You are confusing deliberation on the value of an interest with its absence. Nations, and individuals, have interests. How those interests are percieved, and the value weight they are assigned, is variable. Rulers do not create interests, they are constrained by them. A ruler may make a wrong value judgement about what is the most important and pressing interest, rulers may debate what are the important interests of the times, but that does not mean that those interests do not exist apart from the mental calculations of the rulers. Interests may be valued incorrectly, the value weight of an interest may change in response to political, military, social, or economic developments, or new interests may appear. Oil is a vital national interest. The country would cease to function without it. To say that a government decreed oil to be an interest is absurd. It is OBJECTIVELY an interest. A wrong choice of what is an interest does not mean nations or individuals do not act out of self-interest. It merely means they exercised poor, or imperfect, judgement.
Politicians pass paternalistic laws because they assume they have a superior metric of what is in the public self-interest than the public itself. Certainly jumping out of a perfectly functional aircraft is normally not in one's self-interest. Skydivers have come to an alternate judgement.
Derek |
