DOG-EAT-DOG: How Selfishness Became a Virtue and Why It Will Kill Us

Selfishness is the root of all evil. It leads individuals and groups to prioritize their own desires and interests over the well-being of others and the planet, resulting in harmful actions, negative consequences, and the destruction of our world. Of course, self-preservation is not evil—the evil is when the self erases the other. This behavior is not merely a personal failing—it is a societal poison that manifests in environmental destruction, social inequality, and the erosion of democratic institutions.

The Moral Foundation of Selfishness

Selfishness is a core trait associated with both sociopathy and psychopathy, personality disorders characterized by a profound lack of care for others and the world, and void of empathy and remorse. Individuals and societies with these traits act on their desires without regard for others’ well-being, and the consequences ripple outward: pedophilia, rape, murder, corruption, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, white supremacy, ethnosupremacy, imperialism, colonialism, Zionism, apartheid, genocide, environmental degradation, human-caused global warming and climate change, ecocide, and on and on—at the root of all this evil is selfishness.

The author Ayn Rand famously attempted to rebrand selfishness as a virtue through her pseudo-philosophy of Objectivism, which promotes “rational self-interest” and rejects altruism. She argued that altruism—the ethical principle of caring for others—was fundamentally evil and that selfishness needed to be “redeemed” as a moral concept. Rand’s absurd moral framework reveals a darker foundation.

In the late 1920s, Rand became fascinated with psychopath William Edward Hickman, a convicted murderer who brutally tortured, dismembered, and killed a twelve-year-old girl held for ransom. In her working notes for an unpublished novel, Rand described Hickman as having “the true, innate psychology of a Superman,” writing that “other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should.” This admiration for a psychopathic killer was not an aberration but rather a revealing window into her pseudo-philosophy that celebrates the absence of empathy as a mark of superiority.

Rand’s Objectivism, with its disdain for collectivism and its elevation of selfishness, has contributed to the concentration of economic power in the hands of the few, undermining democracy and paving the way for monopolies, fascism, and sociopaths and psychopaths with no empathy in positions of power. The irony is that Ayn Rand in her elder years had to depend on publicly funded Social Security to get by, as well as Medicare for her lung cancer surgery, which she stubbornly denied was caused by her heavy smoking.

The total government benefits Ayn Rand received almost certainly outweighed whatever money she put into the system. According to her social worker, Evva Pryer, “Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she would be wiped out.” Of course, the fanatic followers of Ayn Rand will come up with any excuses for the obvious contradictions and hypocrisy of Ayn Rand and her ridiculous ideas. Even Alan Greenspan, a former staunch devotee of Rand, was forced to admit after the 2008 financial crisis that his faith in unregulated markets had been fundamentally wrong.

Brainwashing and the Cult of Selfishness

Evil often operates through brainwashing and social conditioning—manipulating individuals into adopting harmful beliefs or behaviors without their awareness. This process uses psychological techniques as well as social and cultural influences. Its goal is to undermine critical thinking and promote loyalty to destructive ideologies, while normalizing harmful people and acts, making them seem permissible.

For example, right-wing social influencers like Joe Rogan (on his uber-popular podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience") defend their friend Elon Musk as a “psychopath” doing “good for everyone,” gaslighting the public. Meanwhile, Musk, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), destroys oversight departments, eliminates checks and balances, dismantles accountability and democracy, guts social safety net programs, steals Americans’ personal data, and destroys the country—all while Musk and his companies profit further from increased government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits.

Similarly, Ayn Rand’s promotion of selfishness as a virtue—echoed in popular culture’s celebration of “greed is good”—has conditioned the masses to cause harm for personal gain. Libertarians, Objectivists, right-wingers, neoliberals, conservatives, fascists, white nationalists, ethnosupremacists, and Ayn Rand cult fanatics have all been trying to brainwash society into believing that the self is the most important entity—that the individual matters more than the collective. This ideology is bringing about the death of humanity and the destruction of a world lacking care, empathy, and remorse.

The Libertarian Party, originally linked to the conservative right-wing libertarian think tank Foundation for Economic Education—essentially a propaganda brainwashing machine for free market capitalism—with ties to the Chamber of Commerce, serves mainly corporate interests while masquerading as a champion of individual freedom. The Libertarian Party, a shill for big businesses and the elites, promotes deregulation and pro-corporate agendas that prioritize business rights over democratic and public rights, effectively serving as a front for the wealthy and big business monopoly interests and corporate power while masking itself as a champion of individual liberty. This is a ruse designed to confuse and brainwash the masses.

Unrestrained, totally unfettered, purist capitalism IS fascism—and the Koch brothers, major funders of the Heritage Foundation (creators of Project 2025 for right-wing government toward fascism) and libertarian causes along with Peter Thiel, have poured enormous resources into advancing this agenda. The connection between corporate power and fascism is not coincidental: Mussolini’s fascist government was supported by a Chamber of Deputies composed entirely of CEOs and corporate representatives.

The Politics of Pathology

The Libertarian Party and Objectivist right-wingers, the numerous conservative think tanks, along with the vast majority of legacy and online media including entertainment, have been systematically brainwashing people to embrace selfishness and individualism above the collective, thereby destroying humanity and the world. Traditional and online media is now completely saturated and taken over by right-wingers and libertarians on all platforms. The goal is to create a society that puts profits and personal gain before the planet and the people, a society that lacks empathy and remorse—a society where predatory capitalism and corporate fascism reign and humans no longer care for others or for the planet.

These groups and individuals claim to support small government but actually mean government that serves the elites—those already with wealth and power. This is the crux of these libertarians, right-wingers, and fascists: they are pathological liars who want power and control for the few wealthy elites. What they promote is not even capitalist free markets but ultimately monopolies, fascism, and the destruction of this world, insisting on infinite growth economies. There is no such thing as infinite growth. We live on a finite planet with limited resources. This is another layer of lies and deception.

It is no wonder that many of these groups and individuals deny human-made global warming and climate change. It is no wonder they also push for deregulation. With the United States Supreme Court rulings—granting corporations the rights of human beings and personhood in 1886, and the "Citizens United" case allowing unlimited corporate funding and donations for political campaigns in 2010—corporations and the wealthy elite have, over the years, taken over our government.

Coincidentally, on May 4, 1886, after the death of six workers in Chicago, the Haymarket incident (or riot) occurred. Many workers, along with labor leaders, demonstrated and protested for workers' rights and against having to work 10 to 12 hour workdays. Eight of the labor leaders were later convicted in a controversial, biased jury trial—more for their words and speech than for their deeds. Seven of the eight were given death sentences: four were publicly hanged in 1887, one committed suicide, and three were pardoned.

Immediately after the Haymarket incident, a wave of xenophobia spread across Chicago and around the country, and hundreds of foreign-born labor leaders were rounded up. Now more than ever, with corporate personhood, "Citizens United", and more, it is clear that the fusion of corporate and state power has completely undermined democratic principles and threatens the very foundations of accountable governance.

The concept of "pathocracy" (rule by the pathologically selfish)—a system of government created by a small pathological minority of sociopaths and psychopaths that takes control over a society of normal people—is increasingly relevant to understanding current political developments. Psychiatrist Andrew Lobaczewski coined this term to describe regimes where individuals with personality disorders rise to power and reshape society in their image. These “spellbinders” use deception, paramoralism (bad faith appeals to morality), and the flooding of public discourse with lies to undermine critical thinking and objective truth.

Corporate Fascism in Practice

The Libertarian Party is a front for big business monopolies and corporate fascism under the guise of individual liberty and freedom. Yet so many people fall for it, drawn like moths to a flame by the promise of “liberty” and “freedom” waved like a carrot on a stick. The Libertarian Party, as well as Democrats and Republicans—the whole political system in the United States of America—is a ruse, a big lie designed to confuse and brainwash useful idiots for the wealthy elites.

The agenda is clear: destroy democracy, deregulate everything, and eliminate all checks and balances. Liberty and freedom are reserved for the wealthy few—the “Epstein class” (elites protected by wealth and blackmail)—at the expense of the many. There is no accountability for their illegality and criminality, no responsibility for themselves or others, and no regard for the planet they pollute, damage, and destroy. It is a dog-eat-dog world where the top dog gets everything by any means necessary.

Consider Javier Milei, the libertarian president of Argentina—a favorite of libertarians worldwide. Milei has cut social services and public departments, reducing some to zero funding, while simultaneously increasing the military intelligence and police budget by 200%. Under libertarian Milei, Argentina went through severe austerity measures as he enriched the few money movers, financiers, and resource extractors, all the while siphoning public wealth. Argentina, in economic turmoil with libertarian Milei, needed a $40 billion bailout package by President Donald Trump without much oversight.

The pattern is unmistakable: social services gutted, oversight eliminated, and the state security apparatus expanded. Meanwhile, human rights programs face budget cuts that hinder the search for remains of up to 30,000 people “disappeared” during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship’s Dirty War (supported by the United States using the CIA to overthrow a democratically elected president and then hunt down and kill anyone associated with trade unions, students, professors, leftists, socialists, or communists—something the USA has been similarly doing for decades to many other countries in South and Latin America and around the world). This is a chilling indication of where this ideology leads.

In the United States, Trump and his libertarian tech oligarch fanboys are following the same playbook. Through deregulations and dismantling of departments with DOGE, they are cutting social services, dismantling safety nets, and eliminating oversight departments—all while promoting and pushing for monopolies, manipulating markets, enriching themselves, increasing the military budget to record levels, creating cultural wars targeting the marginalized, and terrorizing communities across the nation with murderous, Gestapo-like ICE agents rounding up the most vulnerable.

The cuts have real consequences. One year into these policies, current and former government officials report that the elimination of programs and personnel has “hampered the US government’s abilities to prepare for domestic emergencies; monitor terror threats; guard against cyber-attacks; broadcast US information into Iran; and quickly help US citizens stranded abroad.” A former State Department official noted that the administration “thoughtlessly terminated people with crisis experience, and now they’re left without depth on the bench in the middle of a wide-scale and broadening crisis.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon—the very definition of wasteful government spending with trillions of dollars unaccounted for in failed audits—has largely escaped the budget cutter’s knife. While agencies like USAID were reduced from 10,000 employees to fewer than 300, with massive budget cuts projected to kill 14 million people worldwide, including 4.5 million children under the age of 5 by 2030, the military budget has ballooned, and the administration has proposed a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget—”the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military” in Trump’s words. As one analysis notes, “The Trump and Musk hollowing out of the civilian government, while keeping the Pentagon budget at enormously high levels of funding, means the United States is well on its way to becoming the very ‘garrison state’ that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against.”

The Pathology of Power

Ayn Rand, with her adoration of psychopaths like Hickman as a “superman,” and her cult followers—the tech bros of Silicon Valley, venture capitalists, and even pubescent high schoolers—will be happy to be ruled by sociopaths and psychopaths in a pathocracy. They are bringing about an accelerated collapse of nations, creating a dystopian world where sociopaths and psychopaths with wealth and power reign and take full control over us all, destroying humanity and our planet.

Peter Thiel—the “grease-oozing satan” of Silicon Valley—goes around the world gaslighting us, projecting his own pathology, and calling Greta Thunberg the antichrist, while he with his company Palantir mass-surveils humanity and uses his AI to target countless civilian infrastructures and kill thousands of civilians in war crimes against humanity. Palantir was used in the Gaza genocide, reportedly used in the pager and walkie-talkie bombings in Lebanon, and the illegal war against Iran. These sick, lying fascist fraudsters, these delusional, selfish psycho idiots, have no shame.

Libertarians, neoliberal conservatives, and right-wingers follow a near-fanatical religious cult of Ayn Rand, who had great disdain for empathy and anything democratic. Regardless of her age and language challenges in her early years, ask yourself: who admires psychopathic serial killers at any age or in any language? Rand’s admiration for a psychopath like Hickman is telling. Her pseudo-philosophy of “Objectivism,” and those pushing deregulation and hatred of collectivism, have contributed to the concentration of economic power in the hands of the few, undermining democracy and leading to monopolies, fascism, and the destruction of our world.

The Lies Behind the Ideology

These groups and individuals are pathological liars lacking integrity. They cannot stop gaslighting others, twisting truths and facts, weaponizing words and concepts, and making doublespeak. They say one thing and do and mean another. “Small government” really means government that serves only the elites—those with existing wealth and power. “Capitalism” really means monopolies and fascism. “Free market” really means no accountability for illegal and criminal behavior.

The pattern is consistent across contexts. In Argentina, Milei cuts social services while expanding the security state, and the rich get richer while the rest of the country suffers. In the United States, Trump and his allies dismantle democratic institutions and oversight mechanisms while enriching themselves and expanding the military and the carceral prison state. The Libertarian Party, the think tanks, and the media serve as tools, vehicles for misinformation and indoctrination toward extreme capitalist ideologies where survival of the fittest prevails for monopolies and fascism.

Ultimately, these groups and individuals are pushing for a system beyond societal rules and norms—a culture that promotes the lack of empathy, care, and remorse. This is clearly evident in historical contexts and is painfully clear in current times, where the merging of state and corporate power threatens democratic principles and undermines morals and ethics, including Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, the Iran War of aggression, and the wider terrors perpetrated by the United States and its allies, all the while further enriching the elites, the corporate class, and the military-intelligence-industrial complex.

It is no wonder that white supremacists align themselves with libertarians. Even the far-right AfD party of Germany, with links to neo-Nazis, during a live stream with Elon Musk proudly announced to the world that they too are libertarians. And the Epstein class—sociopaths and psychopaths with their sex trafficking, pedophilia, and worse—is a perfect example of where this ideology leads: individualism beyond accountability and responsibility, liberty and freedom for the very few at the expense of the many, a Darwinian social economics where the top dog gets it all.

A World Without Empathy

Might makes right—a dog-eat-dog world. A world controlled and run by lying sociopaths and psychopaths. It is simply not sustainable. It is delusional, selfish idiocy. It does not have to be complicated.

The basic facts, the basic fundamentals of physical reality, are simple: we live in a finite world with limited resources. The infinite growth model is a lie. The notion that individualism can flourish without collective responsibility is a fantasy. The belief that deregulated markets will solve our problems while destroying our planet is delusional.

The philosopher Theodore Roszak offered a compelling alternative to Rand’s hyper-individualism, arguing that in a world requiring more attention to the integral nature of human existence on a fragile planet, “extreme individualism has no place.” We are not isolated selves competing in a zero-sum game; we are interdependent beings sharing a finite planet.

**TAKE CARE OF THE PLANET, TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER, AND PROTECT THE VULNERABLE.**

These are not radical ideas. They are the basic requirements of survival and human decency. They are the principles that any functional society must embrace. And they are the direct opposite of the selfish ideology that has brought us to the brink of catastrophe.

Selfishness is not strength; it is weakness disguised as self-reliance. Empathy is not weakness; it is the foundation of humanity. Collective responsibility is not tyranny; it is the only path to survival on a finite planet.

The choice before us is stark. We can continue down the path of selfishness, following the pied pipers of pathological individualism toward a dystopian future of corporate fascism, environmental collapse, and social disintegration. Or we can reject this brainwashing, embrace our interdependence, and build a world based on care, empathy, and collective responsibility.

The root of all evil is selfishness. The root of all good is the recognition that we are all in this together. The All always includes the self, but the self is not the All.