We are trapped in self-interest: Part 1 - Our relationships and the economy

The ideas and metanarratives of the past can help explain the present, the challenges we face, where we went astray, as well as offering lessons which can inform a vision for the future. In order to identify these patterns and lessons, however, we have to have a clear picture of the present we are trying to explain. In a sense, we need to know the question that we are trying to answer by looking backwards.?

From my limited perspective, the present when viewed isolated from its historical context, in many Western societies at least, looks and feels something like this.

A self-interested existence

Around the world, but especially in the West, we exist in a society dominated by self-interest. The individual is the core unit of existence in the modern world, unencumbered by the state, our communities, our fellow man and even our friends. In some ways, this has brought with it things which we hold sacred - our individual human rights and liberties which are all too easy to take for granted. At the same time, the focus on the individual can poison our relationships with each other. Many of our relationships with other humans, when we are encouraged to look out for ourselves and our self-interest, become transactional in nature.

From networking to friendship, it’s all too easy to ask ‘what’s in this for me?’. This stops us from interacting without a front as fully committing yourself to a relationship adds a layer of vulnerability when you think you may be manipulatable to another’s interests, or that you need to be different in order to pursue your own. In this, we lose a key aspect of our own humanity, and in how we view others. Rather than as human beings striving for connection and togetherness, we treat others with suspicion and often hostility - assuming that what others want is the rational pursuit of their own self-interest encourages us to pursue our own self-interest. It is a dehumanising way of approaching social interaction which has been valorised, taught, and reached millions via airport books including ‘How to make friends and influence people’.

This view of the human as a rational, selfish utility maximiser is not innate, it is taught. By promoting this idea, people are actively encouraged to become selfish, rational utility maximisers, or at the very least view others as such. A 2016 survey found that on average UK citizens tend more towards compassionate values than selfish values, but that they perceive others to be significantly more selfish than both themselves, and the actual UK average (although it is also possible that people have a higher view of themselves than reality). According to the survey, those with what they called a high ‘self-society gap', were less likely to vote and participate in other forms of civic activity, and were highly likely to experience feelings of cultural estrangement. This indicates that ideas and systems have been put in place to foster an idea of one another that is transactional, pulls us apart from one another, and is not necessarily reflective of our true nature.

The economic vehicle for self-interest

The economic vehicle for the maximisation of self-interest is the capitalist system. The capitalist system rests on premises of free and consenting exchange, fair markets and competition and comparative advantage. It has led to the economic liberation of many and lifted large swathes of the global population out of poverty. In a competitive system, however, there will always be winners and losers. In unfettered free market ‘laissez faire’ capitalism, as is the dominant mode under neoliberalism (capitalism on steroids), there is little to control the extent of the losses. Within countries, inequality abounds when the richest are allowed to endlessly accumulate with little in the way of redistribution.

Opportunity has been commodified when the best education can be bought meaning that not only are the poorest in society the poorest, capitalism ensures that they will stay the poorest. Narratives such as ‘The American Dream’ stoke the belief that anyone can rise to the top, but all this does is obscure the fundamental socio-economic injustices within the American system. In 2018 in the U.S. it would take those born in low-income families 5 generations to reach the mean American income. The American dream is, in reality, the American drudge.?

Capitalism is global, and therefore depends on winners and losers at the international scale. The economic success of wealthy nations has long depended on cheap labour and goods from poorer quarters of the earth. Countless interferences in places like Guatemala and Chile by the U.S., not to mention colonialism, demonstrate how it is entirely in the economic and geopolitical interests of wealthy nations in a globalised system to keep poorer nations under their economic thumb.?Wealthy nations will permit and aid ‘economic development’ as long as it does not threaten their economic position, or keeps developing nations heavily indebted to them moving forward. The tactics may become more sophisticated or hidden, but the logic remains the same.

Another big loser of the economic system of narrow interests is the environment. The pursuit of economic advantage strips everything of its inherent value and turns it into something to be exploited, until that exploitation in turn becomes a threat to economic performance. Everything else, from impact on the environment to the impact on the communities that depend on it, is simply collateral damage. Whether it be oil companies turning the Niger Delta into an oil spill, or the destruction of huge swathes of the Amazon and Indonesian rainforests, the current economic system prioritises the pursuit of narrow economic interests over everything else. In a competitive economic system, depending on the ‘opponent’, the pursuit of self-interest is collectivised at the level of the corporation, the investor, the nation, and the global economic system.?

We are trapped in a myth that the current capitalist system is the only system that ensures our economic freedom. In its laissez-faire form, it is anything but a level playing field. It is capable only of socialised losses and privatised gains. Sure, capitalism creates a big economic pie, but only very few get a slice. The system gives those at the top all of the tools to maintain and entrench their position via both economic (for example the inadequacies of competition law allowing for tech behemoths to emerge) and political means (tying politicians to your campaign finance purse strings), whilst trapping billions at the bottom with no means to climb. This is the nature of global neoliberal capitalism, and it looks nothing like the economic liberty, opportunity and emancipation advertised on neoliberalism’s billboard. Instead, it guarantees ever deepening inequality and ever-worsening environmental crises. There is no end goal of capitalism where we reach levels of prosperity that we no longer need growth and accumulation, or that we no longer need to work so hard.

Capitalism has and will always invent new mechanisms and imperatives to ensure that people and planet serve the generation of capital for capital’s sake. In the face of mounting problems, and an increasing awareness of the role capitalism has had to play in their creation, the division sown by those served by the system - corporations, investors, high net worth individuals, politicians, governments and more - will become more aggressive, and the tactics it uses to maintain its survival will become more creative, diverse and violent. Any suggestion of an alternative which would threaten this big pie and those who consume it is given the oversimplification and fear-mongering treatment. Those who promote alternatives are often painted as communists who threaten your freedom or fantasists who do not understand political and economic realities (according to those who created it). This is just one method. Those benefiting from our prevailing economic system will not allow dissent, and have an entire toolbox to ensure it survives or evolves in a manner which is only minimally removed from the current status quo (see my piece on sustainable finance).

Under the current status quo, our relationships to each other are transactionalised within the wider context of a competitive economic system which promotes a “winner takes all mentality” regardless of the costs.

In the next piece, I will continue this examination of the present as I see it, looking at the political systems which promote and protect the pursuit of self-interest, as well as the contradictory role that populism plays in effectively maintaining the status quo.