Synergic scientist Peter Corning emailed me with a copy of his new paper. Some excerpts follow:
Peter A. Corning, Ph.D.
A biological approach to social justice enables us to move beyond the one-sided assumptions of capitalism and socialism—and the ideological standoff between them. The premises of an evolutionary/bioeconomic paradigm—as well as the accumulating evidence about human evolution (the “state of nature”) and the complexities of “human nature”—provide the basis for a new political ideology that accords more closely with the reality of the human condition. I call this new, biologically-grounded ideology “fair shares,” and I propose a normative framework that supports three complementary principles: (1) goods and services should be distributed to each according to his/her basic needs; (2)”surpluses” beyond the provision for our basic needs should be distributed according to merit; (3) in return, each of us is obliged to contribute to the collective survival enterprise in accordance with his/her ability. Needless to say, many issues are raised, and questions begged, by this formulation. Some of these are addressed here. Philosopher John Rawls, in his celebrated— and much debated—theory of justice as fairness, utilized a variation on the hypothetical state of nature from social contract theory to advance a claim for the “least advantaged” in society. While Rawls’s search for an ideological middle-ground was commendable, such artificial constructs are no longer sufficient, or necessary.
Fair shares: A synopsis
Two distinct and frequently competing moral claims arise out of the imperatives of human nature and the nature of human society as a collective survival enterprise: (1) basic needs, or distributive equity, and (2) “merit,” or giving every person his or her due. In the Fair Shares paradigm, our basic survival needs take precedence, but they do not nullify the claim to merit; they impose a constraint. The middle-ground position recognizes the validity of both capitalist and socialist-liberal moral claims. Accordingly, the Fair Shares framework rests on three basic principles. Though not new, these principles in combination define a new ideological framework.
1. Goods and services should be distributed to each according to his or her basic needs.
This principle may sound like an echo of Karl Marx, but it is at once more specific and more limited. Here the term “basic needs” refers to the fourteen primary needs domains mentioned above and elucidated in more detail elsewhere. Our basic needs are not vague, open-ended, or abstract, nor are they defined by personal preference. They constitute a concrete agenda, albeit subject to refinement, with measurable indicators for assessing outcomes. This principle accommodates individual and contextual differences and allows for the meeting of various instrumental needs that change throughout the life-cycle, such as the needs associated with reproduction and the nurturing of offspring. Markets and other collective mechanisms, including governmental policies and programs, interact to meet these needs.
2. Surpluses beyond provision for basic needs should be distributed according to merit.
Merit has many facets, of course, but rewards ultimately must be proportionate to contributions to the collective survival enterprise, which is to say to common needs or the public interest. This principle would obviously preclude profits for drug lords, for example, as well as excess profits attributable to various market distortions, like monopoly and cartel pricing, or to fraud, like insider trading. As there is no formulaic way of determining merit, the marketplace and a representative, mixed, democratic government, including an independent judiciary, and many other social mechanisms must participate in the imperfect art of determining what is fair compensation. The “merit” principle stakes a moral claim; it is not a detailed recipe. Does this principle reward “welfare queens” or freeloading? Does it reward an indolent class of economic defectors (as game theory implies)? The answer is emphatically not. In fact, a crucial corollary of the first two principles is that the collective survival enterprise has always been based on mutualism and reciprocity, with altruism being limited to special circumstances under a distinct moral claim: what could be called “no fault needs.” So a third principle must be added to the Fair Shares paradigm.
3. In return for the benefits associated with the first two principles, each of us is obliged to contribute to the collective survival enterprise in accordance with his or her ability.
Needless to say, this principle applies equally to the rich and the poor, to wealthy matrons and welfare mothers. However, it also begs the question. How are “abilities” and “contributions” to be determined? Again, there are no formulaic answers, but societies have developed various ways for permitting such collective judgments to be made, from markets to legislatures, election processes, military drafts, examinations, licenses, performance evaluations, progressive taxes, and many more.
Is Fair Shares just “fuzzy Marxism” – as one critic has claimed – More nearly the opposite. Marxism was based on fuzzy biology, which featured a simplistic and one-sided model of human nature. Marxism actually violated the Fair Shares principles. Marx was quite diffident about specifying what our basic needs are, and he allowed the inference to be made that equality and equity are equivalent. Furthermore, Marx made no provision at all for “merit,” and he was quite hostile to capitalism, whose adherents he saw as villains destined for “the dustbin of history,” to borrow Bolshevik Leon Trotsky’s prediction for his rivals, the Mensheviks. But most importantly, Marx’s directive that all should contribute in accordance with their ability is exploitative in the absence of the first and especially the second Fair Shares principles. Despite similarities in its phrasing, the Marxian “contribution principle” does not accord with the Fair Shares paradigm.
Other questions are begged by these principles, and some important qualifiers must be added.
Visit Peter Corning’s Website.
Order Peter Corning’s new book Nature’s Magic.
In Nature’s Magic Peter Corning advances a bold new vision of the evolutionary process—from the Big Bang to the 21st century. Corning proposes that synergy is not only a ubiquitous phenomenon in the natural world but it is also a wellspring of creativity and the “driver” of the broad evolutionary trend toward increased complexity, in nature and human societies alike. In contrast with the many theories of emergence or complexity that rely on some underlying force or “law,” the “Synergism Hypothesis,” as Corning calls it, is in essence an economic (or “bioeconomic”) theory of biological complexity; it is fully consistent with mainstream evolutionary biology. Among the many important insights that are provided by this new paradigm is a scenario in which Corning proposes that the human species in effect invented itself; synergistic behavioral and technological innovations were the “pacemakers” of our biological evolution. Synergy has also played a key role in the evolution of complex modern societies, he concludes. The final chapter addresses our current challenges and future prospects.