Clifford, I would like to think that our methods are similar, and there is some possibly useful overlap in our respective focus areas. I will follow you. I can offer you this thought from my side: Social order being to do with power relationships is arbitrated to some significant extent by the circumstances of economic activity since most power relationships are defined by relative economic power. Hence to achieve social order at a systemic level he power relationships which are consistent with that social state existing over the long term must be intrinsic and hence systemic to the economic relations created by the prevailing economic paradigm. That situation cannot pertain within the current dominant economic paradigm. It is systemically unstable from that perspective. My project Vox Populi: Future Humanity here on RG aims to establsih guidelines for political economies which will systemically tend to be characterised by inducing social order and to evolve accordingly in the very long term. I will be willing to collaborate on aspects of this common view of the need for a systemic basis to the conditions of sustained social order and wellbeing.
Dear Robin, Thank you for your comments. I fully agree that social order is partly a function the power relationships embedded in economic relations, particularly in the distribution of property ownership. But I think order is directly tied to the belief in the legitimacy of the economic order. If religious or political mythology encourages a high proportion of the population to believe that extreme inequality is part of the natural order, the system may be stable for centuries, even if it appears to oppressive to those who have an egalitarian perspective. With traditional sources of authority receding in the past century, the legitimacy of inequality is becoming unstable. But a system with little legitimacy can survive for a long time unless a new system and a new source of legitimacy are created. I suspect that one reason for the growing influence of Islam in the world is that it has the potential to offer a more egalitarian system than the secular systems that are currently operating. Some elements of traditional republican philosophy, going back to Aristotle, recognized the importance of economic autonomy of political agents, and that is the part of republicanism that most appeals to me. Can you suggest a specific method of collaboration?
Dear Clifford, What you say in your response echoes almost exactly much of what i have developing these past 30+ years and have beein more intensively putting to paper since retiring 3 years ago. Legitimacy is, as you say, key. As is the 'servanthood' of the political agents that comes about from an economic autonomy granted to them by the society, as social agents, they are charged with the task of managing. However Aristotle also sought, slavery aside, to describe how the basis of power within the republic must be democractically held if the wellbeing of its citizens is to be seen to served by those that govern it from time to time. But access to power is contingent upon economic power. Democratic political relationships of power are therefore also contingnt upon the wide and also relatively shallow, that is to say the relatively equal, distribution of economic factors. That is something which he never really brought himself to understand. But like all before and after him, we are the product of our times. We can propose solutions only where we can see what they might be. This insight is generated by the convergence of a certain type and amount of knowledge aobout ourselves and of the technical capacity to engineer the social arrangements needed. But change is inhibited by what Prof Yoshinori Shiowaza calls the 'stationarity' of those societal institutions which need to evolve and change, however their stationarity is also what guard us from over hasty, or ill-considered, change. Sustainability in social systems must inevitably evolve if that attribute is to be realised in evolving environments. That can only happen in socio-economic systems which are self-conscious of the need to manage and maintain the value of stationarity and the necessity of appropriate evolutionary change yet to achieve that across diverse societies through time while delivering universal individual wellbeing in a fair and just way which is also developing and improving generation upon generation without losing the will and capacity to do so.
So, how might we collaborate? That rather depends on how you are situated and what your own goals are. The long passage above summarises a large part of the problem statement. That and my proposed methodology, with some recent insight provided by Robert Bochum's recent paper here on RG to be explored still, are published as Drafts here and on my web site www.transitionforum.net under CC-NC SA licence. I was not a graduate student, but was offered a Readership at Surrey in IO Macroeconomic Modelling before graduating from UEA in 1975 with a good 2:1. My wife scotched that and I, through IBM, became a Senior System Engineer and an ICT System Consultant for another large vendor whilst developing what I am talking now to you about since 1983 or so. I have extensive pieces of writing to organise around my methodology to establish the core narrative in tangible form. As that happens the scope and depth of what I am attempting will become clear to you. As a by-product it will draw on and link into Yoshinori's work to reset the path of mainstream economics from the neoloiberal dead-end of believing in rational economic man, equilibrium states and the purely monetary expression of economic value onto the path of production cost bases for pricing which Ricardo and Mill both tried to follow but from which Mill retreated for lack of adequate mathematical tools and insight. But he is the mathemetician. I am a behaviorist and system engineer. I am not officially an academic. I really need, at the moment, is a muse and mentor while we explore how and where you might like to collaborate with me. This project could produce a book inside two years, it will however need contributions from many more than we over a long period extending beyond our lifetimes to be the framework for a self-aware evolutionary socio-economic function as a permanent institution of every future society. I am in Chile till the end of March, I live south west of Birmingham UK. We can talk over Skype. I am robjarvis2. I anticipate developing a group of interested and motivated collaborators to achieve what needs to be done and to do it by developing a legitimate and credible foundation of knowledge and techniques across all that is required to sustain human development as it moves forward. Although the writing is on the wall and time seems short the job has to be done so that it is not just another critique but offers an authoritative and reasoned alternative to where we have been going. To be credible as a future methodology for preserving our humanity it must above all also offer the means of transitioning from where we are to where we need to be. And this needs to be both non-destructive and nuanced for nearly every society so that they remain diverse and continue to do different but with a new set of what i have called archaeo-institutions that bind us all together and which underpin the diversity provided by our local landscapes of supra-institutional sets.
All I can suggest is to read what is my project area, allow your vision to expand and imagine what can be. You are most welcome whereever that leads you. Hopefully with enough inclusivity from colleagues such as yourself it will be possible to attract the funding and to create the institute which this project will require. Best regards, Rob
Clifford, BTW regarding the attraction of the inherent legitimacy of traditional philosophies and approaches I agree with what you say. It applies to almost all populist activity that we see. Even Occupy is just 19th century anarchists in 21st century masks.
In the end all is theory, and theory is belief. For that reason my own work has had to directly address the question of metaphysical legitimacy and this has relied upon the secular route of interpreting existance and life's place in it as being supportive evidence for the argument that we are meant to survive and evolve, and to individually get satisfaction from doing so, until such time as we are enlightened by our own endeavours or by an antedeluvian external agent. But this is presented as being the glue that defines a standard for 'good' and 'evil' amongst all peoples at a very basic level towards the assimilation of which all local and inherited beliefs should seek to evolve as quickly as possible such that their own codes are not contradictory yet by and large remain as they were. It is a harsh fact that if some societies insist on maintaining a stance of imposing an aggressive inclusivity upon others as a result of their inherently exclusive doctrines which they are not prepared to evolve any further than they all have over the centuries past then it would eventually have to be resolved in traditional mutual displays of agression. My hope is that the logic of ensuring human survival, until whatever 'coming' comes, by universal accommodation of those 'good' actions that promote it and the sanctioning of those 'bad' actions that compromise it whilst following locally valid moral codes made to be consistent with the 'archaeo-metaphysic' will find wide acceptance sufficient to make any sanctioning or confrontation with intransigent groups to be of minimal consequence in the grand scheme of things. The world will always remain an imperfect place. It will be sufficient, at this stage and in each successive time, to maximise the probabilities of humanity's survival according to the knowledge, tools and vision available to the agents involved.
Dear Rob, Although I may have time to read some of your papers and comment on them, that will probably be the limit of my collaboration. I have no time to write. I produce 5 issues of my journal a year, and that takes more than all of my time. I say more because I am behind in my duties and have been for two years, so if I have any "free" time, it must be spent catching up with my journal responsibilities. So, we shall have to see how this unfolds. I cannot make any commitment at the moment.
Having now looked at two sections of VoxP, I have some difficulty knowing where you are going with it. My own methodology is much more historical than yours seems to be. I presume that ideas have social relevance only to the extent that they connect either with current experience or with traditions that are held sacred or important. In other words, I do not believe the future can be created out of entirely new ways of life. Thus, my methodology is to look for pieces from the past that can re-appropriated and developed in new ways. In particular, that means trying to find evidence of what was said by the overshadowed members of society in the past, not by the winners who normally write history.
I cannot say that my methodology definitely differs from yours, because I could not find a clear statement about your methods. Based on your comment about Yoshinori Shiozawa, I read some papers by him. His ideas are interesting, to be sure, but I do not see how they might form the basis of a new social or political theory.
Your comments in your first note to me about the necessity of an economic basis of political equality does not seem to be represented in your writings. I could not detect any sign of it. I realize it may come later in the text, but I thought it would be a central topic in your introduction. In general, your note was more concrete than your methodological statements, which have a tendency toward too much abstraction. I also missed the sorts of references to other thinkers that I found in your note (where you reference Malthus and Mill, for example). I think you are devoting too much energy to writing about what you plan to do. Better just to dive in with some interesting propositions and some historical debates. Worry about methodology later.
Cliff
Dear Rob, You say, "My own work has had to directly address the question of metaphysical legitimacy and this has relied upon the secular route of interpreting existence and life's place in it as being supportive evidence for the argument that we are meant to survive and evolve." This sounds as if you are trying to create a comprehensive metaphysics as the basis for further philosophical work, such as political philosophy. Most people who lean that way seem to start with Hegel as a jumping off point. Occasionally, one sees a book that grounds its philosophy in Vedantist cosmology or Thomistic theology. But I don't think I have encountered anyone who is trying to start from zero and invent it all by himself. It seems that you imagine you can find a way to formulate an objective, universal basis of defining "good" and "evil." Kant sought to do the same with his categorical imperative or what might be called the rule of reciprocity, but even that is hardly discussed outside of philosophical circles. So, you have set a challenge for yourself, but as Reinhold Niebuhr said: "Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime."
Dear Cliff,
Thanks for appraisal and advice.You are correct the economics come later in the narrative, a large chunk of which (about 100k words) was already written before I decided that it was going to need some structure to hang it on that could be linked back into what other threads of research are being followed and to the historical flow. Those first two chapters are therefore introducing the project not the subject matter. Looking backward and linking that into the present, along with its aspirations for the future, is where I start the narrative. The100k words do most of that. I need to restructure it to flow better and then complete that 'past to present' part before developing the aspirations of the present into implications for the future. The institutional forms that are pivotal to the present, and how they have emerged from the past, across several representative societies will then be reconsidered in the light of present aspirations. The determination of which will be drawing largely on the flow of debate and proposals that has been catalysed by the humanitarian focus of nations as expressed through the various bodies of the UN since 1945 and has resulted in the aspirations embodied in 'Agenda21'. This exercise should provide an 'institutional view' of what it is we require to realise our aspirations. It should also expose quite a few contradictions and also where the specific inconsistencies with the present. Importantly I should be able to show how to examine what those gaps look like in each country, by picking on a few. It will then be possible to show how institutional forms of the present will be required to evolve in order to facilitate that future, for ech country. Feasibility can then be judged and an iterative process of aspirational engineering can follow to make the reachable future doable in terms of institutional forms. At that stage it would be possible to begin designing in each case the policy pathway that would appear, from today's perspectives, to be one that will achieve that evolutionary transition without casting the past aside and recreating a completely new society or economy.
In showing that this approach may be fruitful in plotting our way out of the present mess it will become quite clear that one of the inconsistencies of the present in terms of the future 'institutional landscapes' are those institutional forms of the present which embody and give force to the implementation of the policies dictated by the neo-classical/neoliberal base of economic theory. It will be clear that a contradiction exists between our aspirations and the capacity or even the ethos of the current paradigm in that area of life to deliver upon them. This will be shown by the methodological approach rather than rely upon personal opinion, and therefore, hopefully, have some legitimacy The economic, and consequentially also the social, approaches and their institutional forms which will be consistent with our aspirations can then then be proposed and examined, in general and also on a country by country basis. Perhaps 'society' or 'region' are better choices of word since 'country' is arguably and institutional artefact of part of our problem.
In the process of showing how this can be done I will use my own ideas in some areas, and those of all those others that seem to offer promise of being consistent and non-contradictory. There is no limit in principle to the 'library of economic behaviours' since each society has its own regional challenges and each time brings its own to each place. It is out of this area that the need for a perpetually pro-active approach to our social and economic evolution will be made apparent to all.
I am quite happy to not take up too much of your time. We are both busy, but as with Yoshinori, it is valuable to have sounding boards, who understand and subscribe to the issues facing us, that can be called upon for reality checking and keeping one honest.. and focussed! I am sure that in the course of maintainng your Journal material comes to your attention that I should know of, and perhaps also vice versa. Another 'correspondent' contact with whom is very infrequent is the editor of the Journal of Biophysical Economics Charles A Hall. He popularised the idea of energy accounting of projects and developments. To do that one needs the same sort of data as one does in the agent-based economic modelling and in production cost based value theory. Both of these have roots in Sraffa and Leontief from the 1950's and 60's, and to which I was introduced in the '70's. ..and so the wheel turns! Mark Neoclous, HoD for Philosophy at Brunel, has also been aware of my work for 10 years and suggested I do a PhD in his department. He edited the Radical Philosophy journal, perhaps still. His early work 10 years before that had spurred me on.
Meanwhile I will endeavour to keep abreast with your own ideas and the journalthrough its website, and you will see where I am from the 'dirty washing' that I keep hanging up in my project space in the form of working drafts which pass through many re-launderings before they stabilise. Working alone I find it is a good discipline to know that some will read it at every stage. I feel guilty sometimes for subjecting my readers to this, but at the same time, since I don't care for attribution so much as distribution, in the case of my untimely demise it does seem to be a good 'insurance' in case they do prove to be useful to others.
Best regards, Rob
Dear Cliff, I think Reinhold Niebuhr understood. The problem is that our present time is not conducive to embarking on such trans-generational projects even if they are the ones worth doing! I just made the mistake, committed many times before, of spending a few hours on a well crafted response to your comments regarding invented an objective moral philosophy from the ground up.. then 'blip' and it all evaporated into the 'bit bucket'. I must discipline myself to use a proper editor for authoring, even for messages. I will send you my email address from your profile page so that our conversation does not become part of the 'social media for academics' that some think RG is. We can then use RG messaging as well as email/skype as a back-channel.
I won't redevelop what I just lost, but will say that reinvention from an objective standpoint must be the only option for developing a concept of good and evil which will have no cultural baggage. As you say it hasn't been done. So that is what I did. It is concise and can change if we should ever learn anything really fundemental about existence or ever have to re-evaluate ourselves at a very fundemental level. Upon that is the development of ethics and specific moral positions which inform cultures and societies in the development and evolution of the institutions that give them form. It is in effect a 'meta-morality' with which all actual religions and secular codes of morality and ethics would have to maintain consistency if we expect to harmonise the activities of all societies around any set of common aspirations. Our philosophic predecessors lived in times in which the the 'universal principle' was the Holy Grail of all studies. But we now know that homogeneity reduces resilience and hence sustainability and is therefore 'anti-life' if pursued at all levels. Consequently, many of the arguments for which many of the names you mentioned are still famous are now obsolete in that there presumptions about the desirable state of mankind can now be seen to be wrong. That is to say that their axioms are no longer appropriate to our endeavour. I have no choice in the matter. What I required did not exist. The consequence, the reexamination and adaptation of our institutional landscapes which implement our ethics, is however a gargantuan task. But nobody suggested that saving the world from and for us would be easy! Best regards, Rob
Rob, Please send me whatever narratives you have available. I would like to look through them to get a better sense of the scope of your work. ajeseditor at gmail dot com
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