RETHINKING SOCIAL THOUGHT AND SOCIAL PROCESSES
This book was published in 2014 by Springer with some improvements
Dedication: to Alfonsina, Ludovico and Lucia for what they mean to me
METHODOLOGICAL MISCONCEPTIONS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Rethinking social thought and social processes
by Angelo Fusari
Men are strange beings indeed!… I would admire them, but what do I see? Sophism, a meaningless sophism that blinds them to the evidence and paralyses them in front of an open door. Perhaps the main defect of men is their mental inertness, which enables them to achieve the most admirable developments based on well established notions rather than to engage in (methodical) criticism and revision of the foundations
Bruno De Finetti, Un matematico e l’economia, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1969, p.33)
Back cover
This book offers a systematic view of social analysis that will advance the communication of results between different academic disciplines. It overcomes misunderstandings that are due to the use of an unstructured variety of methodological traditions in the analysis of complex socioeconomic and political processes. The book focuses on the special features of human society: humans as subjects, non-repetitiveness and irreversibility of social actions, and the peculiar relations between necessity and possibility in human action. It defines methodological criteria, procedures and rules that enable researchers to select and classify realistic hypotheses to derive general principles and basic organizational features. It then applies these criteria in critical reviews of major theories and interpretations of society and history, offering clarifications and alternative proposals with regard to crucial aspects of anthropological, political, juridical, sociological, and religious thought.
This volume:
• Offers a thorough and detailed critique of scientific methodology in the social sciences.
• Lines out a consistent methodological approach for the social sciences.
• Extends social analysis to the field of ethical structures.
Preface 5
General introduction and the structure of the book 8
Contents
PART I (Theory)
1 Preliminary considerations on the method of social thought
Introduction 15
1.1 Great ‘errors’ fuelled by methodological misconceptions
1.2 Excursus on the methodological peculiarity and equivocations of t
he social sciences 15
1.3 Necessity and choice-possibility-creativeness in the organization and
interpretation of social systems 26
1.3.1 Freedom and constraints 26
1.3.2 A more expressive distinction: necessity and choice-possibility 28
1.3.3 Some outstanding equivocations on economic and social necessities
1.4 A primary methodological misunderstanding in the social sciences:
the conflict between normative and positive views 32
1.5 An allusion to the interpretation of social and historical processes 36
1.6 Conclusion 37
References 38
2 The core of the methodological question: Procedure, rules and classifications
Introduction 42
2.1 An alternative view on the confrontation with social reality and the
rationality principle. Towards social objectivism 43
2.2 The formulation of general principles in the social sciences. 46
2.2.1 The notion of functional imperative and the methodological
centrality of institutional analysis. 46
2.2.2 The commensurability of social knowledge, ethical relativism and
natural rights; the scientific derivation of some value premises and the
notion of ontological imperative. 49
2.2.3 Some examples 51
2.3 From general to particular: Continuity and permanence versus change 53
2.3.1 Grand options and civilizations; their relations with functional
imperatives. About the concept of utopia 54
2.3.2 Innovation and choice. The factors of change and their enemies 56
2.4 Synthesis of the methodological framework. The interrelationships
among social sub systems 57
2.5 The notion of freedom and necessity areas as an indispensable tool
for the understanding of function and conflict 58
2.6 The problem of prediction in the social sciences; from micro theory
to macro theory 59
2.7 Economic and social planning 61
2.8 Conclusion 65
References 65
3 Heterogeneity of methods in social thought: Weakness or strength - is there a synthesis?
Introduction 68
3.1 Popper’s double face and Pareto’s methodological dualism 69
3.2 I. Lakatos and T. S. Kuhn 71
3.3 T. Lawson’s treatment of emergence and ontological naturalism 76
3.4 The theorists of social action: L. von Mises and T. Parsons 78
3.5 G. Myrdal’s thought on method 80
3.6 Institutional and evolutionary analyses 81
3.7The limitations and difficulties of heterodox social thought in the light
of Feyerabend’s methodological anarchism 83
3.8 Mainstream economics and its opponents: a great methodological confusion 85
3.9 Methodological monism or pluralism? 95
3.10 Synthesis and conclusion 96 References 97
4 Social development and historical processes
Premise 101
4.1 Initial elements of a theory of social and historical development 101
4.2 The development and the decline of social systems 104
4.2.1 The general scheme 104
4.2.2 Historical typologies 105
4.3 Synthesis of the theory and some prescriptive suggestions 108
4.4 The interpretation of history and the notion of historical phase 111 4.5 Contradictions and torments of the present age 113
4.6 A simple formalized model and its estimation 116
4.6.1 The interaction innovation-adaptation in a model of dynamic competition 116
4.6.2 The formal model 117
4.6.3 Econometric estimation 118
4.7 Conclusion 121
References 121
5 On the dynamics of societies: Is there a universal theory?
Premise 125
5.1 Marxian historical materialism 125
5.2 The theories of stages of development 126
5.3 Evolutionary and institutional theories of the social-historical
process. Spencer, Hayek and Douglass North 127
5.4 The anti-rationalist interpretations of social-historical processes.
Pareto and Spengler 131
5.5 The central role of creative processes in Toynbee and Ortega y Gasset 133
5.6 Value-ideological and political aspects in the interpretation of
social-historical processes. Weber-Tawney and Pellicani’s analyses 136
5.7 Recent interpretations of social development stimulated by globalisation 139
5.8 Mircea Eliade and the terror of history 141
5.9 Conclusion 142
References 143
PART II (Some applications)
6 About anthropology Introduction 147
6.1 Primitive civilizations 147
6.1.1 American primitives 150
6.1.2. Primitives mainly from East Asia
6.2 Kinship, labour division, the authority principle and social hierarchies 152
6.3 Power in primitive societies 153
6.4 From the power of society to command-power 156
6.5 The consolidation of command-power and the birth of state-power 158
6.6 Conclusion 159
References 160
7 Problems of political theory and action
Introduction 162
7.1 The question of sovereignty. The impotence of democracy against the dark ghost of domination-power 162
7.2 Freedom and responsibility 167
7.2.1 An important and confused matter urging systematization 167
7.2.2 The theodicy puzzle 171
7.3 The anti-reformist, relativist and hyper-reformist prejudices implied by
the current methods of social though 174
7.4 Inequalities and social justice 176
7.5 Political thought in the light of the interpretations of history: some
clarification on the use of ‘if’ 180
7.6 Conclusion 184
References 185
8 The foundations of law: juridical objectivism versus jus naturalism and juridical positivism
Introduction 189
8.1 The speculation of the doctrine of natural law and the objections
of juridical positivism 190
8.2 Contractualism and the ambiguities of Enlightenment thought 192
8.3 Some meaningful perplexities concerning the foundations and role
of law in contemporary societies 194
8.4 Juridical objectivism. On the scientific explanation and justification
of juridical order 196
8.5 Conclusion 199
References 199
9 Some insight on sociological thought: rationality, relativism and social evolution in Boudon-Weber’s cognitive method
Introduction 201
9.1 Reasons for dissent from Boudon-Weber’s cognitive method; an
alternative proposal 201
9.2 Further clarifications on some methodological aspects considered by Boudon 203
9.3 Examples 207
9.4 Individualism and the evolution of human societies 208
9.5 Rationality, objectivity of ethical values and social evolution.
The explanatory role of the concepts of functional imperatives
and ontological imperatives 209
9.6 Conclusion 213
References 214
10 Further meditations on ethics: values in the light of religious thought and its opponents
Introduction 217
10.1 Ethics in stationary societies and dynamic-evolutionary
societies: the roots of the problems that we are going to discuss 218
10.1.1 Generalities 218
10.1.2 The role of the Christian message 218
10.2 Toward the relativist and absolutist equivocations on values.
The alternative of cultural objectivism 223
10.3 The roots of civilizations 225 10.4 Some examples and an important misunderstanding of global ethics 227
10.5 Further considerations on religious and social thought: faith and reason 229
10.6 Hume, Smith, Kant and Hegel on ethics 234
10.6.1 Public utility and ethics in the treatments of Hume and Smith 234
10.6.2 From Kant’s personal ethics to Hegel’s totalitarian ethics 234
10.7 Pera’s criticism and Antiseri and Giorello’s defence of relativism 240
10.8 Conclusion 247
References 248
Final conclusion 251
Absatracts 252
Preface
Contemporary social teaching suffers from a grave deficiency: it is lacking rules of methodology and procedure suited to social reality that are, in particular, able to reconcile increasing creativity (implying irreversibility) with rationality, which are indispensable for the scientific judgement of theoretical ideas. Unfortunately, this lack is largely ignored, and eminent social scholars have even explicitly and emphatically theorized a rejection of method. This allows rhetorical and literary skills to prevail over the reasons of science, thereby promoting a deceptive instead of constructive pluralism, confusion in the study of contemporary societies and growing ineptitude in their government, what represents a main source of afflictions in the present world.
Our long-lasting studies on the organization and the vicissitudes of human societies made increasingly evident the poverty of the current methods of inquiry on society. This book intends to react against such poverty. It is complementary to a previous volume, Economic theory and social change[1], and extends the analysis to other branches of social thought and to the interpretation of history. Unlike the earlier book, however, the present work makes extremely limited use of mathematical formalization and other technical complications and obscurities; this is intended to foster easier and broader understanding of its contents and to facilitate the diffusion of studies of method outside the hermeneutics of a restricted elite. The present book has also been preceded by one substantial study of historical processes,[2] and another focused on the problem of power,[3] both published in Italian. These works confirmed our conviction that the advancement of social knowledge is severely hindered by some methodological misconceptions concerning the characteristics of social reality and that those same misconceptions also afflict the interpretation of history. The situation seems to be worse and, in a sense, more difficult and troublesome than that afflicting the natural sciences before the methodological revolution of the seventeenth century. If this is indeed so, it is urgent to clear these misconceptions up.
Method is a two-edged sword: it offers powerful assistance in and enhances our capability of understanding and solving the problems of everyday life; but if the chosen method is inappropriate, it can seriously obstruct the advancement of knowledge. Significantly, the best contributions to social knowledge have been ad hoc studies that disregard method and simply apply common sense. But ad hoc studies suffer a lack of coordination, and the neglect of method makes it difficult to evaluate and select findings and results. As a consequence, ad hoc analyses have little chance of stimulating the cumulative growth of knowledge. Science needs method; in its absence, scientific thought is not possible and the growth of knowledge is difficult.
The human mind is able, in principle, to understand all that is the object of experience. In particular, humans should be particularly clever in the understanding of the social world, this being a product of human action, its creation. Seen in this light, it is surprising that the understanding and management of society on the part of its creator appears so difficult. But the dominant methods, together with their potential mistakes, always exert enormous power on the social scientists using them; and they may have the power to mislead even those who contest them. In fact, the critique deriving from the burgeoning perception of the limits and mistakes of those methods, instead of aiding clarification, has increased confusion, as is typical of times of profound crisis of current visions and methods of inquiry. The international scientific conferences on social problems, which assemble skilful scholars, are the best representation of this situation. Conferences inspired by heterodoxy and aiming to foster pluralism demonstrate a remarkable inability of participants to engage in dialogue with one another, due to the methodological cages that separate them and impede the valuation and dissemination of scholarly contributions, while those inspired by orthodoxy refuse a platform to dissenting views and persist in building on some crucial mistakes, even though these errors have been clearly identified and proved.
It seems not exaggerated to say that there is a need to go back to what may be termed the Medieval organizational view, that is, the attempt to understand the reason why societies have been organized the way that they are, and hence to learn to organize them more satisfactorily. Significantly, Bertrand Russel wrote: «it is false, from a theoretic point of view, to allow the real world inflicting us a model of good and evil»[4].
The present study is intended as a contribution that prevents method from becoming a prison for the mind as opposed to a stimulant of creativity and knowledge. In a sense, we are today living a condition opposite to that of the Enlightenment. In that era, a great intellectual revolution prognosticated reforms that sometimes proved unrealistic due to excessive abstraction but that, nevertheless, stimulated an intensive social change. Now the contrary is taking place: a deep social change is at work but is obstructed by the absence of a methodology able to promote the understanding and the profitable working of its content.
We shall try to make clear our proposal on method by setting out a multiplicity of applications in the main branches of social thought, economics excepted as it has already been treated in another book (students interested in economics can read some substantial development of the discussion in section 1.4 on positive and normative views, the final section of chapter 2 entitled ‘Economic and social planning’and in the section 3.8 entitled ‘Mainstream economics and its opponents’). But we have considered that those applications are not sufficient and that, to adequately clarify our methodological proposal, the reasons standing behind it, and to stimulate meditation, a number of criticisms of outstanding social theories and schools of thought were also required. We beg the pardon of readers and authors for any misunderstandings that, notwithstanding our severe attempt at accuracy, may have occurred in the handling of such extensive and difficult literature.
Naturally, it is difficult to challenge well rooted methodological convictions. Probably, any hopes of overcoming the current difficulties of social thought must be placed on: a) that minority of heterodox scholars aware that the absence of some shared methodological rules makes impossible a serious confrontation and reciprocal interaction among the plurality of contributions and a real challenge to mainstream methodologies; b) those orthodox scholars who start to perceive the unreliability of traditional methodologies when applied to social science; c) young scholars and their tendency to distrust current thought and cultivate a critical attitude, but hopefully found their own work on the accurate analysis of facts and errors, not mere polemic; d) the good sense and mental openness of educated people, primarily those troubled by a growing dissatisfaction with the usual teachings on society; e) and, last but not least, the dimension of the present social crisis and the growing perception of the impotence of conventional thinking in understanding and facing it.
Throughout history, men’s instincts and special interests have caused untold human and social misery, often justified by a utilization of reason for purposes of mystification. The discussion, development and results that follow are aimed at combating those mystifications and miseries; the results on ethics should be of interest for educational and religious institutions.
Finally, it is to be emphasized that, in light of the innovative content of our proposal on method, some initial patience is required of any serious reader; after the half of chapter 2 understanding will progress quickly and, with it, enjoyment.
Acknowledgements
It is a duty to acknowledge:
My very helpful direct and indirect interaction with Boudon’s extensive treatment of the method of the social sciences, which occurred primarily through my reading and criticism of various stimulating essays that he has published in Mondoperaio, together with a parallel reading of his main works. I was attracted by Boudon’s attempt to provide social thought with scientific objectivity, including ethical values; but I found the basic idea of such a research unsatisfactory: the gravitation, in the very long run, of social phenomena and ethical values towards rational standards by trial and error in order that social systems may survive (diffuse rationality). Such an obliged landing of the author’s objectivism as based merely on the observational method (and hence the connected idea of spontaneity) strengthened my initial conviction that the problem of social thought is rather to define a method able to illuminate the organization and administration of social systems so that to reduce the frequency and dimensions of the monstrosities of history implied by merely trial and error (i.e., Weberian diffuse rationality) but preserving the important role of creativity and free choice and avoiding that social interventions result in errors and abuses of a level directly proportional to their incisiveness.
Erudite and deep discussions with Hasse Ekstedt concerning central parts of this book, mainly in the light of logical-empiricism, his predilection for formal rigour in analytical procedure and his criticism of the basic postulates of mainstream economics.
Luciano Pellicani’s stimulating criticisms and advice, mainly regarding my interpretation of social development and historical process. Pellicani also provided precious suggestions on valuable sociological literature. I found admirable and most instructive the orientation and impulse toward acute deepening of social, political and historical processes that he promoted as editor of the review Mondoperaio.
Guido Preparata, for profound criticisms and suggestions mainly concerning: the meaning and work of the market, in particular its reduction to a pure mechanism for imputation of costs and efficiency; the transformation of the financial market into a servant of production as opposed to a master of production; profit, the interest rate and banking system.
Angelo Reati, who read various parts of this work, providing substantial criticisms and advice on the intelligibility of crucial points in my exposition.
The intellectual openness of the review Sociologia and its former editor Michele Marotta, that published various articles of mine concerned, in the main, with pointing out a paradoxical vicissitude in the Medieval Christian teaching on science. The teaching underlined that the aim of scientists should be to understand the reason why the world has been made the way it is; but, the natural world being the product of an unfathomable will, a much more fecund approach has proved to be the attempt to understand its functioning through observation. My articles reproved the substantial acceptance in the end, by Christian social thought, of the hegemony of the observational view to the detriment of the Medieval teaching, notwithstanding that, being a product of humanity, it is crucial to understand the reason why the social world has been made the way it is and any implied ‘errors’, rather than merely observing its functioning.
General introduction and the structure of the book
1. We are living in the age of science and technology, but modern humans appear increasingly unable to understand what concerns their immediate interests, which is to say, social relations. The methodological confusion that obscures thought on social problems and binds our hands will probably seem incredible, inexplicable, to future generations and will inspire great regret for the immense damage done to humankind. An energetic response to the situation seems indispensable.
Social thought has been imprisoned in a blind alley for a good long time now. Today a profound crisis has shaken its very foundations. The doubts and conceptual revisions are often taken for signs of cultural vitality, but they actually express a great bewilderment that, sooner or later, must bring to fore the necessity for some sounder, more fruitful methodological anchorage, as is already the case with the natural and logical-formal sciences. In pursuing such an anchorage, let us provide some brief definitions of notions crucial to the analysis on method that will follow:
The word being is intended to express existing reality, while the word doing is intended to express the human activity of transformation, implementation and, in sum, the organization of existing reality. For its part, the expression necessity-constriction indicates unavoidable aspects of reality that are required in the organization and management of social systems for reasons of organizational efficiency; while the expression choice-possibility-creativeness refers to possibilities, in the organization and development of social systems, resulting from choice and creative processes. The meaning of the last two expressions will be extensively clarified in section 3 of chapter 1.
This book proposes a methodological procedure and rules that: a) weigh the role of observation with great caution, for social events are very largely non-repetitive and, in particular, flank the observational standpoint (being) to the organizational (doing); b) allow a precise distinction between necessity-constriction and choice-creativeness, extending this distinction to the field of ethics. We show that the methodological specifications under (a) and (b) are essential prerequisites to understanding the generation and organization of societies over time and to surmounting diffuse misconceptions and acute contrasts afflicting social thought, such as the apparently irreducible contrast between cultural relativism, which is dominant among students of society and sometimes goes beyond the question of values, and what may be called ethical absolutism, towards which the great religions incline. The methodological focus of the proposed theoretical perspective is on defining some criteria for the selection and classification of postulates for the derivation of general principles and basic organizational features, thereby avoiding both the theoretical fragmentation and superficiality of generic deductions and the merely inductive standpoint of dominating methodologies.
Unfortunately, the current misconceptions over method prevent correct exposition of the above two interrelated issues: the combination of being and doing, which is the most typical aspect of social phenomena and should be at the heart of any study of ethical values; and the distinction in social life and organization between necessity and choice-possibility-creativity, what must and what can be done. The first term of this distinction is often wrongly identified with what is durable and the second term with what is transient, in spite of the fact that durability and transience concern merely observational standpoint; the result is the downgrading the organizational view and element. This unclear state of affairs damages the administration of social systems and often results in the prevalence, at the expense of the general interest, of the interests of the most powerful and influential social groups. If we are to ensure the prevalence of the general interest then it must be proclaimed and unanimously recognized as such; and this in turn requires that the general interest be seen to rest upon clear scientific foundations.
A number of tragedies propitiated by prestigious intellectual treatises on social problems – first and foremost in the first half of the last century – have not sufficed to direct scholars’ attention to the acute need for methodological revision in social thought. Rather, they have instead produced a contrary effect: they have reinforced strictly observation-based method, i.e. centred on being and that privileges the spontaneity of processes against the organizational view.
Some features of our proposal on method are to be traced in current developments. But major, common misconceptions are well rooted in current thinking and strongly shielded. We apologize for the strength of some of our statement. We believe, however, that one’s tone in denouncing misconceptions on some vital matters should be proportional to the deafness of the time servers and of those who, out of self-interest or cowardice, look the other way.
Of course, it is senseless to think that method, however well-founded, can immunize us against error; it only helps to recognize and reduce it. Every intellectual work suffers limitations and errors, which are directly proportional to the dimension of its scope and implications. We hope that other minds will evaluate and underline our own errors and the shortcomings of the present contribution; it is mainly aimed at opening up some useful avenues of investigation.
2. Now we summarize the structure and main contents of the book.
Chapter 1 develops some criticisms of the most frequently used methods of the social sciences and traces some first steps aimed at overcoming their basic drawbacks. Major attention is directed to the observation-verification method, where we distinguish between: a) strong observation method (positivism in the strict sense), which is based on the two hypotheses of ‘acceptance of the observed reality’ (what has happened had to happen) and its ‘recurrence’; and b) weak observation method, which rejects the hypothesis of ‘recurrence’. This second method may be usefully referred to the case of minor mutations, e.g. such as casual and slow biological mutations and those of quasi-stationary societies. But it is inappropriate when faced with the accelerating, endogenous and innovative motion of dynamic societies. A large part of social thought and the most important students of society make use of the weak observation method, which consequently has caused the most important and the most rooted misunderstanding in the social sciences. The main cause of the inappropriateness for social studies of both the strong and weak observation methods is that they are based on being while ignoring doing, while doing constitutes the larger and most typical aspect of social reality.
We then turn to the constructivist view that, by contrast, is centered on doing but substantially ignores being. Accordingly, we insist on the need, in the social sciences, of a method able to conjugate being and doing and that, on this basis, seeks to understand becoming.
The fact that the social sciences mainly concern the organization of social systems implies the importance of a transition, in social studies, from the observational to the organizational standpoint. This need may be served by a methodological reformulation based on the binary contrast of ‘necessity’/‘choice-possibility-creativity’ as developed in chapter 2. The combination of being and doing allows us to transcend both abstract rationality, appropriate to the logical-formal sciences, and especially naturalistic rationality, in favor of an organizational rationality that rejects pure abstraction. But the organizational standpoint, while strictly combining permanence with change, must be careful not to imply the suppression of the subjective side – that is, the suffocation of individuality (a primary source of creativeness) beneath hypothetically all-pervasive social structures and organization.
Chapter 2 focuses on identifying some procedures and rules for the formulation, in social thought, of general principles. It seeks also for the design of some notions concerning the organization and development of social systems that are robust in the face of the intensification, in modern societies, of innovation and change and that may act as guidelines for social thought and action. The failure of the observation-verification method with regard to social reality, primarily due to the growing role of innovation and hence non repetitiveness in society, implies that the method of the social sciences must be deductive. But the importance (as just seen) to be attributed to being indicates that deductions must be based on realistic postulates. The choice of these postulates represents, indeed, the real methodological problem (since we are obliged, by the marked non repetitiveness of social reality, to mistrust of observational verification); its solution requires the definition and specification of rules and classification procedures to guide scholars in the research and the corroboration of initial postulates so as to move from generic, subjective and merely hypothetical deductions to an objective and more penetrating deductive approach that can offer general formulations and explanatory principles on a continuously changing reality. So the methodology we suggest begins with the classification and selection of postulates and deduces their implications for the organization of social systems. This means that our method embodies a completely different notion of scientific rationality from that of the natural sciences. Both those rationalities are scientific in that they are referred to the question of method. But, unlike observational (naturalistic) rationality, which is based on the acceptance of existing conditions (with the underlying idea that the real is rational) and which is typical of positivist and evolutionary social thought, ours is a prescriptive and organizational rationality appropriate to a reality that is the work of humanity. We do not specifically expose here the rules and classificatory procedure concerning the choice of postulates but rather set out some applications.
Some fundamental deductions may be based on postulates concerning important characteristics of the general conditions of development of the period under study. This allows to derive organizational features that may be called functional imperatives (but not in Parsons’ sense) in that are required by pressing reasons of functional efficiency not linked to the pursuit of specific (ideological, technological and naturalistic) objectives, conditions and choices but only to the ‘general conditions of development’. These basic organizational features are enduring; that is, they change only when the general conditions of development change. Also basic technologies, i.e. technologies that are fundamental in characterizing the general conditions of development, and the organizational forms that they imply, are functional imperatives.
Some institutional and organizational features may be imposed by the conditions of nature. They are local and were decisive in characterizing the societies of the past. Their influence has been strongly reduced by technological development, mainly through the increasing speed of communications and the role of artifacts.
The implications of the conditions of nature and the functional imperatives give the field of ‘necessity’ in the organization and functioning of social system.
An important generalization is expressed by the notion of ontological imperatives. These are the result of very general and fundamental aspects of human nature, and so their operation is essential to the unfolding of human evolutionary potentialities. Ontological imperatives are, for instance, constituted by the tolerance principle and other conditions able to stimulate creativity. As such, these imperatives are universally valid, in all historical eras and mainly concern important ethical values. But unlike functional imperatives, they are not imposed and required (for organizational efficiency) by the general conditions of development and their motion. As a consequence, they may be repressed even for very long periods of time by the existence of a civilization that opposes them. They will certainly triumph only if, in the course of development, they also become functional imperatives. The suffocation of ontological imperatives prevents social development, that is, the change of the general conditions of development and hence the advent of new functional imperatives. With the establishment of modern dynamic society, various ontological imperatives have become functional imperatives; that is, they must be satisfied if this kind of society is to survive; they have thus become a ‘necessity’. Among the other things, the notions of functional and ontological imperatives also offer clarifications on the concept of utopia and its possible relationship with scientific procedure.
Moving from the general to the particular, i.e. to classification concerning choice and innovation, an important notion is that of civilizations. This is intended as an institutional set of ideological and technological choices with the consequent organizational forms, and marked by basic ideological choices (grand options) around which the society is structured and integrated. The forms of civilization, even if basically express choice, are distinguished by the pervasiveness of their effects on social systems and by their great duration. This illustrates the conceptual difference between necessity and duration: necessity is the opposite of choice, but the choices that embody grand options, at the base of civilizations, imply long duration. Next we consider the particular aspects of societies (innovations and single choices), as well as the role they should play in the building of the social science.
Social science should begin with the definition of functional and ontological imperatives and the identification of civilizations; accordingly, it should go deeply into the roles and interactions of these explanatory categories. Then the more specific aspects, i.e. specific choices and innovations, should be added, with their implications for the organization of social systems. Thus a combination of innovative flair and rational drive, innovation and structural organization, is specified, the relationship between the two aspects being crucial to understanding social and historic processes, as chapter 4 shows.
The method proposed here implies the scientific derivation of many important ethical values that denies the dominant idea of relativism in all values.
Chapter 3 is devoted to the criticism of the startling array of methods used by social thinkers that represent various different attempts to grasp some important, peculiar aspects of social reality: the unpredictability of events (mainly due to innovation), choice, value judgments, radical uncertainty, evolutionary creative movement, learning processes, unintentional events and constructive action. We show that the great variety of methods, far from representing fecund and creative pluralism as many scholars would have it, are for the most an expression of a widespread bewilderment that obstructs the advancement of social science.
Chapter 4 delineates, using the methodological categories set out in Chapter 2, a theoretical framework for the explanation of social and historical development that will then be compared with a multiplicity of existing theories on this subject.
The foundations for our theory of social and historical process are the interrelationships among the notions of ontological imperative, functional imperative and civilization: depending on the manner in which it embodies ontological imperatives, the form of civilization either hastens or blocks creativeness and the related variation in the general conditions of development¸ and hence the advent of new and more advanced functional imperatives that cause, willy-nilly, the advent of new civilizations consistent with them.
More particularly, the causal picture (and interpretative chain) of the social and historical processes suggested by our methodological construction and categories can be summarized as follows:
A creative drive lies at the beginning of every developmental process. The way in which the resulting civilization satisfies (or denies) ontological imperatives (and hence creativity) determines the intensity of innovation, evolutionary motion and development. The consequent possible change in the general conditions of development generates new functional imperatives demanded by the new general conditions of development for cogent reasons of organizational efficiency. If one imperative is in contradiction with the existing form of civilization, this form will inevitably be transformed into another that is consistent with the new functional imperatives. And so forth through the subsequent surges of innovation.
It is important to note that the pace of the development process depends chiefly on a civilization’s accordance with ontological imperatives. If a civilization is adverse to (and hence suffocates) important ontological imperatives, i.e. suffocates the expression of the evolutionary potential of individuals and peoples, innovation and hence evolutionary motion will be obstructed, condemning the social process to a flat or parabolic course (stagnation and decadence). Stagnation or disintegration are powerfully spurred by an ‘excess’ of, respectively, rational drive or creative flair, and vice versa. Otherwise, a lengthening cyclical trend is fueled by the alternation between innovation and the consequent structural reorganization; the length of the cycle depends on the degree of coordination between innovation and structural organization. Thus the degree of satisfaction of ontological imperatives and the relation between innovative drive and structural organization give rise to a sine, parabolic or flat development curve.
Our interpretation and its analytical tools allow a rigorous distinction of social process into historical ages. The notion of historical era, to be unambiguous, needs to be based on factors belonging to the realm of ‘necessity’ (such as functional imperatives), not the realm of ‘choice’ – even such crucial choices as those between civilizations. In short, historical ages are singled out by the character of the functional imperatives as demanded by the general conditions of development.
That the aspect of ‘necessity’ is flanked, in our theory, by that of ‘choice-possibility-creativity’ shows that the historical process is not deterministic. And the world appears – both from a scientific and a practical point of view – in its true characteristics: a never-ending ‘correction process’, resulting from the limitations of human nature and mind; a process that may ultimately bring humanity, not to the achievement of some earthly paradise (a senseless expectation indeed), but to the realization of the best of their potentialities – intellectually, ethically and operationally. Unfortunately, historical processes have not uncommonly involved devastating events and deviations from ontological and functional imperatives that have prevented the potential advance along that evolutionary path.
Chapter 5 offers, in the light of our interpretative framework, a critical review of some of the main theories of social and historical processes, ending up with Eliade’s ‘terror of history’ and historical monstrosities. The reference to our methodological categories in the building and administration of human societies shows that it is the lack of a scientific basis of social thought that has allowed these horrors to have been perpetrated throughout history.
Part II explores some applications in various branches of the social sciences of the methodological proposal developed in Part I.
Chapter 6 concerns anthropology, which refers to the first stage of the human adventure and to very simple societies, albeit with a variety of cultures; such variety highlights the importance of civilization in investigating social processes and its crucial role in stimulating or, more frequently, obstructing further development. A number of functional imperatives typical of primitive ages are considered that allow us to bring to light and to better understand some basic common features of primitive societies, notwithstanding their extreme variety. In particular, we comment upon the nature and the meaning of the ‘power of society’, which, with its various and sometimes eccentric features, is probably the most important and involved characteristic of primitive civilizations. We underline the strong opposition of the power of society to evolutionary process and take note that the oppressive character of such a power is frequently misunderstood by anthropologists who eulogize a mythical freedom of primitives from domination. Finally, the chapter sketches the transition from the power of society to ‘command-power’ and ‘state-power’.
Chapter 7 is mainly concerned with politics. Political action – the exercise of power – is particularly subject to abuse and mystification. We analyze the problem of sovereignty and its legitimization, starting with the contributions of Benjamin Constant, Jean J. Rousseau, Gaetano Mosca, Karl Schmitt, and Hans Kelsen to show that, without a strict distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ in the organization of social systems, the theoretical legitimization of power is impossible. The remedy offered by democracy is partial, and the separation of powers may simply produce (as it has often done) a division of the power to abuse. The notions of power of domination and functional (or service) power are sketched out, and we show that a science of the organization of social systems, built mainly upon the analytical categories disclosed in Chapter 2, provides a powerful antidote to the degeneration of power by providing a scientific solution to the problem of how to control controllers.
The binary ‘freedom-responsibility’ and the relations between the two and with the problem of power are then investigated. We note that ‘responsibility’ goes beyond individual action and point out that the definition of a system of responsibilities requires the notions of functional and ontological imperatives, necessity and choice-possibility. The philosophical and theological aspects of this question and theodicy are examined.
We then emphasize that the observational method is anti-reformist, in that the acceptance of existing conditions (the real is rational, the real is necessary) is inherently conservative. We also consider the hyper-relativist prejudice that any and all ethical choices and reform proposals are acceptable in principle. It appears that the primary cause of these attitudes and prejudices is the lack of a clear distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’. Afterwards, the problem of inequalities versus social justice and its far-reaching implications are deepened. The last section provides a wide-ranging illustration of the meaning of political action in the light of a number of major historical events and lost opportunities.
Chapter 8 begins by underlining that law is mainly concerned with doing, even if it cannot disregard being. We show that if we are to justify normative action, explain its foundations and detach the command power (as far as possible) from free will, the connection of being with doing and the organizational view, together with our methodological categories, are indispensable. Using our distinction between ‘choice-possibility’ and ‘necessity’ and the objective character of some ethical values, we set out a critique of the following: natural law doctrine, positive law, the sociology of law.
In particular, considerable space is given over to the opposition between natural and positive law, the contents and roots of such opposition and related errors concerning command-power. Then we discuss the ambiguities of the Enlightenment and contractualist view, specifically the idea of the social contract, the one-sidedness of which left an opening for the historicist reaction.
The perplexities of some contemporary authors on the foundations and the role of law in dynamic societies are considered and criticized. Finally, we set out a theory of juridical objectivism derived from our methodological categories, laying down some analytical foundations for the explanation and the construction of legal order.
Chapter 9 is mainly dedicated to sociological cognitive method, one of the most important methodological approaches in sociology. The individual is the backbone of cognitivism, which almost totally neglects social aspects and structures. In effect, the role of the individual is one of our ontological imperatives; but Weber and Boudon ascribe excessive importance to the individual. The assertion at the center of Boudon’s theory of social evolution, namely that individualism advances incessantly across history, is questionable in the extreme, as we can see from the constant presence across history of so-called ‘closed’ societies alongside open ones.
Weber’s meditations on method are variegated and also include an anticipation of Popper’s falsification method in setting out the methodological sequence: choice of initial point of view, elimination of the explanatory factor posited, comparison of the resulting hypothetical process with reality in order to verify the causal role of that factor. However, this is just an incidental episode in Weber’s treatise on method. He does not follow up in order to develop the strong observational features that it suggests. Here we limit ourselves to noting that one of cognitivism’s most ambiguous aspects lies in its notion of rationality. Weber’s analyses and interpretations insist on rationality, but one crucial aspect of his sociology, i.e. ethical relativism, neglects rationality entirely and thereby arrives upon the ambiguous and misleading notion of double ethics.
Boudon, by contrast, insists on the objective character of values, deriving objectivity from the Weberian idea of ‘diffuse rationality’ that states that in the long run societies converge towards rational solutions and organizations by trial and error. Like dialectical idealism, this convergence, which is a pillar of Boudon’s theory of social evolution, implies that the real is both rational and necessary (inevitable), even if in Boudon’s exposition this spontaneist point of arrival has a liberal flavour. But the Weberian ‘diffuse rationality’ (a merely observational idea) operates in the very long run at best. It ignores the main problem of social thought, i.e. how to avoiding the sometimes horrifying historical disasters that have marked the spontaneous, extremely slow and laborious convergence towards the rational.
The tenth and last chapter discusses ethical values and their connections with religious thought. In particular, we underscore four principles (deriving primarily from the Christian message) that have powerfully stimulated the evolution of society. The historical events that have followed from those dynamic seeds are briefly recounted, and their successes and failures in defeating the circular motion and vision proper to stationary societies in favour of the linear-progressive vision of historical process are set out.
Next, and by way of a comparison between stationary and dynamic societies, the relativist and absolutist views are analysed and some equivocations on values, as characterizing social and religious thinking respectively, are discussed on the basis of what we have called cultural objectivism. The roots of civilizations (which feed opposition between peoples) are considered in historical perspective; their vitality and ability or inability to adapt to evolutionary motion weighed and the usefulness of cultural objectivism, (that is, the objective definition of fundamental ethical values) to this type of inquiry is emphasized.
Finally, we treat some current misunderstandings regarding the problem of a global ethics – crucial in this age of globalization – illustrating them with examples that bring out the substantial nature of cultural objectivism. Some aspects of Christian social thought and its mix of faith and reason are discussed, and the positions on values of some philosophers and students of society of modern and contemporary ages are criticized.
PART I (Theory)
1 Preliminary considerations on the method of social thought
Introduction
This chapter is a sort of provocative introduction to the methodological questions developed in Part I of the book.
Man is obliged, by the limits of his cognitive skills, to proceed by trial and error, especially if he operates creatively or is forced to cope with non-repetitive situations. Moreover, he is obliged to learn by mistakes; and to be able so to learn he must suffer the tribulations and adversity caused by his mistakes and so be prompted to act with mental flexibility. This structural dependency of human learning and improvement on the adversities caused by mistakes can make the world resemble a sort of enormous reformatory, whatever one’s religious feeling and belief may be.
Human beings are, however, endowed with reason, the intense and appropriate use of which enables men to ease the cost of their evolutionary mission and significantly reduce the suffering inflicted by mistakes and the learning process. But in their social relations men insist on wasting or stifling their cognitive skills. This can be clearly seen if we consider one of the most striking shortcomings of civilization: the extreme modesty of ethical improvement, notwithstanding the rapid increase of technical capacities and knowledge. From the dawn of history men have listened to and approved the exhortations of important religions to strive for moral purpose, goodness and brotherhood; they have admired and exalted the sacrifices of martyrs and heroes inspired by such sentiments; but in practical life, they have largely ignored all of this. This shows that ethical exhortations as such are not persuasive, that they are obscured by personal interests. To be effective, such exhortations must be preceded by scientific teachings that reinforce them and prevent the use of reason to perpetrate and justify abuse and vice. We accordingly address our analysis to what seems to us to be more solid and engaging ground, namely the way that human knowledge is formed. We shall see that this line of inquiry leads to a scientific clarification of some important questions on ethics (ethical objectivism): a clarification that may improve moral behaviour and allow religions to carry out their work much more wisely and incisively than is permitted today by the common declaration by science of impotence on moral matters – a declared value neutrality that fosters nihilism.
The major impulse to human knowledge is born from the ability of human minds to co-operate, to select and hence to accumulate discoveries. Let us insist in saying that such ability requires the definition of some general methodological rules that do not imprison human creativity in rigid procedures but nevertheless make possible both dialogue and co-operation among scholars as well as the recognition of real contributions to the advancement of knowledge. Such recognition is necessary in order to allow research to benefit, in the course of time, from higher and higher starting points. The human ability to favour the cumulative growth of knowledge is the single factor that, over the millennia, has dug the abyss that separates the human condition from that of other animal species, which have consequently been crushed by the hegemony of humanity. The discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, of writing, of various agricultural techniques and metal manufacturing, the birth of urban centres and of an intellectual class of professional thinkers, the discovery of efficient forms of government and of law, have been the great achievements of civilization over all of human pre-history and history, permitting the construction of our lengthy sequence of social orders.
The acceleration of technological and scientific discoveries, and hence of the pace of social change, by the side of which humanity has failed to achieve a parallel acceleration of social science, has caused a “short circuit of knowledge”. It is a widespread opinion today that this was inevitable, as the problems of rapidly changing societies are held to be harder to understand than the natural world. We shall see that this opinion is erroneous and that the stagnation of social knowledge is rather the effect of methodological misconceptions and misunderstandings.
This cognitive short circuit multiplies errors, misunderstandings and difficulties in the government of human societies as this is certainly affected by the state of social knowledge, and causes discredit even to the most prestigious branches of scientific knowledge by favouring senseless uses of technology. To overcome this inequality of knowledge what is required is for social thought to discover a method of inquiry that is not inferior to that of the natural and formal-logical sciences. Unfortunately, the tendency is to react to difficulties with exhortation rather than rigorous scientific research, as it is far easier to speak to the heart than to the mind; but this mode of conduct is ephemeral. It is wise to prefer to meet difficulties than to indulge in ephemeral thinking, and I hope that readers will be induced to appreciate this choice by the conclusions to which it will eventually lead.
1.1 Great ‘errors’ fuelled by methodological misconceptions
Both natural world and human societies gravitate, in the long run, toward functional coherence and efficiency – toward organizational rationality. This gravitation toward rationality is indispensable to their survival and evolution. A reality differently acting would tend to self-destruction and perhaps would never have emerged from the primordial chaos.
But the great difference between the evolution of human societies and the evolution of the natural world must be emphasized. Natural evolution proceeds so slowly that spontaneous evolutionary motion and selection processes can develop without substantial discontinuities. Humanity, by contrast, having lived for a long time in almost immutable primitive societies in which we little differed from other species of animals began to advance many centuries ago: at first with faltering steps, then with a slow and uncertain pace, and finally, much later, with a progressively accelerating pace that has often times been set by the temerity and success of individual pioneers.
This acceleration of the pace of evolution entails that the spontaneous gravitation toward efficient and rational organizational forms and social relations has become increasingly beset by wandering and even retrograde movements. We have seen that such difficulties are in part inevitable, arising from limitations of human knowledge that oblige even research activities endowed with very sophisticated means and procedures to learn by trial and error. It is impossible to eliminate all errors, but it is judicious to attempt to reduce their dimensions to the minimum set by the levels of human cognitive skills; not the levels of individuals, which may be very poor indeed, but rather those levels embodied in the social scientific organization of knowledge by way of the cooperation of many minds.
What is particularly impressive in the study of social processes are both the numbers and the magnitude of the “errors” that have troubled the cycles and rhythms of human societies and led them to trample underfoot ethical values and institutions that have subsequently proved to be of fundamental importance for human evolution. Many examples might be cited, but we will limit ourselves here to the discussion of one extremely instructive illustration from the recent past.
In the historical period immediately preceding our own, billions of people believed it not only possible but also imperative that a more just and efficient society be organized, one more able to develop than the capitalist systems of the West. This was a laudable intention indeed, and appears today even more urgent than it did yesterday. In the name of such a project, multitudes of dissenters and innocent persons suffered incredible repression, while countless others worked hard for its realization. The worst of it is that the promised new society inflicted pains by no means inferior than those demanded by the transition toward it. Renowned social commentators and revolutionaries had declared that the building of the new world required the suppression of the entrepreneurial function and the market, considered the major causes of exploitation, immoralities and alienation. But their suppression propelled the birth of a bureaucratic-centralized, grey and oppressive order. In the end, these systems of “real socialism” collapsed. They represented a dead-end, an organizational form that trampled on some fundamental values, suffocated creativity, engendered a profound alienation and was unable to develop and compete with rival Western social systems. Humanity pretended to open the door to a more advanced historical phase and, according to the opinion of the most enthusiast ‘believers’, was actually in the very process of stepping out of this door and into a paradise on earth, simply by re-establishing bureaucratic forms and forms of social obedience reminiscent of the quasi-stationary ancient world. These organizational forms allowed for acute and wise government of the most advanced societies of ancient time, but they are unable to cope with social change. In this way a tragedy of immense proportions was prepared in the name of stepping onto the road toward a bright and glorious new dawn.
A major cause of this failure was disregard for one elementary fact: social change requires agents and institutions that, out of a sense of duty or for personal advantage, are able or inclined to stimulate change and to face the consequent uncertainty. We shall see that cumulative change needs a decentralized order and hence the market, not a bureaucratic class that requires nearly perfect knowledge and that, consequently, detests innovation and clings rather to a merely repetitive stationary motion. In brief, one crucial error was a disregard for the fact that modern dynamic societies are permeated by radical uncertainty.
A new challenge has now arisen with the rebellions against the autocrats of Arab societies. One fear is that these rebellions will facilitate a transition from autocracy to fundamentalism and theocracy (just as happened in Iran); a movement, that is, toward a regime even more oppressive and inclined to immobility than the autocratic one, which will require decades to escape and which will be even less appropriate for modern dynamic societies than was real socialism. Another fear is that the result of rebellion will be merely confusion, or perhaps a reproduction of the worst aspects of Western societies.
The experience of such great errors does not immunize modern dynamic societies from the danger of making even greater ones; at least, not unless social thought provides humanity with the requisite knowledge. If we do not specify its methodological roots, the error that has impeded our vision of the dead-end of bureaucratic real socialism is incomprehensible, thus making useless that experience. These methodological roots consist in a disregard for what we shall see to be a main point of the method of social thought: attention to the general and basic characters of the considered reality and to the current general conditions of development with their institutional requirements and imperatives.
Methodological equivocations have an extraordinary ability to suffocate the acuteness of scholars and wise men, who are accustomed to systematic reasoning. An excellent illustration, in line with our considerations above, is the important misunderstandings about the entrepreneur found in the writings of the most famous of writers on the notion of entrepreneurship, Joseph A. Schumpeter, who forecasted the collapse of capitalism as a consequence of the advancement of the process of bureaucratization. Some decades later, John K. Galbraith forecasted the convergence of capitalism and socialism by way of the bureaucratization typical of big business. Well, if these two great economists, sociologists and students of historical processes did not see the bureaucratic dead-end in the 1940s and 1960s, what chance had Lenin and the Bolsheviks to see such a dead-end at the beginning of the century? This occlusion points to something very misleading in the analyses of students of society; and this misleading factor lies in the problem of method, the strongest intellectual tool conditioning the activities and thinking of scientists.[5]
A review of the vicissitudes of real socialism makes immediately evident a simple and crucial issue. Some basic organizational and ethical-ideological aspects of societies are forced, with the advancement of the general conditions (and phases) of development, not only to change, but also to assume some general features (as witnessed, for instance, by the transition from the crucial role of kinship in primitive societies to bureaucracy in ancient empires and the market in the modern age). It is important to be aware of the differing institutional, ethical-ideological and organizational pillars upon which human societies rest in the various historical ages. One main purpose of this book is to show that such knowledge is indispensable for understanding historical processes and properly governing social process. Nevertheless, these institutional requisites continue to be often disregarded. For instance, we can see that the transition process of the current period from real socialism toward the market often privileges the worst (and by no means indispensable) elements of capitalism, not to mention a number of absurdities absent in the history of Western capitalism, while it disregards or undervalues some organizational aspects that actually represent the true force of capitalism.
It is very rare, in the course of history, to see an omnipotent and strongly-armed ruling class almost submissively cede power. In its last days of despair, the bureaucracy of real socialism could easily have initiated a nuclear war and, as a result, the stagnation of the real socialist countries would have been followed by a tremendous regression on a world-wide scale. By chance and good fortune, however, the process of decay had been sufficiently prolonged that an invertebrate and confused ruling class had come into being.[6] It was the wearing down of this socialist ruling class that saved the world; after some decades of tribulations, the apple fell by itself.
The power systems of every society, even if senseless, always try to preserve themselves and hide their deficiencies; and this can lengthen significantly the time demanded for the transition to a more appropriate and rational social order. Only scientific knowledge can clearly make evident the mistakes and, in this way, accelerate the transition. Otherwise the spontaneous convergence toward a more efficient and appropriate organization may require a very long time and face serious difficulties.
It is surprising that social theory has not yet achieved a method consonant with the reality it investigates, notwithstanding the clear unsuitableness of the current methodologies. But the problem is that the dominant cultural climate strongly opposes convergence on a general method in social inquiry. This opposition is fuelled by the epistemological critique of science that dominated the scene in the second half of the last century and that even today shows great vigour. Such a critique originated ‘cultural relativism’, that is, the assumption of non-comparability between different explanatory models, and hence an idea of science as an almost untrammelled way of reasoning. The result is that a multitude of methodological proposals have issued forth, multiplying the confusion.
The formal-logical and natural sciences have general procedures and rules that are shared by the community of scholars; this guarantees commensurability and comparability of contributions, hence the cumulative growth of knowledge, notwithstanding the cavils of cognitive relativists and epistemology. But modern social thought is not only afflicted by the lack of codified procedures and methodological rules appropriate to social reality and shared by the academic community; it is also the victim of a paralysing doctrine of incommensurability. This has fragmented social studies into countless schools of thought, each with its own method and hence unable to interact. This means that social scientists have essentially repudiated one of the greatest intellectual discoveries of mankind: shared methodology that allows the cumulative growth of knowledge. This repudiation expresses a real failure of human thought. Therefore, a main problem of our time is constituted by our extensive equivocations on the method of social thought.
1.2 Excursus on the methodological peculiarity and equivocations of the social sciences
1. Many important methodological problems are very general in nature, such as the role of induction, deduction, analogy, the question of open and closed systems, the relation between the logic of discovery and the logic of explanation, the line that divides science from non-science. The scholars who treat these very general aspects insist on the uniqueness of method. But this insistence seems inappropriate, in that in addition to these very general questions there is the need for some important discussion concerning the character of the very general classes of the problems dealt with.
In this regard, a three-way partition becomes crucial as a decisive determinant of the characteristics of methodological rules and procedure for large classes of problems, to the point that failure to consider such partition turns method into a hindrance as opposed to a help to research. The three-way partition refers to some major lines of scientific endeavour: one based on abstraction and logical consistency, the other two centred on natural and on social reality respectively.
The method of the formal-logical sciences uses the criterion of ‘abstract rationality’; that is, it adopts postulates that abstract from reality and then rigorously derives implications from them. The abstractions from reality allow the formulation of very general principles, embracing even situations and cases that at the moment are completely ignored. These formulations may sometimes seem nothing but pure logical jokes; but due precisely to their abstractness they may provide unexpected services to scientific investigation.[7]
But the formal-logical procedure is completely inappropriate for natural and social studies, which must pay great attention to the nature of the reality investigated; in fact, the serious mistakes discussed in Section 1 were primarily due to the absence of realism. Economic theory, with its sometimes exaggerated pretensions to mathematical rigour, is the branch of social thought that has most abused abstract rationality, an abuse that has occurred mainly in the theories of general economic equilibrium that ignore uncertainty, entrepreneurship and endogenous innovation.
Of course, every theory of society or nature needs abstraction, but from this need must not follow unrealistic basic assumptions. An inquiry on method of both natural and social sciences may conveniently start from two opposite hypotheses concerning the reality investigated:
a) Reality remains unvaried over time or is subject only to stationary-repetitive changes.
b) Reality is subject to innovations, i.e. to a substantial and persistent evolutionary dynamics.
In the first hypothesis time is reversible; it is possible to go backwards and forwards, and it is a matter of indifference which temporal direction is taken (i.e. the plus sign in front of t may be substituted by a minus sign); in a word, there is not history. In the second hypothesis, time includes singular and irrevocable events; therefore time is irreversible and there is history.
An efficacious tool for the study of reality under (a) is represented by the method that can be denominated mechanistic observationism, and which is based on statistical inference and experiments and on the formalization, through suitable differential or difference equations, of subsequently discovered uniformities. This method has yielded great achievements in astronomy and physics. But its application to reality under (b) must be considered with great circumspection and critical sense.
In order to consider this subject more deeply, we refer to a generalization of the above method that purifies it of any reference to particular techniques of theoretical formulation. It consists in the methodological procedure that can be synthesized through the following succession of three stages: Initial Observations - Formulation of Theoretical Hypotheses - New Control Observations directed to verify the specified theory. We shall indicate this procedure, with which the scientific method is often identified, with the notation O-H-Oc, i.e. Observation-Hypothesis-counter Observation. This procedure is not immune to indeterminateness and inconsistencies that concern both the terms H and O, as has been clearly established by the epistemological debate.[8]
It is immediately evident that, in general, reality is not repetitive but evolutionary, i.e. it must be classified as falling under (b). This nature of reality is due to innovations and also to the influence of history on subsequent behavior (hysteresis); and this is the case even when the slow workings of evolution do not always permit the observation of mutations even in various offspring.[9] The indeterminacy of phenomena that results from such behaviours undermines the major aspiration of the O-H-Oc procedure, i.e. it undermines the attempt to discover laws of motion, which permit quantitative forecasting on every time interval, given the initial conditions and the parameters expressing such laws. This is particularly so in the presence of chaotic areas. Nevertheless, we must recognize that the O-H-Oc procedure has proved itself a powerful tool in the quest to understand the natural world. This is the result of the fact that the natural world approaches the situation described under (a). It is precisely the substantial invariableness of natural reality over long intervals of time that makes acceptable the terms O of the procedure O-H-Oc. For its part, the term H, which concerns the formulation of theoretical hypotheses, derives its operational efficiency from the fact that the principle of rationality, i.e. of coherence, on which it is based, has an absolutely general analytical fertility, as reality always inclines to organize itself on the basis of the principle of rationality and functional efficiency: as we noted at the beginning of section 1, the struggle for existence gives an impetus toward natural order; that is, it imposes the principle of rationality and organizational efficiency, which we can always perceive in the shape of the surrounding world; in brief, it provides an impetus toward the identity real=rational. Consequently, we are able to represent reality through the principles of logic and the criterion of organizational efficiency and coherence (as the term H implies).[10]
Let us provide a clarifying example. To prepare the ground for the development of our ideas on the method of social sciences that will follow we shall refer here to biology, which represents the natural reality in which innovation and hysteresis are most frequent. Suppose that we are interested in the explanation of the functioning of the ecological system, hence in the formalization of relations among species. It is immediately evident that such relations may assume a competitive, cooperative or predatory character. They may be represented, then, through a dynamic system of predatory, cooperative or competitive equations, well known in the mathematical applications to biology. The invariance over very long time intervals of the relationships among species allows for the estimation of such a model (as well as other formalization concerning molecular and organic biology); the model can then be utilized to find equilibrium solutions and to perform stability analysis, forecasts and simulations. Of course, the perfect stationary cycle of movement, typical of the planets, is not reflected in the biological world, where it is precluded by accidental mutations, representing the main actor in the evolution of species. But such mutations are very slow and can be taken exogenously by the model so as to analyze the way they interact with the surrounding environment and eventually are selected. So, a representation of the evolutionary movement, specifically the Darwinian mechanism of selection and differentiation of species, will be provided.
As we can see, the usefulness of the procedure O-H-Oc in the example just discussed (with H expressing competitive, cooperative or predation hypotheses), both for explanatory and forecasting purposes, is mainly due to the small number of accidental mutations and the slowness of the evolutionary process during time, which imply little violation of the postulate of the invariability of the observed reality.
2. Now let us turn to the consideration of the difficulties faced by the observational procedure and the principle of rationality, i.e. the method O-H-Oc, when applied to social reality. If one adopted the hypothesis that human activity, like that of bees and termites, is carried out in quintessentially repetitive forms, the effort to understand its patterns and implications certainly could (and indeed, should) be centred on the method of observation and empirical verification, just as is the case with the natural sciences. But the fact is that individual ends, value choices and judgments, and technological knowledge may continuously and unpredictably change. Man is distinguished by his adaptability and, even more, by his great capacity for innovation. There is no question of denying that the state of nature has a strong influence on human activities. Nevertheless, in the conduct of such activities innovation unquestionably plays an extremely important and, we may say, a decisive role, not only qualitatively but also in strictly quantitative terms, as everything that humankind has accomplished since its first appearance on the Earth is substantially the fruit of innovation (deliberate or unplanned) [11].
The basic characteristic of innovations is that they are the product of human creativity, and as such are by definition unpredictable and can arrive in any number of unexpected guises and forms. The succession of innovations gives rise to the phenomenon of social change. That, in a word, is the great difference between society and nature: social change, which assumes dimensions much larger than change generated by the mutations in the natural world.
Social reality is a slippery, mobile, undulating terrain. Strict observation of it, therefore, does not provide the kind of great illumination that sensory experience provided for Galileo, but rather a feeble, flickering flame. The unforeseeable variation of social reality over time, with respect to the reality considered by the initial control observations, makes senseless both of the extremes in the succession O-H-Oc. The application of such a methodology to social events requires (as we saw) the hypothesis that reality means necessity (i.e., what happened had to happen), which ignores the optional or creative aspect of social life; in fact, the simple assumption that alternative choices or events were possible makes the method based on strict observation logically indefensible. The worst of it all is that the great intensity of the evolutionary processes makes such a method absolutely misleading, with the exception of some limited and circumspect use in macro economic theory.
Put another way, the O-H-Oc method is based on the idea of spontaneous phenomena (and this is also true in the case in which events are reproduced through experiments) and the discovery of laws of motion through the observation of such phenomena. This hypothesis implies the acceptance of existence and allows for an efficient method of inquiry into the natural world, since this latter is not a product of human action; more precisely, human action may indeed interact with nature, but it does not play a constitutive role in nature. The application of the O-H-Oc method to social reality thus implies the idea of spontaneous social order, which is a misleading idea that denies the aim and the object of social life. In fact (and as we have seen), social order is a result of human action (we must beg the pardon of our readers for further repetitions of this statement, but it is crucial). Therefore, humanity is not obliged to limit itself to observation in order to understand; rather, he is allowed to investigate the reason why the social order is like it is and thereby manage to improve it. The natural scientists and methodologists of the seventeenth century enacted a decisive advance when they objected to the Medieval dominant idea of speculating on the reason why the natural world is as it is that such a speculation was a waste of time, natural world being the work of unfathomable divine will. These methodologists recommended, rather, a commitment to the understanding of nature through its accurate observation. This recommendation became a real dogma that has also been transmitted to social thought. But while, on the one hand, every physical attribution of men, animals or, at large, nature, being the result of a long and slow evolutionary process, can be profitably studied on the basis of the observational method, on the other hand, in the study of human societies, which are the result of human work (not divine will), the inquiry on the reason way society has been organized in the way we see (as Medieval thinking suggested) is crucial; so that an organizational view combining (as we shall see) being and doing, is much more appropriate.[12]
Let us insist on this point: the hypothesis of uniformity and repetition that underpins the O-H-Oc method, if it is to be extended to social reality, requires the collateral hypothesis of stationary motion, and hence stagnation, which is to say, a vegetative life. But as Man himself is the creator of human society, it is senseless to simply observe society, accepting it as it is, and so learn to interact with it as is typical of human relation with natural reality. It is important to learn how to build society with accuracy. Even if we are analysing a repetitive society, if we refuse to accept it and suppose the transition to a different (and, in particular, a dynamic) one, we implicitly reject the hypothesis of repetition. Therefore, social thought cannot limit itself to a merely observational kind of rationality, i.e., one based on the idea of a long-run spontaneous process of rationalisation of the kind typical of nature; it needs, so to speak, a constructivist rationality.[13] Unfortunately, the great prestige achieved by the merely observational method in natural sciences induces contemporary students of society to make widespread use of it and implicitly seek, as a consequence, to understand that which is a result of human activity as if it were not, and to restrict its field of inquiry to being and, so, to deny the scientific nature of doing.
To make clearer just how unsuitable the observational method is for inquiring into social reality, let us imagine we want to study a bureaucratic social system. Observation would allow us to understand its functioning. For instance, it would show that the system tends to suffocate creative processes and to promote stationary repetitive motion, this being congenial to bureaucratic decision-making. But if we want to go deeper into the path of transition from this to some other organizational form, we need an alternative methodology to positivism; specifically, we need a method consisting of: a) comparison with some different social systems (analogical procedure) aimed at discovering better organizational forms; or b) the definition of some methodological procedure and rules capable of enabling us to understand what mere observation hides, i.e. the reason for the inefficiencies of the society under examination, and indicating the way to eliminate them.
As a matter of fact, only procedure (b) is possible. Procedure (a) requires the existence of superior societies, which may not exist; moreover, it may cause serious mistakes. In fact, every social system includes both institutions that are indispensable to its functioning and other aspects that are contingent, ‘optional’. This means that there is a risk of confusing what we shall call necessity with choice-possibility in the interpretation and organization of social systems; and there is a consequent risk that the imitation of the supposedly “superior” system will adopt some undesirable aspects in the belief that they are indispensable to its functioning.
To deepen and better reflect upon these questions, we turn now to discuss the meaning of the rationality principle with regard to social reality. We apologize for some repetition, which seems to be called for, however, if we really are to clarify and to overcome some widespread misunderstandings.
The notion of rationality considered here does not refer simply to the optimization of some objective function under the constraint of given means. It also refers to the rationality achieved through selection and includes forms of limited rationality imposed by the high degree of uncertainty (i.e. by the lack of knowledge) characterizing social systems and by the consequent impossibility of precisely defining means that induce people to take decisions on the basis of simpler conventional procedures. Besides, the concept of rationality concerns here the building of social structures and institutions: we do not consider these as given, i.e. as a part of the constraint system of an optimization problem, but rather as some entities that require an accurate explanation.
There can be no doubt that selection propels spontaneous social behaviour toward the surprising harmonies generated by unintentional behavior, as underlined by Hegel's cunning of universal reason that would use individuals’ action to achieve his highest ends, and the Smithian invisible hand. But the evolutionary movement of society, being a much more intensive movement than that of nature, and generating as a consequence higher uncertainty and lack of knowledge, make learning by doing crucial. Together with other numerous rigidities, this fact may cause frequent nonlinearities, dependence on initial conditions (hysteresis) and even chaotic behavior. There is more. Social selection does not exhibit the inflexibility distinctive of the natural world selection, being affected by voluntary actions concerning choices of value, the building of institutions, normative interventions in sum, the enormous variety of motives and behaviours characterizing human action, the most part of which have very feeble counterparts in the life of other species. This implies the emergence, with respect to natural reality, of a much larger number of oppositions, contradictions and inefficiencies during the adjustment process toward equilibrium based on trial and error, and a persistent violation of the equilibrating tendency. More precisely, the drive toward spontaneous order and efficiency emphasized, as we shall see, by Smith, Mandeville, Hayek and the Weberian principle of ‘diffuse rationality’, according to which in the long run everything settles down automatically, is not warranted in a world continuously shaken by innovations. Furthermore, path dependency and ‘lock in’ phenomena (that is their dependence on and imprisonnement in previous paths) slow the flexibility of social systems and accentuate the rise of fractures.
The much larger errors and fluctuations of the social than the biological process are amplified further by the impulses and passions (that D. Hume’s enquiry emphasizes) that characterize much of human action. Hobbes’ Leviathan has lucidly underlined the destabilizing effects that the unconstrained use of human intelligence for the satisfaction of the passions of individuals may have on social life. But it is important to stress that these considerations are far from obscuring the role of the rationality principle. On the contrary, they increase the need to accurately deepen the meaning, contents and implications of such a principle. The above-mentioned big errors and inefficiencies of the trial and error process cannot be accepted as unavoidable, as simply a cruel cost imposed by the impersonal evolutionary mechanism of the struggle for existence generating the spontaneous order through selection.
Of course, unintentional phenomena and lack of knowledge are extremely important aspects of reality, as Hayek points out. Spontaneous behaviour and the freedom of individuals are crucial conditions for creativity and innovation, so that human knowledge is obliged to grow through trial and error. Besides, human beings need competition in order to improve; the repression of emulation and competition generates corruption, sclerosis and decline. But a task of human intelligence is to reduce the errors that the unfolding of the social processes generates. It is a cynical and mystifying nonsense to extend to the social system the identities that the real means the rational and that reality means necessity, which, as we saw, can be attributed to the natural world. Social scientists deny their own true methods and facilitate criticism by empirical historians if they accept the identity between reality and rationality on which the method of natural science, based on observation, is founded. Their task is in fact to develop and improve rationality in the organization of social systems (this being the result of human action), and hence the explanation and administration of those systems so as to minimize the errors and difficulties that accompany the auto-selective gravitation toward order and efficiency.
The content of the social sciences is both explanatory and normative. They require, therefore, a stronger notion of rationality than do the natural sciences. More precisely, mere observational rationality based on the identity between reality and rationality (and instrumental rationality, that is, concerning the acquisition of means) is not sufficient in social science; it needs to be complemented by a constructivist notion of rationality also concerning values and ends, imposed by the frequent violations of the above identity (between reality and rationality) that occur in social reality (where it embodies only a mere long run tendency) and by the pursuit of programmatic objectives. This is the reason why social theory must simultaneously be a science of being and of doing.
It is well known that the comprehension of social processes through the method O-H-Oc implies much greater difficulties than when applied to the natural world. This fact can be considered a sign of the inadequacy of the above method as applied to social reality that, being generated by human beings, should be, in many of its aspects, easier to understand than natural world – as Vico pointed out many years ago.
3. To avoid confusion, it may be useful to point out that the extension of the observational-experimental method from the study of nature to social thought has taken two forms. One may be denominated the strong observational method or social positivism (including also neo-positivism and falsificationism) and consists in the full adoption within the social sphere of the two hypotheses of acceptance of existing reality and the repetitiveness of observed phenomena. The other form may be denominated the weak observational method or social spontaneity. This second form excludes the hypothesis of repetitiveness in recognition of the increasingly central role of innovation within modern dynamic societies, but retains the acceptance of existence and, therefore, a merely observational attitude. As a matter of fact, the strong observational method also embraces spontaneity, for the acceptance of existence always implies a spontaneous view. But as we have just seen, the weak observational method limits itself to the acceptance of existence and rejects the hypothesis of repetitiveness, thereby escaping the positivist standard typical of strong observationism;[14] it has, therefore, a higher spontaneity standard. What is important for our thesis is simply that both the weak and the strong observational methods erase the main significance of human action. The underlying idea is, as we have said, that what happened had to happen, implying the acceptance of existence. In a word, both of these methods direct effort at the understanding of spontaneous behavior. This means that both strong and weak observational methods exclude reform action. Reform is, in principle, inconsistent with the observational method that highlights being at the expense of doing. The consequence has been a growing inability of social thinking to illuminate reform-orientated action, as we shall see extensively later.
In the age of commercial revolution, social changes caused by the growth of capitalism were for the most part interpreted, at least by the sharpest scholars, on the basis of the weak observational method, i.e. as spontaneous but non-repetitive behavior. The attitude of economists, who analyzed the most dynamic subsystem of society, is illuminating in this regard. Political economists were attracted by the idea of a so-called ‘invisible hand’ that, driven by personal interest and by way of the market, seemed able to fulfill automatically the great variety of people’s needs and, on the whole, warrant the coherence of many non-repetitive decisions operating separately from one another and even, at times, in reciprocal opposition. Writing at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Bernard Mandeville described in colorful terms «the vileness of the ingredients that represent on the whole the healthy mixture of a well ordered society»,[15] and described the operation of the social process as a whole in terms of the transformation of ‘private vices into public benefit’.
The first industrial revolution did not much disturb the existing reality, at least with respect to more recent increasing social change. While it is true that the discontinuities caused by innovation have always caused difficulties in the understanding and management of society, nevertheless, in spite of such initial intensification of social change, the social thought of the nineteenth century was dominated by positivism. More precisely, the weak observation method, which rejects the hypothesis of the repetition of events and only postulates their spontaneity, prevailed. This method has permeated the most important lines of social thinking: free trade and social naturalism, evolutionary and historicist thought of various kinds. Its basic fault is to be centered on an exclusive regarding of being and disregarding of doing. An outstanding example is Weberian teaching that, while on the one side gives a great importance to ethical values, on the other side considers value in a merely observational perspective that provides an explanation of ethical values through the idea of ‘diffuse rationality’, stating their supposed approach by trial and error toward right ethical values. The Marxian inspiration to Darwinian evolutionism and to Hegel’s philosophical teaching (the dialectical motion toward improvement and the identification of reality with reason), strongly resembles the ‘diffuse rationality’; in fact, Marx eluded the question of the organization of social system (doing), leaving the matter to the ‘fancy of history’. Thanks to these various schools of thought, the spontaneous vision gained, both implicitly and explicitly, a considerable influence within social thought.
Over the course of time, some theoretical advancement has made the management of human societies an easier task. But, in the form of the weak observational method, the spontaneous view continues to dominate social thinking. This domination is strengthened by the absence of an alternative social theory that is methodologically and hence scientifically well founded. In fact, such absence frequently leads to considerable mistakes in ‘constructivist’ interventions intended to revise the tendency of social processes, and these mistakes can accentuate the pains associated with spontaneous tendencies, thus making it convenient, in practice, to opt for the original spontaneous tendencies.
There do exist, within social thought, some non-observational theories. For example, the doctrines of natural rights, juridical positivism and contractual thinking conjugate the observational and the organizational points of view. But they very frequently fail to take into account the importance of accurately integrating being and doing. As we shall see extensively in the second part of this book, the very expression ‘natural rights’ is inspired by the idea of constraint (being), from which it derives some teaching on social organization, while the theory of juridical positivism prefers freedom and the coherence of social order. For its part, contractual thinking is inclined to undervalue de facto reality and hence to develop the question of the organization of the social system according to a very abstract standard.[16] There is more. Constructivist approaches do exactly the opposite of observational method; they consider social reality in the perspective of doing, that is, disregarding being: an exaggeration no less misleading than the observational one. This is typical of the programmatic approach that we shall critically discuss at the end of chapter 2 with reference to economic and social planning.
1.3 Necessity and choice-possibility-creativeness in the organization and interpretation of social systems
1.3.1 Freedom and constraints
Human societies are the outcome of conscious and unconscious human actions, but the building process is by no means completely free; social organization and government are not unconstrained. Creativity, intuition and even the most fearless human initiatives must always encounter de facto reality and, consequently, a variety of constraints. This is fairly self-evident, and in fact the distinction between ‘freedom’ and ‘constraint’, between that which is the object of choice and that which is constrained by preexisting reality in the building of human societies, is not ignored by social thought. Nevertheless, engagement with it is afflicted by heavy ambiguities, which are difficult to defeat because they are the result of and, at the same time, a deep cause of misunderstandings on method. It may seem at first sight that the distinction between freedom and constraint is well expressed by constrained optimization models or, more precisely, the objective function and the constraints of those models. But this is not the case. The distinction is prior to such modeling; as such, it concerns both the objective function (primarily through ethical values with their subjective or – as we shall see – objective character) and the constraints (primarily technology and institutions that do not simply express constraints but also imply choice and creativeness). All this, let us note, will be extensively clarified later, at the end of chapter 2.
It is neither surprising nor reprehensible that ancient students of society neglected the opposition between freedom and constraint. The substantial invariableness of the operational mechanisms of their societies favored their perfection and consolidation in the course of time, while the field of freedom did not significantly affect the generation of these societies and their quasi-naturalistic standards. The most appropriate way to understand their functioning was, therefore, the observation of phenomena in order to discover the mechanisms behind a repetitiveness that was only exceptionally interrupted by traumatic events, such as invasions, rebellions, or natural disasters. The management of stationary social processes requires a regulatory rationality, i.e. one directed to perfect the coherence of the system. The invariableness of these social systems is protected by some fairly pristine pillars, such as the legitimization of power over time as habit to subjection generates the consent of the governed. Such quasi-repetitive societies are, therefore, easy to govern, provided that they benefit from some solid institutional and administrative support in the form of experienced and faithful civil servants and a strong and enduring value system. Chinese mandarins and Confucian ethics, marked as is the latter by respect for hierarchy, a well defined distinction of functions, the suffocation of creativity, worship of tradition, and reverence for the elderly, have constituted one of the most appropriate organizational forms for the government of stationary societies that has appeared in the course of history.[17]
The advent, in some Western countries, of self-propelled development, has upset this traditional state of affairs in society and government. In such countries, the repetitiveness of social phenomena began increasingly to be contradicted by the advent of novelties, generated primarily by competition based on innovation. The distinction between freedom and constraint gained in importance, rendering social studies based on the mere observation of existing phenomena less and less reliable. Under such conditions, the investigator is obliged to disentangle the place of the two poles of freedom and constraint in the generation of human societies. Identifying the pole of constraint allows discovery of uniformities and steady (or almost steady) points that can be used as Pole stars in the attempt to navigate the laws and regularities standing behind the organization and management of modern Western dynamic social systems.
As a matter of fact, the Earth has long been home to a large variety of cultural areas and civilizations enjoying reciprocal relations. But these external relations with different ‘worlds’ did not define their identities and did not act as a prime stimulus of change. Until some decades ago communities separated by only a few kilometers and situated in the heart of important industrial countries preserved a strongly autochthonous physiognomy. The recent progress of telecommunications has almost annihilated large distances between geographical regions; the progress of transportation has accentuated this trend; and the processes of globalization that have followed have brought within their compass even the most isolated societies of Sub-Saharan Africa. New technologies generate new needs, new consumption and ethical values with rapidity. An abyss, or at least something near to it, now separates the ways of thinking and the sentiments of successive generations. The population of underdeveloped countries threatens to overflow into rich countries. Some consolidated forms of income distribution become untenable and enter into crisis. The struggle between old and new solutions becomes acute and the collision among cultures becomes violent.
As already noted, the observation of so much spontaneous movement and so many phenomena that overlap themselves and contradict one another, rather than illuminating the understanding, actually causes confusion. We therefore come to perceive the growing importance within social thought for the articulation and illustration of alternative ways of discovering some common necessities, attractions of the adjustment processes and long-term organizational pillars. To achieve such goals becomes an indispensable condition if humanity is to see what it has become, if people are to engage in meaningful dialogue and civilizations and cultures are to preserve their identity and hence their abilities to feed on a variety of fecund inspirations, and if those who hold power are to base their decisions upon useful knowledge.
So the most effective and natural way of obtaining knowledge about social reality is not only represented by the transition from the observational to the organizational view but needs also to be concentrated in the distinction between constraint and freedom.
1.3.2 A more expressive distinction: necessity and choice-possibility
We will now articulate the distinction between freedom and constraints by way of a terminology that seems to us more appropriate and incisive, specifically, in terms of the place of ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility-creativeness’ (henceforth, simply: choice-possibility) in the organization and management of social systems. Organizational necessities are not an observational matter; in fact, history shows that they can be ignored, largely violated in practice and even strongly opposed and denied. It is also immediately evident that the term that refers to freedom, that is choice-possibility, has not, by its nature, an observational substance and hence cannot be studied and understood through observation. Let us examine this more closely.
The observation of a storm at sea does not allow for the discovery of the laws of the motions of the waves. But the circumstance that the observation of some strong and much perturbed behavior is unable to teach something does not imply the impossibility of understanding. Every organizational system rests on a proper logic; the problem is to understand the terms of this logic, with the aim of distinguishing the important from the ephemeral aspects, the steady points from what can fluctuate and transform almost at the drop of a hat. If we lack the skill to do this, global society will appear more and more like an unintelligible storm at sea and spontaneous adjustments will not save us from the violence of the wind or lessen the danger of being drowned.
To understand social processes we must concentrate on the field of ‘necessity’, primarily the organizational (but also naturalistic) necessities. The study of historical processes (for instance, the transition from the feudal period to the mercantile society of the middle ages) clearly shows the strength of ‘necessity’ as represented, for example, by the absolute need for proper institutions, power forms, ethical values and visions of the world in particular developmental phases, and their dispensability in others. History teaches us, moreover, that the spontaneous tendency toward existing or emergent organizational ‘necessities’ has always incurred the risk of immense torments; in the cases in which it has been unsuccessful, social systems have been forced to regress toward antecedent phases of development. The dimension of such torments (inflicted by spontaneous behavior) tends, let us repeat, to grow with the acceleration of development processes and social change; this gives rise to a pressing need to scientifically arrange and specify ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’.
Before going on to unveil, in the next chapter, a methodological proposal aimed at allowing the student of society to face in a systematic way the situation just outlined, it may be useful here to sketch some examples of the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’. Some supplementary commentary upon Mandeville’s analysis may be useful in this regard. We have previously seen how Mandeville was fascinated by the tendency of complex European economies to automatically generate consistency (at least, in the main) out of many reciprocally clashing decisions. Scottish social philosophers also subsequently paid great attention to this phenomenon. They all perceived clearly that the author of such a marvel was the market, and a number of them attributed to it the character of natural law. But the market is simply an ‘organizational necessity’ of modern dynamic economies, since the limits of human knowledge and the presence of growing flows of radical uncertainty caused by innovation make futile any attempt to govern dynamic economies through centralized decision making.
The development of those organizational forms particularly suited to modern dynamic economies makes evident, not only the necessity of the market, but also that of the entrepreneur and hence of the profit rate (where this last term is not intended as a category of income distribution but simply as an accountability indicator, that is, an indispensable marker in terms of the need to define the degree of success and hence the responsibility for decision making). This triad (market, entrepreneur and profit rate) expresses the basic mechanism of dynamic competition and economic development;[18] it is not required in stationary societies as their repetitiveness can be efficiently managed by bureaucratic decision-making. In fact, the presence of the market in ancient societies represented a mere historical contingency and market agents could be persecuted, expropriated and suppressed without significant consequences to the efficiency of production.
This explanation of the market, the entrepreneur and profit is based on organizational considerations and not only differs from current economic theories but also clarifies some misunderstandings caused by them. To give but one example: the most influential economic theories consider the market concretely observed, that is, the capitalist market, which implies particular forms of income distribution. The shortcoming of these observational theories lies in the fact that they disregard the separation of ‘necessity’ from ‘choice-possibility’ and, more specifically, are disinclined to separate ‘necessity’ from other contents that are simply typical of capitalist civilization. The result has been a harsh and unsolvable conflict among the supporters and the opponents of the capitalist market. What is worst, the opponents of the market, disgusted by the injustice, deceits, immoralities and oppression attached to it, have hoped for the suppression of the market tout court.[19] An organizational (as opposed to observational) view and, more specifically, the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ in the organization of social systems, allows the avoidance of these misunderstandings by way of the clarification that the capitalist features of the economy (and of the market) belong to the realm of choice-possibility while the market by itself is an organizational necessity of dynamic economies. This allows a demonstration that Mandeville’s statement of the usefulness, in complex and dynamic societies, of the vileness of human behavior, may be true from an observational view but not from an organizational one. In fact, from the observational statement (and evidence) of the conversion of private vices into public benefit it can easily be deduced that robberies are useful to society. Such a statement stimulates thefts, to the utmost joy of the lawyers in The Fable of Bees. But this baseness is not indispensable; it can be separated from the market intended as an organizational necessity and erased.[20]
The market competition implies some ethical values such as pluralism, decentralization, individual initiative and tolerance. These values represent organizational ‘necessities’ of dynamic evolutionary societies; they have, therefore, an objective substance (that relativists, starting from Weber and Myrdal’s teaching, strongly oppose) that, as such, can be scientifically proved. The above values go well beyond the specific capitalist substance of the market; they are necessary to the expression of the evolutionary potentialities of humanity or, in other words, are necessary to the operation of the large variety of individual skills that collectively constitute an enormous reservoir of skills. These subjects will be more deeply considered later on.
Another organizational necessity of modern dynamic economies is represented by the principle of ‘effective demand’ and is a consequence of the fact that, in the presence of radical uncertainty, a deficiency (or excess) of effective demand is likely, thus causing the exigency payoff paying attention to the equilibrium between global demand and supply in the management of the economy. Some implications that institutional scholars of different schools of thought have derived from uncertainty with reference to the theory of the firm, for instance via the notion of transaction costs, also represent organizational ‘necessities’ in our sense. We shall see later that ‘globalization’ has raised to prominence some important organizational necessities that concern the relation between production and income distribution, financial markets and political power.
Now let us consider some examples of ‘choice-possibility’. A large variety of forms of income distribution can be associated with the market and the entrepreneurial system. In fact, for the variety of individual skills to operate, monetary incentives much lower than those typical of capitalism are required, everyone being largely gratified by the simple possibility of making use of his own capacities and propensities. The existence of large income inequalities, profligate utilization of wealth and a purely acquisitive conception of life, represent contingent and observational conditions, not organizational necessities. It derives from this fact that income distribution (with the exception of material incentives strictly required for performing risky and alienating activities) concerns choice-possibility.[21]
Another kind of choice-possibility is represented by the adoption of different forms of entrepreneurship and financial system. Finance should be a servant of production but, in practice, the role is reversed: production is dominated by capitalist finance in the context of globalization. Some other, clearer and more efficient financial systems are possible in principle.[22] Great importance must be attributed to aspects of choice-possibility of long duration and represented by the great ethical-ideological options that provide the identity of civilizations. These options take root and display a decisive influence on the functioning of human societies. They begin to waver when they become inconsistent with new organizational ‘necessities’. This inconsistency marks the starting point of a difficult and delicate phase of transition, as we shall see more extensively in chapter 4.
To understand the main contents of the emerging crises, it is important to place knowledge about necessity and knowledge about choice-possibility side by side. Among other things, the absence of such a distinction (or the existence of heavy confusions in the matter) deprives social reform of a compass, or perhaps supplies it with one that indicates North in the place of South, thereby entailing that reform advances only gropingly and falls too easily into dead ends and discredit. The knowledge of what is necessary is a condition of sensitizing public opinion about such necessity. Reform also requires an ability to discern what is possible, to assign a degree of preference to the various possibilities, and a coherence that ensures an awareness of the dividing line between necessity and possibility. A lot of reforms, after a difficult introduction, have fallen into total discredit and ultimately have been cancelled, albeit only after having caused serious damage; and this is not even to speak of the tremendous dramas and failures spread by the great revolutions. Well, such failures have been caused mainly by ignorance of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility, or a confusion of the one with the other.
The distinction between what is necessary and what can be the object of choice or is the result of creative processes can significantly contribute to the reduction of the harshness of reforms. It can also help to construct consent. In particular, the distinction helps to reduce the harshness of conflicting interests by making evident the aspects of the social system that cannot be refused. Moreover, such a distinction helps to attenuate the collision among civilizations, mainly through the assessment of the objectivity of important ethical values. Finally, it facilitates the combination of old and new values, the meeting of tradition and change, as well as the clarification of what is vital and what decaying or unpropitious among the elements of existing and emerging organizations.
It is also important to place the notion of ‘duration’ side by side with the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility. As we shall see extensively in section 3 of chapter 2, duration is a different thing from necessity. In fact, some important phenomena that in principle are optional are deeply rooted in existing reality, for instance civilizations. If these deeply rooted aspects obstruct and oppose important and necessary changes, a strong public mobilization must occur in order to remove them, but only the notion of ‘necessity’ can allow such a mobilization.
1.3.3 Some outstanding equivocations on economic and social necessities
A special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Economics has recently celebrated the works of P. Sraffa, in part by drawing from the abundant material contained in his unpublished papers. The introductory article by S. Blankenburg, R. Arena and F. Wilkinson includes a section entitled ‘The role of technical and social factors in the distinction between necessities and surplus in the Sraffian system of reproduction’ that emphasizes the Sraffian notion of technical and social necessities. Social necessities are seen as a consequence of the peculiarities of different social systems, for instance, corporate (managerial) capitalism with its separation of ownership from control, or the operation of the worldwide financial hegemony of capital. But such a notion of social necessity mixes up necessity and choice-possibility, as becomes clear in light of our distinction between the two. Probably this is a consequence of the absence, in the Sraffian system of prices, of basic necessities of a dynamic economy that are independent of its characterization as a capitalist civilization: entrepreneurship, profit in its accountability role, innovation, radical uncertainty, etc. This absence undermines the Sraffian price system and prevents the founding of the discourse on surplus upon a notion of necessity amended by the reference to specific institutional and civilization choices.
The statement that, in corporate firms with separation of ownership from control, wages and the interest rate on capital represent social necessities of capitalism, and that also the heavy malfunctions deriving from the hegemonic power of international financial capital are social necessities of capitalism, is not especially illuminating as capitalism represents a particular kind of civilization. The participants in the debate neglect the necessary role of entrepreneurship and the necessary presence of radical uncertainty in an economy where competition largely acts through innovation, and hence neglect the necessary role of the profit rate intended as a mere variable of accountability required to judge the degree of success of a manager’s action and decision-making, which is indispensable to control controllers. As far as I know, not one of the participants underlines that a true achievement of Sraffa’s work – the demonstration of the reswitching of techniques – undermines the ‘social necessity’ of the interest rate. As a matter of fact, reswitching implies that the level of the interest rate cannot be explained on the basis of the demand-supply of capital but instead depends (as underlined by Keynes) on the demand-supply of money and that, as a consequence, the real interest rate can be eliminated in principle while preserving its nominal terms as a counterpart of inflation in order to defend saving. The necessity of the entrepreneurial profit rate in its accountability role prevents the wasting of capital, but such a necessity is ignored by neo-Ricardian economics.
A wider breadth and an appreciable coherence and completeness are offered by Zamagni’s treatment of the question of necessity. This author’s civil economy underlines the necessity of market relations, social justice and the reciprocity principle in order to allow, respectively, the efficiency, cohesion and the same survival of economic order in the age of global society with its milestone represented by the hegemony of the international financial market. We shall see that a powerful way to combine the three above necessities is the reduction of the market to a pure mechanism for the imputation of costs and efficiency that allows the maximum separation between efficiency and income distribution and hence a coherent combination of the first with both social justice and reciprocity. But a deep revision in the method of the social sciences, a revision primarily based on the organizational view of social systems, is needed in order to avoid current confusions on the three terms of the combination, for instance the association of the elimination of profit to the principles of reciprocity and fraternity; in fact, this elimination overlooks the importance of the profit rate in its accountability role mentioned just above, the profit rate being (let us repeat) the only reliable measure of the degree of success of entrepreneurial decision making, the issue of distribution aside. This means that there is no opposition between profit, from one side, and social justice and reciprocity from the other. One of the major afflictions of social thought is represented by equivocal mixings between necessity and choice-possibility in the organization of social systems. We shall see that these mixings afflict the most important social theories.
1.4 A primary methodological misunderstanding in the social sciences: the conflict between normative and positive views
To prepare the ground for the exposition, in the next chapter, of my proposal on method, it seems opportune to consider here the opposition, in economics and social thought, between positive and normative elements. It may be useful, in this regard, to refer to a study by Valeria Mosini centered on a criticism of Friedman’s ideas on method.[23] Her study goes well beyond a mere criticism of Friedman, both in what it says and what it implies.
Mosini rejects the position on method that Friedman borrows from the natural sciences, that is, the positivist idea of discovering laws of motion through observation and, subsequently, the use of the laws so discovered in order to formulate prescriptions of political economy. She underlines that such a methodology implies a total submission of normative to positive elements, and as such a substantial negation of the normative. In parallel, Mosini repeatedly condemns Friedman’s disdain for the realism of assumptions and his corresponding explicit acceptance of a complete unrealism of assumptions, making evident that such a position is contradictory with respect to the above positive standard. More generally, Mosini takes pains to clarify the fact that Friedman’s supposed contribution to the method of economics fails to establish a true scientific standard.
We have seen in the previous sections that observations concerning a reality affected by frequent innovations do not allow the specification and verification of laws of motion. Friedman manages to overcome such a difficulty by associating the validation of theories with their ability to generate correct predictions, irrespective of their degree of realism. But as a matter of fact the growing non-repetitiveness of social events caused by innovation also makes void the forecasting power of the supposed economic laws, particularly if these are not based on realistic assumption (in section 6 of the next chapter we show that economic and social forecasts can only operate in very narrow ambits and that, to may be effective, those forecasts require a very different method).
Without doubt, a conjunction of disdain for the realism of assumptions and a celebration of positive method is contradictory. In fact, mainstream economics uses the method of abstract rationality (that excludes the realism of assumptions) and the observational-experimental method separately, employing sometimes the first and at other times the second. In so doing it has both achieved great intellectual success and subordinated the normative to the positive. Why such a success?
Mosini discusses the relationship between positive and normative elements in the works of some important economists: J. S. Mill, H. Sidgwick, F. Y. Edgeworth, L. Robbins, A. Marshall, A. C. Pigou, L. Walras, and J. Neville Keynes. In each case, she makes evident their concern with the normative side of economic problems. But such attention to the normative has been placed in the shadow by the ever-increasing abundance within economics of the methods of the logic-formal and natural sciences. We must ask ourselves the reason why the normative good sense of these renowned older has so easily been defeated by the subsequent Neoclassical impact on the method of social thought. It seems evident that the success of Neoclassical economics has been made possible because the attention to the normative side by such economists as just noted collided with the well-tested methodologies of the logic-formal and natural sciences (which latter are accurately used by Neoclassical economics), while those with normative concerns failed to build an alternative method appropriate to social reality, thus leaving unstated the true implication of their criticism. Even today, this indifference to method weakens attempts to avoid the suffocation of the normative by the positive, as implied by the use of the method of the natural sciences. It seems to us that the revaluation of the normative side to the detriment of the positive that Mosini extracts from the works of those important economists mentioned above is not relevant by itself; indeed the normative is not amended by methodological misunderstandings, even if they be different from positivist-naturalist ones. Nevertheless, such a revaluation of the normative side is important since it allows for the perception that the distinction positive-normative needs to be overcome and appropriately replaced. Let us clarify this matter.
We have previously shown that the method of the social sciences must strictly combine positive and normative aspects, being and doing, within a unified method. We have also clarified that a different distinction plays an important methodological role: the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility-creativeness’. This matter will be better explained in chapter 2, which is devoted to the presentation of our proposal on method. We must underline here, however, that the distinction between positive and normative aspects and that between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ do not overlap: some necessities and choices-possibilities are present both in the positive and normative sides, and vice-versa. To see this, it may be useful to recall some examples discussed in the previous section on necessity and choice-possibility.
In that section, we have seen that, for instance, fundamental ethical values pertain to the side of necessity, while some others pertain to the field of choice-possibility. But values are always referred to the normative side by the predominant cultural relativism: in Mosini’s book the ethical aspects represent the main part of the normative aspect. Again, we have seen that a dynamic economy needs the entrepreneurial role, the market and profit rate (taking the last in its accountability role of indicator of the degree of success of decision making); those institutions are organizational ‘necessities’ the cancellation of which pushes society toward a stationary state. We have also seen that a very large part of income distribution pertains to the field of ‘choice-possibility’. In sum, the market taken as a pure mechanism of imputation of costs and of efficiency, and the connected entrepreneurial function, represent some organizational necessities of dynamic economies, while the capitalist market and the capitalist entrepreneur and profit, which are strictly linked to specific kinds of income distribution, pertain to the side of choice-possibility, that is, they express organizational and value options. Normative action should plainly operate on the side concerning choice-possibility that, however, includes aspects currently attributed to the positive side, while it cannot concern the side of ‘necessity’ that, however, includes aspects currently attributed to the normative side. Thus the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility makes evident that the distinction between positive and normative creates the potential for much confusion with regard to the organization and management of social systems. The absence of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility implies confusion with regard to the distinction between endogenous and exogenous-instrumental variables.
To perform a more profound exploration of these issues, it may be useful to refer to an important historical period that Mosini neglects. As we have seen, she points out that Neville Keynes focused on the normative side of economic questions. But she ignores the work of Neville’s son, J. M. Keynes, probably because he did not explicitly consider method. As is well known, J. M. Keynes underlines the importance of the following realistic assumption: a dynamic economy, as characterized by high uncertainty and the role of expectations and hence an economy in which investment is a ‘flying bird’ is, by its nature, afflicted by a deficiency of demand and consequent depression. This analysis points to the importance of the accurate management of final demand (and of deficit spending, welfare state, etc.). Clearly, such an approach amalgamates positive and normative elements, being and doing, just as our proposal on method sets out; in other words, Keynesian economics erases the distinction between economics and political economy, combining the two in a unitary explanatory and prescriptive approach. Well, such an amalgamation of positive and normative elements needs the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ if it is not to be misleading. In the absence of such a distinction, the amalgamation amounts simply to programmatic constructivism, precisely, that is, to the idea that important social and economic changes and transformations may be freely projected (as we shall see in section 7 of chapter 2). Economic and social planning, promoted in Western countries by the Keynesian teaching, was condemned to failure and ultimately condemnation by the lack of perception of the binary ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’; a lack that has entailed the subjection of programming to a crazy constructivism. In socialist countries, the disdain for such a distinction had much worse consequences; it resulted, indeed, in a dramatic foolishness of planning.
The failure of economic and social planning in ignoring basic ‘necessities’ unloosed a hinge that allowed for the overturning of the situation and an increasing acceptance of Friedman’s subordination of the normative to the positive. We must recognize that the misconceptions caused by the absence of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility have been an enduring problem.
In sum, Friedman’s positivist reaction to the damaged normative side of the economic question certainly constitutes a dead end; but the concentration on the normative side by, for instance, returning to Keynes, does not offer a remedy. The credibility of the insistence of important economists upon the normative aspect, which Mosini underlines, has been damaged by the absence of methodological revisions that it should have inspired; as a consequence, any challenge on the part of the normative has been easily defeated by the use, by mainstream economics, of both the method of the logical-formal sciences and of that of natural sciences. A different (third) method was needed, one based on the character of social reality and one which, in particular, replaced the distinction between positive and normative with one similar to that which we propose.
Criticisms of the market are grist to the neoliberal mill if the market is simply considered as capitalist market, thus transforming the necessity of the market into a purported necessity of the capitalist market. Of course, the notion of the market must be referred to a dynamic context if we intend by it to express a ‘necessity’. The distinction, in the analysis of the working of the market, between optimizing adaptation and innovation may cause equivocations. Both optimization with given constraints and the change of constraints due to innovation are implied in the functioning of the market. Schumpeterian innovation causing transitory monopolies expresses competition (dynamic competition); this kind of market is different from and much more effective than the merely adaptive market, typical of a stationary economy where, after all, the ‘necessity’ of the market does not arise. This point will be brought into sharper focus when we return to Schumpeter in section 8 of chapter 3.
It seems to us that the careful clarification on method of Mosini is damaged by her problematic hope for “the re-establishment of the hegemony of normative over positive economics”,[24] an aspiration which she supports by quoting Emmer’s position: “Ethical premises are, in some sense, the ultimate criteria of conduct. However… they bear no logical necessity. Their force in society is measured by the ability of their advocates to impose their views on others, whether by force or by persuasion”. We have clarified in the previous section that basic ethical assumptions have an objective character, are ‘necessities’ (that, however, may change with the general conditions of development); if so, it follows that the force of those ethical assumptions depends rather on the persuasive power of scientific reasoning in showing the ‘necessity’ of the implied fundamental values. Therefore, the three concluding lines of Mosini’s book, assessing the importance of the combination of will and hope in the attempt to defeat the neoliberal paradigm, do not seem to focus on the true problem: such a paradigm may much more efficaciously be defeated through a scientific demonstration of its groundlessness. As a matter of fact, the dominating confusion on method is grist to the mill of various dominant powers within society, the will and hope of people subjected to acute paradigmatic hegemonies notwithstanding. Many times humans have hoped to achieve redemption through the power of the normative; they have sometimes even believed to be building a paradise on earth, but have subsequently discovered that what they had built was rather hell on earth. The hope of earthly improvement does not depend solely on the will but requires also that will is aided by the teaching of science, primarily a social science that, unfortunately, does not yet exist. In sum, Mosini’s disdain for the positive view should take care to replace the positive not simply with the normative side but something expressing aspects that cannot be the object of the normative action, that is, what we call ‘necessities’. Mosini’s disregard for those necessities contradicts her insistence on the realism of assumptions and this contributes to the legitimization of the positive view.
A last digression on the question of the ‘realistic assumptions’ may help our understanding of the vicissitudes of the Friedmanite teaching and the undue success of mainstream economics. J. M. Keynes focused upon an important realist assumption, viz. the factors causing the deficiency of effective demand. Unfortunately, he ignored some other important realistic assumptions. In particular, he disregarded the fact that the strategic role of effective demand requires the satisfaction of two conditions: (a) that the economy is not afflicted by important structural lacks and dualisms so that the stimulus to demand draws forth the remaining variables; (b) the impossibility of endemic pressures from income distribution (that Keynes excluded through the hypothesis that the labour market determines money wages, not real wages, which latter should be a residual determined by price movements). When conflicts for income distribution became acute and frequent, mainly propelled by the rise of the contractual force of trade unions, economists started to argue that demand was in excess (instead of being insufficient); but in fact the operation of the old, and indeed the central realistic assumption of J.M. Keynes, which legitimated demand leadership, was obstructed by the violations in de facto reality of those two further conditions, (a) and (b). Thus, the failure of the Keynesian paradigm has not been caused by ‘exogenous shocks’, but rather by its limitations. The cessation of the leading role of effective demand favored Friedman’s criticism and fuelled the well known conflict between Keynesians and monetarists, a conflict that expressed a real confusion due to basic errors in the interpretation of reality. Let us see.
Monopolistic capitalism, characterized by high productivity and low wages (and hence high profits, which were not fully reinvested due to the volatility of investments caused by the volatility of expectations and radical uncertainty), implied the situation that Keynes diagnosed, that is, one inclined towards the deficiency of effective demand. But the advent of conflictual-consumeristic capitalism, fostered by wage increases that the main industrial sectors offered to stimulate mass consumption, reversed the situation, thereby implying a radical change in the role of money.
Keynes’ theory of money and the interest rate was based on the notion of liquidity preference, implying that increased money supply does not cause inflation but rather stimulates production (through the reduction of the interest rate). Friedman’s teaching reaffirmed the quantity theory of money, according to which the money supply determines prices while the interest rate is determined by real factors. Both Keynesians and monetarists were wrong. In conflictual-consumeristic capitalism money had lost the exogenous-instrumental character that both Friedman and Keynes attribute to it. The money supply was endogenously determined by acute conflicts for income distribution operating both in the domestic market and (through high increases in oil prices) at the international level. In conclusion, in conflictual-consumeristic capitalism inconvertible money operated like don Circostanza (in Ignazio Silone’s well known 1933 book Fontamara), a lawyer who proposed the attribution of three-quarters of the available water of a river to each one of the two opposing parts. The discovery by trade unions of don Circostanza’s trick directed their attention toward real wages. Thereupon, the money supply ceased to stimulate production and accumulation, as it does in the presence of monetary illusion. The exigency of restrictive money policies commenced, thus giving rise to the so-called ‘stop-go’ phenomenon. Countries afflicted by wide sectoral and territorial disequilibria experienced an accentuation of the failure of both Keynesianism and Friedmanism. Income policy became a remedy practiced in the presence of acute crises. In order to return money to an instrumental role, a clear distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ is needed, as well as a clear awareness of the fact that income distribution pertains to the last.
1.5 An allusion to the interpretation of social and historical processes
A brief review of the historical-social process may help us to see better some of the mystifying implications of both the strong and the weak observational views, as well as the usefulness of the organizational view and the analytical categories specified in the two previous sections. It is mistaken to think that the observation of historical events leads to well-founded interpretations of history. We know that the non-repetitiveness of those events prevents observation from discovering laws of motion and that the observational method inclines toward determinism, is afflicted by analytic rigidity and imprisoned by what actually happened in the course of time. In short, the observational method cannot provide us with clear and profound answers to those queries that are provoked by the study of history. The past of a world characterized by growing innovations is liable to deceive us if we do not approach it with an organizational view. We must ask ourselves, then, if we want to really learn from the study of history, why certain things happened in a certain way, whether it might have been (objectively) possible for them to have unfolded in a different and better (in the sense of more profitable) way, and what decisional and directional errors and interested mystifications occurred in the course of time.
We should be aware, of course, that the organizational view in historical studies raises some delicate problems and encounters some ancient prejudices. This happens because the employment of this view implies the use of the conditional ‘if’, which is vituperated, derided and strongly condemned by the conventional wisdom – underlined by the most important historians – that history cannot be built upon a conditional. In effect, some solid methodological formulations are required for avoiding superficial and deceitful uses of ‘if’. Both the questions that the historian can and must ask of himself and the alternative hypotheses that he can and must formulate have to be based on objective foundations. But it is mistaken to presume that all that has happened was an inevitable necessity; such presumption imprisons scholars in the facts of the past. On the other hand, giving a free hand to fancy does not lead to scientific results but simply provides amusement in the form of easy and pleasant stories (just like a recent book on Romulus Augustulus that presents this last Roman emperor as the ancestor of the British King Arthur).
The analysis in previous sections specifies the scientific tools capable of founding historical studies on the hypothetic-organizational perspective. The distinction between necessity and choice-possibility is precious from this point of view. Let us underline that the gravitational tendency toward organizational ‘necessities’, which is generated by processes of trial and error, the pains that are caused by this tendency and the failures that result as well as the consequent withdrawal from current processes probably accounts for the greater part of the trials and tribulations of history. Knowledge of those ‘necessities’ and hence of the errors and deviations that arise with respect to them, in addition to knowledge of the causes of those deviations can be decisive for the understanding and interpretation of historical events. For its part, ‘choice-possibility’ legitimizes alternative hypotheses and choices about what has happened, and delineates their implications.[25]
An important analytical category concerning ‘necessity’ is represented by what in chapter 2 we shall denominate ‘functional imperatives’, i.e. the institutional and ethical-ideological forms required for reasons of organizational efficiency by the level of the general conditions of development. We shall see that those imperatives allow a strict distinction between different phases or stages of historical development.
Another important analytical category is represented by what we shall denominate ‘ontological imperatives’; these largely determine the evolutionary strength of human societies and mark the distinction between closed and open societies. Finally, with reference to ‘choice-possibility’, a great importance must be attributed to ‘grand options’ or choices of civilization.
It is easy to see the usefulness of the above analytical categories for the exploration of the evolutionary content, the erratic nature and other key attributes of historical-social processes. Very difficult and troublesome historic conjunctures occur when emerging functional imperatives start to contradict well-rooted aspects of civilizations that must, therefore, be eliminated if these imperatives are to be fulfilled; and this is in spite of the fact that such elimination is opposed by customs, habits and interests strongly embodied in the existing social system. Well, a full consciousness of the required functional imperatives can significantly mitigate labor pains. We shall see in chapters 4 and 7 that it is illuminating to ask ourselves some ‘if’ questions. Such questions help us learn from what happened and may allow some useful forecast of what will happen, as the grand options expressed by civilizations and functional and ontological imperatives represent long-lasting aspects of reality.
1.6 Conclusion
This chapter has sought to call the reader’s attention to some basic but questionable features of the standard methods of social and historical inquiry. It has set out, as a preliminary, some peculiar contents of social reality that carry profound implications for methodology. In particular, we have emphasized the importance of properly combining being and doing in the context of an organizational view strictly rooted in reality. We have also noted the importance of distinguishing optional and creative aspects from structural necessities and arranging them appropriately. This has highlighted the limitations of both social naturalism and constructivism and traced the roots of the methodological confusion expressed chiefly in the widely held idea of the incommensurability of social knowledge. We have also sketched the way in which this confusion affects the interpretation of historical processes.
We have seen that, on the one hand observational rationality ignores the fact that verification merely based on facts is not possible with reference to social reality, given its non-repetitive nature and, more generally, humanity’s ability to modify society. In this situation, the “falsification” of social theories is inevitable, which produces an impasse of observation-based knowledge. Further, the observational method concerns being and not doing, and this makes it quite unsuitable for inquiry into social organization, particularly with regard to values, which represent a crucial part of social reality and organization. We have also seen that an opposite mistake afflicts constructivism, which privileges doing but disregards being. On the other hand, an anti-positivist reaction, following Weber, has confirmed that the scientific investigation of values is impossible, and has plainly accepted the doctrine of incommensurability. We have underlined the importance, for the understanding of social reality, of the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility-creativeness’, and the way misunderstandings in this regard afflict important theoretical buildings, affect the conflict between normative and positive view and the interpretation of history.
A more stringent, systematic and detailed discussion on the method of the social sciences will be provided in the pages that follow.
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2 The core of the methodological question. Procedure, rules, classifications
Introduction
This chapter points forcefully to the fundamental methodological problem facing the social sciences: drawing up analytical criteria capable of identifying general principles and sound, reliable knowledge despite the rising flood of innovation within society. As discussed in chapter 1, such a problem originates from the fact that, being social reality a product of human will and action, it cannot be investigated on the basis of the method of natural sciences, as social positivists do. The identification of general principles is obstructed to a remarkable degree by the dominant conflict between social scientists following rationalist constructivism and scholars who emphasize spontaneous behavior. The discussion of method that is developed below will show, purely on the basis of the crucial importance of spontaneous and non-intentional behaviors and also of the lack of knowledge, that these aspects are consistent with the unfolding of rational constructivism and, furthermore, that they imply and solicit it.
This chapter may also be seen as a study of the explanatory power of the rationality principle for the analysis and organization of social systems. Such a power has been largely misunderstood by scholars, who have both taken it to excess, e.g. in the Enlightenment and by the majority of positivists, and by default, by irrationalists, historicists and a large part of sociologists. In general, studies on method insist on the definition of the procedures and rules for the control and verification of theoretic formulations, while considering the achievement of the hypotheses on which those formulations hinge intractable from a methodological point of view, being the unfathomable result of some scientist’s particular genius. Popper is the main defender of this position, which may tend toward doctrines of incommensurability and a refusal to embrace scientific method. We shall see that social theory must reverse such a methodology and insist on the definition of some procedures and rules useful to the specification of initial hypotheses, and on their classification, which are decisive in the deriving of general principles; at the same time, social theory must develop a distrust of the usual procedures of control and verification, whether expressed in a falsificationist or in a positivist form.
We have seen in chapter 1 the importance of the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’. The deepening, in this chapter, of our understanding of these two aspects will allow us to outline both a methodological arrangement of institutional analysis and, in particular, to prove that value premises are not always the object of choice and that they may sometimes admit of scientific explanation. This result opens the road to some important insights on ethical-ideological dimensions of social life. But there is much more.
Section 1 sets out the main theoretical foundations of our proposal on method, while section 2 illuminates the way to derive, from such a basis, some general principles concerning the social sciences; a derivation completely different from the attempted discovery of constants, such discovery search having no sense with regard to social reality. Section 3 moves from the general to the particular and is concerned with distinguishing particular aspects and choices having long duration, such as civilizations, from less involved choices; this section also stresses the role of innovation. From this basis, in sections 4 and 5 a synthesis of the procedure of social science as well as the role and meaning of function and conflict are traced. Section 6 then treats the puzzling question of prediction of social events, shows how it may be aided by our main analytical categories, and illuminates the relation between micro and macro theory. Finally, section 7 discusses the question of economic and social planning, a question that provides important lessons both from an empirical and methodological point of view.
2.1 An alternative view on the confrontation with social reality: the priority of rules for the formulation of hypotheses versus those concerning the control of hypotheses; the rationality principle. Towards social objectivism
We have seen that constructivist procedure is inappropriate to the study of social reality as it tends to ignore or undervalue reality to the advantage of doing. We have also seen that the inductive experimental method, expressed by the stage H-Oc of the procedure currently designated as the scientific method, is not suitable to the investigation of social reality; such a reality must be investigated through deductive methodologies. In effect economics has, for the most part, a deductive content and sociologists like Weber and Parsons treated the method of social sciences from a deductive point of view. Unfortunately, the usual deductive approaches forget one or other of the following basic methodological requirement of social research:
First) Deductions directed to the explanation of the functioning and organization of social systems cannot be based on conventional or nominalistic postulates, such as those underlying the formal-logic sciences; rather, they must be derived from premises concerning aspects of de facto reality. As we shall see in the next section, such premises may be identified with much greater clarity than is the case with natural reality.
Second) In social science, the rationality principle, which leads to the formulation of theoretic interpretations, has a completely different content than mere observational rationality, which latter is distinctive to the natural sciences and implied by the long run Darwinian processes of selection. The rationality principle in social science must also take a constructional view so as to include the normative elements of the situation within the interpretative framework, as considered in section 2 of chapter 1. In short, the rationality principle must be referred to the explicit pursuit of the rational organization of social systems.
Third) The usual teaching on method neglects a main requirement of the method of social science: the definition of some classificatory procedure and, for each defined class, the further definition of some rules that facilitate the specification of initial postulates and ensure the profitableness of their subsequent use for analytical purposes.
Let us further clarify these points.
We have established that the method of social thought should be centered on the organizational view (doing). Moreover, our considerations and criticisms of the role of observation and abstraction imply that such a method can be neither strictly inductive nor ignore reality. It must be deductive, and it must derive its deductions from realistic postulates. The real and basic problem thus concerns the selection of postulates.[26] In fact, the impossibility, due to the non-repetitiveness of social reality, of verifying and corroborating, with the help of econometrics or some other verification standard, the theories deducted negates the usefulness of a hypothetical generation of theories (a generation that Popper’s observational falsificationism assigns to chance). In sum, the impossibility of verifying theories (via observation) points to a decisive role in warranting the reliability and fruitfulness of theories to two basic factors: theoretical deduction from realistic postulates; the definition of rules concerning the formulation and classification of realistic postulates in order to replace the unreliable role at present pertaining (fot instance in economic modeling) to the econometric control of hypotheses. Those rules and procedure express the core of our proposal on method.
Some authors have envisaged the importance of selecting reliable and fecund postulates. H. Albert and J. Kapeller developments in the matter deserve attention. They refuse the apriorisms of ‘model Platonism’ and/or the search of expedients to escape the failures of observational-experimental standard (immunization strategies), through axiomatic variations, excessive use of ceteris paribus, alibi assumptions in the form of unrealistic auxiliary hypotheses. Those authors insist on the realism of postulates, their informational content, etc. and, on this basis, set out some acute criticisms to neoclassical economics[27]. It is evident from above the insufficiency of the mere realism of postulates as assessed, for instance, by critical realism.
We provide now some definitions, specification of rules and classification procedures intended to guide the research of scholars and, in particular, the corroboration of initial postulates concerning the organization and functioning of social systems. This will allow us to move from generic deductive method to a more penetrating deductive approach able to offer general formulations relating to a continuously changing reality. Some applications of the definitions, rules and classification procedures introduced below will be provided in sections 3 and 4 of this chapter.
At least four possible classifications of realistic postulates (together with implied deductive rules) can be set forth:
a. Postulates directed to the deduction of general principles demanded for pressing reasons of organizational efficiency; such principles will act as gravitational points, exerting strong attraction upon social processes. These postulates must express very significant features of the general conditions of development; they are, therefore, long-lasting, a product of the path of history, and they exclude specific ideological, technological and naturalistic elements and innovations. We denominate the general organizational principles so deduced functional imperatives and we shall see in the next section that, as so defined, the term ‘functional imperative’ has a very different meaning from the term as used by T. Parsons (1987 and 1964).
b. Postulates expressing conditions of nature that have important institutional and organizational implications. These conditions are local and played a decisive role in characterizing the societies of the past (for instance desert, steppe, agricultural or seafaring peoples). Technological development has greatly reduced their influence (and hence the importance of the relative postulates), mainly through the increasing role of artifacts and the tremendous speed of communications. However, the conditions of nature underline the important role that scarcity has played from the first appearance of human beings on the Earth. The importance of scarcity traverses the whole history of the world and has always obliged humanity to work bravely and to realize its potential genius. Scarcity gives rise to the man as builder and as organizer, while the binary scarcity-curiosity generates the man explorer. Also basic technologies (i.e. indispensable to make possible the existing level of development) can be included in this category.
c. Two postulates concerning respectively the unfolding of human evolutionary potentialities, (i.e. of the natural human ability to develop) and social cohesion. The two postulates are strictly linked to each other social cohesion being an important condition for the expression of human evolutionary potentialities, and are both deeply rooted in basic aspects of human nature. We denominate their implications ‘ontological imperatives’, which express the true engine of social development. These imperatives have a very general character, more general and more enduring than functional imperatives of point (a); but many of them can be violated over very long periods of time (and often have been in the so-called closed societies) since their violation does not affect organizational coherence and, indeed, can even enforce it. It may be useful to make a distinction relating to two very important aspects of this postulate sub c about human evolutionary capabilities.
c’. ‘Human rational skills’: an excess of the rational drive with respect to the creative drive may promote social organization and admirable developments (as B. De Finetti points out).
c”. ‘Human creative skills’: an excess of the creative drive with respect to the rational drive may cause social disintegration.
d. Postulates concerning ideological aspects, choices and creative events. The organizational and institutional forms deriving from these postulates define the field of ‘choice-possibility-creativity’. They do not pertain, therefore, to the field of ‘necessity’, even if the most important of them, i.e. the choices of civilization, are characterized by long duration and pervasiveness. This makes it clear that the usual identification of durability with ‘necessity’ is erroneous.
The realistic postulates (a) and (b) together with their implications give the field of ‘necessity’ in the organization of social systems (but, of course, not with regard to individual decisions, where what is necessity under some circumstances may be choice under others). In the modern age of dynamic society, postulate sub c on evolutionary potentialities with its implications must be added as a component of the field of ‘necessity’.
The rules above illustrate the methodological «separation» between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility-creativity’ in the social sciences, as well as its importance. Thus we arrive at the methodological succession and procedure CRP-TD (classification of realistic postulates-theoretical deductions) in place of O-H-Oc (observation-hypotheses-control observation) typical of the observational inductive and deductive methods, or the H-Oc typical of the Popperian hypothesis-falsification.
Our summary rules seem to add a more general and stringent treatment on the question of postulates and their specification to the one by Albert and Kapeller. However, those rules alone cannot guarantee appropriate selection of postulates. The fruitfulness of the selection depends also on the scholar’s own intellect and sense of reality, and needs careful control.
In short, our method’s relationship with reality basically concerns the search for fecund realistic initial postulates, not ex post verification of theories (the very nature of social reality makes such verification meaningless). All the deductive methods that are used in social thought ignore the classifications we propose and so fall into a generic deductivism, or Popper’s hypothesis-falsification deductivism. For their part, those deductions that follow the abstract rationality standard forget reality. So the methodology we suggest begins with the classification and selection of ‘realistic’ postulates, and then proceeds to deduce their implications for the organization of social systems. Such a procedure implies the combination of being (realistic postulates) and doing (the organization of society). Let us remember that, unlike observational rationality, which is based on the acceptance of existing conditions (with the underlying idea that the real is rational) and is typical of positivist and evolutionary thought, prescriptive and organizational rationality is appropriate to a reality that is constructed by humanity.
To summarize, the method of social sciences must be deductive and must derive deductions from realistic postulates on the basis of the principle of organizational rationality. Moreover, it must be centered on the specification of rules and procedure of classification that lead scholars in their research into and corroboration of significant initial postulates, thus supplying some efficient tools to deductive analysis to replace the term H-Oc, i.e. warranting the solidity of deductions notwithstanding the absence of an empirical verification of the theory.[28] So the proposed method, while suggesting a need to concentrate on the definition of procedures and rules suitable to facilitate the specification of initial hypotheses, which in social reality may be much more accurately defined than in natural reality, at the same time refuses the observational search for falsifying (or confirming) events, since social change causes a substantial evaporation of the usefulness of falsificationism as well as of other kinds of observation. In some sense, then, the falsification (observational) procedure might only be referred to initial postulates, i.e. the first term (O-H) of the succession O-H-Oc. In sum, the method we propose, instead of being based on the criterion of observational verification of theories, implying that reality means necessity, is based on the analysis of plausibility, efficiency and realism of postulates. This implies that an important factor in the evolution of social science is represented by changes over time in the degree of plausibility and effectiveness of postulates. Therefore, the method we propose differs from all deductive methods: the Popperian one; the method based on the principle of abstract rationality; and the deduction method based on mere observation, i.e. abstracting from the rules and classifications specified above. The nature of the difference will be further explored in the next section, devoted to the derivation of general principles.
2.2 The formulation of general principles in the social sciences.
2.2.1 The notion of functional imperative and the methodological centrality of institutional analysis.
We have noted above that the observer of social reality sees an effervescent world, replete with contradictions and changes that make orientation difficult. The overcoming of this disorientation requires an answer to the following questions: toward what long run order does the auto selective process that converts disorder into order, through often extremely painful trial and error, push the system? Which existing situations best approach such an adventurous tendency, and how best to accelerate the convergence of spontaneous behavior toward it? More precisely, the overcoming of this disorientation needs a method that allows for the articulation of the gravitational attractions and other stabilizing forces or, in other words, derives some solid and reliable generalizations that act as fundamental explanatory and leading principles. As just seen, the satisfaction of this requirement requires some appropriate classifications, as well as some methodological rules that help to select realistic postulates[29] in the unfolding of the process of the deduction of general principles.
Not everything is free to change. In every society, the forces of continuity and necessity flank those of change. As we know, it is crucial to distinguish the elements expressing choice from those expressing necessity. Change is due to innovations. We shall see later the way in which innovations enter into modeling and explanatory analyses. Here we must concentrate on permanence, the factors of duration that allow the derivation of general principles, the skeleton of scientific knowledge, and bench-marks of theoretic modeling, that unable the scientist to find his bearings within the vortexes of changeable social reality. This section will discuss the method of deriving such general principles. Clearly, these general principles must concern necessity, not choice, as choice generates particular; besides, our principles must concern long duration. We are going to outline a notion satisfying those requisites, in particular, embodying both the aspects of permanence and necessity. We shall denominate this notion functional imperative, following T. Parsons’ terminology[30].
As is well known, Parsons listed some imperatives valid over time and space that the social system must satisfy in order to preserve interior equilibrium and its own existence. Unfortunately, the fact that Parsons' notion of functional imperative aspires to express historical constants gives the analysis a stationary imprint. In particular, Parsons' insistence on his functional imperative concerning the preservation of the value premises mixes necessity, duration and choice, thus causing a total confusion of those elements and thereby severely obstructing the progress of social theory. In effect, Parsons’ functional imperatives express, more properly, merely functional exigencies. Moreover, Parsons proposes a treatment of the ethical-ideological aspect focusing upon the functional side, while almost completely neglecting the optional-innovative and conflictual sides, which are crucial for social change. But value premises mainly express choice, even when they involve long duration. The notion of functional imperative, if it is to possess all its potential explanatory power, must be emancipated from such limitations as well as from any confusion between necessity and choice. In particular, it is important to distinguish this notion from that of civilization (see next section), which, by contrast, is completely embodied within Parsons' concept of functional imperative. It is urgent to enunciate a definition and some rule for the derivation of the functional imperative immunizing it from these ambiguities.
The functional imperative must express an organizational order or principle imposed by mere reasons of systemic efficiency, it expresses necessary conditions of efficiency; in sum, it must refer to pure organizational rationality. As such, it concerns the element of necessity, not of choice; in particular, it must not embody ethical-ideological ’options’ irrespective of their possible great importance and solidity. It is also useful to underline that the functional imperative cannot be directed to the designation of some historical constants as these can be referred only to stationary societies; rather, it must express some dynamic entities that are variable over the very long run. A primary task for social theory is thus the definition of some rules that allow for the discovery of organizational categories fulfilling the above requisites. Let us attempt this task with more detail than hitherto.
Clearly, the greatest adversity with which the social sciences must contend in their effort to generate enduring principles, possibly valid over a wide geographical range, is the process of ideological and technological selection and revision – in a word, innovation. To deduce such principles, then, one must generalize with respect to innovative phenomena.[31] More specifically, the deduction of general principles for the social sciences must begin from premises that concern the general aspects of the social reality considered, which descend from its general conditions of development; it must not begin from premises (postulates) that themselves include specific ideological or technological conditions and choices, or specific aspects of nature, however important and decisive (and even if extremely long-lasting), because these are particular, optional aspects.
A useful rule for the derivation of functional imperatives may consist in concentrating on the existing general conditions of development, in order to extract from them some extremely general and meaningful aspects, which will then act as postulates from which to derive all implications for the efficient organization of social systems, in the form of functional imperatives. Of course, the imperatives derived in such a way vary with the general conditions of development, thus providing a basic expression of the dynamics of society. In sum, these organizational categories emerge over the course of history, as the product of the sedimentation of successive innovations, moral or ideological value judgments and technological choices (as opposed to specific choices and innovations). The realistic premises (postulates) from which these categories are derived are extracted from the previous sedimentation, making these organizational entities relatively steady points of reference demarcating continually changing social reality; they embody the aspect of duration. Clearly, these initial hypotheses derived by the general conditions of development are not some mere conjectures in the sense of Popper; they represent some clear and well corroborated premises, supplying solid foundations to deductive procedure.
As the product of a rationality that is not conditioned by specific technological or ideological assumptions but only by the general configuration of the situation, functional imperatives will reflect functional needs that are not linked to the pursuit of specific objectives and particular choices. Rationally speaking, the substance of these general principles is simply not a matter of choice. Ignoring them means adopting quite illogical and irrational courses of action and solutions, that is, entailing costs with no offsetting benefits, in that such actions are neither imposed by nor connected with a choice of aims. It follows that these general principles constitute some necessary conditions of efficiency. They are relevant to all situations characterized by similar levels of development, and their degree of generality obviously depends on the degree of generality of the postulates from which they are derived. The theoretical relevance of our notion of functional imperative mainly depends on the fact that it embodies both the aspect of necessity and permanence.
The above functional imperatives are eminently concerned with institutional order. They may contribute greatly to the methodological systematization of social theory and to remedying some misunderstandings characterizing the debate on institutions that confines this debate to a marginal position with respect to the great theoretical tradition. In particular, the concept of functional imperative may provide a stronger methodological base and legitimacy to institutional and neo-institutional analysis, as well as many formulations of economics distinguished by their closeness to reality.[32] These imperatives represent the pillars of social systems and point to the great necessities that these imperatives must uphold. People must clearly see them in order to build the new functional imperatives imposed by changes in the general conditions of development.
It may be useful to confirm that, according to our methodological proposal, observation must concern only initial propositions and postulates (as derived, for instance, from the general conditions of development), but not the verification of theoretical formulations. In other words, the term O of the procedure O-H-Oc operates only initially, not in the final stage devoted to the control of theory. In fact, reality may differ widely from functional imperatives, which latter only represent some gravitational attractions of the auto selective process of trial and error. There is no guaranty that they will be present in reality and thus constitute a possible object of experimental verification; indeed, very often they are not reflected by reality. It is a task of theory to enunciate their functional role, properties, the necessity of building them and the way to do so. The verification of general theories (i.e. characterized by high permanence) may cautiously be based on observation, but only in the special case that social organization satisfies (i.e. embodies) the functional imperatives pertaining to the considered development phase with its general conditions.
The above treatment allows us to understand that social research currently uses a deductive procedure more insidious than the abstract deductive method. This particularly problematic deductive procedure is represented by observational deductivism, which does not follow the rule of derivation of functional imperatives expressed above, but rather pretends to derive general principles from postulates that include particular ideological aspects; in this way, this procedure mixes indistinctly necessity and choice, ignoring the optional-creative aspect on the assumption that reality means necessity. Economics, which is the most advanced branch of social theory, contains numerous examples not only of the abstract deductive method (mainly represented by models of general equilibrium) but, even more, of observational deductivism (as represented by, for example, the opposite Smith's and Marx's appreciations on the market and the entrepreneur, which consider these synonymous with the capitalist market on the basis of an historical observation that shows these organizational forms strictly embodied in a specific kind of civilization, the capitalistic one, and on the associated value premises).
2.2.2 The commensurability of social knowledge, ethical relativism and natural rights; the scientific derivation of some value premises and the notion of ontological imperative.
1. The above notion of functional imperative entails some basic results concerning the crucial issue of value premises and the cumulativeness of social knowledge. We saw before that an important rule for the derivation of these imperatives is the exclusion from postulates of particular technological and ethical-ideological aspects, as these are objects of choice. The exclusion from postulates of specific ideological aspects denies the Weberian assumption that the building of theory cannot abstract from value premises and, therefore, this avoids the incommensurability (i.e. non comparability) of the theoretical principle (functional imperative) in question. The rationality principle and the comparability of social theories receive another important support from the fact that functional imperatives may also concern some basic values with which the system of values as a whole must cohere (we considered this already in speaking of ‘necessity’ and we shall further clarify this important point later through some examples). This circumstance has another important consequence. The statement that some ethical aspects may represent (be derived as) functional imperatives and therefore express necessity, implies a scientific limitation (in addition to limitations of a religious and metaphysical type) to cultural relativism: the scientific, i.e. objective character of some value premises proves the groundlessness of the equal rank that cultural relativism attributes, in principle, to all such premises. The current failure to grasp this crucial point concerning value premises generates numerous, profound and well rooted misunderstandings in social theory, most notably an extremely harmful confusion between the elements of necessity and choice, impeding the building of a scientific theory of social and historical development.
In other words, the notion of functional imperative considerably reduces the indeterminacies and strong contrasts fueled by the idea of the inescapable pervasiveness and equal dignity of different "points of view". This result amplifies remarkably the role of scientific analysis in the field of social phenomena and, in particular, the cumulativeness of scientific knowledge.[33] But it may be useful to underline, in this regard, that Parsons' approach, which emphasizes, as we have just seen, the duration of values and their functional role, forgets that the value premises not constituting functional imperatives are object of choice, i.e. are characterized by a scientific ambiguity. Some contemporary scholars insist upon the possibility of scientific investigation of impersonal, objective, social values that are shared by a large number of people, as distinct from strictly personal, subjective, individual values that cannot be the object of science. We think our notion of functional imperatives goes beyond such assertions and clarifies some of their limitations. The scientific nature of functional imperatives is unquestionable, even when they concern value premises, independently on their degree of sharing among people. Weber's denial of the possibility for science to investigate ethical aspects of phenomena is exaggerated, while Parsons' position on the matter seems too extensive as social values do not escape – in principle and in contrast to Parsons’ imperatives – options and creativity, and, hence, some sort of scientific ambiguity (except in the case that they represent functional imperatives in our sense).
The scientific derivation of values based on the notion of functional imperative does not deny the historical nature of social events and it does not need metaphysical supports, as does the doctrine of natural rights. In some sense our notion of functional imperative lies between historicism and jus naturalism. The theoretical principles that this notion allows us to formulate, being derived from the general conditions of development concerning the investigated society, represent a result of historical processes. But these principles share with the theory of natural rights a derivation based on the rationality principle and a non-relativistic content. They express an inevitable need for social organizations belonging to the same phase of development. Functional imperatives do not depend on some specific civilization but, rather, and as we shall see, influence such civilization as this must be congenial to them. They express all that science may say on ethics that, for the remainder, admits only criteria of justification based on faith. We shall see in chapter 8 that these imperatives may offer a basis for a contractualist notion of right immune to the criticism formulated by juridical positivism, and provide a foundation upon which to build a theory of right hinged on a science of social institutions and organizations.
2. The notion of ‘ontological imperative’ concerning, as we saw, the unfolding of human evolutionary potential, provides another important support to the scientific derivation of ethical values. This notion expresses some general and basic characteristics of human beings. In contrast to functional imperatives, ontological imperatives do not vary with the general conditions of development and hence are not pushed to impress themselves upon it over the course of history but, rather, remain valid for ever. They may be repressed, however, for unlimited periods of time if a particular social order is characterized by a civilization adverse to them. Their triumph is warranted only if the evolutionary process is not obstructed, so that they are transformed, sooner or later, into functional imperatives; at that point, the past insistence upon them by some scholar, wise man or religious seer will appear retrospectively as a sort of prophecy. One particularly important ontological imperative is the tolerance principle. This is a consequence of the limitations and the intensive differentiation of human knowledge, which both imply that nobody has a complete monopoly upon reason and that human beings may profitably use reason only if they accept (and look for) confrontation with different and dissident points of view; in fact, knowledge proceeds by trial and error and heterodox propositions may indicate some fruitful solutions to the problems of daily life. Another important ontological imperative concerns the role of the individual. The fact that the individual is the first source of both creativity and of the dynamics and variety of social processes implies the (ontological) importance of individual action and dignity and of the principle of personal responsibility as indispensable in warranting the social profitableness of that action.
The presence or absence (i.e. by violation) of ontological imperatives is a distinguishing mark of, respectively, open and closed societies. As we shall soon see, with the advent of the stage of modern dynamic societies some important ontological imperatives also become functional imperatives, for they are indispensable to the preservation of social dynamism
2.2.3 Some examples.
The five chapters in Part II of this book will consider a wide number of ontological and functional imperatives with reference to the most important fields of social sciences. However, it is indispensable to provide soon some examples of those imperatives, aimed at reducing the abstractness of the analysis and improving understanding. It may be useful to start from some further examples of ontological imperatives.
An important ontological imperative is represented by the division of labor. In fact, such a division is an immediate consequence of the great variety of individual capabilities and hence a main organizational tool allowing for the expression of human potentialities. An important feature of this ontological imperative is its achievement, from early primitive societies onwards, also of the role of functional imperative, i.e. a principle strictly indispensable to the organizational efficiency of society. Of course, it is of the utmost importance to manage labor division in such a way that individuals’ work corresponds to their natural skills, professional work being an important means of expression of human evolutionary potential.
The principle of reciprocity and the sense of fraternity, underlined by C. Lubich and S. Zamagni, are important ontological imperatives deriving from the postulate sub c representing social cohesion. Other ontological imperatives flanking the autonomy, dignity and sacredness of the principles of individuality and tolerance, are distributive justice and the practice of power as service instead of domination, i.e. according to well defined responsibilities that avoid abuse and ‘free’ judgment in the practice of power. In fact, the evolutionary potential of humanity springs from creative processes that, in order for them to happen, need the respect that flows from personal dignity and hence the elimination as much as possible of abuses of power and injustice. Moreover, the efflorescence of creativity and knowledge needs free confrontation between ideas, achievements and points of view, for human beings, possessed as they are of limited intellective skills, require pluralism and tolerance. The degree of self propulsion of any one particular civilization depends on the manner and extent to which it incorporates the above ontological imperatives.
We come now to some example of functional imperatives. Let us refer, at first, to social systems characterized by advanced general conditions of development. These societies are obliged to satisfy the postulate concerning the unfolding of the human evolutionary potentialities at the base of the notion of ontological imperative. Therefore, they give expression of the transformation of some ontological imperatives into functional imperatives. In particular, we may deduce that the high degree of dynamism of these societies needs the work of innovators and, more generally, a social organization satisfying the following criteria: that it is open to criticism and to full appreciation of individual initiative and skill, it is able to deal with the high uncertainty caused by non-stationary change, that it is therefore agile, versatile, well-informed and quick to perceive and anticipate the changes in progress. Therefore, and as we saw, we deduce the need for a decentralized organization, for the entrepreneur, the market and exchange value as necessary tools of information and coordination in the presence of high uncertainty, and of profit, as an indispensable measure of the efficiency of entrepreneurial action and decision making. These fundamental economic categories appear to be tightly connected to modern dynamic society, being indispensable requisites of its organizational efficiency and the source of its dynamism; therefore, they are functional imperatives of these societies.
The above deductions tell us that some important value premises connected to institutional decentralization – such as pluralism, the acceptance of deviants and of criticism and the full appreciation of individual initiative – constitute (as with decentralization) objective necessities for the existence and efficiency of modern dynamic societies, i.e. constitute functional imperatives. We can see, therefore, that some ontological imperatives considered above become, in modern dynamic societies, functional imperatives. This makes evident an important law of social development: with the variation and advancement of the general condition of development, propelled by the presence of a civilization that incorporates important ontological imperatives, these latter become also (in modern dynamic societies) functional imperatives, that is, the satisfaction of these ontological imperatives becomes an organizational ’necessity’ of the resulting societies. The violation, in a social organization that has reached this stage of development, of the above imperatives, generates weighty inconsistencies. Such a society must hurry to satisfy them, thus bringing itself in syntony with historic development; otherwise it will be destroyed by its internal contradictions and the competition with rival systems satisfying those imperatives.
Functional imperatives represent, as we saw, great gravitational centers exerting strong attractive force upon the spontaneous processes of trial and error; therefore, they cannot be eluded. It is important to consider this point with attention in order to accurately edify them, avoiding such edification is obstructed and delayed by misunderstandings, prejudices and the particular interests of dominating powers. One may give many examples across history of these basic organizational categories of society expressing historical necessity. So, those who study primitive societies see the relative familial organization at their centre. Such an organization clearly constitutes a functional imperative, after depuration of the various and sometimes eccentric ideological forms associated with family relationship in various cases. Levi-Strauss' analyses of the form of family relatives have clarified this aspect well.
The multiplication of functions and social differentiation, the development of transportation, of the size of territorial groups, of exchange, wealth and conflicts determine the need for a more sophisticated social organization. In particular, such multiplications and developments compel the birth of a more impersonal power than that embodied in the relative organization, endowed with a higher compulsory force: the command power. This new functional imperative, which first made its appearance through the phenomenon of companion-in-arms and other similar aggregations, later took the substance of state power that assumed various forms over the course of the development process; some expressions of them are imperial state, national state, and various forms of the centralization of political power.
The acquisition of a central position in the social process by the economy has some new functional imperatives pushed onto the scene. Economies characterized by small operational unities and markets regulated by demand and supply need very different institutions than do economies dominated by market power. For instance, in the latter case the functional imperative of the control of aggregate demand arises as a counterpart to the deficiency of effective demand. Economies passing through the takeoff phase need institutions and strategies suitable to combat the underdevelopment trap, while dualistic economies require structures capable of avoiding the trap of dualism.
The historical phase that we are now passing through imposes new functional imperatives that merit an accurate investigation. The rapid increase of international exchange and the advent of the global economy require new economic institutions. More generally, the planetary breadth of modern societies determines an increasing need for supranational compulsory powers[34] that, together with the need for decentralization expressed above, favors federalism over the national state; moreover, a penetrating operation of reciprocity is needed in order to warrant social cohesion, as underlined by S. Zamagni.
The entry of the masses onto the scene of contemporary society determines an increasing need for institutions capable of conjugating operational efficiency and social justice, for instance: the ‘separation’ of the firm from the conflict for income distribution thereby making the market a pure mechanism for efficiency and accountancy, the rationalization and redefinition of welfare state, the definition of indicators of efficiency concerning activities characterized by market failure.[35]
Basic technologies, i.e. technologies that are fundamental to the existence of the general conditions of development, and the organizational forms that they imply, are also functional imperatives.
It is important to underline that the specification of ontological and functional imperatives is based on our notion of organizational rationality; they are inconsistent with other notions of rationality, previously criticized. A reference to S. Zamagni’s development of this matter may allow some further clarification. Zamagni opposes Ulysses’ instrumental rationality, exemplified by the command of this mythological Homeric hero that he be fastened to the mainmast so that he might listen to the song of the Sirens without being drawn to wreck his ship, to Jason’s relational rationality, i.e. Orpheus’ use of extraordinary lyrical and musical skills to allow the Argonauts to freely listen to the song of the Sirens without risking a shipwreck. Zamagni underlines that the virtues of relational rationality are: to conjugate efficiency and freedom, to allow the possibility of combination with different values, to not separate the head from the heart. This is wonderful, but it illustrates some scientific ambiguity. The heart is an ambiguous advisor; it is important to avoid it operating against the head, and this end requires some objective specification concerning both ethical values and the relation between efficiency and freedom. Our notion of organizational rationality has a much wider extension than instrumental rationality, in particular regarding important values that we proved to have an objective substance (in the form of ontological and functional imperatives), e.g. the values of reciprocity and fraternity (which Zamagni underlines) as deriving from postulate c regarding social cohesion; moreover, our distinction between necessity and choice-possibility provides a scientific conjugation of efficiency and freedom. These extensions avoid the possible ambiguities of relational rationality. Unfortunately, instrumental rationality is often considered the most genuine expression of scientific thought. This widespread conviction is helped by the previously mentioned ambiguity of relational rationality.
We hope that we have satisfactorily developed, in this section, the aspect of ‘necessity’. We shall concentrate now on the aspect of specificity and choice that evokes conflict.
2.3 From general to particular: continuity and permanence versus change.
Functional and ontological imperatives constitute, so to speak, the skeleton of social knowledge. Of course, theoretical research can hardly be content with such a high level of generalization, relevant to any number of different social systems. Theory requires more highly developed articulation if it is to be suited for more circumstantial analysis. The emergence of value-ideological and technological choices, innovations and specific natural conditions, together with their implications, are of decisive importance in characterizing individual social systems. It is here that we identify what forges and shapes societies. Thus, general principles need to be complemented by theoretical formulations concerning these particulars.[36] Note that the ‘particulars’ considered here generate some clearer initial hypotheses, even if they be more changeable than those suggested by the general conditions of development.
In contrast to the analysis of the preceding section, which concerned the aspect of permanence-necessity, this section is mainly devoted to the aspect of choice and social change. But there are some choices that remain unvaried for a very long time. It may be useful to analyze them first of all, with the primary purpose of deepening our understanding of the distinction between necessity and duration.
The conditions of nature express an important and long lasting element of reality; but they vary widely across geographical areas, thus representing the particular side of theory. This is quite obvious. But it may be useful to insist on the relation between duration and value choices; this will illustrate with lucidity the difference between the notions of duration and necessity, as the first may also concern value choices. Besides, such analysis will lead us, in addition to functional and ontological imperatives, also to enunciate another important pillar of the interpretation of social process: the concept of civilization.
2.3.1 Grand options and civilizations; their relations with functional imperatives. About the concept of utopia
That which is the result of choice does not always imply change and temporariness. One important exception is given by the basic ideological choices around which the entire social fabric revolves, is structured and is integrated. Such exceptions may be defined as grand options. The following are examples of grand options: the idea of progress typical of Western societies, worship of the autocrat and of the state, the spirit of conformity and the culture of obedience typical of bureaucratic centralized systems. These key ideas define the fundamental physiognomy of the social system; they are its supreme, guiding criterion, the inner fire that warms its hearth. They are the product of very long lasting elaborations and cannot be overturned by sharp, sudden decisions but can only be removed gradually over a protracted period of transition; for their removal implies the dismantling of an entire and relatively cohesive set of concepts, behaviors, ideals, institutions, and so on. In a word, the removal of grand options implies the waning of the old social universe and the construction of a new one. Such grand options constitute an important factor of continuity. Their extensive persistence over time and/or their derivation from protracted sedimentation and synthesis assimilates them to the postulates from which functional imperatives are derived. But they differ from the latter (concerning necessity) in that they imply specific value-ideological choices. There can be no doubt but that they represent elements crucial for systems modeling. There exists a correspondence between the concept of grand option and that of civilization. We define a civilization as an institutionalized set of value-ideological and technological choices, together with the organizational forms consequent to those choices and to the conditioning of the natural environment, marked by the grand options. This concept of civilization differs from that of society and that of ‘social system’ in that it excludes: those ideological and technological choices and innovations not yet institutionalised, functional imperatives plus basic technologies (in that these categories characterize all societies at a given level of development, whatever their form of civilization)[37]. We shall se in chapter 4 that the concept of civilization plays a central role in the construction of a theory of social development and the historical process, in interaction with functional and ontological imperatives and with non-institutionalized innovations and choices.
There exists an opposition between the concepts of civilization and functional imperative. Both concepts refer to the long run, but the first concerns choice, while the second refers to the formulation of general principles and necessity. This opposition makes clear the great importance of the distinction between necessity, duration and choice. Civilizations are always the result of choice, notwithstanding their duration. As such, they have a conflictual character: they do not change automatically together with the general conditions of development, as do functional imperatives, but have rather a strong propensity to preserve themselves, together with their peculiarities. Thus, civilizations constitute an important conservative factor. More precisely, while they are born from a great creativity, which provides a strong initial momentum to their developmental processes, their inherent conservative tendencies make them subsequently a cause of sclerosis. Functional imperatives, by contrast, refer to the whole of societies characterized by similar general conditions of development. They have no conflicting content, as they express necessity. Functional imperatives assemble nations and individuals under the flag of similar exigencies. Moreover, they have no conservative inclination, but express rather some functional needs that vary with the general conditions of development. The advent of new functional imperatives propels existing civilizations toward extinction and promotes new ones that are consistent with the new functional imperatives and, hence, more efficient and therefore more competitive (in the new phase of development).
It is necessary to clarify that their integrating and inner role does not warrant the permanence of the grand options and their transformation into the moral duties that E. Durkheim, T. Parsons and some other sociologists identified as a milestone of social order. As a matter of fact, and as utopian movements clearly show, grand options may be the object of rude conflicts (mainly in modern dynamic societies), generating explosions of disorder as opposed to instilling social order. The circumstance that the grand options imply choice confers upon them (and, of course, the connected social values) an inherent ambiguity.
So the explanation of social order cannot simply hinge upon the integrating nature of ethical rules; it requires also the notion of the functional imperative. The stabilizing nature of the grand options operates through their tight links with functional imperatives. They may introduce themselves and resist only if they concord with functional imperatives, primarily those concerning value premises. Their strength and limits are due to this dependence, which confers upon them the attribute of necessity that warrants their permanence and, at the same time, determines their decay as soon as some long run change happens to reveal existing grand options as inconsistent with some functional imperatives. We shall discuss – and so elucidate – all this further in the chapter on social and historical development.
The notion of civilization underlines the role and the great importance, for social theory, of value premises and choices – therefore, of utopian phenomena that embody the more intensive expression of ethical-ideological aspects. On the notion of utopia, our previous analysis sheds some useful insight. Utopia may only concern choice. In this sphere it can operate without limits, violently challenge civilization and provoke (or try to provoke) great fractures. It is a primary cause of great qualitative jumps. Its fecund power usually emerges after long periods of incubation and often follows some strange and tortuous routes. The greatest propulsive strength pertains to the utopia that states some ontological imperative and anticipates some future functional imperatives, i.e. as supporting ethical principles destined to reveal themselves, in some more advanced phase of development, as necessary organizational conditions for efficiency. This kind of utopia can be seen as the scientific equivalent of prophecy; it possesses an extraordinary force and a great capacity to accelerate the development process. The Christian prophecy concerning the role and dignity of the individual (as referred in chapter 10) probably constitutes the most important example of this kind of utopia. A closer inspection will often reveal these prophecies to be ontological imperatives.
It is also important to underline the opposite case of utopia contrasting with ethical-ideological aspects concerning existing or future functional imperatives. Utopia is impotent against these, as they represent historical necessity. Therefore, if utopia pretends to unhinge or deny them, it condemns itself to certain failure and acts as but a sterile and degenerate phenomenon. The struggle for existence among systems will sweep away this degenerate utopia, notwithstanding the forces sustaining it. It may be useful to meditate attentively on the above statements, as the history of utopian movements is tragically marked by senseless confusion between the aspects of necessity and choice; with the vicissitudes of communistic utopia acutely underlining the implications of such confusion.
2.3.2 Innovation and choice: the factors of change and their enemies.
The factors behind evolutionary motion are choice and innovation. More precisely, only innovative choices generate such a motion. A stationary system (e.g. a stationary economy) carries out choices; but these latter, which can be defined as adaptive choices to distinguish them from truly innovative choices, express stationary-repetitive motion and, as such, may be explained through some model of interaction.
We classify innovations in relation to two distinct categories.[38] On the one hand we have ideological and value innovations, which are relative to the sphere of ideas, values, and world views. On the other hand we have technological innovations, which in an advanced state of knowledge stem from the application of the appropriate sciences to problems of life. In contrast to functional imperatives, these aspects of the social system are specific, contingent and reversible. They may be removed or altered without necessarily violating rationality or organizational efficiency, provided that one has the strength, capacity and resolve to do way with the premises (i.e. the specific choices and innovations) from which they derive. Of course, they provide some well defined initial hypotheses for deductive procedure.
It is important to articulate accurately the position that innovations occupy in the building of theory. Theory may explain innovation at the aggregate level, but cannot do so with regard to the specific character of innovations, as this depends crucially on creativity, which is unpredictable by definition. It is senseless to try to foresee or explain specific innovations. But this is no reason for alarm. It simply is, and all we can do is to recognize the fact. Some of the chief tasks of the social sciences comprise ensuring that society is as open as possible to the infinite variety of possible innovative choices, pointing out their implications and teaching us how to prevent or promptly remedy any de-structuring consequent to the advent of the new. The social process is largely described by the interaction between two phases: the innovative dash and the subsequent structural organization. Such an interaction provides the engine of evolutionary motion.
The processes by which innovative choices mature are varied. They may be conflictual or participatory; they may be propelled by religion, by art or by science, and so on. Factors that put a brake on the occurrence of innovations are no less important. Changes in the way in which human needs are served, in custom and tradition, in life styles and decisional rules, in the very conception of life generated by the appearance of new technologies and new knowledge, cannot and do not impinge continuously upon everything and everyone. Entrenched habits and customs, especially the grand options, offer powerful resistance to the rise of technological or intellectual innovations that conflict with established ways. Although for reasons of efficiency they will eventually give way, arriving at that point will be a long drawn-out process involving a great deal of friction and not infrequently entailing postponement and only gradual introduction of the new ways. Besides, changes in moral or value premises are limited by the fact that they must not contradict those value premises constituting functional imperatives. Finally, some technological choices are broader in operational scope and more enduring in their effects than others. This applies to fundamental technologies, i.e. those that are an essential element of the general conditions of development and whose absence therefore implies that the corresponding level of development is unattainable. Such technologies have a vast and enduring impact on the social sphere. The well known phenomena of path dependency and lock-in confirm the above considerations.
Studying the diffusion and capacity for endurance of customs, traditions, value premises and technologies is of the greatest importance and allows an assessment of the friction and the contradictions that technological developments and other innovations (such as a plan of social reform) will have to overcome.
2.4 Synthesis of the methodological framework. The interrelationships among social subsystems.
The first and crucial work that must be performed by the method of the social science is the definition of rules, procedures and classifications that facilitate the definition of postulates, which latter stand at the basis of the process of scientific construction. In particular, the first steps must derive: a) general principles (functional imperatives) from realistic postulates not including specific choices and conditions of ideology and technology but concerning very general, significant features of society; b) ontological imperatives. The next steps consist in the identification of the grand value-ideological options and the civilization that they characterize and which govern the society being studied or, in utopian constructs, the civilization to which one aspires. The resultant framework can then be enriched by considering more specific aspects of reality, for instance, conditions of nature. Hence, the implications of all that on the organization of social system may be deducted. It is important to specify, with reference to the forces of evolutionary motion, the interaction between innovation and adaptation, as well as the endogenous factors stimulating innovation, the way social system selects and systematizes innovations (or obstructs them), and restores its interior consistency (see chapter 4).
The requirement that all postulates and deductions must form a consistent theoretical framework implies that each step, commencing with the general principles, entail suggestions as to subsequent steps and systemic relationships.[39] It would be useful to extend the general model to all the subsystems of society, in order to make explicit the linkages, in the context of social theory, between economics, political science, anthropology and sociology. Much more than the natural and logical sciences, social theory needs to structure its contents within an overall framework. This for at least two reasons:
Firstly, because the social sciences are not restricted to inquiry into what exists (or the investigation of abstract propositions), but are also implicated in the construction of social systems; and this entails bearing in mind the interconnections between the various aspects (political, economic, juridical, and so on) of the systems, as well as those between normative and positive aspects and between reality and ideals.
Secondly, because the social sciences involve both institutional and non-institutional mechanisms that, due to social change, are subject to multiple transformations that radiate from them. A science the aim of which is to master this unstable reality must be fully aware of the repercussions on the individual subsystems of these transformations, and this awareness can only derive from a unified basic method and an organic overview of the society in question.
If the model is accurately built, the differences between it and reality will provide an approximation of the difference between spontaneous phenomena and rational-efficient solutions, in the course of the gravitational process toward such solutions, based on trial and error. In this regard, it may be useful to underline that the study of social phenomena, although unlike the natural sciences in that it is deprived of the advantage inherent in the relative constancy of the reality observed, does have at its disposal a different, significant advantage which, properly exploited, can greatly facilitate research. This advantage consists in the fact that social studies deal with a reality forged by human beings and thus is in theory more readily intelligible to them than is the natural world. But – and this is the key point – it is more intelligible, not by virtue of introspection, but because the social sciences, eminently concerned as they are with the rational organization and administration of social systems (as opposed to individual actions), must proceed by deductive procedures (based, as noted, on realistic and well established postulates and on the canon of organizational rationality), which constitute a standard of inquiry more rigorous and incisive than that based on experimentation, to which we must necessarily resort when the object of study is a reality (nature) not constructed by human beings. But there is an obstacle that stands in the way of the work of the social researcher and with which the natural scientist needs not contend, namely that social change requires incessant revision of principles and deductions.
The analyses of social researchers are often based on the experiment-verification methodology that is appropriate only to the natural sciences; other social researchers rely on deductive procedures that fail to develop properly the principle of organizational rationality and, taking reality to mean necessity, develop a quintessentially observational character; and others, failing to ensure the realism of their postulates, overstep the border and enter the territory of that abstract rationality that is proper to the formal-logic sciences.
2.5 The notion of freedom and necessity areas as an indispensable tool for the understanding of function and conflict.
A pivot of the methodological approach outlined is the rigorous distinction between freedom and necessity in the organization and development of social systems. Such a distinction permits us to delimit the fields of function and conflict and to overcome functionalist equivocations deriving from the erroneous assimilation of necessity to duration.
We saw that in human society, necessity is embodied by:
a) Functional imperatives.
b) Natural conditions and their implications.
c) The basic technological innovations and the organizational forms imposed by them.
Together these categories constitute the necessary conditions for efficiency.
Choice is represented by:
d) Value-ideological activity, headed by the grand options (or choice of civilization) and corresponding organizational forms.
e) All non-fundamental technological solutions and their corresponding implications.
For their part, ontological imperatives stand half way between necessity and choice
However, we must bear in mind that the range of the choices listed under (d) and (e) is defined by the limits of their compatibility with the ideological aspects comprised in functional imperatives.
The necessary conditions for efficiency identify the area of function, while the process of choice identifies the area of conflict. Of course, as soon as a value choice has prevailed, it will imply some definite functions: the grand options and the connected form of civilization require some precise institutions. But the point is that the value choices generating them may be suppressed without damaging efficiency.
The elements of choice and the working out, through innovation, of man's creative capacities correspond to freedom in the development of social systems. This freedom is not significantly limited by the fact that choice must not contradict necessity as represented by functional imperatives (the necessary conditions for efficiency). This appears evident when it is recognized that the realistic postulates in the general configuration of reality, from which our functional imperatives are derived, are generated by the historical accumulation of innovations. In addition, this sedimentation of choices and innovations will eventually alter not only the general conditions of development but also the conditioning power of both nature and of the basic technologies themselves, that is, all the elements constituting the aspect of necessity, while the fulfillment of ontological imperatives determines the evolutionary strength of the social system.
It might seem that the above considerations darken our distinction between necessity and choice. But the point is that a society may not violate functional imperatives, natural conditions and basic technologies without seriously compromising its organizational efficiency. These are the necessary conditions of efficiency. Unfortunately, the ingrained tendency of choices, especially when they touch on the grand options, to take root and vigorously resist revision not infrequently induces people to mistake these optional elements for necessities and to give the preference to them over and above those functional and ontological imperatives with which they are not consistent. To further clarify the analytic importance of this distinction would require a treatment of social development and historical explanation (see chapters 4 and 5).
In social discussion, the failure to separate the merely functional from the ideological, necessity from choice, aggravated by the frequent identification of necessity with duration, inextricably entangles science and faith, thus generating fierce and irresolvable disputes. Operationally, the consequences are more harmful still, for the result is two diametrically opposed tendencies the effects of which are simply devastating on the planetary scale. First is the tendency, which can be termed "pseudo reformist", to reduce necessity to the rank of ideology, i.e. to substitute value-ideological options, mainly grand options and the related civilizations, for the necessary conditions of efficiency. This tendency has inflicted terrible defeats on movements for social reform. Second is the tendency, which can be labeled "pseudo-scientific", to raise ideology to the rank of necessity, i.e. to mistake (or pass off) value-ideological elements for purely functional necessities, as well as to justify and exalt moral choices for their alleged purely functional quality (functionalist prejudice). This latter tendency is strengthened by the propensity of optional elements to take root which, together with the axiomatic equivalence of reality and necessity implicit in the observational method, confers upon it a seeming seal of scientific standing. Confusion here is aggravated by the fact that the character of ontological imperatives stands half way between necessity and choice, thereby obscuring the importance of fulfilling these imperatives.
We have these confusions and theoretical shortcomings – among others – to thank for the fact that mankind has steadfastly condemned the just and elevated frauds and impostors.
2.6 The problem of prediction in the social sciences; from micro to macro theory.
We saw that it is impossible, using the observation-verification method, to derive "laws of motion" of the economy (or society) that can then be used to predict the future of the social system. This impossibility stems from the succession of innovative events and consequent social change. To forecast future events and social arrangements, we would have to be able to foresee the specific value-ideological and technological choices and changes that will ensue and derive all their implications. But making predictions concerning specific innovations, i.e. acts of creativity, is senseless. We can but put forward hypotheses in this regard, and the results obtained by such a procedure will not be predictions but merely hypothetical elaborations. This does not mean, however, that the effort to make predictions about social reality is useless.
We know that functional imperatives are enduring and that the replacement (or emergence) of grand options requires the dismantling (or realization) of a vast system of consistent and compatible arrangements, propensities, and so on, that can only be achieved over the very long run. These imperatives and grand options thus trace riverbeds along which social life must proceed and unfold, and this facilitates prediction. Furthermore, the formation of functional imperatives and grand options by protracted historical sedimentation implies the possibility of recognizing, within a broad margin of error, those new functional imperatives and/or grand options that are in the process of maturing. Moreover, the very notion of ontological imperative provides some basic and enduring knowledge about the social system. The above knowledge will furnish far-reaching and in-depth information concerning the features of the stage of development on the threshold of which we stand and with regard to the main problems that beset it. Reference to basic technological innovations, with their great permanence and multiple repercussions, will also help in forecasting future events. Adaptation, for its part, embodying as it does a large part of the social process, is in principle foreseeable. Moreover, social theory may profitably use the method O-H-Oc with reference to the long lasting aspects related to functional imperatives. For instance, the necessity of the entrepreneur in modern societies implies that it will be fruitful to conduct econometric studies on entrepreneurial decisions concerning innovation, investment and the output level.
It may also be useful to underline that, at the aggregate level, the traditional method O-H-Oc, i.e. one based on observation and empirical verification, may sometimes facilitate reliable foresight over short time intervals, primarily if the observed reality reflects functional imperatives so that it is not shaken by any confusing and sharp gravitation toward them. This reliability of the O-H-Oc methodology is due to aggregation that suppresses specific innovations, thus warranting some substantial invariance of structural relations[40]. Macro theory is able to conjugate, in the investigation of social reality, both the O-H-Oc observational method (with its quantitative content) and deductive procedure previously discussed and proposed.
Nevertheless, a qualitative gulf separates micro from macro theory; a distance that is not due to the choice of a holistic perspective but results simply from aggregation. The dimension of this gulf varies according to whether one or other of the two following situations is in operation: a) micro variables and macro variables act in the same sense, so that the observation of the latter permits the immediate perception of the behavior of the first; b) the behavior of micro variables are not unidirectional and they take unexpected directions at the aggregate level. Situation (a) is frequent in the economy (think, for instance, of the aggregated and disaggregated functions of demand and supply); in this case, the discontinuity existing between the aggregated and disaggregated levels is to be imputed simply to the fact that aggregation suppresses particular innovations, on which evolutionary movement depends. But the economy also falls under case (b). For instance, the phenomenon of deficiency of effective demand may only be expressed at the aggregate level. L. Pasinetti defines as genuinely macro conditions "those relations that represent characteristics of the whole economic system",[41] and accurately analyzes them. Sociologists are acutely conscious of cases falling under (b), for instance, that individual discontent does not translate into collective discontent and mobilization.
The true disadvantage of aggregation derives from the fact that the suppression of variables can markedly distort the representation of reality. But this limitation goes hand in hand with some advantages, principally the fact that macro analysis is able to represent some phenomena that micro analysis does not perceive, and also the wide spectrum of methodological tools available to macro theory. However, the above two fields display complementary roles for the development of knowledge. It is important to be conscious of their methodological differences.
2.7 Economic and social planning
Economic and social planning and related instruments of reform have roused great expectations on a world-wide scale, but have been followed by bitter disillusionment. It may be useful to analyze the causes of such unhappy outcomes from the perspective of our inquiry into the method of social thought.
The main cause of the failure of centralized planning has been implicitly set out by our above analysis of the ‘necessities’ of dynamic economies, primarily the necessity of the market, entrepreneurship and related ethical values. Much more difficult is the explanation of the failures of economic and social planning in market economies.
Some important mathematical approaches to planning came to light in the context of the Soviet experience, for instance the linear programming of L. Kantorovich, L. Pontryagin’s maximum principle for the optimal control theory of dynamical systems, and the input-output approach of V. Leontief that flourished after this author’s migration to West; but the major usefulness of the first two has proved to concern firms’ planning while the major usefulness of the third has been in regard to statistical national accounting. The sixties and the seventies of the last century witnessed an efflorescence of what can be denominated the programmatic approach, which emphasizes doing in the context of economic and social planning. R. Frisch, J. Tinbergen, L. Johansen played a leading role in the field. Their teaching was concerned by the main lack of constructivism, that is, an inclination to disregard being in the name of doing; an issue previously considered but that warrants some further discussion. We shall see that economic and social planning offers the best grounds for a criticism of the constructivist perspective.
Many economists who lean towards the free market have underlined the ingenuousness and abstractions inherent to planning projects. Hayek is associated with some of the most caustic and sarcastic polemics against constructivism in the name of spontaneous behavior. Unfortunately, Hayek did not understand that constructivism and spontaneity mutually feed upon one another, owing to gaps in both of these schools of thought that allow each to assert itself as the remedy for the errors of the other. The more problematic of the two is no doubt constructivism, for its pretension to deviate from spontaneous tendencies infuses heavy error and turbulence into those already contained within spontaneous processes, if a science of the organization of social systems does not exist. One major theoretical consequence of constructivist errors and ingenuousness is represented by the blossoming of the most scientifically consistent kind of spontaneity represented by evolutionary social thought, which has expanded its tentacles into a large part of institutional thought, notwithstanding the intrinsically constructivist nature of institutional phenomena.[42]
The Keynesian discovery of ‘the principle of effective demand’, which was in the air from the beginning of the nineteenth century and that, as a matter of fact, must be basically attributed to Hobson’s analysis of imperialism, opened the door to an age of great reformist hopes and to a large diffusion, in the Western world, of national planning. In fact, during the Great Depression and later, the violation of such a principle took the form of a deficiency of demand and this suggested therapies designed to increase aggregate demand that raised an extensive and attractive possibility of social reform related to income redistribution, the building of the welfare state, and increased public spending. But later bitter disillusion followed, caused by the partiality and one-sidedness of the approach and by inherent shortcomings of the diagnosis that will be diffusely considered in the last section of chapter 3.
It may seem that the crisis of economic and social planning contradicts our statement that the organizational view, which stands at the basis of planning, is appropriate to social reality. We need to explain, therefore, why, if our analysis is correct, economic and social planning has failed, the consistency of its constructivist character with social reality notwithstanding. The explanation is that the appropriateness of the vision at the basis of a method is, in itself, insufficient to ensure the correct investigation and management of the considered reality; some other requirements are needed, and these, unfortunately, have often been ignored or misunderstood by social planners. Let us investigate this matter more closely.
The vulnerability of planning is primarily derived from a lack of methodological rules allowing for the definition of realistic postulates in order to warrant the combination of being and doing and make possible the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility. We have seen that in both observational and spontaneity positivism, being dominates while doing is absent and that, by contrast, doing, i.e. the guiding aspect, dominates in social planning. Unfortunately, however, the reference of planning to being, i.e. de facto reality, is weak and confused; it is this that has generated the abstractness and the unconstrained constructivism that are often reproved to the various approaches to economic and social planning. A coherent combination of being and doing does not exist in social thought, as far as we know. More precisely, we have seen that social thinking disregards the selection of realistic postulates, notwithstanding the fact that this is indispensable to replace the control and verification of theories based on facts, such verification being prevented (as we know) by the non-repetitiveness of observed events. It must be added that planning and related schemes of reform constitute some further elements militating against the hypothesis of the repetitiveness of events. This makes it a terminological and substantial contradiction to hinge the (limited) reference of planning to being on the observational method. Notwithstanding, economic and social planning has used strict observation in the attempt to escape unrealism, as testified, among other things, by the extensive use of econometrics, which is a strongly observational science.
The dissociation between reality and the guiding aspect is well expressed by the distinction between economics (with its laws of motion) and political economy. In fact, the inductive or deductive experimental procedures typical of positive economics are inconsistent with the guiding character of political economy, since such a character (implicitly constructivist) contradicts the hypothesis of repetitiveness, which is indispensable to the inductive or deductive experimental method. Constructivism, specifically the guiding character of political economy, needs, let us repeat, a non-observational method of inquiry into reality. But economic and social planning has not been able to satisfy such a methodological need.
The difficulties and failures of planning can be better understood by returning to the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility. We know from our proposal on method that such a distinction derives from the rules of selection of ‘realistic postulates’. The distinction cannot be enunciated otherwise, for instance, through the optimization models that can be considered the canonical formulation of planning. In fact, and as seen in section 3 of the previous chapter, the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility precedes the logical structure of optimization approach. We shall try to further clarify this through some simple considerations.
The optimization principle (taken in Kantorovich, Pontryagin’s etc. forms) is just a mathematical technique aimed at improving decision processes. By contrast, the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility acts at a much deeper level; it involves the meaning of institutions, ethical values and the whole substance of social phenomena. A centralized social system can readily turn to the principle of constrained optimization; in effect the Soviet reforms of the 1960s trusted in mathematical optimization to recover efficiency, but in vain. Well, the reason for that failure (and others) lay in the ignorance of the central planners of the ‘necessity’ of the entrepreneur, the market, etc. On the other hand, the distinction between constraints and objectives in the model of optimal choice requires the capacity to discriminate between necessity and choice-possibility. In the absence of such a distinction, substantial mistakes can be made in the definition of constraints and objectives. For instance, utility maximization may be pursued, implying a consumerist vision that the modern world should not venture into; furthermore, the objective function may include some ethical values inconsistent with opposing values expressing objective necessities.
We should also take note that constraints may include some technologies that do not represent necessities but only alternative choices to others. Even in the theory of the firm, the use of constrained optimization does not escape the equivocations caused by the absence of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility. In short, constrained optimization does not remedy (and does not consider) the methodological problems that we have scrutinized. Such optimization is different from and subsequent to the procedure and rules of selection of ‘realistic postulates’ and the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ considered previously. In the absence of these rules and distinction, optimization supplies a poor support to programming; as a matter of fact, it may cause great misunderstandings.[43]
Planning projects will become weak and confused in the absence of a rigorous distinction between necessity and choice-possibility. As we know, such an absence implies that choice-possibility can easily be smuggled in as necessity by people interested in some choice, while necessities that are not convenient to dominant classes can be indicated as a matter of choice and hence set aside. This will generate heavy inefficiencies, thus leading reform projects to fall into discredit and to fail. Such failures enable the adversaries of planning to proclaim that we must all place our trust in spontaneous processes. In chapter 1, we saw that the distinction between normative and positive side may imply crucial misunderstandings and that such a distinction needs to be replaced by that between necessity and choice- possibility. Well, such a replacement is of a central importance with regard to programming.
Social planning and reforms always present a challenge because reforming actions invariably collide with existing interests and so engender opposition. The almost inert kindness of a lot of friends does not counter the rancor and determined opposition of only one enemy infuriated by the injury of his interests. If it is not scientifically evident what must be done and what can be the object of mediation, every social plan and proposal for reform is doomed to fail and spontaneous tendencies will prevail. More precisely, planning and reforming action, if deprived of scientific foundation, will succeed only if they are able to promote fanaticism or obtain the support of powerful interests.
The failures of social planning have been mainly caused by the analytical privations considered above. With significant exaggeration, national plans have sometimes been described as ‘dream books’. But if planning is a book it should have been a book with two chapters: one chapter on ‘necessities’ and one on ‘choice-possibility’, the latter being a matter of political mediation. Reforms concerning ‘necessity’ should have priority and should never be omitted or postponed. What remains may be the object of political discussion.
The confusion between necessity and choice-possibility, between what must be done and what may be done, has often caused a deep fracture and contrast between the short and the medium term. More precisely, it has favored the advent of critical conditions that have suggested or determined short-term measures (monetary, budget and demand regulation policies) thus postponing structural reforms. In short, the urgencies of the short run have often been addressed at the expense of their structural roots. In this way, political action became the servant of spontaneous tendencies, thereby substantially undermining reform projects. It may be useful to provide a brief illustration of an outstanding failure of economic planning where this is highly necessary, that is, in the presence of extensive advanced and backward sectors and areas, as Italian experience shows.
Italian planning was largely inspired by the Keynesian teaching. The so called Reference Framework of the first national plan used a static Leontief model and the second national plan a dynamic Leontief model, thus taking the sectoral final demand as the engine of the economy. Detailed reference, in the plan, to the question of the territorial dualism represented merely an addition arranged outside the general framework. The industrialization of the South of Italy (almost one half of the country) was mainly committed to capital intensive investment by state industries benefiting from high incentives irrespective of productive efficiency. This, together with high wages paid by the sectors productivity leaders and aimed at promoting mass consumption (consumeristic capitalism) and at establishing constant prices in those sectors (i.e. avoiding prices declining), did not help the creation of employment in the South but, instead, favored a mass exodus from traditional sectors and backward areas, mainly agriculture and handicraft, the abandonment of social and residential capital existing in those areas, and a parallel shortage of housing and urban congestion in the regions to which migration was directed. Only one part of this massive migration from the South found employment in the dynamic sectors of Northern Italy. The consequence was a rapid expansion of a ‘refugee sector’ (the retail trade and other low productivity sectors with market power, employment in the public administration and other forms of public assistance). The imitational extension to refugee sectors of the wage increases in the advanced sectors, and inefficient public expenditure mainly in the South, fostered a large inflationary potential and a growing public deficit and debt, thus obliging the turn to restrictive policies and hence pushing the economy toward stagnation. These absurdities were favored by a diffused Keynesian conviction as to the expansionary virtue of demand, whatever its content, that contributed to justifying all sorts of waste as useful in order to stimulate growth. Economic and social planning, as largely inspired by Keynesian view, did not propose policies to counteract those pathologies that constitute an unfortunate inheritance oppressing Italian society and stand at the heart of present day difficulties. Such vicissitudes of fortune bear witness to an impressive ignorance of the binary ‘necessity-choice possibility’. Some rethinking of the Italian experience of planning was expressed by one of its main authors, Giorgio Ruffolo[44], but within an overall Keynesian view.
A formal model describing this case and its vicissitudes, together with some econometric applications, may be found in A. Fusari (1987).
2.8 Conclusion
The initial development of social theory was heavily influenced by the thought and discussion of philosophers. Later, the separation of social from philosophic thought, fully justified by the deviations from scientific method generated by the links between the two, and the steady advance of specialization have led to the progressive narrowing of the scope of social theory. Furthermore, this provides an unsatisfactory treatment of the ethical-ideological problem, of the organic-functional and conflictual aspects and, more broadly, the distinction between choice and necessity and other related issues. The work of three of the most wide-ranging and famous social theorists – Marx, Weber and Parsons – fully bears witness to the analytical shortcomings of current social theory. The harm that results from this state of affairs, especially in the sphere of the organization and management of social systems, is glaringly obvious, and the present tendency is for the situation to be exacerbated.
We have seen in the previous chapter that reliance upon methodology based strictly on observation (and in this context it does not matter whether it is deductive or inductive-experimental) entails the implicit assumption that everything that happened had to happen and, furthermore, privileges the idea of spontaneous process: from the careful observation of reality (conceived of as necessity) one seeks to derive scientific "laws" as guides to action. We have also seen that the constructivist method that replaces the observation of being with an emphasis on doing does not offer a more satisfactory perspective; indeed, we have provided an extensive analysis of the shortcomings of such a method with reference to the main ground of its application: economic and social planning.
The existence of the optional-innovative aspect refutes the validity of the observation-verification method. At the same time, it complicates the derivation of general principles. This chapter has sought a way toward possible solutions to these methodological difficulties and a way to remedy the failures of constructivism by delineating a proposal on method able to meet those basic features of social reality and to marry being and doing in the context of an organizational and realistic perspective upon the social sciences.
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3 Heterogeneity of methods in social thought: Weakness or strength - is there a synthesis?
Introduction
The degree to which the various branches of human thought can be called ‘scientific’ may be thought of as inversely correlated to the number of methodologies they use. It becomes practically zero if all methods are considered acceptable, which means the simple cancellation of the problem of method. Considered in this light, the current state of social thought is very discouraging indeed. The critical review of some of the dominant methodologies of social theory that will follow later on is aimed at clarifying the situation. Here, accordingly, we insist on the variety of methodological proposals; this approach prevents us from going thoroughly into each proposal, but the consequent lack of analysis will be partly remedied in later chapters, where some critical observations are made on the theories discussed there. A discussion and critique of some major scholars not treated here may be found in H. Ekstedt and A. Fusari (2010), particularly chapters 1 and 3.
This analysis of some of the main scholarly contributions on the method of social sciences is intended to help the reader to understand better the reasons behind this book, its contents and its implications. To this end it may be useful a synthetic classification that re-proposes in part some distinction set out in chapter 1. We classify the contributions on method as follows:
a) Those that, implicitly or explicitly, assume that reality means rationality. These contributions limit themselves to the accurate observation of reality and derive its explanation on the basis of observed behaviour, just as is necessary in the study of nature, a study which is aimed at finding laws of motion that help to interact with nature. This group can be split into two sub-categories:
a’) The formulations that place before the idea that real means rational the idea that reality means necessity (that is, what happened had to happen). This group includes idealists, aspiring to capture the meaning of the Whole and historical necessity; their belief that reality proceeds toward some final end implies the presumption that the real, as the expression of the tendency toward that end, is rational. But this idealist reference to final ends has a metaphysical, not scientific content; therefore, analysis of it lies outside the bounds of our study.
a’’) The formulations that make the observational hypotheses of acceptance of reality and that real means rational. This group includes positivists, empiricists and experimentalists, in short, all scholars who utilize the method of strict observation. Members of this group consider reality in inductive terms or as the basis for verifying hypothetical-deductive theories. The observational method of this sub-group (a”) exaggerates duration, while it is unable to interpret creative and optional processes and their contribution to evolution. As we saw in Chapter 1, the formulations that make the dual hypothesis of acceptance of reality and repetition may be denominated the strong observation method, while those limitating themselves only to the acceptance of reality may be denominated the weak observation method.
The dual assumption ‘reality means regularity’ and ‘reality means rational’ simply removes the aspect of choice-possibility from social theory, thus implying a substantial fatalism, only apparently mitigated by the presumption of the possibility to build and direct society in a scientific way once its laws of motion have been discovered, as both the Enlightenment tradition and economic and social planning proclaim. In this respect, however, there is a difference of degree between sub-groups (a’) and (a”): the former claims to derive great laws of motion concerning final ends, while the latter seeks only to determine limited, partial and particular laws.
b) The formulations that reject the ideas that ‘real means rational’ and ‘real means regularity’, and also reject the postulate of recurrence. They underline the importance of creative events, the role of the individual, evolutionary motion and the organizational view of social systems. Unfortunately, this group suffers from incoherent and fragmented conceptual approaches, a variety of ideas that are hard to bring together to fully express their potential. This group represents a whole galaxy of formulations that do not have a true methodological base and are often distant from one another: evolutionary and constructivist approaches, the neo-Austrian school, social action theory, critical realism, institutionalism[45].
c) The formulations based on the principle of abstract rationality, which as such do not take actual reality properly into account. The principle of abstract rationality is also present in various formulations of groups (a) and (b) as well, but without taking a pure form as in the formal-logical sciences does.
This chapter does not include a specific section devoted to constructivism, this being extensively considered in the last section of the previous chapter
3.1 Popper’s double face and Pareto's methodological dualism
1. This and the following section are not specifically dedicated to the group (a’’), the deficiencies of which in relation to social reality have been discussed in the second section of chapter 1; rather, they consider the thought of some important philosophers of science and methodologists that, in some sense, legitimate the present-day tendency of social thinking to overflow out of this group within the group (b).
The observational method is undoubtedly a scientific one but, as is well known, it is impotent against Hume's objection in principle to the postulate of the repetitiveness (hence the reliability) of experience.[46] At a first glance, the Popperian falsification principle (the search for contradicting evidence) appears to attenuate the strength of such an objection that rejects the Cartesian postulate of the "invariability" of natural laws on the basis of its non-verifiability. In reality, however, falsificationism does not escape it. As a matter of fact, the falsification principle simply proposes a particularly severe criterion of verification based on experience. It must be recognized that it does not exclude the non-repetitiveness of events; in fact, it considers a theory reliable as long as contrary evidence is not produced. But the problem is that the falsifying event does not constitute a remote possibility in the social field; it is always around the corner, at least when we are concerned with social change.[47] This makes meaningless the verification or falsification of social theories based on experience.
Popper does not derive all consequences from his admission of fallibility. He seems to attribute fallibility much more to the limits of human intelligence than to the non-repetitiveness of events, as is plainly suggested by the wedding of his idea of the conjectural nature of scientific theories to the adoption of the observational-experimental method, requiring the repetitiveness of events. Popper has taken care to declare[48] his disagreement from the belief that the real means the rational; but this statement contradicts the criterion of verification based on observation that he accepts and which implies such a belief as a postulate.
Truth to tell, a great ambiguity characterizes Popperian thought. As a scientist, Popper suggests the method shared by the scholars of group (a). Yet, as a philosopher, Popper must be included in group (b), as we shall soon see. This methodological duplicity causes serious drawbacks and misunderstandings. In particular, Popper's analysis with regard to group (a) results, in social theory, in an extremely reductive tool: the so called (by Popper) “piecemeal technique”, based on observation of the effects of particular interventions and measures and a subsequent experimentation in small changes with regard to them, with the aim of deriving theoretical hypotheses. Such piecemeal technique clearly reveals (also trough its denomination) the poverty of the contribution to the analysis of social reality of what Popper considers the scientific method (i.e. a method based on observation and experiment). But there is more. The coherent extension of Popper's analysis with regard to group (b) implies the denial of scientific method. Let us see why this is the case.
The incommensurability principle initially stated by German historicism on the basis of the singularity and non-repetitiveness of social events, asserting as it does the impossibility of deriving general principles of society and hence the impossibility of social science, still appears vital today. An important reason for this sustained vitality must be imputed to Popper's philosophical and ethical teaching, which belongs to group (b). The Popperian insistence on the conjectural origin of discoveries implies an evident openness to the thesis of the incommensurability and non-cumulativeness of scientific knowledge. Popper of group b tries to overcome this implication, which denies scientific procedure, by arguing that the struggle among rival theories will select those that best interpret reality and are therefore corroborated by it. But such an argument asserting the evolutionary growth of scientific knowledge is obliged to base itself either on an idea of gravitation toward theoretical improvements by way of trial and error, which does not express a methodological criterion since it does not suggest any learning procedures and rules, or on corroboration based on experience, which recalls the observational side of Popper's teaching, implying the assumptions that the real means the rational etc., and which deletes choice. It is not a casual circumstance that Popper's teaching has injected some seminal contributions into an important epistemological debate of the second half of the last century (with N. R. Hanson, T. Kuhn, M. Polanyi, S. Toulmin key actors) centered on the question of the incommensurability of scientific knowledge, nor that this debate has propitiated the methodological anarchism of P. Feyerabend. A critical confrontation with the reasoning of these scholars on incommensurability needs to put the rationality principle and the problem of the relation between science and reality in a different light, both with respect to observationalism (as we saw in chapter 1) and, as we shall see, the theorists of action, so as to allow an unambiguous derivation of general principles in social theory.
2. Some misunderstandings discussed here are particularly evident in Pareto's methodological dualism. For Pareto's investigation jumps from the abstract deductive method of his pure economics to a sociological teaching adhering so strictly to the reality of human action that it denies the deductive method as contradicted by the instincts and irrational behaviour of men, and for which he substitutes the approach of residuals and derivations. This gives an impressing example of the strength of the observational blindness even on the great rationalist that Pareto was. Pareto here forgets that humanity is forced to act rationally by competition with rivals and the struggle for existence, and that instincts or ignorance may cause only occasional deviations, albeit sometimes ruinous, from rational behaviour. A task of scientific method, as based on the rationality principle, is to unmask, remedy or prevent those deviations; but applications of the principle of abstract rationality typical of logical-formal sciences must be avoided.
Incidentally, Pareto acknowledges that residuals and derivations cannot contradict rational behavior too much, for otherwise few societies would have avoided ruin. Clearly, this acknowledgement of the supplementary role of residuals and derivations with respect to science means that the central problem is to build a social science able to replace them. Probably, the extensive and exaggerated use that Pareto made of the abstract rationality criterion in economics induced the sociologist Pareto into the opposite error of setting aside rationality principle.
It must be added that Pareto’s investigation has added something else alongside the methodological dualism discussed above, viz. the use of the strict observational method, as emerges in his analysis of the alfa coefficient on income distribution, i.e. the pretension to have discovered, on a statistical basis, a substantial constancy of income distribution.
We shall return to and deal more extensively with Pareto’s sociology in chapter 5.
3.2 I. Lakatos and T. S. Kuhn
1. Lakatos’ treatment on method is relevant for the important clarifications and criticisms that he addressed to the well known approaches of Popper and Kuhn. His analysis relates to natural reality and his examples refer for the most part to physics. However, Lakatos’ notion of ‘research program’ and his associated emphasis on rationality and commensurability have some contiguity with our developing discussion of the methodology of social theory. Lakatos critically analyses a number of distinctions that can be made with regard to method: conservative and revolutionary conventionalism, classical and neoclassical justificationism, dogmatic, ingenuous and sophisticated falsificationism. We are not here concerned with Lakatos’ disquisitions in the philosophy of science and the solid methodological frontiers of the natural sciences; in fact, the fragile methodological frontier of social thought requires more than is contained in these disquisitions. But Lakatos’ attempt to find alternative to falsificationism is illuminating.
Lakatos writes: «The basic unit of valuation must be no more a single theory or a conjugation of theories but rather a ‘program of research’, with a nucleus conventionally accepted…. The scientist lists anomalies, but as long as his program of research preserves impulse, he can freely set anomalies aside». And later, «the Popperian model of ‘conjectures and confutations’, that is, the approach of proof through hypotheses followed by error shown by trial, must be abandoned: no experiment is crucial.»[49] Lakatos emphasizes that a crucial experiment is, by itself, not decisive as its significance depends on the wider state of theoretical competition within which it is embodied; therefore, interpretations and valuations may change with the success of rival theories. Thus, Lakatos insists: «in my approach, criticisms do not clear off – and must not clear off – with the quickness that Popper imagined. More precisely negative and destructive criticism, such as ‘confutation’ or the proof of some incoherence, does not eliminate a program».[50]
So Lakatos sets out an interesting alternative to Popper’s fallibilism: the idea of the ‘research program’. This alternative is suggested by a distrust of mere observation. But even if Lakatos, with his concern for natural reality, founds his methodology on experiments rather than an organizational view (which is more appropriate to social reality), the notion of the ‘research program’ guards against any theoretical instability caused (as in Popper’s fallibilism) by the refutations provided by particular and more or less crucial experiments. This virtue is very important with reference to social theory where, as we have seen, fallibilism is inconclusive and unreliable as a result of the continuous refutations caused by social change. However, this virtue is insufficient to satisfy the methodological needs of social theory.
With reference to natural phenomena, Lakatos emphasizes the difficulty of verification based on experiments; with regard to society, however, this kind of verification is simply impossible. What to do? In chapter 2 we have discussed a methodological proposal that seems much more appropriate to the study of social reality. It is based on something more stringent and general than the ‘research programs’ and, indeed, precedes them. It is based on the specification of the rules of selection of realistic postulates suitable for illumination and solid deduction. The first step is to distinguish ‘necessity’ from what is the object of ‘choice’ in the organization of social systems. As soon as the realistic postulates loose validity, in consequence of changes in the general conditions of development (or new choices), it becomes necessary to set out new theories based on new premises. This reference to the general conditions of development provides some general explanations allowing for the construction of solid and versatile knowledge on a reality beset by continuous and increasing changes.
It is important to note the rationalistic flavour of Lakatos’ development. This is articulated in his controversy with Kuhn, for instance, where he explains that «where Kuhn sees ‘paradigms’, I also see rational ‘research programs’».[51] Lakatos insists on the continuity of scientific progress as the product of rational effort. He adds that what Kuhn «calls ‘normal science’ is nothing but a research program that has achieved monopoly», while the «history of science has been and should be a history of competing research programs (or, if you wish, ‘paradigms’); it was not, and must not become, a succession of periods of normal science: the sooner competition starts, the better for progress»[52] (here, we may append the comment, the past tense is inappropriate while the future conditional is completely appropriate). In short, Lakatos underlines, coherently, the need to combat the tendency towards monopoly of research programs, while Kuhn underlines their endurance. His notion of research program is devoted to remedy both, so to speak, fideism inplied by paradigm and the excess of instability implied by Popper’s falsificationism
2. Some specific considerations on Kuhn development on method are indispensable. His contribution is widely known and can be sketched in reference to his proposed succession: paradigm – normal science – new paradigm. Paradigms consist in fecund if ultimately one-sided and (obviously) incomplete guiding ideas and basic rules, able to suggest problems and point to particular lines of (normal) scientific enquiry. As such, paradigms both give rise to and stimulate the development of a connected web of theories and claims to knowledge; this is what is called ‘normal science’. But over time the practice of normal science invariably generates various ‘anomalies’, that is, problems that the paradigm is unable to explain. This stimulates and fosters the advent of new paradigms, capable of explaining the so-called anomalies. Kuhn emphasizes that scientific revolutions represent «non-cumulative developments characterized by the complete or partial substitution of an old paradigm by a new paradigm inconsistent with the previous one». These revolutions «are pushed by the growing feeling by some little segment of the scientific community that some existing paradigm has ceased to work satisfactorily»[53]. This statement can be considered true from a historiographic and descriptive point of view; but it calls forth serious equivocations when viewed from a methodological and prescriptive standpoint. To see why, it is useful to oppose Lakatos’ idea of the research program to that of Kuhn’s paradigm.
Paradigms are very different from research programs. To begin with they differ, Kuhn’s protestations notwithstanding, with regard to their rationality. Kuhn, it must be said, repeatedly rejects the claim that his idea of science is founded on an opposition to rationality, and says with regard to Lakatos that «we are both trying to modify the current idea of what rationality is»[54]. Such an assertion do indeed make his proposals on method easier to agree to, but it does not purify his ideas from irrationalism and incommensurabilism, as shown by the pages that follow such an assertion where, in accordance with the dominant historiography, Kuhn explicitly rejects Lakatos’ assessment of the discrepancy between history and its rational reconstruction: an assessment that, considered in the light of our discussion in the last section of chapter 1 and what we shall see in the two chapters that follow, appears to be an important methodological intuition with regard to the interpretation of social history. Then Kuhn’s methodological proposal remains inclined toward an incommensurabilism that throws up misunderstandings and obstacles to the progress of scientific knowledge. While the ‘research program’ has a strict rational content and can flank (and compete with) rival programs of research (a competition that, e.g., Popper both emphasizes and hopes for), a ‘paradigm’ has a gestalt like substance that precedes and displaces the role of reason.
The followers of different paradigms find it extremely difficult to engage in dialogue with each other; this puts a brake on the advancement of science. The notion of research program is much more open to the possibility of interaction among scientists and to revision of their theories. The demonstration, for instance, that a research program ignores some basic realistic assumption provides an impetus to scholars working within such a program to modify it, in order to remedy the newly-perceived lacunae. By contrast, a paradigm will require much longer time and ever-increasing failures (that sometimes are only made evident with difficulty) in order for it to be upset. This is not a problem in the natural sciences, as these sciences can rely on the corroborating or falsifying role of observation-experimentation. But the situation appears to be almost paralyzing in economic and social thought; in this latter case, the variety of paradigms may imply, in the extreme, the pretence that the followers of each paradigm understand and use reason each in their own way. An intense paradigmatic incommensurableness thus becomes the apex of cultural relativism, according to which science cannot say anything concerning the justification of ethical values (or can only pretend to say something inspired by one or other particular paradigm). Chapter 2 has tried to define some procedure and basic rules of identification and classification of realistic postulates that should be part of every research program concerning social reality and able to oppose incommensurability.
The above considerations do not imply that Kuhn’s proposal must be rejected. In fact, Kuhn’s thought includes some very instructive aspects that certainly warrant being brought to light.
We have just sketch that Kuhn’s proposal expresses an intuition having, albeit in a different sense, an importance and appropriateness for the analysis of social-historical reality that goes well beyond Kuhn’s actual formulated position on method. Let us try to bring to light this virtue. Social reality is renovated and propelled to evolve primarily due to the competition based on innovation that feeds scientific progress. It is a normal pattern, and not only in science, that a phase of intensive innovation is followed by a period of consolidation and diffusion of innovations. To make clear the hidden virtue of Kuhn’s approach it may be useful to recall the methodological proposal we have set out in chapter 2, aimed at developing a procedure and methodological rules useful for the study and interpretation of social change. Such a proposal hinges on the selection of realistic postulates allowing the definition of general principles and organizational ‘necessities’, as well as the selection of particular and less durable aspects pertaining to the field of ‘choice-possibility’. These postulates will suggest the deduction of the organizational forms of social system. We shall see in chapter 4 that innovations and their sedimentation, through the consequent change in the general conditions of development, will suggest the selection of new realistic postulates and hence the deduction of new general principles as well as will push the advent of new civilizations. In the short run, new realistic postulates will follow innovation and changes concerning the side of ‘choice-possibility’; and this will also imply new organizational forms.
Such dynamic behavior bears resemblance to Kuhn’s succession of paradigm – normal science – new paradigm. The precise social succession is: innovative dash – organizational rationalization – new innovative dash. In fact, the accumulation of novelties (that, mainly in the economy, is stimulated by competition based on innovation) requires a subsequent stage of adjustment and reorganization that (like normal science) develops the implications of a prior innovative dash; so, a new innovative dash will commence. This process is inevitable in social reality where innovation is endogenously and increasingly stimulated (competition through innovation). In the next chapter we shall develop extensively this interpretation of social development.
The dynamic behavior innovation – structural organization is physiological and does not inflict mutilations upon the analysis of social development in the way that the notion of paradigm inflicts damage upon the progress of scientific thought. Indeed, some paradigmatic mutilations can certainly be observed in the history of science and this legitimizes Kuhn’s representation of that history; this representation implies nevertheless both a mutilation of and an impediment to the progress of science, and this because of the intrusion, in the historic development of science, of paradigmatic brakes that have obstructed the scientific progress that would have been implied by the competition among Lakatos’ research programs.
Kuhn’s historiographic propensity has been dangerous to his research on method. In the postscript to his famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he expresses almost incidentally an important methodological clarification with regard to social thinking. Kuhn writes: «Some critics maintain that I confuse description with prescription, thus violating the ancient philosophical theorem according to which ‘being’ cannot imply ‘doing’…. Being and doing are often not separated as it has seemed».[55] This is certainly true. The two previous chapters have underlined that the combination of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ plays a crucial methodological importance in the development of social theory and that its frequent denials cause serious misunderstandings. Unfortunately, Kuhn does not escape these denials; he is far from fully perceiving and hence developing the methodological importance of the combination of being and doing; a fact that is evident from his rejection of Lakatos’ distinction between real history and its rational reconstruction.
The openness of Kuhn’s theory toward the interpretation of social-historic processes and other phenomena such as innovation, and the persistence of the hegemony of paradigms in the philosophy of science (a persistence which is the result of enduring equivocations on method and rationality) make Kuhn’s analysis of the method of science attractive. Such analysis is indeed both confusing and stimulating. It offers some important intuitions but also contains some serious errors on method.
3. Giovanni Dosi has claimed that the succession technological paradigm – technological trajectories, with the second term acting like Kuhn’s normal science, is valuable for the interpretation of the process of technological change and innovation. Dosi states that «there are strong similarities between the nature and the procedure of ‘science’ as defined by the modern epistemology and those of technology».[56] He assimilates Kuhn’s notion of paradigm to Lakatos’ notion of research program, commenting in a footnote that «for our purpose the degree of overlap between the two approaches is great enough to borrow from them a few basic definitions».[57] In effect, the more rational standard of Lakatos’ notion of research program with respect to Kuhn’s paradigm, which we have previously emphasized, is important in relation to the methodology of knowledge but almost irrelevant with regard to the explanation of technological innovation.
The succession of innovation-structural organization, specifically the succession of technological paradigms (or research programs) and their development in the context of technological trajectories, are physiological features of innovative processes. However, Dosi’s assertion of strong similarities between the nature and procedure of science, as stated by modern epistemology, and the nature and procedure of technology concerns Kuhn and Lakatos’ methodologies and also their limitations and, as such, has not (and does not pretend to have) a strict methodological relevance. Instead, Dosi’s succession technological paradigm-technological trajectory can be reproved for an important omission: the absence of consideration of radical uncertainty,[58] notwithstanding that this phenomenon significantly accompanies the innovative drive toward a new paradigm. In fact, this non-probabilistic uncertainty (which, however, can and must be measured)[59] represents perhaps the main brake in jumping from one technological paradigm to another, an important factor inducing innovators to insist in specific technological trajectories: paradigmatic jumps cause an increase in radical uncertainty that discourages radical innovation. In the last section of chapter 4 we shall analyze the relation between innovation and radical uncertainty through a predator-prey model; such a relation has been given a more detailed formalization in Fusari and Reati (2013).
Here it is important to underline that the core of the method of the social sciences is different from and antecedent to the representation of the scientific and technological process as expressed above. In chapter 2 we have exposed the substance of the core: procedure, rules and classifications appropriate to social reality, an organizational view that combines being and doing; in sum, some peculiar methodological tools able to promote and implement knowledge that must precede its diffusion and use. The derivation of the important notions of functional imperative, ontological imperative and their combination with that of civilization follow. All this, let us repeat, is antecedent to the opposition-interaction between innovation and structural organization (or whichever is its denomination). Moreover, we shall see that such opposition-interaction is only one aspect of our explanatory model of social-historic process and must be flanked or preceded by the other methodological categories referred to above. The notions of paradigm, research program, normal science and technological trajectory associated with the works of Kuhn, Lakatos and Dosi are useful in completing the picture; but the method of social sciences needs much more.
3.4 T. Lawson’s treatment of emergence and ontological naturalism
I have considered Tony Lawson’s analysis of the method of the social sciences elsewhere,[60] in the context of some critical comments addressed to the school of social thought known as ‘critical realism’. In those comments I remarked upon the importance, from a methodological point of view, of Lawson’s distinction between natural and social reality. In a recent study,[61] Lawson contends the doctrine of ontological naturalism, according to which «everything can be explained in terms of natural causes» (p. 346). He considers, in the light of this contention, a number of social phenomena, starting from the ‘emergence’ in natural and social reality of novelties, by which he means «something previously absent or unprecedented» (p. 348). This is certainly true with reference to social reality, where the (extrinsic) work of innovations plays an increasing role.
Lawson distinguishes between stronger and weaker forms of emergence, and concentrates his analysis on the former. Stronger forms of emergence, he explains, are those that, in contrast to weaker forms, are not «concerned with the possibility of synchronic reducibility… of higher level elements… to lower level ones alone and at a given time» (p. 351). He attributes irreducibility to the emergence of organizational features in the passage from lower to higher level phenomena.[62] I am not sure this is the only reason behind the impossibility of synchronic reductionism. At any rate, I strongly agree with author’s insistence that the future is entirely open (emphasis added). However, Lawson adds that such a statement «does not violate the thesis that all explanations are in terms of natural causes» (p. 358). But, in my view, this is an equivocal thesis that may be right only if intended in a generic sense. For instance, it is possible to state that the emergence expressed by creativity is a result of the natural creative skills of humanity. The true problem, however, is that creativity causes, in the social sciences, a serious need for some qualifications on method that are not required in natural sciences. To better clarify the point, it may be useful to define ‘innovation’ as the emergence intentionally produced by humanity, which largely and increasingly characterizes social reality. It seems evident that ‘innovation’ is something completely different from those rare accidental mutations and the connected and extremely slow selective processes concerning animal species that are considered by the Darwin’s evolutionary approach, which is a primary reference for social reductionism as we shall see soon.
Lawson, then, comes to treat specifically social systems and sets out some notions useful to the study of society: community, collective practice and its acceptance, obligations, legitimacy, positions and powers, etc. Let me pass over all this for the moment and insist on his attempt to make evident some conciliation of the doctrine of ontological naturalism with his strong notion of emergence and associated notion of irreducibility. Does such conciliation represent a real requirement? I think not, except for rejecting that social realm is unconnected to the non-social realm. More precisely I think that, with reference to social reality, the conciliation above may generate ambiguities, even if there can be no doubt that social ontology, i.e. the study of the nature of social being, deserves attention. In some sense, this is expressed by our notion of ‘ontological imperative’, as derived from the necessity to allow the expression and operation of human potentialities.
At any rate, it seems to me illuminating the author’s criticism to J. Searle’s treatment of ‘causal reduction’ and ‘downward causation’, in the light of the association of these to the questions of emergence and extrinsic nature of the organization with respect to the organized components. After consideration of complex recurrent dynamics of emergence, Lawson concludes that: «with features extrinsic to and not produced solely by the interactions of the lower level components, causal reduction, as a generalization certainly, does not seem to be sustainable.» [63] The author extends the discussion to ‘downward causation’, with this expression stating that the causal actions of lower level are in part caused by the higher level entities, and concludes that «the prominent evaluations of the relevance of the first conception are mistaken, as indeed are assessments of the coherence of the second».[64] This contention is right and important, in my opinion, with reference to social reality. But what to do for achieving some better explanatory specification? To answer this crucial point, I need to recall some of mine own views. To begin with it is my view that, on the whole, Lawson’s analysis constitutes a real advance in the representation of social reality, with respect to working forward (in his terms) reductionism of some more orthodox ontological naturalists who pretend to build social reductionism and the social sciences on what are considered to be the more solid theoretical approaches of natural sciences, for instance on the evolutionary theory of biology. Nevertheless, I also maintain that it is necessary, with reference to social reality, to go well beyond ontological naturalism. As I have said, social reality should warrant, for its substance, some crucial methodological qualifications that are not needed in the natural sciences. On the other hand, the dualist conception cannot be regarded as inappropriate in principle. In fact, it is already present in scientific thinking, as clearly shown by the wide difference between the method of abstract rationality typical of the logical and mathematical sciences on the one hand, and on the other the methodology of the natural sciences founded on the observation-verification principle. Lawson does not deny that. The large and growing presence of creativity and innovation that constitute core instances of the strong forms of irreducible emergence he emphasizes implies a marked methodological peculiarity of social sciences.
We have underlined in chapters 1 and 2 that, in the study and attempt to understand social reality as characterized by high and growing non-repetitiveness and the consequent failure of the observation-verification method of the natural sciences, the most important methodological features are represented by the distinction between the field of ‘choice-possibility-creativity’ and that of ‘necessity’ and by the adoption of an organizational view. Choice-possibility-creativeness is not a mere contingency; in fact, it is headed by the choice of civilization, which is characterized by long duration and penetration. Moreover, in chapter 2 we place ‘ontological imperatives’ side by side with ‘functional imperatives’ (that is, organizational forms imposed by the level of the general conditions of development). Functional imperatives represent organizational necessities that, in some respect, are much more pressing than ontological imperatives, being strongly propelled by stringent reasons of organizational efficiency. We show that such a push of functional imperatives is so strong that it may even imply the overthrow of civilizations that contrast with them, notwithstanding that such civilizations are deeply rooted in social context; while (on the contrary) such roots may obstruct the advent of ontological imperatives contrasting with civilizations and, in this way, strongly hinder development. Chapter 4 will fully clarify the important implications of all that for the interpretation of historic-social development.
These methodological categories, completely inappropriate to the logical and natural sciences, are indispensable, together with the associated developments, to the proper management of the various explanatory categories of social reality that Lawson considers. For instance, the notions of necessity and choice-possibility are essential for the understanding of the foundations of collective practices and if (and how) these must be changed in the course of the development process, both if they are part of the field of choice-possibility (even if well-rooted in the form of civilization) or express the field of necessity. The same distinction is essential for understanding: the character of acceptance and when this must be reversed and becomes disagreement; the substance of community, its evolution, the meaning and appropriateness of existing social rules and positions; as well as the distinction between domination power and the necessity of power, the understanding of social relations at large and the organization of groups.
This meditation on Lawson, a main critical realist scholar, brings to our consideration F. Lee’s proposal to combine Critical Realism (CR) and the Grounded Theory Method (GTM), a combination aimed at providing a unifying methodological approach for heterodox economists.
We have just considered some weaknesses of critical realism: its attention to the peculiar character of social reality is by no means negligible, but it disregards to delineate methodological procedures and rules and contains within it some unsatisfactory treatment of primary contents of social reality.
For its part, the Grounded Theory Method proposes an extensive use of statistical data as a base for theoretical suggestion and verification, together with the use of mathematics for modeling. But, as we know, a methodology that is merely observational is misleading in the social sciences. After all, a method so strictly rooted in reality, even in the particular contents of this, as GTM appears to be, is not used even in the natural sciences, for instance in physics and astronomy, notwithstanding the marked repetitiveness of the events they consider.
The crucial problem facing the social sciences is indeed the definition of a method (procedure and rules) able to meet the marked and increasing non-repetitiveness of social reality.
3.4 The theorists of social action: L. von Mises and T. Parsons.
In this section and those that follow we turn our attention to group (b) of the introduction. Our discussion will include the methodological considerations that underline the importance of innovation, choice and value judgments, processes of discovery, and our inability to foresee social events. Some reference to group (c) will also be considered.
An eminent position is occupied in group (b) by the neo-Austrian school, distinguished by its insistence on: creativity and non-repetitive evolutionary motion, our lack of knowledge and our uncertainty, learning processes, and the methodological implications of all these elements. In particular, Hayek has centered attention on the evolutionary motion caused by unintentional events, learning processes through trial and error, and has underlined the important institutional role that these phenomena imply for the decentralization of decision making.
Ludwig von Mises goes even further, accurately deepening the meaning and the role of the rationality principle with the intention of drawing a rigorous yet broad methodological picture: the science of human action. He expresses a very important and unquestionable assertion from a methodological point of view when he writes: «All that observations teach us is that the same situation has different effects on different men». He derives from this evidence the conclusion, on the surface undeniable but – as we know – utterly misleading, that the deduction of general principles needs an a priori science, not an empirical one, «as mathematics and logic, [this science] does not derive from experience but precedes it. It is, so to speak, the logic of action and act». «Its procedure is a formal and axiomatic one».[65] The a priori character of the principles articulated by such a science of action would protect them from the winds of change, from the unforeseeable variability of social reality. We have called this methodological criterion, which sharply separates the rationality principle from reality, the ‘principle of abstract rationality’. Let us illustrate some of the profound misunderstandings it may generate.
As is well known, some basic categories of Misesian speculation – such as economization, preference, means-ends relations – make it quite suitable to explain economic action. In fact, it has received extensive and rigorous applications by economists, mainly mainstream theories of the firm and of consumer choice, and also models of general equilibrium. It is significant that all these developments, which are strictly based on the principle of abstract rationality, have limited themselves to the analysis of a stationary repetitive motion that strongly contrasts with reality. So we can see here how the application of the principle of abstract rationality by the theory of action, which von Mises privileges, has implied the elimination of the same non-repetitive motion, notwithstanding that this is both a cornerstone and the most interesting aspect of Misesian thinking on method. This seems sufficient to support our hesitations concerning this principle. Every theoretical approach abstract by definition from some aspect of reality, but it is impossible to profitably investigate reality ignoring its basic elements.
Fortunately, the neo-Austrian interpretation of economic processes refuses the application of the abstract rationality principle. As a matter of fact, it insists on some crucial aspects of modern dynamic economies that mainstream economics forgets: the entrepreneurial role, dynamic competition, creativity and discovery, and so on. Kirzner's work provides, as far as I know, the most coherent and interesting development of these elements. But this happens independently of a precise methodological construct. In fact, this refutation of the Misesian way of deriving general principles in social science (i.e. by way of the abstract rationality principle) that neo-Austrian economics surprisingly practises, has not been accompanied, until now, by the building of a different and more reliable methodology.
Some notable improvement with respect to von Mises' development has been carried out by another famous theorist of social action, Talcott Parsons, mainly through the notion of ‘functional imperative’. We have already considered Parsons in chapter 2, when setting out our solution to the problem of the derivation of general principles in social science. Due to the central position occupied by ethical values in every society and their central place in the explanation of social order, the great significance that Parsons attributes to ethical-ideological aspects is of great methodological importance.
To clarify this point it is worthwhile underlining that the phenomena of ethical values and non-repetitive motion, and the consequent individuality of social events, exacerbate the issues of the incommensurability of theories and the non-cumulative character of scientific knowledge (see section 5 on G. Myrdal) – issues that have fuelled some radical criticisms (see section 7 on Feyerabend) directed at both method and the legitimacy of science, and have denied the possibility of confrontation among scholars. As already stated, von Mises, who insists on value choices and premises with the aim of underlining the relevance of non-repetitive motion, escapes such implications in terms of incommensurability, non-cumulative nature of scientific knowledge and the impossibility of formulating general principles, through the abstract rationality principle. By contrast, the Parsonsian treatment of values that emphasizes those factors causing the permanence of phenomena while undervaluing social change implies an attenuation of the incommensurability problem. This allows Parsons to adopt a criterion of rationality less abstract than von Mises, which he calls ‘analytic realism’ and which opposes to the Weber’s ‘useful fictions’.[66] Chapter 2 has clarified the limitations of Parsons’ treatment of values and his specification of the notion of functional imperative. If Parsons had given more importance to the phenomenon of evolutionary change, he would have been obliged to consider explicitly how to derive general principles in the face of such change, as did von Mises. This would have helped him avoid the great theoretical ambiguity that afflicts his conception of the functional imperative, as we saw in chapter 2.
Some scholars regard the constrained maximization approach as the most rigorous formalization of the theory of action. We have extensively considered and criticized this approach in chapter 2, in the section dedicated to economic and social planning.
A (for the time being) brief reference to the thought of Max Weber will allow a deepening of some of the above discussion. Weber dedicated great attention to the question of the objectivity and scientific content of social knowledge, in the light of value premises. But, as a descendant of German historicism, he remained substantially convinced of incommensurability. Thus, Weber consistently maintained that social inquiry is always conditioned by some value premises and judgments. This statement may be accepted in the restrictive sense that value premises influence and limit the choice of the field of investigation. But Weber goes beyond this restrictive meaning; his ‘ideal type’ is a useful fiction based on the point of view of scientist.[67] As we saw in chapter 2, this emphasis on incommensurability ascribed to social theories by the ethical-ideological premises is exaggerated and forgets the importance of defining rules useful for the choice of initial hypotheses. More precisely, it implies an exaggerated weakening of the principle of rationality, thus emphasizing the optional-conflictual aspect. Weber makes the opposite mistake with respect both to the positivist assumption that reality means necessity, thereby erasing choice, and the abstract rationality principle that characterizes the Misesian teaching.
3.5 G. Myrdal’s thought on method
Gunnar Myrdal’s primary contribution to the methodology of social sciences is to have set out one of the most vigorous assertions of the relativism of values. His last and clearest exposition was formulated in an essential and incisive booklet that states its objective as follows: «The fundamental methodological problems that social scientist must face are… the following. First of all what is objectivity? How can the scholar achieve objectivity in his effort to find facts and establish causal relations among these facts? How may he avoid a preconceived vision?»[68] Myrdal goes on to articulate an uncompromising subjectivism with regard to values. In a footnote to the third chapter he writes: «To underline the subjectivity of valuing process, I deliberately use the term ‘valuations’, renouncing the word ‘values’, so popular in the social sciences – except in the combination ‘value premises’ – when some valuations have been defined and are explicitly used in research… The use of the word ‘values’, mainly within sociological and anthropological literature, implies in addition an occult value premise: a ‘value’ is eo ipso capable of being valued in an objective sense: what implies a prejudice…»
Cultural relativism constitutes a strong reaction to what can be denominated an ‘absolutist relativism’ that identifies values as precepts of faith, i.e. as relative to some religion. Myrdal insists that a «disinterested social science has never existed and cannot exist», and that, «by logical necessity, valuations permeate research, from the beginning to the end» (pp. 44 and 46). This strong relativist denial of the existence of objective values is an exaggeration.
We have seen that the emergence of human potentialities requires the operation of some ‘ontological imperatives’, represented mainly by ethical values, and that these values have, therefore, an objective substance. After all, natural sciences identify phenomena as ‘objective’ expressions of the potentialities of nature. The same should be accepted for social sciences. There is no justification for a statement to the contrary, viz. that human potentialities and related phenomena may be obstructed and suffocated by a subjective choice of values. Myrdal says that «rationality is one of the value premises» (p. 51). It represents, indeed, an ontological imperative (one of the most relevant for the expression of human potentialities) and, under this respect, constitutes an objective value (or valuation), not a subjective one.
With regard to the selection of value premises, Myrdal’s refers, appropriately, «to their relevance [as] determined by the valuations truly shared by people or social groups» (p. 53). This aspect is well expressed, indeed, by the choices of civilization. Myrdal’s proviso on the relevance of value premises reflects his unexpressed need for some degree of objectivity. But it is not enough. A leaning toward a kind of half-way-house of objectivity is also glimpsed when Myrdal emphasizes the need for «modernization to avoid a catastrophic development» since «the possibility either to return to a traditional society or to leave society in the present condition of backwardness does not exist» (p. 56). These provisos (in which the intent is to escape, in some way, the substance of value subjectivism) are plainly surmounted by our notion of ‘ontological imperative’, implying the objectivity of the ethical values that are indispensable to the expression of human potentialities.
Myrdal’s distinction between high and low level valuations constitutes another attempt to attenuate the embarrassing implications of his postulated “relativism of valuations”. The underlying ambiguity of his subjectivism regarding values becomes more evident and leads him to a real contradiction when he considers the “supreme value premises”: respect for life, pacifism and the equalitarian principle. Pacifism is an ontological imperative parallel to that of tolerance, discussed in chapter 2: men are different each other and the advancement of society needs a variety of skills, and therefore requires that the dialectical contrasts, tolerance and pacific cohabitation are outflanked; in particular, it is necessary to avoid wars that modern technology would make extremely devastating. So pacifism has become a functional imperative, thereby strengthening the objectivity of this value.
Respect for life is a principle containing a non-minor objective substance: each man must be helped to live and express his potentialities. In fact, great potentialities may be hidden in the most unhappy, ill and poor of men. This shows the great objective substance of the principle that men are all God’s children and hence brothers. Similar reasons provide an objective character to the principle of equality and the universal right to dignity and to distributive justice (with the exception of the need for material incentives and excluding material equality, this latter contradicting the fact that men are endowed with greatly differing skills; all of which will be discussed fully in the section on equalities and inequalities in chapter 7).
Finally, let us remember what may be called a law of moral and material progress: the transformation, in the course of the development process, of objective ethical values constituting ontological imperatives, which do not necessarily characterize social systems, into functional imperatives that is something that society is obliged to accept for pressing reasons of functional efficiency (such as, e.g., the tolerance principle, important to allow the operation of individual skills and of which the dynamics of societies cannot do without).
3.6 Institutional and evolutionary analyses
This brief review cannot omit some consideration of the various institutional analyses, these being of central importance for understanding social change. In this regard, it may be useful to remind that, while it is meaningless to investigate why laws of nature exist as these are not a result of human activity, it is, by contrast, extremely useful, from a scientific point of view, to investigate the reason why humanity has constructed existing social institutions, as such a question helps to understand the way social reality develops and changes.
Institutional analyses have yielded some important elaborations. Those aimed at explaining institutions on the basis of their contribution to organizational efficiency of social systems deserve particular attention. Williamson's explanation of the firm based on the argument that it allows the minimization of transaction costs is one example of these elaborations, the questionable role he attributes to methodological individualism notwithstanding. Douglass North goes much further, placing the concept of transaction costs at the basis of a theory of institutional change and historical process. Another main application of institutional analysis concerns the justification of rights. None of these theoretical insights are immune from inconsistencies, and some are exercises in apologetics. It seems to us that these drawbacks are largely due to the absence of a rigorous method that would serve to identify institutions expressing necessary conditions for efficiency. A large part of chapter 2 has been dedicated to the elaboration of such a method. Chapter 4 will show that the interaction between civilizations and functional imperatives, as well as the interaction between the dash to innovation and structural organization play a crucial role in the explanation of institutional evolution.
The most ambitious studies of institutions are joined with evolutionary thought. G. M. Hodgson pursues the combination of institutionalism and the evolutionary approach with great vigor. He underlines the importance for social development of novelty and variety, which provide the material of evolution and imply free choice, indeterminateness, and hence the open-endedness of social processes. Hodgson also flanks to these aspects the role that institutions play in limiting indeterminacy through their relative stability, thus allowing causal analysis. He upholds the need to replace institutionalist reductionism to individualistic reductionism, and emphasizes the usefulness of a biological metaphor for the interpretation of social events. But this last characteristic must be considered with caution; the methodologies developed by other sciences have often played a misleading role in economics and social research. The method of analysis of society should take inspiration from social reality. Unfortunately, there exist misunderstandings on this point even in the most recent development on the method of social sciences. For instance, J. B. Davis, in hoping (rightly in my view) “a future orthodoxy emergent from current heterodoxy”, remarks that “all the new programmes on the research frontier have their origins in other science”[69].
The wedding of institutionalism and evolutionism is not a happy one, also for the reasons referred in section 7 of chapter 2. Let us see more extensively. The evolutionary approach focuses on some elements of primary interest, such as the distinction between the factors of permanence (genotype) and of change (phenotype) and irreversibilities. It also underlines the fact that social evolution is much more rapid than biological evolution, and that the former, promoted as it is by endogenous factors, is closer to the Lamarck than the Darwin’s mechanism. But it is no accident that the Lamarck’s theory of evolution has never enjoyed a success in social thought comparable with that of Darwinism in natural science. The reason is that Lamarck’s thesis that mutations are not casual, which social evolutionists are glad to adopt because unlike Darwinism it can represent the human activity of innovation, implies rejection of the weak observation method (appropriate to explain the low evolution of animal species). But this rejection gives rise to methodological problems extending well beyond the evolutionary approach.
In a conceptual analysis of the differences of the evolutionary processes in biology, physics and economics, M. Faber and J. L. R. Proops give an incisive description of the substantial differences distinguishing, in the three cases, the behavior of the so called genotype and phenotype that, with reference to economics, respectively correspond to invention-innovation and market adjustment. They indicate three reasons for why economics is conceptually more difficult than biology:
1. In economics, addition to the genotype (invention) can be preserved even when they are not being realized in the phenotype.
2. In economics, genotypic evolution often takes place at a similar rate to, and sometimes even at a faster rate than, phenotypic evolution.
3. In economics, the phenotype can affect the genotype (e.g. through R&S).[70]
The capacity of the evolutionary approach to deepen the great diversity distinguishing the factors of permanence and change in the social and natural world is limited by the imprint of biology. Even the most rigorous branch of evolutionary studies, centered on the properties of non-linear systems, is far from satisfactorily illuminating this aspect. As is well known, this kind of investigation originated in thermodynamics and opposes the Newtonian mechanism, with its postulate of an eternal invariable order, some more realistic formal equation system emphasizing the historical content of processes. This allows the exploration of how disorder (absence of equilibrium, chaos) springs from order. But this is not enough. Let us see better this point.
Clearly, non-linear dynamics implies that the large presence in social reality of irreversiblities, hysteresis and, more generally, the marked historicity of social processes should cause a great disorder. However, this in general does not happen, probably as a consequence of some stabilizing changes of parameters, social structures and institutions. But non-linear dynamics, mainly based as it is on the hypothesis that structural parameters are known (often as a result of econometric estimation) or exogenously given, excludes creativity, likewise the scholars of sub-group (a’’). Such dynamics shows the way order generates disorder, but its advance is problematic in the explanation of how to return from disorder to order or, more precisely, in its analysis of the basic mechanism of innovation-adaptation that will be illuminated in the next chapter. In sum, evolutionary thinking seems to be quite deceitful when applied to the analysis of social reality and institutions.
We conclude this criticism of evolutionary social thought and institutionalism by quoting some expressions in Ekstedt and Fusari 2010: «Variety generation and environmental selection, whichever are the supposed relations between these two poles of the evolutionary process (independence, backward or forward dependence), do not provide a useful scientific tool if change is fast. It may be greatly deceitful for social research to be inspired by biology….. …Evolutionary realism is inspired by a strong observationist standard. It tries to explain what happened without asking what could have happened rationally speaking but simply accepting it. In other words, evolutionary social thought is centred on being, while neglects doing. But it must be recognized that the inclination of the evolutionary analysis of institutions is to escape this ‘acceptance’ standard, in accordance with the constructivist nature of institutions. Unfortunately, this inclination is strongly repressed by the observationist view, that prevents a proper institutional analysis»[71].
3.7 The limitations and difficulties of heterodox social thought in the light of Feyerabend’s methodological anarchism
Two major characteristics of social thought are its fragmentary character and the intense flourishing of new theories, largely due to the investigations of heterodox theorists. Paul Feyerabend’s criticism on method may provide useful starting points for reflection on this fragmentariness and on the contribution to knowledge of heterodox students of society. We shall see that his criticism illuminates, among other factors, the way in which the methodological difficulties afflicting social theories are just the opposite of those troubling the natural sciences.
Feyerabend emphasizes the crucial importance for scientific progress of both the plurality of theoretical approaches and methodological pluralism and tolerance. A similar thesis was developed by J. S. Mill in his essay entitled ‘On Liberty’. But it must be recognized that Feyerabend’s insistence on counter-induction, the utility of ad hoc hypotheses (as a necessary defense of new formulations awaiting confirmation) and several other elements of his discussions of method amount to a brilliant exposition of various methodological implications of Millian thought that he sincerely admires. The statement that «learning does not go from observation to theory but always involves both elements»[72] appears sober and well balanced on; as do his claims that «facts and theories are much more intimately connected than is admitted by the autonomy principle [of facts with respect to theory]» (p. 39), and that «variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge» (p.46). In point of fact, the advent of new theoretical hypotheses is often indispensable for the discovery of new facts; this implies that the usual relation of events to theory must be countered by a relation of theory to events and implies, as a consequence, the profitableness of a variety of opinions for discovering numerous facts that otherwise would remain unknown; just as emphasized by J. S. Mill.
It is undeniable that too many rigid and detailed methodological rules repress the imagination and inventive skills. Natural science, characterized as it is by a well-established methodological tradition, is at times a victim of this “sterility disease”, against which Feyerabend’s methodological anarchism represents a healthy and stimulating inoculation. Almost the opposite disease afflicts social thought, as my previous critical review has shown: a large variety of incompatible methodological approaches.
Some reference to Feyerabend’s position on “incommensurability” may be illuminating. The first two theses of this author on the subject appear to be quite reasonable, while the third seems extremely hurtful to knowledge. Feyerabend’s third thesis is that «the views of scientists and especially their views on basic matters are often as different from each other as are the ideologies that underlie different cultures» (p. 274). The acceptance of such plurality of incompatible views simply denies science. Feyerabend often refers to the “progress of knowledge”. But this expression is senseless in the light of this third thesis. Scientific advancement requires the possibility of establishing whether or not a theory implies some improvement in knowledge. This kind of commensurability is necessary, even in the presence of a «change of comprehensive cosmologic points of view» (p. 284). At first glance, Feyerabend’s attitude toward commensurability appears to be equivocal; but a deeper inspection shows this to be mistaken. Let us investigate.
The way to make possible the kind of commensurability put in question by Feyerabend’s third thesis is to refer to a solid and reliable factual base. But Feyerabend is highly critical of the supposed role of facts in science and their confrontation with theory. Such criticism feeds his hyper-subjectivism, which denies scientific objectivity. While is undoubtedly true that «all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits» (p.32), it is nevertheless exaggerated and false to assert that «we need a dream-world in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit» (p. 32). Each theory proposes, in some sense, an imaginary world; but it must for all that be a world based on something real, based, that is, on factual elements; otherwise every delirium and hallucination might be proposed for scientific status and legitimization. The fruitfulness of theoretical propositions largely depends on the factual elements considered. The human mind and, more specifically, scientific method may express an astonishing explanatory power, even through very high abstraction, but only with reference to reality.
Feyerabend’s criticism of method alternates between sensible and extravagant assessments. «Without a frequent dismissal of reason, (he writes), there is no progress… We have to conclude then, that even within science reason cannot and should not be allowed to be comprehensive and that it must often be overruled, or eliminated, in favour of other agencies» (p. 179). «Praise of argument takes it for granted that the artifices of Reason give better results than the unchecked play of our emotions» (pp. 295-296), he continues. One might immediately counter that reason is the proprium of science in the same way that sentiment and emotion are the proprium of art. Of course, all methods have limitations, as do as all other human acquisitions; but Feyerabend’s ‘capital’ methodological rule that “each method may be good” is an evident absurdity. The statement: «the separation of science and non-science is not only artificial but also detrimental to the advancement of knowledge» (306) is paralysing from a scientific point of view. Myths and legends, which are invoked by Feyerabend, deserve the utmost respect; but science is a completely different thing.
While such Feyerabend’s exaggerations may be useful with reference to the natural sciences, which, as we have seen, are imprisoned by some tight procedural rules, they are likely to be extremely dangerous in social thought. In contrast to the natural sciences, social thought lacks any serious methodological approach and, therefore, is prey to a host of irremediable disputes and contradictions. The heterodox thought that flourishes within social science will be condemned to a sterile existence in the absence of some general methodological guiding principle (of course, liable to improvement over time) that saves creativity and pluralism and, at the same time, allows interactions and synergies among different areas and lines of research, avoiding the increasing and irremediable separation, incommunicability, reciprocal refusal and confusion afflicting social theories.
The astonishing contribution of the natural sciences to knowledge is mainly due to their methodological ability to profit from observations, the shortcomings of the observational method notwithstanding. Social inquiry has need of a method that enables the investigation of the factual base of society in spite of its floating character – a character that arises from the fact that society is the outcome of human action.
The methodological lacuna of social thought is particularly evident in economics, which stagnates dramatically, its impressing apparatus of mathematical and statistical procedures notwithstanding. A primary goal of the present book is to provide some contribution that rescues social thought from this devastating drawback.
3.8 Mainstream economics and its opponents: a great methodological confusion
1. We now come to the discussion of some contemporary economic theories that are currently considered important examples of scientific procedure. We refer to so-called mainstream economics and also to some important theories that have strongly opposed it. Curiously, both the dominant economic teaching and its opponents will be seen to suffer from the same, crucial methodological shortcoming: a disregard for basic aspects of economic reality and, hence, a fall into an ‘abstract rationalism’ that often renders misleading the works and teaching of economists. This observation, if correct, will provide confirmation that the methodology of the social sciences is hampered by some general and deeply-rooted equivocations.
It will be useful to begin with the famous controversy between the two Cambridges: Cambridge U.K. and Cambridge, Massachusetts (U.S.A.); a controversy that for some while animated economic debate but which has now been confined to the history of economic thought. From here we will be led to aspects of other important theories: that of Keynes and the post-Keynesians, Schumpeter, the neo-Austrians and also the fragmented positions that make up modern heterodox economics. Notwithstanding the vigorous attack directed from Cambridge U.K., the neoclassical school associated with Cambridge, Massachusetts remains the dominant orthodoxy of the present. We must ask the reason for this continual dominance of the neoclassical tradition, and this essay will attempt to clarify the primary reasons for the substantial failure of the attack upon this mainstream, except the criticism to the aggregate function of production and the aggregate notion (and hence measurement) of capital. In addition, this essay will specify some – possibly crucial – points that were omitted from the controversy.
An efficient way of performing the required analysis will be to focus primarily upon Luigi Pasinetti’s attempt to complete the post-Keynesian revolution and remedy the theoretical fragmentation that has by-now arisen from the multiplicity of those post-Keynesian contributions that have recently become a part of so-called heterodox economics.[73]
Pasinetti’s analysis establishes two important methodological principles: the realism of postulates and the so called ‘separation’ theorem. These two principles are strictly linked to each other in that, while the first generates a substantial methodological impasse, the second provides a means of overcoming that impasse. More precisely, the first principle (realism of postulates) prohibits the ‘abstract rationality’ implied by the method of the logical-formal sciences and, at the same time, collides with the use in social science of the method based on observation because this method is contradicted by the non-repetitiveness of the large part of social phenomena. So, the statement concerning the realism of postulates is inconsistent with the operation in social studies of current methods (abstract rationality and observation-verification).
The idea of ‘separation’ between, so to speak, fundamental and non-fundamental variables, provides the means of overcoming such a methodological dead-end. Something analogous may be seen in P. Garegnani opposition of the ‘core system’ (the Sraffian system of prices) to ‘outside variables’, the variables concerning surpuls. Both Pasinetti and me share the analytical importance and necessity of ‘separation’, even if we have different opinions on how and where to lay down the demarcation line between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’. I’ll show soon that to profit from the idea of separation a deep revision of the social sciences is needed. Pasinetti does not seem to perceive this exigency. He uses the ‘separation’ principle in the context of the ‘natural’ system of classical economists. But unfortunately, and as we shall see, such a system omits crucial aspects of modern dynamic economies, thereby ignoring the principle concerning the realism of postulates. In sum, the separation that the natural system implies has no real methodological relevance (i.e. one aimed at avoiding the methodological dead-end previously discussed). The use of ‘separation’ with regard to the natural system acts merely as a simplification.[74]
However, it seems to us that the failure of the attack of heterodox economics and, more particularly, of Cambridge U.K. against mainstream economics, must be attributed mainly to the omission of a basic problem of social sciences, viz. the difficulties inflicted upon the method of social thought by the non-repetitiveness of observed events. In fact, further developing such methodological difficulty and consideration seems to be the only way to show the weakness of mainstream micro-economics.
Pasinetti builds up a theoretical approach aimed at challenging the orthodoxy dominating economics. Following the tradition of classical thought, he opposes the production paradigm to the exchange paradigm, the latter of which he takes as the basic feature of neoclassical thinking and which he criticizes for its multitude of unrealistic assumptions and implications. Coherently with such reproach, he underlines that a main task of economic theory is to found itself on initially realistic hypotheses. More precisely, Pasinetti opposes the neoclassical scheme with one that combines Sraffa’s equations of prices (and production) and the Keynesian principle of effective demand. Something similar was performed by using the Leontief’s dynamic model to determine sectoral quantities and prices in the preparation, at the end of sixties, of the reference framework of the second Italian Economc and Social Plan (see our criticism to national planning in the final section of chapter 2),
In developing his opposition to neoclassical thinking, Pasinetti points out the basic relations that are treated as ‘natural’ by classical economists (the natural system), distinguishing them from the contingent ones (for instance, natural from market prices). Pasinetti’s modeling intends, in this way, to make evident the objective and fundamental variables of an industrial economy that logically precede every institutional asset. This ‘natural system’ is taken as expressing optimal positions, both in terms of efficiency and social equity.
According to Pasinetti, the exponents of the school of Cambridge (U.K.) have failed to separate the fundamental relations from the institutional side of economic life, and this is a main cause of their failure to formulate a comprehensive and unified theoretical system able to prevail against the neoclassical mainstream. Pasinetti’s formalization incorporates, in the system of equations, both exogenous technical progress and the long run dynamics of consumptions, thereby deriving prices, production and employment. The institutional side, as well as the policy decisions of political economy, should be derived in compliance with this ‘natural system’. A comparison between effective results and ‘natural’ configurations would provide a criterion by which to judge the actually existing institutional mechanisms of a society.
Unfortunately, this approach forgets Pasinetti’s emphasis upon the need for realistic postulates and thereby falls into the trap of what we have denominated ‘abstract rationality’. Excessively pure theories can determine serious equivocations on human societies and their administration, even more if they are also specified as pre-institutional. A comparison between the Walrasian model of general equilibrium and Pasinetti’s ‘natural system’ will help to clarify the point.
Contrary to the statement of Pasinetti (and his objection to Langlois),[75] Leon Walras’ general equilibrium model does not necessarily need free market (and capitalist) institutions. This is clearly proved by two well known applications of his model: that of Enrico Barone in his essay ‘The ministry of production in the collectivist state’; the other by Lange-Lerner-Taylor in the course of a debate on market socialism in the 1930s. Barone demonstrated that the problem of prices and optimal allocation of resources is identical in both socialist and capitalist economies, and can be solved by a ministry of production operating through trial and error. For their part, Lange-Lerner-Taylor showed that the simple decisional rule marginal cost = price allows the entrepreneur’s role to be eliminated. Both approaches postulate a stationary-repetitive economy, with something similar to the market but in which the entrepreneur does not exist by definition.[76]
As with Walrasian economic theory, so Pasinetti’s pure and pre-institutional economics is intended to be applicable to both capitalism and socialism. In fact, Pasinetti suggests that the reader who entertains some doubt about the very idea of a ‘natural system’ should «think first in terms of a centrally planned economy… and then to extend the results to the case of a market economy».[77] Indeed, the term ‘natural system’ has immediate reference to a centralized economy: the profit, exogenous innovation and accumulation abstracted from the innovative entrepreneur in Pasinetti’s natural model make sense with reference to central planning and, more generally, to the extended reproduction of a stationary economy in which there is no place for the entrepreneur and profit properly understood. Put another way, this ‘natural system’ can explain growth not development.
One point to take from all this is that serious shortcomings may affect excessively pure theories. If a pure model can be reconciled with institutional and organizational forms inconsistent with the modern world (as socialist centralization certainly is) then, clearly, it lacks something indispensable that would exclude those absurdities from its application. To avoid those implications, which obscure and damage the usefulness of the idea of ‘separation’, we must integrate into the marriage of Keynes and the neo-Ricardians some further indispensable additions or, more precisely, some basic aspects ignored by both Walras’ and natural systems.
In order to better explore this subject a brief consideration of the ‘less pure’ content of Pasinetti’s proposal may be useful, specifically: the Keynesian demand led approach and the classical notion of natural prices.
Both Keynesian and post-Keynesian theories attribute a ‘residual character to real wages’, that is: the labor market determines money wages while the price level (and price variations) determine real wages. With a literary parallel, we may say that this postulate of Keynesian and post-Keynesian economics, as well as the post-Keynesian idea of endogenous money supply, specify a kind of don Circostanza economy. This was (as previously seen) an intriguer and opportunist lawyer that, in defense of Fontamara peasants[78] against mayor’s pretence to deprive them of the water of the brook, proposed to attribute ¾ of the water to each one of the two conflicting parts. With this trick, he succeeded in placating people’s protest that intended to preserve at least more than one half of the available water. The bargaining for money wages reproduces don Circostanza’s expedient attributing to antagonist parts more than the available water. In the presence of money illusion, a modest inflation is enough to make don Circostanza successful. What about if the deceit of money wages starts to be detected so that the object of the bargain becomes real wages? In such a condition, it becomes indispensable to re-establish the exogenous character of money supply, and hence to refuse don Circostanza’s trick.
As we said in chapter 1, the idea that demand is the cause of production subtends (i.e. requires) the hypothesis of a ‘residual character to real wages’ (trade unions bargaining concerns only nominal wages while real wages results from price variations) that avoids persistent pressures deriving from the side of distribution; moreover, such an idea of demand led production does not apply in the presence of diffused territorial and social dualisms obstructing the demand impulse to production.
In sum, the hypothesis of a demand led system (shared by Keynesians, Post-Keynesians, and Leontievians) suffers from a remarkable lack of generality. Furthermore, also Sraffa’s system of prices, which supposes an exogenous profit rate or exogenous money wage rate, implies the residual character of real wages as these depend on the solution of price system. As we shall see (mainly in section 5 of the next chapter), the elimination of this lack and particular postulate while preserving the Keynesian leading role of demand that Pasinetti shares, should not be seen as a misleading approach. Indeed, it would achieve a general validation if a transformation of the market into a pure mechanism for the imputation of costs and efficiency is operated, thus making income distribution exogenous with the exception of the incentives required by alienating jobs: a transformation that, as we know, represents an important functional imperative of modern economies.
Some objection must also be made against the classical notion of ‘natural prices’. The reproducibility of goods is essential to such notion, but is made largely evanescent by innovation. In fact, goods resulting from innovation become reproducible, not immediately after their appearance, but only after the diffusion of the innovation; before that, the new goods can only be reproduced by the respective innovator. In the meantime, some other innovation can be introduced that may substitute for the previous innovation. So, what about the hypothesis of reproducibility? The classical price of production, based on the hypothesis of reproducibility, does not indeed contain much sense in the presence of considerable flows of innovation. The ‘natural’ system of prices (and production) is plainly applicable only in the absence of innovation, just as is the case with the neoclassical mainstream economics. More precisely, both post-Keynesian and neoclassical models are consistent only with the introduction of exogenous technical progress and/or a merely something accumulation process. The two models ignore or treat expeditiously some crucial and distinguishing features of modern dynamic economies, in primis endogenous innovation and radical (i.e. non probabilistic) uncertainty. As a consequence, they also ignore the real substance of both the entrepreneurial role and the profit rate. Pasinetti maintains that only the financing of accumulation justifies profits. But as a matter of fact, accumulation could be fueled by the banking system on some such basis as the degree of an entrepreneur’s success as expressed by the actual (and/or expected) profit rate intended, not as a mere surplus (or interest rate), but precisely as an accountability variable (see Ekstedt and Fusari 2010, chapter 8).
2. It may be instructive to delineate an extension of the ‘natural system’ by attempting to incorporate some basic realistic premises that are also ignored by Walras’ general equilibrium model. Schumpeter’s idea of competition based on the introduction of innovations (creative destruction), will provide us with a helpful start. Such Schumpeterian competition implies the existence of temporary monopolies and corresponding profits, due to the possible success of innovation. Moreover, and although this implication was neglected by Schumpeter (as it had been before also by the classical economists), this notion of competition underlines the importance of radical (i.e. non probabilistic) uncertainty, a variable which is both the product of, and inseparable from innovation. Radical uncertainty, together with the connected idea of expectations, plays a crucial role in Keynes’ macro explanation of the deficiency of effective demand. What about its implications at the micro level? These have been emphasized by members of the neo-Austrian school, primarily Hayek and Kirzner; but in a way that violates scientific objectivity, as we shall see.
There can be no doubt as to the theoretical value of combining the Schumpeterian idea of innovative entrepreneurship and the neo-Austrian idea of what may be called adaptive entrepreneurship aimed at taking advantage of profit opportunities offered by market disequilibria (neo-Austrian adaptive competition). Such an analytical combination, which will be formally set out in section 6 of the following chapter, provides a representation of economic processes and dynamic competition centered on the interaction between innovative entrepreneurship, which causes disequilibria and uncertainty, and adaptive entrepreneurship that, in the effort to take profit from disequilibria, implicitly tends to eliminate such disequilibria and reduce uncertainty, thus preparing the conditions for a new innovative wave.
Such theoretical context illustrates the importance of rethinking the phenomenon of radical uncertainty in a way that avoids framing it simply as a fog (as economists do) but instead makes evident the possibility of measuring it;[79] a measurement that would be important to may understand and govern the process of innovation-adaptation described above.
We can see, therefore and once again, that the entrepreneur, uncertainty and profit must take on a central and essential role in a dynamic representation of economic processes and competition (where dynamics means more than simply the introduction of time).[80] In particular, the analytical value of the accountability role of the profit rate becomes clear, that is, the rate of profit intended as a measure of the degree of success of entrepreneurial decision making. It is easy to show that such a role cannot be replaced by other quantitative indicators. Various economic theories maintain that the entrepreneur is interested in total profit, not in the profit rate. But total profit is not a ratio of return; therefore, it does not represent an indicator of entrepreneurial success. The search for total profit demands that investments be ranked on the basis of their earning rate, if the global activity of the firm is constrained (as it always is) by the availability of some factor of production[81].
Our extension is indispensable if we are to derive any real profit from Pasinetti’s ‘separation’ idea and, in particular, to supply clarifications regarding the institutional side. The entrepreneur and profit, being necessary and irrefutable elements of the economy, must pertain to the left or ‘natural’ side of the separation. But it is not necessary that they take a capitalist form; they can also be related to public firms operating in the market and directed by managers endowed with entrepreneurial responsibilities. This means that the choice between public and private entrepreneurship pertains to the right-hand or institutional side of the separation.
The questions considered in this section also clarify some serious and frequent equivocations that mar the teaching of those economists who have focused on deepening our understanding of the extensions discussed above. For example (and as we saw in chapter 1): Schumpeter’s forecast of a convergence upon socialism by way of the great managerial firm, an idea resumed by J. K. Galbraith; the appeal of this forecast was premised upon an ignoring of the phenomenon of radical uncertainty that allowed Schumpeter and Galbraith to negate the entrepreneurial function (“innovation is reducing to a routine”[82]). For their part, neo-Austrians based the legitimization of capitalism on the necessary role of the entrepreneur in the presence of radical uncertainty, but ignoring the possibility that the entrepreneur partake of a non-capitalist substance.
Why are so many misleading abstractions, typical of mainstream economics, reproduced by other prestigious schools of economic thought? Such an outcome can only be due to a fundamental methodological problem besetting social thought. This seems the only reliable explanation of the fact that social thought has for so long, in the form of its various components and paradigms, persistently preserved, produced and reproduced so many limitations; in particular, of the fact that mainstream economics has preserved its dominance despite the harsh and well founded criticism directed at it. Such a state of affairs makes clear that a deep methodological revision and rebuilding is urgently required within social thought.
3. Now we shall try to provide a better expression of Pasinetti’s idea of ‘separation’. The building of any social system always involves institutions; therefore, speaking of a pre-institutional nucleus can be inappropriate. Classical economists asserted the ‘natural’ character of the market (intending the capitalist market). But history teaches us that in the past that market has often been but a very minor institution, and that it was harshly opposed in the most advanced societies of the ancient world, represented by the great bureaucratic-centralized empires. Today, in our modern dynamic societies, in which competition based on the introduction of innovations prevails, along with the associated forms of radical uncertainty, the market has become an ‘organizational necessity’. An important merit of Pasinetti’s idea of ‘separation’ is to provide a precious analytical tool for distinguishing necessity from choice-possibility/ in the organization and management of social systems.
The existence, in the present historical epoch, of economies that have moved beyond the quasi-stationary state necessitates and/or implies: the market, the entrepreneur, profit, innovation and radical uncertainty. Such phenomena first became ‘necessities’ of social life in medieval Italian and Flemish communes. These phenomena imply a number of ethical values that henceforth assume an objective as opposed to a relative character.[83] As we know, in the modern world the negation of these values and the institutions that stand behind them leads to social disaster.
Substituting the term ‘fundamental’ for ‘natural’ in Pasinetti’s system improves clearness very little. This is because the ‘necessities’ (or ‘fundamental elements’) considered above are, for the most part, institutional elements and hence concern that side of Pasinetti’s division opposed to the ‘natural-fundamental’. Fundamental and institutional aspects are tightly mixed. Therefore, the ‘separation’ needed is different from that which Pasinetti proposes; it requires some accurate analyses and can be expressed through the terms ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility-creativity’. The previous chapters have tried to show that such a distinction plays a central role in the specification of a method appropriate to the study of social reality. I have just recounted some examples of ‘necessity’; here, then, are some elements relating to choice-possibility.
Almost the whole income distribution pertains to choice-possibility. J. S. Mill asserted the independence between production and distribution and underlined that the first is submitted to natural laws and technical requirements while the second is a matter of choice, an assertion expressing a substantial opening to socialism of liberal thought. But he did not prove such an assertion. This Mill’s failure in proving his assertion has allowed the pretention of Neoclassical thinking to show the dependence of distribution from production that has given rise to diffuse and deleterious misunderstandings and prejudices on the organization of economic systems. Today such a persistent failure is allowing the cancellation of important Keynesian reformations, in particular welfare state, while post-Keynesian literature vainly attempts to defend them by appealing to the principle of effective demand, which is not the basic cause of the present crises. J. S. Mill expressed some other fundamental intuitions with regard to the organization of social systems. In fact, he insisted on the importance of tolerance, pluralism the role of the individual and the valorization of individuals’ skills (in this context, he strongly opposed the discriminations against women); but also in this case he did not scientifically prove the importance (necessity) of these ontological imperatives (as I denominate them). The combination between the ontological imperatives above and the market operating as a pure mechanism of imputation of costs and efficiency (that separates almost the whole income distribution from production), allows the best expression of the dynamic-evolutionary potentialities of man and human societies (and hence the maximum potential of development), and the maximum possible level of social justice. It should be evident the, so to speak, liberal-socialist foundations of such a combination, as well as their roots on the Christian insistence on fraternity and solidarity among men, the dignity and sacredness of individual. Our development pretends to give a scientific formulation of the necessity of those foundations and roots in the organization of economic and social systems.
As is well known, mainstream economics maintains that the interest rate is indispensable to the equilibrium between supply and demand of capital, between saving and investment. But it is not. Indeed, saving depends on the amount of income gained and therefore on the level of production; while entrepreneurs’ demand for capital depends on levels of entrepreneurship in relation to the state of business, which is mainly expressed by profit expectations. The argument that the rate of interest is necessary in order to prevent ‘over-investment’ and the concomitant waste of capital is belied by the fact that such a role is as a rule fulfilled by the profit rate, i.e. entrepreneurs’ tendency (at least imposed by accountability reasons) to extract the highest rate of profit from investment. Therefore, the interest rate could be abolished, but only in real terms. In other words, the nominal interest rate should equate the rate of inflation. This is necessary to preserve the incentive to save and to preserve the real value of saving.
It is remarkable that, on the shoulders of a variable as unnecessary as the interest rate has grown an enormous, complicated and rather obscure financial body, primarily devoted to speculation and responsible for some serious shocks and malfunctions of the global network. For its part, the profit rate is necessary for reasons of accountability, i.e. as a measure of the success of entrepreneurial decision making, but not as a distributive variable in public firms. Finally, wages represent a ‘necessary’ variable only for that modest part required for reasons of incentive and an accountability variable expressing the imputation on prices of the demand and supply of various kind of labour. We can see, therefore, that a very large part of the distribution of income pertains to the side of ‘choice-possibility’, as implied by Mill’s intuition. To this side also pertains the composition of final demand, specific innovations, the sectoral division of investment and types of entrepreneurship (public, private, cooperative, individual etc.). Let us remind ourselves that a crucial kind of ‘choice-possibility’ is represented by civilization forms, which constitute long enduring yet mighty options since they are well integrated in the social system and provide its physiognomy. Capitalism is a civilization expressed by a dynamic society born through long-lasting processes of trial and error. But civilizations other than capitalism are consistent with a modern dynamic society, for instance, civilizations in which (a) the market operates as a pure mechanism for imputing costs and efficiency, i.e., without affecting income distribution except for the provision of material incentives in the case of alienating activities; (b) the financial system operates as the servant as opposed to the master of production, that is, operates in the service of production.[84]
Pasinetti’s formalization places important institutional ‘necessities’ on the right hand side of the ‘separation’, as they are intended as non-fundamental. But, as just noted, institutions are now to be seen as appearing in both fields, that is, in both the field of ‘necessity’ and that of ‘choice-possibility’. The distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ leads to the specification of a ‘necessary system’ to be substituted for the ‘natural’ one; this ‘necessary system’ includes all the variables that, as previously seen, are required for the existence and performance of a dynamic economy: the entrepreneur, the market (also the non-competitive forms of dynamic competition, but excluding institutional monopolies, i.e. monopolies not determined by genuine scarcity but artificially created by law), uncertainty, Schumpeterian innovation, and profit, properly understood, that is, different from interest rate. Clearly, some of the above ‘necessary’ variables represent important institutions.
The formal model set out by A. Fusari and A. Reati (2013) and in chapter 5 of Ekstedt and Fusari (2010) presents a system very near to the ‘necessary’ standard[85]. It includes elements the absence of which, in both ‘natural’ and Walrasian systems, makes these systems misleading and consistent with both centralized and decentralized systems, as previously seen. Indeed, the absence of some of these elements also mars Keynesian, post-Keynesian, Schumpeterian, neo-Austrian and other heterodox theories, rendering them all partial and unilateral in their almost haphazard consideration of some important elements and simultaneous disregard for others that are no less important.
It seems to us that, if we are to speak of ‘pure theory’ in a sense that is not misleading then we must consider a ‘necessary system’, i.e. a system that includes basic and unavoidable elements that are required by the reality considered (specifically, the elements previously considered as required by the existence and performance of a dynamic economy), among which will be found various elements constituting institutional and organizational ‘necessities’. This requires the specification of a model far removed from the well known models of general economic equilibrium or interdependence, both of micro (Walras) or sectoral (Leontief, Pasinetti, von Neumann) character. In fact, these models omit the most important and intriguing variables of modern dynamic economies as underlined above, that is, endogenous innovation, radical uncertainty, entrepreneurship and hence profit, as well as the implied phenomenon of dynamic (market) competition, i.e. competition promoted by the search for new profit opportunities through innovation and for the existing profit opportunities through adaptation. A model that does specify these variables describes, in contrast to the conventional equilibrium models, a cyclical alternation and intertwining between innovative drive and structural organization in the context of the dynamic competition process; in other words, it describes the upsetting, due to innovation, of a previous equilibrium and a subsequent phase of organization and restructuring of the economy on the new basis generated by the innovative dash. The fundamental behaviour that is ignored by the conventional models of general equilibrium or interdependence will be extensively examined in the discussion of social development in chapter 4 and, with reference to the economy, formalized by a simple predator-prey model; moreover, a larger and much more elaborate disequilibrium/re-equilibrium model of the economy is formalized and simulated in both A. Fusari and A. Reati 2013 and H. Ekstedt and A. Fusari, 2010 (at the end of chapter 5 of such a book).
4. Pasinetti dislikes both the method of abstract rationality and of natural sciences. Besides, his idea of ‘separation’ offers an important tool for clarifying the methodological question of social sciences. Unfortunately, he does not take care of performing a deep methodological revision. This prevents a proper use of the separation between necessity and choice-possibility; in fact, this is erroneously referred to natural system and the classical thinking that, in the matter, suffers a non minor confusion, even if of a different kind, than neoclassical teaching, what makes ineffective the classical criticisms to mainstream.
The institutional question is often afflicted by some basic (and sometimes selfish) misunderstandings. Many neoclassical economists, some of whom are quoted by Pasinetti, have attempted, with great bravery and by way of various stratagems, to conciliate pure neoclassical theory with important institutional and non-institutional elements of reality. Many of these – often acute – attempts to extend the validity of the pure neoclassical model fall into what Pasinetti highlights as the trap of loyalty to tradition. A primary example of stumbling into such a trap is Knight’s book on uncertainty,[86] a pioneering analysis the ultimate message of which is that uncertainty is only a cause of deviation around a neoclassical equilibrium. If properly included in (and referred to) our ‘necessary system’, thereby better expressing both their implications and potential, uncertainty and also the content of various neo-institutional analyses (Coase, Solow, Williamson) critically considered by Pasinetti, lose the equivocal limitations that derived from their reference to the neoclassical model. In sum, institutionalism needs a basic model that, as with our ‘necessary system’, also includes important institutional ‘necessities’ rather than concentrating all of them on the institutional as opposed to the ‘natural’ side. Such a ‘necessary’ model grants theoretical and formal coherence in the specification of the institutional side, thereby saving (just as Pasinetti had hoped) institutionalism to mere description or subjection to a general model (the neoclassical one) that reduces its breath. Therefore, the ‘necessary system’ may be greatly attractive to institutional analysts.
Pasinetti writes: «The separation theorem suggests separating the investigation of those characteristics that lie at the foundation of the production economies…. from the investigation of the institutions…. Economic science has proceeded for too long to mix up the two stages of investigation.»[87] But such a mixing is in part inevitable. More broadly, the ‘natural’ system erases some ‘necessary’ aspects in representing a dynamic economy; the substantial feature of this (innovation, uncertainty, entrepreneurship, etc.) cannot be reduced to exogenous technical progress. The natural system does not include those ‘necessary’ variables, just similarly to the Walrasian system (as paragraph 1 shows), thus falling in the abstract rationality standard, in contradiction with the principle of the realism of postulates. This consideration comes before Pasinetti’s discussion, from page 323 to 327 in his book on ‘Keynes and the Cambridge Keynesians’, and in some sense makes such a discussion (objections and counter-objections) not relevant.
Pasinetti says: «If we really want a theoretical framework able to integrate institutional and economic analysis, this theoretical framework must be solid and comprehensive enough to be used as an alternative to the neo-classical one and to be able to support all institutional investigations; those of the old, or if we like ‘true’ institutionalism, as well as those of the so called ‘new’ institutionalism».[88] We plainly agree with this statement, but with the proviso that some different specification (from Pasinetti) of the ‘separation theorem’ is needed.
The neoclassical school of thought has demonstrated great versatility and also a far greater propensity to generalize than has its opponents. It has notched up a number of achievements with regard to the remedying of its original Walrasian purity: Don Patinkin’s theory of money, the Hicks’ IS-LM model, endogenous growth models, extensions to the analysis of the phenomena of reproduction and accumulation, some aspects of the thought of Schumpeter (facilitated by this economist’s great admiration for Walras), even equilibria with unemployment and non-competitive equilibria,[89] and, last but not least, a number of institutional analyses. These extensions and some more recent ones have allowed neoclassical theory to achieve and preserve its mainstream character.
The success is basically due to the accurate and extensive use of both the well developed and indeed dominating scientific methods: the methods of formal-logic sciences and of natural sciences. The resulting system of thought does not fear the criticisms of heterodox economics with its large variety of explanatory approaches often harshly fighting each others. For challenging neoclassical economics, it needs to set forth the foundations of a methodology more appropriate to social reality than those of logic-formal and natural sciences and offering an equally wider perspective; a methodology that conjugates a constructivist substance (as required by a reality which is the result of men’s work and genius) to realism. Pasinetti’s use of the idea of ‘separation’ that, after all, is in contradiction with regard to his claim for the realism of postulates has failed to oppose a convincing challenge to mainstream economics. A main theoretical need seems to be the derivation, from the general conditions of development typical of the considered historical era, the organizational necessities that must be fulfilled, to which the optional and creative aspects (of the ‘separation’) should be combined. Those necessities are not a mere observational matter and hence cannot be captured through the method of natural sciences; in fact, often result disregarded and trampled down across history. Also the logic-formal abstraction is unable to capture those necessities. Pasinetti admonishes that formal coherence is indispensable if a new institutionalism is to avoid ending up a merely descriptive striving after wind, as was the older institutionalism of Veblen, Commons, and the like. Our ‘necessary model’ is intended to provide, among other aims, a solution to this advocated exigency of a new institutionalism.
3.9 Methodological monism or pluralism?
Our proposal on method has a pluralistic character. In fact, it asserts the distinction, from a methodological standpoint, between logical-formal sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences and the conflict/cooperation among various research programs. But heavy exaggerations and confusions are at work concerning the role of methodological pluralism.
Starting from Kuhn’s notion of the paradigm, S. C. Dow (2003) highlights the role of different schools of thought in promoting open-system theorizing and generating the understanding from different points of views. She emphasizes how schools of thought put up barriers to discourse, express a sort of division of labor and are able to stimulate cross-fertilization. A similar position has been expressed by some F. Lee’s studies on method. In a sense, all this is true. But the difficulty that schools of social thought face in communicating with each other and with promoting cross-fertilization are also impressive, as M. H. Ardebili (2003) has vigorously underlined. It is significant here that the natural sciences, which have achieved a much more efficient method of investigation of reality than has social theory, also exhibit a much greater communication between schools of thought as well as a marked capability to stimulate the exponential growth of knowledge.
Previous chapters have underlined the fact that the great success and effectiveness of the method of the natural sciences has negatively affected our understanding of social phenomena because this method, while totally inappropriate for the study of social phenomena, has nevertheless been widely adopted by social sciences. A growing awareness of the inadequacy of the method of the natural sciences for the study of social reality has recently promoted the diffusion, among students of social thought, of a multiplicity of more or less heterodox supplementary methods, which are unable to interact or communicate one with another; an extreme instance of this trend is the denial of method advocated by methodological anarchism. But some different attitudes toward heterodoxy are also at work. J. B. Davis emphasizes the alternation in social thought between pluralism and dominance[90]. This alternation expresses a physiological feature of the process of knowledge. But the pathology of social thought is different; it consists in some well-rooted methodological misconceptions that afflict the whole history of social theory and that, if it is to be reversed, demands a real methodological rebuilding that is able, inter alias, to meet two main peculiarities of social reality that Davis underlines: the difficulty of experimentation and value-ladeness in economics. Unfortunately, no real progress in the matter seems to be on the road, as far as we know. In fact, this need of rebuilding is not achieved by the multiplicity of recent methodological developments (behavioral and experimental economics, neureconomics, happiness and subjective well being research, agent based modeling, evolutionary thinking, computational economics, etc) that Davis refers[91]. For its part, the Salanti and Screpanti’s reference to methodological pluralism, sociological understanding, the complementary of methods and the distinction between pluralism of academy and of methods by one researcher[92] is no less insufficient with regard to the need of defining some methodological procedures and rules that are shaped around the basic features of social reality, We have also set out at the end of section 3 of this chapter some weaknesses of Lee’s proposal to combine critical realism and the so called ‘grounded theory method’ as a unifying methodological tool for economics.
Recently, an interesting proposal directed to overcome or at least attenuate heterodox incommensurabilism and unconstrained pluralism, and hence paradigmatic struggle, and to increase “constructive interaction and engagement between different theoretical traditions for a unified paradigmatic competitor to neoclassical economics” has been set out by L. Dobusch and J. Kapeller. They say: “The imperative for dissenting economists is to create interested pluralism” [93], i.e. a pluralist paradigm to oppose to the pluralism of paradigms. This is an interesting program. But the reference to paradigm makes the proposal a bit equivocal. There is no doubt that, from a descriptive point of view, the notion of paradigm is instructive, for the simple reason that such a notion well describes the history of scientific evolution: long time and a large number of failures required to discard preexisting paradigms. But from a prescriptive and constructive point of view, Kuhn’s paradigm says almost nothing. The term paradigm emphasizes separation, instead of interaction and dialogue among students; it expresses a sort of fideistic concept. Lakatos notion of ‘research program’, which is aimed at remedying to the opposite exaggerations of Popper’s falsificationism and Kuhn’s paradigm, seems much more appropriate than the notion of paradigm to Dobusch and Kapeller’s ‘interested pluralism’. In fact, the confrontation among research programs in Lakatosian approach implies interaction and competition among students, instead of separation and irreducible opposition. But the effectiveness of such a competition and interaction needs the availability of shared general methodological lines so that to facilitate reciprocal understanding, as is the case of logic-formal sciences for one side and natural sciences for the other. This confirms, once again, that the real problem of social sciences is represented by the dramatic lack of a general methodological approach appropriate to social reality.
10. Synthesis and conclusion
Perhaps the most curious aspect in the unfortunate condition of the social sciences is that the doubts of natural scientists on method have not opened the eyes of students of society. Those doubts arise from the philosophy of science and may seem exaggerated; yet they are extremely helpful when developed with reference to social theory: both through some positive teaching and also negatively, in that they help spread a willingness to challenge venerated taboos on method. Nevertheless, these doubts and teachings (by Popper, Lakatos, etc.) have not been effective in their impact upon students of society infatuated by the usual method of natural sciences, nor upon heterodox attempts to revise accepted thinking on method.
We have seen that Popper’s critical review leads to a methodological duplicity that unfortunately has favored incommensurabilism. We have also underlined the profitability of Lakatos’ proposal on method, in particular his notion of the ‘research program’, and also his insistence on rationality; but we have also taken note of the insufficiency of these methodological advances. We have shown that the fecundity of Kuhn’s criticism and proposal concerns the interpretation of the history of thought and social-historical processes, not his idea of method; unfortunately, the former interpretative fecundity has led to an undue reverence for Kuhn’s methodological ideas. The works of all these authors offer very little in terms of an alternative and more efficient method for the analysis of social reality.
Moreover, this chapter has extensively considered the proliferation of very partial methodological proposals; a proliferation that has resulted from a growing consciousness of the limitations of the usual methodologies for the analysis of social phenomena, which has been fueled primarily by sociological thinking. Also the work of important economists concerned with the whole social side has been treated. All those critical analyses seem to clarify the necessity of facing with energy the problem of procedure and the definition of basic methodological rules suitable for the study of social phenomena (as we have tried to do in chapter 2). In fact, the supposed impossibility of defining a clear standard for distinguishing science from non-science has been claimed as proof of the irrefutability of incommensurability. That pretension is based on the idea that research activity is obliged, by the limited nature of Man’s cognitive capacity, to learn by trial and error. But this very statement shows the groundlessness of such a pretension, as exactly the trial and error procedure needs commensurability, i.e. the comparison of various contributions to knowledge and their selection, in order to permit the cooperation of different human minds for the growth of knowledge.
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4 Social development and historical processes
Premise
The use here of the term “development” instead of “evolution” is not casual but reflects the fact that evolution refers to spontaneous tendencies embodying only a few changes and giving rise to very slow processes of adaptation. But social systems cannot be considered the product of spontaneous phenomena; they are the consequence of creative acts, hypotheses, choices, organizational needs and decisions that arise over time.
Our treatment of social-historical development will be largely based on the distinction between ‘necessity’, ‘choice-possibility’ and ‘duration’; in particular, the treatment will show that the notions of functional and ontological imperative and civilization are invaluable in explaining social-historical process.
Section I emphasizes the importance of the interaction between functional imperatives and civilizations and also underlines the importance of ontological imperatives in characterizing civilizations. This initial section is followed by: a theory of the development and decline of social systems; a discussion of the notion of historical phase and the interpretation of history and of some main necessary organizational requirements, often disregarded, of the current stage of social and economic development; and finally a formal (and econometric) application. The present chapter is followed, in chapter 5, by a systematic comparison of the theory proposed here with some primary theories of social-historical process.
4.1 Initial elements of a theory of social and historical development
The drive to social development stems from innovative phenomena and choices. In their absence, there would be nothing but the infinite repetition of unvarying processes, even if disturbed by casual exogenous events. Changes in the state of ideology and technology (implied by innovations) generate new forms of social organization. The cadence of the development process is fundamentally driven by the interaction between the optional or creative aspect, which implies rupture and conflict, and the structural organizational side, which is imposed by organic and functional exigencies. In the following section we shall analyze this interaction at length. For the moment we shall focus on one especially significant component thereof, namely the relationship between forms of civilization (embodied in those aspects of the optional side which, once established, are the most resistant to removal), ontological imperatives, functional imperatives (the last being ineluctable, in that they entail very heavy inefficiencies if ignored), and the innovations and choices that have not yet been institutionalized.
Whether innovative inclinations and capacities (hence development) or static-repetitive ones prevail depends primarily on the character of the civilization in question, i.e. the system of the grand options it carries and the form of socio-institutional integration they generate. In particular, it mainly depends on the degree the considered civilization embodies ontological imperatives since this incorporation determines the degree of openness of the existing civilization to novelties and creativity[94]or, more specifically, on whether or not there exist values, behavior patterns and institutional mechanisms that facilitate and foster innovation. The character of civilizations (and to an extent even the substance of innovative phenomena themselves) are influenced by features of the natural environment and a multitude of historical contingencies. But in large part that character and substance are the fruit of protracted and tortured creative processes.
However, civilizations also represent a break in development; in fact, being the expression of specific and decisive choices that carry multiple implications, they tend to close ranks in defense of their identities (i.e., of the grand options that they embody), thereby preserving themselves as long as possible. This conservative tendency deserves careful consideration. For every civilization, having stimulated development and social renovation in a variety of ways, eventually becomes obsolete, and this precisely as a result of its successes in that area which, ultimately, turns into an impediment to further progress. To advance further, the advent of a new civilization will be necessary, one which by opening up new horizons will set social life on new, different foundations. But this necessity is a difficult, agonizing one because, as just noted, civilizations tend to root themselves in the social environment. They dominate, to varying extents – depending on the degree of social integration – individuals’ very way of being, of acting, of seeing things, and the configuration and internal consistencies of societies. Civilizations thus place obstacles to the advent of new lifestyles, habits and customs.
This tendency of the forms of a civilization to take root and simultaneously to age drives the entire social system toward aging and sclerosis. If the process could be carried through completely, it would ultimately bring the society to a total halt, an impasse. But this happens only in utterly exceptional cases, exemplified by isolated societies in which the civilization has so thoroughly dominated the overall social environment as to prevent all ideological and technological innovation.
It is important, however, to set forth explicitly the mechanism that blocks such secular stagnation. It is based on the non-coincidence of the concepts of civilization and social system, or better, the interaction between the aspect of necessity (embodied above all in functional imperatives), the concept of civilization, and non-institutionalized innovations and choices. This non-coincidence is prompted by the operation of some ontological imperatives, mainly the role of the individual and the tolerance principle.
The combined effect of a plurality of civilizations characterized by different levels of development and in communication with one another and their incomplete control of the total social environment generates an incessant build-up of innovative ideas (as well as basic technological innovations and their related implications). The consequent progressive emergence of new general conditions of development will bring the advent of new functional imperatives. These new imperatives, towards which social reality is obliged to gravitate in that they embody necessary conditions of efficiency, imply the rise and establishment, in one way or another, of an utterly new organizational panorama, which will call forth new forms of civilization. For every civilization, though the result of choices among many alternatives, must be congenial to the reigning general conditions of development and the corresponding functional imperatives (at least for reasons of organizational efficiency). If the latter change, sooner or later this congeniality will be lost. As soon as this occurs (and, hence, the existing civilization becomes an obstacle to the satisfaction of the new functional imperatives), an ineluctable and irresistible pressure arises, imposed by objective necessity, for the advent of new models of civilization that are congenial to the new functional imperatives and thus prove sufficiently competitive.[95] The forms of civilization that prevail will be those best suited to carry on the historical process, and all the more so if they contain germs of the functional imperatives characteristic of more advanced stages of development.
Thus the form of civilization acts at once as both engine and brake of social development, and the strength of the brake, in the main, is inversely correlated with its degree of fulfillment of ontological imperatives, primarily the role of individual and the tolerance principle. This conditions the course of innovative processes. The sedimentation over time of innovations and choices (with the consequent change in the general conditions of development) seals the doom of civilizations through the advent of new functional imperatives and basic technological innovations. In the midst of strains, clashes and contradictions, the progenitor is suppressed and set aside by its offspring.
The transition from tribal societies to sacred kingdoms or to poleis, great empires and absolute monarchies expresses the advent, with the variation of the general conditions of development, of new functional imperatives concerning administrative organization and the forms of politic power. These transitions are always accompanied by new and congenial ideologies. In this way, new forms of organization and power have produced new forms of civilization (feudal and communal civilization, castes order, autocratic, militarist, bureaucratic-centralized civilizations) that have deeply conditioned further developments.
It is important to ask ourselves how the relation between novelties and tradition operates. Development does not limit itself to generating new functional imperatives; it also engenders some less important and fragmentary novelties, opens new windows and causes, therefore, new preferences and habits that will confront traditional reality. In particular, the aspects of civilizations that are not in conflict with functional imperatives tend to survive being civilizations well integrated in social contexts. These values and institutions melt together with the novelties. In this way, the results of social processes are differentiated and this variety stimulates creative skills.
To better understand this process, which is the very backbone of social and historical development, a distinction between two types of society will prove useful.
a) First, there are social systems characterized by a high degree of discrepancy with respect to their forms of civilization. They are open to deviants, inclined to accept and stimulate innovative flows and extra-institutional realities. In sum, they are highly respectful of the role of the individual and the tolerance principle (two ontological imperatives). That is, they are societies the civilizations of which possess a comparatively low degree of control over the total social environment. In these social systems, there tends to be an active interchange between civilization and functional imperatives. The former, willingly accepting the emergence of innovations, call forth the latter, which in turn spur changes in the forms of civilization. This situation is typical of decentralized orders, marked by widespread individualism, non-conformity, struggle and competition, and so on. Such orders ensure that the changeover from one civilization to another is essentially carried out gradually, avoiding protracted periods of stagnation and sudden collapses.
b) Second, there are societies that form part of civilizations the development and consolidation of which has more and more completely covered the total social environment, which they dominate, thereby conferring upon society a growing inclination and ability to reject innovations, creativity and deviants. In such cases the tendency toward stagnation is strong. But in general a dead end point is not reached, since in the long run changes nevertheless do take place. These will be generated above all by contacts with other forms of civilization that are growing and expanding and which will spur the advent of functional imperatives and basic technologies that call forth a new system of grand options, which will advance through ruptures and traumatic collapses. In the nearly stationary world of the past, such situations were frequent and have sometimes been embodied even in the great civilizations. The best examples are the great centralized bureaucratic empires of history, autocracies and caste societies. But this is inconceivable in modern dynamic societies.
There are nevertheless intermediate cases.
4. 2 The development and decline of social systems
4.2.1 The general scheme
We turn now to some very general features of developmental processes, namely their parabolic or sine-curve-shaped evolution. The considerations set forth in the foregoing section on the concept of civilization point to a precise explanation for this pattern. As just seen, every civilization arises, flourishes, and decays, more or less rapidly, after having performed its mission, or else falls with a crash, dragging down with it also the relative social system. At the same time, new civilizations are born. The lack of resistance from earlier, elaborate and pretentious forms of civilization facilitates the birth of these new civilizations, especially in regions that are exposed to strong, suggestive stimuli from the outside world. If the new civilizations are especially well adapted to the dominant lines of development and the inherent functional imperatives, they will flower prodigiously, and with them also their social systems will germinate. To fully explain this parabolic or sine-curve trend of social development, we need to recall a general characteristic of the processes of development that powerfully influences the forms of civilization and is influenced by them.[96]
A general theory of the development and decadence of social systems would seem necessarily to hinge on the succession of the two great moments that mark the course of every society namely, that of innovative drive and that of organizational structuring. The distinction between these two moments is both chronological and conceptual. The rise of innovations requires propitious social conditions and (as previously seen) the fulfillment of ontological imperatives; if these are present, they will spur a proliferation of reciprocally interactive innovations; hence the need for a subsequent phase of adjustment and consolidation. Conceptually, the distinction between the two moments is even sharper. For while the moment of innovative verve involves principally the overthrowing or undermining of existing conditions, the moment of organizational structuring involves above all the reorganization and rearrangement of the society as a consequence of the innovations that have arisen along the road to the advent of a new system of mutually compatible arrangements. Of course the consolidation phase may entail creative, innovative insights. But this does not alter the fact that the moment of organizational structuring is a different and, so to speak, dialectically opposed entity to the moment of innovative processes; it is aimed at digesting the innovative drive. Essentially, it represents the unfolding of adaptive processes in order to digest innovations and place them in the stagnant area of daily routine.[97] Let us examine this more closely.
The moment of innovative drive has a multitude of effects. The appearance of the new is always a provocation to the status quo, because it automatically calls into question the established equilibria, habits, behavior patterns, organic rules, credences, values, and so on, that govern and animate the society’s way of being. Innovations never fail to generate imbalances, ruptures, and uncertainties. They lay down challenges and bring up problems, engender new functions and new viewpoints, and in one way or another never fail eventually to bring the established order into question. Thus innovations open the way to new possibilities and new desires. At the same time, they break with existing privileges and thereby generate contrasts, conflicts and structural contradictions that are more or less virulent, uncertain and precarious. The resulting instability, disorganization and explosive tendencies are more widespread and profound the greater the impetus of the innovative drive.
The various forms of de-structuring and the contradictions provoked by the innovative drive can seriously impede the functioning of the system, even to the point of bringing it to the point of catastrophe or self-annihilation, a point that is reached with the help of frictions and oppositions arising from the late comers sectors of society. If the development process spurred by the innovations is to continue, if it is to be consolidated and extended and all its potential fruits brought to maturity, these de-structuring phenomena have to be followed (or accompanied) by the vigorous consolidation and rearrangement of the society’s organizational structures. Specifically, it is necessary that alongside the flow of innovation a re-proportioning action be initiated, that works to eliminate dysfunctions, smooth out conflicts and contradictions, and seeks to establish the requisite system of compatibilities. In short, there has to be a rationalizing effort that, so to speak, can consistently draw the consequences of the innovative choices that have been made, that consolidates and divulges those innovations; in a word, that prepares the new base from which to advance.
The second moment, like that of innovative verve, is obligatory and indispensable to the process of development.
4. 2.2 Historical typologies[98]
The nature and characteristics of the movement from innovation to consolidation depend on the characteristics of the civilization that has given rise to it, as well as on the way in which that civilization has been affected by it, in particular by the degree of openness of the civilization to new solutions, which in itself is mainly the result of its fulfillment of ontological imperatives. But, given particular institutional, ideological, geographical[99] and other characteristics, the moment of organizational structuring may encounter serious difficulties or may even be unable to function. In this case there will be an immense cultural efflorescence, nourished by the continuation of the creative verve (which, in the cultural sphere, always outweighs the moment of structuring). But political disintegration will be unavoidable. Excellent illustrations of this outcome are the particularistic communities of ancient Greece, with their antagonisms carried to extremes, hostility to professionalism, and so on, and the Arab empire, where the activity of structuring and rationalization was impeded above all by certain features of the Islamic religion, precisely the obstacles to institutional change implied by sharia. The powerful and prolonged innovative verve that marked those civilizations made possible the rise and development of splendid, prodigiously rich cultures, but this came at the price of political disintegration and decadence.
It may also happen, however, that value premises, institutions, natural conditions and the rest are conducive to the structuring and organizational moment. Unlike the moment of innovative drive, which if allowed for long to reign uncurbed will precipitate the entire system into chaos and shatter it, the organizational structuring moment inherently contains a great capability for self-perpetuation, for binding the entire social system with its rules and its pace. When this happens, the vital forces of development are throttled and repressed, and there will be long periods of regression and involution. This possibility warrants careful consideration.
The moment of organizational structuring reflects a normalizing drive and impulse. It is concerned with consistency and harmony among the various parts of the system; it tends to organize what exists. It opposes the phenomena of creativity, which undoes its work and condemns it to Sisyphian toil. Innovators are its greatest adversaries. In its inner being it is conservative and conformist. With such a nature, it tends ceaselessly to nullify and repress innovations, to block the openings through which pass the troublesome anomalies that accompany (and characterize) development. In the countries where – primarily through the trampling down of ontological imperatives – the structuring moment succeeds in fully establishing its presence, carrying out its work thoroughly and gaining hegemony, it generates the domination of routine, repetitiousness and stationary movement. Primitive family-based society and the caste order provide examples of such vegetative societies.[100] Situations of this sort recur constantly in the course of history.
Such an outcome is facilitated by the fact that, as the organizational moment advances, the social system’s form of civilization is consolidated, extending its sway more and more completely over the entire social environment and making the recurrence of the innovative moment increasingly difficult and unlikely. Such a civilization may become highly rich and elaborate, but this will only exacerbate its hostility to the new.
Naturally, protracted stagnation will nevertheless generate all kinds of problems. Changes in external relations and within segments (often marginal ones) of society will not be lacking, and in the long run will provoke contradictions and inconsistencies. At this point, innovation becomes an impelling necessity; new solutions to the new problems must be found. But its anemic innovative capacities make such a system rigid, unfit to take up the challenge of new exigencies. Thus crisis and malaise become more deeply rooted and more widespread, and we find periods of decadence that are longer and more turbulent the more solid and pretentious is the pre-existing civilization. Ultimately, traumatic collapses may result, perhaps the product of clashes with neighboring peoples. The decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire provides an important example of this case.
In the quasi-stationary world of the past, another outcome was also possible. The social system might successfully institutionalize, in utter consistency, the moment of organizational structuring, turning toward the typical organizational forms and choice of civilization of centralized and bureaucratic orders that dislike ontological imperatives such as the role of the individual and the principle of tolerance. If successfully followed, this path could enable the society to survive for some time and foster the advent of possibly very long-lasting periods of prosperity and splendor. Indeed, a centralized social order can sometimes achieve some internal flexibility and mobility, enough at least to slow the processes of sclerosis and decay. In this latter case, the parabola that leads to the ultimate collapse of the social system will, under the pressure of the new functional imperatives, follow the course over a much more protracted arc of the rise and fall of the form of civilization itself.
The history of the Eastern Roman Empire as well as the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires offer perhaps the most apt examples of such outcomes. But the best example is that of imperial China, which, due to its internal flexibility, succeeded in surviving over centuries, through both collapses and resurrections, and was only defeated, in the end, by the acceleration of developmental processes imported from Western industrial society.
In the modern world, however, with our very rapid pace of change, things are quite different. As the relative importance of economic activities has grown within Western societies, the tendencies to development and social change have steadily increased, owing principally to the impulse imparted by businessmen. In the end, as that which contains the innovative entrepreneur, the economic sphere has achieved a central role within the social system. As we know, the entrepreneur is an institution (and an endogenous force) permanently directed, under the lash of competition, to exploring new paths, generating new development and organizing productive process. The central role of the entrepreneur’s activity implies and requires flexible and dynamic forms of civilization.
In these circumstances there is a ceaseless alternation between innovative drive and organizational structuring; an alteration that is inevitable given the coexistence of highly dynamic sectors, on the one hand, and on the other largely non-innovative sectors based on custom and traditional practices that need time to adapt to changes generated elsewhere. As a consequence, the interminable periods of stagnation, generalized decadence, breakdowns and catastrophic annihilations of entire societies found in so much of the past have been replaced by cyclical movements on the sine-wave pattern, i.e. such that recovery is generated from within the period of crisis itself. As soon as the structural moment has more or less performed its task, there is a vigorous resumption of exploration of new ways forward, new solutions, especially as at this point the ground has been prepared, since old investment has been amortized, proportions and compatibilities re-established, adjustments and adaptations made, lags caught up, while the fruits of the preceding period of innovative drive are now ripe and harvested, their premises developed. The old order is no longer satisfactory. New problems and new opportunities arise. To respond to the former and exploit (or generate) the latter, a new innovative verve is needed. Even during the structuring phase, the forces of the new period of innovative drive arise and gather strength.[101]
The recovery of innovative drive opens the door to a phase of structural organization that restores consistencies (mainly as a result of the promptness by which businessmen take steps to benefit from the opportunities offered by disequilibria and inconsistencies). With the advancement of the general conditions of development during the motion innovation-organizational structuring, new functional imperatives will mature that open the door to new civilizations.
Historically, the duration of these cycles was at first long indeed. Perhaps the first such cycle can be identified in the history of Western Europe from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. This initial cycle was continued with the new and tumultuous phase of the Renaissance, after which great disequilibria and disaster followed in the seventeenth century, leading to the placid eighteenth century in which era the adjustment process was founded on the revival of agriculture and the restoration of landlord privileges. It was on such soil that the first industrial revolution would blossom and the long waves of industrial society begin.[102]
The intermediate cycles also appear to be similar to the long cycle in nature. That is, they too seem to stem from the contraposition between the phenomena of innovative drive and those of organizational structuring intermediate with respect to the more sweeping and more radical clash and innovations (involving the advent of new functional imperatives and perhaps of grand options) that mark the very long wave.
Resuming and developing the classification at the end of previous section, the main typologies of social systems are, therefore:
a) Social orders of pluralistic and decentralized character and hence containing an intense internal antagonism. They initially display high creativity and development, but this is then followed by deeper and deeper and shorter and shorter oscillations and ruptures that lead the system to disintegration or transformation into a more stable but less dynamic organizational form (e.g. the ancient Greek and Mediterranean world).
b) Social orders dominated by organizational structuring. These display a wide and almost flat parabolic behavior, as is typical of caste society and many primitive societies; but they may also fall into traumatic declines caused by external aggression or undergo transformation into some more coherently centralized order, such as those universal empires of the ancient world that embodied the most coherent forms of past quasi-stationary societies and which, if they succeeded in achieving some flexibility, enjoyed a very long and almost vegetative survival.
c) Modern decentralized orders, marked by high innovation, competitiveness and rational skills. These have inaugurated the era of cyclical development. The advent of these social orders marks the beginning of the destruction of previous typologies.
4.3 Synthesis of the theory and some prescriptive suggestions
The mechanism of social development sketched above is illustrated in the following diagram:
Fig.1 [pic]
At the outset is the creative verve, for it is through that verve that any civilizing process begins. The diagram only considers two opposite typologies of civilizations: those distinguished by a high level of dynamism (case A) and those dominated by the moment of structural organization (case B). The amount of time that elapses before the emergence of new functional imperatives is much longer in the case of branch B than in the case of branch A. The paths shown in the figure are not linear, but as discussed in the previous section; more precisely:
Underlying the parabolic curve (development, maturity, decadence) or the cyclical evolution of the various social systems is the contraposition and lack of coordination between the moment of innovative verve and that of organizational structuring. The dominant form of civilization significantly influences these patterns, both through its degree of closure to renovation and because the character of a civilization may encourage the emergence of the above contraposition. The cyclical or parabolic movement of the societies is also affected by the parabolic curve of their civilizations.
As noted, some degree of contraposition between the moment of innovation and that of consolidation and some extension of the contraposition in time are inevitable. They are inherent to the existence of segments of the social system that are highly innovative (the technological subsystem, for instance) alongside others that are generally resistant to innovation (the judicial subsystem, for example) and that take some time – and this may be a considerable period – to adapt to the changes taking place in the more innovative parts of society.
Strictly speaking, it must be stressed that only civilizations are inevitably subject to aging, disintegration and decadence; this is not necessarily the case with social systems. In principle, there is nothing to prevent the latter from conserving some flexibility, vitality and creativity together with a good degree of internal organization. Attentive coordination and combination of the moments of innovation and organization so as to keep either one from dominating the scene and holding sway for too long, and the construction of civilizations that are flexible and open to renovation can certainly enable the social system to remain permanently orderly, dynamic and well lubricated. The problem lies entirely here. The fountain of youth, or at least of eternal maturity, which societies can certainly achieve, consists essentially in the coordination of the two moments together with flexibility, the inclination to dynamism of the forms of civilization adopted and the society’s openness to a change of civilization.
If the forces of development are to operate without loss of control, interruption, or traumatic collapse, the increasing role of innovation in modern society requires the concomitant existence of a great rationalizing capacity as well as continuous and systematic coordination and combination of the two moments. Moreover, the rapid pace of social change in our times requires that forms of civilization and institutions be highly elastic in order to be compatible with the continual advent and development of new situations. Otherwise, rapid innovation will impose incessant revision upon institutions and forms of civilization, generating a permanent state of disorganization within the social system. It can be said that in contemporary societies the requirements of institutional elasticity and of the rationalizing capacity are forced into a never-ending race to catch up with the acceleration of innovation. The amplitude and duration of social cycles depends on the outcome of this race.
To meet the needs of elasticity and rationalization, deriving functional imperatives is of the essence. For these are decisive in ensuring organizational rationality. Nor do they imply reference to any particular ideological or technological choices; they are compatible with the possible succession of a variety of choices and innovations, thus conferring elasticity upon the system.
Even if a modern social system has the capability to equip itself with elastic institutions and to successfully coordinate the phases of innovation and structuring, the problem of social reorganization will nonetheless become acute with the advent of those major functional imperatives (engendered by the increasing sedimentation of innovations) that open the way to new historical eras and new forms of civilization. In these times of transition toward new ages, it is of enormous importance to the success of society in dealing with the situation that it succeeds in foreseeing the nature of functional imperatives that are maturing and of the new grand options bound up with them.
Finally, some considerations of conflictual and functional aspects may be opportune. We have previously seen that the definition of both aspects requires a clear demarcation between the areas of ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’. Conflict concerns the second area, not the first. For instance, in modern dynamic societies class struggle may concern income distribution, but not the elimination of the entrepreneurial role; if it is directed against this functional imperative, failure is certain. Conflict is mainly originated by innovation, which pushes for the overcoming of the present situation.
The above considerations imply that, beside the interpenetration of innovation and adaptation, the success and vitality of social systems depends also on the skill of reconciling functional and conflictual aspects and in preventing the second aspect attacking the first.
Another aspect must not be underestimated. It would be harmful if the irresistible tendency toward a global society were also to lead to the formation of a single world civilization, since that would increase the one-way direction of the sedimentation of innovations and would slow their pace. To work against this danger, we need to have a clear idea of the distinction between civilization and society and, again, between necessity and choice-possibility, thereby keeping the functional imperatives from weighing more than is indispensable on the grand options and thus allowing the latter to be exercised with a greater margin of choice.
As previously seen, the advent of the modern age has been marked above all by the acquisition within the social system of a central position by the economic sub-system. In these circumstances, social development has been increasingly identified with economic development. Furthermore, the main functional imperatives to have emerged have been economic in nature. But we must not forget that economic development cannot be explained on the basis of economic theory alone. In fact, it depends on the process of accumulation, on the availability of various kinds of labor service, on the trend in consumption, and so on, all of which depend crucially on non-economic factors, such as the propensity to save, the state of entrepreneurship, animal spirits, the social climate and the dominant tastes. In analyzing economic development and underdevelopment, a decisive role is played by the forms of civilization, their consistency with the functional imperatives of modern economies and the observance or lack thereof of these categories. The theory of economic development must be founded on a broader, general theory of social development capable of bringing out the connections between economic and non-economic variables and facilitating interdisciplinary studies. Today, important societies are engaged in drastic and desperate efforts to remove both their forms of civilization and those fundamental institutions deemed no longer consistent with the functional imperatives of the modern world, relatively closed to innovation and social deviants, and disinclined to organizational rationality and development. Changes of this sort will certainly be intensified in the years to come. In carrying these changes out, the ability to distinguish ‘necessity’ from ‘choice-possibility’ is crucial, as is the ability to recognize the functional imperatives that are needed and realize how far the grand options may vary without becoming inconsistent with functional imperatives. This knowledge will enable us to lighten sacrifices and avoid imitative adoption of solutions that are themselves about to be superseded.
4.4 The interpretation of history and the notion of historical phase.
The foregoing elaboration enables us to deal expeditiously with the problem of the interpretation of history; for the two fields are concerned with the same phenomena.
A satisfying theory of the interpretation of history must offer a distinction between periods of historical processes that is universally valid. Clearly, if such a periodization is to avoid ambiguity it must be based on factors appertaining to the realm of necessity, not on those appertaining to the realm of freedom and choice, for these latter vary from case to case and have no general validity – they are the product of situations that are contingent and not comparable. The failure that attempts to divide historical processes into phases (or stages of development) has met hitherto flows from the absence, in social theory, of a rigorous distinction between necessity and choice-possibility, a lack that has engendered a confusing mélange of the two, as we shall see in the criticisms advanced in chapter 5 regarding the theories of various students of society. Each historical phase or stage must refer to situations distinguished by analogous general conditions of development and hence analogous functional imperatives, as these follow from the state of the general conditions of development.[103]
A historical phase, then, is universal in character, not specific or particular. In other words, it will characterize all peoples that face similar general conditions of development and, therefore, similar functional imperatives. It is irresistible in its progress, since it reflects the demands of ‘necessity’; it may only be delayed, because humanity often fails to realize that necessity. It thus incarnates the historical process. A historical phase is the opposite of the concept of civilization, discussed above. The interactions between the two concepts provides an important tool for the interpretation of the social process (as previously seen) and hence of history.
We shall not dwell on the exposition of a theory explaining historical processes. All we need do is insert, in the diagram in the previous section, a block designated ‘new historical phases’ immediately following that for the new functional imperatives, and the theory of development set forth in sections 2 and 3 will take on the nature of a theory of historical change and the historical process. This theory, based on the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’, powerfully suggests that historical events and facts need to be viewed with great mental elasticity and considered in a critical manner.
Owing to the exigencies of organizational efficiency, historical processes must necessarily gravitate around the functional imperatives that can be deduced on the basis of the criteria of rationality. This gravitational process will be the more uncertain and torturous the greater are the changes under way and the less scientific is the state of social knowledge. In a sense, historical events can be interpreted as prolonged, laborious attempts to annunciate the functional imperatives relevant to the stage of development that the society is going through, and as highly erratic, nervous attempts to annunciate organizational forms that correspond to the value-ideological and technological innovations and choices that have been made.
Philosophers and students of society have long been aware of the tendency on the part of social systems to assume rational structures, the disintegrative implications of many forms of human behavior notwithstanding. As we have noted, Vico attributed this tendency to the work of divine providence, Smith to an invisible hand, Hegel to the cunning of universal reason. But the real basis of the phenomenon is much less metaphysical and, as we have seen, it yields to scientific explanation.
The exploration of a possible counterfactual alternative to the actual course of history is a perfectly legitimate concern of historical scholarship. One must always ask whether alternative choices to those actually made could have been made, and seek to understand what course of history such choices would have implied, as against what did take place. A related question is what prevented different choices from being made and what elicited the options that were taken.
The fierce attachment to observed facts, their quasi-religious acceptance, the implicit or explicit assumption that the course of history is the same thing as historical necessity – all such tendencies produce a mental block that prevents us from penetrating the significance of historical processes. Above all, such a block prevents us from learning any lessons from historical processes. Such an attitude may be of some use in historical studies, but it has no legitimate claim to the status of a scientific method of analysis of either society or the historical process. In fig. 1 above, we saw that not even functional imperatives are, strictly speaking, a necessity; for even they are the outcome of human activity, specifically of ideological and technological sedimentations over time and of civilizations built in individual instances, i.e. by the exercise of processes of choice. The point, however, is that once certain highly general characteristics of the situation (general conditions of development) are given (whatever they are), the corresponding functional imperatives do represent a historical necessity. Moreover, since those characteristics will obtain for a long period of time, and once established may become permanent, at least for the entirety of the relevant period, reality will continue to be attracted by those functional imperatives because, for reasons cited earlier, humanity and its social systems are obliged to proceed rationally.[104]
Every historical phase is characterized by some technological and productive capabilities, certain forms of the division of labor and a certain level of knowledge, to which correspond particular organizational properties and exigencies – in sum, its own functional imperatives. All those who seek to unlock the potential of that historical phase must accept its functional imperatives. Otherwise, they will stumble into inefficiency and into painful and possibly even paralyzing contradictions.
In the historical process, the phases are part of a chain, and they may be more or less tightly linked with one another. A single society may stand in connection with two different links at once, it may move forward and backward along the chain, it may skip some links, may create others anew, and so on. It can be asserted with confidence that the historical process is progressive in nature. This should not, however, be taken to mean that it proceeds in the direction of any specific, particular choices of civilization or toward the realization of certain ideals; this notion of progress is metaphysical not scientific. From a scientific point of view, progress across history consists in movement along the different, consecutive phases of development, each of which carries the inheritance of the past, opens the way to the phases that follow, and imposes precise rules of the game that must be obeyed.
In the next chapter we turn to a theoretical verification by way of the confrontation of our theory of social and historic process with those of the principal students in this area; while some quantitative formalization and estimates are set out in section 6 of this chapter.
4.5 Contradictions and torments of the present age
The exceptional leap forward in the general conditions of development that has been promoted by modern dynamic society and its world-wide diffusion have opened the door to a transition toward a more advanced historical stage: a difficult transition indeed, causing different problems in developed, developing and underdeveloped countries. Such transition is particularly complicated in developing and underdeveloped areas as it hastens within them the parallel construction of functional imperatives that, in advanced countries, were built up over a much longer period of time during the transition to previous stages of development. The main purpose of this section is to establish knowledge about some organizational needs that mankind is obliged to face at present and in the near future. An investigation of how to overcome the difficulties associated with the age of globalization needs, first of all, to think in terms of the functional imperatives typical of the present age. In what follows, we briefly discuss three important and strictly related functional imperatives typical of the age of globalization and their implications in terms of new civilizations.
A functional imperative that is at present knocking at the door with increasing insistence concerns the relation between income distribution and the market. Capitalism implies a strict relation between the two, even if that relation varies in different contents in competitive, monopolistic or conflictual-consumeristic capitalism, and also in what may be called the ‘post-consumerist capitalism’ of the present time. The implications of this relation have been managed, till now, through a variety of expedients, the most successful and effective of which was the management of final demand. This management has opened the door to important transformations and, ultimately, to some serious complications afflicting the present time; it therefore deserves to be remembered.
As is well known, the emergence of monopolistic capitalism on the wave of the third industrial revolution at the end of the nineteenth century caused a remarkable increase in the share of profits at the expense of wages, the labour force being not as yet adequately organized so as to effectively claim wage increases in line with productivity increase. The volatility of entrepreneurs’ expectations and the consequent fall of investment below profits resulted in the deficiency of so-called effective demand and, hence, in marked social instability and a dramatic crisis of production and employment. Such a situation was easy to meet in principle, even if the remedy was obscured by the blindness of the dominating economic theory: to achieve the recovery of production and employment it was sufficient to stimulate final demand, even if this occurred through wastage and, in particular, deficit spending. This recipe implied the possibility of improving the relative position of poor people withouth damaging the absolute position of reach people. It suggested and allowed for the construction of the welfare state. Thus the exceptional increase in productivity caused by revolutionary innovations resulted in a true social revolution and the advent of consumer capitalism. In parallel, an influential theory of economics was born that, for many years, dominated political economy and, even today, exerts a wide influence: Keynesian (and subsequently post-Keynesian) economics.
Nevertheless, the basic postulate of Keynes’ economics, the primary and propulsive role of final demand, has proved inappropriate to the interpretation and management of conflictual-consumeristic capitalism and even more inappropriate in the present age characterized by huge public debt (that deficit-spending has, over the years, greatly aggravated) and by the dominating influence of international financial markets. In these conditions, there is no easy recipe (as was once the management of final demand) to warrant consistency between the market and income distribution in a social system such as capitalism that presupposes a strong link between the two. These difficulties are multiplied by the worldwide financial market and speculation, international disequilibria and competition in the global market.
Before delineating the functional imperatives that this situation implies, a premise is indispensable. Competition needs efficiency and this requirement is not in contradiction with social justice at the aggregate level, as Keynesian economics shows. What is the relation between efficiency and social justice at the micro level? It may seem that the two are in opposition, but this is in fact not the case. The exceptions are the material incentives strictly required by efficiency that are, as such, the outcome of demand and supply conditions. However, an accurate inspection illustrates that those incentives are enormously less than those advocated to justifying current forms of income distribution and privileges; in fact, they are only really required by alienating work and hence decrease if a social organization that allows each man to express natural skills (and hence reducing alienation) is pursued.[105] In effect, social justice is an important condition for efficiency and this is a preliminary condition if social justice is not to be just an effect and the complement of a generalized misery. Let us explore this important point further.
To mobilize the great potential represented by the very large variety of skills that nature disseminates at random among human beings, it is essential not only that the equality in dignity of men is stated in principle; the emergence of individual skills also requires that a fair income distribution is achieved. Moreover, social justice is essential for society because submission and oppression lead humans to become ever more hostile to social cohesion. In the second half of last century, the European combination of the market and welfare state has represented an important organizational feature. In fact, competitive market (including competition based on innovation and hence with some degree of temporary monopoly but excluding institutional monopolies) represents an insuperable tool for stimulating efficiency, included the instruction of workers inside the firms and the interest of these to stimulate their collaboration also trough incentives, while welfare state warranted social cohesion and increased social justice. But the degenerations of welfare and the disregard for the efficiency of public sector, the consequent public debt and high taxation, have caused a push toward sink economy that has caused a corruption of the situation.
In these conditions, a substantial transformation of welfare as suggested by A. Sen and S. Zamagni is needed, precisely a direct financing of people that necessitate help, with the purpose of stimulating individual responsibility and the propensity to act and defend personal specificities: just the contrary of traditional welfare. A welfare policy mainly directed to promoting personal skills and responsibility would stimulate economic development, instead of breaking it as does the old welfare – for in the present age, in which the Keynesian demand led postulate does not operate, the traditional welfare policy tends to generate stagnation and exclusion and is impotent against the poverty trap. There is more. The increasing need for efficiency and social justice makes the transformation of the market as a mere mechanism of imputation of costs and efficiency (but not implying an impact on income distribution) essential to meet such a need, that is, to enable a substantial freedom in the pursuit of social justice without damaging production. This represents an important functional imperative of the present age. In some sense, such a transformation would restore the Keynesian leading role of demand on production, being this amended by the pressures coming from income distribution. I have shown in another work the possibility and the organizational way for reducing the market so as to operate as a pure mechanism for the imputation of costs and efficiency[106] and, at any rate, we come back to the subject in section 4 of chapter 7.
Another functional imperative raised in the age of globalization concerns the financial market. There can be no doubt of the crucial importance for the financing of production, in an entrepreneurial market economy, of the banking system. In the context of the whole financial market banks are flanked, in this task, by some other financial activities and tools (shares and bonds). This market has increasingly become a worldwide one, to which is attached an increasingly pervasive and sophisticated financial power that, rather than serving production, dominates and enslaves it. Thus today, speculations that are obscure in origin and unconstrained in action have a significant impact upon production and the performance of the whole economy.
In the present age of globalization, worldwide financial power constitutes a major international power, the only power that really operates at world scale; it can shift enormous capitals instantaneously. Unfortunately, it operates in degenerate ways with regard to production. Expectations and manipulations of very large financial activities may result in impressive destabilizing rushes. A masterly and stimulating treatment in the matter has been provided by G. Ietto.[107] We limitate to say that the financial side of social and economic life has become a turbulent and sulky master of production, instead of being its servant. It thus amounts to an epidemic scourging our global society, a state of affairs that it is imperative we reverse: the national and international financial systems have to be led back to their inner nature, which is to be the servant of production. Such a transformation (representing a new vital functional imperative) would involve the role and the functioning of the banking system, the nature of financial activities, the character of financial flows and interest rate. We have delineated in another work a concise and incisive proposal on the way to convert the financial system from master to a simple servant of production.[108] This new functional imperative is in some way connected to the reduction – previously considered – of the market to a pure mechanism of imputation of costs and efficiency. Moreover, the present international financial system menaces to inflict to global society a destruction of social cohesion thus making functional imperatives the ontological imperatives of reciprocity and fraternity that Zamagni points out.
The third functional imperative of the global world refers to the sphere of political power; it is linked to the imperative above concerning financial markets and represents a necessary condition for the achievement of that financial imperative. The establishment of the various forms of political power in the course of history, often propelled by functional necessities, has been accompanied (and followed) by atrocious conflicts and domination and has promoted geographical forms of both integration and disintegration. In the leading Western countries, the emergence of national states out of the earlier medieval communes and seigneuries was given a strong impetus by the rise of capitalism and the resultant powerful stimulus given to the general conditions of development. The notion of absolute and unlimited sovereignty that leading students of law and political thought began to attach to the new national states led toward oppressive political domination and bloody wars; and this notion appears, in the present time, increasingly in contradiction with globalization. But, in spite of this, there persists strong opposition to the growing need of supranational forms of political power.[109] The fatiguing and contradictory political unification of Western Europe and the recurring menace of regression toward the past disintegration provide examples of both the necessity and difficulty of establishing new forms of political power and integration. Probably, the federal state represents the best way to conciliate the need for a supranational political power with the operation of local peculiarities and fecund differences of civilization.
The great impact of the imperatives discussed above on the forms of civilization is evident. This raises the problem and shows the difficulty of reconciling the above imperatives with various civilizations. One main cause of the difficulties that accompany ‘globalization’ is, as we saw, the need to cement its functional imperatives in underdeveloped and developing countries, where functional imperatives concerning the previous age (market, entrepreneurship, etc.) have yet to be fully introduced or completed.
More generally, the inevitable advent of the above functional imperatives together with connected transformations constitutes a major challenge of our age and raises serious difficulties. Acceptance would certainly be facilitated by a scientific clarification of their necessity and substance and a related diffusing of the sentiment that, willy-nilly, they are inescapable; as a consequence, the birth pangs arising from the transition toward them would be greatly reduced in comparison to their eventual establishment as organizational necessities by way of processes of mere trial and error.
4.6 A simple formalized model and its estimation
4.6.1 The interaction innovation-adaptation in a model of dynamic competition
In section 2 of this chapter we discussed the interaction innovation-structural organization of the economy, a primary feature of the development process in modern dynamic societies. As we have seen, the economy is that branch of society in which the interaction innovation-structural organization is both particularly intense and involves both the medium and the long run. It may now be instructive to present the formalization and estimation of a model of dynamic competition devoted to the representation of the above interaction. The competition considered here concerns entrepreneurial activity directed to the making of profits. This competition stimulates both innovation and adaptation, and hence provides both the disequilibrating push attached to innovation and the equilibrating one generated by the search for and profiteering from the opportunities offered by disequilibria.[110]
The theoretical scheme that follows may be interpreted as arising from a combination of Schumpeter’s creative destruction[111] and the neo-Austrian market process.[112] It is surprising that the two notions remain separate in the literature despite their evident complementariness. The term ‘structural organization’, which our model of social development considers as a counterpart of innovation, is intended here as an effect and implication of the adaptive competition emphasized by neo-Austrians, that is, the competition directed to exploit the disequilibrating effect of innovations; while ‘radical uncertainty’ (i.e. the uncertainty that cannot be the object of probability estimations) is intended as an expression of the need for structural organization that follows innovation. Therefore, a decrease in radical uncertainty is taken as an indicator of progress in structural organization following an innovation dash. Alternatively, this role of uncertainty can (and will) be replaced by the standard deviation of profit rates across firms.[113]
There is interaction between both the searches for profits (i.e. innovation and adaptation). When uncertainty and/or disequilibria grow, mainly as an effect of innovations (devoted to make profits), adaptive (neo-Austrian) competition, i.e. directed to discover and get the existing profit opportunities, prevails. This leads to a reduction in uncertainty and market disequilibria, so that innovation is stimulated both to recreate profit opportunities and because low uncertainty makes easier to innovate. So innovation feeds radical uncertainty and the standard deviation of profit rates across firms as a consequence of the increase in market disequilibria, thus stimulating adaptive competition. But the reduction in that standard deviation and uncertainty, as a consequence of adaptive competition, causes a rise in innovation. And so on, with a cyclical behavior and alternation between innovation and adaptation (innovation-structural organization). [114]
4.6.2 The formal model
The specification above suggests representing, at the aggregate level, the relation between innovation and disequilibria-uncertainty, as expressed by the notion of dynamic competition or, more in general, the motion innovation-structural organization, through a Lotka-Volterra predator-prey system, where predation is intended only in formal, not physical, terms. Innovation acts as the prey and uncertainty as the predator, according to the following differential system:
DPA = b1PA - b2u*PA (1)
Du = -b3u + b4PA*u (2)
where:
PA = Patent applications (intended as an indicator of innovation).
u = Radical uncertainty or, alternatively, the standard deviation of profit rates across firms.
D = Derivative d/dt.
* = Symbol of multiplication
The notion of radical uncertainty used here is expressed by the volatility of firms’ opinions as resulting from the UE Business Tendency Surveys (see A. Fusari 2013) and is given by the average of the volatility of: Delivery orders, Stock of finished product and the Expectations on production.
The parameter b1 is a constant exponential rate of growth of innovation, expressing the autonomous push to innovate due to entrepreneurial aggressiveness; its impact on innovation (DPA) is reduced by the degree of radical uncertainty (or the standard deviation of profit rates) u that discourages (predates) innovation (PA) according to parameter b2. The parameter b3 is an exponential rate of growth of the radical uncertainty; the negative sign on b3 expresses the compressing effect on radical uncertainty (and/or the standard deviation of profit rates) coming from adaptive competition (stimulated by u). For its part, b4 stimulates u according to the cross product between predator and prey, where the prey is the dimension of innovation (PA) that feeds uncertainty and/or the standard deviation of profit rates (predator). Precisely, innovation is the field of pasture of radical uncertainty: in the absence of innovation, the term with b4 would become null because of the adaptive search for profit. When innovation intensifies, u (the predator) grows, thus causing the contraction in innovation (the prey), and hence the predator, with a cyclical alternation. The system parameters give the dimension of the disequilibrating (b1 and b4) and equilibrating (b2 and b3) push expressed by dynamic competition (thiscompetition being represented by the combination between innovative and adaptive competition).[115]
The econometric estimation on social change (i.e. of the above equation system) that will follow make sense for the reasons synthesized in section 6 of chapter 2, precisely because the model represents some basic mechanism of socio-economic change at a very aggregate level, what justifies the assumption of a substantial invariance of parameters over time.
4.6.3 Econometric estimation
The estimation below refers to four main European industrial countries: Italy, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The data on patent applications and grants are used to express innovation and come, for Italy, from the Ufficio Italiano Brevetti, and in the other cases from the USA Department of Commerce. The data on radical uncertainty used by the estimation concerning Italy come from the UE-ISAE Business Tendency Surveys. The data on the standard deviation of profit rates across firms come from Dennis C. Mueller (1990) for France and Germany; while those for the United Kingdom come from H. Odagiri (1994); they refer to some samples of manufacturing firms and, respectively, to the periods 1961-82, 1965-82 and 1964-77. It may be objected that the considered periods are far from the present. But the estimations only intend to provide an example of a simple econometric application of our theory. At any rate, for Italy, the data on patent and uncertainty go from April 2000 to December 2010; they have been aggregated in quarterly and deseasonalised.
The data for France give pre tax profit, those for the United Kingdom and Germany give after tax profit. Their reliabilities are affected by their derivation from some firms’ balance sheet based on dissimilar and not well-established procedure.
The results shown below must be judged in the light of the deficiencies of the appropriate data series. Nevertheless, confirmation of the theory is encouraging. But the improvement of quantitative analysis in the crucial fields of innovation and dynamic competition is urgent and would need a great deal of statistical research.
A FIML estimator was used to preserve the tight interaction between equations (1) and (2) above, i.e. innovation and uncertainty-adaptation, being such interaction a crucial point of this development on dynamic competition. The estimates are derived by an asymptotically exact Gaussian estimator of a differential equation system using discrete data and an estimation program provided by Clifford R. Wymer (WYSEA). As there is no equivalent of a just-identified model for non-linear systems, there is no system-wide test such as the Carter-Nagar R2 or likelihood-ratio. In order to give an idea of the efficiency of estimations, also the means and standard deviations of the observed and estimated endogenous variables are reported.
A system which differs from Volterra (pseudo Volterra form) in that the second equation uses only PA instead of the term PA*u in the right hand side, has also been estimated. As a matter of fact, it may be assumed that the “reproduction” hypothesis typical of Volterra’s study on population plainly operates only in the equation of innovation in that each innovation is strongly influenced by the state of knowledge resulting from previous innovations. In the equation of u, however, it may operate only backwards (-b3) as large disequilibria stimulate adaptation. This means that in equation 2 the cross product term of Volterra, the encounter between predator and prey, may be replaced by the prey (innovation) only.
Data on patent have been divided by thousand, for uniformity of their scale with respect to u.
ITALY
Table 1 Model in Volterra’s form
Estimate of parameters Asymptotic standard error t values
b1 0.033 0.002 15.37
b2 0.0105 0.0007 14.68
b3 0.0458 0.0022 20.28
b4 0.0197 0.0009 20.44
Endogenous variables
Observed Estimated
Mean Standard deviation Mean Standard deviation
PA 2.417776 0.146913 2.417424 0.148490
u 3.209104 0.122090 3.203985 0.137458
UNITED KINGDOM
Table 2 Model in Volterra’s form
Estimate of parameters Asymptotic standard errors t values
b1 0.519 0.099 5.25
b2 0.082 0.016 5.19
b3 1.716 0.504 3.41
b4 0.367 0.105 3.48
Endogenous variables
Observed Estimated
Mean Standard deviation Mean Standard deviation
PAt 4.7876 0.2189 4.7925 0.2982
VRt 6.4006 0.7898 6.3773 0.9747
The model with the term PA in equation (2), instead of PA*u, does not converge.
FRANCE
The data series of the standard deviation of profit rates for France has two out-lying observations in 1974 and 1977. The first has no justification and is probably due to inaccuracy of the data; the second is largely determined by the revaluations, in 1977, of the assets of mergers that consistently depressed profit rates. We have substituted to those anomalous data an interpolation with the contiguous data[116].
Table 3 Model in Volterra’s form
Estimate of parameters Asymptotic standard errors t values
b1 0.318 0.121 2.61
b2 0.048 0.019 2.46
b3 0.558 0.244 2.29
b4 0.192 0.080 2.40
Endogenous variables
Observed Estimated
Mean Standard deviation Mean Standard deviation
PAt 3.0316 0.2261 3.0295 0.2302
VRt 6.3311 0.7627 6.3183 0.8061
Table 4 Model with the term PA in equation (2), instead of PA*u
Estimate of parameters Asymptotic standard errors t values
b1 0.252 0.158 1.59
b2 0.037 0.252 1.48
b3 0.608 0.348 1.75
b4 1.320 0.722 1.83
Endogenous variables
Observed Estimated
Mean Standard deviation Mean Standard deviation
PAt 3.0316 0.2261 3.0263 0.2418
VRt 6.2933 0.7637 6.3072 0.5024
GERMANY
Table 5 Model in Volterra’s form
Estimate of parameters Asymptotic standard errors t values
b1 0.316 0.115 2.74
b2 0.090 0.037 2.45
b3 0.089 0.177 0.50
b4 0.128 0.023 0.56
Endogenous variables
Observed Estimated
Mean Standard deviation Mean Standard deviation
PAt 7.7933 1.4829 7.7608 1.6193
VRt 3.1622 0.3524 3.1554 0.3401
Table 6 Model with the term PA in equation (2), instead of PA*u
Estimate of parameters Asymptotic standard errors t values
b1 0.333 0.124 2.69
b2 0.096 0.039 2.43
b3 0.221 0.164 1.35
b4 0.095 0.066 1.43
Endogenous variables
Observed Estimated
Mean Standard deviation Mean Standard deviation
PAt 7.7933 1.4829 7.7603 1.5898
VRt 3.1622 0.3524 3.1588 0.2810
All the values of parameters are much lower than in the other countries. This is mainly due to the fact that in the recent period the rate of growth of patent applications is substantially decreased and the rate of growth of uncertainty is increased, while in the estimation periods concerning the other considered countries the rate of growth of patent applications was high and the standard deviation of profit rates decreasing.
For Germany, the model in the Volterra form provides a worse estimate of the equation of the standard deviation than the model that substitutes the term PA to PA*u in (2); the contrary happens for France and the United Kingdom. It would seem, therefore, that in the first country disequilibria do not generate disequilibria, while a self-reinforcing tendency of disequilibria appears in the United Kingdom and France, i.e. u contributes to stimulate its own growth through the term PA*u.
All parameters have the correct signs, have reasonable values and are significantly different from zero around the 1 percent level in the estimation of the model in the Volterra form for Italy, the United Kingdom and France, and in the pseudo Volterra form for Germany.
The model was also estimated utilizing data on patent grants instead of patent applications but the results have not been presented as, in all cases, patent applications gave better estimates. This is not surprising since patent applications provide a better expression of the innovative propensity of firms, i. e. their intention to innovate.
It may be interesting to compare the estimated parameters relative to various countries, taking present that parameter b1 gives the innovative dash, parameter b3 the adaptive push, while parameters b1 and b4 represent the disequilibrating forces and parameters b2 and b3 express the equilibrating ones.
Italy shows a relevant innovative dash and adaptive push (b1 and b3) meaning a satisfactory degree of dynamic competition, while the disequilibrating and equilibrating forces are almost equivalent.
The United Kingdom shows the highest innovative dash (b1) and also the highest adaptive push (b3), i.e. the strongest dynamic competition. Germany shows a strong innovative dash and a low adaptive push, while France presents an innovative dash a little lower than Germany, but a much higher adaptive push. Relative to Germany, France has a lower parameter on the term in equation (1) braking innovative dash and a higher parameter on the term in equation (2) braking adaptive push. These offsetting values of b1 and b3, and b2 and b4 tend to partly compensate the differences in the innovative dash and the adaptive push, making the disequilibrating-equilibrating process closer in those two countries. The United Kingdom shows such offsetting behavior only with reference to the adaptive push (but the difference between b3 and b4 is large), while the parameter b2, braking the innovative dash, appears higher than France and a little lower than Germany, implying for this aspect a widening of the disequilibrating forces relative to this country.
4.7 Conclusion
The theory of social-historical development that we have presented must be analysed in strict conjunction with the method of social sciences, on which it is based. We have noted that such a theory must be centred on the strong interaction between: the aspects of necessity and of choice-possibility, the main expressions of which are functional and ontological imperatives for one side, and civilization for the other; and the parallel interaction between the moment of innovative drive and that of organizational structuring and rationalization. The optional innovative moment, by upsetting the status quo, i.e. the existing equilibria and established interests, evokes conflict; the structuring and rationalizing moment evokes functional necessity. People interested in building a fully harmonious society must try to eliminate innovators, hence the phenomenon of development, and give rise to a stationary society. This is the price of the great harmony. But if Man wants to advance in knowledge and achievements, he cannot do without the pendulum movement between innovation and structural organisation, the interaction of determinism and indeterminacy, of option and conflict, nor can he deny the reasons of function.
Now some concrete application of the theory to universal history would be necessary. We have managed for doing that in another ponderous research.[117]
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5 On the dynamics of societies: Is there a universal theory?
Premise
We are now in a position in which to apply our interpretation in a critical review of a number of important theories of social and historical processes; a review that will provide more evidence for the core and also for some of the more peripheral aspects of our theory. Moreover, the critique of well known and influential approaches offers an effective way of arguing for our interpretation and demonstrating its potential.
Only some of the most influential works are considered, primarily those treating of evolutionary aspects that are currently of increasing importance; but we take care not to be misled by the current confusion that attaches to growing theoretical specialization. Indeed, our treatment suggests the importance and also the possibility of a theoretical formulation characterized by a high degree of generalization.
This chapter spurns quotations for the most part, with the exception of some important but less known theories. We prefer to give, whenever possible, a compact and accurate exposition of the theories considered and then proceed to their criticism.
5.1 Marxian historical materialism
The Marxian doctrine of historical-social processes hinges on the relation between: productive forces – structure – and the social superstructure. It states that the development of the forces of production will sooner or later make the structural base of the economy inadequate and hence make the relations of production obsolete; these will then necessarily change, overturning the juridical, economic and administrative superstructure.
Our model replaces the structure-superstructure relation with a more articulated one, the following: forms of civilisation (with their degree of consistency or violation of ontological imperatives) - innovation - general conditions of development - functional imperatives - forms of civilisation. The character of a civilisation, i.e. its degree of fulfilment of ontological imperatives, stimulates or obstructs innovation. The evolution of the general conditions of development due to innovation produces new functional imperatives and hence a change to the civilisation consistent with them.
The two theories have numerous and substantial differences, notwithstanding some apparent similarities. The differences depend mainly on different methodological approaches. The explanatory categories that our essay sets out, particularly the notions of civilisation, functional and ontological imperatives, the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility-creativity, and the role of innovation, differ radically from the backbone of the Marxian interpretation, namely the notions of structure and superstructure; moreover, our theory does not postulate the central role of the economy. These differences can be clarified starting from the question of method.
The Marxian method is strictly observational. This is at the root of the major errors and difficulties of Marx’s theoretical approach. In fact, the observational method and the related hypothesis that reality means necessity hide the crucial importance of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility. Indeed, they imply that the distinction is senseless, and they weaken the distinction between continuity and change. More specifically, the Marxian notions of structure and superstructure blend the notions of necessity and choice-possibility indistinctly together. For instance, Marxian structure (the relations of production) includes the market and the decentralisation of economic decision-making, which are functional imperatives in modern dynamic economies (and hence pertain to the field of necessity); but it also includes forms of property and the income distribution and financial system typical of capitalism, which instead are not functional imperatives but components of capitalist civilisation and power system, and hence concern the field of choice-possibility.
Also, the Marxian capitalist superstructure includes both functional imperatives (for instance State power, the principle of merit, and the competitive attitude, and hence the corresponding juridical and administrative rules) and various ideological, juridical and political forms that relate to choice-possibility, i.e. that are not strictly indispensable to the existence of modern dynamic society. This mixture of necessity and choice-possibility and, more precisely, the scant importance that Marx attributed to the latter, as is implied by the concept of “inexorable historical motion,” produce serious analytical errors. For instance, the mixture leads to considering certain ideological forms, such as feudal or bourgeois civilisation, as inevitable until very substantial change in the forces of production necessitate their overturning. The worst problem is that confusing necessity with choice-possibility leads to postulate, in the context of the overturning, the demolition of some functional imperatives, thus making an ideological attack on those imperatives, for instance the entrepreneurial role. Consequently, the Marxian approach makes it impossible to separate wheat from chaff. The voluntary aspect is replaced by a deterministic notion of historical process. The idea that reality means necessity and that real means rational, implied by the idealist hypothesis that reality goes toward final ends, obscures the constructivist side, i.e. the phenomenon of structural rationalisation and organisation. In fact, Marx’s method forces him to ignore the issue of the organisation of social systems that relates to the historical imagination.
Moreover, the Marxian theory, notwithstanding its dynamic nature, does not properly analyse a main pole of historic-social development, namely innovation. More precisely, the theory, though seeing the forces of production as a decisive factor of evolutionary motion, does not pay due attention to the factors that accelerate or slow the evolution of those forces. In particular, it omits the fundamental impact that existing social values have on innovative drive. Here there emerges again the Marxian underestimation of choice-possibility and hence of the decisive influence that value-ideological choices and the consequent civilisations have on human creativity and innovation. Marx takes innovation for granted, because he was analysing capitalism, which is indeed driven to innovate by strict competitive needs. But capitalism is only one organisational form; innovative drive has been repeatedly repressed in the course of history by various forms of civilisation. When the economy took centre stage in the social process, this suffocation came to an end. But the Marxian hypothesis of the centrality of the economy necessarily refers to a particular historical period; it cannot constitute an interpretative tool for all of history.
The above methodological shortcomings prevent Marx from developing the organic-functional aspect and appropriately treating the conflictual aspect. Indeed, the observational idea that reality means necessity makes the distinction between the two aspects senseless. We clarified the great importance of that distinction above, as well as showing that social conflict is strongly interacting with functional aspects, as expressed by the motion from innovation to structural organisation. The roots of social conflict are innovation and choice processes, which cause ruptures and inconsistencies, sacrifice interests and stimulate appetites; all this will be remedied by structural organisation, aimed at restoring the functional organic unity and coherence of the social system. Eliminating social conflict would require the absence of innovation and the total predomination of the organic and functional aspect, as in caste societies or autocratic and bureaucratic centralised empires. But social conflict aimed at overturning functional and ontological imperatives would be a real disaster.
Communist utopia requires the suffocation of innovation and a stationary state. Moreover, it is mistaken to think that historical motion needs revolutionary explosions. A society flexible enough and open to creativity can carry out profound transformations through the sedimentation of innovation over time; only rigidly structured societies need tremendous upheavals to change, when they are forced to.
These considerations are confirmed and better clarified by the analysis of Marxian historical stages. We have seen that the subdivision of the historical process into stages of development needs a criterion of classification that is valid at universal scale. The definition of that criterion requires the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility, as it must be based on aspects of necessity (precisely, functional imperatives) not choice-possibility, which concerns specific and non-comparable aspects. More precisely, the classification of stages cannot be based on forms of civilisation that, unlike functional imperatives, constitute different historical planets and hence mark a fracture. But Marxian historical stages, distinguished by the succession of modes of production, attribute a crucial classificatory role to civilisations, which are a significant part of the concept of mode of production. This does not cause important misunderstandings when we only refer to the historical development of the Western world, from feudalism to the present. But it does cause serious misunderstanding if the analysis refers to all of human history, comprising an enormous variety of civilisations that Marx expeditiously lumps together in a single historical phase: his residual category of “Asiatic mode of production”. Autocratic, bureaucratic centralised, and caste orders represent completely different historical realities, fundamental options that placed societies on totally different evolutionary tracks. These orders do not form the links of a chain (the chain of social-historical development), and so have nothing to do with the notion of historical stages. Capitalism does not represent an historical stage; it is a civilisation appropriate to the historical stage of modern dynamic society, among other possible civilizations.
5.2 The theories of stages of development.
The notion of stages of development is strictly associated with the idea of ‘progress’ and has been widely used in social studies, economics and history; it has also been used in philosophical analyses and even theological speculation. The discovery of some ‘laws of becoming’ that represent the basic lines of development of human societies even right to the end of time and so enable us to foresee the future, has always exerted great academic fascination. Gioacchino da Fiore, with his three stages of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, was a precursor of the notion of historical stages. The dialectical speculation of the idealists ratified the idea that historical motion proceeds through progressive stages, towards the final ends.
Later Comte, the father of positivism, claimed to have determined a scientific law of the motion of knowledge (and hence of society) articulated in stages of development. Following Vico, he represented social dynamics and the ‘law of progress’ through three stages that he called: theological, metaphysical, and positive. But nothing demonstrates that knowledge and historical process actually correspond to Comte’s stages or warrants the conclusion that the manifest destiny of societies is ‘progress’. Many societies stagnated for millennia in a primitive stage or stationary condition. In spite of the irradiating power of dynamic Western society, some peoples stagnate even today in that condition. If a civilisation suffocates innovative drive, progressive development is impossible. The components of the Comtian stages, i.e religion and instincts, heroism, philosophy and theology, art and science, characterise human action in every era; but nothing says that development has to follow a set chain, which posits a precise order of importance of those components. In sum, Comte’s positivism is far from presenting a scientific theory of the stages of development.
The most accurate and efficacious analyses of the stages of development (or growth) have been put forward by economists, who are facilitated by the possibility of quantifying economic variables and by the fact that the economy leads the motion of the whole social system, at least from medieval time to present age. W.W. Rostow insists on drawing the economic stages of growth and goes much beyond in his fascinating and important book on economic growth. He lists five stages: traditional society, the preconditions for take-off, economic take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass consumption.
At the base of these distinctions, aimed quintessentially at pointing out the modalities for promoting economic development, lies the capacity of productive system to absorb technology and to generate autonomous economic growth. But notwithstanding the use, for the classification of the above stages, of some important non-economic factors and the care in highlighting linkages between economic and non-economic sectors, economists’ theorisation on development stages lacks the breadth for a true theory of social-historical development. Moreover, the classification in stages is not based on rigorous criteria of distinction between historical periods, e.g. our notion of functional imperatives; the classification does not make a precise distinction between necessity and choice-possibility. Choice-possibility is often included among the distinctive criteria of each phase, intermingled with necessity. At most, the distinctions between stages are centred on particular aspects of the general conditions of development that, while important, are always only a partial representation of those conditions.
5.3 Evolutionary and institutional theories of the social-historical process. Spencer, Hayek and Douglass North
1. Evolutionary and institutional analyses of society have dedicated a great deal of work to the explanation of social and historical processes. In the nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer based his theory of society and moral strictly on the process of natural selection and the evolutionary differentiation of species. According to this social Darwinism, the law of progress is unidirectional motion from undefined homogeneity to heterogeneousness and the particular, which implies a growing systemic complexity. Progress, in this view, is not a historical accident but is implicit in the nature of the world and proceeds like the transformation of a bud into flower.
The evolutionary process in Spencer tends toward equilibrium, driven by natural selection that implies increasing adaptation, and hence toward the elimination of conflict and evil, towards harmony, perfection and general happiness. In this theory variety, instead of causing conflicts and competition, represents the equilibrium result of harmonic evolution wedding the growing social differentiation to functional integration and systemic coherence. However, Spencer’s deterministic and evolutionary optimism is clearly contradicted by the actual course of history.
Adaptive processes, to converge on a stable equilibrium and general harmony, require the disappearance of social change. Spencer’s theory accordingly can be seen to have some foundation when it is applied to quasi-stationary societies of the past. Spencer greatly underestimates the causes of change, which he sees only in the biological evolution of the human species; he cites biological change as the force that breaks equilibrium and lends new impetus to the evolutionary process. But this motion is considered to be very slow, so that it implies only very weak violation of the supposed tendency toward general harmony.
Reality differs drastically from this theory. The author does not adequately investigate the roots of evolutionary motion. He ignores the operation of the endogenous forces that stimulate (or block) creativity and constitute the basic factors of development (or stagnation). We have seen that as innovation is the engine of the evolutionary process, ‘progress’ is inseparable from conflict, fractures, inconsistencies and a succession of disequilibria. The result is that the evolutionary process, properly understood, is inconsistent with grand social harmony; indeed, it is marked by antagonisms and passions that it continuously rekindles. Innovative drive causes ruptures, rivalries and inconsistencies that structural organisation tries to eliminate. And so on, with an endless alternation of disequilibrating and re-equilibrating motion. Spencer’s hypotheses of incessant change and growing harmony of social reality are mutually inconsistent. In modern dynamic societies, change expels harmony; on the contrary, in the quasi-stationary societies of the past, harmony suffocated change. The basic vice of Spencer’s theory of social process is represented by the undervaluation of innovation and conflict, and the overvaluation of organic-functional aspect and structural organisation.
2. We saw in Chapter 3 that Hayek’s notion of social process attributes a central role to non-intentional events and to decisions under uncertainty, to tacit knowledge and learning by doing. But notwithstanding the emphasis on the unforeseeableness of events, Hayek’s evolutionary process tends toward spontaneous order, which is achieved in spite of the myopic and egoistic aims of individual actions. Hayek accepts the teaching of Mandeville and the Scottish school on the transformation of private vices into public benefit in the context of the interrelations among the various parts of social system as regulated and coordinated by the market.
Hayek maintains that an evolutionary selection of organisational rules takes place through those rules’ capacity to advantage the social groups that adopt them. But he admits that the spontaneous evolution of society does not bring perfection; he was well aware of the horrors of oppression and totalitarianism. He concludes, therefore, that it is necessary to promote liberal institutions, the only ones suitable to progress.
For the rest, however, save for this endorsement of liberal institutional arrangements, Hayek argues vigorously against constructivism. He expels from structural organisation every voluntary aspect; structural organisation is considered the mere result of the tendency toward spontaneous order triggered by competition. Hayek practically discounts the irrationalities and sufferings that a selection process based strictly on trial and error may cause in a social reality of continuous and rapid change; he does not admit that the careful application of rationality in the management of social processes can alleviate errors and sufferings. Indeed, the tragic experiences of demagogic regimes (Nazism, Stalinism) induce him to fear that the contrary is more likely.
Hayek’s insistence on the role of the market and decentralised decision-making is important, as it puts some basic functional imperatives of modern dynamic societies into focus. But the inability to distinguish necessity from choice-possibility, functional imperatives from civilisations, leads him much further, to see liberal institutions (which express one particular kind of civilisation) as the optimal organisational form that will lead to the ‘Great Society’. This position undervalues the role played by the variety of organisational, ethical and relational forms in the becoming of social systems. Hayek dislikes the analysis of the constraints that civilisations may set on the evolutionary process or on innovation. He pays little attention to the role, in modern economies, of innovative drive and competition based on innovation. The uncertainty, conflicts and indeterminacy of events that shape his theoretical system derive from the interactions among individual actions much more than from innovative drive. The substantial absence, in Hayek’s theory, of the important endogenous disequilibrating mechanism represented by competition based on innovation confers a strong equilibrating tendency on the process of adaptation resulting from individual actions and interests. The main cause of his excessive faith in spontaneous order is his disregard for innovation. A major weakness in Hayek’s work is his pessimism about the possibility of constructing a science of the organisation of social systems, and his consequent hostility towards voluntarism.
3. Douglass North’s interpretation of social-historical processes, though limited to the economy, deserves attention for the central role that he attributes to institutions. Unlike Hayek’s analysis, North’s does not concern any specific institution but the evolution of institutions over time. Moreover, evolution is not analysed by the observational but the constructivist method, i.e. from the standpoint of organisational rationality and efficiency.
North states that institutions express the link between past, present and future and mark, through their evolution, the historical process; they are the key to understanding the relations between economic and political systems and those relations’ implications for economic development. This author takes the notion of ‘transaction costs’ as the basic instrument for the interpretation of evolution. The size of transaction costs (determined by the amount of information that, in the presence of uncertainty, is necessary to value the contents of changes and the reliability of agents, the need to protect agreements and to enforce them, and a risk premium), he argues, decisively influences the volume of transactions and, in the end, the success of economic action. North observes that in the world of perfect knowledge presupposed by the Walrasian general equilibrium approach, institutions are unnecessary. If information and the guarantee of rights were cost-free, organisation would have no role. Moreover, in North’s schema more efficient institutions, those that reduce transaction costs most substantially, tend to eliminate the less efficient. This and the variation in the course of history of transaction costs explain economic, political and social evolution.
North’s analysis repeatedly touches on our concept of functional imperative. His use of transaction costs to explain the transition to later stages of economic development and to identify their main contents resembles our notion of historical phase. Unfortunately the absence of a rigorous methodological base undermines the coherence and the explanatory power of his approach. In particular North and all theorists of transaction costs fail to see the crucial importance, for rigorously specifying their analytical approach, of the distinction between civilisation and functional imperative, necessity and choice-possibility. His analytical categories are permeated by the persistent mixing of those aspects; that is, they combine institutions that express precise civilisations (for instance, property rights) with aspects of market process expressing mere functional necessities. This makes his analysis in part an apology and devalues its theoretical breadth and explanatory power.
Those limits clearly emerge in North’s interpretation of the different pace of evolution in the United States and Latin America, an interpretation based on the institutional differences inherited from English and Spanish colonisation. But he is unable to see that the failure of the attempts by some Latin American countries to accelerate development was due largely to their inability to identify the functional imperatives necessary to success. In effect, the reform projects and the institutional evolution of Latin America generally violated the functional imperatives of the more advanced stages of development that they desired. This impeded the building of forms of civilisation consistent with those imperatives, and even today keeps the continent imprisoned in its colonial past; in fact, the deep roots of tradition and interests make emancipation through trial and error difficult and improbable indeed.
The role that North attributes to historical continuity is accentuated by these methodological failings, which reduce the constructivist breadth of his analysis. The path dependence of the evolutionary process is not so strict, nor institutional change so necessarily gradual, as North thinks. He does not see that increasing returns (due to externalities and learning processes), by enforcing continuation along current development paths, turn with time into decreasing returns owing to the advent of new functional imperatives typical of more advanced stages of development. At that point, a strong drive to abandon the old paths will emerge, in the same way that the imprisonment in old techniques ends as soon as alternative and more efficient technologies are discovered.
5.4 The anti-rationalist interpretations of social-historical processes. Pareto and Spengler
The rationality principle plays an important role, whether from the observational or constructivist standpoint, in all the theories of social process that we have analysed. We now consider two of the most important interpretations that deny the explanatory role of that principle, those of Vilfredo Pareto and Oswald Spengler.
1. Pareto's cyclical theory of social-historical process is peculiar. It is a product of the author’s attention to non-logical action and, more precisely, a result of his notions of residue and derivation[118]. The concept of residue serves as a substitute for postulates in deductive analysis; it concerns human instincts and feelings. The notion of derivations concerns sophisms, appeals to sentiment and more or less logical reasoning starting from residues and directed to persuading oneself and others of the appropriateness of some propositions. Pareto distinguishes residues into two groups: class I residues, or the ‘instinct for combinations’, concerning the propensity to use reason, astuteness, the ability to practise compromises and innovation; class II residues, or persistence of aggregates, concerning the preservation of existing assets through the appeal to faith or the use of material force. His interpretation of social-historical processes is essentially a theory of the circulation and variable distribution, in society and over time and space, of residues, that is of instinctive forces: combinatory instincts are said to generate change and instability, while the instincts of persistence of aggregates have a stabilising role; more precisely, they tend to trap society in the pre-existing organisational forms and fossilise it. Pareto maintains that the prevalence of one class of residues will trigger a movement in favour of the other class. This alternation, chiefly within the political élite, is presumed to provoke cyclical oscillations of social processes. Moreover, the possible excess number, within the political élite, of people lacking the residues indispensable to the exercise of power and, within the lower strata, of people able to govern, supposedly provokes revolutionary ruptures. An incessant interchange of élites, so as to produce the right proportions of the two classes of residues, would be required to avoid the rupture of equilibrium and to achieve social prosperity.
This theory has the merit of utilising some analytical categories that are generally ignored. But it also has limits and inconsistencies, largely due to the dominant role that Pareto assigns to individual actions in the analysis of social process. The consideration that human behaviour includes various irrational elements induces Pareto, as sociologist, to ignore the rationality principle in the interpretation of history and in the development of social theory. The author does not give due importance to the fact that the social process is not a strict consequence of individual actions but, on the contrary, exerts a decisive influence upon them. He does not see, therefore, that the comprehension of social processes does not need an explanation in terms of men’s propensities, which are often instinctive, unfathomable, the source of numerous unexpected events. That comprehension can, more efficaciously, be founded on the analysis of social systems as constituted by organisational forms that fulfil precise functions and express meaningful systemic coherence.
His rejection in principle of the postulate of organisational rationality prevents Pareto from perceiving the importance of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility in the study of social phenomena, and makes his analysis inconsistent with structural organisation and rationalisation. Further, his analysis does not attribute an important role to innovative drive. Instead, Pareto insists on the great temporal invariability of instincts or residues and on the low level of social change notwithstanding appearances.
Moreover, he does not consider the decisive role of civilisations in causing both the persistence of aggregates and the propensity to innovate or, more in general, in determining the role played by the character of the class II residues. Had he given due consideration to the role of civilisations, he could have seen that the cyclical alternation between the residues of class I and II – or, in terms of our interpretation, between innovative drive and structural organisation – cannot be considered to be universal but instead requires the presence of a decentralised and competitive civilisation. Its operation needs a civilisation of the Western type; other (Oriental) types of civilisation have implied the undisputed domination of the residues of persistence of aggregates and the consequent stagnation of society.
Pareto’s theory is unable to register the importance, for social motion, of the notion of functional imperative and hence of the interaction among innovation, functional imperatives and new forms of civilisation, which flanks the more general cyclical interaction between innovative drive and structural organisation. Worse still, each one of the two poles activating the Paretian cycle, i.e. class I and class II residues, present a mixture of elements pertaining to innovative drive and structural organisation. For instance, religious faith, which is an important component of the persistence of aggregates, has also produced significant explosions of innovation in the course of history, while scepticism, astuteness and calculation, which are instincts for combination and thus in Pareto’s framework causes of instability, are decisive factors of the stabilising motion constituted by structural organisation.
These misconceptions prevent rigorous analysis of conflict and of organic functional aspects and their relations. What is more, they decisively undermine the explanation of the evolutionary motion of society. Pareto’s interpretation of history based on the role of class I and class II residues, mainly his account of Roman and Italian history and the Reformation, is ingenuous and easy to criticise. Significantly, his interpretation is more convincing in situations where the two classes of instincts coincide with the poles of innovative drive and structural organisation as, for instance, in the history of Athens and Sparta. It is easy to see that the completely different historical destiny of Western and Eastern societies cannot be considered a mere question of instincts; the divergence is determined by the forms of civilisation. Prosperity depends on the interaction and co-ordination of the poles of innovative drive and structural organisation and rationalisation, much more than on the appropriate combination of class I and class II residues.
2. Spengler emphasises the role of irrational behaviour in history more strongly than Pareto. He says that unlike nature, which needs a causal criterion of analysis aimed at discovering laws of motion, society can only be studied using the sense of history and predestination. Consistently with this position, he denies the possibility of explaining social action and social phenomena by any theory and accordingly substitutes intuition for reasoning. In masterly fashion, in support of his irrationalism he evokes the impact on historical vicissitudes of ambitions, passions, superstitions, coincidences and, above all, the complex and variegated phenomena of civilisation, which obscure and deny the interpretative role of the rationality principle.
The breadth and descriptive vigour of Spengler’s notion of civilisation and the central role he assigns to it in social and historical inquiry deserve great attention. He considers civilisations as organic entities that are born, grow, age and die, and indicates in their evolution, which involves every aspect of life, the profound sense of historical becoming. Spengler sharply observes that every civilisation expresses an overriding value-ideological option. This observation highlights the parabolic destiny of civilisations, the tendency to develop and flourish as long as the overriding option can fully express its intrinsic possibilities, and afterward to decay, to become stiff, sterile and, in sum, cold and artificial.
These considerations are irrefutable and of great interest; they give a masterly account of many crucial aspects of social-historical processes. But Spengler’s superb sense of civilisations is quite insufficient for the interpretation of history and instead is the source of serious errors and misunderstandings. He fails to consider the notion of ontological imperatives and their presence or absence in any given civilisation. Besides, civilisation is not everything. One of Spengler’s main errors is that he ignores the notion of social system. We know that this notion also includes some important aspects that are absent in the notion of civilisation, such as functional imperatives and the non-institutionalised components that innovation brings on the scene. The sedimentation of innovations causes changes in the general conditions of development and hence in the functional imperatives that will determine the advent of new civilisations. This interaction between civilisations and functional imperatives, which allows the distinction of historical stages, together with the succession of innovative drive and structural organisation, should form the backbone of the interpretation of history; but they are absent in Spengler’s analysis.
The shortcomings of interpretations based solely on the notion of civilisation may appear negligible when we are studying stationary societies, above all the Oriental societies characterised by strongly rooted and pervasive civilisations covering the whole social system and coinciding with it. But those shortcomings become highly relevant when we seek to study modern dynamic societies, where the boundaries of social systems are much broader than those of the civilisation. This second kind of society does not follow the parabola and destiny of civilisations; on the contrary, it shows a strong tendency towards regeneration and incessant renewal that may be able to avoid the grey, cold and artificial terminal stage of civilisations.
Nothing better epitomizes the limitations of Spengler’s interpretation than the provocative title of his work: The Decline of the West.
5.5 The central role of creative processes in Toynbee and Ortega y Gasset
1. Like Spengler, Arnold Toynbee sees history essentially as a succession of civilisation forms. But unlike Spengler, whose concept of civilisation is very precise, Toynbee develops a notion that is very extensive and practically coincides with the notion of social system. This increases the breadth of Toynbee’s analysis, which paints a superb fresco of universal history animated by the rise and fall of a large variety of social systems, but at the same time it severely undermines the analytical rigour and interpretative capacity of his study of history; what is worse, this broad concept leads to a very questionable distinction among civilisations.
Toynbee’s theory of social-historical processes is characterised by the important role of creativity and innovation. Popularisations describe it as a theory of challenge-response, but this is a diminished representation. In effect, Toynbee does emphasise the disturbing role and the challenge implicit in the new situations caused by endogenous or external events, followed by a response that lends impulse to the process of social differentiation and to new forms of civilisation. But this differentiation, unlike Darwinian selection, is not deterministic. In Toynbee, response always implies creativity and may consequently differ in content. There will be development if the challenge is followed by a high-level response, one that is very creative and generates further change, which in turn generates another creative response, and so on.
Toynbee’s thesis that development is triggered by creative phenomena and driven by imitation (mimesis), which determines its diffusion throughout society, is unexceptionable. He adds that the diffusion of mimesis may cause anaemia of creative drive, which can be obstructed by infatuation with the past and the force of tradition, the intoxication of victory, the tendency to rest on one’s laurels, or the disorders provoked by the clash between new and old conditions. Toynbee uses ‘fall’ to indicate the collapse of development as a consequence of the anaemia of creativity. This collapse pushes society into a sort of vegetative state or, more frequently, into ‘disintegration’ in three stages: a period of disorder, the advent of a universal State, and an interregnum that, through the contribution of creative minorities, opens the door to a new civilisation.
The most interesting aspect of this interpretation is the link between creativity and development. Unfortunately, Toynbee neglects a crucial aspect of the action of civilisations, that is, the constraints that they may impose on creativity. Evidently, the effort to trace the course back up from challenge (crisis) to a new civilisation obliged him to disregard the way in which the nature of a civilisation affects the challenge itself, i.e. the innovative process. We know that the content of challenge and of response is largely determined by the character of the civilisation in which they arise. Toynbee’s historical references were intended to trace the succession challenge-civilisation (for instance, the powerful hydraulic works in ancient Ceylon activated by the idea that not one drop of water should be wasted, or the Spartan and Osman-Ottoman civilisations, which in Toynbee’s view arose as responses to very severe challenges), but they can be readily reversed. In fact, these instances clearly show the decisive imprint of civilisations (or their more creative and original aspects) on the characteristics of the challenge and response.
The limitations and errors of Toynbee’s theory emerge more clearly in his notions of fall, disintegration, period of disorder, universal empire, which complete his interpretation and which he manages to apply to any and all societies, sometimes thanks to great exaggerations that Ortega y Gasset pointed out. Toynbee’s notion of ‘fall’ indicates the exhaustion of development that follows the anaemia of creative skills; this, he says, provokes a period of disorder, oppression and protracted disintegration, with a series of ups and downs, followed by the establishment of a universal State and, in the end, its dissolution. But we know that every period of development is followed by a phase of structuring and that the alternation of periods of disorder and relative order is part of the nature of social systems; in sum, creative drive causes contradictions and conflicts (i.e. disorder), but these problems are attenuated during the stage of structural organisation that regenerates consistency.
The historical cases considered by Toynbee demonstrate the important explanatory role that attaches to the succession between innovative drive and structural organisation. But in his interpretation the two aspects are combined in a confusing way: the notions of fall and disintegration also include structural organisation and therefore periods of magnificence during which the fruits of turbulent periods of innovative drive were reaped. This confusion emerges clearly in Toynbee’s periodisation, as in his indication of the period between 431 and 31 B.C. as the period of the fall of Hellenic society, notwithstanding the great innovative drive of Hellenistic civilisation and the Roman republic; or the inclusion of the Roman Empire of Principate (of the first three centuries after Christ) in the phase of disintegration.
In effect, Toynbee’s interpretation too suffers from the lack of sufficiently deep analysis of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility, which conceals the importance of the succession between innovation and structural organisation and, what is more, the need for the concept of functional imperative to accompany that of civilisation. The result is that Toynbee conceives of civilisation as synonymous with social system. These misunderstandings preclude the enunciation of the basic long-run mechanism of social-historical process constituted by the interaction between civilisations (with their differing degrees of importance attributed to ontological imperatives) and functional imperatives; that is: the advent, with the modification of the general conditions of development consequent to the sedimentation of innovations, of new functional imperatives that require new, compatible forms of civilisation. Moreover, failing to consider functional imperatives prevents rigorous distinction of the stages of universal history, so Toynbee’s historical periods become arbitrary and sometimes eccentric.
2. Ortega y Gasset’s analysis of society and the interpretation of history strongly and coherently insist on the crucial importance of creative phenomena, on non-repetitive motion and the consequent precariousness of human existence. Ortega criticises Toynbee’s description of primitive societies as static and as such different from subsequent civilisations. The critique embodies a reformulated challenge-response approach that is a good starting point for a discussion of some aspects of Ortega y Gasset’s thought that are particularly relevant to our argument here. He observes that challenge almost never comes from outside but from inside Man, in the human imagination, in the persistent disequilibria between wish and reality, in men’s need to act. Moreover, he stresses that these characteristics of human nature constitute the dynamic principle of history, the motor of social change. Man does not have a “nature” and is not a thing but rather a drama: «To be free means to be lacking in constitutive identity …The only stable thing in a free being is a constitutive instability».[119] The essence of human life is change. For these reasons, physical reason,[120] based on the idea of the invariability of things, has almost nothing to say about Man and human society. In the turmoil of social phenomena, only historical reality is given.
An important part of Ortega’s conception of social-historical processes is his theory of crisis. Man’s action creates ‘culture’ and this allows him to solve problems and provides the reference points that are indispensable to reduce the uncertainty of life and avoid disorientation. The consolidation of culture produces authenticity, levelling, conventions and ideas that are more and more complex; creative skills are suffocated by tradition and the widespread acceptance of commonplaces. To become himself once again «man must periodically shake from his shoulders his culture and remain naked»[121], substitute insolence toward culture for cultural bigotry. This causes a crisis of identity: Man is deprived of the world and does not know what to do or think. Man considers the traditional rules false and rejects old beliefs, but he does not have new ones. He feels lost and desperate. Extremism and false heroism spread. But gradually new seeds blossom, a period of calm emerges, a new culture comes to fill the void; and so the process starts over again.
This interpretation of social-historical process, which produces a brilliant analysis of the advent of the modern age, hinges on Ortega y Gasset’s reflections on Man, but a particular kind of man: Western man. His reflection on society and its structures, by contrast, is marginal. This omission and one-sidedness prevent him from offering a more systematic and calibrated theory of history than Toynbee, whom he criticises so severely. The insistence on creativity allows Ortega y Gasset to give a good interpretation of the advent of civilisations. But his theory on their decadence and crisis is unsatisfactory.
During the long phases of structural organisation, the successive generations resemble one another and civilisation can become deeply rooted, thus postponing Ortega y Gasset’s crisis indefinitely. Civilisation domesticates Man, inclines him to the spirit of conformity and to a fondness for the repetition of processes. Many human societies, and not only the primitive, have experienced interminable stagnation. Ortega y Gasset insists on human versatility and on the role of beliefs. But his interpretation of history, which is inspired by an existential and vital attitude and by a Western concept of Man, underestimate the importance of civilisation, of tradition and of the natural conditions in affecting the path; in short, he downplays the decisive role played by forces external to Man in promoting crisis and recovery.
We have seen that civilisations, even the most pervasive and tendentially stationary, are ultimately subject to disintegration and collapse if the general conditions of development change, either for domestic reasons or through outside intervention. In the dynamics of crises, Man plays a secondary role from Ortega y Gasset. The decisive factor is the interrelationship between civilisation and functional imperatives, the latter’s evolution and the consequent incompatibility of the civilisation with them; all of this generates inefficiencies, malaise, alienation and rebellion. However, Ortega y Gasset’s insistence on the role of the individual is important, since it implies a reference to an important ontological imperative that a civilization may incorporate.
Social science is needed to bring out these factors and aspects of the historical process. Unfortunately, Ortega y Gasset has little familiarity with the problems of social science. He appreciates the role of sociology in treating collective phenomena and also admits that historical thought and sociology must cooperate. But he is not convinced of the possibility of building a true social science. He does not see that the ‘circumstances’ open the way to social theory through the objective needs and stabilising forces that they imply. Probably, this blindness derives from the fact that Ortega y Gasset is, after all, an observationalist (à la Popper); he believes that theory must be verified by observation. The consequence is that, as in social studies the only reality is historical, he envisages the possibility of historical reason, i.e. historical science, but does not consider the problem of finding a method conjugating being and doing, able for analysing social phenomena notwithstanding human creativity and non-repetitive motion. So Ortega y Gasset’s thought, though it does not deny social change, is totally absorbed by historical analysis. But social science must be independent of historical science and can be built rigorously without repudiating or ignoring Ortega y Gasset and Toynbee’s creationism but giving it the central role that it deserves. Historical analysis concerns what happened; but only social analysis, social science, can remedy the current impotence of the human mind to grasp social phenomena notwithstanding these are a product of Man, and hence restore the role of reason and open the door to the new age that Ortega y Gasset hopes for.
Not everything is in continuous flux, and the rationality principle, willy nilly, has an important role in human events. This makes it possible to define general principles and with their help to expand the analysis towards future. Ortega y Gasset does not see the important clarifying role of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility. He does not see the explanatory importance of functional imperatives, this dry land where scholars can find their footing, these general principles that can illuminate the road even in the worst crises and provide an antidote to conflict, disorientation and inefficiency.
5.6 Value-ideological and political aspects in the interpretation of social-historical processes. Weber-Tawney and Pellicani’s analyses
The analysis of the quasi-stationary societies of the past and their comparison with modern dynamic society is crucial to a theory of social-historical development. Max Weber was a precursor of such comparative analysis, but (following his analysis of religions) he sought to explain the birth of capitalism basing his explanation on value-ideological factors alone. Luciano Pellicani goes further, looking more deeply into the reasons for the sharply divergent paths of development in Western and Eastern societies and offering – as a premise to explain the genesis of capitalism – a detailed analysis of the political factors that kept ‘Eastern societies’ from becoming modern and dynamic.
1. Weber’s interpretation of the origins of capitalism, subjected to a thorough critique and in a sense enriched by R.H. Tawney’s analysis, is well known. Its relevance here stems from Weber’s interpretation of social processes as based on a value-ideological religious factor: the Calvinist ethics and its belief in divine predestination.
Various scholars, with the support of historical analysis, have rebutted Weber’s hypothesis. But, regardless of the importance that may be attributed to the belief in predestination in explaining the advent of capitalism, it is unquestionable that value-ideological factors, in particular religion, have often been decisive to social development, especially where conditions are propitious and potentialities ready to blossom. The flowering of Arab civilisation is an impressive example of the fertilising power of religion; chapter 10 will extensively consider the dynamic power of some important Christian messages. But it must be considered that in order for development triggered by faith to persist, tolerance, pluralism and acceptance of diversity are indispensable; more in general, there is the need that ontological imperatives and cultural objectivism prevail over relativism and the propensity toward absolutism often implicit in the profession of faith (a propensity that, for instance, in our time strongly opposes the development of Muslim world).
Moreover, the interpretation of social-historical processes must consider not only the impact of value ideological factors on social dynamics but also the reverse effect of social dynamics on ideology, a necessity that Weber admits but does not pursue. Tawney’s considerations on the evolution of religious thought show the importance of this second aspect, which is a central element in our interpretation of social-historical processes. But to grasp its full value, we must derive some values in the form of functional and ontological imperatives that, as such, have objective character.
In any case, the value-ideological aspect is far from sufficient to formulate a theory of social-historical development, and insisting on it may well cause serious misunderstandings and distortions. The application of the ideal-type presented in The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism is a good case in point. It may be useful to clarify that the notion of ideal-type, per se, is simply a synonym for scientific abstraction. But when, as in Weber, it is founded upon the idea of the equality, in principle, of the initial points of view (the starting points of scientific work), it implies the fundamental incomparability and incommensurability of the various fields of science based on those points of view. This incommensurability obstructs the progress of scientific knowledge.
We saw in Chapter 2 that the method of the social sciences must be concerned, first of all, with defining some guiding rules for selecting initial hypotheses mainly directed to achieve general principles. Moreover, we have noted the crucial role of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility and, in particular, the interaction between civilisations (intended as an aggregate of value-ideological and institutional aspects) and functional imperatives. But Weber’s analysis of method completely ignores these concepts.
2. Pellicani’s study on the genesis of capitalism starts with the examination of the factors that prevented “Eastern” societies from becoming modern and dynamic. The comparative analysis of Western and Eastern societies provides a wealth of invaluable material for the interpretation of historical process. His attention to the factors that impede development highlights the social climate and institutional conditions indispensable to the flowering of dynamic society.
Luciano Pellicani emphasises the notions of ‘closed’ and ‘open’ society. In particular, he insists on the decisive obstacle to creativity and the free exploration of ‘the worlds of the possible’ constituted by the so called ‘mega-engine,’ a holder of absolute political power, the «monopoly of violence and of material and spiritual production.»[122] He shows that the advent of the mega-engine is the product of a variety of historical circumstances.
Probably, the explanatory power and degree of generalisation of this interpretative model would be greater if purely political factors were discarded in favour of the more general notion of civilisation. In fact, the essay makes many references to civilisations, but the main focus remains political. This may cause misunderstandings: for instance, it could lead to the conclusion that the destruction of the Soviet mega-engine will, by itself, result in the economic recovery of Russia; but this neglects the fact that the recovery needs competition and entrepreneurship, which in Russia are subject to deeply rooted hostility inherited from the Byzantine Empire and Eastern civilisations.
In the ancient Mediterranean world and Rome, political rationality prevailed over economic; nevertheless, the mega-engine did not originate there, as it needs appropriate forms of civilisation that those societies lacked. But even where the mega-engine was not present, capitalism did not necessarily arise. The economy of Mediterranean societies, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire from Augustus to Antonini were suffocated by ideological factors, such as the disparagement of manual labour and productive activity, the aversion to change and the circular vision of historic time, or the role of slavery, not by mega-engine.
In the history of India and the Islamic world, political disintegration prevailed over centralisation, but this did not father capitalism. Some crucial characteristics of these civilisations, such as the Indian idea of karma and the theocratic inclination deriving from the Koran, ran counter to it. The building of Oriental mega-engines was facilitated by some of those societies’ typical beliefs and visions. Pellicani explicitly says that «society is a cultural reality before it is a political and economical reality».[123] In effect, among the main propulsive factors of modern dynamic societies, apart from political conditions we must count the central role of the individual and the linear conception of historical time, against the circular view of the ancient world. This crucial aspect is hidden by the insistent focus on political factors.
True, this insistent focus has the merit of openness to constructivist vision. But the absence of a deeper inquiry on method to distinguish between necessity and choice-possibility and to bring out the role of ontological imperatives prevents Pellicani from exploiting this openness. He does not delve into why modern dynamic society took the specific capitalist form. Actually, it is unquestionable that the advent of the modern world through spontaneous processes needed capitalism. However, the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility allows us to see that dynamic society could also be built on different and (we think) more vital ideological foundations, which it may be useful to explore. Moreover, the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility reveals that if humanity had had a clear cognition of the ‘necessities’ (clarified in our inquiry on method) of modern dynamic society, it probably would have avoided a good part of the tormented trial and error that the spontaneous advent of those ‘necessities’ has implied. In fact in the becoming of social systems, the unintentional and the undetermined concern the creative aspect, not necessarily structural organisation.
Underestimating the importance of organisational rationality in the functioning of social systems may cause errors of perspective. An instance is Pellicani’s conclusion, in which he fears the corrosion of «the ideological base that supports and feeds social solidarity.»[124] This corrosion is determined by the process of secularisation. It may seem that this concern is confirmed by the destabilising effects of accelerating innovation, which shake the foundations of modern society. But the situation does not appear desperate if we give the proper weight to the aspect of necessity, mainly the important factors of stabilisation represented by functional imperatives, which if known can generate broad consensus. Let us remember that in the motion of social systems innovative drive is flanked by structural organisation. Reason and hence science will sooner or later attain their proper role even in the management of the social system. This will attenuate the difficulties of the trial and error process. Hypercritical Western society includes a powerful antidote to the destabilising effects caused by the incessant search for new solutions and opportunities, by conflicts of interest and the desecration of values; namely, the parallel and no less strong propensity to rationalism, which puts function over conflict, condemns perfidious interests and tends to eliminate disorder and embezzlement. In the section on Eliade we shall see that the reference to rationalism solves the problem of the terror of history, against which observational methodologies positing that reality is necessity are impotent.
5.7 Recent interpretations of social development stimulated by globalisation.
1. The alliance between economy and technology, based on the entrepreneurial search for profit, has stimulated the incessant worldwide extension and intensification of a network of relations, interests, expectations and constraints brought together under the term ‘globalisation.’ Today this phenomenon has undergone a brusque acceleration and a qualitative leap due to the revolution in telecommunications that now allows dialogue in real time anywhere in the world, and the progress in the transportation of goods and persons. Almost unexpectedly, the inhabitants of the world have discovered that they buy on the same market and discuss in the same agorà. The relations of dominance and subjection that accompanied capitalist expansion have been followed by a real reshuffling of the cards, close inter-permeation among civilisations and intertwining of profoundly divergent customs, traditions and beliefs. All this stimulates social change well beyond the impulses due to technical progress and affects values, preferences, visions of the world and lifestyles previously blocked in their identities.
Some scholars seek to interpret these phenomena by focusing on the meeting/clash of civilisations, on social change and the actors in those events. But their formulations do not appear to have anything new to teach us. They follow old methodologies that are inadequate to the analysis of today’s problems. Some, following Marx, emphasise the aspect of ‘necessity’ in the becoming of societies, while others, following Weber, insist on the aspect of ‘possibility’ and the irremediable diversity, specificity and rivalry of civilisations.
One main representative of the first current is Francis Fukuyama. Under the influence of the collapse of the Communist bloc and the consequent end of the armed confrontation between East and West, he forecast «the universal diffusion of liberal democracy as the final form of government of mankind».[125] The lack of historical perception in this forecast is striking. Fukuyama did not suspect that the end of the great contrast between capitalism and communism (which had dominated, practically suffocated, the value-ideological aspect for so many years) would revitalise the plurality of civilisations and engender new conflicts both at local and world scale. Fukuyama’s forecast of global convergence on liberal democracy resembles as the myth of convergence on communism. But as usually, the hold of established prejudices is so strong that the evidence of one important error, instead of prompting caution and meditation, tends to generate some other, opposite error.
This Fukuyama’s attitude is not surprising, though. In fact, to forecast convergence is not senseless per se; the problem lies in the method usually used. Some uniformity and tendency to convergence are always present in the evolution of human societies, as the notions of ontological and functional imperatives teach us. Only stationary societies may ignore these notions. The point is that Fukuyama does not have a method that can properly perceive those notions and the convergences. Besides, he ignores some other fundamental aspects for the interpretation of social-historical development, namely the relativism of some values and, specifically, civilisations, which can differ sharply from case to case. He therefore disregards the need for forms of civilisation to be consistent with the functional imperatives generated by the evolution of the general conditions of development and hence that such a consistency does not warrant the convergence toward capitalism but instead may require the overcoming of capitalism. More precisely, he is unaware that the adaptation of civilisations to the stages of development, while it may take various paths and assume a variety of forms, can imply, however, serious conflicts owing to the clash of civilisations and their hostility to change. Prognostications based only on a confused notion of necessity fail to grasp important aspects of historical process and tend to oversimplification.
2. An exactly opposite error to Fukuyama’s one afflicts Samuel P. Huntington’s analysis of globalisation, which hinges on the notion of the clash of civilisations. This theory is part of Weberian cultural relativism, whereby values, points of view and civilisations are subjective and irreducibly specific. Huntington ignores any tendency of these to converge, emphasises conflict and prognosticates a «world order based on the concept of civilisation»[126] and hence the necessity for people to rally around in a strong defence of their own civilisation. The author does not see the organisational necessities that are shared by different social systems, i.e. the convergences generated by ontological and functional imperatives; therefore, he fails to see the possibility of dialogue among peoples and the possible agreements on some delicate and basic issues of institutions and ethical values.
Huntington does not wonder about the Spenglerian destiny (decline and fall) that would follow the retreat into fortress civilisation that he suggests. He does not understand that social systems can survive and progress in the modern world of increasingly rapid change if they succeed in going from one civilisation to a more advanced one, that is, consistent with the organisational necessities generated by the evolution of the general conditions of development. In sum, Huntington’s theory too suffers from the failure to perceive the important interaction between civilisations and functional imperatives; that is, he neglects the necessity that the former be consistent with the latter. Moreover, he ignores the role of ontological imperatives in promoting development and their necessary presence as a prerequisite for the social openness that the global world needs.
The two interpretations above, oversimplified and sometimes ingenuous as they may be, are good representatives of the ‘deterministic’ and ‘relativist’ errors. Besides, their shortcomings clarify the importance, in the interpretation of social-historical processes, of the interaction between the notions of necessity and choice-possibility, between functional imperatives and civilisations, as well as the role of ontological imperatives.
A much better balanced notion of the development process and social change has been expressed by Ronald Inglehart on the empirical base of the World Values Surveys. He recognises both the tendency of values to change as society develops and the parallel tendency of important traditional values to persist. These countervailing tendencies make it clear that social development is a result of the combination between modernity and tradition and that this combination traces different development paths and results in the preservation of a plurality of cultural areas. Our distinctions between objective and relative values and between functional and ontological imperatives and civilisations help greatly in reconciling tradition and change. These distinctions permit us to carefully combine the old and the new, i.e. to select the aspects of tradition and civilisation that are not inconsistent with new exigencies and are vital, and to wed them to the new values and preferences resulting from technological and social change. In this way, the harshness of change can be greatly mitigated, as non-essential alterations of deeply rooted ways of life, beliefs and customs are avoided.
3. The analysis of the globalisation process by Michael Hardt and Toni Negri is completely different from the above interpretations. These authors emphasise the fact that the intrinsic openness and expansive capacity of modern dynamic societies drive them to assume a global dimension and operation. They set forth an interesting analysis of the implications for the notion of sovereignty and for the supranational inclination of open society, with particular reference to the United States Constitution, which they describe as having promoted an institutional form that anticipates the best type of globalisation.
Hardt and Negri see the birth, at world scale, of a new and more extensive form of capitalist domination, which they call ‘empire’, and maintain that this domination is accompanied by a loss of identity of the new imperial system that will cause its disintegration. These assertions describe some real facts, but they lack the perception of what underlies these tendencies and their significance and neglect other important aspects as well. This lack of perception derives from the main shortcoming of their analysis: its strong observational standard. Significantly. only the best part of their book, i.e. institutional analysis, saves itself from that lack. In accordance with the observational view, they focus on the social actor that will hasten the dissolution of ‘empire’ and take up its heritage: the ‘multitude’. The definition of the future world is entrusted to the creativity of this agent.
In effect, the study of the agents of social processes is most important also in non-observational approaches, such as the organisational. But Hardt and Negri’s analysis is observational; it clearly reveals the superficiality and the errors deriving from the observational approach, which neglects some aspects of crucial importance for accurate diagnosis and prediction. Specifically, both necessity and choice-possibility are absent. In particular, there is no trace of the convergences that arise in the course of development and the analytical categories (functional and ontological imperatives) that can clarify them. What will happen with regard to ‘empire’ depends on the ‘fancy of history’, a matter of spontaneous behaviour. Besides, there is no perception of the importance of the specific identities that, in the form of civilisation, are always rooted (sometimes excessively) in every social system. The two authors do not see that the loss of identity that they presume is instead only a change of dress, a necessary flexibility. Instead of being the prelude to dissolution, it is imposed by the evolution of the general conditions of development; it does not preclude the establishment of new and well defined identities (civilisations). Their analysis does not bring out the important relation between civilisation and functional imperatives or the possibility of preserving or recovering ancient but still vital identities; nor does it point to anything like functional and ontological imperatives. They only show a good observational perception of reality, the current motion, and an attempt to identify the agent of renewal. But apart from minor objections concerning the social agent that they call ‘multitude’, we must ask whether this particular agent can actually perform its assigned role. The answer is no.
In general, creativity is an attribute of élites, of irregular, unilateral people strongly concentrated on their innovations; in a word, it is the work of eccentrics, ‘crazy’ people. We know that dynamic motion needs disequilibria and riequilibration, innovation and structural organisation. Well, the rest of the population (the people, the ‘multitude’, the ‘broad masses,’ or whatever we choose to call them) play rather a stabilising role; they are the agents of structural organisation. How they take part in this phase and facilitate it? Essentially through spontaneous process and intuition, that is, through a very troubled adaptive motion that, even if in some cases may know revolutionary explosions due to discontent and suffering, these will always be followed by harsh restoration of powers of domination, for the simple reason that human societies simply need to be governed; a succession of illusions and bitter delusions will occur, and sometimes humanity will be thrown into an inferno where he thought to find the paradise on earth. But structural organization should be prformed in more properly scientific ways based on the consciousness (resulting from the teachings of a science of the organisation of social systems) of organisational categories representing emerging necessities. Observation method leads to trust in the spontaneity of processes, in the fancy of history; in sum, it has nothing to say about what is rationally necessary or what is reasonable. In fact, Hardt and Negri propose at the very end of their work three or four simple but questionable indications on what to do but they resemble points of view much more than scientific proposals. (we criticize them in A. Fusari, Reason and domination, 2008).
In conclusion, the real shortcoming of all the interpretations considered above is the inappropriateness of method to social reality. All the rest is the consequence of that weakness. If this methodological limitation is not overcome, the most fearless scholars will adopt the role of sorcerer’s apprentice, while the more cautious will continue to serve as mere notaries of the existing order and to dispense absolution for the ills of the world, both the ills that are an inevitable part of human nature and those that humanity could combat and overcome by the careful, fruitful deployment of reason. It must be acknowledged that another important lack of the interpretations considered above is the absence of adequate deepenings on the operation of transnational corporations both on production and international financial markets, as G. Ietto’s studies in the matter point out[127].
5.8 Mircea Eliade and the terror of history
In explaining and interpreting historical processes, one cannot suspend judgement on the disasters and catastrophes, the cruel injustice and oppression, the massacres, deportations and countless other enormities that have befallen individuals and entire populations, and that represent a large part of historic reality. This aspect – and its connection with the feelings and the related world view of each historical era – has been the source of a good part of the work of Mircea Eliade. In particular, he wonders about the existential implications of modern historicism, which considers Man as the maker of history, the source of irreversible events, but locates him in a concrete time whose content he considers inevitable and essentially unmanageable and in this way portrays a nude and disarmed Man subject to the pressure of history. Eliade compares this tragic situation with that of archaic Man, whose notion of time and the cosmos (which downplayed the importance of history through the imitation of archetypes, the repetition of paradigmatic gestures, the idea of a primordial or future golden age, of the regeneration of time and of the eternal return) enabled him to live through epochal tragedies without being annihilated. Eliade adds that «the terror of history becomes more and more difficult to bear in the perspective of historicist philosophies by which the complete and exclusive sense of every historical event is expressed by its realisation»[128], all the more that «man aspires at a concrete paradise and think to be possible to achieve it on the Earth»[129] It is hard to refute this thesis in a world where the continuous acceleration of social change implies the intensification of the pressure of history.
If social theory accepts the postulate that reality is tantamount to necessity, it is impotent to counter the ‘terror of history’. For that postulate implies that history, with its horrors, must be accepted and suffered. But examining the matter in greater depth, we see that modern Man possesses a powerful remedy to the terror of history, which Eliade does not see: the organisational perspective. The light of reason can greatly diminish the terrible process of trial and error that afflicts social processes and so ease humanity’s way forward. Unfortunately, the persistently unscientific nature of social thought due to severe methodological shortcomings deprives reason of its ability to enlighten human action and relations, and may even generate additional errors. This situation is clearly exemplified by the defence against the terror of history formulated by the socialist countries with the promise of a golden age of communism. In the name of that promise, what actually arose was the horror of the Soviet gulag: an illusion that is all the more striking in that it served to justify the sacrifice required to construct a social system that was intrinsically regressive, if not absurd, and hence unable to survive.
It is a destiny of humanity to evolve through the laborious use of his creative capacity. Creativity increases the indeterminacy of the surrounding world and forces humanity to live in the midst of uncertainty, to pursue an indefinite expansion of knowledge and, as a result, to develop a growing consciousness of our limits and ignorance. There is a mystery in all this and, in the end, also a tangible reward constituted by the progressive reduction of the amount of time allotted to material labour and the corresponding increase in the time that can be devoted to nobler activities and meditation.
Along the dark and narrow pathway of human becoming, humanity goes ahead with the torch of reason (and, for Christian believers, divine revelation). But the torch is masked by a cloth that obscures its light; this cloth consists above all in the unscientific character of social thought (and Revelation is irrelevant to non-believers). Man can only hope that the ‘terror of history’ will be accompanied by the consciousness of this situation and a healthy intolerance of it, so as to hasten the development of truly scientific social theory. At that point, the role of faith will appear for what it actually is: not a substitute for science but a different area of existence, inquiring into that which is not accessible to reason.
5.9 Conclusion
We hope that this analysis of some outstanding theories of social and historical processes has drawn a historical perspective that serves to illuminate some primary lacunas in the current thinking on these matters and which clarifies the way that our proposal on method may contribute to mitigating and overcoming these drawbacks. We have seen that the variety of interpretations is many and that each one sets out fecund insights. But the fragmentation of theoretical contributions expresses very partial and often contradictory views. This makes evident the importance of some comprehensive categories and interpretative tools that are able to provide a general theory and interpretation, the establishment of which will mark some definite advance with respect to the few general historical interpretations the one sidedness of which has stimulated the great theoretical dispersion that this chapter has at least partially made evident.
Substantial differences distinguish our theory of the social-historical process from those theories elaborated by authors of various different schools of thought. These differences are primarily due to a different methodological base but also, albeit to a lesser degree, to the attention that we have dedicated to ensure the inclusion in the theoretical approach of various aspects of reality selected in such a way that they are able to set out a number of explanatory factors
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PART II
Some applications
This second part of the book is in the main concerned with outlining some applications of our methodological proposal in various fields of the social sciences, primarily with reference to the basic notions of ontological and functional imperatives and civilization. We start from the lowest stage of social development as represented by primitive societies, and hence from anthropology. Subsequent chapters of this second part of the book present applications in other important fields of the social sciences, thereby attempting to both consider and deal with some growing complexities of social organizations as well as further additional problems that arise, in the course of history, from variations in the general conditions of development.
The following discussions necessarily entail some repetition with regard to reference to notions and other methodological aspects treated in the first part of the book. We hope that the repetitions, rather than an irritant to the reader they instead serve to better illuminate the argument of the book and verify its explanatory usefulness. Some repetitions are also motivated by our intention to establish the chapters of this second part as independent entities, that is, to give those chapters some intelligibility independent of the first part.
6 About anthropology
Introduction
Both the simplicity and the large variety of primitive societies should facilitate an easy understanding of some of the content and application of our theoretical procedure. In particular, the analysis of primitive societies establishes and illustrates the methodological importance of the organizational view in social science. Indeed, the marked immobility of these societies also allows some profitable use of the observational view; at any rate, the study of primitiveness plainly shows that the problem of the organization of social relations and of the adequacy of any such organization in relation to conditions de facto has dominated the course of human history from its beginning.
Of course, the conditions of nature exert an important influence on primitive societies; such conditions bearing strongly on the scarcity of goods and issues of mere subsistence. We shall see, however, that the influence of civilization on the behaviour of primitive societies largely prevails. This is not to deny that natural conditions influence such civilization forms; but, for the most part, these forms appear as superimposed upon the role of nature and to result from creative processes that can impress upon civilizations what, sometimes, are highly eccentric behaviours.
This important role of creativeness is underlined by the great variety of primitive civilizations, some of which we will briefly describe in the first section of this chapter. The whole life of those primitive peoples considered below appears to be directed and absorbed by their civilization. The activity of such peoples goes well beyond the mere production of subsistence; their existence shows a surprising availability of free time. In particular, the study of primitive societies makes evident the ability of civilization to suffocate, but also sometimes to make possible the expression of the evolutionary potential of humanity by obstructing or facilitating the operation of ontological imperatives and hence the advent of new functional imperatives. Thus we find impressive and clear evidence that civilizations have largely determined the historical destiny of peoples and of the seemingly paradoxical fact that, over the course of history, creativity has often repressed the subsequent flourishing of creativity. The chapter also points out the advent, in primitive times, of some functional imperatives and explores some meaningful kinds of power, from society-power to command-power and beyond.
6.1 Primitive civilizations
6.1.1. American primitives
We consider here, for purposes of illustration, some well researched primitive civilizations founded upon entrenched ethical principles that are completely different from one another. A useful starting point is the Zuñi people of Pueblos Zuñi, New Mexico. The predominant themes of Zuñi social life are a strong anti-authoritarian sentiment, the marked prevalence of the community over the individual, a disdain for ambition, personal success and the search for public offices to the point that, if such offices are offered they will be rejected, while Zuñi who win too much in competitions will be denied the possibility of future participation. Ruth Benedict has written some instructive words on this culture. She observes that the ideal man, for the Zuñi, is both docile and generous, «a decent and friendly person who never attempts to impose his authority and who has never been an object of his neighbours’ gossips».[130] Conflicts among the Zuñi result in all participants being blamed, even those who happen to be in the right.
For the Zuñi, the most relevant social tie is that represented by the matriarchal family, within which husbands are excluded and women ask the advice of their brothers. Marriage plays at most a marginal role; it is celebrated but briefly and has no economic implications. Wealth has only a modest importance; people who possess no fetish or ritual mask can borrow them free of charge without being considered poor men; therefore, the ownership of fetishes does not establish any monopoly of supernatural powers. The Zuñi people have no shamans, but only priest charged with the task of administering their cult, for which they neither practice self-mutilation nor seek extreme sensations, and for which they dance, but not with the aim of achieving ecstasy. A sentiment, not of subordination but of unity between humanity and universe prevails and the sentiment of sin is almost absent.
Zuñi civilization has achieved a perfectly integrated form based upon the submissiveness and mildness of the individual, and in such a state of equilibrium has perfected its rituals to such an extent that it has been unable to advance, remaining instead with its twisting and complicated dances devoted to propitiate the spirits of the rain.
A civilization based on values that are just the opposite of the Zuñi was constructed by the Kwakiutl Indians living on Vancouver Island, just off the West coast of Northern America. The eccentricity of this civilization is impressive, embodying as it does a clear refutation of the myth of ‘primitive communism’ while exhibiting also some resemblance to consumer capitalism.
The distribution of wealth among the members of the Kwakiutl tribes was not only highly unequal but also was not related to production. A tendency to prevail on other persons and possibly to humiliate them had a prominent position among the ethical values of this people, mainly taking the form of distribution and counter-distribution of wealth. Gifts could not be refused, but if the beneficiary was unable to counter-offer double the amount received, he suffered an irremediable shame. Thus, an important means of humiliating a rival was to offer him more than one half of what he presumably was able to return.
Potlacs (banquets) represented for the Kwakiutl important opportunities for magnificence and boasting. On such occasions, the host repeatedly proclaimed his merits and superiority with respect to the other invited chiefs; to corroborate his boastings and ‘challenge’ his guests, he would destroy large quantities of goods in the fire. Guest had to show indifference with regard to this manifestation of opulence. To overcome this indifference, the host would order fish oil to be thrown on the fire in order to generate large flames thereby inducing guests to draw back from the fire, a sign of defeat. As with individual gifts, if the feast was greater than that previously offered by the invited chiefs, they were in turn obliged to counter-offer a more sumptuous one. But in the absence of superiority, the guest would vehemently insult his host. In order to defend his prestige against such insults, the host would be led to the destruction of enormous quantities of goods in the fire – while his guests would attempt to extinguish the fire by throwing blankets upon it. And so on, with growing boastings and madness.
Chiefs lacked compulsive power, as is common in primitive societies. The obligation of defending prestige by way of prodigality worked to deprive chiefs of the possibility of achieving command-power through wealth accumulation. Marriage was accompanied and followed by important gifts and counter-gifts. Benedict writes: «The social organization, religion, birth, death were opportunities to express this sentiment of superiority».[131] Nevertheless, a limitation to the dissipation of wealth did exist: a moral norm forbade the chief to exceed his possibilities, otherwise his tribe refused to support him.
Kwakiutl civilization was strongly permeated by such a value-ideological option, which was perfectly integrated within it. The wholesale destruction of goods did not allow this people to progress. The Kwakiutl were condemned to a stationary condition by such eccentric ethical options.
The life of the Prairie Indians was pervaded by an individualism of a completely different kind from that of the Kwakiutl. The prairie civilization was born when, as a result of the arrival of Europeans in America, the purchase of rifles and horses allowed the Indians to spread across prairies and begin a new way of life based on bison hunting.
These Indians lived in a state of perennial warfare, which shaped their ethical system. A precise classification of bravery acts existed. But the reputation of warriors also depended on their munificence. Generosity had an important functional role; as W. E. Washburn writes, «being generous meant receiving an equal generosity in case of need»[132].
Strong and enterprising individuals were favoured. War was a game for individuals, or small groups; dances were exhibitions in which each individual followed his own inspiration. Individuals received, through personal bravery, titles and honors that would be articulated in disputes with rivals. Vision (i.e. an individual and hence unverifiable experience) played an important social role. Silent tortures were practiced in the hope that spirits, moved to pity by such sufferings and supplications, would grant vision. People unable to achieve a vision lived in a humble condition. By contrast, strong and enterprising persons, even if of poor lineage, could found on a vision almost any proposal and pretension of privilege. However, every right or privilege could also be bought.
Different organizational forms operated in different, even if contiguous, tribes. For instance, the Black Feet had not real chiefs. One or more influential people were charged with maintaining public order and solving disputes. The tribal chief acted as a chief only during the great hunting meetings and at the great sun dance. The Cheyenne Indians, by contrast, had real chiefs but deprived them of effective command-power and charged them with the task of performing peace-making interventions. The choice of chiefs fell upon privileged, peaceful and self-controlled people, notwithstanding the perennial war state.
The young men of the Cheyenne lived in their bride’s clan, whereas those of the Black Feet young in the paternal clan. The educational system was completely different for each case. Black Feet boys and girls lived separately: the boys playing war and the girls taught domestic work. By contrast, Cheyenne boys and girls lived together, imitating their elders’ activities.
Prairie Indian civilization is remarkable in that, in contrast to many other primitives, they attributed a great importance to the role of the individual and made it possible for strong and clever persons to develop and impose new ideas, projects and proposal, regardless of the origin and wealth of those persons, a possibility that was impressively emphasized by the practice of vision. This attributed a central role to an ontological imperative (individual role) crucial in promoting development. Unfortunately, the values and life of this people were well integrated with bison hunting and, in some sense, the prisoner of such a practice. As a consequence, their civilization ended with the destruction of the bison herds at the hands of white men.
6.1.2.Primitives mainly from East Asia
Some brief reference to primitive civilizations located on the opposite side of the Earth may be of interest. For the Dobu civilization located in New Guinea and surrounding islands is very peculiar. Dobu is part of a volcanic archipelago, in the north-west of Melanesia. Its inhabitants have neither chiefs nor political organization. This civilization privileges reciprocal hostility and perfidy. A strong individualist competition is played out for the ownership of magic formula; people lacking such formulae are considered disinherited and excluded from society. In fact, magic has a central importance in Dobu: every activity is accompanied by enchantments and counter-enchantments. Human existence here is full of battles in which antagonists must be defeated, often by way of horrifying enchantments. Benedict has written: «The whole of existence is a mortal fight …. in Dobu conflict is secret and disloyal. A man is considered clever and successful for having cheated another man»[133]. Islanders make business trips in the open sea, inside the so called ‘Kula ring’, without bringing goods with them but only presents to solicit change. They obtain goods through a clever courtship and the promise to counter transfer other goods, the availability of which the buyer will try to prove through other cheats. Ability to cheat is considered a merit and the only limitation of fraud is the danger of losing the trust of potential commercial partners.
At the base of Dobu organization is found a solid parental group, called susu and constituted by female descendants of the mother and her brothers, while a brother’s sons belong to their mothers’ villages. Marriages must take place between people of different villages, but care is taken to ensure that marriages occur between people of various villages in order to avoid too many close ties between any two particular villages. Matrimonial formalities are permeated by hostility. Wife and husband live in the same house, but for one year in the wife’s village and the subsequent year in that of her husband. In the year in which the husband lives in the village of his wife he is disregarded and suffers the hegemony of his consort.
The ethical values and the civilization of Dobu evidently possess a strong power to prevent the realization of Man evolutionary potential, for their values largely disregard ontological imperatives.
Not far from Dobu is to be found the Trobriand archipelago, made famous by the work of Bronislaw Malinowski.[134] The organizational forms and value-ideological system of this society are completely different from those of Dobu: a mild, joyful and generous disposition characterizes the population, together with an efficient organization of work and respect for chiefs. The Trobriand people enjoy much better natural conditions than do those of Dobu: fertile soil, abundance of fish and hence food. It would seem, then, that differing natural conditions are responsible for the great differences in the character of individuals, social organization and ethical values with respect to Dobu. This is only partially true, as a glance at the Eskimo shows.
The Eskimo live in a tremendously hostile natural environment, where the risk of death from hunger, snow storm or drift ice is great. Nevertheless, the population has been described as «extremely lively, cheerful, optimistic and hospitable».[135] They live in colonies formed by 10 to 20 families and have no chiefs; but in each colony the cleverest hunter acted as a guide and advisor at the beginning of hunting; such a guide could not be an irascible and overbearing person and people who did not agree with him were free to act differently. The first anthropologists who visited the Eskimo saw that war was unknown among them. Taboos where numerous and played a dominant and disciplinary role in the people’s life; in fact, it was of the uttermost importance that the various taboos were not violated.
Very different was the case of Bali, a little island near Java and famous worldwide for its dances and dance bands. This civilization was hinged on the idea of pacifism and cooperation and the rejection of compulsion and conflicts. To avoid wars, strips of ‘no-man’s land’ separated the little kingdoms on the island. A similar principle was applied to the relations among fighting individuals.
The Balinese usually worked in groups that were generally much more numerous than was strictly necessary. There was no hurry to do things, but those who were not active were fined; albeit with a light fine. If a person wanted to found an association for conducting some activity he was able to do so easily.
These values were exceptionally conducive to a quiet and equilibrated existence, but not to stimulating development.
These primitive civilizations, however briefly considered, confirm the general idea that, for the most part, civilization is a result of creative processes and that the corresponding grand options, once established, tend to consolidate and preserve themselves and strongly condition the whole life of a people, prevent further development and, as a rule, suffocate creativity. However, among the variety of civilizations we have found ethical values and organizational forms that might have stimulated development; but unfortunately they were mixed with values and organizational forms hostile to change. Primitive societies tend toward stationary motion. Change may occur in a cumulative direction only in the presence of some peculiar and fortunate conditions; the first stage of civilization tends to obstruct further development, and to do so with a force in general proportional to degree of elaboration and solidification.
Of course, natural conditions play an important role in influencing the genesis and generation of civilizations, especially if nature is dominant and therefore models life and behaviour. In this respect, an important example is provided by nomadic societies and a brief discussion of Asian nomads can provide clarification. Such societies are distinguished by their great efficiency in carrying out what are typical activities – an efficiency that is in fact a condition of survival in an extremely difficult natural habitat. These peoples are also afflicted by an irremediable stationary state, mainly because of the dominance of an invariant nature upon organizational structures and ways of life. Arnold Toynbee has written: «The nomadic horde, once propelled upon its annual cycle, continues to gravitate toward it, and could behave in this way endlessly if some exogenous factor… does not determine the end of its existence».[136]
Transhumant sheep breeding, from summer pastures in the North to winter pastures in the Aral-Caspian basin, has always been the dominating activity of Asian nomads, together with horse breeding, the horse being the most efficient means of transport in those difficult lands. The availability of winter quarters (provided with water and protected by wind) is decisive for survival and so constitutes an important condition for demographic increase and the scarcity of which has often generated harsh conflicts.
Parental relationships play a central role and facilitate a strong cohesion of clans, while clientele relations are weak, as Lamercier-Quelquejeir and Lattimore underline.[137] In the historical periods during which nomads were unified by some commander, the world was shaken by the unstoppable advance of invincible armies of mounted archers, whose physiognomy was shaped by their nomadic life to such an extent that Ammiano Marcellino described them as resembling monsters.
Malinowski stated that, «in the terms of our functional analysis, no invention or revolution, no social or intellectual change happens except when new needs are created».[138] In the light of the above discussion of primitive civilizations, such a statement appears only partially correct; for Malinowski here seriously undervalues the role of creative processes, a role proved by some odd and unnecessary yet nevertheless strongly binding characteristics of civilizations.
6.2 Kinship, labour division, the authority principle and social hierarchies
We turn now from particular to general; specifically, from the optional side that gives rise to civilizations to some backbones and more general aspects of the organizational side as represented by functional and ontological imperatives.
At the beginning of human life on Earth the fundamental rules of existence were dictated by biology. Initially, life in common was a consequence of sexual activity that implied the bringing up of children. The long periods of time necessitated by such a bringing up determined the nature of the initial social and parental groups. Kinship, however, is a form of common life that goes far beyond the biological aspect, and embraces a more comprehensive and elaborated system of social relations. Claude Levi-Strauss has written: «The primordial character of human kinship is the … relation among what Radcliffe-Brown calls ‘elementary families’…There is no other interpretation that can explain the universal character of the prohibition of incest».[139] Levi-Strauss adds: «the marriage rules that can be observed in human societies represent some ways of allowing women’s circulation inside social groups, that is, of substituting a sociological system of acquisition of kinship for a system of blood relations of a biological nature».[140]
Anthropology surveys a large variety of parental and lineage forms and seeks to explain the causes determining such a variety: demography, natural environment, prevailing activities, settlement forms and particular beliefs. Our previous analysis of primitive civilizations has provided a small glimpse of such variety. But the attempts of anthropologists to define a nomenclature of parental orders have been unsuccessful. However, parental relations, along with their associated precepts, prohibitions and forms of solidarity, represent the basic connective tissue of all primitive societies and, as such, a main functional imperative in the primitive stage of development. By contrast, the association forms that arise due to territorial contiguity, age and profession play but little role, even if they are inclined to grow with increasing social complexity.
Life in common gave rise to the division of labour, which constitutes a long lasting functional and ontological imperative of primitive (and subsequent) societies, crucial for the understanding of the development of all civilizations that have appeared on the Earth. In the first instance, labour division was determined by biological factors such as sex and age; but whatever its original cause, its appearance implied the advent of functional roles.
The deepening and intensifying of social organization gave rise to both an increasing importance and growing complexity of labour division and role distinctions. As a consequence, another fundamental need appeared on the horizon of social life: the necessity of defining behavioural rules related to the collective body, together with the necessity of warranting their execution. This implied the beginning of the authority principle and the connected birth of social hierarchies, these representing other important functional imperatives. In particular, the combination of the division of labour with the authority principle implied the advent of social ranks (or status), i.e. the attribution of power to somebody and its denial to others; this caused the first appearance of domination-power.
Various kinds of competition of personal skills were practiced in order to gain access to the higher ranks; for example, acts of bravery during wars, exhibitions of divinatory skills, and the ownership of women or precious goods. Such processes accentuated social discrimination and authoritarian forms. Primitive societies knew various kinds of chiefs, such as the patriarch, the chief of land, of clan or water, and the chief of a village or tribe. As we shall see, such primitive societies did not know a true power of coercion. Nevertheless, quite soon chiefs began to be protected by taboos, to boast divine descent, and to be exempted from work. Sometimes the excuse that their special relations with a deity allowed them to control rain and soil fertility allowed them to assume control of the land. Some forms of hereditary possession of social positions and functions appeared, thus promoting initial forms of social classes. The growing structuring of communities caused an expansion of privileges, mainly hereditary rights, which allowed social classes to take root. The solidification of privileges reached its extreme in caste orders.
The tendency to prevail over other peoples has for the most represented a primary engine of human activity, even if it has been powered by different strengths in different societies and civilizations; the achievement of wealth has always given a main stimulus to such a tendency. It is nevertheless evident that such an impetus to prevail over other peoples can only, by itself, produce some rather circumscribed effects; if it is to become effective it needs to be grafted onto objective organizational necessities that are maturing within the social body.
These brief considerations underline the advent of some elementary functional imperatives demanded by the general conditions typical of the primitive stage of development. But sometimes the introduction of further functional imperatives was obstructed by the severity of natural conditions that were hostile to further development and, more frequently, by the character of primitive civilizations, particularly the more developed ones, which were often adverse to important ontological imperatives (most notably, individual autonomy, tolerance, pluralism and the free confrontation of ideas and achievements). So, we see once again that the destiny of societies is strongly marked by their civilizations.
We must, therefore, come to consider the factors that have obstructed or allowed a gradual departure from existing civilizations and their stationary propensity. This obliges us to dedicate some attention to the forms of power and their vicissitude, these constituting a true backbone of the organizational features of society.
6.3 Power in primitive societies
Power is present in every society. It is a functional necessity but assumes different forms and contents, mainly according to the degree and the stage of social and economic development and the forms of civilization. Pierre Clastres has dedicated some illuminating and sometimes fascinating pages to power among Amerindians.[141] He emphasizes the care taken by these primitive populations to prevent the emergence of command-power and a corresponding duty of obedience. Clastres points out that a key function of primitive chiefs is to ensure the peace and the harmony of the group through their eloquence, wisdom and prestige, and he observes that chiefs are charged with arbitrating and settling quarrels, but without enacting sentences and employing force to impose the execution of their deliberations. In sum, primitive chiefs have an ‘impotent’ power: they try to conciliate the conflicting parties but, if they do not succeed in convincing them, they have not the means of imposing their opinions; therefore, the opposing parties are left to fight between themselves while the chief looses prestige as a consequence of his failure in conciliation. Much more than a clever commander, a chief must be a good speaker and, by way of repeated sermons, he must recall and reinforce the customs of the fathers in order to preserve among the people the sentiment of tradition. His word does not command obedience and constitutes for him a duty much more than a right.
The absence of command-power is typical of all tribal societies in every continent and, even more so, of the hunter-gatherer bands that preceded tribal societies. Sometimes primitive societies are characterized by social stratifications implying privileges, often depending on the real and presumed degree of kinship with a common ancestor; but these privileges do not imply command-power.
In treating segmentary lineages, M. D. Sahlins writes: «As soon as the objectives inducing the formation of a confederation are achieved, the confederation de facto dissolves and the emerged leaders sink into social oblivion or, at most, preserve only a local influence. The typical leader of a tribal society is only the glorified equivalent of the influential elder in a hunter-gatherer society… He captures fidelity through liberality as well as through timorous acquiescence toward magic; through wisdom and his ability as speaker, he obtains the disposition of others to accept his opinion, and so on… But as soon as the confederation dissolves, i.e., fairly soon, he preserves few supporters».[142] Writing of the Baluchi of Iran, P.C. Salzman observes that the sardar is «a leader who depends on his own prestige and his stature, which complements his very limited authority».[143]
The binding agents of primitive societies are represented by parental relations, by religious beliefs, by tradition and by social pressure; but these binding agents never include command-powers. Power is inherent to society with its habits and traditions; it is not superimposed upon society. Indeed, tribal organizations with the potential to generate command-power and to evolve toward more advanced stages of development do exist; but, in general, primitive societies exhibit an impressive concern to preserve, through various expedients, a fundamental and characteristic absence of command-power.
Within primitive cultures it is very often the case that individuals trying to excel are considered dangerous and marginalized. This is the case, for example, with the Zuñi, who exhibit a bitter hostility to anyone who attempts to place themselves above and upon others. In those very different primitive cultures that are based upon individual success, challenge and the abuse of power, the appearance of command-power and wealth concentration are repressed by the firm association between the honour of the chief and his eccentric destruction of his wealth, as during the potlac. The hereditary nature of the position of chief, which is very frequently found among primitives, is aimed at avoiding conflicts over succession and the emergence, during such conflicts, of men clever in acquiring true power, i.e. capacity to command. If it is necessary to attribute command-power to a chief, as happens for example during war operations, care is taken to curtail any possible extension of command-power beyond the end of operations, practices analogous to the office of dictator in the first Roman republic. Military prestige backs up and enforces the persuasiveness of a peacemaker, but if such a captain of war attempts to use this prestige to promote further military operations in order to preserve his command-power and satisfy his ambition, it is likely that his social group will disapprove, refuse his requests, and isolate him, as indeed happened to Geronimo and other ambitious North American Indian chiefs. Paul Bohannan says of the Tiv of Northern Nigeria that they periodically remove possible despots.[144] In sum, the chief must do what the tribe expects of him otherwise the tribe will abandon him and choose another chief. The power of chiefs is, and must remain, at the service of society, that is, an expression of the ‘power of society’.
The role of chief is essential among primitives, as indeed it is in each human society. Given the lack of command-power of such chief compensatory attractions must be offered in order to attract people to the office. Such compensation takes the form of various privileges, first of all the right to have many women. Thus we see that, in primitive societies, the privileges of the chiefs do not derive from their grasping of a power of domination over society, but on the contrary are rather the reward for their lack of domination-power. The astonishing coherence and strong perseverance of primitive societies in denying command-power to chiefs shows that, from the beginning of civilization, men have understood that being submitted to commanders is a disagreeable condition; and perhaps they have prophetically foreseen just what great misfortunes the advent of domination would bring in its wave; thus, they have consistently and persistently avoided such a destiny as far as has been objectively possible.
Nevertheless, primitives are not exempted from subjection to power. They are subjected to the ‘power of society’, and this indeed appears to be very strong and even suffocating. The relation of primitive peoples with power is not, therefore, quite as idyllic as may appear at first sight. The intentions of the author (Clastres) notwithstanding, the analysis of Clastres belies such an idyllic vision; a point on which we must insist because it is of great importance for understanding the meaning and the logic of power, as well as its relations with social change and development.
E. Durkheim is illuminating when he writes on the ‘power of society’. «In order for the individual to be obliged to adapt his actions to some norms, it is necessary that they are the issue of a moral authority that imposes them upon him; to do that, an authority that dominates him is needed, i.e. an authority having the ascendancy necessary to subdue his will…. ». And Durkheim adds later that society «prescribes, for believers, dogmas to believe and rites to observe, and this is just because rites and dogmas are its own product and work».[145] So, primitive society is permeated by power, notwithstanding the absence of command-power. Indeed, such a society’s power is obliged to be strong precisely because of the absence of command-power, and it is usually practiced with a force above and beyond that actually required for maintaining public order. The tortures inflicted upon adolescents during initiation rites are intended, not only to strengthen their character, but also to imprint the indelible and omnipresent mark of society upon these neophyte members. Initiatory tortures thus express the hard and brutal reality of this ‘social-power’; they are intended to obliterate individual desire for power and to underline a belonging to the rules, institutions and traditions of society. All of this expresses a subjection no less strong than that implied by command-power, even if set free from the unpleasant direct command of a chief. The taboos of primitive societies imply a stronger subjection than the subjection implied by a single command, with respect to which latter there exists the possibility of intrigue that leads to the overthrow of the command-power in question, while taboos cannot be overthrown. In his discussions of his direct observations on ‘the bows and the baskets’ of Amerindian primitives, Clastres captures the conditioning, renunciation and frustration that these societies impose upon their members in order to create and preserve the common life of their social order. His pages nicely describe the oppressive weight of such a society, its rules and its painful precepts protected by terrible taboos and inflexible usages, the perfect division and opposition of men and women’s roles: hunting for the first, the making of household goods and domestic work for the second. The prohibition upon the hunter not to eat his prey, but only to obtain honour from his success in the hunt, and the threat that, if he breaks this prohibition he will be unsuccessful in hunting and hence degraded to the office of basket bearer, helps the tribe avoid starvation and social disintegration.
The women of the Guayaki tribes are entitled to have more than one husband in order to avoid those disruptive conflicts among men caused by women’s scarcity; a rarity that is due to the infanticide of female children, which are spurned because when they grow they will be unable to hunt. Men feel frustration upon being obliged to share the same woman, and give vent to this frustration in night songs that exalt their individuality and bravery («I am a great hunter, I am, I am, I am»). In such a way they reject in song what to them is the bitter fact that they share women, and they try to drive it away from their imagination; nevertheless, in reality they submit to the social command that they share women.
The case of the Guayaki suggests that vituperated alienation deriving from the division of labour is just one of the pains that society can inflict upon its members. It is mistaken to think of primitive society as some lost paradise simply because command-power is absent; the power embodied in these societies can be much harder and more tyrannical than other forms of power. All of which brings to the fore in a pregnant and picturesque way an important point: the forms of civilization can be attached to important functional imperatives, such as power, and to the denial of important ontological imperatives in such a way that creativity and the evolutionary potential of humanity is repressed, thus preserving a stationary state. The hard and inflexible power of primitive society is indeed mitigated by habit, which facilitates acclimatization to the ‘power of society’, but the consequence of this is that such power represses the human ability to develop.
Let us underline, at this point, that anthropological analysis can derive some benefit from our proposal as to methodological procedure, for the notions of functional and ontological imperatives and of civilization seem precious, and indeed perhaps indispensable to anthropology. We have pointed out the price of non-command: the power of society. But the substitution of command-power by society-power is not an attractive alternative. Such a substitution implies – let us repeat – the suffocation of important ontological imperatives and hence the suffocation of humanity’s evolutionary potential. Unfortunately, a disregard for ontological imperatives is common among anthropologists and seems to be a cause of deep misunderstandings. Clastres’ anthropological research offers an instructive example in this regard; in fact, his appreciation for the ‘power of society’ is due to his disregard for the notion of the ontological imperative that prevents him from acknowledging the suffocating strength of such a power. The main factor that helps primitiveness to preserve itself is the ‘power of society’.
6.4 From the power of society to command-power
The analysis of primitive societies, which are distinguished not only by the absence of command-power but also a strong opposition to it, seems to be indispensable, or, at least, of great value for understanding the birth and the meaning of command-power, its tendency to and possibility of becoming domination-power. It is, of course, of great importance to accurately investigate just how to avoid command-power transforming into domination-power, as has usually happened over the course of history. It is important, furthermore, to study the ways of conciliating power and those people who are subjected to it, but without claiming to substitute for it the ‘power of society’ that we have seen to be more tyrannical, and certainly much more suffocating than command-power.
The evolution of power toward and into command-power needs and implies emerging out of the stage of primitiveness; thus, such an evolution requires innovation that gives rise to development. Particular aspects of tribal societies can facilitate such an evolution. For instance, stratifications and so-called conical clans promote the concentration of wealth and hence of power to the advantage of privileged strata; such concentration may cause internal disputes and conflict, the destruction of clan organization and a transition towards social forms marked by command-power. But it must be pointed out that, whereas equality and social harmony always tend to perpetuate primitiveness, the presence of conflicts and disequilibria do not always stimulate evolution; for they can also trap a society within a stationary state. This is the case, for example, with the Yanoama of the Amazon forest. This was a society with an extremely simple organization, in many aspects belonging to the hunter-gatherer stage; such an organization had scarce need of cooperation, being based as it was on nuclear families that regulated the production, distribution and consumption of goods internally. But Yanoama society came to be characterized by a mechanism of conflict that choked any possibility of evolution. Being made up of families interested in raising male hunters and warriors, and the number of children that could be raised being limited by scarce resources, the Yanoama practiced female infanticide. This together with the tendency of the bravest warriors and hunters to obtain more women caused an endemic scarcity of women that gave rise violent internal and external conflicts. So a dead-end, which was both a cause and a consequence of an inclination toward warlike activities, suffocated and prevented development.
But primitive society does not always succeed in preventing that development that threatens to thwart the ‘power of society’ to the advantage of a few of its members. Exogenous factors can cause qualitative jumps. It is significant that P. Clastres, his insistence on the absence in primitive societies of the conditions governing the advent of state-power notwithstanding, admits the advent of command-power (a preliminary of state-power) in primitive societies characterized by structural change. For example, when he discusses Tupi-Guarani communities, which are formed by various large families that together give to these communities a considerable size, he emphasizes that the authority of the chief of each family is dominated by the authority of a main chief acting as a supreme coordinator and expressing the unity of the group, so as to avoid explosive internal divergences and contradictions caused by demographic increase. It emerges, in this case, that mere demographic increase may spark the evolution of power toward some rudimentary monarchic power flanked by a council of elders deputed to approve the main chief’s decisions. Clearly if in such a case demographic increase is sufficient to generate command-power, such power is even more likely to be generated by more profound changes in social structure.
In fact, both more relevant and more frequent than the development of the Tupi-Guarani communities is the advent of command-power as an effect of the internal evolution of society. The presence of stratification in clan organization, typically represented by privileges connected to kinship and frequently found in primitive Eurasian and Polynesian societies, pushes these organizations toward a concentration of power and wealth. Furthermore, and as J. Bodin has written, «after the violence, force, ambition and desire for revenge of armed and opposing family chiefs, their wars and struggles reduced losers to the status of the servants of winners and, among winners, he who had been elected chief and leader and, under his guide, the victory was gained, preserves his authority both of his supporters as loyal subjects and the others as slaves».[146] This is, however, only one aspect of the question. Something more fundamental is at the base of the whole process.
6.5 The consolidation of command-power and the birth of state-power
To propel society free from the sandbank of primitiveness, the action of innovators is needed. But innovators, if they are to be able to impose transformations, require obedience; that is, they need a command-power able to defeat the repressive ‘power of society’ and the strength of tradition and to suppress village autonomies. This is even more necessary if the newly devised conditions imply a transition from the economy of free time typical of primitive societies to one of exploitation in which people work more so as to produce a surplus that can be extracted and put to various uses by the ruling classes. Thus it is that evolution out of the primitive state requires that command-power grows in order that the supremacy of chiefs may be defended.
More generally, the increasing division of labour, and hence also of social segmentation and complexity, cause a growing need for the authority of chiefs in order to avoid social disintegration and chaos. This requirement is accentuated by the fact that the increase of wealth multiplies temptations and reduces traditional habit of respecting rules and roles, as well as by the fact that the propensity of chiefs to exploit subjected people feeds a growing intolerance towards them. In sum, habits, value interiorization and superstition are no longer sufficient to achieve social control. The necessity of fulfilling decisions concerning society, as expressed by the ‘power of society’, is replaced by the necessity of imposing those decisions, i.e. the necessity of supplementing authority. The development and concentration of wealth make possible the strengthening of command-power. The aptitude to command becomes an important factor of success and its use determines a further concentration of wealth and power and strengthens the tendency to transfer to heirs the position of power achieved. This causes a growing superimposition of privilege over merit. Reinforcement of privilege is fostered by the hereditary practice of command-power, which may grant skills to professional commanders that are denied to others.
We have seen that in primitive societies, where subsistence is difficult, merit, as expressed by individual skills, is a primary condition for the awarding of a function. But later the scope and range of privilege tends to expand. We shall see that in quasi-stationary societies privilege largely prevails over merit; the latter regaining its primary position only in the dynamic stage of society.
Command-power does not, per se, imply state power. In fact, the appearance of the first arises through gradual transgressions with respect to the existing order, and not by way of some immediate building of a new order. Only when command-power starts to become a persistent and dominating characteristic of the social order can state-power be considered on the road; it represents a new important functional imperative that opens the door to a new stage of development. A decisive sign of the advent of state-power is the establishment of some degree of territorial organization: administrative districts, towns, systems of communication, together with the correlated interlacements of administrative bodies and functions.
A central question is if (and/or why) command-power and state-power must necessarily be based on abuse; or, more precisely, if such power must assume the substance of domination-power or whether it can act instead merely as a function power and hence constitute service-power. This distinction will be developed in the next chapter. Clastres maintains that primitive societies have perceived the affinity of command-power with nature since such power for them resembles an external condition that places limits upon the cultural universe; he then asserts that primitive peoples accordingly have assigned to society, as the depositary of culture, the means of suffocating command-power. His argument here seems somewhat forced, probably a result of Clastres’ exaggerated appreciation of the exclusion of state-power in primitive societies. But command-power has no affinity with nature; it is rather an expression of social relations. A main purpose of the present book is, however, to show that power-domination is not unavoidable; it is, on the contrary, a result of great mystification that, indeed, has hitherto acted as the traveling companions of tears and blood.
Society represents both an opportunity and a burden for the individual. We have just seen that the Guayaki have no choice but to resort to song in order to try to forget some of the constrictions and frustrations that their primitive society imposes upon them. Non-primitive peoples can do better, but have subjugated themselves to hard and unnecessary forms of domination-power. During the civilizing processes, humanity has forged unnecessary chains; afterwards individuals sing and dream in attempts to cheat the suffering that follows from these binds and fetters. It would appear that humanity has always taken care to forge chains and so cause itself ever growing troubles.
6.6 Conclusion
The purpose of this chapter has been to demonstrate the potential profitability of our proposal on method with regard to anthropological studies. The analytic categories of ontological imperatives, functional imperatives and civilization could play an important role in anthropology and clarify, through their implications and interactions, some aspects of anthropology that the traditional analysis of primitive societies has not adequately investigated and illuminated.
We have considered the great variety of habits, feelings, beliefs and organizational forms that mark the life of primitive populations. Such variety ranges from extreme individualism and a critical attitude to a complete identification of the individual with the social group and a strong inclination toward cooperation; from extreme bellicosity feeding a permanent state of war to a strong pacifist propensity and even a complete ignorance of war; from a life garnered by arrogance, haughtiness and boasting to a total submissiveness; from a diffuse and systematic unfairness, suspiciousness and wickedness, to an extreme gentleness and frankness. These differences constitute some of the primary defects and values that also affect modern societies, and thus exhibit a surprising persistence in the human story throughout history. The differences appear to be determined by natural conditions to only a small extent. They are, for the most part, the result of long-lasting processes of elaboration and integration of some peculiar and very unilateral value options that have often caused a suffocation of further development, a suffocation that appears more complete and enduring if the elaboration and integration process is advanced.
We have seen that human societies show, from their beginning, the advent of organizational forms or, more precisely, of functional imperatives indispensable to their existence; while civilizations usually neglect important ontological imperatives, a denial obstructing development and hence the advent of more advanced functional imperatives. We have also seen the difficulty of, and also some ways of escaping from the stationary motion typical of primitiveness, and that one of the primary (and probably obligatory) means of achieving such a result is by way of the transition from the power of society to command-power, followed by state-power.
The next chapters will consider social science with reference to more advanced stages of development.
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7 Problems of political theory and action
Introduction
We now turn to the application of our proposals on method to politics. Politics, of course, constitutes a branch of social knowledge particularly open to mystification and abuse, and yet of the utmost importance in the life of social orders. Indeed, some of the most negative influences of methodological misconceptions as to the administration and performance of human societies concern political action. Certainly, the economy has displayed an increasing influence on political decision making since the commencement of the modern age. Such influence is, for the most part, a result of misconceptions on method, specifically, the adoption of the viewpoint of spontaneity and observation as opposed to the organizational viewpoint. In fact, such misconceptions greatly amplify the influence of economic power and interests on political power and decisions.
The chapter will first of all analyze the primary and also more delicate subject, political power. Political power is the primary agent of oppression and of those state conflicts that have caused wars of devastation down the centuries. The discussion of the content, justification and legitimization of political power, therefore, is of great practical importance. In the second section of the chapter, we shall consider the issue of freedom-responsibility, which is crucial for understanding the physiognomy and operation of power relations, the way they influence everyday life and the possibility of controlling them. The third section examines some prejudices that obstruct political reforms. It shows that a reformist view is the correct way to conceive and perform political action and, more generally, to manage social reality. But this section also serves to warn us that reform cannot meaningfully be opposed to revolution – such an antithesis, as also the analogous opposition between maximalists and reformists – has lost all credibility in the modern open and global society, distinguished as it is by a permanent revolution that incessantly overthrows existing institutions and feelings. The fourth section turns to issues of inequalities and social justice, showing that the relation between the two terms has important political features, in addition to its more obvious economic dimensions. This section also considers the possibility of greatly increasing social justice while, at the same time, stimulating (rather than damaging) organizational and productive efficiency. The final section will show that to prune from ideas of political reform and action certain well-rooted misunderstandings, and so provide it with adequate soil and nutrition, a deep revision is needed in the ways in which we interpret historical-social processes. As such, this final section of the chapter (as well as some part of section 4) may be read also as an extension of the discussion of the two last chapters of Part I.
7.1 The question of sovereignty. The impotence of democracy against the dark ghost of domination-power
Every society needs a supreme power that impresses upon it a unifying logic. B. Constant’s inquiry into the problem of constitutional order looked to the powers of a constitutional sovereign as the solution. The power of the last resort pertains, by definition, to the political sphere, this being the place where sovereignty resides. It is therefore of paramount importance that political power be theoretically justified and legitimized. The necessity for such a power is self-evident, and various forms of its legitimization have been proposed throughout history, for instance, right of birth or right of conquest or divine right. Unfortunately, these various kinds of legitimization strategies invariably amount to mere assessments and lack scientific foundations. The situation is made worse by growing social change. In ancient, quasi-stationary societies, a sound practical justification of power was provided by tradition. But in the turbulent seas of the modern world, justification of power on the basis of tradition has lost credibility and a prevailing idea is now that sovereignty resides in the people. This last idea, which is at the basis of the notion of democracy, has in effect substituted a new ideology of power for the old ones. As a matter of fact, the basis of modern democracies in the division of powers and universal suffrage do not provide a solution to the problem of the legitimization of sovereignty since they do not offer an objective and unquestionable foundation to political power. With some clarifying brutality, Hans Kelsen asserted: «Only a theoretical myopia or a political aim could pass the principle of the division of powers off as a democratic one»[147]. And a few pages later adds, quoting Nietzsche, «State is the most gelid of monsters. It icily lies, and from its mouth springs this lie: me, the State, is people» The great value of (Western) democracy is the possibility that it provides for overthrowing power without bloodshed and, more generally, by periodically replacing the ruling class, preventing what Toynbee called the “intoxication of power”. Liberal doctrines have indeed provided some intellectual arguments that strongly support the liberation of humanity; but the notions of state of right and the sovereignty of law do very little to actually clarify the substance of power. Indeed, as a matter of fact, the sovereignty of law may cover the worst despotism; while, for its part, the division of powers can simply represent a division of the power to abuse.
Universal suffrage does not in itself make the people sovereign; on the contrary, it constitutes one of the weakest legitimizations of power that has ever appeared in history. Universal suffrage provides but a contradictory and untruthful legitimization in that it asserts at once both the sovereignty of the people and the need for the people to submit to political power. As A. de Tocqueville wrote: «I have always thought that this kind of slavery can also be established under popular sovereignty… In this system, the citizen abandons his submission for a moment in order to elect his chiefs, and then immediately returns to be dependent»[148]. The distinction between the effective practice of political power and the notion of popular sovereignty, and hence the emptiness (at best) of the notion of popular sovereignty was emphatically underlined by G. Mosca: «In all existing and previous societies, starting from the less advanced and stagnating ones of the beginning of civilisation, up to the most cultured and strongest ones, there exist two classes of people: the ruling class and the people governed »[149]. At almost the same time, V. Pareto enunciated an identical idea in his theory of elites.
The phenomenon of the ruling class represents an irrefutable truth and, in some sense, a logical necessity that causes great embarrassment to the idea of democracy. Rousseau believed that we might overcome this problem by way of his notions of direct democracy and the ‘general will’; but direct democracy cannot be practiced in modern complex societies, the potential aid of our revolutionary communication technologies notwithstanding; and in any case, and as we shall see, Rousseau had no analytical tool that would allow him to define an objective and scientific content within the notion of the ‘general will’.
A quick analysis of Karl Schmitt position on sovereignty can help to clarify the issue. As is well known, Schmitt insisted that the question of sovereignty is marked by the problem of what the subject is entitled to decide in “exceptional conditions”: «Juridical order, as any other order, is founded on a decision, not a norm»; and furthermore, «the problem of sovereignty consists in defining he who decides on the competences that the constitution does not regulate, that is he who is entitled to decide when juridical order gives no indication on the question of competences»[150]. Schmitt sneers at the doctrine of the sovereignty of law and Kelsen’s formalism that identifies the State with juridical order, and asserts: «the term state of right does not provide any solution to our problem. Completely different and contradictory institutions can be referred to the state of right»[151].
In the next chapter, we shall see that Kelsen’s formalism hides the postulate of the absolute and arbitrary character of power. Schmitt brings to light this arbitrary character of power and, indeed, points to it as the founding feature of sovereignty. In our opinion, the importance of his reasoning consists in the fact that he brings into focus a major problem of modern societies, which are obliged by growing social change to meet a continuum of states of exception. Schmitt derives from this situation the necessity of an indefinite and hence unlimited and watchful sovereign power.
We can see, therefore, that the most realistic students of politics are fully cognizant of the absolutist drift of sovereignty. S. Zamagni underlines the conjunction of democracy and the market as a means of avoiding the drift toward both statism and hyper-individualism. But the market (mainly its capitalist substance) and democracy are per se impotent against domination power with its degenerations. Is it not the case that the French revolution, having written into its flags the slogans liberté and fraternité, resulted in the end in true forms of domination power that, among other things, denied reciprocity and fraternity.The idea of democracy has prevailed in the Western world due to its particular suitability to an open society. But it must be recognized that it leaves unsolved the main theoretical problems attached to the idea of sovereignty and power, in particular the practice of domination-power. The only way of overcoming this embarrassing confusion concerning power and provide an objective, scientific solution to a very substantial part of the question of ‘how to control controllers’ seems to be represented by the discovery of some “objective necessities” concerning the organization of social systems, such as the ontological and functional imperatives previously discussed, which allow decision power to be bridled, define agents’ responsibility and, therefore, reduce as much as possible the arbitrary power to the limit of the discretion of which the performance of each function cannot do without. In sum, the most effective remedy to the degeneration of power seems to consist in the building of a science of the organization of social systems; but, as we know, this requires a method capable of permitting such construction. In the absence such a science, any suggestion that democratic rules might be able to solve the problem of power and its excesses will be theoretically unconvincing and substantially impossible. The value of those rules is not in question. But we must honestly recognize that they are unable to avoid what they should prevent, that is, the abuse of power, and that they do not provide a legitimization of sovereignty. In the absence of a clear and stringent distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ in the organization of social systems, democracy may easily degenerate into a total confusion. In sum, to be made effective, democracy needs – more than any other kind of government –knowledge of the objective functional necessities and pillars that are indispensable to human societies, and a clear notion of choice-possibility.
One of the main frustrations of Western countries, which emphasize their own rationality and democracy and yet find themselves weak in the arena of international action, resides in their practical inability to achieve a tendency toward suppression of domination-power in domestic policy and promote its suppression in their relations with other countries. And at the root of this problem is a theoretical failure to provide a rational explanation and legitimization of sovereignty. We must frankly admit that the sovereignty based on divine right was a more serious notion than the modern pretension of founding it on reason and science, which in fact amounts to founding sovereignty on a big lie – a proclaimed popular sovereignty that involves the everyday and continual abuse of people by the real holders of power. Popular sovereignty needs a science able to provide, through civic education, the knowledge that is indispensable to providing a dyke that may withstand the inevitable tides of abuse of power; in other words, popular sovereignty requires a social science that provides real content to the notion of the ‘general will’.
Clearly, the ‘general will’, that is, the general interest, is primarily expressed by what we call ‘necessity’ in the organization and administration of social systems and, more specifically, by functional and ontological imperatives. Just such categories, if scientifically specified, provide substantial limitations to power as well as some important reference points with regard to popular judgment as to the use and abuse of political power; moreover, these categories give to sovereignty an unambiguous and objective substance and, as we shall see, provide a clear content to responsibility. As will become clear later on, these scientific notions are in fact indispensable in defining the notion of service-power (or function-power) that may be opposed to that domination-power that, with more or less tragic consequences, has always characterized human history.
Let us insist that, even more than in the past, today the question of power does not admit of levities. Indeed, in modern dynamic, open and global society, state abuse and injustice tends to assume ever growing and ever more acute dimensions as a consequence of the multiplication of “states of exception” due to social change, the fragmentation of command nodes and the growing overlapping of political and economical power. The division of power that Montesquieu indicated as the remedy to absolutism may appear, in effect, a mere division of domination-power, that is, simply a division of the power to abuse and deceive that generates and makes even more acute the abuses of the ruling class. B. Constant understood all this very well. He writes: «executive, legislative and judicial powers must cooperate, each for its own competence, with general process, but if they intersect, collide and clash, it is necessary a neutral institution (the constitutional sovereign, as we saw) that ensures their regular behaviour».[152] But what should we say about neutrality? History teaches us that the availability of a strong power has always been an incitement to abuse. Medieval Italian communes invented the podestà, an institutional figure endowed with an almost absolute power, to remedy the acute disputes troubling civil life. To warrant the podestà’s neutrality, the communes established that this figure must come from outside the commune, could not be nominated for a second mandate and other precautionary prescriptions. But, in practice, the podestà opened the door to seigniorial domination. Juridical absolutism based on principles of faith, Ortega’s appeal to the normative role of tradition, the invariableness of right and habits, even if old-fashioned (as we shall see in the next chapter), can be considered nevertheless more reliable than the exertion of domination-power in our modern democracies.
In conclusion, political power, unlike other forms of power, involves sovereignty, and therefore must be well founded and legitimized. Yet under the present state of social thought the judgment of the people– the rhetoric of democracy notwithstanding – does not command sovereignty, and this is because contemporary social thought is unable to demonstrate when power becomes abuse and hence is unable to prevent such a degeneration. In this condition, popular suffrage only expresses a summary and usually badly informed statement of appreciation, or the lack thereof, with regard to the political rulers. Indeed, in the absence of a science of the organization of social systems that might provide this sought after content and effectiveness with regard to the ‘general will’ (primarily by way of the specification of ‘necessity’), the diffuse manipulation of the electorate is possible. For the transition from domination-power, based on mere force and deceit, to service and responsibility-power, as practiced under the shield of popular sovereignty, some scientific (mainly methodological) knowledge of the kind set out in the first part of this book is needed. Such knowledge would enable the people to exercise judgment and so place under their control the use of power by the ruling class.
A power marked by the strong limitation of abuse, such limitation itself based upon some clear and well-defined functional criteria of responsibility, would allow the overcoming of the exclusivity typical of national states and of sovereignty (and analyzed first by Bodin).[153] It is important here to emphasize that a decisional power that is well defined in terms of role and responsibility is consistent with a flexible notion of sovereignty, that is, sovereignty open to novelties and local peculiarities and hence suitable to a modern world increasingly characterized by states of exception. Individuals with the skill to decide and subject to a plain responsibility for decision taken should be entitled to decide. This idea of sovereignty, not being troubled by exclusivism, is open to universalism and is therefore fully appropriate to a global society with an acute need for a flexible and open sovereignty endowed with a universalistic spirit.
At present, only the economy possesses a tool that is automatic, inflexible and capable of the objective attribution of responsibility: the market. This is the why J. K. Galbraith, in reference to the economic system, was able to set out without difficulty various reasons in favour of the doctrine of equilibrating power.[154] This happy feature of the market favors the role and strength of economic power; and it is a feature the prestige of which would only increase if the deficiencies of the capitalist market were eliminated through the transformation of the market into a mere mechanism of imputation of costs and efficiency, as discussed in chapter 8 of Ekstedt and Fusari, ‘Economic Theory and Social Change’[155](2010).
From the presumption that domination-power is inevitable Schmitt coherently established the identification of political action with the opposition friend-enemy. In fact, domination-power implies, in one way or another, submission and opposition between the rulers and the dominated class, with the latter eager to undermine the rulers and holding itself entitled to the use of any means useful in order to end its submission. Domination-power is, in its very nature, averse to mediations and agreement based on reason, since it uses reason in a depraved way. War, fighting and even the suppression of adversary are all consistent with domination-power.
Much of the blame for social degeneration has been laid at the door of the blind and fundamentalist fanaticism of religion. But we must recognize that religions have often provided an important tempering of arbitrary power in a world unable to regulate the practice of power through reason and science.
Political action should be based on tolerance, agreement and mediation in the light of reason rather than on the opposition friend-enemy. This requires that political action and power are founded on some scientific notions of service and responsibility, not domination and mere use of force. Of course, the suppression of domination-power will not eliminate the conflicts inherent to the field of “choice-possibility” where opposing propensities, preferences and interests act. This implies that mediation will always be an important aspect of political action.
7.2 Freedom and responsibility
An adequate development of the discussion in the previous section requires some further consideration of the question of responsibility and its relation to the notion of freedom.
7.2.1 An important and confused matter urging systematization
Even if the formal freedom of humanity is wide, human beings are subject to some strong limitations and constraints that are imposed by the reality that surrounds and the human nature within. Man’s substantial degree of freedom is determined by: a) his creative skills, which allow the reduction of the conditioning power of the given reality; b) his possible discretion, i.e., his capacity to decide and act in a variety of ways in the given condition of existence. But discretion tends to become ‘licence’, that is, it tends to stimulate the inclination of men to oppress one another. The remedy against license is the taking ‘responsibility’ for the results of actions and decisions. Therefore, it must correspond to discretion the taking the responsibility for what one does. Of course, without freedom of decision responsibility cannot exist; only free people can be considered responsible for their actions and decisions.
Worth and demerit, reward and punishment, in sum responsibility, are indispensable to the educational power of freedom, in particular with reference to the learning and maturation of the agent. In the absence of the binary of freedom-responsibility, individual autonomy is blind and deaf and humanity finds it difficult to learn and to improve. This is immediately evident. But it is also generic; more precisely, it passes over the content of the notion of responsibility. Such content may range across a wide number of alternative possibilities, according to the variety of civilizations. History presents us with a lot of responsibility criteria and some of them are considered disgusting in the modern age, indeed, a surprising variety of forms and values: the responsibility of the peaceful, measured and ceremonious Zuñi and of the warlike Indians of meadow-lands, the responsibility of an Ottoman ruling class constituted by slaves (capiqullari) and of the members of Assassins’ sect or other criminal organizations, the responsibility of Colcosian farmers and capitalist entrepreneurs.
J. S. Mill writes: «The only aspect of our behaviour of which we must take responsibility toward society is that involving other people.… the individual must be allowed, without nuisances, to put into effect his opinions at his own risk»[156]. J. Locke adds: «With reference to domestic businesses, goods and the body health, everyone is fully entitled to decide directly what is convenient to do»[157].These statements are intended to stimulate as much as possible the widening of the sphere of individual autonomy, but they do not express much more than this aim: a very important aim indeed, since individual autonomy implies an automatic attribution of responsibility for actions and decisions concerning personal interest and convictions. Tocqueville writes in this regard: «Providence has endowed every individual with the judgment required to treat what refers to his interest»[158]. But individual autonomy does not exhaust the problems we are considering. Human action is always conditioned by institutions and civilizations, which of course imply some precise forms of responsibility. Mill’s assertion expresses a central aspect of liberal doctrine. But even in a liberal order the question of responsibility goes well beyond the sphere of individual action. A much more involved kind of responsibility is connected to the exertion of political, economical and military power.
Liberal doctrines have substantially eluded these more extensive elements. But, as previously seen, the sovereignty of law, the notion of the ‘state of right’ and that of the division of powers do not in themselves solve the problem of responsibility: holders of power, if not constrained by well-defined responsibilities, may freely commit abuses. The notion of ‘natural rights’ is hardly adequate to define responsibility since it ignores history, the stratification over time of the reality built by humanity. We can see, therefore, that the problems connected to the notions of responsibility and freedom are far from exhausted by the statement that the frontier of personal autonomy is marked by the condition that it does not damage other people. Some well-defined criteria of responsibility are required to answer the question of what it actually means to damage other people and when does this in fact happen. In providing an answer, ‘reason’, the other factor indispensable for human freedom, provides a crucial aid. Reason is required to enable decision with responsibility, but responsibility requires that agents deciding against reason are obliged to suffer the consequences of their foolishness. But what kind of reason? Of course, the definition of a system of responsibility cannot be the work of “individual reason”; this is a task of “scientific reason”, i.e. of social thought. This is a task, therefore, tightly linked to the question of method and to the existence of a science of the organization of social systems. Personal reason is mainly directed by personal interest. Only science allows an objective and rigorous solution of the question of responsibility; otherwise, this question remains subject to confusion and relativist vacuities. Man does not necessarily need Leviathan – an oppressor of the last resort – to be defended from the aggressions of other people. But to be able to enjoy the highest degree of freedom[159] that humanity’s natural limitations make possible, some appropriate criteria of responsibility must be defined.
Unfortunately, the definition of those criteria is obstructed by many epistemological difficulties that make possible deceits and mystifications. The difficulties depend on the fact that the notion of responsibility has an ethical (that is, not only a functional) content; this notion is dominated by the question of values that represent a veritable black hole for the method of social thought and a main enemy of its objectivity. Particularly important are misunderstandings concerning political responsibilities, and the demonstration of the objective character of important values is of great importance in this particular matter. A brief review of Weber’s teaching is perhaps the best way to clarify the terms of this delicate question.
Weber’s analyses of religions and civilizations are fascinating; but unfortunately afflicted by substantial methodological misunderstandings. We have seen that the Weberian contribution to method is centered on the idea of the subjectivity of values, implying that values do not admit of scientific consideration. With this particular claim in mind, Weber discusses the way that ethics enter into politics, and in so doing he arrives at the notion of the ‘ethics of responsibility’. Such a notion has an objective content for the simple reason that responsibility makes sense only with reference to objective facts and values.
In effect, the analysis of political processes makes it immediately clear that there exist tight links between ethics and reality, between doing and being. Weber was rightly impressed by this evidence. But the objectivist perception implied by his notion of an ‘ethics of responsibility’ did not induce him to reconsider his statement as to the subjectivity of values. This reticence brought him to a very misleading notion of responsibility. It is important to insist on this misunderstanding since it strongly corrupts the way one may conceive of responsibility and the definition of the attached criteria. The cause of the misunderstanding is represented by the “observational disease” of social thought. In other words, it is a consequence of the identification of being with doing implied by the observational method (which, we must recall, obscures the crucial methodological problem of combining being and doing and occludes the perspective of doing). Weber sees the coexistence and/or succession in the course of history of many ethics; as an observational scholar, he takes note of that. But this supposedly scientific behaviour implies an absurd reduction of morality to being. Consequently, the Weberian notion of responsibility looses ethical content; but in this way it acquires a strange and contradictory substance since responsibility has, by definition, a normative character.
In sum, the so-called Weberian ethics of responsibility is not an ethics; his comparative history is much more narrative than explanation; his notion of responsibility does not concern how to organize social systems in the best possible way, but considers only how social systems have been organized over time and how they have acquired their various forms through spontaneous processes. Thus Weber’s analyses provide a particularly clear demonstration of the fact that observational method not only binds the hands of the students of society with some very strong knots but also directs them toward false pathways and dead-ends. We shall see in chapter 9 that one such dead-end has been arrived at by a modern student of society, R. Boudon who, differently from Weber, opposes the idea of subjectivity of values but, like Weber, hinges that opposition on an observational basis.[160]
In the light of the above clarifications, let us now start to follow Weber’s reasoning on the ethics of responsibility, i.e. on ethics and politics, so that we can pinpoint the errors and see the total misunderstanding that his manner of reasoning inflicts upon the delicate notion of responsibility. Weber sees that in politics the ethical problem assumes a strong content, both due to the fact that politics is charged with the practice of the exercising the command power of the last resort within society, and because history very often demonstrates the unconstrained practice of political power. Weber underlines that the main peculiarity of politics is the monopoly of power “behind which is violence”, and hence that political action implies violence. In fact, his observation of reality confirms his belief in the general diffusion of the violence of power and this persuades him that such a phenomenon is inevitable. This induces Weber to elaborate a double notion of ethics: an ‘ethics of responsibility’ typical of political power that, to succeed, must be practised with moral impudence; and an ‘ethics of conviction’ that does not concern being, has no practical relevance and, in short, is not for this human world.
It must be emphasized, first of all, that the above distinction implies a terminological abuse: the term “violence” is substituted for the “necessity” of command-power. But the fact that a violent practice of power corresponds to such “necessity” does not means that this is inevitable. Human societies may markedly change. The notion of responsibility implies punishment; but the indication of punishment as synonymous with violence constitutes a terminological abuse; punishment simply is a normative principle implicit in the notion of doing. The punishment of a guilty person is in effect an act of love for neighbours and for the same offender since it is an indispensable condition for freedom and a means of education. It is, therefore, senseless to oppose an ethics of love to an ethics of violence, that is, to oppose an ethics of conviction to an ethics of responsibility, whether this responsibility is referred to this world or, I dare say, the other world.
Unfortunately, some ancient and deeply rooted habits lead many today to think that, to be obeyed, holders of power must be entitled to much more than a discretional power limited by a well-defined responsibility; must be entitled, that is to say, to the power to abuse their subordinates. Over the centuries, the logic and cynicism of domination-power that liberal formalism has been unable to defeat have been absorbed by humanity; and people, therefore, are inclined to accept and justify such a power, and in doing so are comforted (and take justification) from the observational character that marks liberal thought. In effect, the distance between the ethics of (political) responsibility and the ethics of (spiritual) conviction derives from the fact that Weber (and many other scholars) considers power as synonymous with domination-power. History shows a sequence of domination forms marked by abuse and violence and Weber, following in the way of the natural sciences that begin from the acceptance and understanding of what nature is, deduces from such historical evidence the conclusion that domination-power is inevitable. Weber’s examples of political ethics (which underline the senselessness of total pacifism, the role of misstatement, etc.) presuppose domination-power. Weber thus means by political responsibility simply the responsibility of oppressor, and he identifies political virtue with the success of rulers that have left their mark upon the course of history, whatever suffering such history inflicted upon humanity. We have, therefore, the virtue of Tamerlan, Ivan the Terrible, the First Chinese emperor, Caesar Borgia and other authors of incredible atrocities. Weber’s notion of the ethics of responsibility and Machiavelli’s assertion that ethics has nothing to do with politics are distinguished by a difference of rigour, to the detriment of the Weberian position, but not by a difference of substance. If we assume that domination-power is inevitable, Machiavelli’s teaching is indisputable. And, in effect, it continues to be undisputed.
Only a methodological change from the observational view to the normative one that combines being and doing in the interpretation and organization of social systems will allow us to see that the virtues of these just mentioned historical rulers were not indispensable; and only then will we comprehend the monstrosity of history to its full extent. It is crucially important here to investigate the possibility and the ways of transforming domination-power systems into service-power systems based on well defined responsibilities deducted by the content of a science of the organization of social systems. Political actions, as well as those of entrepreneurs, judges and all other agents, must be subdued by the imposition of precise responsibilities. The methodological perspective centred on the organization of social systems, combining as it does being and doing, fills up the abyss in Weber’s observational method separating the ethics of responsibility and of conviction. In the organizational perspective, the responsibility implied by the observational view shows its falsity and is projected toward a real ethical perspective. Perhaps hard-headed practical readers will see an excessive optimism and even some utopianism in our reasoning. As a matter of fact, doing always contains some utopian appearances and substance; but if doing is rooted in being (that is, is accurately combined with it), then doing expresses realistic and often necessary instances. Financial systems could assume much more equitable contents than those today that control the destiny of the whole planet; they could be put at the service of production, instead of being master of production, and in such a way would achieve a much higher efficiency; the same can be said for existing models of income distribution.[161] Capitalist domination is not inevitable. The idiocies of would-be revolutionaries have systematically strengthened capitalism. But, sooner or later, humanity will realize that he can free himself from every form of domination, and this must be done in order to improve our opportunities of living peacefully.
The next chapter, the subject of which is law, will develop yet further clarifications as to the nature of power, sovereignty and responsibility.
7.2.2 The theodicy puzzle
A more complete treatment of these topics would require us to engage with one of the most difficult and, in some sense mysterious of problems: that of evil in the world. It is in light of such evil that Weber pretends to justify an unconstrained political ethics and the inevitability of domination-power, proclaiming to politicians: «You must resist evil with violence otherwise you are responsible for its prevalence».[162] And Weber further declares to those who counsel that only good can generate good and only evil can generate evil that «the whole historical process of the world and a frank and sincere analysis of daily experience say exactly the opposite».[163] Aware that observed experience might belie this claim, Weber turns to «the very ancient problem of theodicy, which consists in the following question: «how can it be that a power considered both omnipotent and good has created the irrational world of undeserved pain, of unpunished fault and of incorrigible stupidity; and might it be that this power is not omnipotent, or is not good».[164] The consequence of this last raised possibility would be the embodiment of evil in the structural mechanisms of the world; and once this possibility is recognized the next step is to attempt to combat evil using its same weapons. It is just such an idea of evil as embodied in the world, however, that has provided the alibi and the justification for the worst violence and abuses of history; and, besides, just this idea has perhaps provided the single most efficacious way of nourishing the evil that does afflict the world.
We have no theological knowledge; but we deeply distrust the darkening of reason and the wickedness that have been practiced in the course of history in the name of faith. It is absolutely vital that we consider facts with great scruple, since the individual mind can incur many errors, and we believe accordingly that the strength of reason derives from ‘collective mind that arises from the outcome of the cooperation of many minds as expressed by scientific knowledge.[165] With the caution demanded both by the difficulties of the topic and the scientific poverty of social thought, the analysis of facts nevertheless leads us to suspect that the age-old problem of theodicy contains some mistakes. The “evil” that Weber deplores is a product of men and, even more, of human institutions. Unpunished faults are largely due to institutional forms. Sorrow hides in the most unsuspected places and hits both poor and rich, rulers and ordinary citizens, usually with a strength which is proportional to the eminence of rank. It seems to be typical of the human condition that sorrow is distributed among men with a substantial impartiality and certainly with indifferent inexorableness. At any rate, the fact that humanity requires sorrow and sacrifice to learn, mature and evolve makes sorrow inevitable. With reference to our apparent incorrigible stupidity, it must be recognized that humanity is capable of expressing, in the field of social relations, a rationality much higher than has ever been shown in past centuries or even in the present age. The problem consists in finding the ways that allow us to best-utilize reason; and, as we know, this in turn depends, at least for the most part, on the appropriateness of the method of investigating the considered phenomena.
More subtle is the question of undeserved sorrow. Humanity’s sufferings are a consequence of human limitations and imperfection. It may be thought that the divine goodness should have amended its creatures by this immense cosmic sorrow. But the amendment would have required the creation of perfect beings; that is, the Creator would have reproduced himself, which seems to be senseless. Therefore, only imperfect beings could be created and, if that is so, the best thing to do seems to be to endow them of the skill to improve. It seems to us that a changeable imperfection is preferable to a higher state of perfection that is condemned to the tedium of an invariant impotence. Humanity possesses reason, a precious tool of our evolution and, in order that we are persuaded to use it intensively, we have been condemned to pay for our irrational behaviour; a price in general proportional to the dimensions of irrationality, both on the level of the individual and, even more, on that affecting the organization and administration of human societies. In sum, reason implies the principle of responsibility, both in the direct and automatic way expressed by the negative consequences that irrational behaviour inflicts upon the agent, and as stated by institutions. We have seen that the responsibility for our actions is indispensable to our learning and maturing through experience; such a responsibility is a corollary of the freedom of choice, this being conceivable only if there is responsibility for our actions – for otherwise there is not freedom but licence, that is, abuse and oppression. It follows that pain and sorrow are inevitable attributions of human nature. Imperfection is an unfortunate condition. But humanity has the means – primarily, our reason – to mitigate such a situation and achieve a progressive improvement. The persistence of this tournament of stupidities that is expressed by human history wrongly induces us to believe that the world has been created by some wicked being who is amused by our incorrigible senselessness.
The true question in the study of social systems is how to organize them in the most suitable ways for them to facilitate the realization of human evolutionary potentialities. Unfortunately, history teaches us that the usual state of affairs is one in which people violate the indispensable conditions (mainly ontological and functional imperatives) of the realization of these potentialities. It is, however, totally mistaken and unnatural to consider these violations as inevitable, and to mistake the depravity of men for the evil of the world. What we should really be asking ourselves, is how it might be possible to build institutions able to warrant a true and correct application of the principle of responsibility, and how we might identify a method of social thought that allows us to profoundly profit from the potential that reason holds, in the organization and administration of human societies. In social relations, mere observation and acceptance is senseless. All our reflections point to the facts that the misfortunes of humanity are a consequence of our natural imperfection but also that humanity could – and should – operate at a much higher level than has ever before been the case.
Weber writes: «After having conquered power, the followers of a leader fighting for a faith usually degenerate into a very banal group of prebend hunters»[166]. The main problem of social thought and social organization is to reduce as much as possible the dimensions of that group, to avoid the overflow of their appetites, to resist the bad pedagogy induced by domination-power and fed by the deceits that the scientific impotence of social thought makes possible. It is not inevitable that «the genius and demon of politics live with the God of love in an intimate tension that may erupt in every moment in an irremediable conflict».[167] Humanity is born with a kind of ‘original pity’, represented by the imperfections and limits of human nature. Notwithstanding those limits, humanity has some degree of freedom, represented by creative skills and the possibility of discretionary choice. Moreover, we are endowed with the instruments that allow us to evolve and decide accurately: reason. The right use of this reason requires responsibility, that is, the attribution of worth and demerits, of rewards and punishments. To take profit from experience and hence achieve learning and maturation, sorrow and suffering are needed. Therefore, it must not be considered surprising if the path of humanity and society is full of pain. Every person has his part in that universal pain and it is difficult to say that this is distributed with injustice, even if injustice may appear undeniable as we survey a world in which some pains are more evident than others and in which our sufferings seem greater than those of other people, since we perceive them directly and have no objective measure of those of others. It seems, however, that nature has endowed everybody with the necessary skill to improve his or her condition, with the exception of the foolish; but probably they do not suffer more than other people. One can ask oneself what is the function of the foolish; it is perhaps to strengthen, through their presence, the importance of human reason and to press science to find remedies to social and personal foolishness.
Unfortunately, the natural mechanisms considered above are opposed by a lot of obstructions and falsifications that arise as the result of human institutions and of individual wiles that suffocate human potentialities, accentuate humanity’s torments and make them a vehicle of degradation rather than of improvement. Rousseau’s statement that «Man was born free and everywhere is in chains»[168] is wrong if considered in the light of his questionable theory of the good savage that, «after dinner is at peace with the entire world and is the friend of all other beings».[169] But it is a good description of reality for all that, since humanity always and everywhere has erected social systems based on domination-power. In our opinion, it is almost senseless to discuss whether Man is by nature good or bad; as an imperfect being, he is both. But, let us repeat, humans have the means to improve themselves and it is a task of science to supply them with the requisite knowledge and institutions of that improvement. Unfortunately, this does not always happen. The persistent impotence of scientific social thought, fuelled by methodological observationism, favours the role of those human instincts that scandalized Rousseau when he deplored «man’s blindness that, to nourish his foolish pride and a vain admiration for himself, induces him to fervently run after all miseries that he is able to get».[170] Rousseau’s denunciation of the evils of the world is strong and stringent; unfortunately, it is not accompanied by any outline of efficient ways to remedy or attenuate the situation that need a method appropriate to the character of social reality, in primis, a method combining being and doing. His analyses bear the hallmark of an abstract and Enlightenment doing that excludes the conditioning due to historical sedimentation that determines the general conditions of development; in a word, Rousseau only considers ‘natural laws’.
At the basis of domination there is a deformation of the responsibility principle, a principle that, after all, is clearly expressed by nature, for instance, by the competition for survival and even predator-prey relations. Of course, human institutions should flank competition with solidarity and help the needy to proceed. But it seems that the responsibility principle cannot do without competition. Sclerosis, abuse, iniquity and hence the suffocation of freedom prevail where competition is lacking. But harsh competition should be avoided and complemented with reciprocity and fraternity. In existing societies, the responsibility principle is seen to function best in economic competition based on the market. This has implied that the economy has been the social field most congenial to liberalism. But also in this field humanity has actively worked to obstruct and falsify – through institutional monopolies – the mechanism of responsibility. More generally, humanity has imputed to the market a completely different content from simply that of a pure mechanism of imputation of costs and efficiency[171] that is therefore consistent with social justice, reciprocity and individuals’ valorisation. The fact that capitalist market, with its enormous deficiencies, appears nevertheless to be one of the most efficient institutions that humanity has been able to construct reveals to us both the dimension of human care in generating the sufferings of the world and the modesty of social thought. Before imputing our evils to the perversity of nature, we should therefore try to use our intelligence to avoid them: but not by way of individual reason, which personal interest often pushes to deceive other people; we mean collective reason as represented by science.
7.3 The anti-reformist, relativist and hyper-reformist prejudices implied by the current methods of social thought
The reform of social systems is innate to the becoming of social reality; primarily, it is inherent to political action. But a powerful and invisible enemy opposes reformism, any reformism, whichever its inspiration. This is an enemy that lies outside the political sphere, the economical sphere and people’s preferences. It resides in the scientific and cultural world and represents one of the most invasive and possessive forms of human thought. We mean the scientific method that forges the way of seeing, thinking, investigating and judging. To be able to defeat this enemy it is imperative that reformist thinking operates with great vigour in the intellectual sphere well before it moves into the fields of political and material relations.
As we have seen, the cumulative growth of human knowledge has been promoted by the identification of accurate procedures and rules of inquiry; but social studies have been unable, till now, to achieve such identification. Efforts to do so have been opposed strongly by a double and very serious methodological misunderstanding that has significant repercussions on daily life and leads to the denial of reformist possibilities, for reasons that we shall soon see. The aim of the present section is to point out once again the deepest and most insidious traits of such double methodological misunderstanding, the errors that it causes in our ways of thinking and our attempts to face the problems of human societies and the discredit and damage that all this has upon the cause of reformist action.
The first serious misunderstanding is represented by the ‘principle of observation’, borrowed from the natural sciences. This principle has a conservative character and assumes that the investigated processes and phenomena operate spontaneously; similarly to the behaviour of the natural scientist: one observes what happens and tries to understand. This behaviour implies the tacit assumption that what exists is well done and the acceptance of reality as it is, just as is also the case in studies of natural world. But, in contrast to the natural world that is not produced by humanity and tends to preserve itself or to evolve only very slowly, social systems are not conservative; they are the result of human activity and, as such, are inherently innovative and liable to be increasingly shaken by creative processes and social change. And yet, the habit of basing the control of theoretical hypotheses on observation has deeply permeated social thought, which has therefore introduced into social science, by way of the underlying idea of acceptance of existing reality, an anti-reformist prejudice that influences, in conscious or unconscious, explicit or occult forms, the ways in which we put and understand social problems. The succour of the method of abstract rationality typical of logical-formal sciences, and most frequent in economics, has not ameliorated the situation. In fact, this method has contributed to a lack of interest in the approach to various fundamental aspects of social reality.
The second great methodological misunderstanding is represented by an opposite hyper-relativist and incommensurability prejudice, derived from the epistemological criticism of science and its procedure. It maintains that each method can be used; which means that each theory is valid in its own way. Cognitive relativism strongly refuses general and shared criteria directed at the verification of the degree of efficiency of the various theoretical formulations. As is well known, this anti-objectivist attitude is better expressed by cultural relativism, which in principle considers legitimate all ethical-ideological choices and reformist proposals. The consequence is an analytical and ideological hyper-reformism, to which a formally strong and fanciful pluralism is associated, which is made substantially inconclusive and sterile by the exclusion in principle of the possibility of comparing ideas, suggestions and proposals.
So, while the observational misunderstanding denies reformism, the relativist misunderstanding implies a confused, (often innocently) extremist, senseless and completely unreliable reformism. The most serious consequence of these two methodological misunderstandings – observational and relativist – is the obscuring of a crucial distinction in social investigation: that between what must and what may be done, i.e. between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’. This obscuration is the result of opposite reasons and prejudices: in the observational case, it is the result of an underlying conservative inclination that implies that nothing can be done to influence events (all is necessity); in the hyper-reformist case, it follows from the idea that all is possible.
The identification of rules that allow us to rigorously define and discriminate those elements (values, institutions, behaviours) that must not be contradicted in the administration of human societies – and that, if contradicted, tend to prevail in the long run by their own virtue, notwithstanding misunderstandings and hostilities, by way of distressing trial and error – is therefore of crucial importance. Of course, such rules will also allow for the specification, in a residual way, of those elements that are the object of choice.
It is immediately evident that the undervaluation and obscuring of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility is the main cause of the entanglements, illusions and abuses afflicting the administration of human societies. For instance, and as we have seen, an absence of rigour in the above distinction allows the presentation as necessities elements concerning choice-possibility that actually constitute the interests of the dominating class and vice-versa. The absence of a clear distinction between necessity and choice-possibility in the organization of social systems represents the main cause of the failures of various kinds of reformism. It is significant that one exception here has been that centered on the building of a welfare state the program of which has hinged upon a main ‘necessity’ of modern dynamic societies: the principle of effective demand. The success of action directed at the transformation or rebuilding of human societies depends on two basic conditions: a) an understanding of the organizational necessities concerning the various stages of development; b) an accurate choice, among those necessities, of the nearest to proclaimed ideological convictions. A political program that accurately specifies both (a) and (b), if proposed and pursued with tenacity and resolution, can easily prevail against opponents that defend forms of civilization and power inconsistent with the existing general conditions of development. By contrast, if the proposed program leaves the defense of those organizational necessities to its opponents, it will certainly be defeated. Finally, if political confrontation takes place between positions that ignore or violate important organizational necessities, a succession of senseless and inconclusive political conflicts will afflict society: at first, conservatives will prevail; but in the course of time society will proceed, by trial and error and with great difficulties, toward the organizational necessities of the existing stage of development. These necessities will be flanked by consistent ethic-ideological options that will mature in part casually and in part under the influence of past habits.
Some clarification on the matter may result from an analysis of the teaching of R. Boundon. This author’s research makes very evident, both by way of combination and by contrast, the two methodological misunderstandings previously discussed, i.e. observation and incommensurabilism, the way in which they feed each other and paralyze reformist action. Indeed, Boudon derives from the combination between observationism and incommensurabilism an apparently decorous objectivism. But the observational trap forces Boudon to adopt, as the only possible defense of his combination of objectivist-rationalist and incommensurability positions, the Weberian idea of ‘diffuse rationality’ according to which, in the very long run, social problems adjust in the best way. This idea does not oppose anything to relativism; indeed, it leaves us at the mercy of spontaneous processes since it does not provide any instrument that we might use to govern them. In sum, the observational behaviour propels Boudon into a kind of liberal-democratic hyper-fence-sitting as his alternative to the inconclusive positions of his relativist opponents.
It is completely evident that the world, if it is not to disappear, must find a way to survive; but let us repeat, the goal is to avoid this survival taking the path of those torments and those monstrosities that history and specifically our troubled age have too often witnessed (feeding Eliade’s terror of history).
Indeed, the doctrine of cultural and cognitive relativism results in a methodological black hole that threatens to envelop the galaxy of social thought in an apparently inextricable confusion. The confusion has been stimulated by epistemological reflection, primarily by that subtle and yet, at the same time, stupid question as to the “precise demarcation between science and non science”, mainly rekindled by T. Kuhn’s notion of paradigm. Such a question has promoted (and made respectable) a pretentious and sometimes pedantic incommensurability, according to which everybody pretends that reason goes his own way, which is to say, everyone rejects common and shared methodological rules. Surprisingly, even an iron objectivist and anti-relativist such as Boudon, fully agree (following Weber) with the postulate of incommensurability – which he accepts when he assimilates scientific procedure to enchantment. This obliges him, in order to escape cultural and cognitive relativism, to appeal to good sense that, in the very long run everything will adjust to everything.[172] But although good sense sometimes works well, sometimes it does not, at any rate, it is a completely different thing from science. The incommensurability prejudice must be extraordinarily deep rooted, we may observe here, if it so contaminates and plagiarizes even the most fervent objectivists. Indeed, the incommensurability professed by a large part of social thought implies such a prejudice, both when it leads to Boudon’s spontaneity and when it leads to a relativism that pretends to justify everything. We shall examine all of this somewhat more fully in chapter 9.
So, and once again, we can see that the main problem of historical and social thought appears to be represented by the urgent need to define some general and shared methodological rules deduced from the basic characters of social reality and allowing for the judgment of the profitability of proposed theories. Of course, such rules have an inherent reformist character in that they conceive of social reality as inclined to change. The trap in which many students of society are caught is that of the observational method. In effect, the only way of building an objective social thought upon an observational foundation seems to be represented by Boudon and Weber’s cognitive method (see chapter 9). But this cognitive method leads us into observational misunderstanding and fails to supply any plausible answer to the relativist mistake. It is, therefore, plainly subjected to the anti-reformist prejudice implied by the current methods of social thought and, indeed, provides one of the best expressions of that prejudice.
7.4 Inequalities and social justice
1. We can begin this section in a simple and readily intelligible manner with a meditation upon the following statement: ‘Men are different and equal each other, different in skills and dispositions, equal in dignity’. At first glance, the two terms of this statement may appear to be in opposition. On the contrary, however, they are strictly and positively linked to each other. But equivocation and mystification concerning this connection have had a profound impact upon both the character and the development of social systems and, more generally, of historical processes.
The above statement on diversity expresses mere facts, a characteristic of human nature with extremely important implications. As we have seen, mankind’s skills would be very poor indeed if men, already afflicted by nature with heavy limitations, were all identical with one another; the many differences in human capacities and inclinations constitutes an immense reservoir of innovative and expressive skills, the main evolutionary power fueling social and economic development and, in particular, a basic propulsive force of the modern world, provided, that is, that the expression of individual skills and attitudes is stimulated.
By contrast, the above statement concerning equality in dignity is not a mere statement of fact but expresses rather an ethical principle however endowed with a special status: this principle constitutes a necessary condition to the full realization of individuality. This positive connection between a moral principle concerning equality and an objective fact concerning human diversity means that the statement above about equality cannot be considered in a relativist sense and as a matter of choice, but is rather an ethical principle having an objective character.
The existence of human unlikeness, and hence of our related evolutionary potential, have some other important ethical implications: human society needs tolerance, social justice, free thinking, action and expression. These requirements also remove the ethical principles mentioned above from the sphere of ethical relativism, imparting to them an objective substance.
Equivocations on those principles, most notably misconceptions as to the relation between freedom-innovation and social justice, are largely present in the various branches of economics and are, for the most part, linked to the question of income distribution and the relationships between production and the financial system. An often disregarded fact is that, in the presence of heavy inequalities in personal wealth and income distribution, equality in dignity is jeopardized to a considerable degree, thus obstructing the improvement and use of individual skills and, especially if production is dominated by big finance and its accompanying speculations, squeezing innovation, and hence economic and social development. It is necessary, and also urgent, that diversity and equality principles are reconciled as much as possible through careful management.
We shall see that it is mistaken to think that social justice obstructs productive efficiency; if appropriately pursued (in particular, without suffocating or exaggerating the role of material incentives and in the presence of a non-pervasive financial system), social justice stimulates efficiency; and it does so for reasons going well beyond the possible need to stimulate deficient effective demand.
Rousseau’s discourse on inequality set out, at the starting of the Enlightenment, a provocative and over-simplified thesis that, as we saw in section 2, underlined the radical break between savage man in the state of nature and socialized man who is pushed by civilization towards great infamies. There is some truth in Rousseau’s denunciation of the corrupting effects of civilizations and it is easy to find many confirmations in the course of history. But it is useless to draw from this a conclusion that damns the very idea of civilization. The true problem is to find ways to make civilization a friend of humanity instead of a cause of affliction. A brief historical excursus on the subject, embracing different social systems, is indispensable if we are to correctly organize our thoughts on this theme.[173]
2. In the course of time, the binary of equality-diversity has generated acute contrasts among people and has taken various forms in the context of the relation individuality-organization-homologation; an impressive variety indeed, mainly in primitive societies. In the most advanced civilizations of ancient times, the relation equality-diversity was squeezed in its first term by the strength of organization and homologization; in fact, those civilizations were the outcome of great centralized empires (Eastern, American and central African empires), all condemned to a stationary state both by the suffocation of criticism by organization and command élites and by a perfidious form of equality manifested by mass poverty. But two exceptions appeared that have had a great future:
a) Ancient Greece, with its privileging of heterodoxy and free enquiry, its enflamed disputes in the agora that helped to push Greek thinking in ways that led it to anticipate with great versatility important contributions in an impressive variety of topics – contributions resumed (sometimes unconsciously) in the subsequent development of human thinking. The Greek world was distinguished by the prominent role of the individual, but excluded considerations of personal dignity, which was denied to slaves and also, in some sense, to all foreigners, who were considered barbarians.
b) The ancient Israelites, to whom a religious message appeared characterized by great consideration for the individual and a strong statement as to the equal dignity of all human beings as children of God – a message that was ultimately sanctified in the absolute respect for the person.
Some centuries later, the wedding of the prominent organizational skills of ancient Rome with the Greek cultural inheritance gave birth, in the Principate of the Roman Empire under Augustus and till the third century after Christ, to an outstanding political and administrative organization directed by an efficient bureaucracy of small dimensions, complemented by the municipal self-government of the decurions and defended by few legions. This administrative order, unequalled in ancient time and unfortunately not replicated everywhere in the world, did not generate a dynamic economy for various reasons: the transgression of the principle of equal dignity of men and the associated slavery, extensive massive estates, and the dominating stationary idea of circular time emphasized by Stoic philosophy. The malaise and contradictions caused, in the presence of such an administrative structure, by a long lasting stationary state pushed the agile and light organization of the Principate towards dissolution. The disintegration of the Empire was prevented, during the tormented third century after Christ, by the efficient bureaucratic and military order. This allowed the exceptional organizational skills of the Romans to construct a penetrating centralized bureaucracy, the Empire of Dominate that, similarly to all great empires of ancient times, contributed to long life and (the maintenance of) a stationary state, but heavily transgressed the Greek spirit of open enquiry.
Further, the Greek and Judaic teachings noted above were recovered, in different ways, by the diffusion of Christianity. The emerging Church established an ambiguous relation between the role of the individual and organization, which was different in the two parts of the Empire. Such a relation inclined, in the Eastern Roman Empire, toward homologization, albeit with some remarkable exceptions mainly represented by monks: the patriarch of Constantinople was an officer of the Empire while the emperor was a kind of Supreme Pontiff who, indeed from the time of Constantine the Great and his heirs, had the decisive word in the resolutions of the ecumenical councils, if necessary drawing the sword.
By contrast, the fragility of the Western Empire, which was mainly due to the dominating presence of massive slave-worked estates and a senatorial oligarchy (hence the polarization aristocracy/slavery), a subsidized urban populace and a peculiar geography of state boundaries that made these difficult to defend, all worked in favor of the dissolution of the Roman Empire.
3. The political and administrative fragmentation that followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire became rooted, after Charlemagne, in the intervening feudal period, which witnessed the gradual restoration of individual diversities. These diversities were now understood somewhat differently than in classical Greece, having associated with them the message that all men are equal in dignity and are brothers, beings sons of the same Heavenly Father. Individual differences were exalted by the Italian maritime republics and communes, and by the free towns of Flanders, while the role of the individual was also exalted in the new intellectual climate, primarily in monasteries but later and with increasing vehemence among the heretical movements. These developments gave rise to the first shoots of capitalism, with a corresponding impetus given to the growth of material wealth and the centrality of the economy.
This evolution took place by way of spontaneous but tormented processes and in a condition of startling administrative disintegration. Economic and social development would have been more rapid and less torturous if the medieval growth spurts fueled by the explosion of entrepreneurship and the new centrality of the economy had taken advantage of the kind of light and decentralized political-administrative organization that had arisen in the Roman Empire under the Principate (which itself, as we have seen, unfortunately lacked a dynamic economy).
In the centralized great empires, governed by omnipotent elites and bureaucracies endowed by great privileges, all the remaining population amounted to a ‘protected flock’ of poor men.[174] In the emerging capitalism of Europe, by contrast, inequalities in wealth were the outcome of differences in trading skills, and different propensities to innovate and embark upon adventure. This fed the dynamism of production. But the large and increasing inequalities in income distribution generated by capitalism over time, which plainly violate the principle of solidarity among men, served by a financial establishment that in the end has subdued production, have started to generate more and more destabilizing effects and to suffocate the role of the individual and hence the potential associated with the wide qualitative differences in skills with which nature has abundantly endowed humanity.
The equalitarian reactions of the last century have drawn the world from the frying-pan into the fire as a consequence of a protracted obscuring of diversities and of the resurrection of bureaucratic centralized orders. In the end, eastern European socialist countries, defeated by the competition of the decentralized capitalist Western world, have started to converge upon a kind of capitalism far worse than that of the West in terms of inequalities in private wealth, corruption and inefficiencies. These failures of the equalitarian reaction have discredited social justice. Nowadays, some important questions arise: How to properly warrant the ontological imperative of individuality, as required by our initial assertion as to the relation between diversity and equality? Are the huge and growing inequalities in the distribution of material wealth and power caused by capitalism inevitable and indispensable; or is the contrary true? In order to preserve and cultivate the rhythms of innovation and development that capitalism has fed till now, is it necessary to marry decentralization and free initiative to a much more fair income distribution and to the principle of solidarity and bring great finance back to the service of production? Is that possible? These are the central questions and we have previously attempted to show that they represent functional imperatives of the present age. Thomas Nagel has written: «It would be wrong to break the relation between talent and admiration. But the breaking between talent and income, if this is possible, would be beautiful. It is not true that people endowed with useful talents deserve more material benefits than those deprived of those talents». And some pages later: «It may exist some different way to use economic incentives in such a way that their working does not cause wide economic inequalities; but nobody has ever dreamed something like that»[175]. Our analysis shows that such a dream is not only possible to accomplish; we show that its accomplishment becomes more and more indispensable.
Equality and diversity have been analyzed in a variety of ways by social theory. The analysis of A. Touraine on the subject deserves some consideration, being completely different from our own. This author emphasizes the conjunction of individuals’ similarities and differences, on the basis of the interactions among subjects and the action of popular movements, the democracy of interacting groups and subjective action, the confrontation among a multiplicity of behaviours as opposed to the unity of thinking based on reason. Touraine concludes: «In this way a transformation of sociology can be proposed; for a long time this has studied the functioning and change of the social system; it has become the study of the conditions where each (personal or collective) social agent lives and acts, a subject at the same time different from and equal to all others». [176] The scientific indeterminacy of this analysis, which forgets and sets aside a number of problems concerning the governance of social system in the context of a destructive attack to rationalization, is evident. Indeed, in suggesting a free hand to contradictions and unrestrained conflict, as opposed to a constructive and scientific analysis of the organization and functioning of social systems, Touraine’s analysis in effect advocates a great confusion in the life of society.
7.5 Political thought in the light of the interpretations of history; some clarification on the use of ‘if’
1. Social action, no less than social studies, needs a general theory capable of understanding historical motion and, hence, the direction toward which social systems are moving and which political action must try to help forward. Historicism has in various ways tried to satisfy such a need. K. Popper severely criticized the holistic character of historicist thought; but this is the character of some branches of historicism only. For instance, the main feature of German historicism is not holism but the idea, no less paralyzing for sure, of the uniqueness and absolute non-comparability of historical events. However, one basic conviction is indeed shared by the various kinds of historicism: the idea that the understanding of what happened in the past requires the accurate and precise observation of historical facts and the control of the proposed interpretation through them. We have seen that such an idea is referable indeed to the majority of social thinkers, including such a great opponent of historicism as Popper. There is more.
Historicism not only maintains that scholars must try to understand the tendencies at work in order to allow practical men to act as the midwives of history. But historicism also asserts that it is impossible to say in advance something about the concrete contents that social process will reveal; such contents will result from intertwining of clashes, conflicts and casualties. As a consequence, the content of social reality is expeditiously considered as an expression of the ‘fancy of history’. It is evident that this reasoning, sneered at by agitators and militants, substantially expresses a particular version of the idea of spontaneous order, and that this is as a consequence of an observational character of social thinking that was well expressed by Marx when he stated that Darwin’s work should constitute an illuminating example for students of society.
Coherently with the above positions, historicism refuses reformist analyses and proposals. That is to say, historicism denies the existence of alternative possibilities with respect to what has happened, the fulfillment of which would have improved the current situation (what happened had to happen). It professes a sarcastic adversity toward the use of ‘if’ in historical analysis and its possible help in improving the understanding of events. But the importance of alternative hypotheses for deriving useful teachings from events is very evident. It is impossible to give a scientific foundation to the historicist idea that the process of becoming is oriented toward the common good and superior orders, for instance, toward the beatitude on Earth. In fact, there is nothing of scientific value in such expectation. Only the use of human intelligence in the management of social processes can justify the reasonable expectation that human societies should ameliorate over the course of time. The denial of any valid role to supposition in historical analysis hinges on the perspective of historical necessity: what happened had to happen. According to that view, the past crushes us under its weight instead of offering instruction.
It must be recognized that epistemological debate has clarified that the way to select and consider facts always implies a theory, and that it has established this even in the field of social-historical studies. But the point is that exclusive concentration on what happened may cause serious misunderstandings. A brief reference to E. Carr’s investigation may help to clarify the issue. This author is extremely cautious on historical facts. He underlines that historical documentation does not constitute real history but only some aspects of it, viz. those documented; he also discusses the theoretical content of the selection and use of facts, and is aware that this selection points to the erroneousness of positivism. Carr writes: «the double function of history is to allow the understanding of societies and improve man’s domination of present societies».[177] Nevertheless, he strongly opposes historical supposition: «It is always possible to waste one’s time with history based on suppositions» and insists on the idea «that every alternative has been definitely blocked by accomplished fact».[178] This position, which can be defined as irreducibly observational, forgets the decisive importance of understanding the most important historical “mistakes”, and hence the possible consequences of different lines of actions and decisions. Carr’s quotation of some kinds of historical suppositions (if the battle of Hastings…, if Kerenskij…, if Cleopatre’s nose…, if Stolypin…), with the aim of making evident their explanatory irrelevance, is misleading. Sometimes these suppositions concern casual events that, as such, are irrelevant even if amusing; but, more frequently, they allow us to show some serious errors in the management of the situation, such as those made by Kerenskij, Stolypin, etc. It is important to establish that the formulation of alternative hypotheses and the discussion on “lost opportunities” are appropriate from a scientific point of view, i.e. they are illuminating, if they are based upon the general conditions of the development typical of the considered age. This, for instance, is the case of the hypothesis of a federal medieval empire under Frederic the second, which would have represented the most suitable and promising institutional construction given the conditions of that time and have avoided the disastrous clash between imperial power and the Italian medieval communes[179]. This hypothesis, therefore, represents an important lost opportunity, the achievement of which would have radically changed the course of history. Again, the final issue, in the second century A.D., of the advanced institutions of the Roman Empire toward the Dominate, amounted to a lost opportunity, albeit a ’weak’ one, since it did not represent a violation of the organizational necessities required by the existing general conditions of development: in order not to lose such an opportunity, an economy and civilization were demanded that were possible, but did not exist at that moment.[180] This distinction between lost opportunity and weak lost opportunity should be carefully considered by srudents.
It is important to underline that historical supposition and analysis (and the notion of lost opportunity) need the scientific distinction between historical ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ in the organization and direction of social systems. Of course, historical necessity must not be identified with the events that really happened, but rather with institutions and other elements toward which history is forced to gravitate (usually through torturous trial and error), due to reasons of organizational efficiency and under the impact of the general conditions of development. For instance, the freedom of commerce and territorial displacement and some other aspects of the legislation concerning medieval communes, as well as fairs, markets and some new financial instruments, and so on, constituted organizational necessities for the medieval economy. Historical supposition, if referred to such necessities, allows to clarify important historical mistakes (lost opportunities in a strict sense) and to develop a science of society aimed at avoiding them. On this basis, it is also possible to usefully consider, mainly in the field of civilizations, aspects of ‘choice-possibility’, i.e. what could have been done differently. This allows us to see what we have called ‘weak’ lost opportunities, i.e. opportunities connected to choice-possibility expressing, for instance, what we denominated profetical utopia. Various kinds of civilization are consistent with the general conditions of development that distinguish each historical era; the choice in that regard can strongly influence further development. The aristocratic and stoic civilization of the Roman Empire of the first two centuries A.D. was consistent with the general conditions of development of that time, but it suffocated evolutionary motion in spite of the appropriateness of the administrative structure of that Empire to the promotion of such a motion. To avoid these ‘weak’ lost opportunities it is necessary to succeed in the building of civilizations able to stimulate the evolutionary potentialities of humanity (where ‘evolutionary potentialities’ must be understood, not in any simple Darwinian way, but as contemplating ontological imperatives).
2. Recently, the use of ‘if’ in social-historical analyses has been accepted by some academic scholars in light of the line of reasoning that, after all, every human decision is a choice among a plurality of alternative possibilities. But this line of reasoning, notwithstanding its apparent banality, may generate some serious analytical misunderstanding. In particular, the ‘abuse’ of suppositions has caused a diffused prejudice against them. Reference to a book on virtual history edited by R. Cowley[181] may help to clarify this important point. Cowley writes: «Nothing is more suitable to virtual history than military history, since in this field chance and fortuitous events, human weaknesses and decisions may make the difference».[182] Unfortunately, attention to chance and particular decisions has given rise, in the book, to analytical levity and the formulation of a lot of heedless alternative hypotheses.
It seems to us that the only instructive application of ‘if’ to be found in Cowley’s book is made in reference to possible changes in the history of civilizations. For instance, the eventual conquest of Jerusalem by the Assyrian army would have erased Jewish civilization from the beginning. Or, again, a different outcome at the battle of Salamis might have changed the course of subsequent world history; but, in this second case, attention should then have been directed to the exceptional vitality of the Greek people and the resulting limitations of the attempt to control them by a bureaucratic and centralised empire (which is not at all what is discussed in Cowley’s book). In fact, it seems evident that the Persians never would have succeeded in suffocating the Greek spirit. This is confirmed, in another context, by the vicissitudes of medieval merchants and the immense difficulties they were able to overcome in order to achieve domination of the Mediterranean, despite Byzantine and Arab power.
The uses of ‘if’ with reference to the vicissitude of Alexander the Great are symptomatic. Toynbee hypothesized that the conqueror had lived longer and so let his fancy roam over the building of an empire of human rights and universal fraternity: a benevolent monarchy that would have promoted technological and cultural development, an age of peace and a government of the world that would have lasted down to our own time. Soon after, other scholars made the opposite hypothesis of a ‘hangman Alexander’, devoted to military campaigns that would have caused untold misery and obstructed the development of Hellenistic civilization. For its part, Cowley’s book hypothesizes that Alexander died at the battle of Granic, right at the commencement of his campaign, and through some further hypotheses it is deduced that this early death would have resulted in some consequences for Greek and Roman civilizations, the relations between Romans and Persians people, and so on. We are in the presence here, clearly, of some “free suppositions”: beginning from a reasonable hypothesis and proceeding to add a few others, a multiplicity of possible results and paths in reciprocal opposition are derived.
Again, the hypothesis that the Romans were not defeated in the Teutoburg forest and so conquered the whole of Germany, and the deduction that this would have prevented the growth of nationalism in the nineteenth century, are simply gratuitous; they forget that the Roman general Germanicus was later unable to conquer the Germans. In effect, the Roman Empire had reached the frontier of its expansive possibilities, having been unsuccessful in building a civilization able to initiate cumulative endogenous development. Emperor Hadrian well understood this fact, and wisely stabilised the limes of the Empire.
Cowley’s book continues by supposing that at the battle of Adrianopolis the emperor Valente defeated the Goths (which opposite, in fact, occurred). The working out of such a supposition fails to comprehend that, whatever the result of this particular battle, the destiny of Roman Empire would not have changed: the weakness of the economic and social structure of the Western Empire and the stagnation of the moribund late western imperial society would in any case have ensured the decline and fall of the empire.
Let us consider some other hypotheses of Cowley’s book. It is fairly obvious that the conquest of Europe by the Arabs would have attenuated the darkness of the centuries that followed the fall of Roman Empire. Moreover, such a conquest would have generated a completely different evolution of the Islamic world with respect to that development of Arab civilization as a result of expansion towards the East. But it is overly simplistic to maintain that the Arab advance toward Europe was broken by Poitiers defeat; it was stopped rather by the deep divisions typical to the Arab world and civilization, which in fact contributed to this particular defeat, as well as by increasing Arab interest in eastern expansion. For its part, Ottoman Islam did not have the capacity to conquer a dynamic Europe, either under Suleiman the Magnificent (a fact that is quite independent of the actual rain and mud advocated by Cowley) or during the second siege of Vienna, by which time the stagnating Ottoman Empire had reached an advanced stage of decline.
The eventual success of Spain’s Invincible Army against England would have not propelled history onto a different course. The Spanish empire of Philip II, which was suffocated by bureaucracy, would have not been able to enforce the submission of a dynamic Northern Europe (as the birth of the Netherlands by way of the defeat of the great Habsburg empire shows): medieval merchants and communes, Renaissance and protestant reformers had not worked in vain. It also seems evident that the hypothetical victory of the Invincible Army would not have paved the way for the Spanish colonization of Northern America, and hence precluded the birth of the Union of American States. The Spanish empire, which survived with difficulty through “incestuous weddings”, had not the strength to prevent that birth.
The book edited by Cowley also makes numerous gratuitous hypotheses concerning the American Revolution: if general Washington had hesitated, or had failed, or in the absence of that fog, if a soldier had pressed trigger, and so on and so forth. Indeed, it was not easy to repress the libertarian impetus of Americans, a people of emigrants, many of whom had fled from European absolutism. Finally, it is plausible to suppose that, notwithstanding German failure in the battle of England, Hitler had succeeded in defeating the USSR. But such a result would most probably not lead to the deviation of history; rather, we would have witnessed a confrontation between the English-speaking world and totalitarian Nazism, instead of Communism. Hitler’s heirs would have been defeated (in the place of those of Stalin, hypothetically put off-side by military defeat), since totalitarian institutions are not suitable to modern dynamic societies.
Chance undoubtedly plays a role in human vicissitudes, but it does so for individual events rather than grand historical movements; and, as such, its effects tend to disappear by diffusion and averaging out. An earnest scholar cannot accept, in the name of ‘if’, a careless fancy driving in all directions and thereby, rather than generating light, causing only muddle and confusion. Historical suppositions require great caution and constitute a very delicate and compelling kind of historical analysis. If they are used with reference to individual events (for instance, to military events) instead of institutional and civilization forms and other important aspects, it is necessary to accurately investigate the way the hypotheses reflect the existing general conditions of development and civilization forms and the way they influence (and are influenced by) them. The hypothetical alternative historical developments expressed in the book edited by Cowley are rendered irrelevant by the absence of such deepening consideration. The method of alternative hypotheses has been completely discredited by ‘free suppositions’. The problem of the ‘lost opportunity’ makes sense only if it is based on a solid and coherent method of analysis, able to make evident the distinction between necessity and possibility and which, with regard to the field of possibility, attributes a primary role to civilizations; moreover, it is crucial to not ignore the constraints deriving from the general conditions of development.
7.6 Conclusion
Political science and action have much to do with the question of power, its theoretical explanation and legitimization. We have seen that various kinds of legitimization of power have been proclaimed across history. Such exercises in legitimization mainly have an ideological but not an objective substance. Democracy and universal suffrage appear to have an ideological content, even if functional to modern dynamic societies, just as some other kinds of ideologies of power were appropriate to the primitive or quasi-stationary societies of the past.
The objective explanation of power, that is, aimed at the scientific justification of sovereignty, as well as treatment of the separation to the greatest degree possible of function from domination, are far from being satisfactorily performed by political science. The division of powers recommended by Montesquieu has proved largely to be a division of domination-powers. In this regard, we have seen the failure, in more or less explicit terms, of the most important political thinkers, starting from Rousseau’s direct democracy and his notion of the ‘general will’, which express at the best a weak idea and justification of sovereignty; through the more explicitly observational view and attitude of G. Mosca and V. Pareto that led them to underline the division, in political orders, between the nominal attribution of sovereignty and its effective practice by the ruling class or elite; to Schmitt’s derisive attitude toward the doctrine of the sovereignty of law and his declaration of the physiological arbitrariness of power.
We have seen that M. Weber’s analysis of politics and political power provides one of the best examples of the theoretical confusion that reigns in this field. Weber’s well-known distinction between the ethics of conviction and of responsibility clearly shows some of the main methodological reasons for the confusion that derives from the relativist position on ethics and the related ideas of incommensurability and spontaneity of vision. The most coherent study of political power, from a mere observational view, has been provided by Niccolò Machiavelli, with his stimulating account of the incessant exploits of domination-power across history. To reverse this teaching, a methodological revolution is needed that carefully conjugates being and doing.
We have shown that the scientific distinction between necessity and choice-possibility in the organization and administration of social systems, the notions of functional imperative, ontological imperative, civilization, the specification of objective ethical values in relation to relatives ones, are essential if we are to be able to provide a clear definition of responsibility, the conjugation of freedom and functional power, the distinction between domination power and power as service, the crushing of arbitrary action in the practice of power due to the operation of well defined responsibilities.
We have also seen that both observational objectivism, and cultural relativism with its related idea of incommensurability, are averse to a proper reformism: the observational attitude being inherently adverse to reform action while relativism being inclined toward a confused and often agitated reformism. Boudon’s mixture of objectivism and incommensurability has been singled out as providing a peculiar methodological equivocation on the matter. We have also analysed the relation, important mainly from a political point of view, between inequality and social justice, and provided some brief illustrations of the course of such a relation across history. Finally we have insisted on the value of supposition in historical interpretation, pointing out its potential for abuse but indicating the appropriate use of ‘if’ as valuable in giving substance to political action and to the accurate administration of societies.
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8 . The foundations of law: juridical objectivism versus jus naturalism and juridical positivism
Introduction
The field of law clearly illustrates the great difference between natural and social reality as primarily expressed by the fact that natural reality concerns being, while social reality (as the product of humanity) mainly concerns doing. Law is the branch of social thought that most explicitly concerns doing. But it cannot disregard being, since such disregard would condemn the law to unrealism.
We have seen that inquiry into society does not possess a method that is able to conjugate being and doing and to derive, from this conjugation, a science of the organization of social systems. We shall see in this chapter that such a science is, in particular, indispensable in the justification of normative activity, the clarification of the foundations of law, the circumscribing and objectifying of the contents of compulsion, and the attempt to separate, as much as possible, command-power from free will and deceit. Moreover, we shall see that the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ and the objective character of some fundamental values play a great importance also in the field of law.
Some of these aspects are present, with various combinations, in the main schools of juridical thought: the doctrine of natural law, juridical positivism, the sociology of law, and contractual theory. Unfortunately, juridical thought does not incline toward convergence in this matter and, in fact, appears very fragmented: contrapositions and differences tend to grow with some exceptions, for instance, Bobbio’s analysis aimed at smoothing the distance between juridical positivism and the doctrine of natural law; an analysis that, however, reduces the clearness yielded by the usual divergencies in the matter[183]. Therefore, an attempt to clarify the situation seems indispensable. To do that, we emphasize the main terms of the controversies and show that a clarification requires some general and shared methodological rules. In fact, a primary obstacle to clarification and to the discovery of convergence is the methodological chaos that afflicts social thought.
The application of our proposal on method to law may represent an efficacious way of underlining its potential for clarification. In particular, the application makes evident the profitability of some of the intuitions of the main schools of juridical thought and points to some ways to stimulate synergies among them. We shall try to delineate the elements of a general theory of law that combines those intuitions and complements them with some additions that we consider appropriate and indispensable.
The first two sections will present a brief exposition of the state of juridical thought and of the multiplication, in this area, of confusion and dissent; a state of affairs similar to other branches of social thought but with consequences that are made particularly acute by the normative role of law. We shall then turn to the opinions of some scholars and examine their bewilderment in the face of the present state of juridical thought. After searching for some clarification and advancement in this field, we shall conclude with a discussion of the delicate question of command-power and of sanctions.
8.1 The speculation of the doctrine of natural law and the objections of juridical positivism
Our introductory remarks make evident that juridical order is perhaps the human construction that points with the most clearness to the need for a science of the organization of social systems. In the absence of this science, the foundation of law will remain vague and equivocal; all that would be self-evident would be the need for some system of compulsory laws in order to prevent chaos. But what a kind of laws? What juridical order should be preferred? It is important that we provide definite answers because failure to do so would make the law an open space to free will, abuse and deceit.
In the field of law, the “barbarity” that is inflicted upon humanity by the absence of a scientific method of inquiry into human society is particularly evident. Over the course of time, people have tried to mask such barbarity through various and sometimes quite acute and astute mystifications; but all such attempts have been defective in that they have tried to cheat reason; they have lacked, that is to say, a scientific and objective foundation. For the most part, attempts to justify juridical systems have been based on the idea of order and justice; but the modern age has gradually shifted the emphasis toward justice. This shift has generated growing contradictions; in fact, while the idea of order expresses an evident necessity, the notion of justice is practically impossible to define if we lack the capacity to scientifically justify and explain some crucial ethical values.
The strongest attempts to eliminate the ambiguities have appealed to a transcendent view: the prescriptions of faith. But, in the government of society, humanity is not satisfied by such prescriptions if they contradict and violate the suggestions of reason. Sooner or later, the work of reason succeeds in corroding even the most venerated of those prescriptions of faith that contradict reason. And it is fortunate that this happens, given that reason is a powerful tool that humanity possesses with regard to our evolution and self-improvement. One of the most admirable aspects of human life is represented by the fact that, to date, nothing has succeeded in suffocating reason; more precisely, suffocation has only occurred for limited periods of time, notwithstanding the use of strong repressive means and astute deceits aimed at justifying such suffocation or, alternatively, distortion of reason. If those mystifications had solidified, and sometimes this has indeed happened, the human condition would have become vegetative. But creative and rational skills have, in the end, prevailed. The work of the plurality of minds has always found the road of reason, has gradually (sometimes with jumps and accelerations) revealed the main deceits and errors, and has thus imparted a new energy to the evolutionary potentialities of humanity. But, even today, it needs a great effort to find the road of reason (that is, of science), mainly in the field of law.
The development of modern justice has been significantly marked by the speculations of the doctrine of natural law and the arguments that have been opposed to them, primarily with regard to the question of ethical values. The pretension that law may be given a naturalist objectivity has generated various ambiguities and misunderstandings. There exists an abyss between naturalist and juridical objectivity. In the generation of social reality, there is no automatic connection between premises and consequences akin to the relation of cause and effect in the natural world. This argument has been advanced in various forms by opponents of the doctrine of natural law. But the reproach is exaggerated, since the analyses performed by such a doctrine are based much more on the questions of justice and doing than on being i.e. natural laws. Unfortunately, the doctrine of natural law has not succeeded in establishing a scientific method of inquiry appropriate to the reality that it considers. From the one side, jus naturalism has made too much use of the notion of “natural laws” in its attempt to ground the objectivity of important values. This has resulted in the error of identifying as “natural laws”, that is, laws that are valid forever and everywhere, some rules typical of particular forms of civilization, and consequently anthropologists and cultural relativists have made easy work of criticizing jus naturalist doctrines. From the other side, an excessive inclination toward “natural law” has led to the overlooking of the fact that, for the most part, social reality is the work of humanity and that its analysis, in particular that of the general conditions of development, allows us to deduce some laws no less objective than natural ones, even if liable to change over historical ages, as our notion of functional imperative clarifies.
These misunderstandings have induced scholars to express from one side some untenable statements on objectivity of law and, from the other side, to omit some important objective elements. Errors are very numerous: Aristotle’s statement on the natural character of slavery is an important example; another is the central role that Stoic ethics attributed to natural law on the basis of the idea of the repetition of human vicissitudes; no less arbitrary was the naturalistic justification of the Leviathan by Hobbes. Locke (and many of his followers) identified private property as essential to freedom; but the Code of Nature of Morelly opposed this and asserted the natural character of communism. All of these various assertions have been proved false, both by anthropology and by the comparative analyses of many of the societies that have appeared over the course of history. At the same time, the objectivity of a number of functional imperatives has been ignored, since they do not have the features of natural rights.
It must be taken on board, however, that the doctrine of natural law contains an important idea: the combination of being and doing, of reality and prescription. But the way of methodologically expressing the combination remains unsolved. The cause of the failure cannot be attributed to the ancient students of societies; it is due rather to the naturalistic blindness of modern social thinkers. Indeed, notwithstanding the fact that the naturalistic perspective seems appropriate in relation to the quasi-stationary societies of the ancient world, ancient students of society were in fact far less enthused with the naturalistic view than our modern scholars, who are dazzled by the success of the natural sciences. This bedazzled view of the modern scholar has proved a major obstacle to the elaboration of a proper analysis of doing.
The progressive acceleration, in the modern age, of technological progress and hence social change has made the tension between the repetitive character of nature and the growing evolutionary motion of human societies ever more clear, and nowhere more so than in juridical studies. As is well known, the doctrine of natural law tries to set out some principles that are valid forever. But this attempt may only be referred to ontological imperatives and the effects of natural conditions on social systems. In jus naturalist speculation, a number of notions and central problems in the life of society are absent; for instance: the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’, social change, an accurate deepening of the crucial methodological problem of combining being and doing, the historical objectivity of functional imperatives.
These omissions and misunderstandings have determined various reactions to the natural law doctrine. One such reaction has been an insistence on the historic character of social events; but some more subtle and scientifically insidious reactions have also been articulated; in particular, the supposed scientific obscurity of ethical values, a doctrine that has given rise to ‘cultural and cognitive relativism’ and has supplied fuel to the reaction against the doctrine of natural law put forward by ‘juridical positivism’, which readily demonstrated the numerous gaps of jus naturalist thought. Unfortunately, the juridical positivist lesson is even more misleading and no less afflicted by gaps in its reasoning.
The most famous and acute exponent of juridical positivism is Hans Kelsen. His juridical work is versatile. We do not consider here Kelsen’s investigation of democratic values, which, it must be said, does not represent the most original part of this author’s intellectual production. Kelsen’s contraposition of juridical positivism to the doctrine of natural law is much more important for our purpose. In fact, notwithstanding Kelsen’s exaggerations – and perhaps through them – his contraposition will prove helpful in the understanding of these two lines of research. A good instance of this is Kelsen’s insistence on the non-compulsory content of natural law and the anarchistic character of right without the state, which he opposes to positive right as part of the state: «All the attempts of separating right and state, of defining state and right as two different entities, the whole dualism between right and state in its various performances, have, in their most profound sense and final ends, a jus naturalist origin».[184] In effect, the ambiguity of the jus naturalist lesson on command-power is evident, and Kelsen expresses a useful exaggeration by stating that «all the tendencies directed to deprive right of the compulsory moment lead to the erasing of the difference between positive and natural law».[185] This argument is intended to underline the claim that non-compulsion is a basic characteristic of the doctrine of natural law, a characteristic that Kelsen sees as a sort of degeneration. Another exaggeration, coherent with that just considered, is Kelsen’s statement that, according to natural law, the consequences are pushed by an internal necessity and as a causal, i.e. natural, necessity; that is, as a necessary not a guiding duty.
The important point to be emphasized is that the underlining of the ambiguities of natural law considered above express, by contrast, the following most disquieting aspect of juridical positivism, protected and strengthened by the inspiration of this school of thought of cultural relativism: the correct insistence, in principle, of juridical positivism on command-power, compulsion and, in sum, on the compulsory character of institutional order, represents in effect a complete openness to free will, abuse and oppression. Law is considered as the product of human will and, as such, to have nothing to do with the question of justice. The positive juridical system is, simply considered, a “system of compulsory laws”; this mere guiding character of law is opposed to the value-ideological aspect, and the exclusion of the last is considered a merit. It may be useful to note that this derisive attitude to ethical values, typical of positivism, is a consequence of the idea of the subjectivity and non-scientific character of ethical values, which has become both a venerated and a tragic symbol of the modern age.
Yet the roots of this relativist misunderstanding go deep into the past; as we shall soon see, they are present in the same Enlightenment social thought, notwithstanding its thirst for justice and objectivity. Here it is sufficient to underline that a basic character of juridical positivism is the exclusion from its logical structure of values and its identification with mere compulsion, thereby abstracting from the content of command. Command is considered as a mere act of free will, that is, a will simply legitimated by the possessors of the means to impose commands. Here we can see a jump from jus naturalist ingenuous illusions on the non-necessity of compulsion to a kind of dark worship of compulsion, to a notion of law only based on force, to the denial of the possibility of finding objective foundations of law and the scientific character of juridical production; the scientific nature of this is referred only to mere logical formalism concerning the coherence of the juridical system.
It must be said that the most worthy part of Kelsen’s inquiry is the formal aspect, that is, that which concerns the coherent organization of the juridical order. But we know that the formal abstract method of rationality is appropriate to logical-formal sciences, not to social ones. Kelsen is an inflexible follower of the Weberian doctrine that excludes ethical values from scientific inquiry and takes advantage of formalism to apply this doctrine, cleverly hiding the important place of free will within his juridical building.
Juridical positivism is indeed one of the most dangerous absurdities that the doctrine of cultural relativism has produced; it opposes the justification of free will to the impotent and sweet ingenuousness of the doctrine of natural law. Both schools of thought are completely mistaken on the problem of command-power. The separation of doing from being and the denial of the objectivity of some important ethical values are senseless. Under this aspect, jus naturalism is better founded than positivism; yet the jus naturalist inclination to erase command-power (on which juridical positivism insists) cannot be shared.
The difficulties of Kelsen’s formalism become quite evident when we turn to his notion of the ‘fundamental rule’ that would authorize the production of laws and install the supreme juridical authority. That rule is taken as a merely nominalistic postulate, “without foundation and possibility of foundation”. According to Kelsen: «Every attempt to overcome the hypothetic-relative foundation of positive right, that is, to come from a fundamental rule of a hypothetical nature, to an absolute one justifying the validity of positive right, means the intrusion of metaphysics in the field of science».[186] But such an intrusion is not necessary indeed. It is possible to establish an objective foundation of right on our scientific notions of functional and ontological imperatives and, more in general, on what we call social and cultural objectivism. This allows avoiding the fiction of fundamental rule that, in conjunction with the emphasis on command-power, entails the celebration of mere force, the legitimization on purely formal bases (i.e. hypothetical and nominalistic ones) of free will and, hence, even of the worst tyrannies – which, in fact, proliferated during Kelsen’s century.
Positivist reference to the compulsion of law justifies the openness of the juridical order to free will and tyranny, e.g. the “law of the courts of justice”, that is, the application of laws to concrete cases. Of course, it is impossible to do without judges; but if we intend their work as juridical positivism does, that is as a mere form of imperium, it becomes a source of abuses. Kelsen writes: if a judge «has stated that something had been stipulated by a contract while only some non compelling negotiations had been performed…it has been created law, that is, positive law».[187] The positivist notion of law, as based on command-power intended as a mere act of imperium and as an ostentatious show of mere force, hence as an act of free will, eludes the important problem of how to limit as much as possible the free will of the judging power.
N. Bobbio has attempted to reduce the distance between juridical positivism and jus naturalism in various ways; he maintains that juridical positivism does not necessarily imply ethical relativism, but he recognizes that, for the most part, juridical positivists are indeed ethical relativists. A criticism leveled by L. Ferrajoli usefully clarifies the question. Ferrajoli writes: “The old dilemma and conflict between jus naturalism and juridical positivism, between justice and validity, reason and will has been reduced by the positivization of the specific ‘law of reason’, historically determined, as represented by the constitutional pact, a whole of limitations and constraints to the ‘law of will’”.[188] We underline that the limitations are much more stringent: they are mainly expressed by the objective character of fundamental values (cultural and juridical objectivism) resulting from our development on the method of the social sciences.
The theoretical and practical success of juridical positivism is impressive. The success partly derives from the fact that the notions of law and power typical of this school of thought are particularly well accepted by the dominant classes. But its theoretical success must, probably, primarily be attributed to the existence of serious lacunas in alternative theories, particularly in relation to questions of power and ethical values.
8.2 Contractualism and the ambiguities of Enlightenment thought
The contractualist justification of the juridical system represents an important attempt to give an objective basis to power and provide an ante litteram answer to the question of the nominalistic and conventionalist character of positivist ‘fundamental rule’.
As is well known, the idea of the ‘social contract’ is intended to reconcile individual freedom with the necessity of command-power and compulsion. At a first glance, the idea appears rather artful, and certainly it is just this if considered with reference to past and current juridical thought. Indeed, it is difficult to accept that an individual is, at the same time, both free and subjected to state-power. Even if it be granted that the state order is born through popular deliberation, the individual who does not possess the possibility of opting out of the contract is free only in the moment of voting. But the possibility of opting-out is unacceptable, since it would imply the negation of command-power and hence of social order. In sum, the contract would lose the relation of subjection; such subjection being directly proportional to the percentage of consent required for modifying the contract. If unanimity is required, the contract will be practically non-modifiable. According to contractualist reasoning, a simple majority, in conjunction with rules protecting minorities, would provide the best conditions for individual freedom.
Rousseau tried to escape the difficulty of reconciling individual freedom and the subjection to command through the notion of the ‘general will’ that, as such, would also be the individual’s will; with the consequence that the individual would obey himself. It must be recognized that the notion of ‘general will’, even though at first glance it may seem to be but an artifice, is, on the contrary, a quite brilliant idea if we prove the possibility of clarifying the contents of the general will or, in other words, if we find some objective elements on which the generality of citizens are interested in finding agreement. Unfortunately, Rousseau’s notion of ‘general will’ is shot through with ambiguities, at least if we limit ourselves to an appeal to jus naturalist objectivity this being, as just seen, inherently ambiguous and even contradictory. It is not the case that the strongest and clearest justification of despotism was given by the jus naturalist Hobbes, who expressed a notion of power similar to that of juridical positivism without the expedient with which positivist despotism tries to mask itself; in fact, Hobbes does not need the positivist stratagem represented by the ‘fundamental rule’, he simply appeals to Leviathan. To avoid these jus naturalist ambiguities and, in particular, get an objectively found ‘general will’, we require the notion of ‘necessity’ in the organization of social systems and, more particularly, the notions of functional imperatives and ontological imperatives.
Enlightenment thought, notwithstanding its sensitivity to justice, natural law and ethics, added, to the gaps in the doctrine of natural law, some further and decisive misunderstandings that threw up more obstacles in the path toward a better specification of the contractualist approach. In particular, Enlightenment thought, enthralled as it was by the success of observational method in natural sciences, did not prepare efficacious remedies to the exclusion, implied by that method, of both ethical values and doing from scientific inquiry us relativism maintains; it disregarded the systematic combination of being and doing. Kant himself had no doubts on the separation of being from doing, as is shown by his pretension to deduce ethical prescriptions from aprioristic assumptions that abstract from reality.
Montaigne’s Essays had anticipated modern relativism, aiming to stimulate tolerance in an age of religious wars. He underlined that a culture (a nation) considers an issue from a view point… another culture from another view point (qui est vérité en deça et mensogne au-dela’). Much earlier, the speculation of the Sceptics had expressed more radically similar principles, which nevertheless remained only a secondary aspect of Greek philosophy and an expression of its predilection for sensational. The modern notion of relativism has been of concern, in an equivocal way, also to Enlightenment thought. The Enlightenment was quite ambiguous in regard to social thought: it exalted reason but was methodologically unable to properly use it; in addition, it refused to admit the historical character of social process. Such a cultural climate provided the nineteenth-century historicist reaction to Enlightenment with abundant ammunition, thereby fostering the consolidation of the hegemony and weapons of cultural relativism
All of these factors constituted a bar to any substantial scientific progress with respect to the ‘juridical absolutism’ of ancient closed societies, that is, the legitimization of juridical authority through faith and the idea of the shared nature of power. Recent resurrections of contractualism, for instance in Rawls’ inquiry,[189] have refined its contents but, in the end, have not solved, except with regard to marginal aspects, the problem of the objectivity of the social contract. In fact, Rawls does not specify the objective elements implied by his famous principles of justice; rather, he mixes them with civilization-choices, and this in spite of the fact that these do not represent properly objective elements; all of which has lent support to R. Nozick’s criticisms of Rawls’ contractualism, particularly of his so called ‘difference principle’.[190] As is well known, such a principle conjugates productive efficiency and distributive justice. But, in the absence of any notion of functional imperative and a subsequent demonstration that the principle of difference corresponds to such a notion, Nozick’s justification of the complaints of people damaged by redistributive policies is irreproachable. Every ethical formulation can be reversed if it is not proved as a functional or ontological imperative.
8.3 Some meaningful perplexities concerning the foundations and role of law in contemporary societies
The foundations of law have never appeared as fragile as in the present age. This fragility tends to grow with the consciousness and evidence of the methodological confusion afflicting social thought and the growing mutability of the present world, which have greatly weakened ancient convictions and previously firm reference points.
In a university lecture, Natalino Irti underlined the nihilist implications of the present state of juridical knowledge. He deplored the disappearance of “the traditional sense of law” and the increasingly contingent character of law, which has been deprived of solid foundations and, as so reduced, has become more and more arbitrary. Irti insisted on the growing randomness of the activity of ruling, the multiplication of the sources of law, the frenzy of juridical production, and he advised that «the maximum degree of formalism of procedure corresponds the maximum degree of nihilism of contents»[191]. Irti argues that, to find a remedy for the weakness of juridical construction and the annihilation of its foundations, we need to substitute tradition for the dominance of the present and the future. But the proposed remedy is impossible; its implementation would require us to return to the well-rooted customs, habits and expectations of ancient stationary societies.
Some decades ago, and under the influence of the growing turbulence of modern societies, Ortega y Gasset expressed an almost identical position.[192] He based his reflections and suggestions on the exigency of stability of law, which he saw as opposed, both to the current inclination toward a continuous reform of juridical order, and to the uncertainty caused by right without duration. Ortega underlines that right should be an absolutely certain and solid reference point for humanity. It must not be shaken and undermined by ideological controversies over ethical values and should be, as in Roman times, inflexible, inescapable, stable as right; not right legitimated as just. The ‘legitimacy’ of law should derive from its consolidation and absorption within the collective conscience. According to Ortega y Gasset, the idea of justice and the consequent reformist aspirations of the modern world deeply wound the role and mission of law.
But again, this idea of right might have been suitable for the quasi-stationary societies of the past, but is not appropriate to modern dynamic societies.[193] It is consistent with the role that Ortega attributes to historic reality, but contrasts with the central role that he attributes to non-repetitive motion. If the legitimacy of law is considered to depend on general consent and on the strength of tradition, it must be concluded, on the basis of Ortega’s theory of crisis, that such legitimacy is doomed to dramatically cease as the very moment that it is about to be realized. In fact, according to Ortega, humanity (modern humanity) does not tolerate the totalizing and suffocating action of tradition and civilization; he shakes them off as soon as they become too pervading. This means that in Ortega’s world illegitimacy would tend to dominate the scene. Such contradiction may be eliminated only by stating, with the help of social sciences, a different formulation of the notions of power and legitimacy. These sciences, as we know, allow the definition of two forms of power: ‘function (or service) power’ and ‘domination-power’. The first refers to the fulfilment of some functions and roles that correspond to strict exigencies of organizational rationality. The occasional command that primitive societies attributed in emergency situations to persons with special capacities represents a function-power. While Ortega’s legitimacy, i.e. the practice of power as such, as a mere result of tradition and an expression of the existing civilization, is a domination-power, independently of the degree of consent that it enjoys. In fact, and as Ortega well knows, human masses suffer submission to civilizations much more readily and frequently than they build them; the dominating classes may manipulate collective sentiments to a considerable degree. Ortega knows well that consent may be a result of being accustomed to given situations and that the attitudes of humanity can be widely transformed. But when he discusses power, Ortega forgets all that and founds the notion of legitimacy on habit and consent.
A clear and general consent may be based only on ‘necessity’, on what is imposed by mere exigencies of organizational rationality, on functional imperatives; what remains (i.e. the aspect of choice) concerns the field of conflict and implies contrasts and mediations. The notion that expresses ‘necessity’ with particular strength, that is, the notion of functional imperatives (those general principles of social organization and obliged tracks of the motion process) and the notion of ontological imperatives, imply some basic and necessary structures of juridical order that are endowed with authentic legitimacy and long duration, on which a clear, general and conscious consent may grow and social harmony coagulate.
Nobody can reasonably think of freezing modern dynamic societies in the name of the immutability of right and Ortega’s legitimacy. The Sharja was a very advanced law more than one thousand years ago; today it is, in some aspects, a paralyzing inheritance for the Islamic world. Only a conception of right founded, so to speak, on the teaching of social science can marry clearness, stability and the inexorability of law to the inevitable evolution of juridical norms. The frenetic and crazy reformism that Ortega dreads and that he attributes to the idea of justice is a product of lacunas in the social sciences, in particular the inability of distinguishing necessity from choice-possibility.
Ortega’s rejection of Roman imperial power, considered an «atrocious tinsel of improvised public power deprived of consecration and absolutely illegitimate»,[194] is a coherent response to his absorption of juridical reasoning into historical observation and tradition. The judgment would be different if one thinks that Roman Empire of Augustus was the result of the advent of (inevitable) functional exigencies and that Augustus’ institutional work represented an unrivalled example of the organizational structuring of a state menaced by disintegration. During the long period of the Augustus’s rule, such a character of imperial organization warranted acceptation and a diffused consent that, among other things, permitted a significant reduction in the presence of the army across the provinces of the Empire. This is much more than Ortega’s legitimacy: it is the best consecration that power can receive. Augustus’s organization was much more than some ‘atrocious tinsel’; from the first, it received a great functional consecration by its success. When it started to achieve, during the long phase of organizational restructuring, a kind of legitimacy in Ortega’s sense, it lost its life blood and, subsequently, precipitated an irremediable crisis in the third century A. C..
In the celebration of the forty years of the work “Leggi d’Italia”, G. Zagrebelsky has delineated an analysis centred on the contraposition ‘legality-legitimacy’, that is, an opposition between law as a mere expression of command-power (which might be the most despotic of powers) and right as expression of the common feeling and culture of society. Zagrebelsky uses Creon and Antigon’s dramatis personae, in the well known tragedy by Sophocles, to delineate his thesis: Creon, armed with his despotic power, denies burial to Polinice on the grounds that he was a traitor, while Antigon, challenging power in the name of tradition, attempts the burial of her brother, Polinice. Zagrebelsky maintains that the antidote to the tyranny of laws as expression of power would consist in the inspiration of constitutions to tradition and common feeling. This reasoning shows a resemblance to the notion of common law and to Ferrero’s solution to the problem of power, that is, the placing of the foundation of power on “some rules accepted without discussion by people that must obey”. But Zagrebelsky’s reasoning is not convincing. In the history of humanity, nothing has been more accepted and taken for granted than the order of caste and the slavery found in despotic Eastern empires and civilizations. Moreover, unlike in Antigon’s time, in modern societies even the most profound feelings may strongly differ between brothers and sisters; and such feelings, in addition, may be significantly manipulated by mass media. In these conditions, the notion of law based on common feelings is ephemeral and totally deprived of any scientific character. The only possible solution of the problem that Zagrebelsky delineates seems to consist in the notion of ontological imperatives and in the organizational and ideological forms and relations imposed by the level of the general conditions of development (functional imperatives). In fact, if these imperatives are well known, the production of laws is obliged to respect them, otherwise there is abuse. This opens the door to the previously discussed notion of service-power, as opposed to the phenomenon of domination-power.
8.4 Juridical objectivism. On the scientific explanation and justification of juridical order
At this point, it remains to briefly delineate some aspects and procedure useful for the building of a theory aimed at explaining the foundations of right and to outline some fundamental aspects of juridical production. Our proposed method of social thought would seem to offer a useful tool for this purpose. The developments that will follow are strictly connected to the previous critical analysis. We shall try to link the aspects of some of the main theories of right and, with the help of some further development, will attempt to yield a general theoretical structure that allows us to make some progress with respect to the present situation.
Three aspects of juridical thought appear to have a great importance: the combination of both being and doing that, even if in a non-equilibrated form, an honest interpretation of the doctrine of natural law must recognize in this doctrine; the notion of command-power emphasized by juridical positivism; the notions of the social contract and the general will. There exist important links between jus naturalism and contractualism with reference to the combination of being and doing and also to the objectivity of juridical phenomena; but, as previously seen, discussions of these themes are marred by many inconsistencies which, in turn, are generated by methodological lacunas. However the above schools, when they come to the problem of command-power, show remarkable divergences and reveal some basic analytical gaps.
We have referred in chapter 1 to the scission of being and doing implied by the supposed ‘Hume principle’, which has been derived from the method of natural sciences far too readily been adopted by social thought. This scission has penetrated natural law. But it would be exaggerated to think that jus naturalist thought has fully and unambiguously accepted the scission. In fact, doing preserves an important role in jus naturalist thought, as its elimination is inconsistent with the treatment of juridical problems. So the insisted reference of jus naturalism to nature automatically implies the conjugation of being and doing. But, as previously seen, this conjunction has been specified in the absence of a method able to clarify its terms, to make coherent the effort of giving objectivity to norms and allowing a rigorous distinction between objective and subjective elements, necessity and choice-possibility.
Chapter 2 has shown the two analytical tools that are able to carry out the combination of being and doing, that is: ‘realistic postulates’ and the criterion of ‘organizational rationality’. Realistic postulates concern being and, through value-ideological options, also some aspects of doing, while organizational rationality concerns doing and social construction. Well, the procedure used for deducing, from realistic postulates, the organizational forms of the social system, offers a useful way to scientifically investigate the foundation and content of juridical building.
More precisely, and primarily by way of the rules that are directed to the capture of profitable and meaningful realistic postulates, our method of combining being and doing allows some useful development of the objective or subjective character of juridical production. That is, it allows us to refer this production to the side of ‘necessity’ or, instead, ‘choice-possibility’ in the organization of social systems, and hence also to perform a scientific analysis of values.
Another important notion that allows us to explain juridical production and important objective aspects of such production is that of ‘ontological imperatives’. Hypothetical realistic postulates, by contrast, will imply a juridical production having subjective character; that is, concerning choice-possibility and hence implying conflict, political mediation and procedures of popular consultation with the connected problems. But the dimensions of conflicts are reduced by the fact that the most important choices, that is, the grand options, are well rooted. However, the change imposed upon them by the advent of new general conditions of development may be a traumatic event; yet this trauma can be reduced by shortening as much as possible the distance of the new grand options from the old ones.
The crucial point is that the pillars of the social system (primarily, functional and ontological imperatives) can be objectively codified by following the suggestions of reason and science. This is also true with reference to the coherence of the whole juridical system and the logical consequences of the accomplished choices, just as is suggested by Kelsen’s formalism. It is important to understand and take seriously that the objective aspects underlined above have, for a large part, an evolutionary and historical character; that is, they do not represent natural laws. This means that the doctrine of natural law offers an incomplete and often misleading treatment of the objectivity of norms.
The above development also offers some possibility of making contractualism objective. The idea of the social contract is not a purely abstract one. In fact, it is possible, according to our method, to express in objective terms the content of the social contract. This enables us to give substance to Rousseau’s notion of ‘general will’, and hence to express it in a form corresponding to the interest of all citizens. Ontological and functional imperatives indicate organizational forms of general interest and, hence, the meeting of the general will. With reference to them, there is no need for citizen to vote the terms of the contract, these being specified by reason and science.
The reconciliation of individual freedom and social order, the great obstacle that Rousseau intended to surmount, is indeed a false problem. The notion of absolute individual freedom does not make sense; individual freedom is important and also a necessary part in the promoting of human evolutionary potential; as such, it necessitates being regulated and subjected to responsibility. Human freedom is always limited by the limitations that afflict human nature. As a matter of fact, there is no need of the idea of the social contract in order to justify the juridical system; the only thing needed is the objectivity of law, that is, organizational principles based on science. Nevertheless, the contractualist idea, if founded on an objective basis, can be a useful fiction that provides better foundations to the explanation of the reason of law and command-power that is an alternative to, for example, the nominalistic hypothetical idea of ‘fundamental norm’ as set out by juridical positivism.
This leads to consider the other great problem typical of juridical order, which is emphasized by juridical positivism: compulsion and the related command-power. This school of thought has the merit of strongly underlining the difference between social and natural reality. But it accentuates doing to the detriment of being. It is evident that juridical order cannot do without command-power and compulsion (also, with reference to “necessary” rules). In fact, what is objectively true, or useful to society, may not be useful to the individual, who is mainly sensitive to the accomplishment of his particular interests. It is this that determines the need for compulsion.
But the problem of command-power is not exhausted by the justification of compulsion. The free will implicit in command-power is a troubling and difficult element in the analysis of power. The (positivist) idea of power as mere domination is unacceptable. It is important, let us repeat, to distinguish power as mere free will, which can be defined in terms of domination-power, and power overtopped by clear responsibilities and practiced as service, i.e. power in the fulfilment of some precise functions. The possibility of freeing humanity from oppression depends upon our scientific ability to delineate such a distinction in relation to command-power, so as to reduce as much as possible the area of free will to the advantage of that of service. Our methodological proposal offers precisely the possibility of delineating that distinction and the responsibility for the functions carried out. This reduces free will to the discretion requested by the efficient fulfilment of functions. What contradicts ‘necessity’ and agreement on choice goes beyond service (functional)-power and represents domination-power.
The contractualist idea makes sense only if it is intended as a way to express agreement on what reason suggests. But the true foundation of right consists in the prescription of a science of the organization of social systems. This may be called juridical objectivism and it seems to represent the frontier of right. In the absence of such objectivism, humanity will continue to live in a world of abuse and what might be called a forge of degradation, in which we are all too often forced to deceive in order to avoid being deceived and to accept abuses of power in order to survive. It must not be forgotten that the predominance of abuse in the government of human societies represents one of the main obstacles to the ethical improvement of human beings.
We may further clarify these propositions by considering the application of juridical norms by the courts of justice. The administration of injustice in the name of justice is one of the major wounds and hypocrisies of our age. The defense of society from the free will of judges is one of the main problems of modern democracies. Judges are men among men and hence are not automatically inclined to rectitude. The problem is to force them to judge with rectitude, in a world in which growing social change offers the possibility of interpreting norms and situations in a variety of ways. The pretension of solving the problem of the sovereignty of law and warranting the objectiveness of juridical order through the division of powers and the independence of magistracy is mistaken. The independence of judges is indispensable to avoid that they are forced to judge according to the will of overriding powers. But the abuses perpetrated by independent men are not better than those carried out owing to the instigation of an overriding power. Unfortunately, a consequence of cultural relativism and the acceptance of free will is the acceptance of the free will of judges and the conviction that is but a physiological fact.
In modern dynamic societies, the free will of judges has a very large room to operate, and tends to grow not only with social change but also as a consequence of electoral democracy, since both these two elements stimulate a dispersion of juridical production. The consequent legislative chaos is reinforced by the connected jurisprudential chaos, thus providing magistrates with the possibility of deciding as they want, simply by taking, in the matter considered, at one time one law or jurisprudential interpretation and at another time a completely different one. The challenge of rectifying such degeneration should be a main goal of juridical objectivism.
8.5 Conclusion
Irti, Ortega and Zagrebelsky’s perplexities concerning the degeneration of right, the notion of justice and juridical nihilism are fully justified. The uncontrolled power of judges, constituting a major aspect of the practice of power, constitutes a great factor of discomfort. Unfortunately, modern dynamic societies, which are continuously overturned by social change, cannot remedy such degeneration by way of reference to tradition, habit and common law, i.e. following an observational view. If we are to be able to oppose this degeneration, it is indispensable that juridical objectivism is a substitute both for juridical positivism, with its relativistic content, and for the doctrine of natural law, with its naturalistic content. It is important to form a clear and if possible also a scientific notion of the institutional pillars that society needs, so that it becomes possible to make an objective, coherent and stringent juridical production. Juridical objectivism represents the road that will lead humanity to specify the limitations of power, to break the free will of judges and politicians, to clearly define responsibilities, to impede legislative and jurisprudential chaos and to substitute, as much as is possible, objectivity for subjectivity in juridical production.
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9 Some insight on sociological thought: rationality, relativism and social evolution in Boudon-Weber’s cognitive method
Introduction
This chapter is concerned with some of the more outstanding discussions of method that have been advanced within sociology. In particular, it dedicates much space to Boudon’s attempt to extract an objective theory of ethical values from Weber’s relativist teaching; an attempt that brings to light some pertinent drawbacks and contradictions of sociological thought.
We share Boudon’s firm belief in the necessity of correcting the doctrine of ethical relativism; but it seems to us that he attempts to achieve this goal by means of inadequate methodological tools that, in fact, lead to an exaggeration on ethical values in an opposite manner to ethical relativism.[195] We also agree with both Boudon and Weber as to the great importance of rational processes and the role of the individual; but we shall see, however, that in the absence of a fundamental revision in the method of social thought, rationalization remains an ambiguous and generic notion. Subsequent to this discussion we shall attempt to clarify just how the method that we propose actually helps the treatment of some major questions that are typical of sociological thought.
A key limitation mars Boudon’s effort to specify objective values. This limitation arises because he attempts to specify objective values on the basis of the observation of existing reality, thereby expelling ‘doing’ from the analysis; expelling, that is to say, the guiding aspect and hence the true substance of the ethical side of reality. In what follows we dedicate much space to Boudon’s theory of the fundamental mechanisms of social evolution,[196] which provides an important example of the fact that even some of the most acute treatments of social thought are condemned, by methodological shortcomings, to a substantial vagueness. We shall attempt to make evident that our method allows for the clarification of some limitations of Boudon and Weber’s theory on ethics and, furthermore, contributes to opening the road to a more fecund analytical perspective.
9.1 Reasons for dissent from Boudon-Weber’s cognitive method; an alternative proposal
It is appropriate to begin by noting some valuable aspects of Boudon-Weber’s cognitive method. Thus, we commend the aim of integrating «the side of autonomy and the side of heteronomy of human beings»[197], as also the refusal to admit the figure of ‘rational idiot’. It seems obvious to us that we must «consider the social subject as having reason for doing what he does and for believing what he believes».[198] Indeed, even the most absurd human actions have always their reasons. In particular, we agree with the conjugation of reality and rationality and with the importance placed upon the discovery of firm and objective foundations of social thought.
We do indeed believe that Boudon-Weber’s cognitive method can provide some explanation of human behaviour. But we also think that such a method needs to be combined with something other than a merely observational way of analysing social reality, and that such a combination is indispensable if we are to provide the explanation of social problems and the actions of social agents. In particular, some stronger explanation of the reasons why moral actions and feelings are (and should) pushed to converge seems important to us, as opposed to the mere observation of the way such convergence happens in the very long run through trial and error, as is offered by the cognitive method.[199]
Now let us list, in descending order of importance, the main reasons why we dissent from Boubon-Weber’s position on method.
a) Observational cognitivism[200] employs reason backwards. That is, the scholar does not ask himself why the considered phenomena happen, but rather tries to understand (through observation) how they happen, trusting in a repetitiveness that, even if long lasting, cannot be proved in principle, as the empiricist philosopher D. Hume long ago stated. Indeed, the sciences of nature cannot do otherwise as it is senseless to ask the reason why nature, which is not the work of human beings, is like it is. But while we cannot trust in repetitiveness especially when we comes to social reality, we can in this case, by contrast, more extensively employ rationality, i.e. with regard to the inquiry into the reason why the existing social relations arise and the way they might (or, in historic analysis, could) have been better built. The omission of such a question makes social analysis misleading, primarily in the field of ethical values.
b) The weakness of observational cognitivism from a rational standpoint is clearly evident in Durkheim’s assimilation of scientific procedure to magic, an assimilation that considers as physiological a main pathology of social thought. In fact, such assimilation ignores a fundamental difference between science and magic: the first is distinguished by commensurability and hence the cumulativeness of knowledge, while the second (i.e. magic) is not. Boudon accepts Durkheim’s analogy between science and magic, notwithstanding the fact that it contrasts markedly with the scientific and objective aim of his work. This seems to be a result of the obstacles that observational cognitivism opposes to commensurability in the study of society.
c) Behavioural cognitivism limits social science to the study of the behaviour of agents, thus forgetting important traits of the institutional organisation of social systems and stumbling over the pitfalls in terms of scientific difficulties and problems that are due to those irrational human behaviours (instinct, atavistic feelings, etc)[201] that are studied by psychology.
As a matter of fact, Weber maintains that social theory concerns individual phenomena; as a consequence, he is not interested in repetitiveness. Therefore, his method is inspired by what we have called the weak observation standard, albeit with some ambiguity; for instance, Weber sometimes suggests that the explanatory potential of individual phenomena must be checked through the comparison of the observed process with a hypothetical one resulting from the suppression of the explanatory factor the causal role of which one wants verify, concluding that the importance of such a role is proportional to the deviation between the two processes. Well, this position, which exhibits some resemblance to Popper’s falsificationism, if developed with coherence, implies what we have called the strong observational standard and method.
We now compare sociological cognitivism with our proposed method, in the hope that this may be of some profitability in the development of sociological thought. Given that social reality is the product of human actions, it is sensible to ask about the implications of different interventions in society and, in particular, to enquire what might have happened if different actions and decisions had been taken. Of course, such an inquiry into hypothetical reality needs methodological rules preventing an overly-free use of ‘if’.
In contrast to Boudon-Weber’s observational cognitivism, our proposed method attempts to accomplish the above exigency. Furthermore, our proposed method does not require the hypothesis of repetitiveness, which is increasingly violated by social reality. As previously seen, our proposed method hinges on the selection and classification of important, evident and indisputably realistic postulates, from which are deduced implications concerning the rational and efficient organization of social systems. In this way, the control of theories based on facts is relegated to a subordinate position by the role of postulates. The theories deduced will remain valid so long as the realistic postulates continue to operate, and the fecundity of the theories depends on the fecundity of those postulates.
We have seen in chapter 2 that some fundamental and enduringly realistic postulates can be selected on the basis of the general conditions of development typical of each historic age. From these postulates and on the basis of the principle of rationality and the efficiency of social systems, some general principles concerning the organization of human societies can be deduced, i.e. some organizational forms that, for reasons of organizational efficiency and coherence, are required by the historic age under consideration. However, these forms may not be fulfilled in the considered age. But the violation of rationality and efficiency implied by their absence will negatively affect the society in question, to the advantage of societies that better approximate the existence of such forms. This will imply gravitation toward those organizational forms, sometimes through very torturous processes of trial and error (Weber’s ‘diffuse rationality’). The fault of Weber’s method is that it limits itself to ‘ascertaining’ the fact of such a troublesome rationalization process, instead of trying to precede it through a scientific identification of those organizational forms.
The observational approach confines itself to the examination of what happens, rather than to the attempt to reduce as much as possible, through a priori analyses, the dimensions of the errors accompanying trials. Such a reduction is a main concern of our method which, therefore, is more stringent from a rationalist point of view and, as a consequence, is able to challenge Weber’s strong observational method of the excluded middle, the non-exclusion of which Boudon repeatedly appeals for, as a consequence of the weak rationality typical of his spontaneity-observational method. The rational standard of the method we propose does not imply the ‘rational idiot’ (who Boudon mocks) since our method does not have a behavioural character. In sum, our method is strongly based on reality (that is, on realist postulates) but, at the same time, it makes an effort to amplify the role of reason with respect to the method of social observation.
Of course, the limitation of human skill obliges us in any case to have recourse to trial and error procedure, even in science, the primary effort of social science to reduce such obligations notwithstanding.
We can see that the rational standard of our proposed method lies between that of the logical-formal and that of the natural sciences.
9.2 Further clarifications on some methodological aspects considered by Boudon
It may be useful to see the way our proposal concerning method allows us to solve some problems in the face of which, despite his reliance upon the observational procedure, Boudon is subjected to embarrassing scientific limitations and even forced to accept cognitive relativism, his objectivist struggle notwithstanding.
We shall consider, to begin with, the content of two e mails that Boudon addressed to us. He writes:
«I have only a little objection to the paradigm you propose. If I well understand, this would attribute to knowledge a power that it neither seems to have in reality, nor to have ever claimed to have. Knowledge is obliged to advance progressively, step by step. It collides with a lot of interests and other historical forces. Tocqueville represents this well when he evokes the “future as an illuminated and honest judge, but always arriving too late”; in the long run, a settling takes place that helps achieve good sense. We may facilitate this process through our criticism, but it is mistaken to hope to achieve such an aim directly. The magic spirit of Australian primitives does not operate differently from that of modern Western scholars; but it ignores the laws of the transformation of energy that Western thought discovered after many centuries. At any rate, I completely agree with your diagnosis on social sciences».
And later: «It has been proved after the 18th century that the division of powers is a good thing. Nevertheless it remains unaccomplished in France. It is an essential task of the social sciences to explain the reason why the truth is not recognised and in this way to increase the possibility that it is. The most important sociologists, for instance Tocqueville and Weber, have fully understood this point. The problem of “useless knowledge” is central in Tocqueville (a point that I discuss in my book entitled “Tocqueville today”»).
We can see that Boudon limits himself to one small, yet evidently significant, unexplained objection to my ‘paradigm’: “this would attribute to knowledge a power that it neither seems to have in reality, nor to have ever claimed”. If I understand properly, its meaning is that I have an illusory idea of the power of reason that goes beyond the claims of Enlightenment philosophy. But the contrary is true.
I agree that knowledge can only proceed “progressively, step by step”, that it “collides with a lot of interests and other historical forces” and that we can contribute, through criticism, to facilitating this process; but “it is mistaken to hope to achieve such an aim directly”. However, I think that some appropriate methodological rules can contribute very much to both understanding and facilitating social processes. More particularly, some rules distinguishing ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ in the organisation of social systems seem indispensable. Of course, choice-possibility implies conflicts and mediations. But the many tragic vicissitudes of the contemporary and non-contemporary world would have been avoided if social science had clarified that modern societies need decentralisation and the market, the division of powers and democracy.
I agree that “in the long run,” (very long, indeed) “a decanting takes place that goes toward good sense”. But it is my opinion that social science tramples on its own role if it limits itself to waiting and merely observing the settlement. I think that reason must help good sense. History shows some impressive failures of good sense and some very injurious mystifications with regard to social problems. Humanity, therefore, cannot limit itself to waiting for a future that is an “illuminated and honest judge” of our foolishness. It is our duty (and interest) to learn the way to reduce the number and dimensions of our mistakes or even foolishnesses. The notion of ‘diffuse rationality’, underneath Boudon’s ‘decanting’, has a Darwinian standard. Let us remember B. Russell’s objection to the use in ethics of the evolutionary idea of the survival of the fittest: «natural process is irrelevant in deciding on what is good or evil»[202].
Boudon says that “the magic spirit of Australian primitives does not operate differently from that of scholars”. But there is a difference between the two: scientific procedure must follow some methodological rules showing the reliability of the proposed theories (commensurability). Western scientific discoveries are the result of Bacon and Galileo’s method: enchantment and naturalistic essentialism would never have discovered “the laws of the transformation of energy”. The true problem of social science concerns the measure of the explanatory power of theories, which is necessary for their evaluation and to the cumulativeness of knowledge. Worse than enchantment is the large volume of production by modern students of incommensurable social theories (and the worst of it is that they are intended to be incommensurable); it has reduced social thought to a Tower of Babel. This point will be more extensively treated soon.
The division of powers is obstructed by important equivocations as to the notion of power. Boudon says that “it is an essential task of the social sciences to explain the reason why the truth is not recognised and in this way to increase the possibility that it is”. Well, such an explanation needs commensurability (a weak criterion of demarcation between science and non-science)
The phenomenon of “useless knowledge” is also present in the sciences of nature and will never be completely defeated. But in social thought it assumes very acute and diffuse forms, owing to the extreme methodological confusion afflicting it. Boudon limits himself to trust in the “settlement” that would take place in the very long run through good sense. But good sense is not science. Boudon’s position implies the complete acceptance of the phenomenon of useless knowledge and the resurrection of older true proposals (if they are not completely lost) only in the very long run, through tormented vicissitudes and sometimes when the evolution of the general conditions of development has negated the usefulness of those proposals.
Durkheim, Tocqueville and Weber are very important sociologists, but they lived in a time that will be remembered as the prehistory of sociological thought. I think that, instead of insisting on their contributions, it would behove us to meditate on the analytical lacunas in their thought. At any rate, confrontation among scholars is useless and substantially impossible if they elude the question of commensurability.
We can see, therefore, that Boudon’s fence-sitting objectivism escapes, through the evocation of common sense and the diffuse rationality operating in the very long run, the definition of methodological rules that warrant the scientific and cumulative character of social thought. Boudon underlines the failure of epistemology in defining a ‘demarcation’ line between science and non-science. This is a question that concern mainly knowledge of nature; such difficulties do not arise in logical-formal sciences: there is no doubt that 2+2=4. The ‘demarcation’ difficulty is not considerable in the method we propose, this being half way between natural and logical-formal sciences; the difficulty mainly refers to the way of selecting realistic postulates.
With reference to the long run, Boudon settles the demarcation problem by invoking ‘diffuse rationality’. But the demarcation problem, to which epistemologists dedicate great attention, does not actually represent a real problem. Much more important, from a scientific point of view, is that commensurability that warrants the cumulativeness of knowledge. Cumulativeness needs a reliable principle of selection, i.e., the weak demarcation standard as implied by commensurability. If we are not able to express an opinion as to the degree of validity of theories then everyone will have a warrant to reason in their own way, and this will obstruct the progress of science. The limitations of the observational method when is applied to social reality (and hence also the limitations of observational cognitivism) appear evident with reference to the question of commensurability. Let us examine this more closely.
The natural sciences have achieved commensurability due to the repetitiveness of phenomena, which allows the submitting of theoretical hypotheses to verification based on facts. Such a possibility provides the foundation of the methodological rules that allowed studies of nature to overcome Aristotel’s essentialism and the alchemist’s magical mixtures. However, the hypothesis of repetitiveness is not appropriate to social reality except in the case of stationary societies; and in this case only if we omit questions concerning the reason why they have been organised in the way we observe and on their possible transformation into something different. In fact, stationary societies are repetitive; but observation is unable to provide explanations in the presence of qualitative jumps between past and present. Probably this is the reason why Boudon accepts incommensurability when, quoting Durkheim, he assimilates scientific knowledge to magic. In some sense, the social sciences are today stagnating at a stage akin to that of magic, just as Durkheim believed. The result amounts to a dramatic expression of our social condition when seen from a scientific point of view: from one side, we live in an era of high technological (and hence social) change; from the other side, a substantial methodological ineptitude to meet social change persists.
The success of the idea of incommensurability has stimulated the birth of a number of schools of thought each unable to communicate with each other and hence unable to express synergies; a sterile pluralism, indeed: inductivism, deductivism, critical realism, hermeneutics, abstract rationalism, Marxists of various schools, constructivists, believers in spontaneous order, followers of biological evolutionism, institutionalism of various tendencies, cameralism, feminism, and the irrationalism of the followers of residuals and derivations; to say nothing of free users of ‘if’, the followers of the rule of thumb and the supporters of the thesis that every method is acceptable provided that it works, what means all and nothing. In short, there is a lack of a common basic methodological denominator that would permit a dialogue among and between different proposals and intuitions, which is the indispensable condition for making the variety of opinions fecund. Of course, beings endowed with limited skills and hence condemned to proceed by trial and error need the plurality of contributions; but pluralism, in the absence of commensurability, is synonymous with confusion.
Boudon’s criticism of cultural and cognitive relativism, as based on the long run gravitation by way of trial and error towards organizational ‘necessities’, calls to mind the observation of an important economist (J. M. Keynes) that in the long run we are all dead. The a priori deduction of those ‘necessities’ from realistic postulates is therefore important. But such a possibility is obscured by the observational perspective, primarily in the form of the dominant ‘weak observation method’. The ex-ante understanding of the virtues and possible necessity of some organizational forms, rather than their appreciation only after their appearance and their consolidation by good luck, is important. In sum, it is important that observational reason and a priori reason proceed together.
The method we propose clarifies aspects devoid of a behavioural character. At the same time, it helps our understanding of the behaviour and role of the agent; for instance, it helps us understand if, in a given situation, some behaviours are – or are not – rational, and it further aids us in establishing their degree of reciprocal coherence. It allows a better development of Boudon’s question of the reason why: «people appreciate some situations, consider others as bad, right or wrong and as congruent with what should or should not be done».[203] Weber-Boudon’s cognitivism probably expresses the most advanced configuration, within sociology, of the observational method; but it is limited to helping us achieve wisdom only after the event, i.e. with hindsight. Our proposed method is intended to indicate the way to move forward through reason prior to the advent of accomplished fact, thereby facilitating the work of scholars and the roads taken by societies. The scientific proof of the ‘necessity’ of some institutions, ethical values, etc. facilitates their foundation, the opposition of contrary interests notwithstanding, thus avoiding the damages of spontaneous processes affected by reciprocal deceits, oppression and conflicts.
In order to further clarify this matter, it may be helpful to provide some examples, mainly concerning ethics, this being a field in which the virtues and also the distinctiveness of our method with respect to the cognitive one are particularly evident. The examples will be in line with Boudon’s anti-relativist and objectivist struggle.
9.3 Examples
Democracy (the limitations of which we have discussed in chapter 7), and the ethical values connected with it, are an outcome of the general conditions of development of modern societies. This is because these general conditions embody the mechanisms of cumulative development and, in order to preserve them, modern society needs: a) both decentralization of decision-making and competition, these being indispensable for promoting innovation and providing the flexibility, knowledge and swiftness of response that the changeable nature of society demands; b) pluralism and tolerance, both of which are indispensable to the growth of knowledge; c) the contribution of each individual, which is indispensable if society is to profit from individual creativity and skills, which are randomly assigned by the ‘natural lottery’ of talents. Moreover, the present general conditions of development oblige society to accommodate the social and political ascent of the masses. The serious troubles and failures experienced by totalitarian and fundamentalist regimes reinforce our conviction as to the importance of democratic institutions.
As previously seen, in the quasi-stationary ancient world, the most important and sophisticated civilizations were those of the centralised empires. In fact, bureaucratic and autocratic regimes based on the obedience principle were, in those quasi-stationary conditions, the organizational forms most suitable for ensuring the coordination of processes, actions and decisions. Moreover, the condition of the mass of the people as a ‘protected herd’ and the benevolent power of the ruler as ‘Son of Heaven’ (who was taken to be responsible for the people’s wellbeing to the point at which natural disasters were interpreted as a revocation of his celestial mandate to govern) were preferable to the intense struggles for survival that afflicted the Greek polis and the Medieval Italian communes. Before the birth of modern dynamic society, nobody could reasonably conjecture that institutional decentralization was indispensable for promoting the advent of such a novelty; but once modern society was born it became possible to scientifically understand, on the basis of the corresponding general conditions of development, such institutional necessity. Indeed, if such understanding had been profound and widespread, history would not have witnessed the tragedy of social regimes in the modern age that denied institutional decentralization, division of powers and democracy. This shows the great importance of a priori reason in the place of the ex post reason typical of the observational method.
It is important to note the evidence, suggested by the above reasoning, that democracy and the division of powers are not universal ethical values (that only recently have been discovered) but are a result of the general conditions of development of the modern age. Boudon’s chain of strong arguments is premised upon, but also points to, values that appear in his chain of reasoning as universal but are in fact dependent on the level of the general conditions of development. In fact, these values can be deduced (from the level of those general conditions) in a much more stringent way than Boudon’s chain of arguments allows, and they cannot be referred to antecedent historical ages. For the rule according to which «Contingency presided over its (value) genesis; rationality over its selection»[204] does not apply in all times and places. Such a rule, and also the chain of good reasons, which we find in Boudon-Weber’s cognitive method, can be referred only to some ethical values and, furthermore, in this case the referred rule and chain of arguments are not enough. More in particular, the possibility of revision of ethical choices stimulated by new general conditions of development can, at least, amplify the fecundity of the chains of argument and can allow a better integration between Boudon’s part d’autonomie and his part d’eteronomie. The substantial evolution of the general conditions of development stimulated by the ‘open society’ has brought humanity to a ‘global society’, implying the decay of ancient ethical values – for instance those implied by the notion of ‘nation state’ – and requires a deep revision of the notion of ‘sovereignty’. The evolution across history of the general conditions of development has caused important changes in ethical values through the implications of such evolution on forms of power and civilization: from tribal societies toward various degree of state power.
The future progress of biology, mainly the possibility of genetic manipulations, will certainly have enormous ethical implications in the years to come; for instance, with regard to the notion of the individual, on distributive justice and on various other deterrents aimed at obstructing the arising, through those genetic manipulations, of some novel but very real forms of slavery.
We can see, therefore, that it is possible to make deductions concerning ethical values from the characteristics of the general conditions of development. Finally, Boudon’s idea of the ‘irreversibility’ of values and institutions is clearly contradicted by history. Indeed, an impressive example of ‘reversibility’ is given by the regression from the very advanced administrative and institutional order of the Roman Empire of the Principate (from Augustus to Antonini) to the bureaucratic and centralized order of the late Roman Empire, which latter represented one of the many ancient empires that was appropriate to a stationary world.
9.4 Individualism and the evolution of human societies
Based on our discussions of method, we shall now consider Boudon’s analysis of social evolution. This author moves from Durkheim’s statement that «individualism is a phenomenon that does not begin from anywhere» – a statement acceptable indeed – «but develops incessantly across history»;[205] which latter statement is unacceptable. Boudon deepens his conception of the evolution of norms, ethical values and institutions on the basis both of such a statement and of Weber’s notion of rationality. For sure, he arrives from here at some considerable, and also useful, theoretical development, at least when examined in light of the confusion on these crucial subjects that currently dominates. But his analysis is nevertheless afflicted by some limitations that the use of a more appropriate method in the investigation of social reality would help to avoid. Here it is not relevant to ask ourselves if Boudon’s utilization of some (referred) aspects of Emile Durkheim’s and Max Weber’s analyses expresses a unilateral interpretation of these scholars’ work; we attempt only to discover if the use of both the aspects provides a reliable explanatory model of social phenomena.
The evolution of institutions, norms, ethical values and, more generally, social orders has been treated in a number of ways by different students of society, among whom we may refer to T.Veblen, F. Hayek, E. Durkheim, T. Parsons and, more recently, a number of biological evolutionary students. Such variety is testimony to the analytical poverty and misunderstandings surrounding this issue.
Let us begin with a deepening of our criticism of the first pillar of Boudon’s analysis of evolution. Boudon underlines that the «individual has always defended his identity and vital interests» and that «such a feeling is the background on which the history of institution and history in general develops… Individual dignity and the respect of his vital interests is the ultimate criterion of the legitimacy of every norm, both of a micro nature and concerning society».[206] This statement, which Boudon strengthens with many examples, is indisputable; nevertheless it is often ignored by scholars. Human societies, being aggregations of individuals, must meet individual feelings and interests. But the problem is that individuals’ vital interests and their feeling of dignity vary with different civilizations being forged by these. Boudon does not deny this indisputable fact, but he nevertheless puts it aside when he states that individuals cannot be considered a mere outcome of social context. We concur with such a statement. But it is indisputable that individuals’ dignity, vital interest and feelings are strongly shaped by social context and the form of civilization in which they live. If this is true, the explanation of the variety of the context – primarily, the nature of the civilization in question – plays a crucial role. Hindu feeling, for example, hinged as it is on resignation, expresses both a sentiment of dignity and a set of interests completely different from the feelings and interests of Chinese or Western individuals. No less divergence is found in the difference in the sentiment of dignity, feelings and interests distinguishing the individuals of classical Greece, Byzantium and the primitive inhabitants of the Amazonian Basin.
Ascertaining that institutional and normative evolution is influenced by people’s feelings and interests, whatever they may be, provides some explanatory contribution; but the great variety of the feelings and interests present in different social conditions, if unexplained, make those contributions vague. A theory of the evolution of norms, institutions, ethics, etc. needs a more stringent method than the usual one if it is to remedy such explanatory vagueness. Boudon’s analysis seems to not adequately consider the fact that society, being the work of men, can be built in various ways. What follows from this is the importance of checking such factors as: the degree of freedom in social construction; how and why this variety of feelings and interests arises; the limitations within which it may operate and influence further development. The omission of such an analysis obscures the erroneousness of the second half of Boudon’s quotation from Durkheim that individuality “develops incessantly across history”
It is one thing to underline the presence and permanence of some phenomena in every society; it is another thing to state that such phenomena develop without coming to a halt. A superficial observation of historical processes and, as we shall see soon, logical good sense tell us, respectively, that such an incessant development has not happened and is not warranted. Here it is enough to remind ourselves that the second half of Durkheim’s statement ignores the fundamental distinction (present across the whole of human history) between the ‘closed society’ that places the individual at the margin and the ‘open society’ that, on the contrary, places the value of the individual at its centre. We will soon clarify these issues further.
9.5 Rationality, objectivity of ethical values and social evolution. The explanatory role of the concepts of functional imperatives and ontological imperatives
Let us now reflect more deeply on Weber’s notion of rationality, which constitutes the second pillar of Boudon’s theory of social evolution.
Weber’s insistence on the relevance of rationalization processes in influencing the evolution of social systems deserves attention; indeed, such relevance is confirmed by Boudon through some interesting examples. But Weber’s notion of rationality is ambiguous and is open to irrational constructions. We shall consider, to begin with, some limitations of this notion and, soon after, its ambiguity and inadequacy for social analysis. One limitation is represented by Weber’s treatment of ethical values, which denies the possibility of objective values and hence insists on their non-comparability, a point of view largely shared by contemporary scholars.
Really, Boudon seems to forget the substantial contribution to cultural relativism made by Weber’s position on ethical values. More precisely, Boudon does acknowledge some elements of Weber’s relativistic orientation when he insists on the non-demonstrability of the value of research programs, both those of the natural sciences (which concern the representation of reality) and those of sociology, which latter consist in «the definition of institutions, rules, etc. aimed at respecting at the best the dignity and vital interests of everyone».[207] But it seems evident that the program of the sciences – any science – is aimed at providing the best possible explanation of reality; so that the value of the program is provided by its rational power since human societies, even if affected by irrationality, are nevertheless strongly propelled to act with rationality for reasons of efficiency and competitiveness.
Boudon’s treatment of the selection of ideas and their irreversibility is important. But an accurate inspection shows that his analysis on this matter may be untrustworthy, mainly in light of his presumptions as to the irreversibility of selected ideas. The idea of karma, which probably expresses the most rational notion of the ultramontane world invented by humanity, has appeared for many centuries (and even nowadays) as irreversible. The same is true for the grand options typical of the various civilizations that always show a high degree of permanence. But they represent options and, as such, are reversible. We have seen that the changes in the general conditions of development will force them, sooner or later, to depart from the scene. With reference to the rationalization processes and the selection of ideas that Boudon emphasizes, it must be underlined that the tendency to rationalise is one thing and the skill to rationalise is another: the latter requires an appropriate methodological tool. History teaches us that a selection toward efficient organizational forms takes place in any case. But, in the absence of methodological rules allowing an explicit rationalization, the selection may initiate (let us repeat) very long and painful processes of trial and error.
We have seen before that the observational rationality, that is, the rationality that is limited to being, with its underlining hypotheses that the real means the rational, is not suitable to social reality, the analysis of which must give due importance to doing. Coherently with such an exclusion of doing, Weber insists on the subjective character of ethical values. Boudon is less coherent in this matter; he accepts the observational method but rejects cultural relativism. In particular, his theory of social evolution is based on the objectivity of the value of individuality. But the exclusion of doing denies per se a scientific analysis of ethical values i.e. it denies their objectivity. As we know, Boudon’s objectivism of values as based on being employs Weber’s notion of ‘diffuse rationality’, not a notion of rationality that concerns the organization of social systems that as such need the combination of being and doing. The idea that reality tends spontaneously toward a rational organization (as in Darwinian teaching) implies that the organizational structures and values observed across history have a rational foundation. Therefore, according to Boudon, the ethical values that prevail over time are the right ones. Well, such a spontaneous conception eludes the true problem of social thought, i.e. how to accurately build social relations and structures. Boudon’s idea that reality = rationality = necessity resembles dialectic idealism.
Tocqueville’s objective analyses of ethical values was aimed at explaining the ethical and religious differences between the North American states, England and France; and the implications of those differences have a merely observational substance. They take note only of existent values but do not consider the guiding aspect. Tocqueville offers some brilliant examples of comparative analyses but they do not allow us to distinguish grain from chaff. If we want to profit, in the organization of social systems, from those comparative analyses, a methodology more appropriate than the observational one is needed; in particular, it is necessary to advance the notions of functional imperative and ontological imperative.
The observational idea of diffuse rationality implies that Confucianism, placing as it does the community of blood and the intangibility of tradition before the individual, should have been accepted even by the hyper-voluntaristic lord of Shang if he were living in the Ming era; and the long-lasting caste-based regime should be considered as expressing indisputable values.
Boudon differentiates between scientific theories (that he seems to refer exclusively to the science of nature), political theories, juridical theories, etc. This seems to attribute a different degree of explanatory value to natural science than to social thought. But this attribution is the result of some methodological misconception.
The fact that social reality is a product of humanity leads us to ask the question: what considerations must humanity take in building it? The question of the evolution of social systems is intertwined with the problem of their construction. We know that an important route to the understanding of social reality, its evolution and its construction is represented by the opposition between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’. Boudon does not ignore the distinction. He writes: «the idea that customs vary among cultures does not imply the inexistence of universal values or that some norms are surely to be preferred to others… some norms look arbitrary, while others do not; some express the peculiarity of the societies in question, others are the result of rationalization process».[208] Implicit to such an assertion is our distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’. The problem is to provide a clear notion of ‘necessity’ in the organization and becoming of social systems. Such a distinction is indispensable for clarifying of the direction, content and effects of rationalization processes. But, so far as I know, the distinction is absent in social thought. So, I must beg the pardon of my readers for recapitulating some of the substantial content of the distinction, this being useful for the understanding of the limitations of Weber-Boudon’s cognitivism.
In our second chapter we have denominated as functional imperatives the institutional and organizational necessities demanded by the general conditions of development; we have also seen that a theory of institutional evolution needs a clear knowledge of those gravitational points of evolutionary processes; they represent an important key – an Ariadne’s thread – for the interpretation of history. Ignorance of the distinction between necessity and choice-possibility implies that ‘necessity’ is undervalued, as in Weber, or overvalued as in Boudon. Such a distinction allows remedying the ambiguities afflicting the analyses of both authors concerning the concept of rationality and the treatment of ethical-ideological aspects. We have seen that, according to Weber, such aspects cannot be considered as objective and hence a matter of science; and we have further seen how Weber attributes to them conditional explanations, dependent upon the subjective standpoint chosen. This means that Weber’s analysis is dominated by ‘choice-possibility’. We have also seen that Boudon passes over Weber’s relativism and opts rather for an exaggerated objectivism; he sees as a substantial example of the objectivity of values Durkheim’s assertion that individualism does not begin anywhere and, in effect, Boudon’s analyses of the evolution of institutions is centred on that assertion. But such a statement is unable to clarify and prove the objectivity of values and the contents of rationalization processes. Individuality has been trampled upon often and across history, and in many circumstances it is so trampled even today. To avoid this situation a more comprehensive and articulate equipment is needed, an equipment that is able to make evident objective aspects, ‘necessities’, as is typical of our notion of functional imperative. Moreover, that we may better understand the mistakes implied by Boudon’s use of Durkheim’s statement as to the role of individuality in his theory of the evolution of society, it is necessary to set out a notion half-way between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’, which plays a role no less important than that of functional imperative in the formulation of a theory of social evolution: the notion of ontological imperative. Let us see what is here intended.
Boudon is correct to express some reservations as to Kant’s a priori arguments and to attempt to found them on more stringent, realistic and “less mysterious foundations”. But it seems to us that such an intention requires a special analytical category that can be outlined starting from Boudon’s reference to the notion of ‘human nature’. This analytical category is represented by the notion of ‘ontological imperative’, i.e. a notion concerning some prescriptions the fulfilment of which is necessary in order to allow a full expression of the evolutionary potentialities of human beings, in particular, the creative skills of humanity.
We know that ontological imperatives do not have the constraining strength of functional imperatives, these latter being imposed by organizational coherence and efficiency. In fact, there exists the possibility of organizing societies the institutions of which are the expression of forms of civilization that ignore ontological imperatives. History gives examples of many social systems that trample upon ontological imperatives, much more than the contrary; these are the so called ‘closed societies’, which have at times generated very high cultural forms and have also achieved a high degree of stationary-repetitive efficiency, sometimes through an obsessive pursuit of stability and coherence that has obstructed development. These are just the opposite of functional imperatives, which emerge irresistibly with the change of the general conditions of development due to the sedimentation of innovations.
The above considerations allow us to understand that the second part of Durkheim’s assertion – according to which individuality “develops incessantly across history”, is logically wrong and is contradicted by factual evidence. Such a ceaseless development was in no way warranted before the advent of the modern age. What is the mystery that has made possible, in the present age, the qualitative jump toward the incessant development of individuality? It is simply the transformation, as a result of modern society, of corresponding ontological imperatives into functional imperatives. This conclusion clearly emerges into view if we consider that a dynamic auto-propulsive society cannot (by definition) do without creativity, innovation and that growth of knowledge that is stimulated by the confrontations of scholars and the clash of different results and opinions.
Probably, the arrival in the modern age of the above functional imperatives persuaded Durkheim to enunciate the assertion – picked up by Boudon – as to the incessant development of individuality across history. Actually, this is not an inescapable conclusion, as is shown by many societies that have stagnated for centuries and even millennia in primitive conditions or under some rock-solid rules of obedience that eclipses and marginalizes the role of the individual.
The development of individuality becomes irrepressible only when some open society, after having successfully defended its openness over centuries, arrives at the modern age. After such an event, many other social systems may well be forced, ‘willy nilly’, to set out upon the road toward the open society in order to avoid growing handicaps in their competition with rivals; this means that they have been (or are) forced to accept ontological imperatives that, in the meantime, become functional imperatives. Centralised socialist societies might have survived for many centuries if they had not become a real fossil residing in the hearth of the modern world, accompanied by the absurd pretension of remedying the drawbacks of capitalism through collectivism, i.e. through an organizational form suitable to stationary societies and to the preservation of the stationary state. A primary challenge facing students of society is, not the making evident of the perennial validity of ontological imperatives but, on the contrary, the making it evident that these ontological imperatives, before becoming functional imperatives, may easily (and have been frequently) trampled on; and a further – and equally important – challenge is to underline the depressing consequences of such suffocation.
9.6 Conclusion
The method of the social sciences outlined in this book attempts to reconcile reality and rationality, just as Boudon also intends; but the method outlined in this book seeks to achieve this shared goal without accepting that such a reconciliation will happen automatically in the long run. To achieve such a purpose, we employ a procedure intended to imply a much stronger and stringent rationality than that associated with the observational cognitive method, a more accurate selection of the relevant aspects of reality and a more articulated analysis of reality. The proposed procedure is centred on the attribution to humanity of a constructivist substantial skill, i. e. in deliberately influencing the becoming of societies, as opposed to the cognitive method which is obliged, for reasons of coherence, to limit itself to the consideration of spontaneous behaviours.
The one-sided doctrine of the absolute subjectivity and non-comparability of all ethical values is an incitement to fundamentalism, notwithstanding its proclaimed openness to tolerance and diversities. As a matter of fact, the related ideas of the non-comparability of ethical values and of incommensurability are transforming the management of society and the building of social thought into something worse than magic. These ideas promote, in the present world characterized as it is by a large theoretical production and a wide market of theories, an acidic and obstinate struggle among impenetrable professions of different faith. That fruitful confrontation and cooperation among people, which appears more and more necessary in global society, is impossible if even scientific knowledge, typically concerning reason and hence probably expressing the most effective force in producing agreement among men, is proclaimed to be founded on mere points of view, some specific a priori assumption; and this, indeed, is a diffuse proclamation of modern heterodoxy.
As long as humanity also fails to profit from the role and services of reason in sociological theory, Western civilizations will not be able to provide convincing answers to their enemies; will not be able to produce an alternative vision to that embraced in the blind determination of kamikaze fanatics who sacrifice themselves in the hope of a mythical happiness and regeneration, disgusted by a world in which the government of societies is largely infested by abuse of power, injustice and deceit.
A scientific analysis of the evolution of human societies and their institutions requires some fundamental methodological categories that allow us to make, as previously seen, a theoretical effort more stringent than that facilitated by Boudon-Weber’s cognitive method. The explanatory potential of all theories of social evolution is strongly damaged by their omission of the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’ in the life and organization of social systems and by disregard for features of human nature inherent in the notion of ontological imperatives.
It is important to admit that the protection of human dignity and of the vital interests of the individual – which Boudon underlines – represents a very general organizational necessity of social systems. But this tells us very little if the dignity and interests in question are simply taken such as they have been forged by some specific civilization, without ascertaining if the civilization considered satisfies ontological (and functional) imperatives. The vagueness of some cognitive propositions does not allow for the explanation of various aspects of human societies and their construction. Our analysis attempts to remedy some important traits of such vagueness, both through the field of ‘choice- possibility’, i.e. the various kinds of visions and inspirations that may characterize the evolution and organization of societies, and through the notion of ontological imperative underlining the importance of the ethical values required by the expression of human potentialities.
Our proposals concerning method provide, among other things, a due space to that relativism that lies close at hand to objective ethical values. Boudon says: «Therefore, the theory of evolution is open, as it does not show a tendency toward a specified aim. It is the result of the accomplishment of programs open to diffuse rationalisation».[209] Well, the openness of human societies is a result of choice-possibility and creative processes, which cannot be foreseen and which, through the sedimentation of innovations, cause the evolution of the general conditions of development, with consequent implications on ethical values, institutions, etc. To understand the mechanisms of such an evolution requires a clear conception of the proper role of choice in the organization of human societies and a clear distinction between ontological imperatives and functional imperatives; a distinction that, moreover, is able to avoid and counter mystifications aimed at surrendering the holy grail of scientific objectivity to vested interests. Most importantly, the distinction and its implications illustrate the substantial insufficiency of the Weberian notion of rationality.
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10 Further meditation on ethics: values in the light of religious thought and its opponents
Introduction
Social reality is strongly influenced by religious feelings and beliefs. Such influence is inescapable given the fact that religious feeling is profoundly rooted in human beings itself primarily because humanity does not accepts its finite nature. There is more. A severe layman such as Voltaire wrote: «Everywhere an organized society exists, religion is necessary; laws watch over known crimes, religion watch over secret crimes».[210] Of course, the influence of religion on social reality also affects social theory. We analyse here some important connections between the Christian message and the growing complications, in modern societies, of the methodological problems of social thought. These links concern, first of all, ethical values.
The situation is made both complex and delicate by the acceleration of social change and the intensification of the processes of globalisation. In fact, change brings new values onto the scene and hence highlights the problem of their relation with tradition and cultural diversities. At the same time, the encounter, in a global world, of different civilisations, strengthens the impact of those diversities and threatens to intensify the collision of different visions, rather than dialogue between them and the discovery of shared, reciprocal interests. The relativist idea of the subjectivity of values denies the possibility of a scientific analysis of such problems, but the opponents of relativism do not offer better solutions. Some objective developments regarding ethics are urgent in order to enunciate basic and strongly shared values that allow humanity to take its bearing within a healthy jungle of diversities and social changes and to shatter the efflorescence of cynicism, astuteness and frustration that are generated by ethical confusion.
We shall compare this cultural climate to the substance and to the role of religious absolutism on ethical values, and we shall see that the position on the matter of the Christian message is peculiar. Recently, the debate on cultural relativism has been challenged by Jean Paul the Second’s request that the Christian roots of Europe be mentioned in the preface of the EU constitutional treaty, while pope Benedict the Sixteenth has repeatedly criticised the Godless reasoning of the Enlightenment and the reasonless God of fundamentalists. We shall consider this debate in the light of the method of social thought and attempt to avoid any embarrassing equivocations in the subject that may arise.
Section 1 of this chapter will be mainly dedicated to the most important contribution that religion has offered to the advent of modern world, as represented by some basic principles typical of the Christian message. In light of our notion of ethical objectivism, section 2 deepens some basic considerations concerning ethical values as expressed by ethical relativism and ethical absolutism, and explores their implications. Section 3 is dedicated to the most important and involved aspect of ethical problems as represented by civilizations, their substance and implications. Section 4 gives examples of some important ethical values and the need for global ethical principles in the modern global world. In section 5, some further discussion concerning Christian teachings will be set out and, in section 6, the analyses on ethics of some eminent modern social students and philosophers will be discussed. Finally, the positions on ethical values of three contemporary scholars will be examined: a strenuous opponent of cultural relativism and two defenders of relativism from partially different perspectives.
10.1 Ethics in stationary societies and dynamic-evolutionary societies: the roots of the problems that we are going to discuss
10.1.1 Generalities
Probably the most meaningful and sophisticated features of the stationary societies of ancient times were their ethical systems.[211] Investigation of those ethical systems shows that they were largely directed to the preservation and functioning of the respective society. But some important ethical aspects had a more general breath. For instance, the golden rule prescribing ‘not to do to others what you do not wish them to do against you’, which is present in the most important ethical systems, reflects, notwithstanding its indefiniteness, a fundamental need of social life; and the same is true for the most part of the Ten Commandments. Some other important ethical aspects of ancient societies were due to geographic conditions. For instance, the natural environment had a large influence upon the values and the world vision of nomads and seafaring people. All these ethical forms can be scientifically explained as organizational necessities of society and, hence, have an objective character. By contrast, some other ethical aspects have an optional character; they are an expression of human creativity, even if they may display a long-lasting duration. They have, therefore, a relative content. Sometimes such aspects express religious beliefs; but, as just seen, religions stress also objective ethical aspects, thus emphasizing the need and disposition for obedience to them.
The distinction between objective and optional values has no practical importance in reference to stationary societies, which have a well defined physiognomy and therefore clear rules of reciprocity. Besides, such societies have a conservative character marked by being. By contrast, the distinction between objective (necessary) and optional values is important with reference to open and dynamic societies, where being is obliged to meet becoming and where the relations among people and hence among different cultures are intense.
In the history of human societies, the stationary state has often prevailed over evolutionary motion. The reason for this is evident: existent interests and institutions, and the legitimacy over time of the existing social reality, imply a tendency toward the preservation of social structures, values and civilisations. This tendency is strengthened by the fact that repetitive and stationary societies are easy to govern while stationary motion tends to perfect them and hence to increase their stationary efficiency (with the exception of the disruption provoked by the possible invasion of more advanced people). This stationary tendency suffocates human evolutionary potential. To interrupt it, very special conditions are required.
10.1.2 The role of the Christian message
In the course of history, such an interruption has occurred, and this interruption warrants special consideration because it stands at the origin of some of the major difficulties of modern social thought. The break with the stationary state has been caused by the birth of a peculiar vision of the world along with some collateral principles, which collectively may be called the seeds of dynamical process. These seeds consist of the following: a notion of historical time shared by all Abraham’s spiritual descendants; four principles of Christian and, in some respects, Jewish origin that are indispensable to providing substance for that peculiar vision, have strongly influenced the history of Europe and America and, today, operate at world scale.
The vision consists in the Christian-Jewish notion of linear time, which replaced the circular notion bearing the imprint of nature and which was characteristic of the ancient classic world.[212] This new vision has engendered a feeling of progression and projection toward the future, that is to say, it has engendered an evolutionary and substantial idea of historical time, which is animated by ethical tension and refuses to merely accept being in place of doing.[213]
We have seen the methodological importance of the opposition between acceptance and refusal of de facto reality, that is, of the opposition between the mere consideration of being and the combination of being with doing, and we have discussed the distinction between the methods of the natural and the social sciences and formulated an alternative methodological proposal. Here it is sufficient to remember that the notion of linear time charges humanity with a difficult evolutionary mission, just the opposite of the purely adaptive action that circular motion requires. Evolutionary motion requires the evolutionary potential of humanity. Four basic principles that we encounter in the Christian message have permitted the realisation of that evolutionary potential:
a) The resolute proclamation of the dignity and autonomy of the individual, of the singularity of the human person and of the absolute inviolability of personal conscience, and the insistence on human creativity. This principle is expressed with an extreme clearness in the statement that all men are the children of God. B. Forte writes: «The archaic world and also Greek culture did not know the infinite dignity of the person as a unique and singular historical subject».[214] The most important aspect of this proclamation of the equal dignity of all men is that it constitutes a formidable safeguard of the immense variety of individual qualities and skills and hence of the possibility that somebody can contribute his personal knowledge and acquisitions, with the result that humanity collectively profits from the great human patrimony of diversified skills. As we saw in chapter 7, in the context of our discussion of equalities and inequalities, the evolutionary push deriving from the safeguard of individuality, personal diversities and creative skills is very strong, as is confirmed by the fact that, if all men had identical skills the resulting human evolutionary potential would be extremely modest. Unfortunately, a superficial and diffuse idea of equality has often induced the forgetting of the importance of the diversification of skills and of creativity; which in turn has provoked serious misunderstandings in the interpretation and organization of human societies.
b) The principle of personal responsibility: in the absence of which, the individual is not pushed to express his virtues and skills, since he does not derive interior satisfaction from his activity.
c) The distinction between questions concerning God and questions concerning Caesar, between Church (or religion) and state. The absorption of the Church (or religion) into the state, a state of affairs called autocracy, suffocates both the above principles: (a) concerning the role of the individual, and (b) concerning personal responsibility. It stimulates the tendency to suppress the vivifying power of individual diversity and creativity and to equalise all; the bureaucratic-autocratic capabilities of decision are appropriate to the administration of uniformity and the stationary state and, therefore, tend to preserve these aspects, as we saw at the beginning of this work. For its part, the absorption of the state in the Church (or the social process in religion), which can be defined as theocracy, suffocates the development of institutions and ethical values required by the evolution of mankind. This suffocation is mainly due to the fact that the commandments of faith are declared immutable over time and space and therefore are likely to obstruct creative verve and contradict the operation on human things of the rationality principle (see (d) below). The suffocation of human evolutionary potential, caused by the violation of the present principle (c), tends to restore stationary motion, that is, it implicitly inclines humanity toward circular vision.
d) The rationality principle. The linear-progressive vision of time and the implied evolutionary mission of humanity have a great need of rationality, and this for at least three reasons: rationality is indispensable for understanding and governing social change, such change being much more difficult to govern than stationary and vegetative states of society; inventive rationality nourishes evolutionary process; and finally, the alternative to scientific reason is cheating, collusion and the abuse of power, all of which work to suffocate the evolutionary potential of humanity. Thus, when it came to rationality, the Church Fathers avidly borrowed from the teachings of Greek thought, and the opening of the Gospel of John says: «In the beginning there was the Word». But this present principle (d) does not refer to cosmic reason and absolute rationality, i.e. «the Word». It concerns rather human rationality, which is limited and fallible, able to assess partial, not absolute, truth; in other words, it concerns that reason that is necessary to humanity’s evolutionary course on the earth and to wisely govern our world, thus avoiding the subjection to evolutionary spontaneity that, let us repeat, growing social change would make more and more painful.
In our terms, the important principles above are fundamental ontological imperatives.
It is a widely held conviction that the advent of the linear vision of historical processes, in substitution for the circular one typical of the ancient world, and the Christian conception of the individual, marked the decline of the ancient classical world. But such a watershed is much weaker than people believe. The fall of the ancient world is marked much more by the advent of Christianity than by the dynamical seeds expressed by the Christian message. In fact, the behaviour of Christianity has often been antithetical with respect to those seeds; the misadventures of those dynamical seeds have originated the main contradictions, deviations, bewilderments and sufferings of the Christian world – torments which are not yet terminated today. In the Roman Christian Empire and, even more, in its Byzantine form, a strong permeation between state, Church and society took place, based on a centralised order and a civilisation founded upon and for the great part animated by obedience (occasions of disobedience were notable – for instance, the sentiment of autonomy and independence of Studion monastery and the monks of Mont Athos and some rebellions that troubled the Byzantine capital – but were few and far between). Such a social and organisational environment suffocated the dynamical seeds of Christianity, being conducive rather to stationary motion; as a consequence, an abyss with respect to Western history and sentiment emerged, culminating in the separation of the two Churches. It may be interesting to provide some insight into the process of separation.
The decline and fall of the imperial order in the Western half of the Roman Empire gave rise to a society much more open to the dynamical seeds previously considered: feudal decentralisation and the revaluation of human work by Benedictine monks; maritime republics; the personal initiative and responsibility of merchants; the flowering of medieval communes; the defeat of autocratic imperial pretensions and the weakness of the theocratic temptations of the Church[215]. In particular, the image of the suffering, humiliated and mocked Christ expressed human limitations, uncertainty and anguishes, as well as eschatological tension and the hope for the advent of a new order and reign of justice. All this is typical of the Western Church, which was much more open to innovation, research and evolutionary motion than was the glorification of religion and of imperial authority typical of the Eastern Church.
The reappearance of cultural organisation in Charlemagne’s empire was followed by the cultural flowering of the medieval period. Intellectual innovators populated Western monasteries, animated by a strong trust in human reason to the point where Thomas Aquinas attempted to explain by means of reason questions that belong purely to the realm of faith. At the same time, commercial activities and the search for profitable opportunities stimulated technical progress and the rationalisation of economic relations. Principle (b) above, concerning personal responsibility, which in the Mediterranean East had been suffocated by the centralised Byzantine order, now set to work in the decentralised and pluralistic society of the West. Nevertheless, this principle was still subject to serious limitations due to the role of tradition, various kinds of protectionism, an exaggerated principle of charity, and forgiveness of sins by the Church, often in return for payment. Protestant reform provided, both directly and indirectly, a decisive remedy to these limitations: a strong statement of the principle of individual responsibility and a widespread promotion of this principle by way of actual religious practice.[216]
This climate ensured a true and permanent rupture of circular motion; the linear-progressive vision of history became part of current life and the age of so-called ‘progress’ began. In reality, of course, some reference to the circular character of time continued to persist in studies of human societies and have preserved an importance directly proportional to the stationary contents of such societies. For instance, till a few decades ago traditional agriculture employed the major part of the population of even industrial countries. Machiavelli was convinced of the repetitions of history and, more recently, Nietzsche celebrated, albeit in an equivocal form, the idea of eternal return.[217] But the age of cumulative development and the dynamic motion of human society did commence, and this pushed forward difficult methodological problems with regard to social thought. Unfortunately, a tendency markedly adverse to the solution of those methodological problems also began, and not only as an effect of persistent stationary conditions. As we know, the success of the method of the natural sciences in fact bears the primary responsibility for this tendency.
So, the full establishment of the progressive motion of society made possible by the success of the principles listed above under the headings (a), (b) and (c) has opened the door to an age troubled by growing misunderstandings with regard to the principle of rationality listed under the heading (d) above. Such misunderstandings are a main cause of the lacerations of the contemporary world and concern the method of social thought, in particular, the question of doing, the objective character of some key ethical values, and the reconcilement of creativity with scientific analysis. Thus, a great cause of the torments that have followed the success of the dynamical seeds of the Christian message must be attributed to parallel misunderstandings regarding the principle of rationality (d) that this book - centred as it is on the ways (and methodological criteria) suitable to overcoming equivocations on the matter – is aimed at clarifying.
10.2 Toward the relativist and absolutist equivocations on values. The alternative of cultural objectivism
Stationary societies do not stimulate scientific progress. They incline toward a procedural rationality with regard to administrative organisation. Such societies can, in some cases, carry out inventions, but they do not stimulate the use of discoveries. This attitude represses innovation. The great stationary civilisations, for instance, Chinese, Brahmanic, Byzantine, and that of the Roman Empire, provide a clear proof of the above statement. Innovative verve was known but rarely (albeit at times very intensive) in the ancient world. It started to operate continuously only after the maturation of the idea that the suffocation of human creative skills in the societies based upon obedience was unnatural and impious given that these were skills given by God. The development of the natural sciences experienced a caesura of two millennia, from Archimedes to Galileo. This vacuum was interrupted at the beginning of a modern age thirsty for new technologies, when students of nature succeeded in defining a method of research and discovery fully appropriate to the basic character of natural reality; a method that would have allowed big jumps and cumulative developments in natural knowledge. We have seen that such an achievement has accentuated, together with evolutionary motion, the difficulties of social thought, gradually causing the emergence of an abyss between natural and social knowledge, a real dualism and a short circuit of knowledge, all of which is extremely dangerous for the performance of human societies.
Method is not a tool for the discovery of absolute truth. As we know, its main tasks are as follows: to avoid the danger scholars may be trapped in dead ends and the consequent waste of time and talent; to allow confrontation between alternative theoretical hypotheses and hence the appreciation of their importance. Popper gave his two-thirds agreement to cardinal Bellarmino, who advised Galileo to speak ex suppositione. But Galileo’s method had the great virtue of being fully appropriate, in practice, to the investigation of natural reality – a decisive virtue, since the qualities of method do not consist in philosophical finesses but in the capacity to face (and help to understand) reality.
In order to understand the contemporary difficulties of social thought, particularly ‘cultural relativism’, it may be useful to recall the basic character of the method of the natural sciences. This method is hinged on two fundamental assumptions, both of which are appropriate to the interpretation of natural reality: the acceptance of existing reality and the idea of repetition of the considered phenomena. The acceptance of existing reality reflects the fact that the natural world is not a product of humanity; it is external to humanity. Therefore, humanity can only try to understand it and, more precisely, to observe attentively the way it acts (which may be achieved also through the experimental reproduction of natural phenomena) with the aim of formulating some laws of motion allowing for a better interaction with nature. For its part, the hypothesis of the repetition of observed phenomena, even if it cannot be proved through experiments, is fruitful in practice for the study of the natural world, even if it is more appropriate, for instance, in astronomy than biology. We have called observational the method based on such assumptions, since it founds the formulation and control of theoretical hypotheses on the strict observation of the considered reality.
As we can see, the observational method is based on a vision similar to the circular one of antiquity that preceded the linear-progressive vision of historical time. It is, therefore, inconsistent with the Christian insistence on human creativity; more generally, it is completely inappropriate to apply it to dynamic evolutionary societies. For that reason, social thought should not have adopted it, for the technological developments stimulated by the success of natural science confer a growing momentum to social change. But success is contagious. As we have seen, the study of society has caught a fever from the achievements of the method of natural sciences and now adopts the pretension of investigating social reality through such a method, thereby propelling social studies into a dead-end from which it is very urgent and, at the same time, difficult to extract them.
It is important to remember that the application to social reality of the observational method, as based on the acceptance of existing reality, implies the expulsion of any guiding aspect; that is, it implies the exclusion of doing (and hence ethics) from scientific analysis. The expulsion of ethical values from science is currently justified on the basis of Hume’s supposed law, according to which the transition from being to doing is erroneousness. But, as a matter of fact, and as we know, Hume did not say this. Such issues have been developed and fully discussed in chapter 2. Here we limit ourselves to recalling the most well-known aspect of Weber’s analysis of values: the rather elusive and surreptitious distinction between the ‘ethics of conviction’, that is of pure doing – the principle of saints and also of heedless people, and the ‘ethics of responsibility’, which substantially concerns being. As we saw in chapter 7, this distinction set Weber free from the embarrassing presence of doing combined with being, which was methodologically unacceptable from his merely observational point of view. But the observational moral, i.e. of being (implying that what happened had to happen) is pure cynicism. The equivocation on method that pushed Weber toward his ethical dualism does not seem to be clearly understood by scholars. For instance, it is significant that the theologian Hans Küng has expressed great appreciation for the two Weberian notions of ethics, with the proviso that they be considered conjointly,[218] and thus fails to see that Weber’s duplicitous separation of these notions generates some serious methodological difficulties concerning the role of being and doing, in particular, the exigency of their methodological combination. More precisely, Kung fails to see that Weber’s double ethics is a consequence of (and implies) both the acceptance of instrumental rationality, that is, concerning the acquisition of means and appropriate to natural science, and the rejection of rationality with respect to ends and values.
The postulate (associated to instrumental rationality) that values have no scientific character is not confined to ethical relativism but concerns also its antagonist that we denominated ‘ethical absolutism’. For while at times the Weberian denial of the scientific character of values has been used in a relativist sense, at other times it has been used by post-medieval Church in an absolutist sense, that is, by stating values objectivity on the basis of commandments of faith. Clearly, ethical absolutism lays itself on the ground of the clash of civilisations: every people has its faith, its convictions, and its roots and defends them from the threat of contamination posed by other civilisations, and faiths and other visions of the world. ‘Ethical relativism’, by contrast, prefers tolerance and the openness to diversity. But ethical absolutism has, relatively to relativism, an advantage that favours it, primarily in critical situations: it provides some clear reference points and precise indications for human beings who, generically, have a yearning need for reference points owing to our cognitive limits; cultural relativism, by contrast, does not supply us with any such substantial indications. But absolutism is affected by a serious shortcoming in that it is hinged on commandments of faith (proclaimed valid forever) that tend to block the evolution of institutions and of values, notwithstanding the fact that dynamic societies cannot do without such evolution. Ethical absolutism, therefore, may be consistent with stationary societies and with circular vision, but cannot be consistent with linear-progressive motion. In this respect, the inclination of the Christian faith toward value absolutism is plainly in contradiction with the decisive push that the message of Christian teaching – most notably, its denial of circular flow – has given to the dynamic motion of the world.
The only way to avoid the dilemma of ethical relativism-absolutism is by way of what we denominate ethical objectivism; that is, a method that is able to combine being and doing and to scientifically show the objective substance of some important ethical values. Therefore, ethical objectivism should attract and, in a sense, conciliate both cultural relativists and absolutists, as it is able to differentiate the values that cannot have a scientific explanation and hence can be the object of choice or faith, from objective values required by de facto reality and constituting, therefore, some clear and unquestionable reference points. Ethical objectivism thus facilitates, through the use of reason, dialogue among cultures. It stimulates and facilitates reciprocal comprehension by making evident some common necessities and through the definition of moral principles toward which all people tend to converge (global ethics). Besides, it legitimises and helps, through a clear definition of relative values, cultural diversification and hence provides the fertiliser of variety and specificity. Finally, it facilitates the recognition of the vital roots of civilisations and hence the combination between new and old, tradition and social change.
This subject deserves some quotations from a letter written by the new Pope Francis, which spread far and wide. Originally published in the newspaper La Repubblica, on September 11, 2013, the letter answered some questions raised by E. Scalfari in the same newspaper mainly in response to the last encyclical Lumen Fidei. In the letter we find the statement: «the problem, for a non believer in God, concerns obedience to conscience. Pity, also for non-believers, is to act against one’s conscience. In fact, listening to and obedience to the conscience implies a decision with reference to what is perceived as good or bad. This decision determines the goodness or weakness of our actions». The letter continues: «I think it is not appropriate to speak of ‘absolute’ truth, even for believers…. This does not mean that the truth is variable and subjective. It always reaches us through the journey of our life… and truth being intimately related to love, modesty and broadmindedness are required if it is to be searched for, accepted and expressed. It is necessary, therefore, to define well the terms of the question; perhaps, so that we may overcome the bottlenecks that arise from some absolute contraposition, it is necessary also to deeply revise the question».
With such words, Pope Francis proclaims a substantial repudiation of ethical absolutism; the repudiation promises important implications, both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. In fact, over the course of history, ethical absolutism has taken service primarily in the cause of intolerance, helping to justify aggression and promote oppression. But it would be a misfortune indeed if the repudiation of ethical absolutism should provide the occasion for the unconstrained triumph of an ethical relativism that asserts the personal and subjective character of truth. Pope Francis rejects such an outcome. He implicitly insists upon the objectivity of truth when he asserts: «Everyone understands and expresses the truth on the basis of his interiority, his culture and history, the situation where he lives». But a great problem arises here. Speaking of the moral sense of infamous people, L. Tolstoj writes (chapter 44 of Resurrection): «their notion of good and evil is forged in justification of their actions». I agree that good faith and good will may well deserve God’s forgiveness. And yet it is undeniable that human conscience is largely determined by dominating cultures and civilizations, as we have discussed in previous chapters; unfortunately, such determination undermines the probability that in practice truth is intimately related to love. Terrible oppressions, conflicts and revolutions have been performed in the name of love: for instance, under the banner of political freedom, the standard of a supposedly true religion, and the flag of a self-proclaimed superior civilization. On the other hand, it is well known that the relativist indetermination on ethics facilitates (and, in some sense, promotes) justification of the habit of the individual to shape his own conscience on personal interests as underlined by Tolstoj. With great caution, Pope Francis recognizes the need of «to deeply revise the question».
Let us emphasize that the main remedy against the degeneration and abuse fostered by both ethical absolutism and relativism, as also the path to securing the objectivity of the ‘truth’ of fundamental ethical values, is represented by what we have called ‘ethical objectivism’, that is, the possibility of scientifically proving the objectivity of fundamental ethical values. In other words, the deep revision of the question that Pope Francis requests seems to require a revision of the methodology of social science in precisely the direction that this book tries to indicate. We know that the advance of science requires openness in the face of the variety of opinions and results, as well as a great modesty of its students in acknowledgement of the limitations of human reason; and this is just the way that the Pope intends both the search for and the expression of the truth. For sure, Scalfari is right in opposing ethical absolutism. But the «serious and fecund encounter of faith and reason» for which he hopes requires ethical objectivism and, as an initial premise, a profound meditation on the method of the social sciences. The relation between faith and reason will receive systematic and wide-ranging treatment in section 5.
It is our hope that the Pope’s letter will prove an important contribution in keeping social thought free from remaining caught between the absolutist devil and the relativist open sea; or vainly aspiring to elude both through the kind of spontaneous evolutionary paradigm that we found in Boudon’s thought and which is also shared by Hegelian idealism. In fact, this situation threatens to cause serious misunderstandings and complications in our age of globalisation, problems and difficulties much more serious than those provoked by the first remarkable appearance of modern relativism at the beginning of the twentieth century.
10.3 The roots of civilizations
No tree can live without roots. But it is wrong to consider roots only from a historical perspective. It is necessary to consider them also in relation to the functioning of existing social systems and with regard to their capacity to face present needs and to adapt to evolutionary motion. More precisely, it is important to verify the vitality of roots and hence the possibility of combining tradition with social change in order to attenuate the trauma provoked by change and to stimulate a plurality of developmental paths and variety of civilisations, which favour creativity and avoid the monotony of uniformity. At the same time, it is necessary to avoid the main snare that can arise from an emphasis on roots: the antithesis between us and others, the suppression of the possibility of understanding others and collaborating with them, the closing down of diversity, and the strenuous defence of proper traditions. The contrast among roots engenders clashes of civilisations that constitute a primary disaster of our modern global society. In fact, each society has its roots and everybody finds it difficult to understand the roots of others. But for our planet, which technological progress has unified and everywhere across which the disruptive effects of irremediable collisions and misunderstandings propagate themselves, dialogue is an urgent need; and this requires, first of all, that we share the principles of a global ethics.
Some criteria are urgently needed that are able to distinguish vital from non-vital roots and preserve the aged but eliminate the corrupt. In particular, we require the capacity to distinguish between those organisational, institutional and ethical forms that the existing general conditions of development make necessary from those that may be the object of choice.
In an extremely deleterious and almost unnatural manner, the teaching of cultural relativism tends to ignore roots. But, in the present world, cultural absolutism is no less deleterious, implying a retreat into roots. This retreating and the exaltation of civilisation may have a tactical role in the short run, primarily in the presence of critical circumstances that are to be overcome. But the exaltation must be based on reason and on cultural objectivism, since for people of different civilizations to understand each other and find agreements, reason is required.
Christian societies, at least those in the Western tradition, are characterised by a peculiarity transmitted to them by their intense absorption of the dynamical seeds of the Christian-Judaic message. This peculiarity consists in the inclination of important roots to change, to adapt themselves to new soils, to find new kinds of humus; such roots are not simply transformed into logs of wood but rather perish and are resurrected and are incessantly looking for new roads. At a first glance, this attitude may seem a weakness; but in effect it is a great opportunity and strength, the only way to survive in the more and more dynamic modern world. There is no reason to envy the logs of wood of senile and vegetative societies. A great achievement of the modern age is the discovery of the elixir of long youth or maturity of human societies: an incessant capacity for renewal. This attitude can be considered a kind of fulfilment of the Christian message discussed above that has pushed humanity, as endowed with limited skills, through a difficult evolutionary passage. In this respect, it seems limiting to evoke the Christian roots of Europe. Christian roots operate at a world scale in modern global society; of course, together with some other roots. In this regard, some historical examples may be illuminating.
G. Ruffolo has underlined the fact that ancient Rome «was initially a refuge dump collecting people refused by neighbouring peoples»[219] and that the social eradication of these shepherds and brigands allowed them to make the best of their surrounding situation and endowed them with an acute and uninhibited constructive skill. For its part, the Christian religion, in order to defeat paganism, had to break the roots of antiquity and overturn its world vision. Diocletian and Julian were emperors who defended the old ways, the latter abjuring the Christian faith for restoring pagan worship. We have seen above that the dynamical seeds of the Christian message were, for a long time, condemned to remain unfruitful by the traditional administrative and centralised Roman administration. The breaking of traditional roots in the West allowed these seeds to blossom. The rise of the new civilisation was also helped by the wisdom mainly of Pope Gregory the Great, who took advantage of vital aspects of Classic civilisation. By contrast, in the Eastern empire the robust roots of Roman and Byzantine tradition persisted in suffocating development and that facilitated the transition toward Ottoman despotism and the advent, in the Slavic world, of Tsarist and – ultimately – Soviet autocracies.
Another important example is offered by Arab-Islamic civilisation; which, flourishing at first in a primitive desert world, poor in roots, could easily assimilate the best of the important knowledge that it met during its conquests across regions very rich in culture. But, after initial consolidation, the well-rooted Islamic civilisation started to decline. The strong influence of roots became hurtful. The great expansion of Arab-Islamic civilisation took place in a historical period during which it enjoyed a strong rational superiority with respect to neighbours. But with the Medieval Western renaissance, the situation reversed.[220] Till today, it has been an advantage, and sometimes also a necessity, the painful disintegration of the previous order in order to allow the taking of a new and more promising road. As we saw in chapter 4, the modern world can do better. It is able to avoid the necessity of those disasters in its renovations. It is a task of social thought to teach the way to combine new and old institutions and values, change and tradition, to go ahead. In doing so, it is essential to take account of the general conditions of development and the historical and creative sedimentations that have occurred over the course of time as well as the organisational exigencies that they have determined.
10.4 Some examples and an important misunderstanding of global ethics.
Some current and very important ethical problems concerning the family, demography and biology may help to clarify both the utility of our notions of ontological and functional imperatives and the meaning of cultural objectivism. It is convenient to start with the family, which represents an important expression of human nature. Any attempt to abolish the family requires some unnatural acts of force that, in the present dynamical world, would contribute to destroy both individuality and human evolutionary potentiality. In this respect, the family represents an ontological imperative. But in the course of history various kinds of family organisations have appeared. We have seen in our chapter on anthropology how the extended family and kinship networks played a pivotal role in primitive societies. For its part, the patriarchal family has spanned a large part of human history. The family unit of modern society, centred as it is on the individual and with the role of relatives much reduced is, however, a completely different thing. It is senseless to place these familiar forms, which are completely different from each other in terms of values and functions, either under the single category of ‘natural law’ or, following cultural relativism, by indicating the differences as an expression of the subjectivity of values. The differences have, indeed, an objective character and are the expression of different stages (and general conditions) of development; so that, to be able to correctly consider these familiar forms, the concept of functional imperative is needed, flanked by that of ontological imperative.
The demographic question is strictly linked to familiar forms and to their evolution in parallel with changes in the general conditions of development. Of course, the biological function of reproduction represents a necessity for the survival of the species, as men are but mortal beings. Therefore, the biological function expresses a natural law. But the reproduction of the species and the care of babies assumes a completely different content in each one of the forms of familiar organisation typical of (and requested by) the various historical ages. A tragedy of the present world is that the familiar forms of underdeveloped societies, their ethical values and the progress of medical science stimulate the rate of demographic increase in such a way as to decisively contribute to the perpetuation and aggravation of the starvation of those societies and to obstruct their possible development; all of which suffocates the evolutionary potential of their populations. An opposite situation afflicts modern societies, where a throbbing acquisitive individualism, the attenuation of the spirit and relations of solidarity, the difficulty of reconciling the role of the family with certain industrial relations that are averse to it, make negative (i.e. less than zero) the demographic rate of variation and damage the crucial role that the family must play in the defence of the autonomy and development of the individual. This means that so-called demographic policies cannot limit themselves to the imperative of reproduction. They must be illuminated by the notion of functional imperative, implying objective values that change with the stages of development, and illuminated also by the notion of ontological imperative.
The delicate questions surrounding bioethics confirm the importance of the distinction between ontological and functional imperatives. We do not pretend to give solutions to problems on which science is very uncertain. However, it is unquestionable that in this field also the evolution of knowledge and hence the conditions of developments have generated some new values, and also some ethical problems that hitherto did not exist. Up to a few years ago, religions were usually hostile to the idea of the donation of organs, while today such donation is in general considered a laudable action demonstrating human solidarity. It is our opinion that two indispensable reference points in the further consideration of these problems relate to the promotion of the capability of each human being to express his evolutionary potential, and the avoidance of moral and organisational forms that suffocate individuality.
In the fragmentary world of the past, the dispersion and reciprocal separation across countries of absolutist and relativist equivocations on ethical values attenuated their effects. The case of the present world is different: misunderstandings on values may have devastating effects at a world-wide scale. One main fault of social thought is its substantial disregard for global ethics. Standing in marked contrast to this disregard are the concerns articulated and acted upon by various active religious movements.[221] Their purpose is to define a small number of ethical principles that are valid on a universal scale and which are expressed in some of the teachings of the various religions. It is important to underline that, in the absence of parallel developments and contributions by students of social thought, such attempts are undermined by serious logical difficulties. An example may clarify these difficulties and inconsistencies. Consider the so called ‘golden rule’, which is a principle much insisted upon in religious attempts to build a global ethics; and now, let us ask what it means, in practice, “not to do to others what you would not want them to do to you”, and also the positive version of this rule. Such a principle can tell us much, or almost nothing: worse, it may suggest and even justify bad behaviour. If the principle is applied within societies characterised by a precise physiognomy and a well established civilisation, it greatly facilitates life. But it can result in equivocal imperatives when applied in open and evolutionary societies; even more so if one attributes to it a world spirit, that is, interprets it as a universal belief. In fact, different civilisations express different feelings. A zealous religious believer does not interpret the sentiment of solidarity in favour of the prescription of religious freedom; rather, he derives from that sentiment a duty to convert infidels in order that eternal beatitude be granted to them. Almost every imperialism has justified itself with the duty of diffusing ‘civilisation’. The commandment to love one’s neighbour generates serious equivocations, for the simple reason that everybody loves in his own way. The Jacobin Terror was animated by a strong love for one’s neighbour, or fellow citizen; the same is true for each modern abstract Enlightenment notion of redemption. The wisdom of traditional maxims must not be undervalued: according to one, the road of hell is paved with good intentions. It is true that Christian love is protected by an important defence against such degenerations: the principle that the individual is sacred. But this principle is not present in other important religions. Therefore, to make it universal, it is necessary to show its objectivity; that is, its organisational necessity, both as ontological imperative and, in the present age, also as functional imperative.
We have previously considered Zamagni’s insistence on reciprocity and fraternity as basic sentiments and attitudes in the preservation of social cohesion. These principles are of the utmost importance for the defence of global society against anomie and disintegration. Their solidity is warranted by the fact that they represent ontological and functional imperatives, i.e. objective values.
In sum, global ethics cannot trust in individual feelings. To have a strong and convincing basis, it must have objective contents; that is, it must be clarified that obedience to some ethical principles is in the interest of all people. Global ethics therefore needs cultural objectivism. Only cultural objectivism can, for example, provide concreteness and substance to Kant’s imperative of acting following principles that can be universal laws. For the principles of, say, tolerance, pluralism and various values appropriate to the existing general conditions of development to be accepted by all people, it is necessary to prove that they are functional imperatives or ontological imperatives, or both. In the modern world, the strength of spiritual forces is weakened and dissipated by the absence of scientific teachings on ethical values. Such an absence is primarily to be attributed to an intellectual milieu dominated by ethical relativism and absolutism; at least such is the case if sectarian and disruptive fundamentalism has become rooted among the descendants of Pakistani immigrants in the United Kingdom.
Cultural objectivism, moreover, seems to be indispensable to the solution of the question of the admissibility of exceptions with respect to moral precepts. For instance, if we ask ourselves in what situations it is permitted to tell a lie, we must appeal to cultural objectivism for an answer. It is precisely the demonstration of the ‘necessity’ of some values that leads to the conclusion that it is permitted and even obligatory to tell lies for their sake; for example, that it is heroic to tell lies while suffering the torture of a despot and, in this way, to contribute to overthrowing the tyranny that suffocates human evolutionary potential.
10.5 Further considerations on religious and social thought: faith and reason.
1. A contradiction within Christianity, and perhaps one of its main faults, consists in an inability to meet the epistemological problems that the dynamical seeds of this religion – primarily the momentum that they give to creativity – have generated for social thought and, hence, for scientific rationality. Such a claim may appear strange; in fact, in the Middle Ages Christianity was associated with a great development of rational thought, from which it gained much prestige. Unfortunately, it was unable to establish those procedures that would allow for the application of the rationality principle to some important practical problems. In addition, a somewhat ambiguous mixture of reason and faith resulted from the attempt to explain the prescriptions of faith through reason. Thus, the appearance of the method of the natural sciences in the seventeenth century came as a surprise for Christian theology, which now, in contrast to its earlier openness to rationalism, began to strongly oppose the new method and its astronomical discoveries in the name of some biblical statements.
Beginning in the Renaissance, a paradoxical equivocation has afflicted Christian social thought, causing weighty practical consequences. The introduction to a Zamagni’s book[222] by L. Bruni offers a reference point for clarifying this vicissitude. Bruni underlines the importance of Medieval Christian teaching as a propulsive factor in the efflorescence of Italian and European civil economy and civilization from the twelfth through to the fifteenth centuries. Then he underlines the interruption of such splendour in the age of Counter-Reformation and through the consolidation of the capitalist economy and the new thinking in the wake of the Reformation. However, Bruni omits the consideration of a great methodological misunderstanding that strongly favoured and accompanied such development. What a misunderstanding?
It must be remembered that a pillar of medieval thinking on natural science was the idea that the understanding of natural world requires to penetrate the reason why the natural world has been created like it is, its essence; a famous controversy between nominalists and realists arose and, at the beginning of the seventeenth century was clearly stated that «As man is not the creator of the world, he can never know why the world was made the way we perceive it. In exchange, there arose a much more fruitful, rational procedure of inquiry, one that the nominalists had already foreshadowed: carefully observe the phenomena that occur in nature and, from this observation, seek to derive their laws of motion, if possible expressed in mathematical form».[223] Christianity has in the end not only acknowledged the importance and profitability of the ‘observational method’ for enquiring natural reality; has also accepted its extension to social sciences. Such an acknowledgement has contributed to (and reinforced) some of the serious equivocations that the method of natural sciences has transmitted to social thought. Precisely, it has implied a totally erroneous retractation of Medieval Christian rational thinking on society; in fact, being society a product of Man (not of God), it was appropriate the Medieval constructivist view of inquiring the reason why it has been edified in the way we see it. Such a retractation was an incredible outcome indeed: as religions are much more interested in the functioning of human societies than in the orbit of planets, they should be careful to establish or, at least, follow a reliable method in judging such a functioning.
In effect, the fecund voluntarist and organizational inclination typical of Christian social thought has not been erased. But that inclination has been more and more corrupted, often in non-explicit ways, by the observational standard derived from positivism. As a consequence, the separation between being and doing and hence between positive and normative aspects, or an equivocal mixture of them, has also afflicted Christian social thought. Being and doing, instead of together expressing a unitary method, have only stood parallel to one another, standing in a similar relationship to that which in economics exists between economic theory and political economy. In particular, Christian social thought accepted the postulate (of natural science) that only instrumental rationality (i.e. concerning the acquisition of means) is possible, thus rejecting the rationality with respect to ends and values: values cannot be a matter of science.
In the doctrine of natural law, which implicitly postulates some combination between being and doing, Christian social thought found a better expression and formulation. But, as previously seen, such a doctrine has been easily refuted by anthropologists and sociologists, due to exaggerations inherent to the concept of natural law and to the exclusion of historical aspects and a consequent opposition to value changes requested by the evolution of the general conditions of development. It is significant that only the aspects of the doctrine of natural law pertaining to our notion of ontological imperatives – and hence independent from history – show a substantial importance, as exemplified by the position of Christian churches on the role of the individual. But, on the whole, the emphasis of Christian theology on natural rights is unbalanced, leaning toward being. A methodology centered on the organizational view, combining being and doing and able to meet creative phenomena is lacking. This lack prevents, among the other things, any demonstration of the scientific character of crucial values (cultural objectivism), and hence prevents the advancement, as well as the strictness of ethics. The lack of such a methodology probably constitutes one of the main paradoxes of Christian thought; in fact, in practice, the history and action of Christian denominations, primarily of the Roman Catholic Church, demonstrate a continuous effort to combine being and doing, to consider the organizational aspect and have never denied the role of human creativity.
The consequence for religious thought of such a paradox and the connected denial of the Christian medieval attention for the constructivist rationality concerning ends and values in favour of instrumental rationality, has not been relativism, which is not consonant with religion; the consequence has rather been ethical absolutism, that is, a tendency to remedy the deficiencies of rational thought on social events through the truths of faith. But, if they are referred to historical processes, the immobility of the commandments of faith causes ultra-conservatism, thus obstructing the evolutionary path of humanity. These implications of religious ethical absolutism have contributed to push social thought toward ethical relativism, which is more flexible and hence suitable to dynamical processes. A result in Western countries – mainly in enlightened Europe – has been a process of secularization that has resulted in widespread hostility toward religion. If religions want to recover credibility in the modern world of rationality, they must resolutely engage with the question of the rationality of social thought on the basis of cultural (and social) objectivism; this is the only way to correct relativist errors and problems; besides, it is an indispensable way of properly defining the relationship between faith and reason.
Too many times in the course of history, the sense of the Absolute that religions and philosophies have pretended to extend to the administration of human societies, has obscured the sense of reality and opened the road to doleful events. In the administration of societies, which are the work of human beings, the most reliable and appropriate support is fallible and flexible human reason; it is therefore a duty to find methods that allow for the best use of reason.
The Christian believer will object that there is also Revelation, while the Buddhist will recall the enlightenment of the Buddha; and, of course, other objections might well be made by members of other religions. These important messages of faith most certainly deserve a great respect; and, indeed, this chapter began with the dynamical seeds of the Christian message. But in order to flourish, these revelations and seeds must not trample on human reason. In sum, religions should incessantly work so that, with regard to the problems of the human world, the commandments of faith do not oppose the suggestions of reason; after all, it seems sensible to presume that God has made humanity intelligent enough to understand worldly things. Moreover, religions should insist on our moral duty to use human reason profitably as a fundamental support in promoting the role and the potentialities of the individual and harmony and peace among people through ethical precepts valid on a universal scale, as functional and ontological imperatives teach us. It should be never forget that, as we have previously seen in this chapter, the commandment to love one’s neighbour is, by itself, scarcely meaningful since everybody understands love in his or her own way. Indeed, in the name of love, terrible atrocities have been inflicted on men in the name of and with the support of religion. In order to avoid such terrible occurrences, the feeling of love must be complemented by the teachings of social thought, primarily that of cultural objectivism.
2. However, the relation between faith and reason is much more complex than it might appear simply from the above reasoning. In particular, the prescription that faith must not contradict reason needs some clarifications. It is evident that a large part of the prescriptions of faith, as well also as artistic production and other, even more profound elements of human life, cannot be explained through reason. Moreover, some aspects of faith that have offered a significant contribution to human evolution seem to have operated in opposition to reason. One example is the linear notion of historical time, upon which we focused at the beginning of this chapter; another is the Christian ideal of the individual and consequent opposition to slavery. Such notions and sentiments appeared to strongly go against the dominant rationality of the societies in which they were generated; most notably, the advent of the novel seeds of Christian teachings concerning dynamic time and slavery chronically undermined the institutional order and much of the organizational necessities of the ancient stationary societies in which they were first planted. Such historical evidence would seem to contradict the principle that the prescriptions of faith should not trample on reason. But such contradiction is only apparent. In fact, the principles referred had the propulsive and progressive effects that we know, notwithstanding their contradictions with the forms of rationality typical of those societies, because they expressed a superior kind of rationality and ontological imperatives; the new principles, in other words, were in accordance with human evolutionary potential and, furthermore, removed some large obstacles that opposing its realisation. According to our method, the teaching of the Christian Revelation concerning the individual, the connected evangelic teaching on service-power and the distinction between God and Caesar (ontological imperatives that in almost two millennia have also become functional imperatives of the modern age) have a scientific character. Human evolutionary potential has a great need for creative processes, and these latter are provided with much nourishment by art and religion. But, in the absence of the work of reason, creativity would simply cause chaos. In conclusion, it is imperative that reason, religion and art co-operate instead of being in reciprocal opposition.
The encyclical Fides et ratio issued by Pope John Paul the Second, insisted strongly on the consonance between faith and reason, their consistency and co-operation, and the ability of faith to lead toward higher forms of rationality. It is written: «There is no reason for competition between reason and faith, the one is in the other and each one has a proper field of realisation… Fundamental theology must show the consistency between faith and its exigency to unfold through a reason able to completely freely declare its assent».[224] And: «It is illusory to think that faith, in the presence of a weak reason, may have a higher incisiveness; on the contrary, it falls into the serious danger of being reduced to myth and superstition. In the same way, a reason lacking of a mature faith is not pushed to pay attention to the novelty and radicality of being».[225] And again: «They are tasks obliging reason to admit that there is some truth and rationality outside the narrow limits inside which it is inclined to shut itself».[226] Well, this is of course of some interest. But unfortunately in the encyclical there is no mention of the problem of social thought, notwithstanding the fact that the poor scientific condition of social thought greatly offends reason and ethics. Christian doctrine has dedicated a great deal of work and even some important encyclicals to social problems. However, this encyclical on faith and reason, while insisting on the necessity of a harmonious relationship between theology and philosophy, invites research to attempt the ascent of the Absolute and acknowledges the great achievements of the natural sciences, nevertheless forgets the great poverty of adequatio rei et intellectus in the field of social relations. More precisely, the encyclical Fides et Ratio (and also other, social encyclicals) show a lack of perception that, in social knowledge, the relation between faith, reason and ethics is afflicted by a growing confusion that allows an almost free expression of deceit, abuse of power and monstrosities in daily life; it allows, in sum, immorality.
We have just seen that a suitable method for the investigation of social reality also holds out the possibility of gaining insight into the relations between reason and revelation. But the encyclical in question does not consider the analytical categories that are necessary for this task. It seems to us that the meaning of life mainly consists in the evolutionary mission of humanity; that is, the sense of life is to be found in the contribution that each person can and must provide, in every social environment, according to particular individual personal skills and through work and example, to improving and nourishing the soil of human relations; this meaning, in other words, is such that each one of us may, at the end, close his or her eyes and say truthfully “I have done (or tried to do) the best I could to ameliorate the conditions of life and facilitate the evolutionary mission of those who will follow.” But for such a personal contribution to take place and not be deviated by false principles it is necessary that social thought establish a method appropriate to social reality, thereby providing a scientific content to social theory. This is a great challenge for the world in which we are living, and probably it deserves some special encyclical.
We take the liberty of recalling some meditations on reason expressed by cardinal Ratzinger, before becoming Pope Benedict XVI. He has written: «The question is this, whether the world comes from the irrational, and reason is only a by-product that may even be hurtful to its development, or whether the world comes from reason, and reason is hence its criterion and its aim». Later he specifies: «The Christian must make every effort to live a faith that flows from the Logos, from creative reason that, as such, is open to all that is truly rational».[227] In another book, he says: «A crucial point is the ‘unconditionality’ with which human dignity and human rights must be presented as values that precede every particular state jurisdiction»[228]. «The believer who has searched an aid to his reason must pledge himself in favour of reason and of all that is rational: this ….is a duty that he has to all mankind».[229] For its part the encyclical Spei salvi says: «If technical progress is not accompanied by ethical progress and the interior improvement of humanity, it is not a progress but instead a menace for Man and the world».[230] But the methodological question of the rationality with respect to values and ends, fundamental for ethical progress, remains unsolved.
Unfortunately, Christian social thought on reason remains imprisoned between two adverse positions that it has not been able to refute on a scientific base: on the one side naturalistic reason and the corresponding instrumental rationality, on the other the Weberian irrational rationality that today shows its vigour through cultural relativism and absolutism. For a long time, the Christian religion has erroneously opposed the important results of the natural sciences. But, in the end, it has recognised the authority of the natural sciences and their method; sometimes, indeed, it has even accepted the extension of this method beyond its field of competence, that is, to society. At any rate, the main equivocation, in our opinion, is the inclination toward cultural absolutism, the cognitive root of which is identical to that of cultural relativism: the Weberian denial, on the wake of the well established instrumental rationality, of the possibility of scientifically analysing values. Thus, we are regressing from: (a) the generous optimism of Thomas Aquinas, who attempted to explain through reason even that which falls exclusively in the domain of faith; to (b) an explanation based on faith of social questions that pertain to fallible human reason, which concerns the uncertain things of this world. Because religion is much more involved with the social than with the natural order, this regression may have much more dangerous consequences than the long-lasting opposition of the Church to the method and achievements of natural sciences. The commandments of faith can considerably entangle and obstruct the evolutionary path of humanity, if they trample on fallible and flexible reason, which is the main cognitive instrument that humanity possesses in the quest to understand worldly problems.
The Roman Catholic Church has ever acted as a stabilising institution. In the modern world, such a role has a much greater importance than it does in stationary societies, since these latter embody strong stabilising mechanisms. If such a stabilising role can be performed in a way that promotes an ordered and constructive unfolding of the evolutionary mission of humanity, it is necessary that the Church’s teaching is also inspired by knowledge that allows it to act wisely in the world of social change, that is, to act by means of rational skill and hence with appreciation of the objective ethical values generated by the evolution of the general conditions of development. These skills may only be generated by a method able to face social change. Churches should pay great attention to the attempts to define such a method, this being an obligatory way of avoiding such serious catastrophes as may happen as a consequence of the growing gap between the natural sciences and social thought. It is difficult to understand the reluctance of the Catholic Church to venture upon this question notwithstanding its practical experience and sensitivity in the organization of social systems and hence in the combination of being and doing. We have seen previously that the main scissions of Christianity, the Orthodox and the Protestant, were caused by almost incredible misunderstandings with regard to the interpretation of the dynamical seeds of the Christian message. In our time, autocratic and theocratic equivocations, as well as equivocations with regard to the principle of personal responsibility, have been almost clarified, at least in the Christian world. But an embarrassing complication remains in that the rationality principle is strongly misunderstood by social thought. An ethics based not only on the commandments of faith but also on reason (that is, the rational explanation of crucial values and commandements) would smooth and facilitate the relations among the different religions.
Quoting Karl Löwith, the theologian B. Forte writes: «The fact that Chrisitan saeculum has become secular has placed modern history in a paradoxical light: it is Christian in its origin and antichristian in its results».[231] We take the liberty of flanking to Löwith’s two explanations of this phenomenon (Christianity as ideology, and the statement that the Kingdom of Christ does not concern the earthly world), which are not convincing given that Christ intended to redeem the human world, a third explanation: until social thought fails in achieving scientific rationality the dynamical seeds of the Christian message will operate only in corrupted forms. Deception, malevolence and bad morals will continue to dominate the scene, acting and operating with a strength that is multiplied by the mass media that exponentially increases the possibility of the ruling classes and their interests influencing the generality of people and sows confusion among their opponents, preventing them from making a profitable use of new digital means of communication. When humanity succeeds in clarifying the methodological question of social thought (as the natural sciences have done in their field), the main cause (as noted above) of the paradox underlined by B. Forte in quoting Löwith will become clear, and moral feelings will progress with a great leap forward. This matter is deserving of a fascinating analysis concerning the misadventure of moral feelings in the course of history.
10.6 Hume, Smith, Kant and Hegel on ethics
A reference to some important objectivist view on ethics as put forward by important philosophers and students of society who preceded the rise of the relativist view can aid clarification of the matter.
10.6.1 Public utility and ethics in the treatments of Hume and Smith
1. An anticipatory scientific analysis on ethics was performed by Scottish empiricists, primarily D. Hume and the less coherent but more articulated analysis of A. Smith on moral sentiments.
Hume bases the explanation of moral norms on their utility for the social body. He maintains: “That public utility is the sole origin of justice, and that reflections on the beneficial consequences of this virtue are the sole foundations of its merit; this proposition, being more curious and important, will better deserve our examination and inquiry”; [232]“Where mutual regards and forbearance serve to no manner of purpose, they would never direct the conduct of any reasonable man”.[233] Hume later clarifies and better generalizes his doctrine on the origin of moral norms by writing: “For what stronger foundation can be desired or conceived for any duty, than to observe, that human society, or even human nature could not subsist, without the establishment of it; and will still arrive at greater degrees of happiness and perfection, the more inviolable the regard is, which is paid to that duty?”[234] Hume’s explicit exclusion of any reference to nature and instincts is of relevance here: “Have we original, innate ideas of praetors and chancellors and juries? Who sees not, that all these institutions arise merely from the necessities of human society?”[235]
Notably, this theory of moral sentiments and institutions based on their utility for civil life goes far beyond any mere question of justice when Hume notes of men in society: “They cannot even pass each other on the road without rules. Waggoners, coachmen, and postilions have principles, by which they give the way; and these are chiefly founded on mutual ease and convenience…. To carry the matter further, we may observe, that it is impossible for men so much as to murder each other without statutes, and maxims, and an idea of justice and honour”.[236]
The argument of the public utility of moral norms and institutions is in practice fundamental if the study and explanation of these norms is to be founded on a rational, even if not exhaustive, basis.
Hume later turns to consider the question of moral sentiments that bring into play the factor of ‘sympathy’ towards virtuous actions of both the observer and actor. He writes: “the merit, ascribed to the social virtues, appears still uniform, and arises chiefly from that regard, which the natural sentiment of benevolence engages us to pay to the interests of mankind and society…. We must, a priori, conclude it impossible for such a creature as man to be totally indifferent to the well or ill-being of his fellow-creature”; he clarifies this point when he explains: “The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary”.[237] Here Hume does not cohere to his central idea, which bases the explanation and justification of moral norms on their public utility. In fact ‘sympathy’, much more than the effect of a ‘natural’ sentiment of benevolence, is for the most part a result of man’s habits as established in relation to certain ideas, behaviour and rules. Well rooted and diffuse prejudices and impostures may promote intense and diffuse sentiments: humanity has carried out and accepted tremendous oppressions and inhuman massacres whilst riding on a wave of intense sentiments of approval. Hume’s reference to public utility as derived from a rational investigation of social organization has the virtue of guarding moral prescriptions against prejudices and credulity. So the most attractive aspect of the Humean theory of morality appears to be the role attributed to reason. Hume writes: “One principal foundation of moral praise being supposed to lie to the usefulness of any quality or action; it is evident, that reason must enter for a considerable share in all decisions of this kind; since nothing but that faculty can instruct us in the tendency of qualities and actions, and point out their beneficial consequences to society and to their possessors”.[238] Unfortunately, Hume does not give full value to reason in the search for generalizations on moral principles, as our notions of ontological and functional imperatives attempt to do. Moreover, he does not maintain and enforce an accurate distinction between objective and relative elements, a flaw that is manifested primarily by the absence of any consideration for the notion of civilization. Indeed, the empiricist view on morality does not go beyond the following statement: “It appears to be matter of fact, that the circumstance of utility, in all subjects, is a source of praise and approbation: That it is constantly appealed to in all moral decisions concerning the merit and demerit of actions: That it is the sole source of that high regard paid to justice, fidelity, honour, allegiance, and chastity: That it is inseparable from all the other social virtues, humanity, generosity, charity, affability, lenity mercy, and moderation: And, in a word, that it is a foundation of the chief part of morals, which has a reference to mankind and our fellow creatures.”[239] In our view, the great merit of Hume’s development on ethics is that it hinges on the question of the rational organization and administration of social systems; more specifically, the chief merit is his constructivist rationality, which explicitly concerns values and ends.
2. Smith’s thought on morality is frequently associated with the notion of the ‘invisible hand’, which postulates the separation of ethics from the economy: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love”[240]; Machiavelli had referred this separation to politics and Mandeville to all aspects of human activity, as we know. Smith’s analysis of ethics is, however, different from and much more sophisticated than his famous statement on the functional role of selfishness might suggest.
In contrast to Hume, Smith’s book The Theory of Moral Sentiments stresses first of all the ‘sympathy’ of the observer and considers only later the functional role of moral norms. Smith writes: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it”.[241] This gives a weak and, at any rate, subjective-relativist foundation to the theory of morality. In fact, the sympathetic emotions of the spectator mainly depend on the character of his or her particular civilizations. A Roman Catholic feels commiseration for the indigence of a beggar, while a Calvinist is inclined to feel disdain toward the beggar due to a conviction that mendicity is a sign of divine condemnation and his belief in predestination; the Hindu, for his part, considers mendicancy as an expiation for sins committed in previous existences. The presumption of ‘impartiality’ of spectator does not solve the problem. In fact, we have to ask ourselves: impartiality with respect to what? The exploration of the contents of feelings of justice etc. brings the role of civilization on to the stage, a notion that Smith substantially ignores.
His emphasis on function leads Smith, like Hume, to the justification of moral sentiments through reason. In this regard, the jus naturalist features of Smith’s justification are not relevant; indeed, his construction is based on a stronger and more factual functionalist basis, as is expressed in the following quotation: “though the intentions of any person should be even so proper and beneficent, on the one hand, or even so improper and malevolent, on the other, yet, if they fail in producing their effects, his merit seems imperfect in the one case, and his demerit incomplete in the other. Nor is this irregularity of sentiment felt only by those who are immediately affected by the consequences of any action. It is felt, in some measure, even by the impartial spectator…. The superiority of virtues and talents has not, even upon those who acknowledge that superiority, the same effect with the superiority of achievements”.[242] The author gives various examples of the discrepancy between intentions and results in the field of morality, with results prevailing in causing appreciation, and hence he expresses the following illuminating consideration: “Nature, however, when she implanted the seeds of this irregularity in the human breast, seems, as upon all other occasions, to have intended the happiness and perfection of the species…. and if the indignation of mankind run as light against them as against actions; if the baseness of the thought which had given birth to us action, seemed in the eyes of the world as much to call aloud for vengeance as the baseness of the action, every court of judicature would become a real inquisition. There would be no safety for the most innocent and circumspect conduct”.[243] The connection between ethics and functional needs here underlined is clearly a product of social structure much more than it is a natural phenomenon. Again, with deference towards nature, Smith says: “Nature, when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren”.[244] But, in accordance with the development of his thought, Smith should have written: “Society (not nature), when she formed man, endowed him with…”
10.6.2 From Kant’s personal ethics to Hegel’s totalitarian ethics
1. In contrast to Hume and Smith, who base the discourse on ethics on the functioning of social order, Kant restricts the field of morality to the inner dimension of men’s attitudes and gives to his construction a strictly rationalistic foundation, which is deprived of any bond with the empirical world and is rather deduced from a priori principles: a notion of morality free of references to ends and empirical facts, free of utilitarian purposes, and free from the influence of sentiments and interests; in sum, a notion of morality that translated into an idea of pure duty. Such thinking seems, at a first glance, the quintessence of morality. But Kant’s definitions and constructions evaporate in the hands of the student who tries to identify their substance and contents. Kant writes: “Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualifications, except a good will”; and later, “but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good”.[245] Kant underlines that: “A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself…. the supreme good and the condition of every other, (even of the desire of happiness)”.[246] So, good will is a value in itself; on the contrary, benevolence and sympathy have not a genuine moral valence.
This separation of Kant’s morality from ends and inclinations marks a strong distinction in relation to the empiricists’ analysis. The content of Kant’s pure reason appears much nobler than what the most acute reason may express when applied to the satisfaction of human needs. And, from an ethical point of view, Kant’s statement “make good not as a consequence of inclination but as duty” is beautiful. But what is this duty correlated to good will? Once duty is separated from any material aspect the specification of some clear and operational way of identifying it is required. Kant provides the following formulation, a decisive law expressing his whole theory: “I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law. Here, now, it is the simple conformity to law in general, without assuming any particular law applicable to certain actions, that serves the will as its principle and must so serve it, if duty is not to be a vain delusion and a chimerical notion.”[247] This principle should allow the identification of ‘good will’, i.e. should act as a compass allowing reason “to distinguish, in every case that occurs, what is good, what bad, conformably to duty or inconsistent with it”.[248] Unfortunately, this magic rule, which Kant reiterates in various forms, appears unable to give any practical help if one attempts to derive from it the content of ‘duty’ and ‘good will’. This drawback of Kantian moral philosophy has frequently been underlined by scholars. The few Kantian examples of categorical imperatives representing the motive of duty and good will do not satisfy the a priori and universalizing character attributed to that law. For instance, the duty to not make false promises clearly subtends a particular value premise: we can readily imagine a society such as that which practices the Kula ring, where a skill at cheating is highly appreciated. An observer of reality as acute as Mandeville asserted: “show me a trader who has always revealed the shortcomings of his goods to those that try to bargain on price. Where do you find one that sometimes has not tried to hide them at the damage of the buyer?”[249]
Kant indicates that it is a categorical imperative to ‘respect pacts’. But the fact that an assassin drawn by lot in a gang of villains (or in the ancient Assassins sect) and obligated to kill a designated victim performs the execution does not seem of moral merit. And the universality of the Kantian duty to not tell lies is contradicted by the fact that nobody appreciates the denouncements of an informer, even if obtained through torture. Again, it is impossible to attribute a universal character to the duty of solidarity; in fact, the rich man does not fear the Kantian argument that the universalization of an aversion to solidarity would deprive him of the possibility of receiving help in case of need. Thomas Nagel has underlined a number of contradictions and impasses to which Kant’s notion of categorical imperative leads. However, while Nagel’s distinction between the personal view centered on the interests of the individual, and the impersonal view concerning the interest of society is illuminating, it seems to contain many contradictions. Nozick’s criticisms of Rawls’ ‘difference principle’ provide important clarifications in this regard, mainly on the question of solidarity. The idea that Man is ‘an end in itself’ and that humans cannot be considered a means, on the basis of which Kant establishes the universality of a priori principles, his categorical imperatives, is really no more than a particular value premise. Pure reason does not lead to the inevitable conclusion that Man is an end in itself differently from animals.[250] Such a principle represents an act of faith derived, for instance, from the idea that humanity is made in the image of God. A Hindu does not accept such a principle; his faith in the idea of karma and the connected principle of caste are averse to it. Some Kantian categorical imperatives can be identified, indeed, by our methodological category that we have denominated ontological imperative, based on the principle of allowing a full development of human potentialities. In sum, it seems that the notions of ontological and functional imperatives and civilization provide a much more satisfactory explanation of ethics.
We have insisted on the significance of Kant’s teaching on morality mainly in order to explore what parts of his ambitious design to found morality on a scientific base, i.e. endowed with objectivity, may be preserved. Kant’s insistence on rationality, rational being and universalization deserves great attention. But his limitation to personal morality does not seem fecund. The failure of Kant’s intention of identifying the quintessence of morality shows the importance of extending the notion of (and the inquiry on) ethics well beyond the person, to the whole social organism. Kant’s separation of morality from sentiments and inclinations is fecund. In fact, we know that it is important to specify moral aspects having objective character, and distinguish them from merely contingent and relative elements. But the total expulsion of ends and empirical facts from the inquiry on ethics seems suicidal, at least from a scientific point of view.
Our notions of functional and ontological imperatives allow the preservation of some aspects of the Kantian categorical imperative and allow, furthermore, the extension of consideration toward the concrete social body. Functional and ontological imperatives are characterized by objectivity and generality; moreover, functional imperatives apply to all conditions characterized by identical general conditions of development, and ontological imperatives concern the expression of the evolutionary potentialities of humanity. Even when not in use, ontological imperatives are valid from the origin of social life, that is, they have a universal content and, as such, represent ‘perfect’ duties in the Kantian sense, and this the more so they are not enslaved to inclinations, interests, sympathy and personal ends. However, functional and ontological imperatives are not amended by reference to ends and to the general interests of the social body and to empirical elements, quite contrary to the a priori purity that Kant’s categorical imperatives prescribe. Our imperatives represent all that Kantian reason aimed at generalization can say on moral questions and would seem to overcome Nozick’s criticism concerning neo-contractualism. But ethical imperatives need to be anchored to something tangible, to some solid bank; just as the notion of functional imperative is anchored to the empirical substance represented by the general conditions of development. It must also be remembered that the inquiry on ethics should be extended to the relative and subjective elements emphasized by empiricists, concerning sentiments, sympathy and inclinations.
2. We have seen that Kant refers morality to the personal sphere. It is possible to derive from his treatment on ethics almost nothing with regard to the social and political order. In fact, Kant commits to the sphere of law the regulation of social relations and his teaching separates the doctrine of law, concerning the rule of life, from virtue, concerning an individual’s interiority.
Hegel, by contrast, overcomes this dichotomy between morality and law, social and individual spheres. His teaching on ethics is the opposite of Kant’s position, but one that is very dangerous indeed. This deserves to be strongly underlined. Hegel considers the individual as a mere aspect of the social totality. As a consequence, he treats morality and law as a unity, with the state representing the supreme expression of morality and a world harmoniously marrying being and doing. More precisely, Hegel’s State is to express the fusion of both universal and subjective will, with the individual acting as a mere instrument of this ethical state. We know that Hegel sees historical process as the incarnation of the ‘cunning of reason’, which uses humanity for the accomplishment of its higher ends. This implies the assimilation of ethics to reality, the real to the rational: a view much more extreme and suffocating than Mandeville’s denial of ethics. This Hegelian analytic system is neither science nor religion; it simply is a disastrous intellectual building, which absolves and justifies reality, that is, justifies all, practically erasing the ethical problem. As such, it does not deserve further consideration. Its absurdity is instructive: it makes evident that, when we extend the treatment of morality from the purely personal sphere (a sphere that Kant, Schopenhauer and the Stoics privileged) to the public sphere and the whole social body, it is necessary to pay great attention in order to avoid the absolutist routes that, in the name of society and the idealist fetishes, suppress the individual. And in fact, the central role of the individual is the basis of our notion of ontological imperative, which also become functional imperatives in the open society of the modern world.
3. From the second half of the nineteenth century, utility regained a central place in the debate on ethics, but within a framework that considered utility as an end, not the utility of institutions. J. Bentham wrote: “an action is good or bad, worthy or worthless, deserving approval or blame, in proportion to its tendency to increase or decrease the sum of public happiness”.[251] This assertion does not make sense, both because the notions of pleasure and happiness cannot be distinctly defined and measured, and because humanity does not search for happiness. In the course of history, humanity has always attempted to make existence turbulent by desiring, and working to achieve, impossible as well as possible goals. After all, humans need suffering in order to take (and appreciate) pleasure; misadventures often act as prerequisites for moral growth. Nietzsche’s superman says: “I do not take care of my happiness. I am concerned about my work”.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the inquiry on ethics plainly shifted from the objective to the subjective-relativist side, as we have already seen. Utilitarianism provided some refinement to the notion of utility with respect to the thinking of Bentham and Mill; but the accurate formalizations of economists were unable to go beyond Pareto’s indifference curves showing the possibility of measuring utility, the impartial spectator being a mere invention.
Rawls’ neo-contractualism constitutes one of the most advanced of recent attempts to regain some objectivity on ethics, in the wake of the failure of jus naturalist contractualism. We have shown in another book[252] that the neo-contractualist view and, in particular, the two Rawlsian principles of justice do not need the unacceptable abstractions that Rawls’ perspective based on personal interests requires and that, to be made stringent, they need our notions of functional and ontological imperatives. We hope to have the opportunity to provide, before too long, some more extensive reflections upon ethics.
10. 7 Pera’s criticism and Antiseri and Giorello’s defence of relativism
1. We come now to some contemporary students on ethics,
A book entitled Without roots[253] by M. Pera and J. Ratzinger deserves consideration, mainly due to its particular horizon. Pera begins with a quotation from Max Weber’s preliminary observations on his Sociology of religion: «What concatenation of circumstances has determined that exactly in Western countries, and only here, civilisation has taken forms that have given rise to a development having a universal value and meaning?» Pera begins by quoting Weber’s question in order to underline the universal character of some Western institutions. But this does not seem the meaning that Weber attributed to his question; he rather intended to underline the expansive capacity of a specific civilisation, the capitalist one, as L. Pellicani has clarified in his Essay on the genesis of capitalism. Of course, what Weber really intended is not important for our purposes and we would happily pass over Pera’s quotation if it were not for the fact that it expresses a meaningful methodological equivocation, identical to that characterising cultural relativism: the idea that values cannot be the object of scientific analysis. Weber is the father of this idea, which is also the basis of cultural absolutism. This equivocation becomes clear in note n° 3, where Pera states: «We refuse Nazism, fascism, communism, racialism, anti-Semitism, fanaticism, etc. not because they are inconsistent with some theorem of logic or because empirically or scientifically false, but because they are repugnant to our conscience, because they militate against our deepest intuitions on human rights and are contrary to our fundamental values; that is, we reject them with practical not theoretical reasons».[254] Seventy five years ago Fascism and Nazism were not repugnant to the conscience of the large majority of Italian and German people who, on the contrary, attributed to these regimes a moral and technical superiority with respect to the so-called decadent Western plutocracies. And yet, fifty years ago, hundreds of millions of communist believers remained convinced as to the moral and material superiority of their social system, and had faith that it would soon conquer the entire world.
The universality of some values can hardly be derived from ideology alone. Conscience is modelled by civilisations as well as by ideologies. The universality of values (or the superiority of some of them) can be derived neither from their diffusion, which may depend on the expansive strength of each civilisation, nor from faith, since even universal religions have some opponents. To prove the universality (or superiority) of values, it is necessary to adduce some precise scientific justifications. Some are immediately evident. For instance, important values are signs of the time, children of the general conditions of development, of evolutionary process. Some other values with a universal spirit are the consequence of profound characteristics of human nature.
The bureaucratically centralised and rigidly obedient societies of the modern age have been knocked down by their incompatibility with modern general conditions of development. Such societies would have had long-lasting life in the stationary ancient world, as the history of ancient bureaucratic and autocratic empires shows. Let us to recall that, if Hitler had defeated Stalin, the Nazi system would most likely have subsequently perished in confrontation with Britain and North America, as experienced by Stalin’s heirs, for that system embodied certain values and organisational forms that suffocated human evolutionary potential and were therefore not suitable to the dynamic society of our time. Pera disregards this kind of justification of values. He observes the indecision latent to relativism, which causes moral weakness and irresoluteness, and suggests: «Perhaps Western countries have lost the criterion of justice and only preserve the category of error, or modify the criterion of justice every time somebody deplores an error of ours, or get tired of justice».[255] But in order to eliminate relativist indecision it is necessary to penetrate deeply the question of values. Pera understand that it is not possible to explain (justify) ethical values through the method of the natural sciences based on being; he does not use this method, notwithstanding (or as a consequence of) his old conviction as to the uniqueness of methodological procedure.[256] But he does not possess a method able to combine being and doing that, as such, is able to scientifically investigate values.
Difficulties become more evident in Pera’s rational discussion of values; for example, in his criticism of the “relativism of contextualists and of deconstructivists”. Against the first, he proposes that, «to judge if a culture A is better than a culture B, one does not need a common meta-criterion; it is enough that the members of A and B are themselves willing to engage in a dialogue and submit themselves to reciprocal criticism. During or at the end of dialogue, a speaker will find difficulties, so that the thesis of the other… will prove to be better».[257] But on the basis of this criterion the speaker having better rhetorical skills will prevail. It is impossible to engage in efficacious dialogue if there is not a reliable method of investigation with regard to the object of the dialogue. The technique of elenchos is deceitful if the possibility of proving the truth or erroneousness of consequences does not exist. The method of the natural sciences possesses a precise criterion of proof: controlled experiment based on facts. But the use of such a method is not possible in the study of social reality, which is a dynamic-evolutionary and non-repetitive reality that combines being and doing. What to do? Pera adds: «If the members of culture B freely demonstrate a preference for culture A, not vice versa – if, for instance, the flows of migration come from Islam to the West and not otherwise – there is reason to think that A is better than B».[258] But men’s consciences and preferences can be manipulated; Pera insists that such an objection cannot be advanced by relativists as they exclude in principle an objective criterion allowing the attribution of expressed preferences to a state of mental confusion. But this argument is valid against relativists, not in general.
On the other side, migration from B to A and the relative preferences so expressed are, by themselves, very deceitful as a criterion of judgement on ethical values. An increasing migration toward capitalist countries due to their higher material welfare is here at work. But Islamic people that migrate to Western countries are not willing to renounce their civilisation. On the basis of the criterion that Pera suggests, we should conclude that capitalism is superior to any other civilisation. But this conclusion obscures important questions. The well-being of the capitalist areas of the world depends on the fact that this system enjoys organisational forms particularly suitable to cumulative development. This is indeed a merit. But it is a merit associated with various drawbacks, for instance: financial capital that, instead of serving rather subdues and dominates production and the whole globalisation process, may well seem less preferable in certain ways that the so-called ethical finance of Islam; forms of income distribution, the degree of injustice of which is well beyond the dimension of the monetary incentives required by productive efficiency; and various exaggerated kinds of consumerism. Certainly, Pera does not consider the values of nomadic Mongolian civilisation to be universal, notwithstanding the fact that Gengiz Kahn and his heirs considered themselves universal sovereigns in light of the exceptional extension of their empire. A primary problem faced by social theory is to distinguish wheat from chaff, which in this case means distinguishing between the merits and the drawbacks associated with various social organisational forms and civilisations in order to favour (or imitate) merit and to try to eliminate the drawbacks.
Pera’s criticism of the relativism of the deconstructivist clearly shows that his anti-relativism is lacking a method that allows for argument about values in scientific terms. The consequent landfall is represented by the appeal to faith and hence cultural absolutism. Pera criticizes Derrida’s deconstructivism. Even if we do not know the work of this scholar, it seems to us that he deserves criticism. But Pera writes: «Why does Derrida never say that it is a choice of value – for dialogue, tolerance, etc. – which in the end founds an intellectual political position?» We know that tolerance and dialogue have an objective (ontological and functional) foundation, rather than represent a value choice. Nobody will deny that the values of the primitive inhabitants of the Amazon must profoundly differ from those of modern man, and this implies an objective foundation of the difference.
Pera is satisfied to discover that, in the end, Derrida also appeals to faith when, pushed by the contradictions of deconstructivism, he says: «I persist in thinking that it is the faith in the possibility of this impossible thing… to determine all our decisions». And Pera comments: «Yes, the faith. In the end the true answer has come».[259] But indeed there exist relative values, (i.e. objects of choice) and objective values, (i.e. imposed by de facto reality). It is a task of science to rigorously distinguish among them and to teach the way to do so. Cultural absolutism, based on faith, cannot oppose any objection to the Muslim invoking of the application of sharja. Faith is not matter of discussion and mediation. But, just for this reason, science must proclaim the fact without dissimulation when the commandments of faith trample on scientific reason. For instance, it must clarify that it is contradictory to desire cumulative development and pretend to marry this desire to the application of Islamic law, which models institutions and impedes them from adapting to (and favouring) the evolution of the general conditions of development. Science must not be worried that the Muslim believer will reject the assertion above. When the believer will have paid the price of his disobedience to science, he will understand his error and begin to take into account the prescriptions of science. The Jewish Pharises proved to be much more acute than current cultural relativists and absolutists when they invented the oral Torah, which is adjustable by way of interpretation, and which allowed the Jewish people to adapt, during the Diaspora, to the societies that provided them with hospitality without losing their identity. Sooner or later Islam will be forced to invent something analogous, which will allow it to adapt itself to the necessities of development.
2. In a recent essay in defence of cultural relativism,[260] Antiseri lists a number of reasons in favour of individualism, tolerance and pluralism. Relativism is intended as a notion liable to be confuted and improved, extended and revised, in opposition to absolute truth. This author refers relativism to the plurality of contributions to knowledge, that is to the fact that men, as thinking beings, are pushed by their cognitive limits to think in a variety of ways. This argument seems obvious from a scientific point of view. Furthermore, his defence of nihilism is reasonable and well motivated given that Antiseri identifies nihilism as antithetical to absolute truth. But all this goes beyond the question of cultural relativism, which represents a much more specific problem. In fact, a true feature of cultural relativism consists in considering ethical values a matter of choice.
At the beginning of his discussion Antiseri asks: «is a rational foundation possible, which is valid erga omnes, of values? Is it possible to obtain a rational foundation of religious faith?»[261] His answer is: «Ethics is not science. Ethical choice is inevitable».[262] Such an answer is built around the assimilation of values to the truth of faith and/or to being a matter of choice. It is unquestionable that a lot of values are based on faith and/or are, strictly speaking, a matter of choice. But many fundamental values have a different character; they can be rationally explained and hence are objective entities. It is not difficult to prove this statement – the demonstration can be extracted from the very defence of relativism by Antiseri that we are considering. In fact, if we try to seek the reasons explaining the ‘necessity’ of pluralism, of tolerance and the role of individual (that he emphasizes), we discover that these reasons (giving objectivity to the values above) exist: they are the limits of human knowledge and human fallibility, which oblige us (as we saw) to give full value to individual creativity, to accept confrontation with the plurality of contributions and therefore to impose tolerance toward other people and attention to their arguments as conditions for the progress of knowledge. This provides an objective explanation of these values; in fact, it is objective and scientific to state that the rejection of them implies the disregard and negation of the above basic characters and limitation of human nature.
Antiseri deduces the impossibility of explaining values from Popper and Hume’s teaching, according to which the transition from being to doing is impossible. We have shown that such an assessment, and hence also that of Poincaré as well as Einstein’s opinions on empirical truth, is (obviously) right with reference to natural reality, but not to social reality. Our proposal on method has supplied the reason that Hume asked for in order to justify the transition from being to doing: the criterion of organisational rationality, which allows deducing doing from realistic postulates, and hence deducing a variety of moral norms from a plurality of premises. Popper’s falsificationism does not provide reason to deny the possibility of methodologically linking being and doing. In fact, falsificationism (and likewise other kinds of positivism) is suitable to the natural-experimental reality of being, not to social reality as constructed by men and permeated by doing. The inability of a method to explain some crucial aspect of the considered reality is an alarming indication of its inappropriateness to that reality; the opposite is true for a method that is able to explain reality. We do not understand what mysterious reasons justify the insistence of students of society in denying the possibility of specifying scientific values. There exist objective and subjective values. What is the reason why relativists persist in their denial of objective values? Antiseri should give a precise proof to support his denial; or he should admit that such a proof is impossible.
I received from Antiseri the following comment:
«I read your deep essay and I send you my objections. 1) Scientific research (both in natural and social sciences) always consists in some trials to solve problems; the method of solution of problems always is the same. We have not contrary proofs. 2) I am not convinced by your considerations on “Hume’s law”. 3) Choice, in the field of values (and hence the individual freedom and responsibility), is (fortunately) inevitable. The values presented as universal, if are not a result of personal choice, are conventions resulting from complex historical processes and sometimes from tragedies. 5) Tolerance and dialogue have not an objective foundation rationally proved. They are the result of choices often based on predilection (which is not an objective attitude) of their consequences. 6) Behind the work of science there is an irrational choice concerning scientific rationality. 7) All that, in brief, to confirm the reasonable point of view that objective values are a logical impossibility and that, as a consequence, relativism is inevitable. All totalitarians have been antirelativists. Their presumption to owe some final truth rationally proved and exclusive values has caused many millions of victims. These are the points on which we dissent. On the questions with reference to which we agree, there is no need to discuss».
A gigantic dissent, indeed, which demands clarifications. I believe, like Antiseri, in limited and fallible human reason, and I think that it represents a key aspect of human nature and, as a consequence, that trial and error is indispensable for finding our bearings in an increasingly changeable and complex world. But it is an impressive fact that, in human relations, reason is a frequent and easy object of mystification and is mainly used to cheat neighbours, to satisfy the desire of domination, and to trample on reason in the name of reason, justice in the name of justice, freedom in the name of freedom, peace in the name of peace.
Every truth must be considered with caution, but there exist some errors that can be proved as such with absolute certainty. One such is the statement that all values are subjective entities and a matter of choice. This relativist mistake opens the door to cultural anti-relativism and absolutism, in sum, to fundamentalism. Where science is impotent, it is replaced by faith. But it is a misfortune if faith succeeds due to the fact that scientific thought erroneously asserts its impotence or systematically makes mistakes due to methodological lacunas. It is surprising that, notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary, relativist equivocations on values persist in causing serious misunderstandings. The scientific demonstration of the existence of objective values does not imply totalitarianism; it limits itself to the provision of explanations. I forwarded the following specific answers to Antiseri’s seven points:
Point 1: “scientific research always consists in trying to solve problems”. I agree. “The method of solution of problems is always the same”. This seems not to be true. Until now, two distinct scientific methods have been developed: the method of abstract rationality, concerning the logical-formal sciences; and the observational experimental method, suitable to natural reality. The method of the social sciences is waiting for a formulation appropriate to the reality that it considers.
Point 2: Antiseri says that he is not convinced by my considerations on Hume’s law. But he does not give any reasons for his doubt; this causes me some embarrassment in attempting to answer; but notwithstanding this discomfort, I will nevertheless still try. I have outlined a precise proposal on method that supplies the reason (requested by Hume) for conjugating being and doing. Of course, if we use the method of the natural sciences for the study of social reality, we exclude doing by definition for the simple reason that, in nature (with reference to which the observational experimental method was born), doing is absent; only interaction of man with nature occurs. More precisely, human intervention in natural reality is interactive while in social reality it is constituent. Well, if we define a methodological procedure that is appropriate to social reality, we immediately see that doing appears on the scene in combination with being, as my proposal on method shows. The denial of this requires, therefore, the demolition of my proposal (which, from Antiseri, was not forthcoming).
Point 3: “In the field of values, choice is inevitable”. This is true only for some values; precisely, relative values. I have previously provided many examples that refute the general validity of that statement. Here I limit myself to recalling but one: the market and the related values associated with the open society. A dynamic society, which is inherently characterised by systematic endogenous flows of uncertainty, cannot do without the market with associated values (which need not necessarily have a capitalist character). He who intends to abolish the market, must accept the subsequent regression toward a stationary state. The objectivity of some important values simply consists in the fact that serious costs are caused by the ignorance of that objectivity; the major part of the teachings of science is of this kind.
Point 4: “values presented as universal… are the result of complex historical processes and sometimes tragedies”. This is true. Many values are the result of dolorous processes of convergence towards ethical ‘necessities’. More precisely, the advancement of the general conditions of development determines the necessity of new values that, if not scientifically known, will be approximated by trial and error, through torments and tragedies. If that convergence through approximation fails, society regresses. The commercial societies of the Middle Ages “needed” communal freedoms, which were inconsistent with feudal values. If the pretensions of feudal landlords, which were buttressed by important theoretical authorities of that time, had not been defeated by the medieval communes, the new and more advanced stage of development would not have flourished and Western countries would have not surpassed the great bureaucratic and autocratic empires of the Eastern world.
Point 5: “tolerance and dialogue have not an objective foundation…they represent choices based on preference for their consequences”. This is decisively wrong. For the realisation of human evolutionary potential, it is necessary to give full value to the great variety of human skills; this requires tolerance, pluralism and dialogue. It is not a question of preferences. Of course, I do not deny that a person may prefer to trample on evidence and science, and even to kill himself and thereby erase his relations with science and evidence. But this does not erase the role of evidence, of science and of the existence of objective values.
Point 6: “Behind the work of science there is an irrational choice concerning scientific rationality.” The use of reason is not a choice. Reason is like eyes that men possess and hence use. A man may blind himself, but this is a pathological behaviour, a folly. The problem is to invent instruments that improve as much as possible the efficiency and power of reason: for instance, the observational-experimental method that allowed the transition from enchantment to science in the study of nature.
Point 7: It seems evident to me that objective values are not a logical impossibility; even if the contrary may seem to be the case if the argument is conducted solely on the basis of the observational experimental method of natural sciences that, like nature, does not consider doing but only considers being. But we have seen that there are some important values imposed by objective reasons. At any rate, science is based on the use of reason; therefore, when we ask ourselves as to the scientific character of ethical values, we appeal to reason.
There was no further discussion in the matter.
3. Let us turn now to Giorello’s defence of relativism.[263] While Pera deplores the discrimination against antirelativists, Giorello starts from a denunciation of the holy alliance against the ghost of relativism. He develops a defence of limited and fallible reason even more punctilious and passionate than that of Antiseri, and he emphasizes that science is obliged by its limits to proceed by trial and error, conjecture and confutation, revision and progressive advancement. Giorello underlines the distinction between, on the one hand, scientific truth and, on the other, absolute truth based on faith. Like Antiseri, he deduces from the limited and fallible character of scientific truth the importance of the following: pluralism, tolerance and discussion, creative freedom, the role of the individual, personal responsibility, and an open society. A scientist cannot object to anything in Giorello’s considerations. Today, nobody can deny that science is a completely different thing from faith.
We fully agree with On liberty by J. S. Mill; this is not the point. The problem concerns ethical values. Specifically, the question is whether ethical values have an objective character or whether they are an object of choice (or, perhaps, in some cases objective and in others subjective). Unlike Antiseri, however, Giorello does not engage with this question, despite the fact it is the true problem and the distinguishing feature of cultural relativism; at most, he touches the problem tangentially when he refers to moral choice, but without commenting on whether choice must only be referred to some values or to all values.
Giorello writes: «Only error needs the support of political authority. The truth stands on its own feet».[264] Certainly. But scientific truth needs a method that is able to find the truth and to sustain it; unfortunately, such a method is lacking in social thought. One main cause of this methodological vacuum is to be found in the question of values. The “malign” Galileo, in making his objections and enunciating his results, possessed an efficacious method that served him as a practical instrument of research and discovery. The student of social thought has not stood in the same position, notwithstanding Popper’s pretence that he may make use of the observational-experimental method of the natural sciences, an erroneous pretence as we shaw. The methodological vacuum I refer to has promoted two contrasting lines of thought: a cultural absolutism based on faith, and a cultural relativism that, owing to its physiological inability to pronounce on real phenomena and provide reference points, provides a strong support to absolutism. Standing behind both of these two dead ends is a common misunderstanding: the idea, postulated but never proved, of the impossibility of submitting values to scientific analysis, that is, the impossibility of cultural objectivism; a presumed impossibility that, among other things, militates against the growing need for a global ethics.
In response to my making such criticism, Giorello suggested to me a book edited by G. Boniolo and entitled Secularity[265], which contains an essay by Giorello on ‘Relativism’. After reading this essay, I considered it my duty to mail to the author the considerations set out below:
I find appropriate and stimulating the initial phrase that you take from Leopardi: “who can know the limits of possibility?” But I have some objections to your development and I try to assemble them in three groups.
a) Your emphasis on possibility inspires you to propose an approach to knowledge based on De Finetti’s notion of subjective probability, with the aim of underlining and interpreting the fallibility and the limitations of human knowledge. I think that this probabilistic approach is inadequate to represent the fallibility and limitation of human cognitive skills. Indeed, the strongest and most pertinent expression of the fallibility and limits of knowledge is that represented by the idea of radical uncertainty (which may be expressed by the changes of opinions or the differences between expectations and reality, both varying in different cases).[266] But radical uncertainty cannot be represented by (objective or subjective) distributions of probability and, as I shall underline soon, has some relevant methodological implications.
b) I think it insufficient to concentrate attention on possibility. It seems to me that the aspect of ‘necessity’ is very important and that social thought must put forward this aspect together with and parallel to that of ‘choice-possibility’. This is indispensable if we are to hope to understand the problems of human societies. It is insufficient to limit ourselves to a mixture of both aspects in order to be able to distinguish relativism from scepticism. It is necessary to distinguish rigorously the two aspects. The most delicate and controversial feature of ‘necessity’ and the most appropriate and pertinent to the debate on relativism is represented by the question of objective ethical values. There exist some values that are indispensable in a definite stage of development and some others that are inconsistent with that stage. For instance, radical uncertainty, which more and more characterises modern dynamic societies, implies the ‘necessity’ of the decentralisation of decision-making and corresponding values (pluralism, tolerance, etc.): a necessity that is not present in stationary society. These values are, therefore, objective (that is necessary) in modern dynamic societies, and not relative values. Social analysis falls into serious misunderstandings if it omits to propose together both objective and relative values, necessity and choice-possibility.
c) You write in your essay: «It must not be taken for granted that my probability and utility are identical to yours. But for relativists this is not a problem; often, starting from initial divergences, a final convergence is achieved (this is the meaning of a famous theorem that De Finetti proved and is well known as the theorem of representation)».[267] It seems to me that such a theorem is of little importance with reference to relativism. With regard to relative values, the dissent, diversities and pluralism of points of view are much more important than their convergence; in fact, diversities constitute a primary stimulus to creativity and to the diversification of developmental paths; in some sense, they are the salt of life. Social thought needs criticism, and also a careful analysis of every proposal aimed at overcoming blindness toward evidence. I have formulated a precise proposal on method (procedure and rules) directed to remedy that situation; I have used the proposal in various applications and I hope that you will send me some critical considerations on this matter; but no further discussion followed.
10.8 Conclusion
Both cultural relativists and defenders of the absolute characters of values, or cultural absolutists, share the denial of the scientific character of ethical values. This denial ensures the inability of relativists to express themselves on very important problems, while the reference of absolutists to the commandments of faith as universally valid over time generates a tendency on their part toward immovableness, rigidity and a number of acute cultural contrasts that are averse to the needs and the dynamics of the global world. But in this regard we must recognize the profitability of articles of faith that are largely shared and a today attention, also by some exponents of religions, to put forward some important contributions to a global ethics.[268]
The denial of scientific content to ethical values is an aprioristic assumption, which is not justified by empirical facts. It is based rather on some inappropriate methods of analysis of social reality. Such an erroneous position obscures the role of reason and the relation between reason and faith and is neither justified by religious feelings nor by agnostic attitudes.
A crucial omission is shared by all the just-mentioned theoretical developments: all postulate the limitation of the question of values to being or, vice versa, to doing, thus erasing, for different reasons, the most important and peculiar need of social thought, that is, the combination of being and doing, which is indispensable to the scientific analysis of values. This prejudices studies on ethics. In particular, it causes: a) a cynicism (shared by positivism, evolutionism, Weberian thought, idealism) arising from subjection to being; b) a sectarian fundamentalism and an abstract and deceptive Enlightenment based on the mere reference to doing; c) while in Kantian formulations, it gives rise to an aprioristic and evanescent objectivism. Particularly notable among the problems that result are the obstruction of the definition of a global ethics and the obstruction of the reconciliation of religious sense and rationality, which both are urgently required in the modern world.
We have seen that cultural objectivism is possible; that is, it is possible to show the objective character of some important values. The problem of the scientific analysis of ethical values must not be undervalued. In fact, only the scientific analysis of values allows some generalizations on ethics to which all people are interested in assenting and which are valid at a world scale; in such a way, the scientific analysis of values strengthens the role and operation of spiritual forces. In our present changeable and indefinite societies, the need to provide a sense to life is particularly strong. As we said, it is our conviction that such sentiment should be referred to the evolutionary mission of humanity: each human being should be morally obliged and satisfied to provide, on a low or on a large scale, and according to his capacities, a contribution to the tilling of the soil on which future offspring will continue. Well, the fecundity of such behaviour is strictly dependent on the use of reason also in the field of ethical values.
The beginning of the last century experienced the hegemony of Weberian relativism and associated forms of cultural irrationalism (which Weber tried to hide through his insistent, but ambiguous, references to the rationality principle); and half a century of extreme violence followed. We are today in the presence of a treble ration of irrationalism, expressed by cultural relativism, cultural absolutism and evolutionary spontaneity; an irrationalism which is particularly malevolent in a rapidly changing world
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Final conclusion
One of the primary shortcomings of our age is the absence of a scientific method appropriate to the study, interpretation, organization and management of modern societies. As a consequence, our age suffers a planetary disease that heavily affects individual, social, international and power relations and wellbeing. This book has intended to challenge such shortcoming and disease.
We have seen that two outstanding literary traditions have vitiated the development of social thought: the merely observational view, borrowed from the natural sciences, and the metaphysical emphasis on de facto reality as expressed by philosophical idealism and historicism. These two methodological traditions have generated various well-known aphorisms: the fancy of history, the cunning of universal reason, the invisible hand, the public benefit of private vices and, more recently, diffuse rationality or, at best, the apparently scientific expectation that it is possible to interact with social reality on the basis of the illusory discovery of its laws of motion. This fetishist deference for reality considers as inevitable (and even indispensable to regeneration and social ‘progress’) the incessant and almost incredible monstrosities that populate human history; indeed, it stimulates them (and in fact, the Marxian fancy of history has generated the gulag). This book has intended to show the falsity of these diffuse and often revered aphorisms.
The opposite disregard of reality as postulated by the Enlightenment and constructivism, which sometimes pretends to scientific legitimization by way of the abstract rationality procedures of the formal-logic sciences, is no less dangerous.
In the second half of the last century the applications of the above methodological bodies witnessed impressive refinements, as shown by the development of econometrics and the formulation of complicated and pretentious mathematical models. Today, the virtuosity and substantial explanatory impotence of these formal and sophisticated techniques becomes ever more visible, mainly as an effect of the phenomenon of social change[269].
A growing dissatisfaction with regard to this situation is at work. But so far the reaction has produced, not some workable alternative but a widespread confusion on method, as exemplified, for instance, by a large part of heterodox economics. This book attempts to remedy this situation by providing a tool capable of surmounting some of the main difficulties in the understanding of a social reality that intensifying social change, and hence the non-repetitiveness of social phenomena, makes ever more visible and disturbing and substantially impossible to meet if seen in light of traditional methods, i.e. the method rooted in observation and the merely formal-abstract method.
Our methodological approach leads us to frame some key general notions, such as functional and ontological imperatives and civilization, and these are able to provide, even with regard to ethics, fairly steady reference points in the interpretation and organization of the ever more intricate and volatile social reality and, hence, to allow us to disentangle ourselves in non-repetitiveness. Really, while one side of the notion of civilization implies stability, the other – mainly in terms of the grand options implied – may stimulate or bring a halt to change. However, we have seen that the three notions above are valuable, mainly through their interactions, for the understanding and interpretation of social change and of social and historical processes. More in general, our notion of ‘necessity-constraint’ takes care to provide well defined steady points with regard to the organization of social systems. For its part, choice-possibility and creativeness side offers the material to complete models in regard to the workings of variability.
Applications to various branches of social thought demonstrate the profitableness of our proposal on method.
Name index
Abraham 218
Albert, H. 44n, 46
Alexander the Great 183
Antigon 196-7
Antiseri, D. 240, 242, 242n, 243-44-5-6
Aquinas, T. 221, 233
Archibugi, F. 63n
Archimedes 222
Antonini, 138
Ardebili, M. H. 50n, 95
Arena, R. 31
Ariadne 212
Aristotle 27, 190
Augustus emperor 138, 178, 196
Bacon, F. 205
Bhaskar, R. 50n
Barone, E. 87
Bellarmino, cardinal 222
Benedict, R. 1482, 148n, 149, 149n, 150, 150n
Benedictus, pope 217, 232
Bentham, J. 239, 239n
Blankenburg, S. 31
Bobbio, N. 188,, 189n, 193, 193n
Bodin, J. 158, 166, 166n
Bohannan, P. 155
Boniolo, G. 246, 247n
Borgia C. 170
Boudon, R. 14, 169, 176-7, 185, 202-3-5-6-78-9, 210-1-2-3-4-5
Bruni, L. 229, 230
Carr, E. 181
Carter-Nagar 118
don Circostanza 36, 88
Charlemagne 179, 221
Clastres, P. 153-4-5-6-7, 159
Cleopatre 181
Clower, R. W. 94n
Coase, R. 94
Commons, J. 95
Comte, A. 127
Constant, B. 162, 165
Constantine the Great 179
Cowley, R. 182-3-4
Creon 196
Darwin, C. 76, 82, 181
Davis, J. B. 82, 95n
De Finetti, B. 45, 247
Derrida, J. 242
Dilthey, W. 23n
Diocletian emperor 236
Dobusch L. 96
Dosi, G. 75
Durkheim, E. 3, 55, 155, 202, 205-6, 208-9, 212-3
Edgeworth, F. Y 33
Einstein, A. 243
Ekstedt, H. 5, 7, 26n, 29n, 56, 64, 68, 83, 89, 92 -3, 166
Eliade, M. 12, 142-3, 176, 219n
Emmer, R. E. 35
Faber, M. 83
Fabietti, U. 154n
Ferrajoli, L. 192
Ferrero, S. 196
Feyerabend, P. 70, 79, 83-4-5
Frisch, R. 61
Friedman, M. 32, 34-5-6
Fukuyama, F. 139-40
Fusari, A. 26n, 29n, 30n, 65, 68, 75, 83, 89, 91n, 92-3, 117, 142, 166
Galbraith, J. K. 18, 90, 166
Garegnani, P. 86
Gengiz Kahn 242
Germanicus (general) 183
Geronimo 155
Gioacchino da Fiore 127
Giorello, G. 240, 246, 247n
Gregory the Great pope 226
Hadrian emperor 183
Hanson, N. R. 70
Hardt, M. 141-42
Hayek, F. 18n, 23, 25, 61, 78, 89, 128-9, 209
Hegel, G. W.F. 111, 225, 234, 237, 239
Hicks, J. 94
Hitler, A. 184, 241
Hobbes, T. 24, 190, 193
Hobson, J. A. 62
Hodgson, G. M. 62n, 82
Hume, D. 22n. 69, 197, 202, 223-4-5, 236-7-8, 243-4-5
Huntington, S. P. 140
Ietto-Gillies, G. 115n, 142n
Inglehart, R. 141
Ivan the Terrible 170
Kantorovich, L. 61, 63
Kelsen, H. 163-4, 190-1-2, 198
Kerenskij, A. 181
Keynes, J. M. 32-3-4-5, 6, 86, 88-9, 94n, 163, 206
Kirzner, I. 48n, 79, 89, 116n
Knight, F. 93
Kuhn, T. 70-1-2-3-4-5, 95-6-7, 176
Kapeller, J. 44-5, 96
Kung, H. 223
Jason 53
Jean Paul II, pope 217, 232n, 248n
Johansen, L. 61
Julian emperor 226
Lakatos, I. 20n, 71-2-3-4-5, 96
Lamarck, J. B. 82
Lange, O. 87
Langlois, R.N. 87
Lattimore, O. 152
Lawson, T. 76, 78
Lee, F. 78, 95-6
Lemercier-Quelquejeir 152n
Lenin, V. U. 18
Leontief, V. 61, 64, 87, 93
Leopardi, G. 247
Lerner, A. P. 87
Leviathan 168, 190, 193
Levi-Strauss, 52, 152
Loasby, B. 70n
Locke, J. 167, 190
Lotka, A. J. 117
Lubich, C. 51
Machiavelli, N. 170, 185, 221, 236
Malinowski, B. 150, 152
Mandeville, B. 24, 25, 28-9, 129, 236, 238-9
Marcellino, Ammiano 152
Marx, K. 25, 49, 65, , 125-6-7, 139, 181
Marshall, A. 33
Mead, M. 151n
Metcalfe, J. S. 83n, 175n
Mises von, L. 79-80
Moltman, J. 219n
Montaigne, M. 194
Montesquieu, 165, 184
Morelly, E. G. 190
Mosca, G. 13, 163, 184
Mosini, V. 32, 34-5
Mueller, D. C. 117n, 118
Musgrave, A. 20n.71, 72n
Myrdal, G. 30, 70, 80-1
Nagel T. 180, 238
Negri, T. 141-2
von Neumann, J. 93
Nietzsche, F. 163, 221, 240
Nozick, R. 194, 238-9
Odagiri, H. 118
Orpheus 53
Ortega Y Gasset, J. 133-4-5-6, 195
Pareto, V. 49, 71, 131-2, 163, 185, 202n, 240
Parsons, T. 10, 43-4, 47, 50, 55, 65, 79, 80, 209
Pasinetti, L. L. 61, 85-6-7, 89, 90-1-2-3-4-5
Patinkin, D. 94
Peirce, C. S. 46n
Pellicani, L. 136-7-8-9-40, 221n, 240
Pera, M. 240-1-2, 246
Pigou, A.C. 33
Plato 27n
Poincaré, H.J. 243
Polanyi, M. 70
Polybius 27n
Polinice 190
Popper, K. R. 14, 44-5-6, 69, 70-1-2-3, 94, 120, 135-6, 180, 183, 202, 243, 246
Proops, J. L. 83
Radcliffe-Braun, A. R. 132
Ratzinger, J. 233, 240, 241n
Rawls, J. 194, 238, 240
Reati, A. 26, 56n, 134
Rickert , H. 23n
Robbins, L. 33
Rostow, W. W. 127
Rousseau, J. J. 13, 163, 173, 177, 184, 193, 198
Ruffolo, G. 65, 221, 226
Russel B. 6, 204
Sahlins, M. D. 154
Salanti, A. 96
Saviotti, P. P. 75n, 83n
Scalfari, E. 224-5
Schumpeter, J. A. 18, 35, 86, 89, 90, 92, 94, 116
Schmitt, K. 13, 163-4, 166, 185
Schopenhauer, A. 168n, 239
Screpanti, E. 96
Searle, J. 77
Shang (lord of) 211
Sidgwick, H. 33
Silone, I. 36, 88n
Smith, A. 23-4, 49, 111, 234, 236-7
Socrates, 27n
Solow, R. M. 94
Spencer, H. 128-9
Spengler, O. 131-2-3, 140
Sraffa, P. 31, 87-8
Stalin, J. B. 184, 241
Stolypin, P. A. 181
Suleiman the Magificent 183
Tamerlan 170
Tawney, R. H. 136-7
Taylor, F. M. 87
Tinbergen, J. 61
Tocqueville, A. 3, 163, 167, 204-5, 211
Tolstoj, L. 224-5
Toulmin, S. 70
Touraine, A. 180
Toynbee, A. J. 133-4- 5-6, 151, 163, 183
Valente emperor 183
Veblen, T. 95, 209
Viale, R. 202n
Vico, G.B. 24, 111, 127, 238n
Voltaire 217
Volterra, V. 117-8-9, 120-1
Walras, L. 33, 87-8-9, 93-4
Washburn, W. S. 149
Washington, G. general 184
Weber, M. 2, 3, 7, 13n, 23n, 30, 38, 43, 49, 50, 65, 80, 136-7, 139, 165, 169, 170
Williamson, O. E. 48n, 82, 94
Wilkinson, F. 31
Wymer, C. R. 118
Zaghini, E. 94n
Zamagni, S. 32, 51, 53, 114-5, 164, 228-9
Abstracts of each chapter, for on line diffusion (and perhaps also for the printed book)
Abstract of chapter I
We focus first on some basic methodological misunderstandings afflicting social thought and the consequent great ‘errors’ in the organization, direction and operation of human societies. A reflection upon the peculiarity of social reality in comparison to the natural world serves to unmask the root of these ‘errors’ and opens the road toward a more appropriate methodological construction. A first step along this road is taken by way of drawing the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility-creativeness’ in the organization and administration of social systems. A further step is made by way of the combination of being and doing within a single scientific perspective, i.e. the arrival at an organizational view properly rooted in reality. The misunderstandings implied by the distinction between positive and normative aspects are highlighted and some initial insights regarding social and historical processes are traced based on our new methodological foundation.
Keywords: abstract rationality, observational rationality, organizational rationality, being and doing, choice and innovation, cognitive relativism, constructivism, organizational necessity, positive and normative aspects, social naturalism, stationary and evolutionary motion, strong and weak observation method,
Abstract of chapter II
Here we set out in full our methodological proposal for the study of social reality, taking care to emphasize the organizational aspect, which represents the basic feature of society. A core step in the proposed deductive procedure is the selection of realistic postulates or, more specifically, the definition of guiding rules for such a selection and a classification of postulates that allows for: a) the achievement of general principles despite the non-repetitive changes that impede upon social reality; b) the derivation of more specific organizational features. In particular, the notions of functional and ontological imperatives are specified; notions that, together with that of civilization, express the organizational backbone and, in interaction with specific choices, innovation and creativeness, the leading forces of social processes. This specification allows some conceptual development concerning the roles of a number of factors: freedom and constriction, function and conflict, micro and macro aspects, the problem of forecasting and, to some degree, also the vicissitudes of economic and social planning.
Keywords: constrained optimization, deductive procedure, functional imperative, functionalist prejudice, grand options and civilizations, methodological rules and classifications, ontological imperative, organizational rationality, planning, rationality principle, relational rationality, utopia and prophecy
Abstract of chapter III
A systematic confrontation of our proposal on method with some outstanding competing approaches is carried out, starting from those epistemological debates the subject matter of which touches upon social problems; then we consider some relevant methodological tools specifically concerning social reality. The confrontation facilitates a deeper and more profound understanding of our proposal and its potential. We remark on the surprising love affair of the students of society with the observational method of the natural sciences, a romance that disregards the striking differences between natural and social reality and even passes over the various epistemological perplexities expressed by some important natural scientists. We emphasize that the growing fragmentation of social thought on method hinders a fecund pluralism, for it obstructs interaction among students and the cumulative growth of social knowledge.
Keywords: dynamic competition, evolutionary motion, falsificationism, normal science, ontology, paradigm, research programs, separation principle, technological trajectories
Abstract of chapter IV
The methodological propositions and categories set out in chapter 2 are now used to outline a theory of social and historical processes. The theory is centered on the interaction of civilization and functional and ontological imperatives and, more generally, on the operation of the binary ‘necessity’/’choice-possibility’. Another backbone of the proposed interpretation is the succession innovation-structural reorganization in the motion of human societies. The theory is aimed at providing a consistent representation of the long run behavior of societies, be they stationary, quasi-stationary or modern (i.e. containing an increasing evolutionary impetus). The interpretation is strengthened by a distinction between historical ages based on our methodological categories. Hence an analysis is drawn of some major problems and organizational necessities that the present historical age is obliged to meet but that nevertheless are opposed by powerful interests, an opposition that constitutes a major drama of the present world. Finally, a simple formalized representation of our model of interaction between innovation and structural reorganization, together with its inherent radical uncertainty, is drawn with reference to the economy.
Keywords: development and decline, econometric estimation, economic cycles, innovation-adaptation, main contemporary imperatives, stages of development
Abstract of chapter V
Some outstanding theories of social and historical process are now discussed with the help of our methodological construction, commencing with a criticism of the Marxian distinction between structure and superstructure and various notions of historical ages. Furthermore, the central role that some social theories attribute to civilization forms and irrational human behaviors is acknowledged, and care is taken to show that the merely observational treatment of those phenomena in the past has yielded misleading forecasts as to the likely trajectories and fate of Western societies and, at present, distorts interpretations of globalization process. We also criticize the leading role that important theorists attribute to stationary motion or, vice-versa, creative processes, to institutional or religious and political factors, showing the marked one-sidedness of the interpretation of social and historical processes centered on each one of those factors. We reject the implications of the merely observational attitude, which generates an exaggerated attention to the spontaneity of events, and which is sometimes accompanied by either an ingenuous optimism or dark pessimism. We conclude by opposing, to the present dominant pessimism, the wide-ranging instrumentation that our methodology and interpretation of society implies.
Keywords: creativeness, evolution and institutions, historic cycles, globalization, social harmony, social Darwinism spontaneous order, terror of history
Abstract of chapter VI
This chapter opens the second part of the work, which develops applications of the methodological constructs developed in part I. This exercise commences with anthropology, since the simplicity of primitive societies provides an immediate picture of the operation of some of the categories that play a crucial role in our proposal on method. In particular, the analysis of primitiveness makes evident both the important role that civilizations play from the beginning of humanity’s adventure and the degree of creativeness that they incorporate within them. The conditioning role of civilizations on the developmental fate of societies appears impressive. The analysis also brings into the light some institutions (functional imperatives) present in all primitive societies, and makes evident how disregard for ontological imperatives (which is much more frequently encountered than their presence) in the constructed civilization contributes to making society a hostile environment for development. The strength of the ‘power of society’ in primitive civilizations belies the idea, frequently voiced among anthropologists, that such societies are free from oppression. This evidence facilitates a more realistic conception of power and illuminates the way and the meaning of the transformation of this power of society into command-power and state-power.
Keywords: command-power, cultural variety, kinship, power of society, social ranks and classes, state power
Abstract of chapter VII
Politics and political action are mainly concerned with questions of power. In this chapter we show that the various justifications of power advanced down the centuries have always amounted to an explicit attempt to mask domination-power. The notion of democracy is not immune from such mystification. In particular, in the absence of an objective justification and delimitation of command-power, the division of powers results in a division of the power to abuse. Because they provide bases for the specification of responsibilities and the content of the social contract, the notions of functional and ontological imperatives represent a reliable means of providing a scientific justification of power that facilitates a distinction between functional power and domination power. Our development continues by way of a demonstration of the inconsistency of Weberian double ethics and gives some answer to the question of the evil of the world and theodicy. We then apply our methodological approach to questions of reforms and social justice and discuss the relevance, in the interpretation of history, of considering political views and actions and the use of ‘if’.
Keywords: control of controllers, democracy, division of powers, domination-power, double ethics, function-power, responsibility, ruling class, sovereignity, theodicy, world evil
Abstract of chapter VIII
We develop here some specifications on law, primarily a criticism of natural law, juridical positivism and contractualism. We show that the question of power can (and must) be faced head on, not only in relation to the evasive attitude of jusnaturalism, but also the relativist attitude, the unconstrained notion of power typical of juridical positivism, and some forms of contractualism. A more substantial notion of power is required if it is to be possible to overcome key deficiencies that mar these various doctrines of law (deficiencies which the various proponents of these theories are happy to identify in rival theories). Having emphasized some recent confusions surrounding juridical thought and concerning core aspects of juridical phenomena, we delineate, in the light of our methodological categories, a doctrine that we denominate juridical objectivism, aimed at remedying the drawbacks of the doctrines of law previously considered.
Keywords: command-power, free will, fundamental norm, general will, imperium and abuse, juridical objectivism, legality-legitimacy
Abstract of chapter IX
In this chapter we point out that the observational approach, because it is blind to doing, obliged Weber to emphasize value relativism and incommensurabilism, thus resulting in an extremely weak scientific standard. Boudon’s work, aimed at extracting all the objectivist potentiality from the observational method in the study of society, even in the field of ethics, provides one of the most instructive expressions of the limitations of the observation view. In fact, Boudon’s cognitive objectivism rests on the idea that, in the very long run, social reality is obliged to converge towards rational solutions if it is to survive: a spontaneity of vision that sets aside the very question represented by the enormous torments (that has been described as the terror of history), that are only heightened and intensified with increasing structural change and that such a spontaneous convergence implies. This merely observational standard obliges Boudon to accept incommensurabilism and even Durkheim’s assimilation of the procedure of science to magic, and to adopt as his own Tocqueville’s resignation in the face of lost opportunities.
Keywords: closed and open societies, cognitivism, diffuse rationality, incommensurability, individualism, social evolution
Abstract of chapter X
The question of ethics may stand out more clearly if we confront it with religious thinking. We mark the assessment of the medieval canonist that the task of rational thinking is to explore the reason why the world has been constructed the way it is, a proposition which is fully appropriate concerning an inquiry into the social world. But Christian social thought was later compelled to accept the hegemony of the opposing observational view, which is appropriate to the study of natural world but which has trapped social thought in the Weberian position that denies rationality with respect to values and ends and accepts only instrumental rationality (i.e. with respect to means). As a consequence, Christian thought has been compelled to oppose ethical absolutism (i.e. values based on faith) to ethical relativism. We point out how recent meditations on the dialogue between Fides et Ratio, as well as some debate on ethical values among important students of society, persist in this equivocation.
Keywords: Christian social thought, encyclicals, ethical absolutism, ethical relativism, ethical objectivism, faith and reason, global ethics, instrumental rationality
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[1] See H. Ekstedt and A. Fusari, Economic theory and social science. Routledge 2010, London-New York
[2] See A. Fusari (2000), Human adventure. An inquiry on the ways of people and civilizations. Edizioni SEAM, Rome. This study starts from primitive societies and embraces the great Asian and Mediterranean empires and societies, Arab civilization, European Feudal and Medieval societies and the Renaissance, through to the beginning of the eighteenth century.
[3]See A. Fusari (2008) Reason and dnomination. Ethics, politics and economics in modern global society, Marco Editore, Cosenza
[4] See B. Russel (1981) Philosophy and science. Newton Compton, Rome, p. 37
[5] Some students (in particular, von Mises and Hayek) did indeed declare the inability of real socialism to govern society and attributed that inability mainly to the elimination of prices and the entrepreneurial function; a conviction subsequently confirmed by Popper. But it was not a widely shared conviction and was often derided by social scientists. It lacked persuasiveness because not founded on a solid and shared methodological base.
[6] The almost grotesquely reactionary coup d’état attempted in Russia in 1991 demonstrated the total ineptness of the old Soviet bureaucracy.
[7] Significant examples are Boolean algebra and non-Euclidean geometries that, long after their initial formulation, proved to be highly valuable in, respectively, information theory and the explorations of sidereal space.
[8] See M. Pera (1982). But some scholars (e.g. Popper) deny the necessity of the first term O of the procedure.
[9] One may conjecture that the Whole always remains identical in its immortality; but such a statement has not a scientific character, as it is unverifiable. Reality is always evolutionary.
[10] I. Lakatos emphasizes this aspect by saying: «If science aims at the truth, it must aim at coherence; if it renounces to coherence, it renounces to the truth» See I. Lakatos, ‘Falsification and the method of the programs of scientific research’, In: Criticism and growth of knowledge, edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1984, p. 220
[11] The whole route of human history is characterized by the indefatigable search for successful innovations in order to achieve power; this phenomenon is particularly evident in the modern economy, where competition is mainly based on innovations.
[12] The omission of doing has been justified by positivist social scientists through an interpretation of the Hume’s law according to which it is a logical mistake to move from being to doing or, in other words, a prescriptive statement cannot be rationally grounded. Let us insist that this is true for nature (and hence for the observational-experimental method pertaining to this), since doing does not exists in nature. But as we shall see, a method appropriate for the understanding of social reality must first of all concern itself with combining being and doing.
[13] Scholars often say that the objectivity of the social studies is undermined by the fact that Man is both agent and observer; but this ignores the fact that what is relevant for science is the objectivity of the scientist, not of Man as such. Moreover, hermeneutics maintains that as Man is part of society, intuition is fundamental in understanding social phenomena; but, unfortunately (or fortunately), everybody has his own intuition! We can see, therefore, that our methodological distinction between natural and social reality rests on reasons different from those emphasized by Dilthey, Rickert and – as we shall see extensively – Weber.
[14] The weak observational method is not absent in the study of natural phenomena, e.g. Darwinian teaching as centered on accidental mutations.
[15] (B Mandeville 1984), p.3
[16] In particular, Rawls’ principles of justice, which provide the basis of the most recent and severe forms of contractualism, do not really clarify the distinction between objective and subjective aspects, between freedom and constriction. See (H. Ekstedt & A. Fusari 2010), chapter 3, pp. 82-84.
[17] For the most part, ancient societies were careful to sanction the intangibility and consecration of inherited values, institutions and usages. On the whole, intellectual inquiries were not directed to the discussion of such contents, but rather evoked new horizons and aimed at the acquisition of immutable truths, as in the case of Plato’s ideas (Plato’s teacher Socrates of course proving an exception, his fate pointing to a perceived incompatibility between such exception and the stability of ancient society). There were in addition comparative analyses, such as we find in the political works of Aristotle and Polybius, but such comparisons always served to emphasize the importance of stability and repetitiveness in social processes across the cyclical vicissitudes of institutional forms.
[18] A detailed analysis of this subject may be found in (A. Fusari 2005b), and in: (H. Ekstedt & A. Fusari 2010), mainly chapters 5 and 8.
[19] The misunderstandings considered have been accompanied by others caused by senseless abstractions; for instance, those typical of neoclassical economics which model the market leaving out of consideration the entrepreneur and profit (this last being identified merely with interest on capital), and also leaving out of consideration innovation and radical uncertainty.
[20] The race toward moral perversion is greatly anterior to Mandeville’s teaching and is deeply rooted in a world the operational mechanisms of which have always been largely based on cheating and intrigues; a world that has been largely inspired by the following ancient saying: “The burglar of a kingdom is praiseworthy, but he who robs too little deserves prison”. Byzantine theology gave merit to him who succeeded in becoming emperor, even if he ascended to imperial power through the worst crimes. The guiding idea here was that sovereignty came from God’s will, thus forgetting that frequently sovereign power has been Satan’s armed hand. It is time to take to flight from these cynical stupidities.
[21] This aspect has been developed extensively by A. Fusari in chapter 8 of Economic theory and social change, Routledge, 2010.
[22] More details on the matter are to be found in A. Fusari, Reason and domination, as well as section 5 of chapter 4 of this book
[23] See V. Mosini, Reassessing the paradigm of economics, Routledge 2011
[24] See V. Mosini (2011), p. 139.
[25] Many examples on this matter, framed on a planetary scale, may be found in: (A Fusari 2000)
[26] Long lasting discussions and controversies on axioms and postulates have agitated logical-formal sciences notwithstanding these sciences need, by their nature, a very limited number of postulates. The situation with regard to postulates is much more complicated when deductive procedure is applied in the social sciences; nevertheless, these sciences have dedicated little attention to the question of postulates.
[27] See H. Albert (2012[1963]) and 1993: J. Kapeller (2013)
[28] C.S. Peirce underlined the sterility of induction as a supposed seed of creativity, as well as the conservative inclination of logical deduction. He added, therefore, a third category to induction and deduction that he termed "abduction", which concerned creative formulation of explanatory hypotheses. But this new category has not generated any elaboration on method that facilitates creativity in formulating theoretical hypotheses. The role that Peirce attributes to metaphor in this regard must be considered with great caution; in fact, and as pointed out above, methods elaborated by other sciences are completely inappropriate to social research.
[29] Note that structural change due to creativity impedes the use of conventional modeling and stability analysis, i.e. analysis based on a precise quantitative structure from which are derived eigenvectors and which allow the development of quali-quantitative analyses of the effects of changes in parameters.
[30] See T. Parsons (1987 and 1964)
[31]Of course, abstracting also from the particular conditions of nature.
[32] For instance, and as we shall see in the paragraph on exemplification, Kirzner's analysis of economic process implicitly specifies (and is hinged on) some basic functional imperatives of modern dynamic economies (the entrepreneur, market process, decentralization of decision making). Again, Williamson's analysis centered on transaction costs, as well as the economic analysis of rights (EAR), are substantially aimed at pointing out that the firm’s organization and some rights represent functional imperatives.
[33] The results presented in this and the previous paragraph may provide a substantial contribution to the solution of the “post positivist puzzle of relativism” and the incommensurability problem, pointed out by M. Ardebili (2003). R. Bhaskar’s solution here is not exhaustive since it eludes the ontology of science, i.e. “the scientists’ conception of reality”.
[34] Such powers might be substituted by forms of imperialism; but these are strongly opposed by the conscience of modern Man.
[35] See (H. Ecksted and A. Fusari 2010), chapter 8.
[36] For instance, a desert people and a seafaring people will be induced by their differing environmental circumstances to construct dissimilar institutions and social orders. Institutional and organizational dissimilarities will also mark the social systems of peoples with – for example – different religious beliefs and/or different technological conditions.
[37] It should be noted that the term civilization as so defined means something different than does the term culture. Even when this latter term is taken in the wide sense attributed to it by anthropologists, the notion of civilization just given is, still, the wider and more stringent one. Of particular importance, the term civilization as so defined expresses better than the term culture the imprinting of what I have called ‘grand options’ upon the basic features of the social system, side by side with the other basic organizational categories that I denominate functional and ontological imperatives, and avoids mixing with these categories.
[38] Naturally, the two types interact; indeed, the same innovation may belong to both categories. Other types of innovations, such as radical and incremental ones, should be considered; they play a crucial role in economic modeling (see, for instance, Fusari and Reati 2013; Ekstedt and Fusari 2010)
[39] For example, it must be ascertained that the value premises adopted constitute a consistent set, headed by supreme ideals, followed by some other general value premises and, still further down, specific value premises. In other words, each norm must be coherent with the overarching system of ideals.
[40]Such an invariant structure permits quali-quantitative mathematical analyses directed to investigate the existence of equilibrium, its stability or to point out the existence of strange attractors shaping chaotic areas.
[41] See L. L. Pasinetti (1993), page. 49.
[42] The European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) provides one of the best instances of the attempt to marry evolutionary and institutional thought. This is expressed well, for example, in the convergence of the institutionalism of G. M.. Hodgson and the social evolutionism of U. Witt.
[43] F. Archibugi has argued acutely against positive economics. His emphasis on the ‘programmatic approach’ highlights the most relevant tools on optimal planning. But this kind of constructivism, which emphasizes doing and almost forgets being and ignores the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’, expresses a totally unilateral constructivist feature, which is the main reason for the failure of the method of economic and social planning. See (F. Archibugi 2007), Preliminary draft, Italian.
[44] See, G. Ruffolo (1973) Rapporto sulla programmazione, Laterza, Bari
[45] A special case is represented by the insistence on “natural law” but referring to doing, with the Enlightenment philosophes at the extreme, professing explicit hostility to history.
[46] The empiricist David Hume wrote: “all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of this last supposition by probable arguments, or arguments regarding existence, must be evidently going in circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question.” (D. Hume 1997), Italian edition with English text, p. 54
[47] This has induced some social students (e.g. Brian Loasby) to remark that it is sometimes reasonable to ignore the destructive effect on theories of new events inconsistent with them.
[48] Popper says: «neither observation nor reason can be described as a source of knowledge» (Karl R. Popper 1969), p. 73
[49] See I. Lakatos, The history of science and its rational reconstructions, In: Lakatos and Musgrave (eds), Criticism and growth of knowledge, Feltrinelli, Milan 1984, pp. 375 and 376.
[50] See I. Lakatos, Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programs, In: Lakatos and Musgrave (ed), Criticism and growth of knowledge, Feltrinelli, Milan 1984, p. 257.
[51] (I Lakatos 1984), Volume I, p. 90.
[52] I Lakatos, ibidem, p. 69.
[53] (T Kuhn 1978), p. 119.
[54] T. Kuhn, Notes on Lakatos, In: Lakatos and Musgrave (ed), Criticism and growth of knowledge, Feltrinelli, Milan 1984, p. 412.
[55](T Kuhn 1978), p 248.
[56] (G Dosi 1982), p. 148.
[57] Ibid, footnote 14 at page 152.
[58] Indeed, Dosi recognizes the phenomenon of radical uncertainty when he says: “increases in current information augment future predictability if they can sample on a closed lake but not necessarily on a flowing river”. See G Dosi and J S Metcalfe, On some notions of irreversibility in economics. In: (P P Saviotti and J S Metcalfe 1988), (ed), p. 141.
[59] See A Fusari 2013.
[60] (H Ekstedt and A Fusari 2010), chapter 1.
[61] T Lawson (2012), Ontology and the study of social reality: emergence, organization, community, power, social relations, corporations, artifacts and money’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 36. (the page numbers of quotations concerning this article are referred in brackets inside this section).
[62] Lawson says: “the lower level components indeed do not contain all that is causally relevant; and this is precisely because higher-level properties depend in part on how the lower-level components come to be organized involving relations external to the component organized, where this organization is itself part of the higher-level.” Ibid, p. 358.
[63] See T Lawson (2013) p. 15
[64] Ibidem, p. 20
[65] (L von Mises (1988), pp. 39, 40, 41.
[66] “Some general concepts of science are not fictitious but adequately represent the objective external world”. See (T Parsons 1987), p. 780.
[67] “The ideal type is obtained through the unilateral accentuation of one or more points of view”. “The possibility of a sensible knowledge is constrained by the continuous reference to specific points of view”. See M. Weber (1974), p. 108.
[68] G. Myrdal (1969), The objectivity of social research, Pantheon Books. We consider here the Italian edition by Einaudi, Turin, and translate the reported extracts (the page numbers of quotations are referred in brackets inside this section).
[69] See J. B. Davis (2008), The turn in recent economics and return of orthodoxy. Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 32, pp. 363 nad 364
[70] See M Faber and John L R Proops. Evoloution in biology, physics and economics: a conceptual analysis. In: P P Saviotti and J S Metcalfe, 1988 (ed), p. 82
[71] See H. Ekstedt and A. Fusari. Economic theory and social change. Routledge 2010, pages 21 and 22
[72] See P. Feyerabend (1975), p. 268. (the page numbers of quotations are referred in brackets inside this section).
[73] L. Pasinetti, Keynes and the Cambridge Keynesians. A ‘Revolution in Economics’ to be Accomplished, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007.
[74] It acts as “An analytical device to face complexity”. See L. L. Pasinetti, ibid p. 322.
[75] Pasinetti states: “The [neoclassical] model is – with regard to institutions – very demanding; or, we may say, from another point of view, very constraining and exclusive”. In: R Delorme and K Dopfer 1994 (ed), p. 37.
[76] The manager of a socialist economy, responsible for implementing the rule marginal cost = price, has nothing to do with the role of the entrepreneur (as we shall see) in meeting radical uncertainty and introducing innovation.
[77] (L. Pasinetti 1981), p. 25.
[78] (Ignazio Silone 1990).
[79] (A Fusari 2013).
[80] This representation does not necessarily require a micro specification but can be represented at the sectoral level. See, A. Fusari and A. Reati (2013). See also the formal model in chapter 5 of Ekstedt and Fusari, Routledge 2010
[81] This clearly appears from the formulation of a problem of optimization under the constraint of the available entrepreneurial skills (or some other scarce factor).
[82] ( J A Schumpeter 1977), p. 128.
[83] A Fusari, Economics and Society. Freedom, creativity and social justice, Contribution to the online conference: ‘Economics in Society. The Ethical Dimension’, March, 2012.
[84] The basic lines of this organizational model are set out in A. Fusari, Toward a non-capitalist market economy: spontaneous order and organization. In: Ekstedt and Fusari 2010, chapter 8 and also in A. Fusari 2005, American Review of Political Economy. We show here that the statement insisted upon by adherents of the neoclassical school, viz. that efficiency is in collision with social justice, and that this implies distributional inequalities, is a mistaken one, with the exception of the material incentives required by alienating works.
[85] This model can be transformed into a ‘necessary’ standard simply by the following operations : a) money wages must be expressed only as a function of the demand and supply of the labour force and represent a mere element of the cost that firms will charge on prices, not a component of income distribution; b) by contrast, in the equation of consumption, total money wages should be replaced by a component of income distribution that substitutes for them; c) the real interest rate should be zero, and hence the nominal interest rate should equate with inflation; d) the degree of inequality in income distribution must be erased as a variable stimulating product innovations, such a stimulus being relevant in a particular social system, capitalism.
[86] (F Knight 1950).
[87] (L L Pasinetti 2007), pp- 322 and 323.
[88](R Delorme and K Dopfer 1994 (eds.), p. 40 (emphasis in original).
[89] See E. Zaghini, R. W. Clower, etc.
[90] This author writes: «it might not be too much to argue that dominant research programs create conditions for their subsequent fragmentation, whereas periods of pluralism create conditions for the re-emergence of new dominant approaches». See J. B. Davis, The turn in recent economics and return of orthodoxy. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2008, vol. 32, n° 3 p. 351
[91] See J. B. Davis and D. Wade Hands (2011)
[92] See Salanti A. and E. Screpanti (1997)
[93] See L. Dobusch and J. Kapeller (2012)
[94] Disregard for the notions of ontological imperative and civilization probably represent the main lacuna of the evolutionary paradigm – both in its Darwinian and Lamarckian form – for the study and understanding of human societies.
[95] Faced with far-reaching changes in the general conditions of development, the existing civilizations either give up the fight and make an honourable surrender or, if they resist, are eventually undone by their paralyzing systemic inefficiencies.
[96] The following exposition is an analytical structure that can be applied also to various aspects of social development, such as economic development, artistic development, scientific development, and so on.
[97] In a way, this succession of the two moments of innovative drive and organizational structuring is found not only in societies but also in the life of individuals and, let us repeat, even in artistic and scientific processes.
[98] A deeper meditation on this matter, based on a variety of historical examples, may be found in (A Fusari 2000).
[99] The role of geography in conditioning the birth of the ancient poleis, as well as the ancient bureaucratic and autocratic empires, is well known.
[100] In primitive societies this condition was made possible by isolation from the rest of the world, while in caste societies it has been mainly the effect of the doctrine of karma.
[101]See (H Ekstedt and A Fusari 2010) where, among other things, a formalized model of such behavior is set out.
[102] On long waves, see (A Fusari and A Reati 2013).
[103] The less general and less permanent functional imperatives may be said to correspond to historical sub-phases.
[104] In a society still incapable of scientific organization, this attraction will come about in what we might call Darwinian forms; that is, will be the product of a universal struggle for life. In societies that have scientifically developed social theory, it will take place in explicit, planned forms.
[105] It is evident, in particular, that individuals endowed with exceptional skills are even inclined to work hard for nothing in order that they may use their skills, as many and sometimes dramatic historical examples show. It is a moral and functional mistake to consider those individuals as entitled to receive exceptional monetary rewards that often lead to the dissipation of these exceptional qualities through the corrupting effects of luxury.
[106] See H Ekstedt and A Fusari 2010, chapter 8: ‘Toward a non-capitalist market system; spontaneous order and organization’.
[107] (G. Ietto-Gillies 2012)
[108] See the reference in the footnote above.
[109] An extended treatment of the question of power may be found in A. Fusari 2008.
[110] An extensive analysis of this aspect, along with some simulation experiments, may be found in: (A Fusari 2005) and (Ekstedt and Fusari 2010).
[111] (J.A Schumpeter 1934).
[112] (I M Kirzner 1973 and 1985).
[113] For empirical applications, a measure of radical uncertainty can be expressed as the volatility of expectations (see later). Also, the standard deviation of profit rates across firms seems to offer a good variable for the analysis of dynamic competition and the business cycle since it expresses the dimension of adaptive profit opportunities as connected to limited knowledge and market disequilibria.
[114]The interaction innovaton-structural organization here discussed goes well beyond economics, as previously seen.
[115] It may be useful to underline that the measures of dynamic competition based on the rapidity of contraction of the standard deviation of profit rates across firms (as, for instance, in: (D C Mueller 1990) and others, or (H Odagiri 1994) only consider adaptive competition or, more precisely, parameter b3 of the above system. They ignore the other parameters and hence give a poor approximation to the intensity of competition and economic dynamism, as dynamic competition consists both in innovation and adaptation.
[116] The fact that only two observations were out liers, that the model is dynamic, and that there is no reason to assume that the cause, if any, of these anomalies were the same, suggested that the use of a dummy variable was inappropriate
[117] See A. Fusari, Human adventure, 2000
[118] This is just the opposite of Paretian economics, which is based on the abstract rationality criterion. As we said in Chapter 3; an impressive analytical dualism distinguishes the investigation of this author. He jumps from a rationalism strongly abstracting from reality in economics, to a true disregard of rationality in sociology.
[119] See Ortega y Gasset (1983), p.220.
[120] More precisely, Ortega y Gasset here speaks of mathematical and physical reason; he denies the possibility of applying mathematics in the study of social phenomena. But this denial must be rejected. He is thinking of the Newtonian mathematics of stationary motion. But mathematics allows great versatility. There is no denying the usefulness of game theory and non-linear mathematics for the study of important social phenomena.
[121] (Ortega y Gasset 1983) p.77.
[122] See l. Pellicani (1988), p. 118.
[123] Ibidem, p. 350.
[124] Ibidem, p 353.
[125] (F Fukuyama 1992)
[126] (S Huntington1997), p. 14.
[127] ( G. Ietto-Gillies 2012)
[128] (Mircea Eliade, Borla 1968), p. 189.
[129] (Mircea Eliade 1996) p. 422
[130] (R Benedict 1974), p.103.
[131](R Benedict 1974), p. 194.
[132](W E Washburn 1997), p. 79.
[133](R Benedict 1974), p. 146.
[134] (B Malinowski 1977)
[135](M. Mead 1982), p. 65
[136](A J Toynbee 1950), p. 230.
[137] (Ch Lemercier-Quelquejeir 1971); and (O. Lattimore 1970).
[138] (B Malinowski 1981), p. 49.
[139](C Levi-Strauss 1992), pp. 65-66.
[140] Levi-Strauss, ibidem, p. 75.
[141] See P. Clastres, La societé contre l’etat: recherches d’anthropologie politique , Feltrinelli, Milan, 1984
[142] See M D Sahlins, The segmentary lineage: an organization for the predatory expansion. In: U Fabietti 1991 (ed), p. 93
[143] (P C Salzman 1971), p. 417.
[144] (P Bohannan 1958)
[145] E Durkheim, Definition of religious phenomena. In E Durkheim and M Mauss 1981 (ed), p. 37.
[146](J Bodin 1981), p. 138.
[147] (H. Kelsen 1994), p. 23
[148] (A de Tocqueville 1955), pp. 730 and 734.
[149] (G Mosca 1994), p. 50.
[150] (K Schmitt 1972), pp. 37 and 39.
[151] (K Schmitt 1981), p. 42.
[152] (B Constant 1999), p. 41
[153] Bodin defines sovereignty as the absolute and perpetual power pertaining to national state, and adds: “What the prince likes to allow, order or forbid becomes law, edict, ordinance”. See J. Bodin, Anthology of political writings, pp. 141 and 148.
[154] J. K Galbraith, American Capitalism, Etass Kompass, Milan, 1968
[155] See H. Ekstedt and A. Fusari, Routledge, 2010.
[156] (J Mill 1999), pp. 13 and 65.
[157] (J Locke 1999), p.21
[158](A de Tocqueville 1992), p. 393.
[159] Of course, the problem (and mystery) of free will is a completely different thing. Schopenhauer dedicated a great deal of work to showing the inexistence of free will, i.e. “the possibility of acting in deliberately contradictory ways”. He wrote: «a free will needs to be not caused by any motive and by nothing». See A. Schopenhauer, The freedom of human will, Editrice Lateza, Rome, 2001, p. 49. But this causality can only be referred to the field of ‘necessity’, which can and must be subjected to reason and science. It cannot be referred to the field of “choice-possibility-creativeness”, which gives rise to the immense variety of historical processes. We think that a man may choose to be a criminal or an honest person, notwithstanding that many social, environmental, domestic, genetic, etc. influences may push him in one direction or another. At any rate civil freedom, the object of our analysis, is a completely different thing from free will.
[160] Boudon’s attempt to reconcile the observational method and ethics is in vain; that is, his attempt to show the objectivity of values on the basis of the spontaneity option implied by Weber’s idea of ‘diffuse rationality’ according to which spontaneous processes lead to the prevalence of “right values” is not convincing. In fact, spontaneity denies doing and reduces the ethical aspect to being and existing, which contradicts the very notion of ethical value.
[161] For a better treatment of these aspects, see chapter 8 in: (Ekstedt and Fusari 2010).
[162] (M Weber 1997), p. 101.
[163] (M. Weber, ibidem), p.106.
[164] (M. Weber, Ibidem), p. 106.
[165] The cooperation of human minds and the cumulativeness of knowledge need a method the general lines of which are shared by the community of students and that is appropriate to the character of the considered reality. The consciousness of this necessity has suggested to us that we concentrate on method, denounce the serious and inauspicious implications of the methodological confusion afflicting social thought, and insist on finding remedies to it.
[166] See. M. Weber, Ibidem, p. 111
[167] See. M. Weber, Ibidem, p. 112.
[168] (J J Rousseau 1962a), p. 4.
[169] (J J Rousseau 1962b), p.226.
[170] Ibidem, p. 224
[171] As described in chapter 8 of H Ekstedt and A Fusari (2010).
[172] For a fuller treatment of this aspect, see chapter VIII in Ekstedt and Fusari (2010).
[173] What is written here is considered much more widely and with many examples in A Fusari (2000).
[174] In the most efficient centralized society of the past, the Celestial Empire of ancient China, the Mandarines’ bureaucracy selected civil servants by way of severe examinations intended to establish the knowledge, culture and forma mentis appropriate to the administration of a stationary empire, in which entrepreneurship was suffocated.
[175] See, T. Nagel (1991) pp. 143 and 160
[176] (A Touraine 1997) p. 82.
[177] (E Carr 1966), p. 60.
[178] Ibidem, pp. 104 and 105.
[179] (See A. Fusari 2000)
[180] On this matters and events, see (A Fusari, 2000).
[181]R Cowley, (ed.) La storia fatta con i se (2001)
[182] Ibidem, p.9.
[183] (N. Bobbio 2011)
[184] (H Kelsen 1994), p. 126.
[185] Ibidem, p.124.
[186] (H Kelsen 1963), p. 403
[187] (H Kelsen 1994), p.140.
[188] Preface to (N Bobbio 2011), p. XVIII.
[189] (J Rawls 1971).
[190] (R. Nozick 2000).
[191](N Irti 2005).
[192]( J Ortega y Gasset 1994)
[193] In fact, Ortega’s notion of right was derived from his study of the Roman imperial state.
[194] (J Ortega y Gasset, ibidem, 1994), p. 244
[195] (R Boudon 2004a), pp. 7-40
[196] (R Boudon 2005b), and (2004b)
[197] (R Boudon 2004a), p.21
[198] Ibidem, p. 23
[199]It may be useful to note that this cognitivism is something different from causal cognition that according R. Viale is concerning “perceptions of causality that are not affected by previous experience” but are a priori with respect to this, probably as an effect of the evolution of human mind by selection. (R. Viale 1999).
[200] The term observational is here not limited to positivism and neo-positivism; for instance, evolutionary thought also has an observational standard.
[201] As we know, the importance Pareto attributes to meta-rational or irrational behaviour pushed him (in his Treatise on general sociology) to propose the notions of residuals and derivations for the analysis of social phenomena.
[202] (B. Russell 1981), p. 36
[203](R. Boudon 2004b), p. 58
[204] R Boudon, The poverty of relativism, The Bardwell Press, Oxford and Cambridge, p. 60. Boudon previously writes (page 53): “In the scientific domain it is possible to say that a proposition or theory is objectively valid from the point at which, as a consequence of a solid chain of argument, it is imperative that, potentially, it will be universally accepted”.
[205] (E. Durkheim 1960), p. 146
[206] (R Boudon 2004b), p.60.
[207] (R. Boudon 2004b), p.62.
[208] (R Boudon 2004b), p. 69.
[209] See R. Boudon (2004b) p. 69.
[210] (Voltaire 1995), p.137
[211] The coherence, elaborateness and the important role of Confucian and Zuñi ethics in their respective societies are impressive.
[212] Mircea Eliade wrote: “The main difference between the man of archaic-traditional societies and the man of modern societies, strongly marked by Judaic-Christian thinking, is that the first feels sympathy with the cosmos and cosmic cadences, while the second only feels sympathy with history”. (M Eliade 1968), p. 5.
[213] It is not our intention to investigate the causes of the advent of the linear-progressive vision of time. It is sufficient to quote J. Moltman on the God of goal and promise of nomadic peoples and on the epiphanic religions of agricultural people. Moltman writes: “The Israelite tribes that established themselves on the earth preserved the God of promise typical of nomadic people and the corresponding notion of the world, conjoining it with their recent experience as farmers and making an effort to practice and dominate their new experiences in the light of the God of promise”, that is, in the light of a progressive notion of time. (J Moltman 1970), p. 97.
[214] (B Forte 1991), p. 12.
[215] G. Ruffolo has represented well the astonishing recovery and the appearance of new perspectives after the annihilation of society that followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire. (G Ruffolo 2004). L. Pellicani has, in addition, underlined the importance of feudal decentralisation and disjunction. (L Pellicani 1988).
[216] We can see, therefore, that a deficiency in the understanding of principles (b) and (c) was a main cause of the two main scissions of the Christian world: the Protestant Reformation and the separation of Western and Eastern Churches.
[217] The reference to cycles is also frequent in our own time, but today it concerns evolutionary and progressive cycles that are inevitably generated by the physiological opposition between innovation and adaptation; on which, see (A Fusari 2005b).
[218] (H Küng 1990), p. 48.
[219] (G Ruffolo 2004), p. 10.
[220] All this is extensively clarified in (A. Fusari 2000).
[221] See, for instance, the Chicago Declaration on global ethics of September 1993.
[222] (S. Zamagni 2012).
[223] See A. Fusari, in: (H. Ekstedt and A. Fusari 2010), p.10
[224] Encyclical by Jean Paul the Second, 1998, pp. 40 and 124.
[225] Ibidem, pp. 94-95.
[226] Ibidem, p. 141.
[227] (J Ratzinger 2005), p.61.
[228] (M Pera and J Ratzinger 2004), p. 61.
[229] Ibidem, p. 11.
[230] Encyclical Spe Salvi by Benedetto 2008, p. 46
[231] B Forte. Ibidem, p. 26.
[232] David Hume (1997) An inquiry concerning the principles of moral Laterza Rome, with English text, p. 26.
[233] Ibidem, p.40.
[234] Ibidem, p. 54.
[235] Ibidem, p. 56.
[236] Ibidem, p. 68.
[237] Ibidem, p. 96 and 194.
[238] Ibidem, p. 188.
[239] Ibidem, p. 98.
[240] Smith A. (1910) An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, Dent, London, p. 13.
[241] Smith A. (1976), The theory of moral sentiments, edited by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, Clarendon Press, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 9.
[242] Ibidem, pp 97 and 99.
[243] Ibidem, p. 105.
[244] Ibidem, p. 116.
[245] See Kant I (1982) The critique of pure reason. The critique of practical reason. The critique of judgment. William Benton publisher. Enciclopaedia Britannica Inc. Chicago, London, Toronto, Geneva, Sydney, Tokyo, Manila, p.256.
[246] Ibidem, pp. 256- 257.
[247] Ibidem, p. 260.
[248] Ibidem, p. 261.
[249] See, B. Mandeville, The fable of bees, p. 37.
[250] It does not seem appropriate to discriminate against animals because deprived of reason. We can dissent from the empiricist Hume, who does not see differences in principle between the reason of man and animals; but it cannot be denied that animals could experience, in the very long run, an evolution similar to that undergone by the primordial men that Vico described as “wild, violent and inhumane”.
[251] See J. Bentham. Deontology and the science of moral, Paravia, Milan, p. 31.
[252] (Ekstedt H. and A. Fusari 2010), pp. 82-84.
[253] (M Pera and J Ratzinger 2004).
[254] Ibidem. p. 123.
[255] Ibidem, p. 5.
[256] (M Pera 1982).
[257] (M Pera and J Ratzinger 2005), pp. 15 and 16.
[258] Ibidem, p. 16.
[259] (M. Pera and J. Ratzinger 2005), p. 19 and 22.
[260] (D Antiseri 2005).
[261] Ibidem, p. IX.
[262] Ibidem, p. 23.
[263] (G Giorello 2005).
[264] Ibidem, p 53.
[265] (G Giorello, Relativism. In; G Boniolo 2006) ed.
[266] See A Fusari, chapter 5 in: Ekstedt and Fusari (2010), and A. Fusari and A. Reati 2012, and A. Fusari 2013.
[267] G Giorello, Relativism, in G. Boniolo (ed) 2006, p. 234
[268] Pope Jean Paul II, in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in 2001, said: “Mankind, in the presence of the globalization process, cannot do without a common ethical code”. The enduring dedication of Hans Küng to global ethics is well known, as is also the growing attention of the United Nations to this matter.
[269] But the development and simulation, in another book (H. Ekstedt and A. Fusari, Routledge 2010, chapter 5) of a large formalized interdependence model of the economy gives a proof that mathematics must not be dismissed, as the abuse of abstract formalization and of econometrics might seem to suggest; such a model shows that appropriate use of mathematics may generate valuable contributions in the field of social science.
-----------------------
Creative
verve
Forms of
civilization
Case A .
Societies highly
respectful of
ontological imperatives (e.g.
decentralized orders)
Case B
Societies weakly respectful of ontologic imperatives (e.g. bureaucratic empires, autocracies, castes)
Cycle innovation-
organization, and advancement of the general conditions of development
Long stagnation.
Sedimentation of
innovations mostly
coming from the
external world
New functional
imperatives
New
civilizations
New
functional
imperatives
Fall and
interregnum
New
civilization
................
................
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