The book “The Selfish Gene”, written by the biologist Richard Dawkins, brilliantly summarizes an idea that would change the way that evolutionary processes would be seen. This idea is based on the fact that the natural selection "acts" on the genes, so the genes that confer their holders advantages over other beings survive, and are passed on hereditarily. So, to make a more didactic explanation, Richard Dawkins says that genes are selfish because they would “act” only in order to survive and multiply, trying to spread as many copies of themselves in future generations. However, to achieve their selfish goals, the genes have to cooperate with other genes within living beings. This complex relationship between various selfish genes results in different organisms, with their natural tendencies to fight for survival and procreate. Seen in this way, the living beings would be mere puppets of the genes, used solely as a means of transporting genes to future generations. The genes survive in copies within the new puppets created, while the old puppets die.
Thus, individuals also have the selfish goals to survive and to procreate. But for this, they often must cooperate with others to increase the chances of achieving their goals. Examples of these cooperation abound in nature, just watch a few minutes of National Geographic to see animals of different species cooperating in groups in any activity that increases their chances to survive and to procreate. A careless look at these scenes could lead one to think that animals are cooperating for the sake of its species survival, but the only motivation for this cooperation comes from the selfish interests of individuals, which comes from the selfish interests of their genes.
Based on the premise that individuals are selfish, we can think about the question: why the trees are large and have several meters high instead of being as low as bushes? The answer is because they grow in order to compete for sunlight with each other. If there was a collective mind of all the trees, they could decide to have the same low size. Thus, all could get sunlight, no one would shadow the other, and the species would benefit as a whole. But it is obvious that this is not what happens. Being irrational, trees can not decide to stop growing. There is absolutely nothing to prevent the emergence of a mutation that makes a tree grow a little more than others and benefit more from this condition than their neighbors. The trees grow because of competition, there is no progress for the good of the species, but for the good of the individuals and their genes.
Now, many people think that this reasoning can not be applied to humans, because they say that man must act for the good of society, the nation, or any abstract entity representing a group. And that is a big mistake. Despite humans being able to create laws and try to plan the economy aiming that all men, as the trees of the hypothetical forest, "have the same size" (have equal opportunities, rights and wealth), there is absolutely nothing to prevent the emergence of humans who try to take advantage of the conditions in which they are to increase their well-being and wealth according their selfish interests. So the socialists are wrong in trying to prevent the growth of personal wealth, with its measures that end up making everyone equally poor. People with governmental power will use it to satisfy their selfish desires, and not for the good of society, because men are, as any other living thing, selfish.
Being selfish, humans respond to incentives in order to increase their well-being. In a civilized and peaceful society, there must be only constructive incentives, which do not diminish the welfare of others. A great incentive for this to happen is to make possible the free market, without any restriction to it. In a free market, people trade goods in order to improve their conditions. In an exchange of goods for money between two human beings, both end up cooperating, even though they are acting solely for their selfish goals, to increase their personal satisfactions. The two sides, at the end of trading, increase their satisfaction over the previous period. It is a win-win situation - the person who bought the product gladly accepted to exchange his money for the goods; the seller agreed to exchange the goods for money.
In a society that prohibits cooperation and free trade, the only incentives that individuals have to improve their conditions are theft and coercion. Those who have the power can easily steal the rest of the population, which has few ways to increase their welfare. There is only one way out for those who are at the base of this pyramid: to join the government team and steal the rest of the population. This is one reason why socialism does not work and generates violence and suffering to their populations.
If it's not of benefit to me then why should I benefit you?
Is that the principle the genes follow?
Basically, yes