Author: Aphra Greenwood
Artist: Bella Marwick
Editor: Savina Hui
Capitalist systems are based on self-interested behaviour and competition between individuals to make profit. It is often assumed that an intrinsic element of human nature leads to this structure–that humans naturally compete and put their individual needs first. But are humans selfish? Arguably, self-interested behaviour is a product of our competitive societal structure, rather than a fixed, innate human quality.
Socialism as a political system is based on the fair distribution of wealth, the sharing of property, and equality. These values can be viewed collectively as prosocial behaviours, which encompass cooperation, resource sharing, and helping others–behaviour by individuals for the good of the society as a whole. Altruism, or selflessness, is a key aspect of prosocial behaviour.
Socialism is often discounted for being idealistic and unrealistic. However, psychological and human behavioural ecology studies suggest that humans are predisposed to altruism. From infancy, humans try to help each other achieve their goals, including unfamiliar new people. Even before developing speech, infants pass objects to others, or point to things that somebody else is looking for. These findings put to question the widely held narrative that from infancy, humans are fundamentally selfish and focused on their own interests. Another study found that children are intrinsically motivated to help one another due to feelings of sympathy, and external rewards do not affect how much they help each other. This contradicts the capitalist narrative of humans being selfish and reward-oriented.
Prosocial behaviour is observed in other species, such as our closest relatives, chimpanzees, but humans are more inclined to share resources, which is a particularly costly behaviour as it reduces individuals’ resources. This indicates a uniqueness to human altruism where people will make self-sacrifices for others. Humans also exhibit more altruism towards non-familial or non-genetically related members of their society, in comparison to chimpanzees. It is believed that the evolutionary mechanism behind human prosocial behaviour is feeling concerned for those we are interdependent with. As such, we want to help those in our wider social group, who depend on us and on whom we depend, instead of helping only those closely related. This underpins the ability of humans to cooperate on a large scale for the benefit of the group. An example of prosocial behaviour is the way people responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. A Russian psychosocial study found that prosocial behaviours such as volunteering, helping strangers, and following preventative measures to help the community were all associated with feelings of benevolence. This was seen across societies, where people worked together for the collective cause of preventing the spread of disease and protecting vulnerable people.
Logically, the question may arise that if humans innately behave altruistically and selflessly, why does the current capitalist system that thrives off greed and self-interest prevail? Human behaviour is plastic and people have the capacity to behave in numerous ways, despite innate tendencies. Behaviours arise from interactions between our minds, environmental circumstances, and social norms. A study in Bangladesh into the anthropology of altruism found that perceived feelings of cohesion or closeness are associated with altruism, rather than genetics or familial relationships. This indicates that we have to feel close to and trust one another in order to promote altruistic behaviour. A cross-cultural study found that prosocial behaviour develops in response to social norms. That is to say, in a society where sharing, cooperation, and helping others are normalised, these behaviours will be seen more often in children and adults. This highlights the importance of our attitudes towards human nature and whether or not we are altruistic; by shaping our beliefs and norms we can influence the level of prosocial behaviour in our society.Capitalism promotes a cynical psychology in which people are believed to be primarily self-interested and selfish. A key feature of capitalism is that it claims that alternative systems do not work. Changing the discourse around human self-interest by replacing it with encouragement of altruism and resource sharing could increase prosocial behaviour. Consequently, in a socialist political system, our social environment would assist cooperative behaviour and community success.
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