*And yet people formed societies and institutions and community and shared beliefs.*

Well of course we have, Squeers. Not that much different from a tribe
of chimps or bonobos, who cooperate for their mutual benefit.

All this has been studied to death by the field of evolutionary
psychology. Perhaps you need to put down the philosophy books and
pick up some evolutionary psych books to catch up. Read up on
Trivers theory of reciprocal altruism amongst nonkin and similar.

Fact is however, at the end of the day you are a creature of self
interest. You married your partner because of the way she made YOU
feel at the time. If the crunch comes, you will put yourself and
your family first. If you are doing well, you can afford to be generous
and feel good about it, so you are still rewarded.

That is a long way from us being selfless creatures prepared to
sacrifice everything for the good of society, as you seem to dream
about.

Yabby,

"...I see that people usually put self interest ahead of the communal good."

Do you think that would be as likely to dominate behaviour in a traditional co-operative society as it is in a capitalist industrial society?

Capitalism solicits the practice of selfishness and greed - gives it kudos.

Poirot, capitalism simply enables people to obtain capital, which
is required for many innovative projects. It also enables consumers
to vote with their wallets. How this is all used, is really up
to the individual.

Let me give you an example. After living in the hustle and bustle
of various cities, I believed that my happiness was in the country,
with some land, some animals, doing my own thing. Politics
interfered with all that. Subsidies dumped on global markets by
the EU and USA, made things extremely difficult for Australian
country dwellers.

I was not about to give up on my dream, so I raised some capital,
came up with some novel ideas, gave consumers what they might want,
earned some money and when I thought that I had enough to live
the lifestyle that I wanted to live, I sold the business.

All possible due to capitalism and the market, nothing to do with
greed or kudos.

What started off as discussion of Bicycles: sustainable transport needs city infrastructure
always finishes up as a silly squabble between Jabby and Squeers.

I'm sure it seems that way to you, PEST, but in the scheme of things I think bicycles and sustainable transport are pretty silly.
Like everything revolves around that!