The avatar of self-interest is Donald Trump. With him as your hero there is no shame in anything you want for yourself. I am very familiar with this ideology after dealing with the Ayn-Rand-in-space-libertarians for the last 15 years. They are loud and proud about there being absolutely nothing having any meaning except money.
Trump is the model for millions of borderline and straight-up narcissist creeps who hold money as the god of this world. Almost anything goes in Mammon worship; lying, betrayal, bullying, intimidation, manipulation….only the amount of wealth amassed, which is power, has any real value. What does not go, what is heretical and blasphemous, is self-sacrifice. That is for the suckers and losers. While everything traditionally named as evils are just good business practices, what is shameful and evil to the materialist is the non-transaction. Everything must be traded up for profit in the great pyramid scheme of wealth. Only in this way can wealthy individuals exist. While the rest of us are taught that pyramid schemes are stealing, the wealthy smile knowingly and shrug. Society camouflages those that take the most and give the least. Extreme profit in business is all about deception.
Stealing makes the victim a sucker and a loser and is the ultimate materialist good because it is the most satisfying transaction of all; the risk is the only investment and is “free” so the pay-off is always something from nothing, ex nihilo. God-like. Who and what you are stealing from is simply the other person and, depending on how close to total psychopathy you lean, are not really people and do not matter. Only you matter and what you can get away with, without damage or loss. Simple, beautiful, and the sacred doctrine of the materialist.
War, as some anthropologists have noted…is theft. It is stealing by investing in violence. Materialists in the 21st century do not generally like war for several reasons. The main one being the more violence, the more expense. It is not ex nihilo and requires risk and an investment. Most, like Trump, would rather steal without the expense. There is also the uncomfortable necessity for soldiers, who Trump called “suckers and losers.” These beings willing to die fighting for their nation, which they think they have some kind of ownership of…are dangerous. No telling what they will do. Why will soldiers die defending their country? For their loved ones. For the collective state that sustains and protects their people, not the individual. For individuals who only exist across the narcissist-psychopath spectrum, there is no love for anyone because there is no one person…. there is just one person. So, they do not really understand soldiers. This is the difference between a warrior and a soldier. The warrior-psychopath is a well-known character often used to raise morale and entertain, but they are very rare and extreme examples, and mostly fiction. The warrior seeks self-aggrandizement while the soldier sacrifices for others. Soldiers and not warriors are why we have Veterans Day.
Having been a soldier and many other things, I have more to say on this, but I have to go to work right now.
Ice on the Moon 