William Raspberry (“Selfish behavior thwarts our national interests,” Op-Ed, Aug. 26) waxes ecstatic about how “we would all be better off” if we would just sacrifice our own interests in favor of “the national interest.”
There is no such thing as national interest or “public interest.” There is no such thing as a nation. These are all mere abstractions. Abstractions can’t have interests. What exist are individual persons with individual needs, desires and interests. Appeals to national interest or public interest always reduce to the interests of the gang that happens to be in control of the means of forcing sacrifices on someone else for the benefit of the gang.
Hitler is said to have remarked, “The higher interest involved in the life of the whole must set the limits and lay down the duties of the individual.” So Hitler had his Aryan “national interest” and the Jews were sacrificed to it. “Better off” indeed!
It is unreasonable to assert that we would all be better off if we would only sacrifice our own interests, life and property to some mythical national interest. Sacrifice and “better off” are opposites. Everyone has a right to exist, and no one has a right to demand the sacrifice of someone else for the benefit of a so-called national interest. To do so is the essence of collectivism.
