heroes live in a world with a whole lot of other people. If they are too thick to realize that a stable society with a thriving middle class is more necessary to their survival than a quick buck to add to their already depraved level of wealth, then they aren't really masters of the universe after all.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/self-interest-misunderstood.html

[DCKit]

1. Very well put. Thanks for posting. nt

[Electric Monk]

2. +1 K&R