NOTE:
This article is currently unfinished.
It's tempting to imagine that, for a period of time from the start of biological evolution, selfish greed was absent. A period in which organisms went about their business, searching for resources, such as food, those happening to more often and more quickly come upon resources, and/or having some genetic advantage in that, better surviving.
DARWINISM
An organism's genetic make-up guides its morphological, thus functional, development as well as its behavioural dispositions. A process that, within its constraint, can be modulated by environmental influences even at the level of gene expression (epigenetics). The organism does not get to choose its genetic make-up as it is established at the moment of conception. Furthermore, it is unalterable and effectively unique to it and its genetically-identical sibling(s), if any.
Because of this uniqueness, a variability exists across organisms in terms of range of abilities, and the limits of those abilities (potentials), thus fitness to survive and succeed in any particular environment. If an organism survives to reproductive age and reproduces, its progeny will thereby have inherited its 'fitter' genes, thus the survival and success advantage they confer.
But absent any urge to be selfishly greedy there was thus an absence of any hostilities between any one organism and any other. Such a world, therefore, is one of competition, of winners and losers, but it's a world of passive competition.
Regardless of the temporal origin of selfish greed, many, many millions of years ago, however, the fact is that it has existed ever since.
It swept aside any passivity in competition, replacing it with active competition, the organisms then having the urge to be selfishly greedy, enjoying its tremendous advantage. Now driven to attack each other, the genetically fitter overcome their targets, at worst disabling, at best killing, them, the latter scenario additionally then presenting the victims themselves as possible sources of edible food. All of this this lessening, or extinguishing, victims' ability to find resources thus survive, meaning greater accessibility to more resources for the victors.
In order for selfish greed to play out, an organism must be able to identify itself from others. Perceived similarities and differences between organisms became the basis of in- and out-grouping, in-grouping on the basis of similarity; out-grouping on the basis of difference. Today, in the sphere of humanity, positive feelings towards others perceived similar to oneself, and negative feelings towards others perceived as different to oneself—prejudice—and its behavioural manifestation—discrimination—are all too alive and well.
Humanity has inherited this fundamental, perhaps ultimate, motivator, selfish greed, directing feeling, thought and deed.
Human beings are organisms.
Thankfully, evolution has bestowed upon us the faculties that are great consciousness—great and deep awareness and understanding of the world and universe beyond—thus intelligence, thus freewill, that great consciousness and intelligence allowing us to not only realise that choice itself exists but what choices there are, and the ability to select from them.
When thinking emerged on the evolutionary timeline, it, like selfish greed, was a game-changer. It took off because it confers a tremendous advantage to the organism with that faculty. Thinking enables the organism to solve its problems, such as how it might escape from danger or more efficiently source resources, such as food, increasing its chances of survival. But it puts rocket boosters not only under satisfying ones needs, but in the efficient servicing of one's selfish greed; how to gain more than one's immediate needs, such as from having worked out how to manipulate or trick someone.
But the default position is to passively run, unthinkingly, on one's primitive selfish greed urge as thinking takes effort.
The best hope for humanity is for people to develop a sense of self-awareness, such that one recognises one's urges to be selfishly greedy for what they are, as and when they occur. And to then choose to not act on them.
But what's wrong with selfishness and greed?
There is only one scenario in which selfishness can ever be morally acceptable, and that is in the satiation of one's needs, ie those things which are absolutely necessary to maintain one's existence. So, one is hungry and needs to eat. One takes an apple from an apple tree and eats it. This is a selfish act, since in merely securing possession for oneself of the apple, let alone in one's eating of it, one necessarily denies that apple and the eating of it to anyone else. But it is morally acceptable; one's not eating ultimately ends in one's death by starvation.
Similarly, greed can be acceptable, but only if it is unselfish. Selfish greed is the securing of resources exclusively for oneself in excess of one's needs. Unselfish greed is the securing of resources for everyone's benefit, in excess of everyone's needs. Unselfish greed is the morally acceptable way to achieve human material progress, by, for example, inventing more efficient farming methods to effect an abundance of food, or a labour-saving device, that is then made available to everyone.
Selfish greed seems like an attractive proposition—on the face of it. But it is tragically ironic. In securing resources in excess of one's needs, one denies the possibility of the exploiting, the developing of, those resources by others for everyone's—including one's own—greater benefit. Thus, one may secure for oneself the resources necessary for the development of a new treatment or cure for a particular disease—but disease being something one is just as likely to get as anyone else.
What about competitiveness?
Competitiveness seems like an attractive proposition—on the face of it. But it is tragically ironic. In competing with one another to achieve some or other goal common to them, participants necessarily hide from each other their research discoveries made along the way, pieces of the same jigsaw they're each trying to complete. This means a slower pace of progress, including by way of unnecessary duplication of effort. Instead, collaborate.
We live in a world long- and currently-dominated by selfish greed. The evidence and effects of it are everywhere. How will it develop, and how will it end?
Things are bad, and, without a change of direction, are only going to get worse.
An economic system is any system that allocates resources according to some or other criterion or criteria. Such a system may be devised and consciously implemented, or it may simply emerge as a reflection of human nature. All systems necessarily place a price tag on each resource, on each good and service. This is the first problem: there's only so much money in the pot to pay for anything at any given point in time, hindering human progress, including its pace.
Capitalism is an example of the latter type of system, selfish greed being the aspect of human nature it reflects, facilitates and encourages, but selfish greed is problematic, as described above. Capitalism overwhelmingly employs competition, but competition is problematic, as described above.
So, capitalism is Darwinian, rooted in aforementioned prehistoric, biological genetics.
Despite this, capitalism remains popular. The majority passively accept it. It's something born into and that seems to have been around forever. Others actively support and promote it, slapping down any inquiries into alternatives, about which most know nothing except for some inculcated disingenuities and the overall notion that they are all 'very bad'.
But, given that capitalism operates according to Darwinian principles, it should come as no surprise to anyone that its effects on society are also Darwinian.
The rich get richer; the poor get poorer. The more selfishly greedy one
is, and, within one's ability potential to do so, the more effort one
puts into exploiting that urge, the wealthier one becomes. And vice
versa.
Politically, the selfishly greedy occupy the right-hand side, the right wing, of the spectrum. It's the side that represents humanity's primitive, animal instincts.
| Attitudes and Behaviours | |
| Left-wing |
Right-wing |
|---|---|
| Greater state involvement in society and
economy: Greater regulation |
Lesser state involvement in society and economy; Lesser regulation |
| More sympathetic towards, and supportive of, the less able | Darwinian, eugenic. In ideological promoting of these as to how society should be, sometimes expressed as the 'natural order of things' |
| Collectivism, idea of 'society' | Individualism |
| 'Individuals should be free do as
they please as long as it is not harmful to others' |
'Individuals should be free do as they please regardless of whether or not it is harmful to others' |
| Belief in equality of opportunity for all | Opposes equality of opportunity for all; belief in different rights for different groups of people (examples: white people/people of colour; Christian/non-Christian), maximum rights usually exclusively for one's own group, one's in-group |
| Tends towards secularism | Tends towards religion |
| Religious resonance: Help thy neighbour; Poor shall inherit the Earth. Scientific view of creation, etc |
Religious resonance: Traditional, nuclear family; Sexual morality; Religious view of creation, etc |
| Tends towards negotiated resolution of disputes, co-operation | Tends towards military resolution of disputes, war |
| Might is not necessarily right | Might is right |
| Patriotism not nationalistic | Nationalistic, jingoistic; exceptionalism |
| Non-discriminatory (eg, racism, etc) | Discriminatory (eg, racism, etc) |
| Socialist | Capitalist |
Western right-wingers, especially in the USA and the UK, are currently (as of writing) exercising what seems to be a final push to permanently take over and make over their countries and the re-order the rest of the world according to their ideology. Stateside, a number of moves are being made, such as: