The New Economics: Social Contract and More Balanced View of Property

The English Civil war was one of the bloodiest conquests in history claiming 1 in 6 people. On an aside I always quote this to remind people that many of the world's systems were achieved through huge bloodshed not just European Union via World War 1 &2 and Soviet Union via the 1917 Revolution and even China resulted from over a century and half of fighting. The result of all this bloodshed and uncertainty is that people grow sick of war and prefer anything to come and replace it. One might say that war does not achieve anything by forcefully taking and enslaving people, but rather it is so terrible that it forces people to accept slavery as a preferred alternative. And so it was with Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan written during the civil war and published the year the Republic was proclaimed. His experience of the civil war left him and the nation utterly fearing a break down of order. It lead to one of the most famous passages in English social theory:

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
[Leviathan: Chapter XIII]

The fear of social breakdown and the belief that the civilised world is built on base foundations is a very enduring idea. It is obviously flawed however. How can a strong building be built on weak foundations? Never-the-less it illustrates the fear that social breakdown and warfare causes.

Social Contract is the idea that rather than power just being top-down from conquering ruler, it also involves the mutual agreement of people. Using English history again. If the Norman Conquest was the model of Conquering Ruler the Magna Carta was and is the model of Social Contract. With the civil war still fresh in people's minds, after the death of Cronwell the nation feared a breakdown of social order again. So great was that fear that the ruling barons rather than begin fighting for control of the country again, decided to subjugate themselves to a new Monarch. This type of agreement would become known after John Nash who studied them post war. None of the Baron's achieved the optimum goal which would be ruling Britain, but by agreeing on a Monarch who they heavily limited the power of, they avoided the worse outcome of uncertain conflict.

Rulers who rule simply by power have very short reigns. A system constantly being forced into a shape will either die, or it will break out of its constraints. For a system to have longevity it must work at some deeper level. So we see that even while the Roman Empire was a brutal subjugation of states, it also provided a system for people within the subjugated states to broker power and wealth. Rome could never have controlled such a great empire without the cooperation at some level of the people it ruled.

In Dao De Ching Chapter 61 Lao Tze says this:

The great state should be like a river basin.
The mixing place of the world,
The feminine of the world.
The feminine always overcomes the masculine by softness
Because softness is lesser.
Therefore if a large state serves a small state
It will gain the small state.
If a small state serves a large state
It will gain the large state.

Therefore some serve in order to gain
And some gain despite their servitude.

The large state wants nothing more
Than to unite and feed its people.
The small state wants nothing more
Than to enter into the service of the right person.
Thus both get what they want.

Greatness lies in placing oneself below.

The relations been great and small in the world of power are complex and inter twinned. What appears to be a huge powerful empire is composed from smaller rulers who working with the empire achieve their own goals.

Unfortunately even Empires as great as the British Empire do not heed Lao Tze's advice. The British Empire was held together but a a continual game of deceit and broken promises. The Indians soon learned that the apparent good will that Empire pretended to have toward the local rulers was purely for show. In matters of power Britain always took the upper hand. Legendarily having promised both the Jews and the Arabs control of Palestine in reward for helping them fight the Turks, Britain gave Israel to the Jews and left a population of Arabs still embittered to this day. An empire built on such weak foundations was inevitably going to fail. In England we are taught to respect our Imperial leaders, but the truth is they made a terrible ignorant mess of things and the world suffers today.

So while property at its outset is the forceful conquest of land, if it was only a ruling elite extracting wealth from the peasants it would descend into rebellion fairly quickly. There is a balance between rulers and ruled. Even after the Norman Conquest where Saxons were treated as slaves, they had one benefit. Like the Barons after Magna Carta it was better the devil you know. With Normans in control of the country, the Saxons knew they would not need fight. The Normans would protect the new kingdom. The argument is that the rent paid on land by peasants to their knights is a protection racket. On one hand it is a theft that is violently punished if not paid. But on the other hand the payment ensures safety from unknown threats from overseas.

The importance of this idea of the ruling classes justifying their property, payments and leisure by providing protection from overseas threats remains very much at large today. In US more than Europe and as blogged already, the population are made to believe that the nation is under continual threat first from one enemy and then another. This type of social control goes all the way back to the origins of social contract. We are better together because while not perfect, the alternative is worse. Arguments for Europe even as I write this are essentially this ancient meme.

A quick look at nature illustrates some of this. Animals are rarely solitary. In some way or another they solve problems of living side by side their fellow creatures. There are continuing arguments in animal behaviour about how various patterns emerge but the balance of costs and benefits is central to current ideas. For example why do fish shoal? If you are swimming in a massive shoal you are less likely to find food because someone else is much more likely to get their before you. However if you run into a predator you are less likely to be the one eaten. Animals do live in a state of "business" in its Old English sense of bisignis that is anxiety. Stress hormones are high, as they are constantly on the look out for predators. In a shoal they presumably experience a relief of stress and don't feel so busy. Recently studies on the influence of Prozac leaking into water supplies shows that fish are much more relaxed now and less predator anxious! It must mean that normally they are experiencing a level of stress. But there is a another cost to shoaling because a shoal is much easier to find for predators than a single fish. So over all, the species experiences higher predation as a result of shoaling than if the fish all played hiding-seek individually, and they experience lower food intake too, but like serfs under their knight they experience some relief from the threat of invasion.

Analogous to shoaling this goes some way to explain why property has remained as a system. While the capitalist takes a cut of the worker's labour, and actually puts them into a state of "business" and stress through work this is perceived as a better state than not being employed. Being unemployed, like the solitary fish has its benefits, but the state of anxiety is greater due to a sense of "predation." Perhaps that sense in capitalism is just poverty, but I suspect it is more. We have seen how poverty is not a barrier to happiness. And we have seen how leisure is a status symbol and something to be desired. The anxiety caused by unemployment, that employment and ironically business actually reduces is something to be investigated. Certainly under capitalism if you do not own enough to be financially secure, and you do not have a job them you have no access to property and you are socially excluded. In many ways all the old structures are still here in Capitalism, despite a whitewash that pretends that they system is fair and open. Is this fear of social exclusion in capitalism that is caused by being without property the driving force behind the system?

Much to think through here.