Over-looked and Forgotten: Enlightened Self-Interest
Humility and benevolence must take place of pride and overweening selfishness. Reason, rising above these mists, will then discover to us, that we cannot be true to ourselves, without being true to others – that to love our neighbors as ourselves, is to love ourselves in the best manner – that to give, is to gain – and, that we never consult our own happiness more effectually, than when we most endeavor to correspond with the divine designs, by communicating happiness, as much as we can, to our fellow creatures. Inestimable truth! sufficient …Â to melt tyrants into men, and to soothe the inflamed minds of a multitude into mildness – Inestimable truth! which our Maker in his providence, enables us, not only to talk and write about, but to adopt in practice of vast extent, and of instructive example. - John Dickinson as “Fabius,” 1788, as found in “Friends of the Constitution: Writings of the ‘Other’ Federalists 1787-1788.”
Liberty Letters Comment: The revisionist historians, economists, and political scientists of the twenty and twenty-first centuries, inspired by the likes of Marx, Lenin, and Mao, have often repeated the theory that the American revolution and the free enterprise system were just about self-interest, not about high principle, self-sacrifice, and faith in God. Maybe they need to go back and examine the record and find out what was meant by self-interest in that era. If they were honest, they might learn something. We all might learn something.
Liberty Letters editor Steve Farrell is a pundit with America's Newspage, Newsmax.com, associate professor of political economy at George Wythe College, and the author of the highly praised inspirational novel, "Dark Rose." | More from Steve Farrell
Stumble It!
