There is not a significant body of literature that proves humans are naturally greedy and not cooperative. Many prove it’s the opposite or that these traits are the result of societal influence or being deprived of basic needs
Reposted from
Stephen Fine
Capitalism embraces human nature. Socialism is idealistic.
I consider myself something of a socialist, but I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t work because of capitalism. It doesn’t work because humans seek power and dominion over each other.
I consider myself something of a socialist, but I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t work because of capitalism. It doesn’t work because humans seek power and dominion over each other.
Comments
I think this probably describes a great many philosophers and influential political thinkers.
Think about the last time you stole something. Were you motivated by greed or need?
A somewhat emergent, somewhat deliberate structure of cruelty but by no means an inevitability.
For most of agriculture phase of human history, the answer was. Who swings the biggest or the most weapons around gets to unilaterally decide.
That's not greed. It's barbarism.
For most of our species' history, the distribution of labor was fairly egalitarian
When a culture becomes competitive and loses empathy, that culture is on it's death bed. "Come together, right now!"
Science says humans cooperation and thumbs are what makes homo sapiens such a capable species.
Meanwhile Jimmy in Wisconsin thinks simping as as a selfish git in a system owned by/for the rich is hooman na-tour
It just feels like more lib/capital propaganda to keep us from fighting for something... anything... better.
That's why they keep it short and simple and repeat it over and over like a slogan
That's how they built this world
One catchy slogan/meme at a time
If it's catchy enough it self propagates through volunteers spreading the gospel
Classical conditioning is overpowered
But humans will absolutely leverage advantages they find.
Cooperation itself usually is an advantage to leverage.
But capitalism creates new more selfish levers.
We're all a bunch of fucking monkeys yall, before we grew plants and made money it was eat, art, fuck. All of em are better together you lovable rubes.
Capitalism's resilience is in embracing sociopathy and making it a requirement to "succeed," and to a lesser extent, to survive.
---Ursula K LeGuin, massive paraphrase
altruism is far more universal than greed, and the key evolutionary advantage of humans is our ability to cooperate and coordinate with complex social groups
Well if you're so into nature why don't you go abandon civilization and embrace barbarism? I must inform you that your hamburgers and soda have artificial ingredients, that your car only works through metallurgy which doesn't occur in nature...
Also, human nature is collectivism.
It is therefore reasonable to conclude that humans SHOULD die of cancer and exposure, and any effort or struggle to resist those modes goes against what nature intended.
what's left is what matters. Which society do we like better? This is an argument that capitalism appreciators rarely engage with.
But I only learned that because I crave superlative test scores like a lab rat loves food pellets.
certainly that should have staying power!