Economic theory has conventionally adopted the ‘self-love’ or ‘far-sighted maximizer’ assumption. Contemporary economics has qualified the utilitarian tradition, seeking to enlarge its range of interpretation and application. The theoretical problem that the present paper wishes to focus on is if and how aspects of human behaviour have been represented as destructive or self-destructive in economics. The paper presents a preliminary survey of thoughts on destructive and self-destructive action by Smith and Hayek, who were especially sensitive to the issue. Can destructive human actions seriously damage or permanently destroy the existing possibilities of improving well-being ? By way of comparison with other languages of knowledge, the last section considers how destructive and self-destructive action has been captured in literary language.