This is an essay I wrote this past summer, enjoy.
“By far the best way of achieving anatta was
compassion, the ability to feel with the other, which required that one
dethrone the self from the center of one’s world and put another there.”[1]
“The
global capitalist system is approaching an apocalyptic zero-point. Its ‘four
riders of the apocalypse’ are comprised by the ecological crisis, the
consequences of the biogenetic revolution, imbalances within the system itself...,
and the explosive growth of social divisions and exclusions.”[2]
Žižek’s dire description begs the question, how has humanity arrived in this
situation, and is there a way out? These questions gain further complexity in a
pluralized world, where globalized interactions function in the secularized
sphere of global capitalism. Is there another way of conceiving economics, without alienating multiple religions
and worldviews?
Central
to economic theory, though commonly overlooked in popular discussion, is a conception
of human nature. Yet the prevailing capitalist vs. socialist dichotomy does not
delve deep enough into the nature of humanity to offer an adequate alternative.
This paper will argue that at the heart of global capitalism is a misconceived
understanding of humanity, which ought to be replaced. To investigate this
claim, two – selective, though generally representative – conceptions of
humanity are depicted. First, the development of an atomistic, self-interested
economic human is sketched, followed by the contrasting vision of the
relational, interdependent human. These divergent views of humanity assist in
unveiling an internal contradiction in global capitalism, which once revealed
necessarily calls for resolve.
Regarding
religious plurality, this paper understands many faith traditions, as well as
some strands of secular humanism, to affirm various relational conceptions of
humanity. Therefore, relational humanity is posited as an alternative universal
platform for economic interactions in a pluralised world. This paper, then, is
not a specific call to the church for a specific social ethic, nor is it
narrowly Christian in its conclusions. The discourse, however, will largely
occur between mainstream economic thought and the protestant Christian
tradition and scriptures, to depict contrasting visions.
Within this paper, economics refers to mainstream
economics, that being the western neoclassical tradition. The terms political
economy and economics are used somewhat interchangeably; while recognizing the
shift in terms, this paper refuses to grant a clear-cut moral/amoral distinction
between them.
An Economic Self
“A basic sense of decency, sympathy
and mutual aid lies at the core of human behaviour.”[3]
The
origins of capitalism are difficult to pinpoint, as throughout the Middle Ages the
groundwork was forming.[4]
The industrialization of England, however, displays a recognizable capitalism
as freedom of trade and property rights became dominant.[5]
Therefore, it is with Adam Smith’s conception of human nature this survey of
economic humanity begins.
Smith’s
tome, The Wealth of Nations,
progresses from his empiric work on the division of labour and the reality of
exchange to evaluative judgements as to why humans act the way they do. During Smith’s
evaluative rhetoric, he implants the propensity to trade into his economic
anthropology. Exchange occurs, Smith argues, as a “consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in
view no such extensive utility; the
propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.”[6]
The rational for this propensity is self-love, as there are many occasions for
altruism to expect such actions is vain, “He will be more likely to prevail if
he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for
their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them.”[7]
Moreover, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the
baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”[8]
Smith does not limit the motive of self-interest to the purchasing of items; it
freely influences inter-personal relationships. Regarding the issue labour, Smith
writes, one “would have no interest to employ [another], unless he was to share
in the produce of his labour.”[9]
Thus, revealing self-interest as a core dimension of Smith’s conception of
humanity.
Though sometimes caricatured by self-interest,[10]
Smith’s conception of human nature is significantly more nuanced, as evident
within The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith
states, “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some
principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others.”[11]
Interest in the other, Smith argues, arises from humanity’s mirroring ability,
which leads to compassion.[12]
“The compassion of the spectator must arise altogether from the consideration
of what he himself would feel if he was reduced to the same unhappy situation.”[13]
Thus, Smith’s view of humanity is not completely atomized individuality; rather
he regards humans as having the capability to relate in non-transactionary
ways. He further nuances humanity with traits of prudence, benevolence, and self-command
(alongside justice), as a complementing narrative, “that traces the moral
ascent of the individual in a manner analogous to his account of the material
ascent of civilization."[14]
Smith also creates a spectrum for the role of self-love, as a way of
recognizing the diversity of motives within human nature, from the prudent to
the magnanimous.[15]
Thus, Smith’s conception of human nature attempted to balance the individual
and interdependence. However, the kernel of self-love placed within the human
propensity to trade began to grow like a weed in within subsequent economic
thought.
Bastardization of the Self
“The
clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require
too much from individuals. Hence his ability to pick out the right men and utilize
combined energy.”[16] – Sun Tzu
The
tentative balance struck by Smith was deconstructed and atomized by
utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham’s conception of the good explicated in the "theory of
utilitarianism, [is] the idea that all social actions should be evaluated by
the axiom, ‘it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the
measure of right and wrong.’”[17]
The
evaluative core of utilitarianism necessarily reduced conceptions of humanity
to numbers. Thus, Smith’s human with compassion and values was reduced to
Bentham’s calculating agent. Unlike Smith, Bentham did not believe there were natural
rights to interfere with such a conception of humanity, thus beginning and enabling
reign of utility.
[18]
David Ricardo, like Bentham, also reduced humans into abstraction
and principle, which inevitably denigrated value and choice elements of
humanity. For Ricardo, “[People] are not, as we have said, people: they are prototypes. Nor do these prototypes, in the
everyday sense of the word, live:
they follow `laws of behaviour.’”[19]
The force of Ricardo’s argument for the reduction of people to laws is its
ability to increase the predictive power of economics. “By building a model
world, Ricardo gave the powerful tool of abstraction to economics.”[20]
For in a model world the human could be understood, which panders to the human
desire for certainty, security, and predictability.
Mill, continuing the course set by Bentham expanded the
prevalence of utilitarian consequentialist ethics, while further alienating
deontological ethics in the realm of economics. The common good was defined by
happiness, and the maximization of this happiness was understood to be the
telos.[21]
Though reducing the human to happiness, it “is not the agent’s own
happiness, but that of all concerned.” [22] Thus,
Mill’s utilitarianism could incorporate human actions of altruism, and
self-sacrifice, even calling it “the highest virtue which can be found in man.”[23] However,
utilitarianism could only value such actions for a potential outcome, and not
for the act itself. Therefore, “[utilitarianism] only refuses to admit that the
sacrifice is itself a good. A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to
increase, the sum total of happiness, it considers as wasted.”[24] The
calculating nature of utilitarianism, therefore, is unable to account for the
intangibility within human nature.
Mill, defining the concept of man with which political
economy dealt, stated in 1844, “[political economy] does not treat of the whole
of man's nature as modified by the social state, nor of the whole conduct of
man in society. It is concerned with him solely as a being who desires to
possess wealth, and who is capable of judging of the comparative efficacy of
means for obtaining that end.”[25]
This human rationality, narrowly defined by comparative efficiency, became
known as homo economicus; a human
dislodged from social conditioning and society, a rational being that creates
wealth by comparative efficacy. In essence, a self completely bastardized from
all relations. Though Mill’s writings are more nuanced, this conception of
economic man prevailed. The influence of Mill’s thought and utilitarianism on
subsequent economic conceptions of humanity is hard to overstate. Humanity narrowly
conceived as a maximization agent continues to influence contemporary economic
principles, such as the Parato principle and concepts of social welfare.[26]
In
contrast to this socially divorced view of humanity, Marx and Engels in 1848
wrote the Manifesto of the Communist
Party. Their scientific socialism argued the other extreme. Rooting their conception
of humanity in dialectical materialism, human action was viewed as the
inevitable result of social conditioning.[27]
As such it correctly diagnosing the oversight that humans in fact act with each
other, but makes a wrong turn as “[i]t only maintains that thoughts and ideas
are the product of environment.”[28]
Thus, the human leaves the bonds of the laws of maximization and enters the
bonds of social conditioning. However, they offered the keen insight that capitalism
contained an internal inconsistency, in that “the base of industrial production
– the actual making of goods – was an ever more organized, integrated, interdependent process, whereas the
superstructure of private property was the most individualistic of social systems.”[29]
Thus, the wrestling match between individualistic and interdependent
conceptions of humanity, identified by Smith, continued without resolve.
Alfred
Marshall - on the heels of Francis Edgeworth’s conception of economic man as a
pleasure machine reducible to mathematics - grappled with the inconsistencies
he saw between economic humanity and real humanity.[30]
Marshall highlighted that economics had tended to view itself as science and the
predominant perception was that “the Laws of Economics are statements of
tendencies expressed in the indicative mood, and not ethical precepts in the
imperative.”[31]Yet,
he also realized that these attempts to construct “an ‘economic man’ who is
under no ethical influences and who pursues pecuniary gain...have not been
successful.”[32]
Instead, he claimed humanity is not perfectly selfish, he argued that family
affections have always been assumed; therefore, it is inconsistent not to
include other altruistic so long as they can be reduced to a general rule.[33]
Thus, Marshall reconsidered including the relational and altruistic behaviours
of humanity, with the caveat that only if such actions can be abstracted into a
conceptual rule.
Reflecting upon his work thirty years later, Marshall continued
to view the incorporation of complexity into economic conceptions of humanity as
the way forward. He looked to biological complexity, rather than mechanics, as
a possible direction in which to head.[34]
Even so, he was aware of the limitations of capturing the complexity of real
humanity. Marshall describes these shortcomings as involving the isolation of the
primary relations of supply, demand, and price, and then the reduction to
inaction of all other forces by the phrase “other things being equal”; not
supposing these forces are inert, but ignoring them for a time.[35]
Marshall’s work slingshot mainstream economics into the twentieth century and
with it an increasingly complex understanding of economic human nature. Nevertheless,
a nature rooted on a foundation of self-interest and utility, though grappling
with the relevance of altruism, organized in ever more complex matrixes of laws
and abstractions.
God and Self
“Being
lies in the fact that something is, and in its Being as it is; in Reality; in presence-at-hand;
in subsistence; in validity; in Dasein; in the 'there is’”[36]
Contrasting
economic humanity is a Christian vision of the relational nature of humanity. Søren
Kierkegaard, writing in the first half of the 19th century,
significantly challenged the prevailing conception of humanity. Reigning was an
atomized humanity built upon a Descartesian dualism of subject and object,
which follows upon Descartes’ dualism between mind and matter; evident within
his oft quoted “I think therefore I am.” David Hume, contemporary of Adam
Smith, demonstrated the reliance on a
priori reasoning when presuming object distinction, as no actual cause is
evident only two subsequent events, thus “[e]very alteration of circumstance
occasions a doubt concerning the event.”[37]
This infinitely problematized the question of humanity as independent subjects
that can be abstracted to follow laws, due to humanity’s dynamic nature. Into
this melee, Kierkegaard posits his conception of humanity, as a relational
being. He conceived of the self as being in relation to itself, a synthesis of
the infinite and the finite, relating to itself through a “third term.”[38]
Thus, Kierkegaard firmly plants a relational nature in to the human -
relational as relating to others as well as relating to oneself and positing
God as the proper “third term” through which to relate. Kierkegaard’s work
functioned, in part, to de-objectify God in relation to humanity. As the self
had been atomized in economic conceptions of humanity, so to God had been
objectified as though he really were one
of the things that existed provable by science.[39]
Two
theologians in the first half of the twentieth century took on the gauntlet of
de-objectifying God, returning to the historic paradoxical nature of a
personalized God and a transpersonal divinity.[40]
Paul Tillich and Karl Barth both worked to restore this dual conception of the
divine, a conception that parallels the dilemma of the individual and the
interrelated nature of humanity within economics. Tillich resolved this dilemma
by speaking of God as the ground of being, and of God beyond God, while
religion is the experience of depth in being that is ultimate concern.[41]
The existential nature of Tillich’s conceptions of humanity could estrange the
self, yet he places the human amongst God as the ground of being, as such,
there is a permanent relational nature to humanity’s existence. Barth resolves
the paradoxical nature of God by recovering the Trinity. Barth is thus able to
speak of God’s humanity as “God’s relation to and turning toward man,” while
only sentences later speaking of “the mystery comparable only to the
impenetrable darkness of death, in which God veils Himself precisely when He
unveils.”[42]
Thus, both these theologians, in his own way, reconnect God and humanity
thereby reinvigorating humanity with an essential relational nature derived
from the divine-human relationship.
The
biblical narrative supports the resurgence of relational conceptions of
humanity. Significant to understanding humanity’s relational nature is Genesis 1:26-27,
Then God said,
‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in
his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created
them.[43]
In this periscope, one
finds the God-human relation, the relationship within the Godhead (exhibited by
the use of the plural “our image”), between male and female, as well as human
to the rest of the created order, setting a framework for the relational nature
of humanity. Thus, as the narrative continues through creation, fall, and
redemption, humanity’s relational nature precedes its later manifestations; a
principle overlooked by reductionist economic conceptions of man that center on
self-interest.
The
concept of man herein proposed is a shift from homo sapiens/homo economicus
to relātūs homo. Rather
than the beings who know/are wise, or a being that is narrowly rational and
self-interested, relātūs homo
relates, retelling are relational narrative thereby deriving humanness (thus
not homo relātūs, but relātūs homo). This conception of the
relational human is then a platform from which alternate views of human
interactions can be formed.
Zugzwang
“As
idealistic as it may sound, altruism, not just competition and the desire for
wealth, should be a driving force in business.”[44] – His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Despite
the resurgence of relational humanity in theology, mainstream economics has not
moved very far beyond a complexification of homo
economicus. In economics, the atomized individual prevails: “they are
consumers with rationally ordered preference principles.”[45]
Evident within this conception is the retention of a utilitarian decision
matrix of ordered preferences, an assumption of a self-interest principle within
consumption, and abstractions of the human to an object dominated by principles.
"The aim of
[utilitarianism]” Charles Taylor says, “was precisely to reject all qualitative
distinctions and to construe all human goals as on the same footing,
susceptible therefore of common quantification and calculation according to
some common 'currency'."[46]
This
utilitarianism thrives within “preference,” allowing for the calculability of
individual human decisions, and the retention of an object-based view of
humanity.
Anathema
to atomized humanity is the reality of globalization driven by global
capitalism. "Globalization can be described as the process by which
market economies, governments and cultures are becoming increasingly
interlinked and integrated across the globe."[47]
Thus, a discrepancy emerges between the atomized individual and the increasing
awareness of the interrelated nature of humanity. Therefore, in a Hegelian
sense, what is being witnessed currently is the end of one manifestation of the
idea. “The idea’s imperfect [or, rather, catastrophic] actualizations bear
witness to an “inner contradiction” at the very heart of the idea.”[48]
It is to this conclusion that this paper has argued. The imbalance or
misconception of human nature by Smith, seen in the propensity to trade
centered on self-love, is retained in economic humanity as atomized individuals.
The subsequent variations of this economic system have modified and altered the
dominant understanding of homo economicus,
yet, ‘the
greatest strength of capitalism lies in its ability to subvert revolutionary
goals by the ideology of domination.”[49]
Thus, homo economicus could not shake
its subject/object dichotomy. Therefore, if real change is going to occur in current economic
practice a shift in thought must first occur at the deep local of the nature of
humanity. For, if global capitalism is truly nearing the zero point, as Žižek
argues, due to the internal contradiction evident within mainstream economic
thought, then humanity has reached its moment of zugzwang.
The crises of ecology, biogenetics, imbalance, and social
division are in part the offspring of a system rooted upon homo economicus. Thus proposing to mitigate the effects of these
crises while retaining an atomized view of humanity fails to grasp the depth to
which such conceptions haunt the systems and structure. No longer can humanity
afford to function through “momentary exchange[s] between atomized individuals
who, immediately afterwards, return to their solitude.”[50]
Longevity must be considered. Yet altering the view of humanity will ultimately
challenge notions of what it means to relate, as “[t]he atomized society, in
which we have contact with others without entering into proper relations with
them, is the presupposition of liberalism.”[51]
Thus a relational conception of humanity offers the opportunity for significant
change, though a risky change. Relational conceptions of humanity offer
implicit value in the act of relating. As such, trade and exchange can be
valued without a motive of self-interest. This opens up opportunities of social
enterprise and re-localized economies, instead of actions dictated by
comparative efficiency. Beyond trade, however, indwelling a relational
conception of humanity opens the self up to change. Thus, much like the Trinity
and its mutual interpenetration through perichoresis, a relational conception
of humanity will inevitably involve being mutually transformed within the
relation. A risk the bastardized self must welcome, knowing such relations will
alter the self.
The proposal to change from homo economicus to relātūs homo in economics is a
bold one. Yet in humanity’s moment of zugzwang, it appears to be time for a
necessary shift. The protestant tradition returned to a relational view of God
and humanity, in the same way economics can alter its trajectory through a
re-conceptualization of the nature of economic humanity. Such a turn may provide
resolve to the crises that dominate the twenty-first century by providing a universal
platform for pluralized interactions that is alternate to the self-interest
driven sphere of secular global capitalism.
By Silas Krabbe
[1] Karen Armstrong, The Case
for God (New York: Knopf, 2009), 24.
[2] Slavoj Žižek, Living In
The End Times (New York: Verso, 2011), x.
[3] Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity
Anarchism, 3rd ed., Working Classics Series 3 (Oakland, CA: AK Press,
2004), 83.
[4] Rodney Stark, The Victory of
Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success
(New York: Random House, 2005), 63ff.
[5] Ibid., 153,
157.
[6] Adam Smith, An Inquiry into
the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: Methuen & Co.
Ltd, 1904), 1.2.1, Library of Economics and Liberty [Online] available from
http://econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html; accessed 17 July 2013; Internet. (Emphasis added).
[7] Ibid.,
1.2.2.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.,
1.8.7.
[10] Robert L. Heilbroner, The
Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic
Thinkers, Rev. 7th ed (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 55.
[11] Adam Smith, The Theory of
Moral Sentiments (London: A. Millar, 1790), 1.1.1, Library of Economics and
Liberty [Online] available from http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS.html;
accessed 17 July 2013; Internet.
[12] Ibid.,
1.1.3.
[13] Ibid.,
1.1.11.
[14] Ryan Patrick Hanley, Adam
Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2011), 93–94.
[15] Ibid., 94.
[16] Sun Tzu, The Art of War
(Enderby: Arcturus, 2008), 51.
[17] The Concise Encyclopedia of
Economics
(Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2008), 525.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Heilbroner, The Worldly
Philosophers, 94–95.
[20] Ibid., 103.
[21] John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
(Kitchener, ON: Batoche Books, 1863), 10, McMaster [Online], available from
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/mill/utilitarianism.pdf; accessed
July 19 2013; Internet.
[22] Ibid., 14.
[23] Ibid., 19–20.
[24] Ibid., 19.
[25] John Stuart Mill, Essays on
Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy. (London: Longmans, Green,
Reader, and Dyer, 1874), v.38, Library of Economics and Liberty [Online]
available from http://www.econlib.org/library/Mill/mlUQP5.html; accessed 19
July 2013; Internet.
[26] Donald A Hay, Economics
Today: A Christian Critique (Vancouver: Regent College Pub, 2004), 126.
[27] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
“Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Marx/Engels Selected Works, vol.
1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), 21,22, Marxist Internet Archive [Online]
available from
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf; accessed
20 July 2013; Internet.
[28] Heilbroner, The Worldly
Philosophers, 145.
[29] Ibid., 147.
[30] Ibid., 173.
[31] Alfred Marshall, Principles
of Economics: An Introductory Volume (London: Macmillan, 1994), v.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid., vi.
[34] Ibid., xii.
[35] Ibid.,
xiii.
[36] Martin Heidegger, Being and
Time (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), 26.
[37] David Hume, Dialogues
Concerning Natural Religion, Dover Philosophical Classics (Mineola, NY:
Dover Publications, 2006), 18.
[38] Søren Kierkegaard, The
Sickness Unto Death (London: Penguin, 2008), 9.
[39] Karen Armstrong, A History
of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York:
A.A. Knopf, 1993), 345.
[40] Ibid., 383.
[41] Paul Tillich, Theology of
Culture (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 4–9.
[42] Karl Barth, The Humanity of
God (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1960), 37.
[43] Holy Bible New Revised Standard
Version.
(Abingdon Pr, 2010).
[44] Tenzin Gyatso, In My Own
Words: An Introduction to My Teachings and Philosophy, ed. Rajiv Mehrotra,
1st ed. (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2008), 171.
[45] Kent Van Til, “Human Nature and
Human Needs in Recent Economic Theory,” in Global Neighbors: Christian Faith
and Moral Obligation in Today’s Economy, ed. Douglas A Hicks and Mark
Valeri (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 65.
[46]
As quoted in: Paul Spencer Williams,
“Globalization and the Logic of Capitalism,” in The Gospel and
Globalization: Exploring the Religious Roots of a Globalized World, ed.
Michael W. Goheen and Erin G Glanville (Vancouver: Regent College Pub, 2009),
129.
[47] Ibid., 126.
[48] Žižek, Living In The End
Times, 23.
[49] Bookchin, Post-Scarcity
Anarchism, v.
[50] Žižek, Living In The End
Times, 41.
[51] Ibid.
