Lessons from Tocqueville in America
Live at the National Constitution Center
00:00
Tovial's Equality Is Uplifting
Reading Tocco is really amazing. He talks about America as if it were America, but he's really describing England. The key is to have to merge private interest with the general interest. There are different ways of achieving greatness in life and I think most 18th century philosophy thinks virtue is the way to go. If you encourage people to look after their own interests first, you probably have many more people involved in this than people seeking to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. That is what the core self-interest properly understood, or on life and self-interest, depending how you want to frame it.
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