Forum Post: The New Social Order (part 2 of 2)

I turned to the library for answers. I studied the key political ideas recorded by man: from the writings of Plato, and Aristotle, through Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Hegel, Karl Marx, Hayek and many others. I approached the task with no prejudice and read works by the whole spectrum of philosophers, from left to right. This was a great intellectual discourse, quite satisfying in itself, and it did shed a lot of light on what I did not learn as an economics student at university. But I still did not find the answer. Why has the Western socio-economic model failed?

The answer came to me as I was thinking about Tony Blair’s policies in Great Britain and his concept of the “Third Way”. There is no third way! This is the answer to our dilemma. You cannot create a socio-economic system by mixing and matching key principles from opposing political systems. You cannot have a bit of capitalism and a bit of socialism at the same time. The underlying moral codes espoused by capitalism are radically different from the moral codes espoused by socialism. If you design a third way system based on the moral codes underlying capitalism (say “freedom”), then you cannot impose on top of that a system that is based on the moral codes underlying socialism (say “need”). The two are incompatible. Your “freedom” should allow you to pursue your own goals, and someone’s “need” should not force you to sacrifice that freedom. You may of course choose to sacrifice for that someone, but you should not be forced to do so (this would be the capitalist solution), or you can be forced to sacrifice for someone, but then your freedom is only illusory (the socialist solution).

Think again about the moral values most of us believe in: equality, egalitarianism, need, liberty, private property, freedom. Because socio-economic systems are designed around integrated sets of moral values, systems that attempt to combine moral values from unrelated or opposing systems result in failure. Each of the great political thinkers whose systems we may now be debating designed socio-economic systems around a set of integrated, self-reinforcing moral values. Each of those systems can only work if men and women agree to play by those values. We are destined to fail by attempting to pick conflicting moral codes and create a third way. There is no third way – there is only incoherence, moral inconsistency and resulting decay if that route is chosen. The 99% will say that bankers have lost their morality by paying themselves massive bonuses. The 1% will say that the 99% have lost their morality because they want to force others to pay for their social needs. Both sides are right. It is just that they believe in different sets of moral values.

The question we have been asking ourselves becomes a very simple one when you start thinking about the political order on the basis of underlying moral codes. What are the moral codes that you value? Which political system is based on those codes? Pick that system – pure and simple. Do not obfuscate by imposing constraints on that system; the system will then fail as it will lose its integrity.

When Karl Marx designed his system, he did not allow for members of that society to be granted freedom. Freedom would spoil the socialist ideal. People would by definition then choose to do things not accounted for in the plan (ie they would be free to choose something outside of the plan). When Adam Smith designed his system, he did not allow for members of that society to be equal. Equality would spoil the capitalist ideal. People would by definition lose the incentives to create wealth (ie they would see no need to work harder than other men as at the end of the day, all would get the same reward).

We should step back and think about the moral values we believe in. Only on this basis can we set up a coherent political system.

This will of course results in a whole set of new issues, and I am looking forward to debating those with all of you at a later stage. But first, please: tell the world what are the moral values that the 99% stand for. This is the beginning.

The same question applies to the 1%, and to all politicians who are operating our current socio-economic order. What are your moral values?