One
of the major ills of the West is the unseen since the Great Depression growth
of social inequalities. Accumulated
gradually since the end the seventies, they heralded the impending global
financial crisis of 2008, and in the current post-crisis recession contribute
to the increasing aches of Western societies. It is particularly noticeable in the heart of
capitalism, the United States, but the countries of the European Union are also
affected. Among the causes of the
growing inequality is, in addition to the uncontrolled processes of
globalization, the fall of Western democracy.
It is being transformed into a dictatorship of the rich, in whose
pockets ends an ever larger portion of the national income. Prominent among their ranks are the Wall
Street bankers who, despite the post-crisis reforms, continue to rule America
and, to some extent, the rest of the world. Roots of this state of affairs can be found in
insidious ideological simplifications.
Since the end of the
seventies huge advances in technology in Western countries have enabled the industry
to achieve more with less human resources, and facilitated the search for ever
cheaper labour. This deprived some of
their jobs, reduced the incomes of others and weakened the social safety net
for all those who depend on it. At
the same time, banks increasingly granted mortgages to those who could not
afford them and those who did not understand their treacherous, complex structures. Bankers camouflaged the risk of these dubious
and often fraudulent mortgages by packaging them into increasingly complicated
financial products, which they sold to other banks and investors under the guise of legitimate, lucrative business
opportunities.
Government agencies that were
supposed to control the banks and protect society from their malpractices turned
a blind eye or looked on powerlessly.
This helped to galvanise the greed of a relatively small group into a
destructive, mindless force that led to the financial meltdown in September
2008, when the previously unseen tail risk of sub-prime loans erupted into a
panic among investors around the world.
In a stampede-like run, they withdrew their money, leaving the global
financial system on the brink of collapse.
Huge government injections of cash, at the expense of taxpayers, revived
the ailing banks but helped little the millions of helpless victims,
particularly in the United States, deprived of their investments, jobs and homes. Recession that consequently gripped the West
is comparable in its severity to the Great Depression after the financial crash
of 1929.
Nobody in their right mind
can contradict this general diagnosis of the causes of the crisis and the
current recession. The debate can only
be about the balance of guilt spread over the systemic mechanisms of
globalization and more sinister machinations, whose perpetrators could be
identified, although most of them would be protected by the law. There could also be differences of opinion as
to the remedies that would improve the current situation. The range of the diverse views may be
illustrated by the contrast between the position represented by the conservative
supporters of liberal globalization and the progressive critics of unfettered
capitalism.
The supporters of
globalization, as we know it for almost four decades, insist that the current
recession can be overcome by increasing freedom from regulation and taxes granted
to corporations and investors, who, thanks to these concessions, will create
new jobs and business opportunities. The
critics contend that facts do not support this claim: the rich indeed stimulate
employment and commerce but only where it is cheap, which means mainly in
Asia. They argue that more money in the pockets
of the middle class, rather than in those of the rich, is capable of increasing
employment and moving the economy out of the recession doldrums. They also assure that the reduced regulation
of banks, as demanded by the conservatives, can only hasten the next crash.
Conservative supporters of
unrestricted capitalist freedom indicate the budget deficit and public debt as
the major evils and call for their reduction by cutting the government
spending, including on social security, healthcare and education. Supporters of controlled capitalism admit
that a significant deficit and public debt are undesirable but claim that if
used wisely, that is if invested in infrastructure and the young and future
generations, such investment would repay with interest. Hard facts on the ground indicate that the
public debt of the West continues to grow and reforms of the finance industry makes
slow progress, which is an eloquent testimony that the current anti-recession
efforts involve a blend of measures advocated by both camps.
At first glance it is
difficult to resist the conservative arguments.
Why care about the unemployed slackers?
They only have themselves to blame.
In a democratic, capitalist system they had the same opportunities as
everyone else to achieve success through hard work and entrepreneurship. Why would
those who took the trouble and now enjoy their well-deserved prosperity have to
share it with the loafers? Is it not
enough that thanks to their diligence and resourcefulness they create new jobs?
Why hobble them with new laws,
regulations and high taxes? The same end
of assisting the enterprising individuals in releasing their full potential
could be served by reducing the number of public servants. Not only their pay is funded by the
industrious and wise, they additionally make things more burdensome for
everybody by administering expensive government programs and constricting
regulations.
These and similar
suggestions are captivating like many other examples of false sophistry that
say, for example, that cats are deceitful and hypocritical, women – indecisive
and emotional, all Muslims are
terrorists, and the Jews conspire to take over the world. These and other examples of simplified, false
reasoning distort reality and wreak havoc first in people's minds, and in the
surrounding reality later. The
unmistakable signs of such fallacies can be detected in the conservative
arguments about ways out of recession. Their
fallacy is easy to see if one takes the trouble to examine their foundations. One of
the elementary deformations of the conservative rhetoric, which is deeply
rooted in the American consciousness, is the philosophical position known as Social
Darwinism.
It was born in the late
nineteenth century during the battle over the Darwinian theory after the death
of its author, Charles Darwin. On one
side of the struggle stood those who, like Darwin himself, believed that
mechanisms other than natural selection, such as sexual selection and
cooperation between organisms, were also driving evolution. Others insisted on simplicity of the argument
that natural selection is the only engine pushing evolution along. Their task was made easier by Darwin, who, while
focusing on natural selection as the main motor of evolution, insufficiently
substantiated and expounded the effects of other mechanisms in his work, On the Origin of Species. The views of those who focused on natural
selection only, promoted under the name of neo-Darwinism, ultimately triumphed
among the competing versions of Darwin’s evolution in the first decades of the
twentieth century. Long before the final
victory, however, in the course of a lengthy ideological struggle, this view
had spread as the correct interpretation of the theory of evolution. It has reduced and distorted the original
thoughts of its creator, the repercussion of which are felt in science and
society to this day.
This simplified version of
Darwinism was transplanted onto the American soil, in the form of Social
Darwinism, by conservative theorist William Graham Sumner at the beginning of
the twentieth century. Its deceptive
allure captured the imagination of conservative politicians and policy makers,
including President Herbert Hoover, who presided over the 1929 crash that led
to the Great Depression. Social Darwinism,
seemingly backed by science, lent support to the convenient belief of bankers
and politicians that the best that can be done for the society in a recession
is to leave it alone. In the struggle
for survival, the best adopted to the conditions they live in, the smartest and
the most resourceful will win, as is consistent with the laws of nature and,
therefore, with God’s order. The insidious
nature of this incomplete, distorted message made it pass, in the form of
seemingly scientific, divinely inspired belief, through different spheres of
society. This way the ideology of
neo-Darwinism, presented as Social Darwinism, spread and left a
lasting impression in the minds of the American public.
If, hypothetically, under
the banner of Social Darwinism were promoted views which Darwin espoused himself,
rather than neo-Darwinism, the Americans would find out that, apart from cruel
struggle for survival, biological organisms are also controlled by other
mechanisms. Among them are charitable instincts
that are essential for continued existence and success of organisms living in the
colonies, such as bees, ants and humans. Instead, steeped in Social Darwinism, the
Americans turned a blind eye to the financial excesses in the decades preceding
the crisis of 1929. In the years of the
Great Depression they heard that they had brought the calamity on themselves by
their lack of entrepreneurship and diligence. This ideology not only helped the American
people to accept economic hardship of the Great Depression, but also stopped
them from drawing reasonable, instructive conclusions for the future.
This seductive philosophy
became established in the American mentality and played a destructive role
again a few decades later, in the years leading to the crisis of 2008, and now obstructs
the way out of the current recession. Just
like before, the Americans tend to accept the conservative argument that they
had inflicted the pain of recession on themselves. They continue to accept that the brutal battle
for survival is part of the divinely inspired nature, and that tempering the
bloodthirsty instincts and caring about the community in which they live is
perversion of God’s justice. Motivated by the regressive rhetoric, they do not
see that the real perversion is Social Darwinism. According to the uncompromised version of theory
of evolution, which its creator thought of himself, natural selection and the
struggle for survival are only part of nature’s plan of evolution. Another part of it is the essential for
long-term survival, charitable instinct involving self-denial, known to all
organisms living in colonies, including humans.
Apart from neo-Darwinism, in
the last century there have been other examples of distorting simplifications
under the camouflage of reliable knowledge, whose destructive impact has had a
global reach. One of the most ponderous
is the belief that the laws of nature are compatible with mechanical, regular
equations of mathematics. This is consistent
with a generally accepted philosophy of science, which says that the
ideological foundation of mathematics lies in the world of ideal forms of Plato
– the same whose idealistic views have also been used to construct dogmas of Christianity.
The realm of mathematics is thus
dogmatically associated with Plato’s unseen, ideal domain. And since God also finds it worthy of Himself,
then, by association, mathematics must, like Him, be perfect and divinely
inspired.
This mode of thinking made
its way into a new method of conducting scientific investigation. It was boldly suggested and first applied by
none other than Isaac Newton, whom science does not dare to doubt since the end
of the nineteenth century. This method,
which can be described as having mystical, Platonist roots, befits religion but
is inappropriate in objective, secular investigation of the natural world. Nonetheless, thanks to this scientific method,
creations of mathematicians, including the most fantastic hypotheses, are
accepted as trustworthy, though most involve elements of higher mathematics,
such as imaginary and complex numbers, vectors and tensors, which have little
in common with the surrounding reality. These
and other theoretical creations have been invented and accepted contrary to
causal, inductive logic that every human being trusts and lives by every day.
This way of practicing
science, which contains absolute confidence in mathematics in its core,
simplifies the processes of nature to fit into mathematical formulas and
theorems. The actual natural phenomena
are, however, spontaneous and complex and are not subject to mechanical rules
of mathematics. Closer to the truth is,
therefore, an opposite statement: that the mathematical regularity is able, at
the most, to clumsily imitate some natural processes, such as the movements of
the planets of the solar system. In no
way, however, can it reliably describe most natural phenomenon, such as, for instance,
those associated with biological, geological, climatic, social and economic processes.
If it were otherwise, if nature worked
in accordance with mechanical, mathematical regularity, it would be possible to
calculate the exact dates of the upcoming volcanic eruptions, earthquakes,
cyclones, wars and revolutions, and avert them in time or devise remedial
measures. It would also have been
possible to predict financial crashes of 1929 and 2008 and save humanity a lot
of trouble.
Simplified portrayal of
nature and presenting it as obedient to mechanical, mathematical laws has spawned
a brood of exotic theories of physics, including Einstein's relativity
theories, the Big Bang theory and hypotheses of black holes, dark matter, dark
energy and antimatter. They are trusted
no matter how fantastic they sound and how much they collide with what we
perceive and interpret with our human, causal logic. Nobody, for example, has seen antimatter, whose
existence is argued by theoretical physicists on the strength of a mathematical
theorem from 1928 and corroborative evidence. What has been experimentally observed,
however, is only a derivative phenomenon, assumed to be consistent with Paul
Dirac’s equations, and claimed to indicate the existence of this supernatural form
of matter.
Another example of
scientific reduction to make theory fit the accepted view is provided by the
Human Genome Project. It is also an
example of a first significant collision of the current scientific method with
reality and, perhaps, the first major breach in the impenetrable wall of socially
accepted deformations. Ambitious theorists
of biology had hoped that the Project would be the final stretch on road to the
ultimate understanding of the human body, psyche and even soul. Many had no doubt that the knowledge of the
human genome would open the door to unimaginable possibilities, including the
divine power to create life from basic elements. The reality proved to be different though. In addition to practical benefits, such as
shedding light on little-known aspects of the human genome and being able to
compare it with the genomes of animals and plants, the researchers realised the
enormity of their ignorance, which was previously masked by the prevalent philosophy
of elegant simplifications.
Instead of realization of theorists' dreams that the final frontier of knowledge in biology is reached,
the Human Genome Project has become the cause of a major shock in this area of
knowledge. Previous assumption that life
will be understood after learning the complete transcript of the DNA chain and
the genes contained in it, gives way to a growing conviction of the gaping void
of understanding between the sequence of the genome and biological processes in
a living organism. It has been found, for
example, that the size of the genome and the number of genes in it are not
proportional to the evolutionary development and complexity of organisms possessing them,
as the neo-Darwinian model predicts.
Perhaps researchers associated with the Human Genome Project, the
subject area of which is not far from the philosophy of Social Darwinism, are
pioneers in repairing the current, deformed state of affairs both in scientific
and social contexts. One of the next steps could
be restoring the acceptance that the processes of nature and human civilization
are complex and do not obey mathematical, mechanical regularity. Another may be adopting the full,
non-deformed version of evolution, which would result, among other things, in
revision of the deceptive ideology of Social Darwinism. This, in turn, could help ordinary people to
understand that natural to them is not only bloodthirsty instinct of survival. They also have natural propensity for concern
about their community in the interest of their own endurance and that of future
generations.
© Robert Panasiewicz 2014
© Robert Panasiewicz 2014