Dear Editor:
We are ALL self-interested; our every decision, in private life and in politics, is guided by what is best for ourselves and our families. This is normal, expected. It’s a survival instinct. Pure self-interest concerns the basics of life: Safety, Security, Health Care, access to food, shelter, employment – the things that enable an individual to survive. But survival isn’t enough for a human being.
We are driven to thrive, to improve our conditions in life. A large part of thriving is an admission that community is vital to self-interest. Most cannot grow all their own food, create their own jobs, build their own roads, make their own shoes, provide quality medical treatment, enforce laws, and a myriad of other tasks that depend on the participation of others. Thus, self-interest cannot be strictly self-focused; this reality can be described as “Enlightened Self-Interest,” that is, each of our self-interest absolutely includes making decisions that will create the community that enables our self-interest to be fully realized.
Political ideology and party goals exaggerate differences, because contrast is how candidates and parties set themselves apart, in order to appeal to a majority of voters. In short, those seeking votes strive to determine (or to DEFINE) the self-interest of voters, and to offer voters solutions to their concerns. There are two stark ways for political parties to offer to advance people’s self-interest. The FIRST is focused on improving communities, having fair opportunity, raising people up, leaving no one behind. The SECOND seeks to divide communities, and promote the idea that self-interest requires singling out “others” to be excluded, punished, and blamed.
The standard presentation of the SECOND side is that ‘others’ are getting advantages that YOU are not getting. They’re being given money taken from YOU, and they are undeserving. You are told these ‘others’ are responsible for crime, for American decline, for your lack of opportunity. These ‘others’ are not ‘true’ Americans. They pose a danger to you and your way of life. You are told YOU will be better off if it were not for ‘advantage taking’ by the poor, those of color, foreigners, LGBTQ people, immigrants, even WOMEN. This mining of grievance depends on the worst of human traits to include misogyny, racism, and bigotry. The common denominator of these traits is FEAR.
Ultimately, of course, the goal of this approach is a VOTE.
This appeal to Pure Self-Interest through the scapegoating of others all but eliminates any recognition of Enlightened Self-Interest. It defines community as hostile and government as adversarial, rather than as essentials to an individual’s well-being. It defines any policy aimed at helping ‘others’ as, by definition, “bad” – or even “evil.” By this mindset, immigrants are criminals and racists. Women can’t be trusted to make their own reproduction decisions (or even to VOTE). Single mothers of toddlers should just “get a job.” Old folks shouldn’t depend on Social Security. That black guy is going to take your job. Gay folks should be eliminated by law from full participation in freedom and equal treatment in America. Enlightened Self-Interest becomes impossible with this approach.
The presentation of the FIRST side — the side focused on community rather than self — also identifies “others” who are keeping you down:
These are the elites, the ultra-wealthy, the potential oligarchs. This is a tougher sell to the American voter, because the FEAR the voter should have of this group being put in charge is masked by layers of long-standing assumptions. Most Americans have been brought up to admire the “successful,” and to disparage those without wealth as “losers.” In fact, the ambition of most Americans is to BE a wealthy elite, some day. These wealthy elites “look like me,” whereas it’s easy to identify the “others” who live in our communities on sight as being different. Billions of dollars in propaganda deluge us with the message: the wealthy elite should RUN things, and government should extend every advantage to the already wealthy to become EVEN MORE wealthy and powerful. At the same time, the government should be focused on blaming and punishing, scapegoating and excluding the “different.”
America has many problems, always has. But America has been advancing over these past 250 years toward being “a more perfect union” for WE, THE PEOPLE. We faced the same choice between pure self-interest and Enlightened Self-Interest at the turn of the last century, when the so-called “Robber Barons” were consolidating wealth and power in a very few hands (Money brings power, and the powerful will ALWAYS seek to increase their power over all others). Teddy Roosevelt recognized these threats to our freedoms and democracy, and implemented “Anti-Trust” laws, to place limits on the power-seeking by wealthy elites. President Eisenhower recognized the threat of concentrated wealth in the hands of wealthy elites, and he warned against a “military industrial complex.” He made the top marginal tax rate 93%. The nation thrived, and in the ‘50’s built the world’s largest middle class.
The wealthy elites are back again, demanding more money and power. We shouldn’t BLAME them … they’re doing what they think is “right.” Like Monarchs of old and modern-day dictators, they have convinced themselves that their way of doing things will be “best” for all the little people. But any fair look at history tells us that when wealthy elites grasp all POWER, the common people suffer, and suffer greatly.
In America, we still have a democratic government, able to keep the ambitions of the wealthy elites in check, if we VOTE that way. If we vote to put the wealthy elites in charge (as happened in 2024), then America abandons democracy, law and order, freedom and liberty. America will become just another nation of ‘have-nots’ being dictated to by the ‘haves,’ and our American Revolution against King George will have been finally undone, after 250 years.
Jeff Harrison
Buffalo, Texas
