"But what is common to all human societies is the
elaboration of social relationships for the joint identification
and pursuit of individual need fulfillment."
It seems silly to speak about this in the abstract, since the above remark can nowhere by observed or tested. Few if any humans in history have had the opportunity to create the social institutions they live under. It would be more honest if Hahnel had said "I believe that, given freedom from need, humans might respond in a selfless, cooperative way in constructing their society."
But skeptics would immediately say "fear, selfishness, laziness or lust for power will always be with us, and social institutions have to be developed ahead of time to control for those."
How can we know the answer, until we actually try something?
BobW
--- Tayssir John Gabbour <tayssir.john at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 7/15/07, John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
> > I've corresponded with Michael Albert on this
> point specifically and
> > while he has never conceded the point his
> arguments against it are
> > incredibly weak and rooted in irrational fear, as
> have been all
> > arguments against this idea I have yet to see.
> >
> > To directly answer Doug's question as posed to
> Bill: "do you think a
> > just society should allow some people to coast by
> on the labor of others?"
> > Of course! When my work allows others the freedom
> to not work it
> > maximizes my own freedom.
> > I actually have more freedom under such a system
> than I would under any
> > other system. Anything less is a less just
> societal arrangement.
>
> These arguments look very similar to the rejection
> of institutional
> constraints that some anarchists have. I got the
> impression that you
> don't actually want an economic system, in the sense
> I think of it: a
> collection of people playing societal roles and
> forming institutions.
>
> So it's no surprise that you find the whole thing
> irrational and unjust.
>
> Hahnel claimed that humans are social, in that we
> build social
> institutions and cooperate within them to take care
> of our needs and
> desires. (Certainly not just economic ones, but also
> for procreation,
> etc.) Of course, we're more than just our social
> selves; we're also
> self-creating and so on.
>
> So the question is, if we happen to like building
> social institutions,
> what do we want from them?
>
> In case anyone's interested, here's a snippet of his
> argument:
>
>
> "Throughout history people have created social
> institutions to
> help meet their most urgent needs and desires.
> To satisfy our
> economic needs we have tried a variety of
> arrangements –
> feudalism, capitalism, and centrally planned
> "socialism" to name a
> few – that assign duties and rewards among
> economic participants
> in different ways. But we have also created
> different kinds of
> kinship relations through which people seek to
> satisfy sexual
> needs and accomplish child rearing goals, as
> well as different
> religious, community, and political
> organizations and institutions
> for meeting cultural needs and achieving
> political goals. Of
> course the particular social arrangements in
> different spheres of
> social life, and the relations among them, vary
> from society to
> society. But what is common to all human
> societies is the
> elaboration of social relationships for the
> joint identification
> and pursuit of individual need fulfillment.
>
> "To develop a theory that expresses this view of
> humans – as a
> self-conscious, self-creative, social species –
> and this view of
> society – as a web of interconnected spheres of
> social life – we
> first concentrate on concepts helpful for
> thinking about people,
> or the human center; next on concepts that help
> us understand
> social institutions,or the institutional
> boundary within which
> individuals function; and finally on the
> relationship between the
> human center and institutional boundary, and the
> possible
> relations between four spheres of social life."
>
> [...]
>
> "Why must there be social institutions? If we
> were mind readers,
> or if we had infinite time to consult with one
> another, human
> societies might not require mediating
> institutions. But if there
> is to be a 'division of labor,' and if we are
> neither omniscient
> nor immortal, people must act on the basis of
> expectations about
> other people's behavior. If I make a pair of
> shoes in order to
> sell them to pay a dentist to fill my daughter's
> cavities, I am
> expecting others to play the role of shoe buyer,
> and dentists to
> render their services for a fee. I neither read
> the minds of the
> shoebuyers and dentist, nor take the time to
> arrange and confirm
> all these coordinated activities before
> proceeding to make the
> shoes. Instead I act based on expectations about
> others' behavior.
>
> "So institutions are then necessary consequence
> of human
> sociability combined with our lack of
> omniscience and our
> mortality – which has important implications for
> the tendency
> among some anarchists to conceive of the goal of
> liberation as the
> abolition of all institutions. Anarchists
> correctly note that
> individuals are not completely 'free' as long as
> institutional
> constraints exist. Any institutional boundary
> makes some
> individual choices easier and others harder, and
> therefore
> infringes on individual freedom to some extent.
> But abolishing
> social institutions is impossible for the human
> species. The
> relevant question about institutions, therefore,
> should not be
> whether we want them to exist, but whether any
> particular
> institution poses unnecessarily oppressive
> limitations, or
> promotes human development and fulfillment to
> the maximum extent
> possible."
>
> -- Robin Hahnel, _ABCs of Political Economy_
>
>
> Tayssir
>
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