There are some who would invert the great scale of history and praise selfishness while damning altruism. "You may disdain self-interest," the armchair individualist reasons, "but history's great atrocities were caused not by treasure hunters but by the generosity of the leader's great hordes. After all, what selfish man would throw himself into battle after battle in the name of collective greatness? We should shun the giving man, for if man were pure and selfish, there would be no great wars." Inevitably, the libertarian pontificates on the virtues of selfishness and the evils of altruism.



It seems natural, then, to extend this simple calculus to the behavior of organizations, to criticize the generosity and kindness of governments and other corporate entities. Except one could not, not because their kindness is beyond reproach, but because on the whole, a sane man could not describe their behavior as selfless.



In creating a collective whole, you do not abolish the self. Rather, you create an entity that has a capacity for selfishness that far outstrips that of any human being. It is not the absence of self, it is the birth of a greater, more malevolent self. So in the philosophical sense, the great evil is still, quite intuitively, the privileging of the self over the whole.