In civics classes, they teach us about Hobbes, and his ideas anticipating what is known as Game Theory. In Capitalism, and some forms of weak-line Socialism, the individual can do _Nothing_ selfish. All selfish actions, impulse buying, entrepreneurship, investment, and competition, serve to create an amalgam of benefits to bankers, consumers, employers and investors. Selfishness is impossible, only servitude to the Economy.

On an ethical level, it is more intricate and individual, that is, if you don't see thoughts and philosophical discourses acting as servitude to the Ethics. Everything, even entertainment and scholarship, serve Economy. Everything that human beings can share among other human beings, everything human beings value for themselves or conceive of being valuable to another, finds a price through Fiat Money.

Fiat Money replaced the Gold Standard, for the UK in the thirties and later the USA. In the USA, it is controlled by Federal Reserve that either increases the money supply through the sale of bonds (fiat upon fiat) or decreases this through the purchase of them. I'm told it works pretty much the same way in the EU.

Selfishness, in its ethically denigrated form applied to macroeconomics, only truly exists in such a system when Ricardian Comparative and Absolute Advantages are superseded by unfair advantage. This advantage does not serve those participating in the quadrille of Economy, but is ideally discouraged by legislation.

If this work discourages individual action, something that doesn't exist in economic thought except in entrepreneurship, it perhaps hits the family hardest. The family is a psychical framework whose non-participants are typically called "selfish." In this context, hard work is very selfish. It is a selfish that allows the home economics to ensure, for instance, the security of a family, the health of the family, and the ability of the family to communicate with each other from wherever. It is an particular psyichal framework's, i.e. the family's, decision on how to solidify the aspects of their cohesion, with or without workoholism, in harmony with the behemoth of Economy, and therefore it is a better system that allows individuals and individual families a subjective definition of "selfish" in context of work.

I hope this helped somebody out there.

One can donate to charities just to lower taxes, as some celebreties do. A hardworking scientist can discover a new medicine and save many lifes, but neglect his family at the same time. So, are these situations selfish or not? It's difficult to define, it think it mainly depends on the intention. Shelfishness is more a personal characteristic than a way to describe one single act of a person. If somenone is selfish by nature he/she will base all his/her decisions on his self-interest, instead of considering the interest of others.

Whenever you have something beautiful in your mind and you keep it to yourself you are being selfish. When you write poetry but don't share with any others, but rather keep them secure in your closet, that is selfishness. When you see a pretty girl and wish to get to know her but you walk pass her, that is being selfish. When you see a guy who you think is cute and wish that he would say something to you but you don't offer him a pretext(an obvious one) to come over, then you are selfish.

When you keep your feelings, thoughts and wishes to yourself you are being selfish. You have to find that power from within to overcome your fears and negative thinking. If you feel angry at someone and hide it until you get home and take it out on yourself with a pint of Haagen-Daz then you are selfish. RESPOND. If someone "hurts" you, respond back immediately. Play what you feel. Emanate what you are inside at the moment. Not later. When you hold back and wish you had had the courage to respond in a different matter then you have been selfish.