Economies of appreciation and human growth

[What is the value of artistic expression?]

Current economic philosophy is rooted in large measure in debates about human nature that took place between Scottish, English, French, and German philosophers between two and three hundred years ago.

Those individuals were echoing debates that have been going on for much longer, debates about whether humans are intrinsically "good" (caring, empathetic, generous, cooperative, altruistic, etc) or "evil" (indifferent, cruel, selfish, greedy, manipulative, etc), and to what degree external circumstances and choice could draw out or strengthen different social qualities.

Whether intentionally or accidentally evolved or imbued by some unseen force, humans have a capacity for various social states and qualities. In adaptive terms, this can be cast a conflict between gene-centric selection (focused on the immediate benefit of the individual) versus group-centric selection (focused on the benefit of individuals as part of a larger social collective). [1]

Contemporary postmodern industrial societies tend to construct their economic perspective on 1) status/wealth as reward, 2) uncertainty of worthiness, 3) scarcity of virtue, 4) abundance of resources, and 5) belief in meritocracy. I'll review these briefly before challenging their effectiveness at creating a just society full of actualized and productive citizens.

1. Status/wealth as reward has two meanings. One is that the best way to motivate someone is to offer them money or other items associated with higher social status. The other is that those who already possess such forms of wealth in abundance must deserve what they have as a reward for their own efforts or value or that of their immediate ancestors.

2. Uncertainty of worthiness is sometimes applied to those who inherit, but it tends to apply to those who are not wealthy or those who are entering the ranks of the wealthy, especially those who don't have sufficient wealth to insure that their status is secure. In other words, poorer people are seen as suspect in virtue and in any value they might possess or contribute to society. So you have to work hard and make a socially recognized and valued contribution (however that is defined) in order to demonstrate your own personal worth, to yourself and others. If this does not come with a reward of monetary wealth, the worth demonstrated may be in some ways noble but ultimately of a lesser value.

3. Scarcity of virtue goes hand in hand with the idea that humans are basically depraved and need either grace or good works to overcome their baser inclinations. They need to be domesticated, educated, and refined in order prize and acquire virtue and then to demonstrate their worthiness. Again, this is applied most regularly and forcefully against the poor and disenfranchised who must go above and beyond in their efforts to prove themselves to be of value and deserving of increased status and wealth.

4. Abundance of resources is the notion that everyone could become wealthy if their virtue and worth would but allow it. Therefore, the fact that so many people are not wealthy demonstrate their flaws. A slightly more sophisticated version of this blames political efforts at promoting equality for impairing the development of virtue by creating a "culture of dependence". Virtue must be acquired through hardship and overcoming adversity, not through having one's path smoothed out by others. Other political policies are harmful because they limit private ambition in the name of protecting people and the natural environment, thus keeping those who would otherwise be financially successful from demonstrating their worth and acquiring the commensurate wealth.

5. Belief in meritocracy is rooted in a sense that everyone has more or less the same starting resources and opportunities in life and that virtue can trump even unfair advantages held by the less virtuous and unworthy. This is a common trope in contemporary popular fiction.  This belief helps hold the others together, and its unraveling can lead to the rapid questioning of the basic economic assumptions that modern market and workplaces rely upon.

Let's get to unraveling.

Politics in the Current System

People with various forms of social privilege are often blind to it and resent having it pointed out to them. It feels like a personal attack on them as well as on their sense that the social system they are a part of is natural, right, and just. Yet people don't all start off or go through life with equal opportunities and advantages and subscribing to particular virtues and taking actions associated with demonstrating worthiness don't erase the disadvantages. There are structural and systemic factors built into society, including the culture and policies of influential social institutions, that either promote or limit social mobility on the wealth status continuum. Those who already have higher status and those who aspire to it and want to exclude the unvirtuous and unworthy implicitly and even explicitly support the limiting factors.

If signs of virtue and demonstrations of worthiness such as belonging to the right religion, working hard without complaint, following social convention and keeping to the established pathways for self-development and social utility (avoiding "bad" behavior, going to school and getting good marks, etc) don't result in the desired outcome (increased wealth-based status), the rationalization can be that there are too many free-loaders getting the wealth one deserves or too government restrictions limiting private ambition. The former requires even harsher circumstances for the non-wealthy to, as mentioned, exclude the unvirtuous and unworthy and sharpen the contrast between them and hard-working honest people so that the latter can be properly recognized and rewarded. Again, the lack of abundance only applies to those who don't deserve it because they haven't contributed enough to increasing that abundance. The latter rationalization requires removing the impediments of government regulation.

So, for those who believe in the contemporary economic philosophy, either you are someone who has been able to succeed as well as you wished or as well as you believe you deserve or you are disgruntled by the cognitive dissonance between your beliefs and experiences and blame government and the poor. The attitudes of those who reject some or all of the basic tenets of contemporary economic philosophy may feel helpless and resigned to their fate, be indifferent to or lament the situation yet continue on with their own degree of success in the system, or actively protest or resist the current economic framework.

For the latter, the desire to change the economic framework must involve criticizing the underlying philosophy shaping that framework. This means imagining a different framework based on an alternative philosophy.

As described, the tenets of the current economic philosophy of industrial nations revolve around notions of demonstrating virtue and worthiness and assuming that wealth-based status is a more or less fair reflection of demonstrating such value. Such monetary wealth is also presumed to be an effective incentive to improved work place performance.

Challenging Convention

But what if that wasn't right? What if such incentives were ineffective or counter-productive once enough money for everyday needs and basic comfort were met? Especially for jobs requiring intellectual and creative output, which is increasingly the case as machines take over repetitive tasks?

And what if we realize that beyond our basic human needs, everything else we believe and do is based on social convention and cultural assumption? In others words, it is socially constructed? If that is the case, then the tenets of the current economic system are only valid of they are useful constructions based on accurate assumptions about human nature and human needs. Which is why I started this essay by mentioning the philosophical underpinnings of our current economy.

If it is socially constructed, it can be deconstructed and reconstructed. For that we need to be able to imagine what  an alternative economy could look like.

The tenets of the current system are based largely on the people as lazy, selfish creatures scenario of human nature. Yet if the opposite is true, or personal development and external factors influence the kind of people we become, then why not look to social and behavioral sciences to get a picture of what effects different philosophies and systems of motivation have on us? And beyond that, why not challenge the very heart of the philosophical assumptions of human nature and their political motivations? After all, the current system, whatever its origin, seems to be very advantageous the rich and powerful.

To be brief, I propose that people have material needs such as food and shelter and psych-social needs such as human contact, social acceptance, and social appreciation. The latter includes a desire to be a part of something larger than oneself which offers a sense of purpose and challenges to face while working toward a goal. The question then becomes how to imagine a different way to fulfill these needs.

I am not offering anything approaching a complete solution here, only the beginning of a conversation  and a small glimpse into one alternative.

Imagining the Start of an Alternative

Let's first realize that even as new technology and changes in social organization have allowed workers to become more efficient, this hasn't typically lead to reduced stress or workloads. They have tended to increase, especially in societies with more heavily unregulated markets. Globally we produce far more than enough food and basic construction materials for everyone on the planet to have adequate nutrition, a variety of food choice, shelter from the elements, and access to basic technologies such as those used to connect to the internet. Yet poverty and social inequality continues.

This despite the fact that when people have such basic needs and desires met, less risk of infectious disease, have better education, more life choices, a sense of purpose, and so on, population growth slows and economic productivity goes up. We know that inequality doesn't just have an ethical dimension but an impact on ecological sustainability and economic activity. Greed, ignorance, structural factors limiting social mobility, and complacency with the familiar go a long way to explain why then we don't change how we live and what we think of as a "good" or "satisfactory" life. The five tenets of the current global economy are driving many of the human world's problems which spill over onto the non-human environment. As long as people accept them or feel powerless to change them things will continue as they are until sufficiently drastic crises force a painful and reluctant shift, perhaps to something worse.

So if the problem isn't a lack of material resources to meet basic and even somewhat extended needs, even if collection and production of these resources was scaled back to be ecologically responsible, the problem then lies with the social structures and cultural perspectives we inherit and pass on which in turn sustain inefficient and unjust systems. A simpler way to say it is that our social world exists as it does because we continue to believe in it. To accept it. To pass it on.

Don't believe it? Then imagine if you had the power to make every human being on this planet really and truly believe that other people had intrinsic worthiness and a strong capacity for virtue. That there was no need for extremes of conspicuous consumption based on current standards of material wealth. That instead virtue and social status came from how well we harnessed our own creativity and potential for helping others. That competition was based on such values, but that competition wasn't the only or even preferred route to achievement and that or over-stressing and gloating about strictly individual accomplishment was bad form.

Now, again, imagine that you have this ability, either through magic or technology or some mutant superpower or, you know, through educating and socializing the entire global population over a few generations. And now the views I described are simply taken for granted. How quickly do you think the current form of our monetary wealth-based economies and their interconnected systems of social organization would last?

Again, theses systems persist because we let them.

Note that I did not take away the idea of people having goals, or challenging themselves, or striving for excellence, or working hard. But working hard while striving to meet challenges doesn't have to mean a grim rat race where you hate your work or are constantly uncertain about your economic stability and the impact that failure or setbacks can have on your sense of worth or your ability to survive. Where you have to diminish, cheat, or extort others to exalt yourself. Where you must either dominate or be dominated.

How about we come up with a system:

• Where all levels of social and emotional maturity can be managed in a way that is suitable to one's proclivities in work.


• Where worthiness is never in question but is rather a given assumption.


• Where based on the assumption of worthiness virtues such as discipline and consistent effort are promoted as part of enthusiasm for meaningful work rather than imposed through fearful and aggressive attitudes.


• Where mistakes and failures are not feared but welcomed as necessary lessons to be studied on the way to success.


• Where people's talents and interests are matched to the needs of the individual and the community. (Yes, that sounds like Marx's famous "From each according to his ability to each according to his need", and that's just fine with me.)


• Where all work is structured to be socially acceptable, to make a recognized contribution of value, and is connected to greater systems of meaning and purpose.


• Where work is an extension of a larger view of a good and satisfactory life and serves that view rather than subjugating and exploiting it.

Every major social change seems like an impossible fantasy until it is finally realized. Without our dreams, we have no motivation or destination towards which to steer our lives. Come dream with me then, offer your own suggestions of an alternative economy, and then let us discuss how we get there.

Notes

1. Yes, I know there are theories that suggest group-centric traits are an extension of gene-centric traits, and we could debate whether this is best explained by a reductionist or emergent analysis of the phenomena involved, but I'm drawing a contrast here.