Market Laws, Egoism and
Love In Our Societies
All living beings kill to survive and run away from
death, struggling zealously for their survival. All
living beings defend their interests and the interests
of their relatives, many times against the interests of
other more general interests.
Our daily life – and mainly our economic life – reflects
the biological life and its laws. The market laws –
linked to competition and to daily struggle - are, in
their own way, a reproduction of the laws of biology (or
the law of the jungle, if we prefer).
And yet our societies are not jungles, though sometimes
it seems so. Our rationality (though limited), our
intelligence, and our collective and cooperative side,
give to our societies a very complex nature.
Our societies wouldn’t work just based on competition
and private interests. Without the corrections
introduced by the State, without interventions favouring
the poor, the forests or the animal life, without rules
of ethics and principles inspired in love and reason, we
wouldn’t arrive at where we are. Our societies couldn’t
exist. As Sponville says:
Who could possible believe that profit alone is
sufficient to ensure a humane society? The economy
produces wealth; we need wealth, we can never have too
much of it. But we also need justice, freedom, security,
peace, fraternity, hopes, ideals. No market can provide
these things.
André Comte-Sponville, The Little Book of Philosophy
In fact, market laws and human egoisms are extremely
dangerous for our planet and our societies. The instability
and dangerous imbalances of our world are mostly a result of
the work of the spontaneous mechanisms of market forces,
human egoism and short sighted views. And without the
reinforcement of collective love forms – solidarity,
cooperation, generosity, donation… - our future existence is
largely uncertain.
Books, Films,
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See, also:
Economic
Liberalism and Communism
Critics to the Economic
Market System
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