XI. Through Flyvbjerg to Fotopoulos: Thinkers of Civil Society
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New Application of Economy Based on Phronesis
We will start our construction of the monetary policy from the basic conception of the Aristotelian statement regarding our matter: “Matters concerned with conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters of health .” (Emphasis added) For health therefore we will take the basic conception of Asclepius’s statement: [F]or curers of health, health is the natural condition of matters, a positive condition, which belong to them who live their life «εν σοφία», in enlightenment...the most important liturgy of medicine is to uncover and to teach the laws of nature which ensure a healthy spirit in a healthy body . (Emphasis in Original). In order therefore to ensure such a spirit we have to establish a rational system, which will be close to our nature (if not our nature). Therefore, what can be natural phenomenon in economics? — is the first question in our management of the city.
In our analysis of how money emerged in our societies, we indicated that money was not a natural phenomenon, which emerged at the time as a universal mean possessed by few people. What was universal at the time, were the precious metals i.e. gold and silver, counted in numbers. Numbers therefore were and are universal and natural, because every time there was an exchange — that could be done, by using an amount of coins in numbers. Thus, numbers are inherently and naturally incorporated to our human nature. Moreover, we know, as indicated above, that the present monetary system is not result of a natural phenomenon but an “artificial” phenomenon (artificial in this context does not mean that it is wrong, it is precisely the opposite: It is an artificial phenomenon applied universally which have caused in the social domain the destruction of the pure consciousness) possessed by few people; and most important, it is an anti-historical phenomenon.
Thus, first step therefore, is to define a human spirit that can be natural. Thus, if we accept that economy is an art, then art is concerned according to Aristotle with production. Then, production and health is an art which could be applied differently, just by observing our family, which is a natural phenomenon. Therefore, in a family, its members produce health through their art, power or knowledge. Knowledge is preserved and transmitted through generation to generation. Unfortunately, this knowledge, when it came under states possession started to be mythical for its citizens; and states today trade or sell to its citizens the same knowledge by using their private universities or schools.
Thus, states at this point are contrary to natural law in two directions: First, they trade the knowledge of its citizens undemocratically and second they destroy their pure consciousness. This is anti-human and goes contrary to natural laws. Moreover, states today proclaim individualism as the main incentive for the welfare of a city. Proclaiming such a notion means that, our society will produce an antagonistic society and not a rational one. This is because our spirit is constructed by nature as Plato observed, by desire, which deals with unfulfillness; by anger, which deals with war; and by reason which controls all the others. This is universal phenomenon and we can do nothing about it, except empowering our reason.
In order to empower reason, one has to operate in the present “system” just by using the following steps:
“Three Stages” to go Backwards to “Rationality” in Economic Planning
To avert the prospect of the first conception i.e. a society which operate under individualism and thus to be opportunistic, relativistic and revanchistic instead of being empathetic, contextualistic and comprehensivistic of other states we have to find out a new path based on human, individual, ethics, community-value interest.
Thus, every attempt, i.e. unifying Latin America with North America or unifying all the countries of Europe into one, or unifying Asia into one or unifying the entire world into one — economic model, by using the same currency or the same culture, the same food or the same view of our world — will fail painfully. We can easily confirm this failure today. This is because, states, companies or multi-national companies do not have (and cannot) taken into account by law the necessity of phronesis.
In order to give a picture of the present law and to ponder its detriment we have to “pour” into it, rationality. Thus, law regards a partnership as the relationship which subsists between persons carrying on a business in common with a view of profit . Since it was first introduced in 1890 in England this law as never before must be ponder and ponder again. This is because the word profit cramps all the succession of our economy. Then, a question arises: Does this mean that, individual profit is all the time positive or pondered and studied meticulously to make good the same time to themselves and to the community, therefore, to the whole world? Does the aforementioned law poses the question quo vadis as humanity? Can a person produce rationality when the aforementioned law does not take into account the ecosystem? In my view, No! […] Thus, judging ex post from a historical point of view — human being becomes uncontrolled and mainly unfulfilled when he’s got “exclusive” power. Mania is the mechanism that all of us cover or discover our rationality. This greed for ‘abundance’ does not stop with the above law. There will be always a crisis that will be transmitted to other generations. Then another component must be added: Capitalism must be seen as a system which must fulfil three basic components:
a) Free individuality’s choice based on the community’s good.
b) Free community’s choice based on the nation’s good.
c) Free nation’s choice based on the humanity/earth’s good.
If these three stages are fulfilled on undertaking a partnership or an action in law then making good to all of us is achieved. Thus, profit must be seen — as common profit and not individual profit, because all individuals lose their rationality when they are in free choice or in power — including me. And, when you get some you want more. Also, personal profit must fulfil rationality. Then, capitalism must be profoundly seen as the notion that can embrace three other basic components that are compatible with the previous one:
a) Individualism
b) Socialism
c) Globalism
Why so then? Because we need to be free in our initiatives, thus individualism, and because every initiative needs to be ponder about the prospects of our community, i.e. socialism, consequently about our earth, therefore globalism. Evidently, this path from the present governments is not pursued but instead is neglected.
But again, a person cannot produce maximum rationality in its action, because as we have said, rationality is indicated to have greater results when at work take place all the knowledge of the city. This knowledge has been emphasised many times as a natural phenomenon. On the other hand, one might support: In the present system, with the free initiative one can achieve rationality just by improving the quality of her/his products. But can a person know a priory the quantity of the production and the demand by the citizens, so that, to produce the same quantity? Obviously, not. The reasons vary: On the one hand as we have said in other essays is the greed for more abundance; and on the other, the plethora exogenous factors that play a decisive role in managing the economy which cannot be known a priory by the trader. This phenomenon in time will be introduced in each sector by destroying the ecosystem. Then the scholars of the present system should change rationality in order to achieve greater results. And there are great ideas that offer such rationality.
Caution must be taken: We are well aware that human being is the same as in the ancient times and has the same propensity. This phenomenon will not change in our human nature. Aristotle give us a picture by judging today’s circumstances: To judge from the lives that men lead, most men, and men of the most vulgar type, seem (not without some ground) to identify the good, or happiness, with pleasure; which is the reason why they love the life of enjoyment. For there are, we may say, three prominent types of life — that just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative life . If we combine Plato’s spirit with Aristotle’s type’s life, we may conclude:
Desire = Pleasure
Anger = Politics
Reason = Contemplation
But how could we achieve reason or contemplation in such a social domain? Can the present system offer such contemplation, so that to control all the others? Of course not! This is because Montesquieu and other contemporary thinkers like Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Habermas et al. observed and supported a universal virtue, for instance: For Hegel, the way of world is thus, from one point of view, particular individuality seeking its pleasure and enjoyment, finding itself overthrown in doing so, and as a result satisfying the demands of the universal. The universal according to Hegel is the core which can control these two satisfactions: Pleasure and enjoyment. It is from virtue that the universal is now to receive its true reality, by cancelling individuality, the principle of perversion. Virtue’s purpose is by this means to transmute again the perverted world’s process, and bringing out its true nature .
Hegel’s virtue, as it is obvious, is concentrated on perversion and he cancels it by using the demand of the universal, but he is well aware about the particular. For, this proves Hegel wrong and “dict”ator in his view of the society. Additionally, Hegel is cancelling the particular reason which is result of otherness. One thing must be emphasised, at this point: It is not in our intention to rebut Hegel’s view or others scholars of philosophy, but philosophers up to now are concerned with only universal theories and not contextual, as did Plato in some respects, Aristotle in full respects, Nietzsche and Foucault in some respects and Flyvbjerg and Fotopoulos in full respects.
Under such higher theories, the scholars of economics established the same principles: From Adam Smith to Krougman the columnist of New York Times and winner of Nobel Prize in economics, try to rationalise a system (caution! System is indicated here as a dictatorship) that cancels the pure rationality of the pure otherness. For this proves our economics totally wrong, either in western countries or in East or Far East countries. Through their economics they contributed not to free the human consciousness, values, virtues or ethics but to enslave it. They caused and are causing greater problems than religion itself. And this is because academias of economics do not teach other sciences than personal profit without rationality. Their rationality has been left to other schools such as commercial laws, and thus they do not ponder under rational thinking.
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