Private Interests and Social Welfare

The human civilisation is composed of innumerable individuals, countless interest groups and social strata, with each of them following the fundamental instinct – striving to maximise their own well-being by obtaining as many benefits as they can and averting as much cost as possible. Unfortunately for humankind, for one to improve one’s life, competing with others is unavoidable. Competitions, by definition, means the winners get something at the expense of others. The good news is that competition among people is not a constant-sum game, that is to say, theoretically, if we can reallocate resources, rights and duties in a certain way, the humankind may benefit maximally. In the most ideal case, the self-interest of each individual and the collective welfare should not outbalance each other. This essay will discuss the thoughts of three of the great thinkers on this matter.

Focus of analysis

Consulting works by Huang Zongxi, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith, the essay will analyse this problem from two perspectives, namely (1) the political problem of multiple identities, and (2) the economic problem of goods allocation.

In the first part of the essay, we want to investigate a dilemma faced by the heads of a state that they have both the duty to the state as the ruler and the desire to make a better living as a human being. We would like to have a method to ensure the integrity of the rulers so as to reduce the likelihood of the rulers’ self-interest jeopardising the collective welfare, and to reasonably compensate the rulers for their effort.

In the second part of the essay, we will discuss the more general economic problem, namely how to allocate rights, duties, resources and wealth in order to maximise overall soc...

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... given that fraud and deception are prohibited, free trades among people, which root from private interest, do facilitate the reallocation of goods and resources in an economy. The outcome of a free market, after all, promotes the social welfare.

Works Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Social responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits,” The New York Times Magazine. 13 September 1970. Available from http://www.umich.edu/~thecore/doc/Friedman.pdf

Rousseau, Jean-Jacque. The Social Contract. Tr. G.D.H. Cole. Accessed 15 July, 2011. Available from http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm

Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nation. Accessed 15 July, 2011. Available from http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/index.htm

黃宗羲，《明夷待訪錄》。取於2010年7月15日。取自 http://lib.jmu.edu.cn/departments2/magazine/philosophyol/index-37.html