Self-Interest: Vice or Virtue? L. E. Read

The honest worker is intelligent enough to see·that his self-interest is best served when he does not do to others what he would not have them do to him. No one can condemn this. The thing to condemn, it seems to me, is ignorance, not self-interest. The end to seek is enlightenment of our selves, not the promotion of altruism or selflessness in others. Imagine a world populated with selfless personsl Self-interest is too· often considered a vice. Actually it is a virtue. It is the great motivating and economizing [200 ] force in human activity. It directs our energies toward promoting and conserving those interests which we can know best and serve best. It prevents waste of resources which would otherwise result from trying to deal with problems and interests beyond our scope. Given a limited government, confined to suppressing fraud, violence, and predatory practices, self-interest serves useful social and economic purposes.

1201 J THE TALE OF A SHIRT THIS is the story of a shirt. Joe Evans, the proprietor of a clothing store in Middletown, U.S.A., has it; John Jones, a townsman, wants it. "G d . M J "00 mornIng, r. ones. "Hello, Joe. What have you got in shirts?" "What kind did you have in mind?" "Dh, something to wear around-nothing expensive." "Here's something that might be just what you're looking for." "That looks O.K. How much is it, Joe?" <'This one's $3.00, Mr. Jones." "That's pretty steep, isn't it?" "Well, shirts have gone up like everything else. We sold this same shirt before the war for $1.25." "It looks to me like someone must be making a terrific profit in the shirt business. After all, Joe, you know there isn't much cotton goes into a shirt. And as I get the story, the farmer doesn't get anywhere near $3.00 for the cotton in that shirt." "You're right, Mr. Jones. I think you might be in terested in a story I picked up the other day from a little booklet one of our shirt manufacturers sent us. It gave a [202 ] breakdown of all the costs that makeup the price of a $3.00 shirt."