An exercise in making yourself look like an idiot.

Before I continue reading my economic textbook I really had to type out and examine this passage or my brain would have exploded in sheer astonishment.

The passage in question (remember this is an economics TEXTBOOK): "It is clear that rational self-interest is not the same as selfishness. People make personal sacrifices to help family memebers or friends, and they contribute to charities because they derive pleasure from doing so. Parents help pay for their children's education for the same reason. These self-interested, but unselfish, acts help maximize the givers' satisfaction as much as any personal purchase of goods or services. Self-interest behavior is simply behavior that enables a person to achieve personal satisfaction, however it may be derived." - Economics: Principles, Problems, and Policies Sixteenth Edition. [Italics mine.]

The only thing that's clear here is how many times the author of this passage was dropped as a baby.

Now for anyone who can't clearly see how a self-interested action is selfish, i'm going to point the use of the words self in both words to cite how a person acts. This textbook, had it clearly defined what it ment by those terms might have gotten on my good side enough to avoid criticizm, however in all seriousness I can't stand anyone trying to get by me on implicit premises. Now we don't get to what it really means by rational self-interest until it gets to the end of the statement "Self-interest behavior is simply behavior that enables a person to achieve personal satisfaction, however it may be derived." See how at the end it says and I will bold it if it is not clear "...,however it may be derived." That means any way you can derive pleasure would be self-interested. Even greedy behavior that would benefit no one else. (which is what they ment by Selfish in the first place but never told you.) Since "however it may be derived." opens up the door to every single variety of activity automatically saying it is not selfish behavior is ridiculous. We can clearly see, even by the paragraphs own admission that "People make personal sacrifices to help...because they derive pleasure..." yet when I look in my Merriam-Webster dictionary it tells me that a sacrifice is a -"Loss, Deprivation." What the paragraph tries to establish is that person may forgo a product that satisfies him...for another that satisfies him and this is unselfish behavior. Confused? Don't be. Why you ask? Well lets take a look at the authors.

1. Campbell R. McConnell - University of Nebraska

Hmm....no problems there I don't suppose.

2. Stanley L. Brue - Pacific Lutheran Univeristy

Ahh well I can't imagine why someone who is involved with christian religion would have a bias against selfishness.

That was a good impression of an idiot no?

Now in all honesty I can't be suprised if I see any other massive contradictions in the text seeing as how one of the authors has an invisible friend he swears exists and controls the universe.

If I see any other glaring abnormalities in the text i'll be sure to let you all know.