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| Quotation # 1920 - Globalization and Human Nature |
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| GLOBALIZATION AND HUMAN NATURE by Nickolay Gurevich Socialism, especially the way it was implemented in the first socialist state, the Soviet Union, has often been criticized for going against what is widely assumed to be "human nature." According to this view people by their very nature are individualistic and driven by self-interests most of the time. For even when they have to undertake collective action they do it ultimately for personal gain. Therefore, any economic/political system that forces them into collective mode of thinking and acting is unnatural and thus eventually doomed to failure. Whether or not one would agree that this was the major cause of the final collapse of the Soviet Union and other socialists states, one has to admit that such criticism was essentially valid — even the most ardent communists had recognized from the start that the fate of socialism would be decided in the end by its ability to create a "new man" and were forever engaged in a seemingly futile struggle to eradicate "the last vestiges of capitalism" in him. Another important manifestation of "human nature" is the difference between people as far as their abilities and inclinations are concerned, especially in their productive activities. Some people are good at farming, others are not, some are better at bricklaying, others at carpentry, some are good with numbers, others with their hands, some want to be artists, others engineers, etc.,etc. The very long and slow progress during the pre-industrial stage of human economic development which lasted thousands of years could be explained by necessity for each productive individual to be "a jack of all trades and, consequently, a master of none." In a traditional rural agrarian society to survive a man had to farm, hunt, build his own dwelling, make his own clothes, etc., etc. Needless to say most of the people were ill suited to most of the things they had to do to make a living, which produced a lot of unhappiness and misery not only because people were poor but also because they were trapped in doing something they, given a choice, would rather not do. This conflict between people's different natural abilities and inclination and the sameness of the tasks they all had to perform had been partially resolved by the introduction of division of labour, first, and tentatively, in the closing phase of the pre-industrial age and then more fully in the mature stage of industrial development. This stage, one may say, took full advantage of this side of "human nature," i.e. the inherent difference in abilities and inclination, by assigning one almost automatically by trial and error, by firing and hiring to the task one was most suitable by his nature to perform. Sure, it was far from ideal. But most of the people, most of the time would settle eventually into a trade or a profession more or less compatible with their abilities or, as a writer of the famous book The Peter Principle wittily summarized: "would reach the level of their incompetency." And though this process was often ruthless , causing mass uprooting and destruction of a whole way of life, at the end it resulted in the highest productivity of each individual. This, together with engendered by it accelerated development of science and technology, was mainly responsible for the incredible economic progress that humanity at large has made since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. One of the prominent and, as we shall see later, crucially important aspects of this division of labour was that it took place largely within the confines of one society, one country. In each of these countries some people remained on the land as farmers because they were better at it than the rest and also because they preferred it to any other type of work. Others moved to the cities and joined hundreds of different trades and professions, more or less according to their abilities and inclinations. In the few fortunate countries where the majority were allowed to take full advantage of this choice, life was getting better and better and more and more people felt content with what they were doing. Thus, judging by the results, the division of labour within the confines of one society, which may be called internal division, undoubtedly suited "human nature" and therefore was beneficial. Consequently, in these countries, we may say, a state of "internal equilibrium" was attained to greater or lesser degree. Before we proceed further, it is perhaps appropriate at this moment to give a special credit where the credit is due by recognizing the important role this division of labour and freedom of personal choice as its organic concomitant played in producing an individual (in the distinctly modern sense), or to quote Michael Oakeshott "the uomo singolare, whose conduct was marked by a high degree of self-determination and a large number of whose activities expressed personal preferences..." Alas, this happy state of affairs seems to be coming to a close. As if following the classic pattern of Hegelian dialectics – conflict resolution conflict – the current onset of globalization is beginning to upset this "internal equilibrium." For one of the most prominent features of the present globalization, perhaps even its raison d'etre, is international or external division of labour which is in direct conflict with the internal one. According to this external division of labour it is not the individuals but the whole countries which are now considered to be more suitable for different tasks of production. Thus, some countries are assigned (by the invisible hand of global markets) the role of mainly suppliers of natural resources, the others – manufacturers of certain goods, still others – providers of financial services, etc., while some, even a whole continent like Africa, seem to be almost completely left out. The manufacturing sector, which used to be the economic backbone of the countries in the so-called developed world, is gradually but inexorably relocating more and more of its production facilities to low wage countries. In some instances, as with production of TV sets in the USA, whole industries have gone by now. Thus, as the developing countries are fast becoming the main place for the production of goods, the workers in the developed world, who lost their manufacturing jobs as a result of it, are urged to find employment in the expanding sectors of information technologies and financial and social services. Two questions, crucial to the fate of humanity, arise at this point. First, is such fundamental division of labour between whole countries possible? And second, even if it is, is it desirable? Only the future can give us an answer to the first question, though it's hard to imagine how the millions of assembly line workers, technicians, engineers, scientists, etc., of the developed world, who are deprived in ever increasing numbers of practicing their skills by the new international division of labour, could be transformed into waiters, cooks, security guards, taxi drivers, accountants, real estate agents, computer specialists, bankers, etc., in our lifetime. So far the record is not good. More and more people who used to be productive cannot find work and appear to be condemned for the rest of their lives to unemployment. This is such a new phenomenon in the industrial countries of the West, that sociologists have had to invent a new term "workless households" i.e. households where no one works, to describe people in such conditions. Moreover, this involuntary idleness in the developed countries, even if its victims are provided by their still rich societies with a very comfortable living in comparison with the rest of the world, wreaks psychological havoc, growing rates of chronic depression, mental illness and suicides. Which brings us to the second question, the desirability of this new and drastic division of labour between whole countries. And we don't (nor should) have to wait for the future to find the answer to this one. It concerns seemingly simple and yet very complicated problem of human happiness. For even those flexible enough to reinvent themselves and find a place in the new economy, don't seem to be very content and for a good reason: the majority of the new jobs are at lower level of knowledge and skill and, to add injury to insult, pay less, sometimes a lot less. The feeble attempts to compensate for the general decline of quality of the new jobs by inflating their designation, like this infamous transformation of "garbage man" into "sanitation engineer" doesn't fool anyone and only increase the level of frustration and unhappiness. So, now perhaps the time has come to talk again about human happiness, the subject our ancient and not so ancient ancestors found so fascinating and important, but which we have almost lost sight of in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives. There are many possible definitions of what human happiness is. We may argue about which one is the most comprehensive, but no one would deny that happiness is one of the most important aspects of human existence. So important in fact that "pursuit of Happiness" was included in The Declaration of Independence by the American founding fathers, together with equality and inalienable rights to Life and Liberty. (They didn't mention "a life of quiet desperation, did they?") The shortest and the simplest definition of a good life I can think of is doing what one likes and liking what one does. Or, to put it another way, one of the main sources of human happiness is undoubtedly a realization by each individual of his or her potentials, of doing what one is most suited for and inclined to, i.e. what is most harmonious with one's "human nature." Of course nothing is new about this. "I see there is no happiness for man but to be happy in his work, for this is the lot assigned him," said Ecclesiastes some 3000 years ago. And if this is the case then the present globalization has failed miserably in this respect, because through the international division of labour, which is the essence of it, it deprives millions of men and women from fulfilling their human potentials, of being happy in their work. For to the extent that internal division of labour was agreeable with "human nature" the external division is in conflict with it. And resolution, dialectical or otherwise, of this new conflict is nowhere in sight. The way back is blocked – the river of history cannot be made to run upstream. The way forward is uncertain, and so far there is little indication that all is well since it must end well. On the contrary, it looks more and more as if nothing good lies ahead. Even if we believe the proponents of globalization that in the long run everybody would benefit from it (which at present is far from certain) we have to remember that they are talking exclusively about economic gains, and that the issues of individual fulfillment and satisfaction are not on their radar screen at all, so to speak. For if it was, they would have to admit that globalization/international division of labour is clearly against at least one side of human nature, the productive one, and that only its consuming side would benefit if, and this is an enormous "if," it delivers an ever increasing amount of total wealth and spreads it wider and wider. Thus, the best they can offer us is this: as much as we gain as the consumers we'll lose as producers. Is it good enough? Are we willing to trade personal fulfilment for material gains? Is this choice even given to us? So, maybe, after 4000 years of our civilization, the time has come to finally answer this old and yet perhaps the most important question of the them all: "Does man live by bread alone?" Or to use its updated version: once you have enough "bread," i.e. enough of the material goods the modern economy is capable of offering, will you be content with just this and nothing more? And the honest answer from each one of us, and moreover supported by the accumulated experience of mankind, is an emphatic "No!" Ultimately, it is more important for anyone, and more in accord with "human nature," to realize one's potentials as an individual than to consume more and more. A wasted life is a wasted life, even if it spent in a semi-detached with an SUV parked outside. And what about freedom –the greatest good of all libertarians in general and American conservatives, the most enthusiastic proponents of modern globalization, in particular, how is this freedom affected by international division of labour, the driving engine of globalization? To answer this we may quote again Michael Oakeshott, the patron-saint of American conservatives and whose credentials as an outspoken champion of individual liberty are impeccable. In his essay The political economy of freedom (1949) he states: "The freedom which separates a man from slavery is nothing but a freedom to choose and to move among autonomous, independent organizations, firms, purchasers of labour..." And to the degree that international division of labour diminishes this free choice, which it unquestionably does in every country affected by it, the freedom of an individual diminishes as well. All this is also having a profoundly negative social effect on the countries where these people live. For a country which does not provide its people with as wide and as varied opportunities for self-fulfilment as it objectively could is liable to produce a frustrated and unhappy citizenry, which leads to the gradual deterioration and eventual disintegration of the body politic in a manner somewhat analogous to what happens to the physical body of an individual in similar circumstances – inasmuch as it is deprived of a variety of essential nutrients and forced to subsist on a few staples it'll suffer and be gradually reduced from the state of health to that of sickness. Moreover, the potential political consequences of the growing failure of these societies to utilize "the best and the brightest" are even more ominous. For as thousands of highly educated and creative people would not be able to find gainful employment and personal fulfilment, they would be forced by their individual and collective misery to look for and demand an explanation. And since the educated and creative people rarely ( and justifiably so) blame themselves for their societal marginality and resulting from it personal misery, they tend to look for the wrongs in the system which has caused it. Consequently, they are the ones who create revolutionary theories, who bring forth Marxes and Lenins, Mussolinis and Hitlers, who, in turn, provide the masses with the necessary spiritual reasons and ideological forms for their growing discontent. And this often leads to bloody revolutions. Thus, the society incapable of employing its best educated and creative members is courting a disaster. No one will argue that "a mind is a terrible thing to waste." But there is more to it – a wasted mind is capable of many terrible things. This is a lesson History has given us many times in the past, and since we seem to learn very slowly, there is no reason to believe that it would spare us another instruction in the future. History hasn't ended in 1989, a wishful thinking on the part of the so-called "victors" in a struggle between socialism and capitalism notwithstanding. For though a winner naturally prefers the status quo, that's not the way a loser sees it – he always looks for a rematch. The angry and often violent protesters who pursue G8 around the globe like a swarm of gadflies (or, to use mythological analogy, like the merciless Erinyes – the goddesses of vengeance) are the kind of people we're talking about– the young, educated and marginalised, and moreover whom "the system" could no longer co-opt, for due to international division of labour it has less and less room for them in their own countries. And they are but the harbingers of things to come. Talking about History, it is rather a moot point to argue at present whether the pre-industrial necessity for everyone to do everything was a greater violation of "human nature" than the post-industrial compulsion of everyone to do the same thing, for both represent the blatant disregard for diverse abilities and inclinations of separate individuals. Furthermore, looking back once more at the failure of socialism, it's worth noting that this time around it is not socialism, but capitalism in its globalized incarnation, that is against "human nature" and therefore condemns itself to a failure of its own. Finally, in view of the above, Human History may be considered as driven not by productive forces, as envisioned by Marxist dialectics, but by an unremitting quest for happiness and satisfaction of doing what one is best suited by one's nature to do. And who knows, perhaps this utopian communist dream – from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs (not wants!) – would some day, far, far in the future, be realized. Of course, this is a very general and rather vague hope, inspired mainly by the undisputed fact that we, humans, are a sturdy lot, and so far have always been able to meet a challenge through adaptation and innovation. And we just may succeed once more this time. Hopefully. For that, at the end , is all we are left with. No plan, not even a vision. Just a hope – the ageless savior of mankind. |
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