THERE’S been a lot written in recent times about how selfish we have become. I understand where this – usually a cry of despair and frustration – comes from. And it is no doubt true, that a society based on consumerism, competition and greed has disrupted the notion of solidarity and community. But that’s not the full story. And nor is it the final word on where we, as a society, are going.

Margaret Thatcher said “there’s no such thing as society” as her Conservative revolution swept the land. That was updated by Boris Johnson in 2013, when he declared as part of his speech for the annual Margaret Thatcher Lecture that inequality is essential to fostering the “spirit of envy” which like greed, he argued, was a “valuable spur to economic activity.”

The “greed is good” dogma has its roots in the Chicago School of Economics. Led by Milton Friedman, and known as the Chicago Boys, they set about defining what makes a thriving economy. Low regulation, privatisation and the rolling back of the public sphere. Crucially, this would be an global project to be implemented by the International Monetary Fund, among others.

This brand of rampant capitalism,which has come to be known as neoliberalism, was exported with profound and long-lasting consequences, and often through the use of force, and anti-democratic coercion.

For Friedman and his ideological acolytes who became hegemonic in the 1970s and 80s, greed was in reality the organising principle of the corporation, the executive, the shareholder and indeed all individuals. In this way the sole purpose – the only task – of a corporate executive was to enrich their shareholders.

In a wide-ranging critique of Friedman and the political representatives of the Chicago Boys who triumphed in the 1980s and set the economic consensus for the ensuing decades – Thatcher and Reagan – Nobel Prize-winning economist Dr Joseph Stiglitz argues that this approach has been socially and economically disastrous.

For Stiglitz, who disagreed but never the less respected Friedman, the approach led to intolerablelevels of inequality. Such inequality is now seen as a threat to social peace, and the basis of political instability domestically and across the world, as well as a grave social ill by many defenders of capitalism as a whole, including Stiglitz.

“Paying attention to everyone else's self-interest – in other words to the common welfare – is in fact a precondition for one's own ultimate wellbeing… it isn't just good for the soul; it's good for business,” he argues.

But such is the short-term nature of profit making – that planning investment, shoring up environmental protections and prioritising the needs of the many, not the few – to coin a phrase – is countervailing to the logic of the system. So the logic needs to be accompanied by something a little more doctrinaire.

After all, when CEOs earn 300 times as much as their employees, a great deal of ideological pressure is needed to make this reality as sustainable one.

That the Amazon is being cut down, or that Amazon workers earn pennies in comparison to its anti-union CEO: these can simply be rationalised as moral economic incentives that deliver for shareholders and (if anyone still buys this) for society as a whole as wealth “trickles down.”

Perhaps consumer capitalism is what people really want and that is really what defines us as human beings– like it or not. Or so the argument goes.

We’ve all seen the images of Black Friday – where people push each other to the ground in the rush for cheap consumer goods. We’ve all – apparently – accepted our entry into a competition for the latest gadgets, cars or clothes. Especially at Christmas time.

There is of course a jarring, and blatant, contradiction. On the one hand we are bombarded with advertising to make us want to buy products and be made to feel that unless we have them we are inferior. Especially if we cannot ensure they are waiting under the tree on the big day. And on the other, we have an economy based on low pay, temporary jobs and in-work poverty.

Little wonder then, that a recent YouGov poll showed that over a third of people were planning on taking out lines of credit to cover festive shopping. It is a quite dizzying cycle. One day the adverts are for the latest must-have products. The next about how much lower in price those products are in the New Year sales. And then, finally, we get the ads for debt helplines.

And do we even want life to be commodified in this way? Last year a survey found that in the UK there were around 60 million unwanted gifts. Perhaps that’s this biggest trick of all. All of these products we are told we need, all of the “greed is good” dogma, and all of the short-term accumulation of profit doesn’t make us happy. In reality it does the opposite.

It makes us anxious, adds to our economic stress, and damages our mental health. The never ending slew of useless consumer goods produces fantastic wealth, which is then systematically held back from society at large, often funnelled into off-shore accounts.

In the US – international headquarters of the Chicago Boys – the greed-is-good logic is alive and well. What do General Motors, Netflix, Starbucks and Chevron all have in common? None of them paid a dollar in federal income tax last year. While millions will be worrying about the impossibility of affording health insurance this festive season.

Such a social and economic system breeds a culture of individualism, where the end of society, unless there is a photo-opportunity at a food bank, is finally realised. Fear and division comes to trump solidarity and hope.

But maybe that is just what we are meant to believe. I’ve never bought into such a pessimistic view of humanity. Indeed – despite political events – I’m sure that the longing for sharing, looking after one an other, and community will overcome the ravages of late capitalism.

This year, Glaswegians donated £430,270 worth of gifts for over 13,000 children living at the sharp end of austerity and poverty. Foodbank drives are inundated, and the Clutha is opening its doors on Christmas Day for those who are without company, or homes. Thousands of acts of solidarity will take place this Christmas, none of them with monetary reward.

Our society and our humanity is worth much more than that. So as this year comes to a close, and we look ahead to difficult times to come – for people and for the planet – never give up hope in our capacity for compassion. Nor, in the eventual victory of solidarity over greed. The coming years will need acts of kindness, support and yes – joy – as well as a clear sighted challenge to the economic doctrines that have passed their sell-by date.