Personal Commentary ~
It does indeed, Take A Village!
⬇
Focused Read in 3-4 minutes
( Eric Liu is the founder of Citizen University and a former speechwriter and deputy domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton -- the quote is from a piece written with Nick Hanauer, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist: “Traditional Economics Failed. Here’s a New Blueprint.” )
"How Norway Proves
Laissez-faire Economics Is Not Just Wrong, It’s Toxic
A surprisingly simple
solution to the conflict between self-interest and mutual benefits at
all hierarchical levels
(By David S. Wilson, Dag O.
Hessen)
Life consists of units
within units. In the biological world, we have genes, individuals,
groups, species, and ecosystems – all nested within the biosphere.
In the human world, we have genes, individuals, families, villages
and cities, provinces, and nations – all nested within the global
village.
In both worlds, a problem lurks at every rung of the ladder:
a potential conflict between the interests of the lower-level units
and the welfare of the higher-level units. What’s good for me can
be bad for my family. What’s good for my family can be bad for my
village, and so on, all the way up to what’s good for my nation can
be bad for the global village.
Today, over half the
earth’s population resides in cities and the most populous nations
teem with billions of people, but groups the size of villages still
deserve a special status. They are the social units that we are
genetically adapted to live within and they can provide a blueprint
for larger social units, including the largest of them all – the
global village of nations.
… The conflict between
lower-level selfishness and higher-level welfare pervades the
biological world.
Cancer cells selfishly spread at the expense of
other cells within the body, without contributing to the common good,
ultimately resulting in the death of the whole organism. In many
animal societies, the dominant individuals act more like tyrants than
wise leaders, taking as much as they can for themselves until deposed
by the next tyrant. Single species can ravage entire ecosystems for
nobody’s benefit but their own.
But goodness has its own
advantages, especially when those who behave for the good of their
groups are able to band together and avoid the depredations of the
selfish. Punishment is also a powerful weapon against selfishness,
although it is often costly to wield. Every once in a great while,
the good manage to decisively suppress selfishness within their
ranks. Then something extraordinary happens. The group becomes a
higher-level organism.
Nucleated cells did not evolve by small
mutational steps from bacterial cells but as groups of cooperating
bacteria. Likewise, multi-cellular organisms are groups of highly
cooperative cells, and the insects of social insect colonies, while
physically separate, coordinate their activities so well that they
qualify as super-organisms. Life itself might have originated as
groups of cooperating molecular reactions.
Only recently have
scientists begun to realize that human evolution represents a similar
transition. …
… In this essay, we have
sketched a surprisingly simple solution to the apparent conflict
between self-interest and mutual benefits at all hierarchical levels.
We are suggesting that the social dynamics that take place naturally
and spontaneously in villages can be scaled up to prevent the ethical
transgressions that routinely take place at a large scale.
Why is
such a simple solution not more widely known and discussed?
Although
we immediately realize this solution when it comes to cell-organism
relationships or individuals within villages, we do not realize that
the same principles also hold for companies or nations.
One reason is
because of an alternative narrative that pretends that the only
social responsibility of a company is to maximize its bottom line.
Free markets will ensure that society benefits as a result. This
narrative makes it seem reasonable to eliminate social controls –
precisely the opposite of what needs to be done. Governments have
been under the spell of this narrative for nearly 50 years despite a
flimsy scientific foundation and ample evidence for its harmful
effects.
We can break the spell of the old narrative by noting
something that will appear utterly obvious in retrospect: The
unregulated pursuit of self-interest is cancerous at all scales. To
create a global village, we must look to real villages.
You can read more here
( Courtesy of "Evonomics" )
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( ⬆⬆⬆ Wallace is new to the job but for right now
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Curated by Gail Mountain, with occasional personal commentary, Network For #StrongerTogether ! is not affiliated with The Democratic Party in any capacity. This is an independent blog and the hope is you will, at a glance, learn more about the Party and you will, with a click or two, also take action on its behalf as it is provided!
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g., aka Focused Democrat
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