opinione (that’s Italian for opinion):
Arthur Laffer speaking last month to graduates of Mercer University:
Pursuing your dream of prospering will benefit everyone . . . When I graduated from Yale University, we had a serious commencement speaker not like the one you are stuck with today. The commencement speaker was President John F. Kennedy. And the point I’m making today is the same point he made all those years ago. He said, “No American is ever made better off by pulling a fellow American down, and all of us are made better off whenever any one of us is made better off.” He concluded by using the analogy that “a rising tide raises all boats.”
Never forget or be ashamed of the fact that pursuing your own self interest furthers everyone’s interest. Without you, the poor would be poorer.
Source: online.wsj.com via BigT
This is one of the most misunderstood concepts.
First off, let me explain why it is true. In America, you can become rich by acting in your self interest and by doing so you are improving the lives of others. The reason why this is the case is because in order to become rich you have to create something that others find useful. So, by acting in your self interest you are serving your fellow man.
But this is only the case in capitalistic countries where rewards (money, power, prestige) are decided democratically in the market. If you want to donate your time and really help out the poor then you will get prestige in your neighborhood.
The reason why this concept is so misunderstood is because there have been generation after generation of young men and women brought up believing that acting in your own self interest is wrong. That, if we all just believe in the greater goodness of man, we can work together without profit and create a perfect society. Basically, each successive generation has been brought up to be more naive than the last.
People always act in their self interest. In every utopian experiment (the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Berkeley) you have everyone doing the same things that every other person does. Just in a different way. Instead of making an operating system for computers that has become as ubiquitous as air people in utopian experiments will spend their energies on kissing the butt’s of the power brokers. i.e. They act in their self interest in a way that is truly selfish.
And please, don’t insult everyone’s intelligence by saying that these systems were somehow fundamentally flawed because, well, duh. Every system created by us will always be flawed. There is no perfection attainable on this planet. But there is a constant between every system ever devised by the mind of man.
People always act in their self interest. I am writing this here not because I hate myself and would be doing something much better for myself but because I hope to change many minds.
And this is true for everyone else on this planet. Everyone acts in their self interest. The key is to create a system that maximizes the dual role of self interest: improving one’s own interests and the interests of others. And this system is capitalism. BigT
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