Monday, November 19, 2012

Human Nature Above Human Systems

  I've been asked what economic "system" do I believe in. Is it "capitalism" or "socialism" or some other such mental contraption? I must say that I do not disbelieve or believe in anything called an "economic system." I don't begin or end with such "ideas" as these,even if I were completely aware of what they meant or certain whether others using the terms meant them in exactly the way I might think of them at a given moment.

  I begin at the beginning,with the fundamental Nature of (Wo)Man. Humans are thinking beings,social beings, and spiritual beings all at the same time. Therefore, we must be free to think,we must be free to live with one another in peace and with whom we choose or not choose,and we must be free to exercise our capacity as partially non-corporeal beings, meaning that our needs and desires are not purely or even primarily material or economic.

  And so we see that Man does not live,in the first instance, within an economic "system." She lives within her Nature as a human being. It is only in the expression of that Nature that we create "systems." These include the economic of course. They also include the spiritual, the legal,the political, the recreational and a whole host of other systems that I cannot think of and would not presume to think of for others.

    The political system we create,what we usually call a government, is simply another one of these systems that is created in response to our nature as human beings. However, it must be said that the political systems and the economic systems we create are closely tied to one another as the former must fund the latter and the latter must in some way be legally sanctioned in such a way as to avoid a kind of anarchy that would make the maintenance of any kind of economy virtually impossible.

  Viewed from this perspective then, we see that the governmental "system" and the economic "system" do not stand OUTSIDE of the society of humans and their nature but firmly within that society and expressive of the common nature of the beings within it. In other words, from my perspective, I do not BEGIN by saying that I want to impose a certain political or economic system on a particular group of human beings or God forbid on humanity in its entirety. No. This is the meaning of the Declaration when it says that "governments are derived among men", and gain their just powers from them. We might say our "systems" are not our creator. The Creator is our creator and WE create, as expressions of our humanity, the "systems" that we believe best facilitate that expression.

  So, to return to the beginning, what "economic system" do I believe in? I do not believe that the economy is a system. The economy is an organic interaction of human beings. People, as human beings, are social. We want to live among each other. We are lost without each other. This means that part of the way we interact with each other is to fulfill each others economic needs. We buy from one another, we sell to each other, we trade with one another, we barter, haggle, negotiate, finagle with one another, sometimes, yes, we steal from one another. The common way people throughout history have done all these things, for better or worse, (and yes sometimes it is worse), is to set up what we call "markets" where people can come together in all sorts of capacities and venues to interact with each other in an economic way. This is not to say, as I said above, that there is a complete separation between the political "system" and the economic "system". They must interact with each other, for the reasons that all humans must interact with each other and because of the special link between government and economics. This is not even to say that something called "Capitalism" whatever that has come to mean as a "system" of economics is good or bad. After all, we must admit that any maintenance of a "Capitalist System" at time requires a strong government. It is to say, however, that any suppression of the activity that occurs within a market by the political "system" is, in general, a suppression of some aspect of human nature. One might say at times this is a good thing and no doubt, at times, you'd be correct. But make no mistake this suppression will be resisted as a matter of course. And if the suppression goes too far and circumscribes Justice, it risks becoming a tyranny and suppressing the very Nature of BOTH our politics AND our economics it ought to be fostering.

  We might say that we begin again with Human Nature. Our minds, our relationships, and our being(spirit) all constitute this Nature. All of our systems are simply our ways of expressing these fundamental aspects of ourselves. From my perspective, any "system" that tries to impose itself into this nature, whether called Capitalist, Socialist or Communist and takes it not into account but attempts to take it into its sway, is pernicious, destructive, and doomed to fail.