from Tusar N. Mohapatra <tusarnmohapatra@gmail.com> date16 August 2008 19:46 subject Re: guidance
At SELF our slogan is "Be Selfish" in pure management (i.e. practical) terms. If you cling to that principle at every step of life, then there is no better self-management technique than that.
That, of course, looks simple, but isn't. As our sentiment changes within a span of 24 hours, so also it changes with every age and stage of life. Judgment failures occur as a result, and our vigil for "Self-interest" skids.
The point is, one should have a nose for what is good, and follow it doggedly.
[Two or more carbon atoms behave the same on Earth as they do anywhere else in the Universe, but two or more humans might behave differently across the same street, or within the same family. Hence treating humans as if they behave the same or even behave predictably across time and space is likely to disappoint those who postulate the same rational behaviour for them all. That is why Smith said nothing about humans as subject to the postulate of common rationality: Homo economicus is a fable agreed upon by those blind to the world and history of humans around them.
ReplyDeleteSmith said humans have the power of reasoning, which is not the same as sharing a common universal Rationality. Self-interest is far more complex than rationality. Moreover humans can only achieve their self-interests in co-operation with other self-interested humans. In the course of seeking co-operation, the self-interests of individuals are mediated by what is acceptable to both of them and that process requires mutual persuasion – or, unhappily, in its absence it invites degrees of coercion (tyranny, strikes, wars). The meaning of all self-interested inter-actions by real people within the context of moral sentiments is elaborated by Smith throughout TMS and illustrated in WN.] For New Readers of Adam Smith's Moral Sentiments and Wealth Of Nations from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy
http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2013/03/for-new-readers-of-adam-smiths-moral.html
http://selforum.blogspot.in/2013/03/five-dreams-and-five-indias.html