If there was a Truth then there would be a Law. All societies would be the same, and we would learn just one set of rules on how to live.
But this hasn't happened.
All societies have a Law but they differ. Laws are intricately bound in with Gods who are the Law makers and enforcers of Law. Yet there are many Laws and many Gods.
Even in the Middle East despite there being one God there are many Laws. And people have done battle over this God and his many versions of the Law throughout history. Christians for example say that He is a God of Love, and a forgiving God. While the Jews say that he is a Jealous and Angry God.
A key feature of Law is suffering. If you disobey the Law you will suffer. This has two levels. There is the punishment that comes from God and there is the punishment that comes from Man.
In Buddhism the Law is the law of cause and effect. Essentially what we find in modern science, that where there is a phenomenon then there must be a cause and correct conditions for it to have manifested. So when you experience suffering it has been caused in the right conditions to manifest. The Law then in Buddhism, and science, is that certain actions will lead to suffering and certain actions will lead to happiness. The Law is prescribed not by a God but in the workings of the universe. Buddhists like to remind the Hindus that even the Gods are not beyond this Law of Karma.
It would appear then that in Buddhism there is a definite way in which the world works. You go one way you suffer, you go the other you are happy. And these laws are quite absolute. Buddha gives his 8 fold noble path as a guide to the correct life. There are 5 precepts, and 8 precepts and hundreds if you ordain which are little rules that you agree to obey. All designed and developed over the millennia to encourage harmony in the Buddhist community and progress people toward enlightenment. It is thought as you become wise these laws become apparent and you don't need to be reminded of them in written laws.
But Buddha also says that if you try my way and it doesn't work then go else where and try something else. Central to Buddhism is emptiness. The non fixed caused and conditional nature of reality.
One famous solution to the balance between Universal Law and Conditional Law is Democracy. Things of Universal value are enshrined in National Law and then "choice" is given to individuals to decide their own personal rules in life. This is the meaning of "choice": the recognition that at least some part of Truth is conditional. Choice in the West has become bloated with metaphysics about the individual but that is unnecessary. It is sufficient just to recognise that truth may be dependent upon your local conditions and so cannot be judged more generally.
So when a state says you are "free", it means that it recognises your personal circumstances. No one is absolutely free, that is nonsense: free from what? So it falls to Law makers to decide only what applies to all people, and what is locally dependent.
Property is a part of Law, so what has been said of Property applies to Law. Who is the Law for? It can be seen as a way for ruling classes to control the country in their favour, or it can be seen as a social contract where we all agree to accept the restrictions because it benefits us all.
In both cases when the Law breaks down then chaos ensues. This chaos can be explained as people no longer being controlled, that is the Hobbesian view which has little value I think. Or, it can be seen as a break down in trust: if you are going to steal from me then I'm going to steal from you. This latter one I have seen in the UK youth and blogged about some years ago. The problem the children of the UK see is that because they are too young to be put in prison it means that there is nothing to stop other children attacking them. I asked some who were plotting a battle why not go to the police, and they say because the police can't do anything. So children in the UK are forced to defend themselves and so there is a breakdown of order. I asked a child once after they stole my bike, what it felt like to be stolen from. He said it felt bad, and he knew because kids are always stealing. As a result he just stole himself. But I said remember that it feels bad, and don't do it and then gave him the bike. It seems to me (and I hope to eventually bring out of this analysis) that people and principle are more important than property. But for order to be maintained we must be willing to take "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" for the sake of everyone. The problem with the current culture (from USA) is that everyone is always looking for compensation and this is endless and only deteriorating. Western society has declined to the "eye for an eye" logic of the Iron age!
Now some believe that there is no need for law. Law only works if there is power behind the law, and if we give up power to the law then that power will be used against us. An African idiom: if you mend a man's testicles he will use them on your wife. In America fighting for freedom is everything, and giving power to central authority is as good as building your own prison. I imagine this mentality is born of the battle to escape the authority of the British Monarch. Of course as with all conflict the hatred been US citizens and the British Monarch was fuelled by people who themselves wished to seize power in the US. This is why warfare is such folly. If one power beats another then you have just been subjugated by an even more powerful power. You ask a devil to help rid you of a devil and you end up still plagued by a devil, but now a stronger one. Never fight for anyone but yourself would be an important universal Law! Or better just don't fight.
But this idea that central power is our foe ignore social contract. Like the Magna Carta we can all agree on a central power which has its wings heavily clipped, so that while we now live under enforced rules so does everyone. This is the central idea in the evolution of Western Law. Centuries later such solutions to conflict would be studied further by John Nash. We can arrive at a stable agreement that is never-the-less not the best for any of us.
So if we combine emptiness with social contract we have a very good idea how Law works, and how it should work.
To ensure that Law does not become draconian power should be devolved. Local law makers should be able to make judgements for their local regions. And then escalate issues higher as they become more significant. This way the law remains sensitive to individual circumstances.
Now the problem with this is precedence. The Law by one definition needs to be the same in all times and places to ensure justice for all. It is no good giving a murderer 10 years in prison in one county court and 5 years prison in another for exactly the same crime. However no two crimes are the same. How to balance the needs of the specific with the practical requirements of the general. Perhaps with modern databases and AI more tailor made law may be possible in the future.
But this leads again on to the great issue of Law and emptiness. It seems that before Plato there was a general view from Socrates backwards that the Truth was extremely particular. As Heraclitus said: you cannot dip your toe in the same river twice. The world is ever changing, and time infiltrates everything continuously. The idea of fixed forms independent of time is a myth. This is why Socrates never recorded anything. Truth was discovered between people in dialectic and never otherwise.
Plato respected the dialectic by recording Socrates and others in discussion to discover Truth, but he completely binned the idea that truth could not be recorded. He then went further to argue that the particular things of this world have similarity by virtue of sharing qualities with what he imagined were Perfect Entities in some heavenly realm accessible only by the Mind. One imagines that the Perfect Forms are themselves a Perfect Form somewhere up there, and so Imperfect Forms must have a Perfect Form somewhere also. It stems from his analysis of recognition in the Theaetetus and others. He imagines that we have a wax tablet into which an impression is made when we learn something, and when we meet it again and it fits the impression and we have recognition. This same idea survives even till today 2400 years later except now it is Neural Networks and not wax tablets that record the impressions (how slow the world works!) From this he imagines that all cups are cups because there is a master cup impression that roughly fits all cups. Truth for Plato is these ultimate impressions that we can discover by dialectics and thought.
This sculpture by Rodin is Platonic. Its even in Classical style despite its subject. You will not arrive at universal truths by solitary contemplation in Socrates and before but through conditioned interaction with other people and the world. It is thought to be Dante considering his choices, and indeed he was alone so I am slightly unfair, but the image has taken on a life of its own as the archetype, the Platonic Form so to speak, the Meme even, of enquiry.
What emerges in history as probably the right way is the middle. There are 2 extremes. The Chaotic where there are no truths that last more than a moment, through to the Platonic where there are truths that are eternal. In reality truths are conditional, but they have staying power as long as those conditions last. This why revolutions happen and the old certainties change. How if there is one truth did mankind not just discover it long ago and be settled?
The point that emerges from history is that truth is something that gains its validity by being current. Our lives are a mix of truths some still ancient and some very new and personal. I love this girl would be a truth which is very compelling but only of value within the limits of my life. Killing is wrong is a truth which has been generally accepted by almost all people. There are huge caveats to the latter: some say it is correct to kill in battle, some say it is correct to kill for food, some say it is correct to kill the unborn child if the parents do not want it, some say it is correct to kill the suffering if they want it. Something so absolute still have many variations depending upon conditions.
So the New Economics faces a problem. I may discuss the value of property, but I cannot make an absolute pronouncement about whether it is correct or not. I am in a dialectic with my times and this enquiry here to be successful needs to work with the conditions. I began the enquiry with this sentiment but have given it more flesh here. The future of Property and Capitalism depends very much on conditions that prevail.
Communism did very well in its day because the world was turning against the Feudalism that gave such obvious benefits to a small minority that could no longer justify their superiority. Christianity did a lot to make all people equal. Judeism makes Jews superior but Jesus battled with that and realised that he was teaching a law greater than just for the Jews. That equality between people has been growing since then and has spread to topple systems of injustice around the world. It is a new truth, not obvious to people in the Past. Just as Jews think they are superior, so the Nazis thought they were superior, and so the White Americans thought they were superior to Black Slaves. Even to this day this truth of equality has been growing. It is not a universal truth, we still have to see whether animals can gain some equality in the future. I believe they should along with all being. This is where the primitive San people killing their Kudu are actual superior to ourselves. In fact perhaps via property and race we have travelled from a wisdom that we are now returning to.
It would be very nice if the New Economics was a return to ancient truths, a return to a Home that we once knew and have travelled from. I will bear that in mind, but I suspect the river is also long a while it bends it has a direction to travel and the New will be in many ways New.
A search for happiness in poverty. Happiness with personal loss, and a challenge to the wisdom of economic growth and environmental exploitation.
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