Are humans too greedy for a socialist society?

People work together all the time under capitalism

Socialists want a completely different society from the one we have now. We want one free from oppression and violence—and based on equality and freedom.

But are people too selfish for such a system? For most people, most of the time, survival depends on competing for jobs, for somewhere to live and for services.

Surviving is seen as our individual responsibility. It is easy to feel that we have no choice but to put ourselves and our families first.

Huge material rewards go to the small group who use the system to profit. They are not rewarded for being kind or unselfish. On the contrary, they exploit the labour of others to enrich themselves.

Capitalism rewards the most ruthless people. But this doesn’t mean that humans are naturally selfish.

Enlightenment philosophers rejected religious ideas of original sin and believed in the “perfectibility” of human nature. But these dreams of progress were not fulfilled. Instead, burgeoning capitalism privileged the ruthless.

Other explanations for the way we act look to biology, specifically our genes.

But behaviour is based on dynamic interactions between humans, their environments, and their social and economic circumstances. And all these things constantly change.

To live, we need air, food and water, clothing, shelter and warmth. Throughout history, we have found ways of working together collectively to meet our needs. And this drives change.

As Karl Marx remarks, “Hunger is hunger. But the hunger gratified by cooked meat eaten with a knife and fork is a different hunger from that which bolts down raw meat with the aid of nail, hand and tooth.”

We may feel like individuals, with unique interests and needs, but, as Marx explained, “The individual is the social being.”

Humans cannot survive as individuals. To live we must collaborate with others.

Labour changes the world, and it changes the labourer too. It “awakens their slumbering powers”. As we transform our environments and develop new technologies, we transform ourselves and the ways we relate to others.

Unfortunately, in class society, those relationships are shaped by the power of the rich to coerce the poor.

Marx argued that what is considered to be “natural” and “normal” varies enormously in different societies. But he did not abandon the idea of human nature altogether. For Marx, the nature of human beings is their capacity for collective, planned labour.

He criticised capitalism for chaining this labour to the short-term dash for profit, whatever the cost to humanity.

Marxist writer Ernst Fischer described how capitalism destroyed the potential of that labour.

He wrote, “The first tool contains within it all the potential future ones. The first recognition of the fact that the world can be changed by conscious activity contains all future, as yet unknown, but inevitable change.

“Every achievement opens the door to unconquered territory.

“But when labour is destructive, not creative, when it is undertaken under coercion and not as the free play of forces, when it means the withering, not the flowering, of man’s physical and intellectual potential—then labour is a denial of its own principle and therefore of the principle of man.”

Capitalism sucks out our creativity and pitches us against each other. But the nature of work under the system also means that people are drawn together on an unprecedented scale.

Solidarity constantly challenges individualism. Every day people show love, compassion and care for others for no reward. And ordinary people repeatedly show they are better at responding to crises than their leaders.

The process of struggling to change society transforms those involved. And revolution can liberate our capacity to collectively and consciously shape the world—and then individual fulfilment and freedom can flourish.