Fix fairness - References and quotes
Philosophy
2021
REFERENCES AND QUOTES
THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISISMore evolved a specie in nature’s hierarchy the more energy. Miller free energy needed to keep species alive, ”Miller calculates that three hundred trout are required to support one man for a year. The trout, in turn, must consume 90,000 frogs, which must consume 27 million grasshoppers, which live off of 1, 000 tons of grass.” More complex organism the more energy. 31 More complex institutional arrangements the more energy 32, 33 MacCurdy, “human experience as an evolutionary journey in the increasing use of available energy” White, energy use as a yardstick for “successful” cultures. Function of culture is to harness energy in the service of human beings. Energy not human inspiration sets the limit of progress. 33 Odum, “All progress is due to special power subsidies, and progress evaporates whenever and wherever they are removed. Knowledge and ingenuity are the means for applying power subsidies when they are available, and the development and retention of knowledge are also dependent on power delivery” See THE ECONOMICS OF THE COMING SPACESHIP EARTH on information systems.34 Extending central nervous system. Maturing of empathy. New energy/communications/consciousness complex structures requires more energy to stay away from equilibrium. 37 Prigogine, dissipative structures, fluctuations, positive feedback. Dissipative structure ability to reorganize itself into higher order of complexity and integration and a greater flow-through. This is the history of human beings where we “have created the most complex systems, andeach succeeding qualitative shift in social structure, up to now, enjoyed greater energy throughput and produced more entropy than the social structure that preceded it.” 38 Idea of fairness in animals 90 expropriation of resources has meant wealth and surge in empathy in one part of the world and impoverishment and decline in other parts SeeMYTEN OM MASKINEN: ESSÄER OM MAKT; MODERNITET OCH MILJÖ 452 poor vs rich and entropic bill 508 I ENERGY AND ECONOMIC MYTHSunderdeveloped to arrive at good life as fast as possible 378 I COLONIALISM IN THE ANTROPOCENE: THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF THE MONEY-ENERGY-TECHNOLOGY COMPLEX“Building on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s insight that economic processes enhancing utility simultaneously increase entropy, I have inferred that exchange values and productive potential must be inversely correlated, and that the accumulation of technological infrastructure therefore signifies the joint operation of thermodynamics and imperialism. The principles of thermodynamics clearly derive from nature, while the strategies of imperialism derive from society. However, mainstream economists are convinced that their accounts of growth and technological progress have no use for thermodynamics. In their worldview, nature is irrelevant for the constitution of society.” 10 “Neoclassical economic theory is an ideology originally developed in colonial Britain to justify and morally neutralize the exploitation of its extractive periphery. In its modern, neoliberal guise, it has championed ‘globalization’ as a modern euphemism for imperialism.” 12 “Monetary value is not an essence but a cultural veil obscuring material asymmetries by representing unequal exchange as reciprocal. Money cannot compensate for entropy.” 14 “Money cannot neutralize ecological damage in a physical sense. Monetary compensation for environmental damage can reduce contemporary grievances, but it is illusory to believe that ‘correct’ reparations could be calculated, or that they would somehow set things straight. The ecological debt of Britain, for instance, is as incalculable as its debt to the descendants of West African slaves. To raise the price of energy and raw materials, as Bunker suggested, would undoubtedly reduce the current magnitude of ecologically unequal trade (and the accumulation of technological infrastructure) in the world, but it would not make trade equal. Like the notion of making ‘correct’ recompense for past asymmetries, pricing resources high enough to neutralize the damage caused by their extraction would be tantamount to shutting down industrial capitalism.” 15 I PROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTHThe prosperity one depends on prosperity of others. 81 Diminishing marginal utility and inequality. “There is an even more important lesson emerging from all of this. The suspicion that the richest in the world are consuming more and more of the world’s resources in pursuit of less and less additional satisfaction contains a powerful humanitarian argument for redistribution. Should we not aim to optimise the overall satisfaction associated with our material throughputs rather than maximise the throughputs themselves? And if this is the case, should we not focus our efforts on increasing incomes (and material throughputs) in the regions where this will have the biggest impact on people’s quality of life?” Problem of economists casting utility in monetary value added up in GDP. It is a flawed equation 83 Besides including destructive practices GDP also misses non-market goods. “It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country’, Kennedy noted. ‘It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.’” Utility summed up in also GDP misses the point that the marginal utility of a dollar for a poor person is higher than for a rich person 86 Economic growth is a negative-sum game. Positional competition. Diminishing marginal utility om money. Figure 3.2 89 “In the presence of these ecological limits, flourishing itself becomes contingent on the entitlements of those who share the planet with us, and on the freedoms of future generations and other species. Prosperity in this sense has both intra-generational and inter-generational dimensions. As the wisdom traditions suggest, there is an irredeemably moral dimension to the good life. A prosperous society can only be conceived as one in which people everywhere have the capability to flourish in certain basic ways.” See Law of entropy and economic myths 96 Relative positional effects - inequality Consequences of inequality. Fight resource use through equality. SeeTHE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER 99 The balance between wage and profit, the battle of who gets the most out of the cookie, the workers or the capitalist? Capital share of the return is rising with inequality. “In a world where capital were equally distributed this would simply mean that most of our incomes would come from profits rather than wages. But in a world where capital is very unequally distributed – and ours is clearly such a world – things look very different. Any slight disparity in the ownership of capital, or even in the rate of savings, will lead to escalating inequality.” Piketty, declining growth and capitalists increasing share of national income. Tax as a solution. See Thinkings in systems on “Success to the successful”, DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST and https://voxeu.org/article/reducing-inequality-deconcentrating-capital on sharing capital as a solution other than taxing Piketty theory was right under certain circumstances but in other degrowth can improve equality. Low elasticity and serviced based economy where time and skill are valued. 190 “Systemic income inequalities increase anxiety, undermine social capital and expose lower income households to higher morbidity and lower life-satisfaction. In fact, the evidence of negative health and social effects right across unequal populations is mounting. Systemic inequality also drives positional consumption, contributing to a material ‘ratchet’ that drives resource flows through the economy.” Equity and ecological limits gives per capita caps. “The conditions of equity and ecological limits, taken together, suggest a key role for the model known as ‘contraction and convergence’ in which equal per capita allowances are established under an ecological cap that converges towards a sustainable level. This approach has been applied, to some extent, for carbon. Similar caps could be established for the extraction of scarce non-renewable resources, for the emission of wastes (particularly toxic and hazardous wastes), for the drawing down of ‘fossil’ groundwater supplied and for the rate of harvesting of renewable resources.” 214 I MATERIALISTIC VALUES: THEIR CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCESInequalities can create materialistic values as it increases insecurity 18 I THE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTERYearning for balance 3,4 We are not alone in feeling that we want a better society. 4 Happiness and life expectancy and its relation to income 7, 8 Material differences creates social differences 28, 29 Judgment of socials status takes only seconds. 44 Inequality is a powerful social divider. We choose to socialize with perceived equals. Less meeting other people leads to less trust in others and these imaginary in-group and out-groups affects our ability to identify with and empathize with other people. SeeTHE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS on importance of empathy51 de Toqueville and prejudice as imaginary inequality. Inequality and trust. Figure 4.1 SeeTHE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS on importance of empathy 52 Different lives with trust and without. Imagine a society without trust. Putnam, inequality and its relation social capital. 54 Inequality affects trust not the other away around 55 With greater inequality, people are less caring of one another, there is less mutuality in relationships, people have to fend for themselves and get what they can – so , inevitably , there is less trust” We empathize with equals and material differences serve to divide us. 56 Trust affects well-being of individuals and civic society 56, 57 Trust make us see others as cooperative than competitive 58 Inequality affects women’s status 58 Inequality affecting lower life expectancy, higher rates of infant mortality, shorter height, poor self-reported health, low birthweight, AIDS and depression. 81 Inequality affecting our brain 85 Stereotype threat, being aware of social status affects our performance 113 ”We learn best in stimulating environments when we feel sure we can succeed. When we feel happy or confident our brains benefit from the release of dopamine, the reward chemical, which also helps wihth memory, attention and problem solving. We also benefit from serotonin which improves mood, and from adrenaline which helps us to perform at our best. When we feel threatened, helpless and stressed, our bodies are flooded by the hormone cortisol which inhibits our thinking and memory. So inequalities of the kind we have been describing in this chapter, in society and in our schools, have a direct and demonstrable effect on our brains, on our learning and educational achievement” 115 Violence triggered by feelings of shame and humiliation 133 Social status importance for sexuals success. Young men deprived of markers of status struggle to maintain face. Inequality up the stakes in the status competition 134 “Shame and humiliation become more sensitive issues in more hierarchical societies: status becomes more important, status competition increases and more people are deprived of access to markers of status and social success” 144 Inequality make countries socially dysfunctional 174 No matter how you do it as long as you do something about inequality 177 Inequality causes social problems not the other way around. 189, 190 Social status (competing for resources) vs friendship (sharing resources). 196, 197 Gifts make friends and friends make gifts. Social status and friendship reflect different ways of dealing with scarce comforts and necessities among animals and human. 197 “As well as the potential for conflict, human beings have a unique potential to be each other’s best source of co-operation, learning, love and assistance of every kind” Human beings depend on each other to acquire skill and our capacity for specialization give us an unrivalled potential to benefit from cooperation. “We have become attentive to friendship and social status because the quality of social relationshisp has always been crucial to well-being, determining whether other people are feared rivals or vital soucrercs of security, co-operation and supports”. Lack of friends or social status affect our health. 198 Hunter gathering societies’ social and economic life was based on gift exchange, food sharing and equality. 198, 199 Altruistic punishment to reinforce cooperative behavior and prevent freeloading. Egalitarian preferences fly in the face of inequal societies. Benefits of less hierarchical societies, position of women is better, quality of social relations less hostile, trust each other more, community life is stronger, less violence, punishment is less harsh. 200 Human beings DNA pattern more like bonobos than chimps, more prone to love than war. Quality of relations important for our well-being, survival and reproductive success. 202 The larger group the more neocortex needed to handle social life. Social demands developed our brain and maybe the reason for our intelligence. Getting social right is important as other human being can be friends or foe in relation to scarce resource. Different mental tool-kits for dominant or egalitarian societies using dominant or affiliative strategies. 203 Pre-human – dominance where competing for resources, desire for high status and being aware of status is the way of life. Maximizing status being seen as superior. Regaining self-worth through cicycle reaction. 204 However, hunting/gathering societies – highly egalitarian society comprise more 90 % of human history. 204-205 For 2 000 000 years we lived in egalitarian hunter/gathering (foraging) groups. Modern inequality rose with agriculture. Counter-dominance strategies, vigilant sharing, against behaviour threatening peoples sense of autonomy and equality, e.g. someone trying to dominate others. Psychological characteristics for egalitarian societies: 1. Our conception of fairness developed in the egalitarian societies See 199-200205 2. Indebtness feeling of gifts to prompt reciprocity. 3. Sense of identity and interdependence with those we share food and other resources as equals. In-group and out-group, those we share and empathize with and do not See 51 Sharing resources a way to make more people belong to the in-group – importance of empathy for a finite planet. Tocqueville and differences in material living standard barrier to empathy. Sense of self-realization when meeting others need, comes from our need to be valued by others. Doing stuff other people liked and gaining a sense of being valued reassured us a place in the group. See Common cause and intrinsic values, SOME COSTS OF AMERICAN CORPORATE CAPITALISM: A PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF VALUE AND GOAL CONFLICTS creating a dominant hierarchical social organization206“At one extreme, dominance hierarchies are about self-advancement and status competition. Individuals have to be self-reliant and other people are encountered meanly as rivals for food and mates. At the other extreme is mutual interdependence and co-operation in which each person’s security depends on the quality of their relationships with others, and a sense of self-worth comes less from status than from the contributions made to the wellbeing of others. Rather than over pursuit of material self-interest, affiliative strategies depend on mutuality, reciprocity and the capacity form empathy and emotional bonding”. God and mammon coexist and the balance between them varies depending on the sphere of life, economic system and on individual differences of the society. 207 Stress effect infancy, “The quality of care and nurture, the quality of attachment and how much conflict there is, all affect stress hormones and the child’s emotional and cognitive development.” Epigenetic processes where experience switch particular genes on or off. Children experiencing more stress becomes more aggressive and less empathetic and probably better at dealing with conflict. See THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS and attachement theory.208 Experience as a child affects you as an adult. Inequality causes a detoriation of the quality of relationship between children and adults. 209 Oxytocin, feel-good hormone is released when trusted. Mutual cooperation stimulates neural reward centers. 211 Excluding is a powerful tool to keep cooperation. Social pain from exclusion, physical almost, is the opposite of the pleasures of being valued or of the sense of self-realization for doing something for another person. See 206. Power of inclusion and exclusion indicate our fundamental need for social integration and can explain why friendship and social involvement are so protective of health. Unfairness, inequality and the rejection of cooperation are all forms of exclusion creating social pain. Social pain and violence 212 “For a species which thrives on friendship and enjoys co-operation and trust, which has a strong sense of fairness, which is equipped with mirror neurons allowing us to learn our way of life through a process of identification, it is clear that social structures which create relationships based in inequality, inferiority and social exclusion must inflict a great deal of social pain.” 213 Inequality heightens competitive consumption. Economic growth (i.e consumption and production) in developed world no longer improves health, happiness and wellbeing. SeeDOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST,PROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTH, THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS, ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS – PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS215, 216 Burden fairly shared – solving policies must be applied fairly. Rich vs poor in carbon emission caused by consumption. 218 Inequality, physical quotas and steady-state economy 220 “Greater equality gives us a crucial key to reducing the cultural pressure to consume.”221 Equality precondition for steady-state economy. Status competition a driver of consumption, consumption for social distinction. Cost of dissatisfaction that rich impose on society, like smoke from on a chimney. 222 Not only cost of dissatisfaction but also the cost of social problems caused by inequality. Increasing inequality makes harder for people to maintain standard relative to others, saving less and borrowing more. More unequal more advertising. Unequal countries have longer working hours. Lose semester because of inequality. 223 Tackling climate change depends on cooperation! Global Peace Index. More equal societies give more to foreign aid and are more peaceful. 227 For policies tackling climate change to work they need to seem fair. See Yellow west demonstrations 228 Political will for fairer societies exists when power is threatened. 239 Equally sharing the burden. Richard Titmuss,”If cooperation of the masses was thought to be essential [for the war effort], then inequalities had to be reduced and the pyramid of social stratification to be flattened”. 239, 240 Importance of vision. People want more equal societies. Yearning for Balance SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER 241 Concentration of power in economic institutions. Companies the source of income inequality SeeDOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST on Piketty, capital households vs income households and increasing inequality 142, 242 Privatization has increased inequality 243, 244 Tom Paine, wealth, power and democracy 244 Make societies fairer through democratic employee-ownership 248 “Employee-ownership has the advantage of increasing equality specifically by extending liberty and democracy”. Economic democracy. 252 Stop pampering the rich. They will not leave or bail. “We know that more egalitarian countries live well, with high living standards and much better social environments. We know also that economic growth is not the yardstick by which everything else must be judged. Indeed we know that I t no longer contributes to the real quality of our lives and that consumerism is a danger to the planet. Nor should we allow ourselves to believe that the rich are scarce and precious members of a superior race of more intelligent being son whom the rest of us are dependent. That is merely the illusion that wealth and power create. Rather than adopting an attitude of gratitude towards the rich, we need to recognize what a damaging effect they have on the social fabric.” 262 Different action that can make societies fairer. 263, 264 I ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS – PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONSsustainable scale and just distribution 12 Economic growth only extends the timeframe to solve inequality and poverty. Neoclassical economy just don’t care. 13 Inequality of knowledge. 41 Excludability = property rights 165 Excludability is create to be able to make profit. Rights are protected by institution 166 Excludable and nonrival goods. Intellectual progress is a collective process 173, 174 Problems of medicine and patents 176 Market failure and water. If economics rule (where value equals willingness to pay) rich can water their lawn while poor cannot afford water to their crops or flush their toilets while poor drink water contaminated by sewage. An example that economy concerns ends. Monopoly profits end up i private pockets. Public profits ends up in public profits 206 Henry George and land value. The elderly lady and the butterfly. 207 Are individuals entitled to wealth created by society or nature? Land is fixed in supply and prices increases with growing population 208 Relative income matter, adaptation and more choices is not always better. SeeTHE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER238 Pareto optimality requires a given distribution of wealth and income. Change distribution and we got a different set of prices (people want different things, malaria medicine for example) Avoiding distribution through illusion of growth. 301 Distributive equity is a normative issue. Pareto criterion forbids interpersonal comparison such as low marginal utility of rich to high marginal utility of the poor. Pareto is normative and not relative. Pareto vs the egalitarian implication of diminishing marginal utility. 303 Economics has “no theory at all to explain the distribution of wealth among individuals. It is the historical result of whose ancestors got there first, of marriage, of inheritance, plus individual ability and effort, and just plain luck.” SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on “Success to the successful” 305 What is fair? One person owning everything surplus subsistence. Everyone exactly the same? People do different work and take different responsibilities. Plato thought that the richest person should be 4 times wealthier than the poorest. Typical CEO in USA earn 475 times more than a typical worker. “If the total is limited, then the maximum for one person is implicitly limited” then what is the proper range of inequality when we can’t grow forever? 309 Effects of inequality SeeTHE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER311, 312 Just intertemporal distribution 312 We are here by chance “There is therefore no moral justification for claiming that one generation has any more right to natural resources, the building blocks of the economy, than any other.” Future and current generations have same right. Future amount of resources depend on technological and ecological change and is a ethical decision dealing with uncertainty. 313 Relocating pollution and resource extraction. Overdeveloped note 21 379 Poor, an absolute disadvantage 381 On a finite planet resource use of one diminish the use of other - “Income increase in wealthy countries is fueled by nonrenewable resource consumption (including nonsustainable depletion of potentially renewable resources) which means these resources are not available for future improvements in the well-being of the poorest” Pollution and waste also destroys ecosystem services that would benefit the poor. 382 Food security and globalization. Rich money talks and eats, buys food poor cannot afford. Poor agriculture not as efficient as rich agro-industrial and cannot compete. 386 Finance and distribution. Inequity iceberg. Financial assests already owned by the wealthy grows faster thus increasing inequality. Computerly programmed redistribution of real wealth. And the computers requires existing wealth. “Even when financial assets do contribute to the real growth of market goods and services, for the richest nations, which host the largest financial sectors, marginal costs of economic growth often outweigh the marginal benefits. In this case, the few reap the financial benefits, while the many, even those living in those richest nations, pay the social and environmental costs.”404 Revolutionary to socialize. Can we reframe property rights as a bundle of rights with right of rate of extraction excluded. 422 “If we believe there is a need for improved distribution, we are basically questioning the existing endowments of property rights.”“Policy is concerned largely with institutions and laws that create, redefine, and redistribute property rights.” Excluding property rights are not inherent in services and goods. Social institution defends these rights. A right and a duty, three-way relation between individual, other individual and the state. Privilege vs right. Scarce world requires a redefinition of property rights through policies. 424 Types of property rights. 425 Box 23-1 how wealth creates power SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on “Success to the successful”. Problem of wealth as status : 1. Conspicuous consumption increases scale 2. Creates a damaging zero sum positional race. SeeTHE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER443 Caps on income and wealth. Conspicuous consumption can be seen as a negative externality and could be limited by a progressive consumption tax. Income could be capped using a progressive income tax and it is good if it also limit economic growth because the people and planet needs less of it! 🙂 Wealth can be capped through a progressive wealth tax such as real estate tax and inheritance tax. 46 % of accumulated wealth is directly inherited. Much of private wealth grows because of infrastructure and institutions provided by society. 444 Subsaharian Bill Gates. Tax and the Northern European countries 445 Marginal utility of a dollar is bigger for a poor person than for a rich. Just desert argument based on that people are paid for their contribution to society, But how do you know you are contributing if the goal of the society is not clear? Furthermore people are benefiting now from past contributions. Approaches proposed by ecological economists include equal opportunity in education, job access and job andvancement, jobs at living wage and directy payments but also equal entitlements to wealth created by nature and by society independent of entrepreneurial ability. See https://twitter.com/wistikent/status/1219359615890219008/photo/1, History of basic income446 Distribution of factors of production. 447 Distribute return to natural capital. 451 Alaska fund and Sky trust 400 Henry George and the reasoning for a land tax. Practically harder to physically redistribute land than taxing. 454 “Once growth in scale has become uneconomic, it can no longer be appealed to as the solution to poverty.” 479 I ARBETSSAMHÄLLET – HUR ARBETET ÖVERLEVDE TEKNOLOGINThe Increasing inequality in early industrialization. American dream is not available for all 44 Schmoo-animals, technology and inequality 90 All power is built on violence. Steven Lukes and three faces of power: decision-making power, non-decision and ideological making power. John Stuart Mills description of patriarchic system. When submissiveness forms identity the oppressed becomes the apologetics of the oppressor. 113 Marcuse and unworthy sublime wishes in a unjust world 124 The abundance society is concentrate to a small part of the world 154 The power tension between master and slave was born with the idea of property. SeeTHE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER on more egalitarian foraging societies 171 I MYTEN OM MASKINEN: ESSÄER OM MAKT; MODERNITET OCH MILJÖ Godelier and portraying uneven exchange and exploitation as a fair exchange of services 13, 14 The preservation of Swedish was made possible by imported oil from elsewhere 14 Machine as an expression of unequal transfer of resources. The railroad as a distribution problem of society. 45 Technology as redistribution of time and space. 46 Technological development as a zero-sum game of time and space 47 The essence of the machine, the conditions for its existence is inequitable exchange relations 49 Machine as fetish. Early economists as Ricardo hid the real dimensions of trade, the transfer of time, space and energy in the idea exchange value. 50 Prices are cultural constructions. Technology as access to energy and price relations. John Stuart Mill and work saving machines. The machine, a way to displace the consumption of space and times resources to unfortunate ones? 51 Being part of a system, growth and technological development in one part of the world, means underdevelopment and environmental degration in another part, a zero-sum game. But seeing the world in this way, seeing this reality, would put us human beings in a deep moral conflict. If current welfare is threaten, as it is today by climate change and dwindling resources, maybe we will move towards a paradigm shift. However we need a vision 53 Production is dissipative. Industrial capitalism is built on underpayment in the exergy of natural resources and the more exergy used the higher the market price. The transfer of exergy is what is called growth/development and the transferred order is stored in the industrial countries infrastructure. Exergy use is rewarded with more exergy use and this unequal exchange is hidden in the use of exchange value (prices). 58 Money cannot compensate for entropy as money is only an exchange relation. SeeDOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST, Tony Greenham https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2KgrpFRHJI No exchange can compensate form entropy. Nature is not helped by money. 63 Is the machine a way to shift the extraction of time and space resources? 113 Industrialization, guano, fertilizers, ghost areas, appropriated carrying capacity and shift of resource and space consumption to the periphery. 114 Sustainable farming cannot be dependent on fossil fuel. 115 The transition to the use of exosomatic energy made it easier to shift the cost to the poor 122 Triangular trade and how the liberation from endosomatic energy allowed a new form of exploitation of areal resources. More poor people now than ever. 123 Triangular trade enabled the industrialization. 6 million slaves between 1701 and 1810. 133 Industrial infrastructure has to sustain an uneven exchange to survive and grow. Roegen and economic process as dissipation of energy and materials. 137 Prigogine and dissipative structrures. The costs of industrial metropolis are 1. Acquisition of negative entropy from somewhere else 2. Shift of entropy to somewhere else. “Such a perspective is important because it could help us to explain increasing inequality in technological development and economic growth between different sectors of national and international economies” SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on “Success to the successful” 138 The machine and the divine ruler are both fetishisms. Relations between people are portrayed as relations between things. The Incas and the European industrial society and the growth of material infrastructure through unequal exchange 159 Cultural manipulations, cognitive processing of societal injustices to ease tension between the reality and the ideal. Ayni, Lancashire and water, Nigeria, oil and world market prices. See through the fog of cultural categories to perceive the real transfer of exergy, working hours and hectares. 160 Rail road as saving time and space for one social category at the expense of another. Von Thünen measuring gravitation and friction against nutritional value 161 Von Thünen, Cuzco and modern transportation of perishable goods. 162 Power to make claims on the resources of other human beings can be based in the oyster shells or money fetishism. 162, 163 Poverty and technological development are two sides of the same coin as time and spatial resources are limited. “Från gudaföda till maskinfetishems förblir de ekonomiska systems landskap möblerade med våra egenhändigt tillverkade synvillor”. 164 Georgescu-Roegen, economic process and the growth of technosphere made possible by a selfreinforcing unequal exchange. SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on Success to the successful 173 Technosphere and Prigogines dissipative structures. 173, 174 The technosphere exchange of exergy for entropy is unlike other dissipative structure in the universe in that it is based on a social relation, an uneven price relation. It is the exploitation of someone’s environment/nature, a shift of the consumption of resources 174 Cultural perceptions make unequal exchange seem equal in similar way in both the Inca empire and textile manufacturing in 19th century England. Modern perceptions about wage and market prices. Technology is like the godlike figure of the Inca ruler both seen as cornucopias, but their productivity as a cultural illusion concealing unequal exchange. They are fetishisms. 180 “When the crops of the arable land becomes exchangeable to technical infrastructure, technoeconomic growth in one part of the world system can be a threat against basic provision in another. This becomes clearer if we again view the logic of growth in a physical light. The idea of the interchangeability of everything, the foundation for the totalitarian abstraction of national economics, has ecological and social consequences that cannot be understood without some basic concepts from thermodynamics. By breaking down local value hierarchies that previously codified the complexity of the local resource flows it opens the “locks” to the entropy river wide open and it leaves us a system whose blind mechanics simply is to reward a maximum and accelerating resource consumption. Such is the logic of money. We have handed over our important decisions to a sign without meaning.” SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER, MEASURING REGENERATIVE ECONOMICS: 10 PRINCIPLES AND MEASURES UNDERGIRDING SYSTEMIC ECONOMIC HEALTH and THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS on subsystem, hierarchies and embodied experience. The supply of exergy to the technosphere is mediated through society and creates a structural conflict between those with access to a growing technopshere and those supplying the exergy. 191 World trade statistics, uneven trade and international debt 192 I DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMISTLiving inside the doughnut depends on 1. Population 2. Distribution 3. Aspiration 4. Technology 5. Governance. 54 Power of the wealthy to reshape the economys rules in their favour. SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on “Success to successful”,ARBETSSAMHÄLLET – HUR ARBETET ÖVERLEVDE TEKNOLOGIN on power. Inequality in power 79 System dynamics and inequality. Reinforcing feedbacks of wealth and poverty, Success to the successful! 123Reinforcing feedback in business and 4 agricultural giant companies. SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on “Success to successful” Inventor of Monopoly Elizabeth Magie and Henry George and prosperity rules. Sugascape, inequality, more helps getting more and luck has to do with it! See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXegsaDctGE. Matthew-effect. Rising inequality in the world. SeeTHE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER Weaken the Success to the Successful feedback loop. SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on “Success to successful” 126 Piketty and no Kuznets of inequality. Piketty, households of earning and/or owning and capitalism that generates inequality damaging to democratic values. “Why? Because the returns to capital have tended to grow faster than the economy as a whole, leading wealth to become ever more concentrated. That dynamic is then reinforced through political influence -from corporate lobbying to campaign fincancing – that further promotes the interests of the already wealthy.” The Success to the successful trap. Kuznets results was a consequence of the studies being done during a period where World wars had depleted capital and theensuing progressive taxation had equalized through public investment in education, health care and social security. Trickle down doesn’t work just ask IMF. See INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND Strategy, Policy, and Review Department Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality: A Global Perspective, THINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER The consequences of inequality: worse life, worse democracy, worse environment, worse economic instability. SeeTHE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER, PROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTH142 Economy of the future must alter not only income but the distribution of wealth, time and power. Natures network by branching fractals, river delta, branches in a tree, blood vessels, vein In leafs. Balance between systems efficiency and resilience. Nature teaching for economy is diversity and distribution. SeeTHE SCIENCE OF FLOW SAYS EXTREME INEQUALITY CAUSES ECONOMIC COLLAPSE, MEASURING REGENERATIVE ECONOMICS: 10 PRINCIPLES AND MEASURES UNDERGIRDING SYSTEMIC ECONOMIC HEALTH145 Economic networks now create to big to fail companies. Minimum, maximum and basic income is good but we also need focus on both redistribution income and wealth as wealth generates income. SeeTHE SCIENCE OF FLOW SAYS EXTREME INEQUALITY CAUSES ECONOMIC COLLAPSE, MEASURING REGENERATIVE ECONOMICS: 10 PRINCIPLES AND MEASURES UNDERGIRDING SYSTEMIC ECONOMIC HEALTH. Alperovits “political-economic systems are largely defined by the way property is owned and controlled”. SeeARBETSSAMHÄLLET – HUR ARBETET ÖVERLEVDE TEKNOLOGIN on Rousseau and power in property 171 Distributive design by changing wealth ownership of 1. land, 2. money creation, 3. enterprise, 4. technology and 5. knowledge. State led and grass-roots initiative. 1. Land limits Mark Twain. Henry George and BIENs reasons for basic income. Nature and community give land value. See History of basic income on reasons for basic income through history https://basicincome.org/history/147 Sign of Fay Lewis. Land-value tax. Henry George, land should be owned by a community. E. P. Thompson “Enclosure was plain enough a case of class robbery” and companies have continued the historic enclosure of land in modern times with communities having found themselves dispossessed, dispersed and impoverished. Ostrom proved Hardin wrong proving people can manage the commons, managing better than markets and state. No one holds the true solution, try different approaches. 150 Moneymaking and increasing inequality through repayment of interest-bearing loans. The new landlords are now the investors, financiers and bankers. Keynes, “The owner of capital can obtain interest because capital is scarce, just as the owner of land can obtain rent because land I scarce.” 152 Work and inequality. Who owns the enterprise and captures the value of the workers 155 Power determines the shares of wealth/productivity. Rooted membership and stakeholder finance for companies to be distribute. Employee owned firms. Concentration of wealth through technology. Network effect into digital monopolies armed with patents, the enclosure of creative commons. 158 Concentration of wealth through technology. Automation, work and fairness. USA employment in agriculture went from 50%, 1900, to 2%, 2000. SeeTHE CIRCULAR BIOECONOMY AND DECOUPLING: IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH on the great linearization 149. Taxing non-renewables and not work and basic income won’t be enough in fighting technological segregation. We have to share. Biosphere is for all! Mariana, Mazzucato, public money in research, development and infrastructure underpinning technology like robots, a rationale for all in owning a piece of the pie. Colonization of the commons, controlling ideas and knowledge, through immaterial law. Innovation happens without immaterial law. 161 Basic income, 1. an universal access to markets 164 Global inequalities. GiveDirectly See https://tidningensyre.se/2020/9-september-2020/forsok-med-basinkomst-i-kenya-gav-positiva-effekter-under-pandemin/ . Market driven solutions for poverty should not be a substitute for public services! 2. Universal access to public services. Classic, tax the rich! – global taxes! 3. Universal access to global commons, to earths life-giving systems and to knowledge. 167 Open source digital platform - global knowledge common 167, 170 Tax justice, tax wealth! Since economy cannot grow anymore we cannot have the same employment anymore. The solution to automation and unemployment us a basic income for all and sharing work. Keynes, “to make what work there is still to be done as widely shared as possible.” 226 Socially locked in the culture of consumerism and tension created by inequality. Economic growth is supposed to ease the social tensions of inequality through positive sum, everyonecanbebetteroff economy and also avoid redistribution. (But we can’t grow anymore) 229 I THINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER Success to the successful trap 126 “whenever the winners of a competition receive, as part of the reward, tehe means to compete even more effectively in the future” A reinforcing feedback loop that “rapidly divides a system into winners who go on winning, and losers who go on losing” Luck in monopoly. Trump and other rich in life. “If the winning takes place in a limited environment, such that everything the winner wins is extracted from the losers, the losers are gradually bankrupted, or force out, or starved” Success to the successful is known as the competitive exclusion principle in ecology. 127 Success to the successful and Karl Marx. Reinforcing feedback loop of capital accumulation. Monopoly creation. Poorer and education, credit ability and land. 128 Feedbacks perpetuate inequitable distruation. Diversify! but will not work for the poor. Put in balancing feedback loops. Level the playing field, periodically! Potlatch 129 “These equalizing mechanisms may derive from simple morality, or they may come from the practical understanding that losers, if they are unable to get out of the game of success to the successful, and if they have no hope of winning, could get frustrated enough to destroy the playing field.” 130 Information is power 173 I MEASURING REGENERATIVE ECONOMICS: 10 PRINCIPLES AND MEASURES UNDERGIRDING SYSTEMIC ECONOMIC HEALTH“A flow network is any system whose existence arises from and depends on circulating energy, resources, or information throughout the entirety of their being.”“While most people associate the term “energy” with various forms of fuel (oil, gas, solar, etc.), in ENS, it refers to any kind of flow that is critical to drive the system under study. Ecologists, for example, study the flow of carbon and oxygen in the biosphere; food-security researchers study the flow of produce, grains, and commodities; and industrial economists study the flow of minerals and industrial products. The circulation of money and information is particularly critical in socio-economic networks, and these flows are always closely linked to networks and processes of energy.” Flux density. “Robust, timely circulation of critical resources is essential to support a system's internal organization and processes and, the more organization there is to support, the more nourishing circulation is needed..” 16 Poor crosscale circulation leads to necrosis. Fractal branching structural pattern. Health of the whole. Regenerative = self-renewing 17 “We believe the framework these early economists were looking for is one of a metabolic system, particularly one that is designed to be naturally self-renewing (i.e., regenerative). In this metabolic view, economic vitality rests first and foremost on the health of the underlying human networks that do all the work and underlying environmental networks that feed and sustain all the work.” 17, 18 Regenerative society. Collective and collaborative learning. “Here, the web of human relationships and values is also more important than GDP growth per se because a society's vitality e i.e., its ability to produce, innovate, adapt, and learn e depends almost entirely on these relationships and values. Cultural beliefs are important because they determine the obstacles and opportunities, incentives and impediments extant in the society. Manmade incentives, for example, affect whether an organization works primarily to serve its customers and civilization, or to maximize its owners' profits regardless the harm done to people and planet.” “Putting all these elements together suggests that the elements of regenerative economics fall into four main categories: 1) circulation; 2) organizational structure; 3) relationships and values; and, 4) collective learning. While we present them separately for clarity, all of these categories are in fact inseparably intertwined and mutually-affecting.”“As stated above, 1. circulation affects economies in much the same way it affects living organisms and ecosystems as an essential factor in the metabolism, maintenance, and motive force. Robust cross-scale circulation nourishes, energizes, and connects all the complex collaborative functions a socio-economic system needs to thrive. Circulation's impact on the economic is easy to see. Major influxes of money, novel ideas, information, resources, and fuel sources (e.g., coal, oil, wood) have spurred major economic development throughout history. Circulation also teaches us that where money, information, and resources go is just as important as how much of it there is. In Keynesian terms, poor economic circulation to the working public - including lost jobs, low wages, closed factories, and crumbling infrastructure - reduces aggregate demand, which undermines economic vitality regardless of the size of GDP. Using our economic metabolism model, we say poor economic circulation causes economic necrosis, the dying-off of large swaths of economic tissue with ensuing damage to the health of the whole.” 2. Organizational structure “…vitality requires balance and integration of sizes that combine the best of both worlds, i.e., large and small, resilient and efficient, diverse and focused.” “Today's challenge, therefore, is to build integrated enterprise networks that connect small, medium, and large elements in common-cause and in service to the health of the whole. This challenge is also seen in such diverse fields as politics, healthcare, education, and urban planning.” See THINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on goals. 3. Relationships and values. “Mutually beneficial relationships and common cause values are critical to long-term vitality because economic networks are collaborations built of specialists who produce more working together than alone, even if emerging as an unintended consequence.” Metcalfe’s law. Reed’s law. 18 “Common-cause values such as trust, justice, fairness, and reciprocity facilitate collaboration and are the bond that holds specialists together. Self-interest is part of the process, but mutual benefit/reciprocity and commitment to the health of the whole are vastly more important because specialists must work together in interlocking circuits such that the health of every individual depends on the health of the whole. Injustice, inequality, and corruption increase instability because they erode unifying values. A mountain of sociological research confirms these facts (e.g. Refs. [33-35]).” See THE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER 3. Collective learning. “The self-organizing story of evolution sees humanity as a collaborative-learning species that thrives by forging new understandings and changing our pattern of life by changing our beliefs about how the world works. Here, effective collective learning is humanity's central survival strategy and the keystone to longterm vitality.” Jared Diamond on societies collapses as a failure to learn. Principles of regenerative economics. 1. Maintain robust, cross-scale circulation of critical flows including energy, information, resources, and money Keynes. 19 “Violating a distribution balance leads to the usual sequence: excessive concentrations of wealth excessive concentrations of power positive feedback loops that accelerate the suction of wealth to the top. The result is economic necrosis e the dying off of large swaths of economic tissue due to poor circulation and malnutrition. Consequently, institutional economists Acemoglu and Robinson [65] show that excessive extraction is the most common reason Why Nations Fail. RE #9 would identify, distinguish, and reward practices that construct capitals and capacities as opposed to simply exploiting existing natural or human-made capitals.” SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on “Success to successful” 24 I THE SCIENCE OF FLOW SAYS EXTREME INEQUALITY CAUSES ECONOMIC COLLAPSE“So, while the impacts of globalization and technology are profound, the real explanation for inequality lies primarily with an economic belief that, intentionally or not, serves to concentrate wealth at the top by extracting it from everywhere else. This belief system is called variously neoliberalism, Reaganomics, the Chicago School, and trickle-down economics. It is easily recognized by its signature ideas: deregulation; privatization; cut taxes on the rich; roll back environmental protections; eliminate unions; and impose austerity on the public. The idea was that liberating market forces would cause a rising tide that lifted all boats, but the only boat that actually rose was that of the .01%. Meanwhile, instability has grown.” See https://arbetet.se/2020/10/12/paven-kapitalismen-har-svikit-manskligheten/?fbclid=IwAR3itLPJPiJtT4WKpJ-17PlBTRqqlZ8nhaug6y64myrrtzHxgXOK1FXX7_o I DANA (DONELLA) MEADOWS LECTURE: SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMSLimits to growth archetype. E.g. Fisheries. 09.49 This system is going to crash. 10.00 Even distribution and price and fish. 12.37 However with uneven distribution rich can pay whatever. What actually is happening with fisheries. 13.03 Price could stop but it isn’t. Uneven income distribution stops it. 14.14 Population Balancing/negative loops, potlatch, equal education, taxes 22.38 Population growth and poverty. 24.53 World3 big model of same thing, growth ethic trying to make more, a lot of successful to the successful 26.13 The system can be changed! 29.05 Sustainable system: 1. Meaningful, moral, satisfying goal – sense of enough 2. Feedback loops balanced 3. Clean, clear, fast, compelling information flow 4. Protection of resource base, including resilience, self-organizing and evolution 5. Social equity 29.36 System can’t function without equity. 3:53 PART 3 IWHY WE COOPERATE children and altruism 28 reciprocity, nice to the nice 29 kindness through social norms 30 Joint goal creates an “us”, In shared cooperative activities individual rationality is transformed into a social rationality of interdependence. 41 Also altruistic by nature. Mutualistic collaborative activities the source of human skills and motives for shared intentionality and human altruism. 47 Birth of altruism in mutualism, “The star is mutualism, in which we all benefit from our cooperation but only if we work together, what we may call collaboration.”52 “free-riding is not really possible because each of our efforts is required for success, and shirking is immediately apparent. As a side benefit, in the context of a mutualistic effort, my altruism toward you—for example, pointing out a tool that will help you do your job—actually helps me as well, as you doing your job helps us toward our common goal. So mutualism might also be the birthplace of human altruism: a protected environment, as it were, to get people started in that direction.” Evolution of cooperation. See FIVE WAYS TO WELLBEING 10, Sprit level 211, THE EMERGENCE OF HUMAN PROSOCIALITY: ALIGNING WITH OTHERS THROUGH FEELINGS, CONCERNS, AND NORMS, THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN MORALITY – HOW WE LEARNED TO PUT OUR FATE IN ANOTHER’S HANDS53 “The problem is how we can get ourselves to join forces. This is not a trivial task since what I do in such situations depends on what I think you will do and vice versa, recursively, which means that we must be able to communicate and trust one another sufficiently. I will call my evolutionary hypothesis the Silk for Apes, Skyrms for Humans hypothesis.” Cooperating requirements going from ape group activity to human collaboration 1. Importance of social-cognitive skills. 54 2. Importance of trust. 3 Institutional practices such as public social norms and deontic status to institutional roles 55 Entering the supermarket, institutional phenomena and a human sense of we, shared intentionality 57 Sense of doing things together creates mutual expectation, institutions exist because “we” believe and act according the belief 58 “Human cooperative communication thus evolved first within the bounds of collaborative activities because these activities provided the needed common ground for establishing joint topics, and because they generated the cooperative motives that Grice established as essential if the inferential machinery is to work appropriately.” Example of pointing. Wittgenstein 73 “To sum up, the species-unique structure of human collaborative activities is that of a joint goal with individual roles, coordinated by joint attention and individual perspectives. It was by way of Skyrms’s stag hunt19 that human beings evolved skills and motivations for engaging in these kinds of activities for concrete mutualistic gains. Skills and motivations for cooperative communication coevolved with these collaborative activities because such communication both depended on these activities and contributed to them by facilitating the coordination needed to coconstruct a joint goal and differentiated roles.” SeeTHE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS and FINDING FRAMES: NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE THE UK PUBLIC IN GLOBAL POVERTY on Lakoff and language 73 “Humans were put under some kind of selective pressure to collaborate in their gathering of food—they became obligate collaborators—in a way that their closest primate relatives were not.” 75 Importance of trust 77 “There are a number of evolutionary hypotheses about the context in which humans became more socially tolerant and less competitive over food. We could tell a story totally within the context of foraging, such that as collaboration became obligatory, those individuals who already were less competitive with food and more tolerant of others naturally had an adaptive advantage (assuming they could find one another, as Skyrms has shown).” 83, 84 Depend on each other for reaching a joint goal “The force of cooperative norms thus comes from our mutually recognized interdependence and our natural reactions to the failures of both ourselves and others.” 90 “Thus, social practices WHY WE COOPERATE in which “we” act together interdependently in interchangeable roles toward a joint goal generate, over time, mutual expectations leading to generalized, agent-neutral normative judgments.” 91, 92 “Internalized social norms, with accompanying guilt and shame, ensure that coordination with the group’s expectations need not involve any overt behavior.” 95 “Norms provide the background of trust in which agent-neutral roles and shared cooperative activities with joint goals and joint attention enable social institutions.” 96 “Specifically, humans came to engage in collaborative activities with a joint goal and distinct and generalized roles, with participants mutually aware that they were dependent on one another for success. These activities hold the seeds of generalized, agent-neutral normative judgments of rights and responsibilities, as well as various kinds of division of labor and status assignments as seen in social institutions. They also are the birthplace of human altruistic acts, and humans’ uniquely cooperative forms of communication. Humans putting their heads together in shared cooperative activities are thus the originators of human culture.” 98, 99 I THE EMERGENCE OF HUMAN PROSOCIALITY: ALIGNING WITH OTHERS THROUGH FEELINGS, CONCERNS, AND NORMSChildren sharing 2 What constitute fair is not universal. Children punish unfair offers See DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST 91 9 “We align ourselves with other individuals by way of empathy and other-regarding concerns, especially empathic concern, which allow us to feel with and for others. And we align ourselves with the group by way of normativity. These two forms of alignment are intricately linked, and they together give rise to uniquely human forms of prosociality and cooperation, both at a small scale, namely families and tribes, and at a large scale in groups of unrelated strangers.” 10 “The foundations for uniquely human ultrasociality thus comes from the combination of an emotional, possibly innate, sensitivity to the needs of others, coupled with a motivation toward their welfare. Norms systematize, standardize, and contextualize for the group which prosocial (or antisocial) behaviors are expected, when, and toward whom.” human beings being ultrasocial and its origins 11 I THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN MORALITY – HOW WE LEARNED TO PUT OUR FATE IN ANOTHER’S HANDS400, 000 years ago Homo heidelbergensis began obtaining scarce food through collaboration, something essential for survival. “An essential part of the process of obligate collaborative foraging involved partner choice. Individuals who were cognitively or otherwise incompetent at collaboration—those incapable of forming joint goals or communicating effectively with others— were not chosen as partners and so went without food. Likewise, individuals who were socially or morally uncooperative in their interactions with others—for example, those who tried to hog all the spoils—were also shunned as partners and so doomed. The upshot: strong and active social selection emerged for competent and motivated individuals who cooperated well with others” 72 “Most important, they had strong cooperative motives, both to work together to achieve common goals and to feel sympathy for and help existing or prospective partners. If an individual depended on partners for foraging success, then it made good evolutionary sense to help them whenever necessary to make sure they were in good shape for future outings. In addition, one’s own survival depended on others seeing you as a competent and motivated collaborative partner. Thus, individuals became concerned with how others evaluated them. In experiments from our laboratory, even young children care about how they are being evaluated by others, whereas chimpanzees seemingly do not.” 72, 73 “From these studies we have surmised that early humans who engaged in collaborative foraging developed a new kind of cooperative reasoning that led them to treat others as equally deserving partners— that is, not just with sympathy but also with a sense of fairness (based on an understanding of the equivalence between oneself and others).”“The roles— each of which had mutually known and impartial standards of performance—were, in fact, interchangeable. As such, each partner on the hunt was equally deserving of the spoils, in contrast to cheats and free riders who did not lend a hand. In choosing a partner for a collaborative effort, early humans wanted to pick an individual who would live up to an expected role and divide the spoils fairly. To reduce the risk inherent in partner choice, individuals who were about to become partners could use their newfound skills of cooperation to make a joint commitment, pledging to live up to their roles, which required a fair division of the spoils.” “A ‘we is greater than me’ morality emerged. During a collaboration, the joint “we” operated beyond the selfish individual level to regulate the actions of the collaborative partners ‘I’ and ‘you.’ The outcome of early humans’ adaptations for obligate collaborative foraging, then, became what is known as a second-personal morality—defined as the tendency to relate to others with a sense of respect and fairness based on a genuine assessment of both self and others as equally deserving partners in a collaborative enterprise.” Competition between groups with the need of loosely knit social groups to cooperate against outside invaders and population increase and the need for subunits to recognize members meant the birth of cultural norms. 73 “Animals often cooperate with others of their own species. But the way humans do so is different. The human form of cooperation—known simply as morality—distinguishes itself in two related ways. One person may help another based on unselfish motives driven by compassion, concern and benevolence. Also, members of a group might seek means for all to benefit through enacting norms to promote fairness, equity and justice. These capacities evolved over hundreds of thousands of years as humans began to work together out of a basic need for survival. The cognitive and social aspects of this process may be understood through the philosophical concept of intentionality: the ways individuals interpret the world and pursue their goals.” Individual intentionality, joint intentionality and collective intentionality. 74 “Some social norms were about more than conformity and group identity. They touched on a sense of sympathy and fairness (inherited from early hu mans), which became moral norms. Thus, just as some norms codified the right and wrong way of doing things in hunting or making tools, moral norms categorized the proper way of treating other people. Because the collective group goals and cultural common ground of human groups created an “objective” perspective— not “me” but “we” as a people—modern human morality came to be characterized as an objective form of right and wrong.” “But if we are to solve our largest challenges as a species, which threaten all human societies alike, we had best be prepared to think of all of humanity as a ‘we.’” 75To encouragement
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