— Designing systems in which actions taken for oneself can also benefit society, rather than relying on goodwill alone
To make society better, it is important for each of us to care about others and help those in need.
But can society’s problems really be solved simply by asking everyone to do so?
Everyone has their own life to live.
“I want to protect the well-being of myself and my family.”
“I want to prepare for my own future.”
“I want to support the people or communities I personally care about.”
“I want my children and grandchildren to live happy lives.”
I believe these are entirely natural feelings.
This led me to ask whether, rather than simply expecting people to act out of self-sacrifice or goodwill, we might design systems in which actions that people choose because they are beneficial or meaningful to them also produce desirable outcomes for society as a whole.
In this article, I will refer to this idea as:
“Social Design for Aligning Self-Interest with the Common Good.”
This idea overlaps with concepts already found in economics and institutional design. I am not claiming to propose a new academic theory. Rather, I use this term here as a way of organizing the common principle underlying two proposals I have been developing.
■ Self-Interest and the Common Good Do Not Have to Be Opposed
The term “self-interest” may sound somewhat negative.
But by “self-interest,” I do not mean an attitude of “as long as I am fine, nothing else matters.”
Nor do I mean financial gain alone.
I also include natural human concerns and motivations such as:
I want to feel secure about my future.
I want to help people I care about.
I want to support my hometown or a community that matters to me.
I want my children and grandchildren to live happy lives.
In this article, I use the term “self-interest” in a broad sense, referring not only to financial interests but also to personal concerns and motivations more generally.
I do not believe that these feelings need to be denied.
What matters, rather, may be to avoid placing
“what is good for oneself” and “what is good for society” in unnecessary opposition.
Imagine choosing something because it is good for you, while the result also benefits someone else.
If we can create more systems and ways of thinking that work this way, society will not have to depend only on people who possess a strong sense of altruism or goodwill.
■ Example 1: Helping Older People Can Also Support Disaster-Affected Communities—and Your Own Future
▼ Read the related article
As one possible response to the challenges of an aging society and a declining birthrate, I have been developing an idea called the “Contribution Points System.”
As the population ages, the number of people who need elderly care and assistance with daily life will increase.
At the same time, the working-age population available to support them will decline.
In such circumstances, simply saying,
“Let us volunteer more to help older people,”
may not be enough to secure the necessary number of participants.
For example, someone might think:
“I am not particularly interested in elderly care, but I do want to support people in disaster-affected areas.”
Someone else might think:
“If I am going to do something that helps others, I would also like it to contribute in some way to my own future security.”
Rather than rejecting such motivations, I began to wonder whether they could be incorporated into the design of the system itself.
For example, a person could:
Help an older person in their neighborhood with shopping, cleaning, checking in on them, or other everyday tasks as a paid activity.
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Receive compensation for that work.
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If they wish, donate some or all of that compensation to a disaster-affected community, programs supporting children, or another cause they personally want to support.
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Have the donation recorded as “Contribution Points.”
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Later in life, when they themselves need elderly care or other forms of support, use those points to reduce certain out-of-pocket costs.
In this way, a single activity can lead to three outcomes:
“Helping someone nearby”
“Helping someone farther away”
“Supporting your own future”
A participant does not necessarily need to feel a strong personal mission to help older people.
Their motivation might instead be:
“I want to support disaster-affected communities.”
or
“I want to prepare for my own future.”
Yet when they act in pursuit of their own goal, the result is that more people become available to support older residents in their communities.
Furthermore, if local residents can appropriately take on peripheral tasks that do not require professional qualifications, elderly care and welfare professionals may be able to concentrate more fully on work that requires their expertise. This could also help reduce the overall cost of providing services.
If part of those fiscal savings could then be used to support future Contribution Points, it might become possible to create a cycle in which society does not simply
“increase new spending in order to help someone,”
but instead
“uses savings generated by the system itself to create the next form of support.”
■ Example 2: Starting from the Wish That “I Want My Descendants to Be Happy”
▼ Read the related article
I apply a similar way of thinking to a completely different issue:
racial discrimination and religious conflict.
People may be told,
“Love everyone equally.”
But not everyone will immediately be able to think that way.
Many people, however, probably feel:
“At the very least, I want my children and grandchildren to be happy.”
Could we begin from that feeling instead?
Over a very long period of time, human beings have migrated across the world.
Throughout that long history, people have met one another in many different places, formed families, and passed life from one generation to the next.
As people lived in different environments and experienced different histories, differences emerged in physical appearance, language, culture, and other characteristics. Religions and systems of values also became increasingly diverse.
People have continued to migrate and interact, and individuals from different backgrounds have met and formed new families.
The diversity we see among human beings today has emerged and expanded through the accumulation of this long history.
This process will continue into the future.
Imagine your own descendants hundreds or thousands of years from now.
Some may look very different from you today.
Some may speak different languages or live within very different cultures.
Some may follow different religions, while others may have no religion at all.
Even so, they would still be precious descendants whose lives are connected to yours.
Would we want those descendants to live in a future where they discriminate against one another because of differences in skin color,
hate one another because of differences in religion,
or harm one another?
I would not.
Here again, there is no need to demand that someone
“love complete strangers.”
We can begin instead with a very personal feeling:
“I want my precious descendants to be happy.”
And if we extend our time horizon a little farther into the future, we may come to see that
creating a society with less racial discrimination and religious conflict is not only for the sake of today’s “others,” but also for the sake of the people who may become “our own precious loved ones” in the distant future.
■ Rather Than Changing Human Nature, Change Where Our Actions Lead
At first glance, these two examples may seem completely unrelated.
One concerns population aging and social security.
The other concerns racial discrimination and religious conflict.
But for me, the underlying principle is the same.
One is an attempt to change the way institutions and incentives are structured.
The other is an attempt to change the time horizon through which we see the world, and the way we understand the relationship between ourselves and others.
The aim is not simply to tell people:
“Become a better person.”
“Care more about other people.”
“Put your own interests aside.”
People already have certain motivations:
The desire to protect their own future.
The desire to help people they personally want to support.
The desire to protect their children and grandchildren.
I believe those feelings can remain as they are.
Perhaps what needs to change is not human nature itself, but rather
where those feelings and actions lead within society.
■ Toward a Society That Can Produce Good Outcomes Without Demanding Strong Altruism
Of course, compassion and goodwill are important.
I do not believe that caring about others will ever become unnecessary in society.
Indeed, compassion is also one of the starting points of this way of thinking.
However, there are limits to relying on people with strong compassion or goodwill to solve society’s most important problems.
Human beings have both altruistic and self-interested motivations.
We care deeply about our families, while at the same time we may find it difficult to take an interest in problems that appear unrelated to our own lives.
Rather than denying this reality of human nature, we can begin designing society from it.
Something a person does for their own benefit can, as a result, help someone else.
A person’s desire to protect their family can, as a result, contribute to reducing discrimination against others.
Different people can pursue different personal goals, while those actions ultimately move society as a whole in a desirable direction.
I would like to continue thinking about ways to create such a society.
That is what I mean by
“Social Design for Aligning Self-Interest with the Common Good.”
■ Conclusion
I do not believe that improving society requires eliminating human desires or personal interests.
Self-interest and the common good do not necessarily have to be enemies.
We can change the way institutions are designed.
We can extend the time horizon through which people see the world.
We can broaden, even slightly, the way we understand the connection between ourselves and others.
Whether by changing institutions or by changing the framework through which we think, we can create more situations in which self-interest and the common good point in the same direction.
Then,
“an action chosen for oneself”
can also become
“an action that benefits someone else.”
If we can gradually increase such choices within society,
then perhaps, without demanding great personal sacrifice from people,
society can move, little by little, in a better direction.