Work and Fellowship

From its inception in Smith's system, the cardinal psychological principle, Profit-seeking, is normative, though frequently presented as descriptive.  The lapses in this dogmatism are usually expressed as attempts to explain away sympathetic instincts, e. g. that they are themselves Egoistic, when the only argument against Sympathy that is relevant to the Capitalist enterprise might be that it is counter-productive to Wealth-generation.  But Profit-seeking and Sympathy do not exhaust the possible motivational factors in Economic behavior.  A third is what can be called Fellowship--the enjoyment of working with others for its own sake.  Now, Fellowship is a motivator the existence of which the Capitalist can neither deny nor reduce to Sympathy.  Nor does the Egoist Profit-motive sufficiently explain collaboration as a mere means to personal Gain, though it might apply as such to the behavior of some.  So, Fellowship in Work presents a problem for the doctrine according to which Work is an ontological Punishment from which Leisure is the Salvation.