I'd like to say in an ideal situation everyone should both be looking out for themselves and for others. This rarely happens in a perfect balance, but it's only the extremes one needs to really worry about. And generally speaking you will find that those that are doing well will have more time to look about themselves than those that are not.

As an example, consider the Netherlands which does excedingly well. They have (as a nation, sorry jcwren -- you can generalize :) ) the time to learn English and Dutch and another language (as mentioned in ML's post it's generally German or French). For Americans, I suppose you could say we show our "well to do" by being very, er, "proactive" in worldwide affairs (I don't exactly support all of this proaction :) ).

However, as mentioned, during economic crisis's Russia was not worried about everyone else -- similarly during the depression American acted similarly.

So anyway, to conclude: It would be nice if we could attain a balance between minding our business as well as our neighbor's. But just try not to be destructive, rather constructive when doing so.

Ciao,
Gryn