A confirmed advocate of self-interest might respond: Well, my children will just have to cope. Many adults, after all, spend down their savings to live well in the present, rather than pass along a larger legacy to their kids. This sensibility is implicit in arguments that the welfare of the living should take precedence over the state of the planet in an unknowable future.
But do Americans really believe in this radical version of selfishness? There’s considerable scholarship arguing the opposite. As my colleague Steven Pearlstein, who now teaches economics at George Mason University, argues in a chapter titled “Is Greed Good?” in a forthcoming book, we’re programmed for intergenerational fairness and generosity. Indeed, our republic was founded as a commonwealth, to protect values that were taken to be “self-evident.” Officeholders take a vow to “preserve, protect and defend” the nation.
“The only pure individualists are hermits,” argues Joshua Greene in his recent book, “Moral Tribes.” He asks: “Why should any creature be social? Why not just go it alone? The reason is that individuals can sometimes accomplish things together that they can’t accomplish by themselves. This principle has guided the evolution of life on earth from the start.”
Part of why the United States has been so successful is that Americans are not just greedy. They cooperate. They build roads and airports and cyberspace that can be shared. They provide for the common defense. As Pearlstein observes, history teaches us that societies like ours, which temper raw greed with collective values, do better than those that don’t.
When we feel a revulsion at the destruction of the past or a threat to the future, what we are really affirming is human survival.