Altruism

The 1880s saw a downturn in the economic prosperity of Britain and its empire. The results of this included waning confidence in the inevitability of social and economic progress and increased public awareness of the plight of the urban poor. The economic orthodoxy of laissez-faire, which emphasized the freedom and autonomy of the individual and had accompanied the optimism and success of the earlier Victorian period, also increasingly came into question. A renewed interest in altruism was now evident, not only in philosophy and religion but also in economics. A central assumption of classical political economy was that man had benevolent as well as selfish instincts, but when it came to economic activity, the rigorous application of self-interest was the most rational principle. This assumption was now subjected to more serious examination (see Pearson). Altruism became associated with political creeds of cooperation and collectivism. One commune in the United States was even named "Altruria" in recognition of the importance of altruism to this new movement. The concept of altruism was thus redefined as an ideology, in a way that brought it closer to communism than either the Comtean positivism or the Spencerian individualism with which it had earlier been associated. Altruism, for these groups, was a radical and universal denial of self in the pursuit of harmonious and egalitarian community living. In the later twentieth century, the viability of the assumption of self-interest in economics would again be called into question (see Mansbridge; Monroe).