It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner; but from their regard to their self interest ~ Adam Smith
The first time I stumbled upon this quote, was 2008, in my sophomore year when I decided to give the World Bank Essay competition a shot. The theme of the year was around remittances and how they make the world go round.
The case studies, included Filipinos who build grand palaces in their villages where only old people now live, as the young all emigrate to replicate the feat, akin to what you find in Edo State, Nigeria today; Nigerians whose remittances pay for school fees, medicine, rent and food for relations; The Comoros where remittances via hawala pay for lavish weddings; and Haiti where remittances are a huge sponsorship money for the highly popular cock fight sport.
For my younger mind then, the stories captivated me more than the significance of the quote in itself; and I just kept on harping on about how remittances make the world go round. As at then, India was the world's largest receiver of remittances.
Although I didn't make it past the 1st round, the work I had to put in to the essay, improved my writing and storytelling skills overall.
Today, with a little better understanding of economics, Adam Smith makes a lot more sense to me. Basically, it could be paraphrased for "nothing goes for nothing; there's no free lunch in Freetown".
Whether it's FDA - foreign direct investment or ODA - overseas development aid; the countries and multilaterals who continue to "invest" in the "global South" or the committee of underdeveloped and developing countries, do so first, for the profit they intend to make. The rest is for photo-ops.
This is how I view governance too. That for social contracts, it is never about investing in people for social good, but for the long term returns, especially increased taxes.
Lately, I tend to narrow it down to human relationships as well... Self-interest is at the bottom of it all. It's what makes the world go round. And very often from history, self-interest doesn't pursue Win-Win situations. Even when both sides win, it's never equal.
It is also such coincidence that on the day I chose to publish this, is when the cryptocurrency market is making a lot of us,re-evaluate our positions and strategies for wealth creation through this "bubble". And, this hits home for me, as someone 2ho has consistently suffered rekt-ation from huge market corrections. I could keep going on and on about what I should have done better or not done, but that would be foolhardy if I weren't picking up lessons on the way. And the most important one, is to always take profit and leave swing trades to them whales.
Once a potential profit or loss threshold is reached, I often get carried away by greedy optimising that the market would go in the favor of my feelings, and I end up either losing the profits I didn't take or getting liquidated of my positions resulting in huge losses.
Indeed, profit-taking is an art, and whether you get the logic around it, have the skill to perfect it or have to learn the hard way, if you're going to make it, you have to take profit.
I hope I have learnt enough, to take profits otherwise I am never gonna make it - NGMI.