HUMAN NATURE

Whenever socialists point out that socialism will be a society wherein everybody will work to the best of their ability and take according to their needs; a society without ownership, wages or prices, we are invariably taken to task for our naivety. What about human nature? we are asked. It is human nature to be greedy. At various times we have explained our position using many illustrations from history but it is unlikely we could improve on this argument by the writer George Orwell nearly 70 years ago. "The proper answer, it seems to me, is that this argument belongs to the Stone Age. It presupposes that material goods will always be desperately scarce. ....but there is no reason for thinking that the greed for mere wealth is a permanent human characteristic. We are selfish in economic matters because we all live in terror of poverty but when a commodity is not scarce, no one tries to grab more than his fair share of it. No one tries to make a corner in air, for instance. The millionaire as well as the beggar is content with just so much air as he can breathe." (Tribune, 21 July 1944) RD