Beyond Self-Interest

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A provocative retelling of the workings of self-interest in market society, which claims that the world now belongs to passionates, obsessives, and fanatics: those who do things for their own sake, rather than as means to other ends. In our capitalist market society, we have come to accept that the way to get ahead is through strong will, grit and naked ambition. This belief has served us well: it has helped make our affluent societies affluent. But does the premise still hold? As Krzysztof Pelc argues in Beyond Self-Interest, this assumption no longer reflects reality. There is a limit to the returns of calculation, planning and resolve, and in a growing number of settings, this limit has been reached. The true idols of market society are those who deny their self-interest, or at least appear to do so. This was the case with 17th-century Puritans, who pursued a divinely ordained calling and yet still prospered, and 19th-century Utopian communes and their 1960s hippie successors, who turned themselves into flourishing commercial enterprises despite their anti-capitalist mindset. Today, the world's fastest-growing firms are applying these lessons, styling themselves after passionate Utopians. They are 'changing the world', 'building global communities', 'doing what they love' - anything, in fact, but seeking profit. And in doing so, they are making a killing. Drawing on three centuries of thought about commercial society, from Enlightenment thinkers to contemporary novelists, philosophers and social scientists, Beyond Self-Interest is a book to redefine how we conceive of capitalism.