YOU GOT YOUR GOOD AND YOU GOT YOUR GREATER GOOD. Therein lies one of life’s great dilemmas because the good can sometimes interfere with the greater good, making the good bad. We look for bad people to be culpable for life’s tragedies, but oftentimes we find good people wielding the sword as they strive for a better life behind the bombs and burned-out buildings.

The good would be defined as “Whatever is good for me and mine.” Mine can include self, family, clan, community, company, religion, nationality, creed, or continent. The greater good would be defined as “Whatever is good for everyone.”

Here’s the rub. What’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander, or the hungry farmer. With everyone in the world chasing after the good, there is much trampling. People are either fighting over limited resources or simply rushing to gobble up as much as possible. Either way, the struggle to obtain the good life can be bad for others.

Self-preservation is a natural instinct, and a dandy one. Good or bad, it is the drive that keeps us alive. Great minds have written lengthy books on the endless benefits of attending to number one.

Nick Machiavelli started it perhaps with “The Prince,” which paves a highway to success for boundless ambition and global domination. His was a book of the good — good for his readers and followers. There are many recent books with more virtuous methodologies, such as Ayn Rand’s “The Virtue of Selfishness.”

Rand says take care of number one first. If you are unhappy, you will make those around you unhappy; dour brings sour; those who wish to be happy will avoid you; this will increase your unhappiness.

Happy breeds happy, says Rand. You have to feel good about yourself first, have all your needs met and find satisfaction in your life. Then you can go out and do greater good. “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Plato states that we all act on what we perceive as good for ourselves, be it joining an army, robbing a bank, or seeking violent revenge on an uncaring public for imagined wrongs. It’s all considered as good by the doer.

Following that logic, if all bad originated as good, then everything is good. Wars, diseases, floods, fires, man-induced toxins, radiation poisoning are all good for the survivors, unless the Earth is left a barren, lifeless, uninhabitable hellscape, then it’s still good for nothing.

Here’s the itch. Here’s why utopia is far, far away. Providing for the greater good often requires personal sacrifice. Achieving personal goodness does not simply emanate goodness to others. One must give up things and share more. One might have to pay higher taxes. One might have to volunteer personal time. One might have to be inconvenienced, go out of one’s way, or forgo a luxury in order to attend to the greater good. The process may be referred to as the redistribution of wealth, a phrase that raises hackles among many who have accumulated quite a pile.

If we expand this good and greater good concept to include businesses — because, after all, in America at least, corporations are people — think it over, check the Dow or whatever resource you need to consult and then say it aloud and honestly: Do you feel that most companies — which wield such tremendous global wealth and power and influence over the planet’s health — are more interested in the good or the greater good?

If a company’s number-one goal were the greater good and not its own bottom line, it would likely go out of business. Humans can be altruistic and still find happiness and contentment. An altruistic corporation is an oxymoron.

We have thousands of good companies making inexpensive products for happy customers and making a good profit doing so. The problem is that the whole system is based on taking more than you give.

Corporations can’t care for public welfare before their profit margin. It’s not their duty. I’d sell their stock if they did. However, they can care for both and be greener in their methods. Many are. I try to support them.

I guess there are only a few improbable solutions. One would be to elect a global, honest, ethical, unbiased politic as absolute referee with the authority to make everyone play fair and protect the welfare of the people and the planet.

The other would be to change human nature by removing the greed gene. Genetically modify us to all strive for the greater good.

I wonder if that could evolve naturally, given enough time, trial and error? Perhaps that is where beehives and ant hills come from.

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.