First, let me make it clear, if I haven't before, that I believe capitalist
democracy has achieved wonderful things in the world and it is the best
system humanity has developed in terms of achieving human liberty. I'm
disturbed by the reaction to my words and others in recent postings, to the
effect that criticism of capitalism, in particular, equals advocacy of
socialism. That's as narrow-minded as the opposite assumption, which would
be that criticism of the excesses of capitalism can only be controlled via a
return to conservative political values. The socialism of the left and
conservatism of the right are knowns; I think we're moving into a largely
unknown system that will be as foreign to us as our system would have been
to medieval people.
Now, on to loneliness and capitalism.
As an argument against the notion that capitalism and democracy can be
completely trusted to give people what they want, I'd like to consider
George Gallup Jr.'s polls that show that U.S. citizens consider themselves
among the loneliest in the world and that loneliness has been a steadily
rising phenomenon over the last few decades. How can this be reconciled
with the belief that our economic and political system is giving people what
they want? If we live in a system that delivers what is wanted, why would
people take society in a direction that opposes a most fundamental human
want (and need)?
I'll offer a very high-level answer. I think this is the natural result of
depending too much on competition as a source of order. It not only
isolates individuals, but it naturally leads to self-interested
organizations which, when they become big enough, are able to manipulate the
very feedback loops that would otherwise regulate them. It disregards the
role of collaborative, self-organizing principles in nature, which have only
recently become the subject of scientific exploration.
I guess it would be naive not to expect that the words above would lead
people to assume that I either advocate socialism, authoritarianism or
conservatism. But I don't. I believe that as we bump up against the
limitations of modern sources of economic and political order, we are also
discovering new ones. The Internet itself is the most familiar example, I
believe, since its order arises in large part from a design that was from
the beginning collaborative. Agreement on standards for TCP/IP and routing
make the Internet smart enough to route around damage. That's not to say
that hierarchical authority and competition aren't present in its
architecture. The DNS is hierarchical; the dependence on a number of
services on ratings is competitive.
I bring up loneliness for a couple of reasons. One is that it is certainly
a deeply felt human emotion. The other is that it is also relieved by
collaboration. I'm not going to pretend that there is anything resembling a
clear scientific theory to explain how collaboration and the related concept
of self-organization operate, so we're still quite deep in the land of the
intuitive. But researchers such as Stuart Kauffman, Ken Arrow, Lynn
Margulis and others are certainly heading us in that direction as they
struggle with explanations of order is propagated in nature.
Nick Arnett
Direct phone: 408-733-7613 Fax: 408-904-7198
