Evidences of egoism

Vast seas of desperate poverty in which the rich remain rich, and even get richer, as far as they can.

And give away just enough for applause, and not quite enough to be criticized.

Certainly nothing they expect to miss.

And those who give too much are condemned as no example for sensible folk.

We are, after all, a capitalist society.

Capitalism runs on "enlightened self-interest," so understood that more money is always better, and will certainly be put to your own purposes.

Of course, those purposes might be anything.

But we know those purposes are overwhelmingly egoistic, anyway non-altruistic, ignoring the interests or purposes of others so far as possible, with only a few exceptions for people very close to us, and not as leftists dreaming of a "new man" might want them to be.

And if those egoistic purposes were too much frustrated by any of the multifarious coercive measures available to society the fundamental motivation of the capitalist system would be significantly undermined.

And however true it may be that people do not choose their work, however arduous, solely with a view to the biggest paycheck some degree of exceptional cash reward above the common is in fact almost always a crucial motivating element.

Of course, an alternative to the carrot is the stick.

Not necessarily naked bayonets, but coercion, all the same.

Like so many communist societies drumming up "volunteer" labor to work in the fields, especially at harvest time, for "non-material incentives."

How exactly would that have worked, motivating Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?