Virtuous Selfishness !

Last evening I had an interesting session on International Business. At point the professor made a statement of value judgement when he said 'Anil Ambani flies in his private jet while his investors do not'. His intonation conveyed that it was unfair on Mr.Ambani's part to fly in private jet using his investors' money. He called Mr.Ambani selfish. Understandably a majority of the class rose their voices against his value judgement and tried to defend Mr.Ambani on the ground that he has earned it. Interestingly the same set of students argued he was not selfish. Though I was among that majority I found myself out of sync with the group when they tried to establish Mr.Ambani was not selfish. I believe that Mr.Ambani is extremely selfish and this factor alone has made him what he is.

For those students who argued Ambani was not selfish, the true problem was with selfishness and not Mr.Ambani. Is selfishness sinful or is it virtuous? The society around me, my religion, education, culture, history and other components of my social life have somehow lead me to believe that selfishness is inherently sinister and one should shun that and always be 'selfless'. But I think a serious revision of this belief is needed now.

What do people meditating in cold ranges of Himalayas are actually doing?

What do people kneeling in front of a Christ Crucifixion with a rosary in hand are actually doing?

What do people living in the Mecca chanting verses from Holy Koran are actually doing?

All such people are trying to attain salvation, trying to reach the God or trying to inherit the Kingdom of God.

Are these people committing sins or virtues?

Many would say they are committing virtues of highest quality.

Are these people selfish or unselfish?

I really do not know what others would answer but I will clearly say they are extremely selfish people on the face of the earth.

But how can that be? A person who is virtuous as well as selfish. Can these two go together??

I think that virtue and selfishness are highly compatible. Probably I might sound a bit blasphemous. In fact I am not. Selfishness is the highest form of virtue. Consider a seer who is meditating on God for salvation. He is selfishness in the sense that he is working for his own salvation and not for anybody else. If anyone aspires to belong to the Kingdom of God, one has to work for that oneself. A proxy cannot do the job for anyone. Again the work that one does cannot be transferred to someone else. In short the virtues one perform for attaining salvation are non-negotiable.

Someone defined money as 'money is what money does'. Some concepts sometimes require a self-referencing definition. So, going by this logic, I can define virtue as 'virtue is what virtuous people do'. Virtuous people actually do selfish deeds and hence I can safely conclude that selfishness is virtuous. A connivance of society, religion and other vested interests have made selfishness an outcast idea and inherently leprous.

This idea of alienation of selfishness has caused untold damages to the society. "The magic of (private) property", said Arthur Young, "turns sand to gold". Selfishness is the psychological equivalent of right to private property. Robbing people of their selfishness or their right to private property are metaphysical equivalents. When a man is robbed of his right to private property, he loses the motivation to turn sand into gold. When a man is robbed of his ability to adore selfishness, he loses the motivation to act at all. Because selflessness would need everything to be offered on the altar of the society or God. The performer of the act would get nothing, meaning no right to private property. Even when a man claims the fruits of his actions as his own properties the society conveniently attaches guilt to it and render the person unable to enjoy his own fruits. Consequently men have come to look down on a fellow man's ability and productivity thus sowing seeds for a whole genre of inefficient, weak, impotent, incompetent and mediocre men. There were a few honourable exceptions to this genre. To quote Ayn Rand, "Throughout the centuries there have been men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision". Such men include many starting from Aristotle, Galileo, Darwin down to men like Bill Gates and Sergey Brin. It has been because of such men our species has been able to survive and come thus far. But what has the society done for them. Not only did they survive on their productive achievements but also disparaged them as selfish people and hated them.

Should we not teach people that selfishness is virtuous? Should we not help people to adore selfishness? When a man believes in selfishness he gains the ability to worship his abilities and to pursue productive achievement as the noblest activity. If each and every man can be selfish and achieve productivity what would happen to all the miseries shrouding this world. Obviously miseries have to descend into graves and the world would be free of miseries. It might sound a bit Utopian but it would be nice to have the world rapidly tending toward this Utopia. For this to happen we need more and more selfish men who can achieve productivity.

Selfishness is not bad. It is not inherently leprous. It is the fountainhead of motivation for the pursuit of productive achievement. It helps a man to enjoy the fruits of one's own actions. And thus reinforces motivation to act more and better. Now the world around me has robbed my selfishness. I need to reinvent selfishness in me and turn into a heroic being who in the words of Ayn Rand ' is a man with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute'.