Cuff and colleagues examine the widely held idea that human beings are naturally selfish and competitive – that selfishness is in the nature of all living things – as an example of an ideological...

Cuff and colleagues examine the widely held idea that human beings are naturally selfish and competitive – that selfishness is in the nature of all living things – as an example of an ideological concept:

Such a view has two features which are common among ideologies: the suggestion that it is simply in our nature to be selfish and self-interested; and the implication that there is nothing we can do to change it because it is built into our natures. From the Marxist point of view, we are not innately competitive in this way. To talk about the natural, immutable competitiveness of the human species offers a false picture of our human natures. Such theories serve to justify a socio-economic system – competitive capitalism – which is based on unrelenting individual competition. These ideas justify that system by suggesting that, first, it gives full rein to our fundamental human natures and is therefore best suited to us and, second, there is little point in disapproving of or attempting to moderate the competitiveness of the system since it is our nature to be competitive . . . In one way or another, systems of ideas play this ideological role of convincing people that they cannot change their society, or that it is not worth their effort to try changing it.