Photo by Nathaniel St. Clair
Humans are complicated creatures. We are both cooperative and sectarian. We tend to be cooperative within in-groups (e.g., a trade union) whilst competing against out-groups (e.g., a business confederation). But complex societies such as ours also force us to cooperate with out-groups – in neighbourhoods, at work, and so on. In social systems, natural selection favours cooperation. In addition, we are biased toward ethical behaviours, so cooperation and sharing are valued in human societies.
But what happens when we are forced into an economic system that makes us compete at every level? The logical outcome is societal decline or collapse.
NEOLIBERAL DOGMA IN THE 20TH CENTURY
In “The Individual in Society,” Ludwig von Mises, teacher of Friedrich Hayek (the granddaddy of modern neoliberalism), wrote that in a contractual society, the employer is at the mercy of the mob. But in a self-interested market economy, “[t]he coordination of the autonomous actions of all individuals is accomplished by the operation of the market.” So, in this fantasy-world, employers can fire workers and replace them with cheaper ones without incurring the social costs associated with contractual societies.
Particularly after the 1970s, this kind of thinking began to permeate the culture of “free market” planners in Ivy League economics courses.
Robert Simons of the Harvard Business School notes that economics is by far the dominant academic discipline in…