Economic and Higher Values

1
Oklahoma City University
2
Economicsin TheSpectrum of Values Mostafa
Moini, Ph. D.

• Presented at the
• Faith and Scholarship Forum
• Oklahoma City University
• March 13, 2002

3
Axilogy studies values regardless of their
specific character.

• Thus economic values, moral values, family
  values, political values, etc., all come under
  the span of axiology.
• Axiology is, therefore, the general theory of
  value.
• Investigation of the interrelations that exist
  between the various domains of value constitutes
  a major part of axiology.

4

• Having been in use for more than half a century
  or so, the term axiology has yielded to Theory
  of Value.
• For reasons unrelated to my purpose today I find
  the older terminology more effective.

5

• I will say a few things about economic values and
  then move on to the examination of the relation
  between these and the higher values.
• This will be followed by some brief remarks about
  the relations between values, social relations
  and the organization of the economy.

6
What is economics all about?

• About money?
• Jobs?
• Inflation?
• Energy prices?
• Stock market, labor unions, international trade
  and finance?
• Yes, it is about these and many others like them.

7
These are the surface phenomena

• What lies below the surface is human activities
  directed toward the attainment of definite ends.
• The principal players in the field are three
  Families, Governmental bodies at various levels,
  and business firms.
• All three try to use the means available to them
  to attain the highest levels of realization of
  their ends

8
Each group seeks different ends

• Families (also referred to consumers) seek
  subjective satisfaction.
• Governmental bodies seek to realize their stated
  objectives, these presumably being the goods and
  services collectively wanted by the population.
• Firms seek profit.
• Because all three are interested in attaining the
  highest level of realization of their objectives
  that is consistent with their limited means, they
  are said to be optimizers.

9
Value

• Value of anything is the present estimate of the
  future benefits expected from it. The concept of
  benefit is strictly derived from the nature of
  the ends sought.
• For a consumer, value is subjective.
• For firms value of anything consists of its
  expected contribution to profit.
• For Governmental bodies value of anything
  consists of its expected contribution to the
  realization of the particular agencys objective.

10
Ends and Means

• Economics does not concern itself with the
  nature of the ends. What consumers like or
  dislike is treated as given.
• Economics is concerned with how the optimizing
  behavior of consumers and firms leads to the
  emergence of markets, business organizations,
  prices, foreign exchange, etc.

11
Economics and Ethics

• Whereas economics simply notes a persons ends
  as they are, ethics seeks to prescribe what they
  should be.
• It appears therefore that the two disciplines can
  stay out of each others way on rather definitive
  grounds.
• Such has not been the case in practice.
• The economy produces results that may appear to
  some to be inconsistent with higher values, such
  as truth, justice, quality of life, etc.

12
These may be referred to as aspects of GOOD LIFE

• that archetypal image of society
• which has preoccupied the minds of the
• philosophers, saints, and prophets
• from the time of antiquity to this day.

13

• Higher consciousness has never tired of its
  perennial search for a
• social order worthy
• of human dignity.

14

• Can man live by bread alone?
• The conflict between economics and higher values
  is of ancient standing.
• Indeed great religions emerged during the times
  of unusual decadence, when higher values were
  held in contempt and greed, lust, and display of
  power and wealth were the order of the day.

15

• It appears that the economy is not as ethically
  neutral as the distinction noted earlier
  suggests.
• The war between the animal soul and the divine
  soul which is waged deep within each human spirit
  manifests itself in the economic arena as well.

16

• The idea that the economy may or may not be
  ethically neutral is not an economic question.
• An analogy may be suggestive.
• When the general public got very concerned about
  the environment, economists were able to come up
  with a variety of means that would help attain
  wat the public wanted.

17

• But the environment is a more tangible concept
  than the moral wealth of a society.
• Suppose, however, that breaking a societys
  taboos has entertainment value and businesses
  capitalize on this and, for example, weaken the
  taboo on murder and other violence.
• Should a societys taboos be considered a
  (moral) resource?

18

• If wekened taboos mean less sane children and
  less productive adults, more incarceration, etc.,
  the society ends up worse off.
• Thus the moral and spiritual capital of a
  society is a historically-evolved, or
  divinely-established resource similar to the
  natural resources that are the results of eons of
  evolutionary events on the planet.

19

• This moral capital is public property and
  should no more be free for the taking than are
  the environmental resources.
• The market system itself could not function well
  if a populations work ethics deteriorates
  unduly.
• How to protect a societys moral capital against
  the intrusions of the market system is a complex
  issue.

20

• But there is little doubt that recognition of the
  nature and extent of the problem is the first
  order of the business.
• The market system gives the people what they
  want.
• In this respect it is more democratic than the
  political system.
• What matters is, therefore, what the people want.

21

• Do people have an ideal of
• Good Life
• or are they satisfied with
• THE LIFE OF THE
• SWINE?

22
GOOD LIFE

• is an IDEAL
• That which can never be realized,
• and yet without which a society has direction, no
  compass

23
GOOD LIFE

• IDEALS align people in common directions and lead
  to good social realtions.

24
Economics is aboutsocial relations.

• No economic system, capitalism included, can
  continue for long
• if it is inconsistent with the
• Archetype of
• Good Life

25

• This Archetype is the internal compass of
  mankind.

26
Economics cannot be divorced from the

• moral and spiritual
• aspirations of mankind.

27

• Those who want to reduce economics
• to its lowest denomination, the free play of
  the acquisitive instinct,
• are vulgarizing this most noble of all
  sciences.

28

• Such misconception about the science will disarm
  humanity from asking economics for what?
• and will leave mankind defenseless against the
  rise of absolute economic power of a small
  minority.

29

• Under the influence of positivism and scientism,
  these concerns is branded as unscientific by
  some economists.
• But others, such as
• Kenneth Boulding
• have engaged heavily and effectively in
  addressing these issues.

30

• Kenneth Ewert Boulding
• 1910-1993

31
Being a Quaker, Boulding could not divorce his
economics from the perennial ideals of humanity,
as expressed in the great spiritual and
philosophical traditions around the world.
Bouldings works testify to the truth of what
another great 20th century economist, Joseph
Schumpeter, believed
Ethics is among the strongest factors that
motivates an economists work.
32
Bouldings works epitomizethe vision of

• HIGHER ECONOMICS

33
The notion of HIGHER ECONOMICS isnot as
far-fetched as it may sound.

• Were the sciences ever to transcend the Great
  Galilean Rupture,
• they would then search for and find that unity
• which necessarily envelopes all the diverse
  sciences.

34
Then, following the ancients, economics
would be understood as a branch of practical
philosophy, along with ethics and politics.

• This classification is the key to the proper
  understanding of the relations between these
  distinct fields,
• and between them as whole and the other
  branches of science.

35
But the Coprnican Revolution

• that laid the foundation of the present extent
  of powers of man over nature
• also started a tradition that in time
• destroyed the unity of sciences,
• which had been worked out so admirably by the
  ancients.

36
Copernican Revolution

• It was in 1530 that Copernicus began to circulate
  his commentariolus, a brief popular account of
  his heliocentric theory, which refuted the
  prevailing geocentric view.
• When his main treatise was being published, he
  was in deathbed and remained unconscious of the
  fact that an anonymous preface had been put in,
  to the effect that the findings and the reasoning
  that led to them were of a purely hypothetical
  character. Apparently it had been hoped that this
  would prevent turmoil and Church censorship.1
  In retrospect it appears that the strategy was
  successful. Things remained quiet for several
  decades.

37

• It would be nearly another century before Galileo
  would be obliged to reply to the first
  ecclesiastical attack upon his work.
• In the course of a Letter to the Grand Duchess
  Christine of Lorraiine, he strongly supported the
  words of Cardinal Baronius that

38

• the Holy Spirit intended to teach us in the
  Bible about
• how to go to Heaven
• not
• how the heavens go.

39
The Galilean Rupture

• Such was the nature of that intellectual
  earthquake which changed the world, and which I
  call
• The Great Galilean Rupture The juxtaposition of
  How to go to Heaven and how the heavens go
• Far from questioning the necessity of this
  division many scientist have passively accepted a
  pseudo-philosophical concoction that is actually
  built on this fault line, namely, positivism and
  its partner-in-arm, scientism.

40

• If the damage of such pseudo-philosophy to the
  physical and biological sciences is indirect,
• in economics, politics, and ethics it is direct
  and momentous.
• Only if the Soul of Science is restored,
• if that inherent unity recognized by the ancients
  is brought back,
• may humanity be protected against the horrendous
  errors of positivism.

41
Levels of knowledge

• Error at each level of knowledge leads to its own
  specific consequences.
• Not knowing the biology of microorganisms can
  lead to epidemic outbreaks
• Ignorance about the inherent unity of all
  knowledge condemns humanity to moral and
  spiritual decadence.

42
This unity is the soul of Science

• and its absence means not only fractured
  consciousness but also fractured lives.
• Without this unity we cannot ask science for
  what, or economics for what?
• Without it Science becomes an agency of
  destruction rather than human fulfillment.
• From electronic surveillance to genetic
  engineering, our tools are fast surpassing our
  wisdom of how to use them.

43
With that unityScience is sacred,and without
itit basterdized to the level of the profane.
44
I can only refer you to the great
treatiseKnowledgeand theSacredby Seyyed
Hossein Nasrs1981 Gifford LecturesUniversity
of EdinbourghAvailable at OCU library.
Concerning the concept of sanctity of knowlefdge,
45
Knowledge, devoid of unity, its soul, is bound to
degenerate into the crudest of utilitarian
endeavors.

• In time it will use its autonomy altogether
• and will be made subservient to the expediencies
  of the market system,
• supposing that this has not happened already.

46

• Economic values will ascend to the position of
  unchallenged autonomy, and in time will become
  the sole criteria of validity of every individual
  and social activity, whatever its nature.
• Have not the family and the state turned into
  mere appendages to the market system already?
• Why should the destiny of the church and the
  university be any different?
• Nor is the university without its soul is worth
  keeping.

47
The family, and the state

• Serve different purposes than the market, and
  involve different kinds of social relations.

48
There are three types of social relations, each
of which corresponds to a different social
institution

• Which correspond, respectively, to the
  institutions of
• family
• market, and the
• state

• Relations of
• Love
• Impersonal exchange, and
• Coercion

49
Standard Economics

• has focused primarily on the market system and
  has dealt with the other two institutions only in
  so far as they may affect the former.

50

• However, the family crisis in the West is
  fundamentally the result of the invasion of the
  abstract and impersonal market relations into the
  sacred domain of the family.
• And there is more to the increasing scope of
  business influence in government than meets the
  eyes. The political alienation of the population
  is the result of the hegemony of business
  interests in government.

51

• The market system, if not understood and
  appropriately coped with will in time devour the
  family, the state, the church, and the
  university.
• Only systematic theoretical work can expose the
  full extent of the nature of this problem.

52

• But the paradigm of economics as usual does not
  recognize this as economic problem!
• Only the paradigm of HIGHER ECONOMICS provides
  the proper framework for addressing these issues.