reconstruct public policy on the basis of an historical understanding of how people actually behave rather than on theories about how they might be presumed to behave in the world of abstractions.
Certainly. But what is a realistic view of human behaviour, on which reconstruction could take place?
The crisis is mostly about the failures of rationality[+], although the backdrop (increasing voter distaste for income inequality) also puts questions over the amorality.
[+] Technically of course, part of the crisis is not that people did not behave rationally, more that "rational maximisation" without reference to rules and timeframes just doesn't produce the results the propagandists say it does. (Mostly because in fact their model contain buried rules and timeframes that they tend to prefer to deny.)
They've kept the amorality, but thrown out the rationality.
In an historical perspective, goodness in the state of nature is opposed to the state of nature defined/defiled by original sin, the standard pre-Enlightenment narrative. It's close to the clean slate idea, Locke's tabula rasa according to which we build our own destinies, and are not predestined by our fallen nature.
Amoral rationality (meaning choices are made rationally, and are not subject to moral judgement or do not participate in the moral sphere) is a system that could not have been, or certainly was not, built on the previous doctrine of human nature. In that sense, "essential goodness" can be said to be a basic building block on which free-market theories repose.
Or not. Shoot at it?
But I would maintain that the "absence of original sin" does to some degree at least imply something of the "milk of human kindness."
The "noble savage" is noble because he behaves in a "noble" manner. That "nobility" is not all "milk of human kindness" but I think there are overtones there.
However, I suppose in favour of your argument is that the "state of nature" is often equated with "naive trust" which is also a feature of the most simplistic market models...
One problem today is that social Darwinism remains to some degree implicit in the general free-market doctrine (perhaps more so today than thirty years ago), even though it has been long since discredited. So I see "amoral rationality" as problematic not just on account of its patent inaccuracy, but its implications as well.
I think the anthropologists and behavioral economists already have the makings of a view of humanity that would stand up pretty well in reality. But social Darwinism, even when only implicit, is an extremely comfortable world view if you're at the top of the income pyramid. So as a practical matter, "amoral rationality" will probably be a difficult doctrine to dislodge. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
A basic finding of social-psychology is when a member of a group - even an ad-hoc group - thinks they are out of touch with the group that person experiences anxiety, seeks to relieve that anxiety.
Could it be Social Darwinism is a coping/validating mechanism for the Ruling Class?
What we should properly be engaged in here is the deconstruction of neo-classical economics a la Milton Friedman. It would appear that "homo economicus" was put forward more for his usefulness as a shill and a lookout than for his explanatory power. The whole structure of neo-classical economics best makes sense when viewed as a propaganda tool to cover and enable the looting of the economy by the elite. After all, one only needs to understand a small part of the operation of a bank in order to rob it. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
What Rousseau did was articulate the view (that he was not alone in holding) that maybe "progress" was not all it was cracked up to be. That "progress" was inevitable, and beneficent has been orthodoxy until quite recently. (Though Malthus, who is getting a second look today, had questioned the view early on). Rousseau's sin -- the real reason he was (and continues to be) pilloried -- was his belief in human equality
Both Marx and the Freemarketeers incidentally, believe in Progress.
For a different take on these matters, I recommend the book by Ter Ellingson, The Myth of the Noble Savage. http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Noble-Savage-Ter-Ellingson/dp/0520226100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&a mp;qid=1223143315&sr=8-1A review on the History Cooperative has this to say: "As Ter Ellingson sees it, the term noble savage was a rhetorical construct rather than a substantive object, and he classifies the myth to which it gave rise as a scholarly hoax that was perpetrated for political reasons. Instead of achieving its purpose, the myth developed a life of its own and became embedded in anthropological as well as popular thought, where it continues to this day." Ellison convincingly demonstrates how in the last half of the nineteenth century the accusation of belief in the noble savage was used by scientific racists as cudgel with which to beat those who opposed slavery and imperialism." http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperat ive.org/journals/jah/88.4/br_6.html
I actually have a high regard for much of Rousseau's work and influence. He was an advocate for the importance of feelings, passions and sentiments, which were given short shrift by Classical rationality and by much of the scientific establishment. You may have noticed that many on this site are not great fans of restraining the expression of our feelings about events and developments. In that regard Jean Jacques is a sort of patron saint. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Like many of his contemporaries he admired the Spartans a bit too much for our taste and he also believed women should be subordinate -- not so good.
I accidentally put an extra quotation mark at the end of my previous post. The final sentence of which is mine not the History Cooperative.
I've come to believe that all this talk about "the fall of man" and being a "realist" is a form of self presentation (advertising) left over from the Cold War.
If you want a full general theory you have to go to the behavioural psychologists/economists who are doing experiments on this and developing some ideas.
Instinctively:
Humans are, it seems, in the main, moderately good, when not asked to resist too much temptation. There are some who are psychologically tuned to breaking rules for various reasons. (Some of these, those who do so for their own gain, or for sadistic power pleasures tend to be known as psychopaths.)
As such, systems of regulation should be constructed so as to avoid putting people under too much temptation where possible (relying on the honour of the individual breaks down over time because sooner or later a bad/weaker individual gets the role.)
There also need to be mechanisms to identify "psychopaths" and limit the damage they can do.
Most of all though, what the current crisis reminds us of is that there is always a tradeoff between "perfect efficiency" and the "robustness" of a system.
The propagandists encouraged us to dismantle the supports and slack in the system, to "make it more efficient" so that more money could be extracted from it. This of course made the system more frail. It's really time we started valuing the robustness of critical[+] systems more.
[+] Critical usually means "really important to our way of life" but what the collapse of isolated parts of a byzantine financial system that doesn't appear to touch normal life reminds us is that critical also means "systems that in their failure can drag our way of life down with them."
Is it enough to explain what's happening? Does it replace the unregulated freedom explanation?
Generically, "freedom" is a good, but we're not truly so brainwashed as a populace that you could have created a political narrative for deregulation that relied on the notion that the poor bankers' constitutional right to lend money any way they wanted to were being infringed...
Rather, the basic argument for "deregulation" was that regulations were getting in the way of "financial innovation" that would make the markets "more productive" and "more efficient." And thus we'd all get richer.
I see those riches being bought at the price of increased fragility.
But if you're arguing that deregulation was the road to efficiency and therefore fragility, that is slightly different.
I think there may be both. Hyper-leverage and oblivion to risk seem to me to come more under the heading "excess" than "efficiency", unless efficiency is solely defined as capturing the most wealth fastest.
In any case, it's impossible to use absolutes like 'good' without a functional 'good for what?' sub-clause.
I think there's a useful inkling that this is primarily an ethical problem. But so far all of our ethical solutions have been cast as absolutes and generalities, with the result that in spite of a modest attempt at genuine populist democracy, we're still in the pre-enlightenment position of being ruled by highwaymen with unusually expensive tastes.
Perhaps a better approach is to ask a different question. If you assume that the goal is a set of universals, which include free high quality healthcare and education, freedom to be rewarded for genuine innovation, and freedom from highwaymen - what's the best way to get there?
I'm not using highwaymen as a metaphor. The fact that the theft is disguised as a financial industry doesn't change its basic function, which is to relieve people of their wealth and not to contribute to any notion of the common good, except when grudgingly forced to.
Getting into more detail about practical, as opposed to theoretical, human nature would need a diary to itself.
Consider doing the diary. Please. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
Any Deductive system lies at the mercy of its axioms.
Any Inductive system returns only what is being looked at shaped by the boundaries and constraints of the tool being used.
"Universals" has some of the same problems as "Absolutes" when defining Goals. But it is possible to cast them as: We want to achieve [U {A, B, ... X, Y, Z}] to the extent and limitation of [u{a, b, c ... x, y, z}].
Giving us someway to get There.
But we need to think about it. Whether we choose to bring in the Enlightenment or not.
But what is a realistic view of human behaviour, on which reconstruction could take place?
Clare Graves
If you want to answer this question in more than a brief questionable form, let me know. It would take a diary series here at ET. I should have the time because I have temporarily suspended (ala McCain!) my Embryonic Police State series ... didn't realize how DEPRESSING it would be. Like a diary series on first hand accounts of serious traffic accidents. UGH!
Get back to me on this one; could be interesting. In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
For example
this.
Last time I looked, Sorensen's own site, which would go into more detail, was down.
The point being that--even though we conceive of no way to move from a post-conquest world to a pre-conquest one--pre-conquest peoples are happier, friendlier, and more peaceable than we are, and being every bit as human as we would claim to be: This has to be factored into any abstract concept of human behavior.
Our own circumstances are less fortunate, and reflect our persuasive environment of greed and violence. But, what of that? Any useful theory for us has to deal with possibilities for mitigating our situation, not claims for human perfectability/imperfectability which are inherently bogus and a distraction.
The 18th century philosophers may have actually been aware of wider possibilities than we are, as the cultures of native peoples on three continents had not yet been wiped out.
We now base our understanding of human psychology mainly on male college students. Which is just pathetic.
Also, you might want to consider how hierarchical systems--such as ours--inherently favor the advancement of psychopaths to positions of power, thus promulgating behaviors of lying, corruption, and violence throughout the whole system. The Fates are kind.
