Self-interest and the University of Oregon

On Wednesday I started school at the University of Oregon. I just have one class right now, technically it is still the summer term, fall term begins on the 29^th. The class I have right now is Mathematics for Economists or “Math Camp.” Most of the class will just be a review of calculus and linear algebra, though there will be a few new things. The class is a good introduction to the university and I can get a feel for campus without many people around.

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So there appears to be about 12 new Ph.D. student in the Economics program, which I believe is larger than usual. The picture above is the home of the Department of Economics, though I will only have one class here in the Fall.

Here's some more pictures!

While I am off at school, Heather is trying to get our house more organized and recover from our move. This place is finally starting to feel more like home. I guess that happens when you get everything out of boxes and into it's place.

Nathan just turned 5 months and is getting so much more grown up.

He is wearing mostly 6-9 months clothes and some 12 months as well.

Probably the reason is so big is that the kid will eat anything. We’ve been trying new foods the last couple of weeks and had yet to find anything he did not like, until a couple of nights ago. We bought some oatmeal cereal and tried to feed him some, but he hated it. Even then he still ate every little bit we gave him. I finally had to stop feeding him when he started gagging it down, but we still could have fed him more.

I got a bike!

So on Monday I bought a bike. I had wanted to buy a used one at some point to ride to campus every now and then but was having trouble finding one.

When I saw that it would cost over $350 to park on campus for the rest of this term and this upcoming school year I decided that I definitely needed to buy one before my class began Wednesday. Now I am planning to ride my bike every day and not buy a permit. We live about 5 miles from campus and I was surprised how well I did riding 10 miles a day for four straight days this week considering I had not done any kind of aerobic exercise in nearly five years.

One of the great benefits of living in the Eugene/Springfield area is all of the bike paths and bike lanes all around the area. I only have to ride on the street for about 6-7 blocks, the rest of the time I am on bike paths.

For most of the ride I am on a bike path that runs along the river. It is beautiful down there and makes for a relaxing ride to school, which I am sure will be very nice when classes become more intense.

I was thinking about how I plan on biking to school every day and how that fact coupled with the energy efficient light bulbs in every light in the house and how the 95 gallon recycling bin we have that will be pretty full each time it goes out, we have suddenly become eco-friendly! But to all the environmentalists out there I am sad to say it is not due to any increased awareness in the increasing number of landfills or our opinion on global warming. The energy efficient light bulbs reduce our power bill, the biking will save on gas and parking permits, and considering that the big recycling container is included in any trash service, recycling as much as we can allows us to have the smallest trash container picked up only every other week, which saves money on our trash bill.

So, entirely due to us acting in our own self-interest, we are helping to improve the world around us.

Adam Smith laid out the idea that when everyone in a society acts in their own self interest the society as a whole will achieve prosperity. Many people interpret this as when people act on their own selfish and greedy desires with out much regard to others, everybody will be richer and happier. This however is not true. The opening sentence in The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith states:

How selfish so ever a man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.

In this book Adam Smith goes on to lay the foundation of a system of morals, which I found to be quite interesting. When Adam Smith talks of self-interest it is not selfishness. He believed that for capitalism to succeed the society must have a strong moral foundation and justice system. A moral system would ensure that when people make their decisions they take into account the effect of their actions on others. A justice system would provide an answer to those who do not subscribe to such a moral system. With these things in place a free market would lead to increased prosperity. The next time you see a situation where you may ask “Did capitalism fail by bringing about this result?” ask first if there is a failure in either the moral system or the justice system. I think many of the problems experienced in a capitalistic economy can be solved with a stronger moral foundation. I think I'll stop here for now. One of my favorite papers I wrote during college was about capitalism and morals, for the most part because I was able to combine some of my religious beliefs with economics. If you would like to hear more let me know.