The Pyramid of Self-Interest: Man at the Mercy of His Fundamental Traits

 **2003**

Adam Smith says self-interest is the fundamental force of every economic activity.

Well, this self-interestedness is as much of a fundamental property in we human beings—here I would not even be taking the trouble of making some generous exceptions for the conventional categories mentioned under such a category, and they are too well known to deserve mention specifically—who are self-centred and interested in their own way, and with even more force rather than the way of the masses, as is the force of gravitation with the Earth.

The commonest of traits, and there are many, are the defining fundamental properties of our species.

We have a hierarchically defined quotient of clinging to our surroundings, and the pyramid, starting with its base of the self, goes with diminishing levels at the upper levels.

We love first and foremost ourselves. And we need to discard any protestations against this totally justified presumption for the sake of saving time and space.

So, from across teeming billions, our liking for the self outnumbers liking for any creature, in the true sense. That forms the base of our pyramid.

The next grouping of humans from which we can contrive to hatch out our relative liking is the family.

So, from across millions of families, our care is centred on our own little den the most.

Moving further in the same manner, we like our own locality more than any other. Still further, we treat our village as the *numero uno* from across lakhs of villages in the country.

Then, for us, our state becomes the best, then the zone, then the country, then the continent, then Earth.

Given the possibility of extraterrestrial life somewhere in the universe, looking through this prism of self-interest, our gods and greeds, everything appears to stand in majestic superiority in relation to the category we have contrived to necessitate such a differential.

Thus, we deduce quite logically that all social science is natural science.

Mankind indeed may be studied, analysed like a tiny cog, a part of a precise whole, helplessly lying at the whims and fancies of scientific testing of its presumptions on the ground of reality.

But the ground of reality is very shaky.

One level of knowledge paves the way for another, while we, as clinging helplessly to our basic cravings, desires and helplessness, don't change and show the same results under testing conditions.

Thus implying that we, with our fundamental properties, are the fittest examples of the law of natural forces at work.

We are such helpless fish, fishes and toads before our fundamental traits, while the scalpels and knives of the vast panorama of our social systems, shapes, misshapes, happenings, mishappenings, luck and bad luck, try the fundamental validity of our characteristics.

We, however, remain true to our traits.