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The Difference Between Enlightened Self-Interest and Egoism According to Adam Smith.
What is enlightened self-interest?
Adam Smith's book, The Wealth of Nations. Did Adam Smith advocate self-interest or self-interest? Here is his quote: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their consulting their own interest."
If you want to understand Adam Smith, you must understand what he wrote in both The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith was a moral philosopher of the Enlightenment, and his thinking was influenced by the idealism of classical philosophy. For example, Plato's study of human motivation. Plato argued against the following idea, which many people believe today: "For all men believe in their hearts, that injustice is much more profitable to a man than justice." (Plato, Republic, 360 BCE)
Similarly, Smith believed that people should act morally even when pursuing their own interests. This is different from selfishness, rather it is enlightened selfishness. This is the difference and the argument in favor of capitalism.
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The purpose of this post is to look at Adam Smith and "self-interest" but to look at it in a way that no one else on the internet has because everyone says "yeah, Adam Smith's capitalism is very much about self-interest and self-interest" then they just regurgitate the same information over and over again. But really, what is Adam Smith's self-interest and what does it really mean, what is the difference between enlightened self-interest and selfishness? Adam Smith has a famous quote that says that we expect our dinner not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, but from their regard for their own interests. This Adam Smith and his famous quote, what everyone is saying is that we should all act in accordance with our own self-interest because society as a whole will benefit from capitalism etc. etc. blah blah blah. What it's really saying is that you shouldn't be selfish, it's saying that you should engage in activities that you believe are good for you and that you enjoy, but that will also benefit society as a whole. To understand that, we have to go back, way back, we have to go back to Socrates and Plato, because Adam Smith was a moral philosopher, a classical philosopher, and his understanding of the world was not based on our understanding of the world. Plato had a very interesting story, a myth, and Gyges, about how if you put a ring on your finger, you can disappear. And the reason that the philosopher created that story, that metaphor, is because of a famous quote from the Republic from 360 BCE, which says that all men believe that injustice is much more profitable than a man who acts justly. I mean, intuitively, don't you believe a little bit that it is more profitable to be a man who lies and cheats and steals for his own benefit? And so Plato disagrees with that, he created a myth that if you put on this ring, you will become invisible, you can do anything in the world without suffering the consequences. Rob a bank? You can rob a bank if you put the ring on your finger, and no one will ever know that you did it. But ultimately the person who uses this ring to abuse the power of the ring will be enslaved to his base appetites, and the one who remains virtuous will be happy, because the just and good person does the same things and does the same things with or without the ring. And so we already have the idea of Justice, and Thomas Aquinas, who studied economics, was also interested in the idea of a just society. We don't strive for an equal society or a completely free libertarian society, we study a just society and strive for that. And Adam Smith understood this in his book, The Wealth of Nations, which is about economics in free trade under capitalism. However, he wrote another book that he kept coming back to throughout his life called The Theory of Moral Sentiments and it was a discussion of what it means to be a moral person in our society and if you take the Adam Smith quote about self-interest in the context of all of his writings, he was not talking about self-interest as in egoism, he was talking about enlightened self-interest, he was an Enlightenment philosopher, that is the core and essence of his philosophy. Ayn Rand, the philosopher of the last century, a nihilist who had an aversion to Thomas Aquinas and classical economists and classical philosophy, also promoted the virtue of selfishness and her followers, who treated her work almost like a biblical text, loved to quote her and got a lot of pleasure from feeling right. But these concepts were in stark contrast to Adam Smith's understanding of enlightened self-interest. For example, I'm not going to chop down the last tree in the world to eat one more cheeseburger because that's an unenlightened act. And many people may argue that such a thing doesn't exist in "truth lists," but I believe it does because our actions define us. Whether we sell tobacco products or make X-rated adult films that can be profitable and legal, or whether we sell it on the Internet. Or we will create a school to help children, we will coach chess players, we will create gaming apps - these activities also define us. I am not going to do the first activities, because it is not enlightening, it does not help society as a whole. So the question is why do you do certain actions and what are these actions, self-interest. Adam Smith's enlightened self-interest raises society to a higher level and people benefit in ways that governments, social engineers, philosophers could never imagine. And that is the difference between selfishness and enlightened self-interest. And when you hear criticism of capitalism, "oh, you know Adam Smith, his self-interest is all selfishness and it is ruinous, it is destructive of virtue and opposed to morality," remember The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations and what Adam Smith meant, that is the hostility to selfishness and the glory of enlightened selfishness.
Адам Смит - шотландский экономист и философ-этик, один из основоположников экономической теории как науки. Считается основателем классической политэкономии.
Главный труд "отца" классической политической экономии Адама Смита, завершенный им более 230 лет назад, "Исследование о природе и причинах богатства народов".
Теория невидимой руки рынка, государство как ночной сторож - все это "Богатство народов".
Книга "Теория нравственных чувств" помогает переосмыслить природу человеческих отношений и наделяет скептицизмом в отношении утверждения, что мораль - это "просто культурная конструкция", которую можно сбрасывать со счетов или произвольно формировать для каждого отдельного человека по-разному.
Весьма познавательно читать о человеке системы (коими мы все являемся) и насколько это актуально для сегодняшней политики, экономики и просто обыденной жизни людей нашего социума. Для того чтобы понять гений Адама Смита я настоятельно рекомендую прочесть произведение.
Платон - великий древнегреческий философ, ученик Сократа и учитель Аристотеля. Каждый кто увлекается или изучает философию обязан прочитать труды Платона.
Государство - очень полезно знать именно это его творение. Много прозрений, живой язык, впечатляющие образы. Содержание книги прошло сквозь несколько тысячелетий и осталось актуальным и поныне.
Государство - одно из величайших сочинений древнегреческого мыслителя Платона, написанное в 360 году до н.э., по сию пору не утратившее крайней актуальности. Сочинение выстроено по принципу бесед, посвященных проблемам устройства идеального государства.
Фома Аквинский - итальянский теолог и философ. Истина едина, вера и разум не могут противоречить друг другу. Величайший мыслитель, который внёс свой вклад в развитие мысли о философии.
Айн Рэнд - писательница и философ, создательница философии объективизма, основанная на принципах разума, индивидуализма и разумного эгоизма. Очень сильные книги, оставляющие под впечатлением и меняющие мировоззрение.
We appeal not to their humanity but to their selfishness, and we never speak to them of our own needs but of their advantages.
Adam Smith was an economist by any standard. He was also a moral philosopher. He believed in free trade and unrestricted markets, that the role of government was to educate and enforce the law, not to control the economy, because the invisible hand would carry out economic actions more efficiently than central government planning by bureaucrats.
As for literature, it is very difficult to know what Adam Smith actually read because this was several hundred years ago and he was a rather private man. In fact, even his religious views are debatable. On the one hand, he considered confession of faith to be a prerequisite, but on the other hand, he was part of the Scottish Enlightenment, which had the idea of deism or even unbelief. What is known is that he studied moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow and there is no way he could have studied Plato at that time. Nowadays, if you are a philosophy major, you might think that Plato is standard reading. Even if by chance Adam Smith did not read Plato directly, his ideas influenced him. There is an element of speculation on my part, since historians do not have all the facts, but I am quite sure that Adam Smith, with his enlightenment ideals and classical education, believed, as stated in the article, that people are naturally good and born free, and will act in their enlightened interests, which will lead society as a whole to a higher level.
Many people think that Adam Smith's version of capitalism is one-dimensional, but if you read about it in the table of contents of this work, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," you will get a broader and clearer picture of Adam Smith's invisible hand of economics. Each does what is in his own interest. This is enlightenment, which benefits society as a whole. Prosperity then comes to the individual, and then spreads to society.
We are all motivated by self-interest, doing things that do not harm others, and sincerely trying to help others through the marketplace. I may not be a saint, but rather, through my efforts and labor, I create something of value that others get satisfaction from without harming others. In my labor and creative process, I think about how I can serve humanity, because if I do, they will reward me with money in the marketplace when I meet the demand. Of course, people can make money in unscrupulous ways. That is pure self-interest, not enlightened self-interest. Smith talked about enlightened self-interest, interest that benefits others through the marketplace, and that reward was called profit. If I make something good that people demand, then there will be a reward. Times have changed a little, but I still believe that all people refer to others when they make choices, like part of a clockwork device.
Why would you do a job if you don't feel like you are helping others and getting some sense of significance in relation to others? Humans are not one-dimensional creatures. Sometimes we do need to "work", but most people find their way in this life and find a "job", not "hard work", that fits their value system and their worldview. Since humans are inherently good, most people solve this dilemma of scarcity in a way that is good for them and for others. For example, you work as a teacher. However, you could use your brain to make money in ways that benefited not the common good but only you, and that would be much more profitable. But you are not going to do that. Most people meet other people's needs in a positive way, not a negative way. Work is not the meaning of life. However, helping others and yourself in a free market where people choose their work is better than in a society where you have no free choice. In some ways, work and scarcity make us reflect on ourselves and strive to be humbler and better people.
Smith was a moral philosopher, and if you read The Wealth of Nations and his Theory of Moral Sentiments, you will understand his point. Every person makes an action or choice towards another, unless they are sociopaths. Read, for example, Part I, Section I, Chapter III: "How We Judge of the Propriety or Impropriety of Other People's Feelings, by Their Concordance or Disconcordance with Our Own" in his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Or Part I, Section II, Chapter V: "Of the Selfish Passions." Economic incentives are part of human motives and actions, but they are not the only incentive that moves people. People are more complex. Adam Smith's unintended consequences of individual actions are generally not based on sociopathic greed, but on people rationally pursuing their own interests over others.
If people are given freedom, they will do things that benefit not only themselves but others as well. I believe that people are inherently good. There will always be exceptions, but generally, when people are given freedom, they will act in their own self-interest over others, and the overall outcome is better. I believe that genes are programmed this way, and there is genetic evidence to support this. In fact, it makes sense: if genes did not consider the whole, then humanity and genes would not survive. Thus, through evolution, altruism and innate goodness are programmed. Humanity evolves along with its consciousness, although there are many exceptions, overall the world becomes a more peaceful, richer, and better place because when people are given freedom, they will act in their own self-interest, which extends to others, and make a positive contribution and enlightenment to society.
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Publication in Russian on the Zen blog
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