The Deep Vision: November 2005

Yet once again, I am drawn to discuss capitalism. As I have numerously pointed out on many previous posts, it's the market and its competitive nature that drives us, motivates us to grow and innovate. It's all very true, but why does a system based on greed and competition work rather than a system based on contentment and harmony? One answer usually elaborates on the failure of communism idealistic system, but surely, capitalism won't be justified adequately in comparison with something that it's not (communism) although that might give a precise understanding of the competitive nature of the capitalism. There are strong philosophical grounds on why capitalism works. However, let's look at the issues from the perspectives of the previous post: Greed and the question of evil. One word: "Evil"...thinking logically about it the word can only remind you of two concepts: Metaphysical evil, and the moral evil. In our discussion evil relates to the question of morals.

Previously I explained ,yet again, why Greed, never minding that it's good or evil, works in a short seed cracking anecdote. It was followed by brilliant comments too that opened up the discussion. Here, I shall assume that Greed is immoral, and thus incorporates evil at times. I don't really think it'd be hard to see why Greed is evil, and I won't get into the moral philosophy part of the discussion. For now, I'll assume that it is wrong to only think of yourself, and it's wrong to base self interest as motivator for life.

But, Greed works in our system and so I've agreed in the comments made to the previous post. But I also believe that Greed is evil. Then again, I never said capitalism is evil as a whole. So am I contradicting myself when I say capitalism is a non-evil system that is based greed. That's where the philosophy walks in.

To answer this question, Philosophers first argue that to close loose ends in the discussion of "making a good society" we may assume the evil Greed as a part of the human nature, that a Human specie will look into his(her) self-interest by his nature and must be totally free to do so. That's how he survives (for his first self-interest at primary stage is his survival). However we also have to take into account, that one human's greed will (not that it may, but it Will) sometimes cost another human's "freedom in self-interest" (this is all assuming that Humans are social beings). Now, in case our freedom is interrupted by another human's self-interest, our own freedom and self-interest would together dictate that we are to protect our lives and our possessions. But wait a second....If that's how it's going to work, won't it lead to constant state of War? Yes it does and it did. Even the oldest myths approve of that:
As soon as Adam made his family he also made Humans social beings, with interactions and good and evil emotions toward one another, and as soon as humans became social one killed the other.
So how have we survived this state of war into a functional society?

The general answer is evolution. We evolved and learned to make a society with rules. In this society we give up the "freedom to protect" to someone that we believe will protect us against other humans' greedy nature on our lives and possessions. We trade a small portion of our freedom for security, and in the process we produce, the chiefs, the kings and the governments. This authority will control greed, supervising that one only fulfills his/her self interests as long as it doesn't interfere someone else's freedoms. In return of our freedom to protect ourselves, we get the security to use the rest of our freedoms to satisfy our self-interest even more.

So as you can see, total greed is evil, and is part of us, but it can be limited to satisfy itself. It follows that a system based on greed is not an immoral system for it's merely the natural way for human survival. And yes we are surviving even now, for a thousand years from now; all of our fancy technologies may be seen merely as means survival, just as we see the discovery of fire and invention of wheel as means of survival for the primitive human.

The Hypocrisy of Democracy, How? May I first remind you of the cruelest example of the twentieth century, I remind you of “The Third Reich” ,of Hitler, the man who had the vote of the people, but whose idealistic dreamlands led to the deadliest war in the history of mankind: Nothing became of Democracy but a cradle for a totalitarian national-socialist regime.

At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean there was the American democracy about which years later, the American historian Gabriel Jackson wrote:

“In the specific circumstances of August 1945, the use of the atom bomb showed that a psychologically very normal and democratically elected chief executive could use the weapon just as the Nazi dictator would have used it. In this way, the United States—for anyone concerned with moral distinctions in the conduct of different types of government—blurred the difference between fascism and democracy.” [1]

There are thousands examples all throughout the history from the Far East to the west. I lure your attention to a quote by Plato:

“Aristocracy degenerates into timocracy, timocracy degenerates into oligarchy, oligarchy into democracy and democracy into tyranny”

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So is a Democratic government a student who is destined to try and fail to fulfill his aims of freedom and peace? No, it is not destined to fail to bring us freedom, but it will fail if it is absolute in his aims to reach freedom. Democracy means the rule of majority and if absolute it will lead to tyranny of the majority, where one leader would think he has the vote of absolutely all the people for absolutely all time as Hitler did and as Lenin did.
Thus, democracy is nothing but the freedom of individuals who are the majority. There are no limits to the rule of majority. The majority is supposed to act for its own good; that is for the good of his nation. What we should strive for is Isonomy. Isonomy is the equality within the Rule of Law. Here there would be a law to stop any leader of any kind from having absolute power.
In the nonacademic literature the word “democracy” is used to show the need for isonomy but in concept and action it is often ignored that rule majority alone is not enough to give the right for authority.

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A classic example would be the French Revolution where the young ship of democracy drowned as its leaders rode it on the waves of absolutism. A revolution that was strongly motivated by the enlightenment movement of philosophers of the time dried the hearts out of hope when leaders justified their goals by the support of the people that they thought they had. That is why in the French Revolution many of oppositions were sent under guillotine as the democratic movement leaders became the dictating leaders whom they were mocking in the past regime.
The same story has happened in many other revolutions throughout history taking into despair the people, the philosophers. If the majority demands freedom, the majority will rule, the majority will revolutionize, it will choose a leader and it will provide it with authority. However, because the majority is an emotional mass of people who believe in a single person or group as the leader, it will provide the authority but forget to limit it with a new one. And what is a limitless authority but an authoritarian, dictating regime.

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The Iran’s revolution of 1978 is quite similar to movements like the French revolution. Those who had the voice of majority took the upper hand, overruling any non-Islamic political form government. Democracy was a stillborn child whose small body imprisoned freedom of choice in the dead flesh and bones.

The recent reformist movement couldn’t break free of the dead prison and so will not any other form of reform that believes in the promotion of Islam in people’s private lives. Don’t get me wrong. I am not crossing out “Islamic” out of the “Islamic Republic of Iran”. I am just underlining the “Republic”. In order to underline the “Republic” any kind of revolutionary act will only replace a charismatic leader, or and idealistic elite for the contemporary government. To control Power, is not to replace it with another seemingly tame Power but to balance it with one.

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So, true democracy (isonomy) is only reachable through strengthening the oppositions. Thus undoubtedly, any form of ideal activity that carries dreams of revolution and complete regime change is destined to fail. However unfortunately, any such campaigning produces a literature filled with champions and advocates of people and provokes the emotions of the masses resulting in a leader who has the vote of the people but a different voice from the people.

It is clear now that neither the contemporary president was a democratic one despite his 20 million votes nor is the new president despite his 17 million votes. Neither can and will act for what they got the votes for.

A fortunate future can only be seen through a stronger opposition to the government that carries the voice of different classes of people rather only the middle class.

1. Civilization and Barbarity in 20th Century Europe

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About Me

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Greed + Greed = Freedom + Security

Friday, November 11, 2005

The Hypocrisy of the Democracy