ABSTRACT

Aware of constructive and destructive forces operating in society, eighteenth-century philosophers understood that the social utility of greed and pride depended upon: (1) proper socialisation; (2) appropriate institutions; and (3) competition within a framework of interdependence. As the scope and method of mainstream economics was reworked and narrowed down, self-interest and competition were reinterpreted. The conditions and limitations under which greed had been conceptualised as self-interest were gradually forgotten and the founding passions of self-interest dismissed.