Greed + Greed = Freedom + Security
Yet once again, I am drawn to discuss capitalism. As I have numerously pointed out on many previous posts, it's the market and its competitive nature that drives us, motivates us to grow and innovate. It's all very true, but why does a system based on greed and competition work rather than a system based on contentment and harmony? One answer usually elaborates on the failure of communism idealistic system, but surely, capitalism won't be justified adequately in comparison with something that it's not (communism) although that might give a precise understanding of the competitive nature of the capitalism. There are strong philosophical grounds on why capitalism works. However, let's look at the issues from the perspectives of the previous post: Greed and the question of evil. One word: "Evil"...thinking logically about it the word can only remind you of two concepts: Metaphysical evil, and the moral evil. In our discussion evil relates to the question of morals.
Previously I explained ,yet again, why Greed, never minding that it's good or evil, works in a short seed cracking anecdote. It was followed by brilliant comments too that opened up the discussion. Here, I shall assume that Greed is immoral, and thus incorporates evil at times. I don't really think it'd be hard to see why Greed is evil, and I won't get into the moral philosophy part of the discussion. For now, I'll assume that it is wrong to only think of yourself, and it's wrong to base self interest as motivator for life.
But, Greed works in our system and so I've agreed in the comments made to the previous post. But I also believe that Greed is evil. Then again, I never said capitalism is evil as a whole. So am I contradicting myself when I say capitalism is a non-evil system that is based greed. That's where the philosophy walks in.
To answer this question, Philosophers first argue that to close loose ends in the discussion of "making a good society" we may assume the evil Greed as a part of the human nature, that a Human specie will look into his(her) self-interest by his nature and must be totally free to do so. That's how he survives (for his first self-interest at primary stage is his survival). However we also have to take into account, that one human's greed will (not that it may, but it Will) sometimes cost another human's "freedom in self-interest" (this is all assuming that Humans are social beings). Now, in case our freedom is interrupted by another human's self-interest, our own freedom and self-interest would together dictate that we are to protect our lives and our possessions. But wait a second....If that's how it's going to work, won't it lead to constant state of War? Yes it does and it did. Even the oldest myths approve of that:
As soon as Adam made his family he also made Humans social beings, with interactions and good and evil emotions toward one another, and as soon as humans became social one killed the other.
So how have we survived this state of war into a functional society?
The general answer is evolution. We evolved and learned to make a society with rules. In this society we give up the "freedom to protect" to someone that we believe will protect us against other humans' greedy nature on our lives and possessions. We trade a small portion of our freedom for security, and in the process we produce, the chiefs, the kings and the governments. This authority will control greed, supervising that one only fulfills his/her self interests as long as it doesn't interfere someone else's freedoms. In return of our freedom to protect ourselves, we get the security to use the rest of our freedoms to satisfy our self-interest even more.
So as you can see, total greed is evil, and is part of us, but it can be limited to satisfy itself. It follows that a system based on greed is not an immoral system for it's merely the natural way for human survival. And yes we are surviving even now, for a thousand years from now; all of our fancy technologies may be seen merely as means survival, just as we see the discovery of fire and invention of wheel as means of survival for the primitive human.
posted by Siavash | 11:15 AM
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