Selfishness, in one sense, is and always will be an integral part and a necessary part of our nature. I must take care of and provide for myself before I can do so for others. Nothing could be so topsy-turvy [as] . . . everybody caring only for somebody else, and nobody for himself. The selfishness that makes a man care for himself is right and necessary for the good of the whole; only, observe, it must be limited and checked everywhere, not only by his own moral feelings, but by the same selfishness in others, if we are to use this word—which is perhaps not very fit—to describe the care which everybody has to take of his own interests. But this useful selfishness of each man in caring for himself must not be confounded with the aggressive selfishness of those who possess power, and who would disable all others who stand in their way—be they the many or the few—by restrictions and disqualifications in order to better the position of themselves. The one selfishness is the true, right, and proper care of a man’s own interests in his own fashion; the other selfishness is the treading under foot of the rights of others because they have succeeded better than we ourselves have, and because their success is inconvenient to us. The one selfishness belongs to the system of liberty, the other to the system of socialism and all its political imitations. See clearly the difference. . . . Men are selfish and must be selfish in first caring for themselves. Restrict that selfishness by the establishment of universal rights, and it then works for the good of the world, each man doing his best for himself in his own way and according to his own faculties. Enlarge that selfishness by giving to a majority power over a minority, and it springs at once into overweening proportions, and becomes the most deadly plague of the human race. —Auberon Herbert https://theobjectivestandard/2014/06/auberon-herbert-advocate-reason-individual-rights-limited-government/
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 22:44:22 +0000
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