I am always amused at the people who like to contrast “self-interest” with the “public interest.” When former FCC chairman Newton Minow opined that “the public interest is not what interests the public,” he gave away the fraudulent nature of the game. A colleague of mine still insists — after a good twenty years of our discussing the subject — that people can act altruistically. “Give me one example,” I ask, “just one. We have numerous and varied interests we pursue, and we act only in anticipation of being better off afterwards than if we had not acted,” I tell him. “In other words, all volitional action is self-interest motivated.” I’ll have to ask my friend if he has become a speech-writer for Soros.

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