The Collectivists were right: we're not as selfish as we think

Stories of greed and ego bombard us. But a new study shows that humans are inherently good.

A study by the Common Cause Foundation, due to be published next month, reveals two transformative findings. The first is that a large majority of the 1,000 people they surveyed – 74% – identifies more strongly with unselfish values than with selfish values. This means that they are more interested in helpfulness, honesty, forgiveness and justice than in money, fame, status and power. The second is that a similar majority – 78% – believes others to be more selfish than they really are. In other words, we have made a terrible mistake about other people’s minds.

The religion of capitalism

From Work: Capitalism. Economics. Resistance

Having become merchandise themselves, workers consume merchandise to exert power the only way they can. Once there is nothing to compare it against, purchasing ceases to be a necessary evil and becomes a sacred act; in the religion of capitalism, in which financial power is equated with social value and spending is thus proof of worth, it is a form of communion. The store is the temple in which the act of buying affirms the consumer's place in society. Much of our leisure time is made up of rituals in which spending money itself is the point: it is what qualifies an activity as having a good time or going on a date.