Regarding politics in Western World, we find two stark contradictory tendencies. The one that is advocated by John Lennon, commonly known as Lennonian view assumes peace, love and social harmony through altruism and the other that is advocated by Adam Smith, commonly known as Smithian view focuses on the self centred interest of an individual to achieve prosperous blissful life. John Lennon dreams of world peace through altruism and selflessness in his poem 'Imagine'(1971) and Smith writes about the need of selfishness in his book 'The Wealth of Nations'(1776).
Lennon says world peace can be achieved if all the specialties of human that make them different from one to other are removed. He says there shouldn't be possessions. Man should rise above personal interest. Man should ignore property, religion, nationality, ethnicity, language, gender, sexual preference, musical taste, hair colour and all the other things that identify him with certain groups and not with others. Then, he is basically the same. So, man should ignore individualism and work for humanity.
Many Cynics criticized Lennon's sincerity. He advocated altruism but he took the advantages form his song selling it. He also earned a lot of money and owned a flat in New York. According to them, he was also selfish. There is contradiction between his principle and his conduct. Lennon's view and Marxists have similarities as both rejected possessions. Lennon focused on altruism but Marxists emphasized on a big fight to gain world peace. Marxists used the working class people giving the slogan 'Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.' But they forgot the slogan and indulged in personal sophistication.
On the contrary, Adam Smith focused on self centred interest. According to him, none does anything for purely altruistic reasons. At root, human are selfish creatures. He developed a theory about the way a market economy that relied on private self-interest to drive economic development would be the best for everyone in the long run. 'It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. In other words, individuals are free to start businesses and sell things, their interest in their personal profit will motivate them to produce the goods that people want to buy. The promise of profit inspires people to be creative and take initiatives, looking for new markets or looking for more efficient and profitable ways of making goods that already exit. There is no need of altruism. Selfishness works just as well. In his eyes, the best way of achieving the public good is by giving free rein to private self-interest.
According to the author, both tendencies mentioned above have problems. Lennon gives priority to altruism and neglects personal interest and Smith gives priority to selfishness and neglects benevolence and altruism. But, in society, we need the proper balance of both elements. We need personal interest for our progress and prosperity but we also need the sense of benevolence and altruism for humanism.
Every society shares both tendencies. Self-interest and altruism should have healthy and productive balance to maintain global peace, love and harmony, according to the author.
Reference Note
For B.Ed. Second Year Major English
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