In an eloquent work entitled MORAL MAN AND IMMORAL SOCIETY, Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian, responds to the interwar crisis of the Western World confronting a political, economic and social crisis. Rooted in Judeo-Christian values and Western Liberalism, both archaic and victims of Western secularization, the arguments Niebuhr raises address how society can maintain harmony between the individual and institutions. The same question can be asked in the early 21st century when the capitalist political economy necessarily promotes capital concentration and structural socioeconomic inequality, depriving the current generation of young people of the prospects for upward social mobility that their parents and grandparents enjoyed.
In my view, the West is currently experiencing a crisis not because of 'The Decline of the West', as Oswald Spengler argued after WWI when Europe destroyed itself and proved that the value system of the Enlightenment was finished, but owing to a crisis that is largely due to the systemic flaws in the capitalist political economy (under a neo-liberal model accompanied by aggressive globalization), simultaneously facing intense competition from China, India, Russia and Brazil, and subject to bloc trading groups - EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, etc.
There is the debate currently that society's salvation rests with the elimination of any form of statist model. I would agree that statism under Fascist or authoritarian states as well as crony/mercantilist capitalism entail greater concentration of capital and greater parasitic activity in the economy - capital not geared toward productivity intended to create horizontal economic growth vs. vertical growth within the same elites.
However, I would argue that not all statist systems are the same. Today we have China, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, India and Brazil, all operating under some type of quasi-statist model and doing fairly well. Granted these countries combined have the largest population of poor on the planet, but they are at the very least moving toward some horizontal economic growth - that is, there has been upward socioeconomic mobility and the future looks relatively good for them. Finally, I would argue that the US and EU countries have a sort of quasi-statist regimes, something that is commonly labeled 'corporate welfare'.
After all, would financial institutions exist today if it were not for bailouts? Would large corporations make as healthy a profit today, if it were not for the tax breaks, subsidies, and lucrative government contracts, to say nothing of protection and support they enjoy through large international organizations like the World Trade Organization, the IMF, World Bank, OECD, etc.?
At the core of the debate regarding free enterprise and its discontents is how to engender harmony in society without infringing on the rights of individuals, while protecting the more vulnerable and minority groups. There is an old debate (as old as John Locke) about how society shields the individual from the state's abusive power, versus the rights of the community. Do the rights of the community transcend the rights of the individual? Do we want a society where only the individual is protect no matter the inadvertent cost (lack of benefit) to society?
Aristotle recognized that humans living in the city-state are essentially 'political', which means that he too was influenced both by Plato and by Pericles when he argued amid the war against Sparta that the life of the city-state transcends the life of the individual who is an integral part of society. This may be an extreme example, but it does illustrate the point; even today governments ask their soldiers to kill and risk dying to preserve the country.
From the ashes of this early 21st century crisis will emerge a new synthesis and therein will rest its values. In short, values do not fall from the sky to enlighten humanity, but emerge from society itself thus molding the culture and individuals. Free will and its limitations notwithstanding, and free will vs. determinism debate aside for now, individuals do not fall from the sky and come to earth with their own pre-molded value system, but are born, live and die within society and its institutions. Whether in the form of crime, protests and demonstrations, revolts, social fabric disintegration, the elites that largely mold society's institutions inevitably pay a price for creating privileged hierarchical systems that cater to the few at the expense of the many.
In my view, the West is currently experiencing a crisis not because of 'The Decline of the West', as Oswald Spengler argued after WWI when Europe destroyed itself and proved that the value system of the Enlightenment was finished, but owing to a crisis that is largely due to the systemic flaws in the capitalist political economy (under a neo-liberal model accompanied by aggressive globalization), simultaneously facing intense competition from China, India, Russia and Brazil, and subject to bloc trading groups - EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, etc.
There is the debate currently that society's salvation rests with the elimination of any form of statist model. I would agree that statism under Fascist or authoritarian states as well as crony/mercantilist capitalism entail greater concentration of capital and greater parasitic activity in the economy - capital not geared toward productivity intended to create horizontal economic growth vs. vertical growth within the same elites.
However, I would argue that not all statist systems are the same. Today we have China, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, India and Brazil, all operating under some type of quasi-statist model and doing fairly well. Granted these countries combined have the largest population of poor on the planet, but they are at the very least moving toward some horizontal economic growth - that is, there has been upward socioeconomic mobility and the future looks relatively good for them. Finally, I would argue that the US and EU countries have a sort of quasi-statist regimes, something that is commonly labeled 'corporate welfare'.
After all, would financial institutions exist today if it were not for bailouts? Would large corporations make as healthy a profit today, if it were not for the tax breaks, subsidies, and lucrative government contracts, to say nothing of protection and support they enjoy through large international organizations like the World Trade Organization, the IMF, World Bank, OECD, etc.?
At the core of the debate regarding free enterprise and its discontents is how to engender harmony in society without infringing on the rights of individuals, while protecting the more vulnerable and minority groups. There is an old debate (as old as John Locke) about how society shields the individual from the state's abusive power, versus the rights of the community. Do the rights of the community transcend the rights of the individual? Do we want a society where only the individual is protect no matter the inadvertent cost (lack of benefit) to society?
Aristotle recognized that humans living in the city-state are essentially 'political', which means that he too was influenced both by Plato and by Pericles when he argued amid the war against Sparta that the life of the city-state transcends the life of the individual who is an integral part of society. This may be an extreme example, but it does illustrate the point; even today governments ask their soldiers to kill and risk dying to preserve the country.
From the ashes of this early 21st century crisis will emerge a new synthesis and therein will rest its values. In short, values do not fall from the sky to enlighten humanity, but emerge from society itself thus molding the culture and individuals. Free will and its limitations notwithstanding, and free will vs. determinism debate aside for now, individuals do not fall from the sky and come to earth with their own pre-molded value system, but are born, live and die within society and its institutions. Whether in the form of crime, protests and demonstrations, revolts, social fabric disintegration, the elites that largely mold society's institutions inevitably pay a price for creating privileged hierarchical systems that cater to the few at the expense of the many.
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