https://x.com/creativededuct/status/2083518565722755552?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
"Adam Smith’s most famous sentence remains one of the clearest statements in all of social science: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” The point is simple and profound. We do not rely on the kindness of strangers to put food on the table. We rely on their self-interest. The butcher supplies meat because he profits by doing so. The baker rises early because customers will pay for bread. Their desire to improve their own condition leads them, without any central direction, to serve ours. This is the central mechanism of a market economy. Self-interest, channelled through voluntary exchange, produces cooperation on a vast scale. No one has to love their customers or share their political views. They only have to respond to incentives. The result is a system that regularly feeds, clothes, and houses millions of people who will never meet. Many on the left still struggle to accept this. Self-interest is treated as morally suspect - a form of greed that should be restrained or replaced by appeals to solidarity and collective purpose. The preference is for systems that rely on moral exhortation or state direction rather than on the everyday pursuit of personal advantage. Yet the historical record is clear: societies that suppress self-interest in the name of higher motives tend to produce shortages, stagnation, and coercion. Societies that allow people to benefit from serving others tend to produce abundance. Smith’s insight is not a celebration of selfishness. It is a recognition of reality. People are more reliable when they can improve their own lives by improving the lives of others. That simple alignment of interests remains the most powerful engine of social cooperation ever discovered."
4 comments:
It's really how it all works, from the entrepreneur to the hourly worker. Each desires to improve their lot. One does it by exchanging labor for wages, while the other does the same thing on a much grander scale. That is, each provides something someone else needs in order to gain. The inept progressive sees the entrepreneur as evil because of how much more personal gain his efforts produce, ignoring that the same option exists for anyone willing to put in the same kind of effort as the entrepreneur...willing to take the same risks that the efforts might not produce gains at all.
The latter is not avoided by any who simply take an hourly job. He must provide as well lest he lose his position. And he's providing for the very person who provided the opportunity for him in order to further his own goals. It's all the same. The progressives...as in all cases...sees only the outcome and the disparity between the two examples. Because the disparity exists, the progressives sees the one as oppressed and the other as oppressive.
But nothing happens for either without each seeking to serve their own self-interest.
This is such a simple concept, and one that is borne out time and time again, yet the morons keep ignoring the reality of how self interest benefits everyone.
Indeed. Are they just being obtuse? Do they really not see the difference between self-interest and selfishness? Does "nuance" really exist for them?
They're committed to a narrative, regardless of whether or not that narrative comports with reality.
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