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To desire one's own economic advancement is comparatively reasonable; to Marx, who inherited eighteenth-century rationalist psychology from the British orthodox economists, self-enrichment seemed the natural aim of a man's political actions. But modern psychology has dived much deeper into the ocean of insanity upon which the little barque of human reason insecurely floats.
Government is alternately cast as a saint, seeking to selflessly maximize social welfare or as the villain, seeking to perpetuate and increase its power ruthlessly, as per public choice theories. Both views are caricatures of reality. Governments indeed seek to perpetuate their clout and increase it but they do so mostly in order to redistribute income and rarely for self-enrichment.
And the offerer is Life itself by virtue of its mysterious capacity for boundless and inexhaustible variability, self-enrichment and increase. The “struggle for existence” only digs the bed through which life’s stream flows, draws the guiding-line, and continually stimulates it to some fresh revelation of its wealth.
Many of these Viceroys were notably honourable men, who refrained from taking a greater share than was necessary in the financial arrangements of the New World. At the same time, the opportunities for self-enrichment during the five years' tenure of office were quite unusually numerous.
So much in exposition of the fact, that, so long as the world possessed only three of what we choose to call quarters, an executioner was an officer of state; and that, now it possesses five, the female of highest renown, and greatest power of self-enrichment, is the danseuse, or opera-dancer! Many intermediary callings have disappeared.
But, because individual worth is being threatened, the time seems to have fully come for also emphasizing man's duty to love and make the most of himself. Of late, self-care and self-enrichment, as a principle of life, have been berated and harshly condemned. Yet Christ recognized selfness as a principle most proper and praiseworthy and one to be used as the basis and measure of all moral worth.
There is, after all, nothing incompatible in the life of self-enrichment and the life of self-expenditure. They are interdependent, and rule the ancient order of gnosis and praxis. Whether we go to nature or religion or science for replenishment, we must be filled. And the ironic power which presides over our feasts compels the most inveterate egoist amongst us to share his treasures.
In short, Slossons had nothing to learn about the art of self-enrichment. Three vast motor-cars waited in front of their ancient door, and Edward Henry's hired electric vehicle was diminished to a trifle. He began by demanding the senior partner, who was denied to him by an old clerk with a face like a stone wall.
The people will say "he started in righteousness but ended in self-seeking: how can we trust our lives in his hands, if he should choose to pursue even further his love of self-enrichment?"
If those delegated to govern became autocratic, or evil-doers, or used their power for self-advancement or self-enrichment, they were speedily brought to book. The philosophy of government, then, was to make men free to go about their private business.
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