{"id":161370,"date":"2020-05-25T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=161370"},"modified":"2020-05-21T07:53:18","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T06:53:18","slug":"the-humans-and-the-viruses-the-world-economic-forum-and-the-coronaviruses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/05\/the-humans-and-the-viruses-the-world-economic-forum-and-the-coronaviruses\/","title":{"rendered":"The Humans and the Viruses: The World Economic Forum and the Coronaviruses"},"content":{"rendered":"

The humans and the viruses are two forms of life with parallel but different adaptive strategies. According to the abbreviated story I am offering you, our pre-hominid ancestors crossed the line separating non-human from human and became homo sapiens <\/em>when they became the cultural animals.\u00a0 It culminated a long process.\u00a0 The human body gradually became the home of a soul, designed to live in a group possessing a culture.<\/p>\n

Our hominid<\/em> ancestors, who were relatively slow and weak compared to many other mammals, adapted to environmental challenges by inventing innovative ways to work together for the common good; for example, gathering, hunting, caring for children, and defending against enemies together.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They passed functional customs (also known as morals or ethics) on to their descendants by education. <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0As the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson put it, compared to the slow pace of change of many species that adapt by random genetic mutation followed by natural selection, not just the brain but indeed the configuration of the human body as a whole, \u00b4allows human history to be seen as a fast-paced evolutionary process with cultural rather than genetic mechanisms of inheritance. \u00b4<\/p>\n

Viruses won an adaptive advantage over other species accelerating their responses to environmental challenges going a different route.\u00a0 In the words of Wikipedia<\/em>: Viruses have short generation times, and many\u2014in particular\u00a0RNA viruses<\/a>\u2014have relatively high mutation rates (on the order of one point mutation or more per genome per round of replication). This elevated mutation rate, when combined with\u00a0natural selection<\/a>, allows viruses to quickly adapt to changes in their host environment. In addition, most viruses provide many offspring, so any mutated genes can be passed on to many offspring quickly.<\/p>\n

We and the virus are similar because our survival strategies succeed by innovation.\u00a0 In our case the innovation is normally a culture that educates people — often employing ceremonies and storytelling–, to work together for the common good. (See C.H. Waddington (1960).\u00a0 The Ethical Animal. <\/em>London:\u00a0 George Allen & Unwin; Howard Richards (2019).\u00a0 Moral and Ethical Realism.\u00a0\u00a0 Journal of Critical Realism. <\/em>Volume 18, pp. 285-302; John Dewey (1898).\u00a0 Evolution and Ethics. \u00a0The Monist.\u00a0 <\/em>Volume 8, pp. 321-341.)<\/p>\n

Charles Darwin explained the competitive advantages of collaborating for the common good this way: \u2018Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected. A tribe rich in the above (cooperative HR) qualities would spread and be victorious over other tribes: but in the course of time it would, judging from all past history, be in its turn overcome by some other tribe still more highly endowed. Thus the social and moral qualities would tend slowly to advance and be diffused throughout the world.\u2019<\/p>\n

A common argument against Darwin, and against whoever believes that pro-social emotions were hard-wired into the human body by the requirements of survival during 90% or more of human evolution, is that they prove too much.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They prove that we behave better than the evidence shows that we actually do behave.<\/p>\n

In reply, let me suggest, first, that there is a plausible explanation at the heart of our failure to live out the best of human nature, and that the current pandemic shows how crucial it is to change it.\u00a0\u00a0 And, second, that the smartest of the business leaders are realizing that their own fate and the fate of all of us depends on replacing the essence of capitalism with an ethics of solidarity.<\/p>\n

First:<\/strong> Consider my following effort to write a pr\u00e9cis of a plausible socialist analysis of why the very essence of capitalism has to change to save humanity and the biosphere:<\/p>\n

Why do the accumulators (regarded as the quintessential capitalists, whose purpose in life is to turn money into more money) win out over the carers and sharers?\u00a0 Why do the accumulators win and the carers and sharers lose, even though the practices of the latter are enjoined by the world\u00b4s main religions, are hard-wired into the human body, and must have been practiced for thousands of years by our ancestors or they would not have survived and we would not be here today?\u00a0\u00a0 Why does modernity tend to be, as Max Weber said it was, an iron cage that traditional peoples can enter but cannot exit?\u00a0\u00a0 It is because once their daily bread comes to depend on the confidence of investors that producing bread will be profitable, they become prisoners of the homeostatic mechanisms described below.<\/p>\n

The key word is:\u00a0 Accumulation. Capital accumulation is called \u2018profit\u2019 or \u2018the profit motive\u2019 by many.<\/p>\n

There is a reason why the world is not ruled by moral development, and a normal diversity of cultures multiplying the options of moral systems for achieving cohesion and meeting needs.\u00a0 The reason is that accumulation rules the world.\u00a0 There is a reason why after a century of struggle most of humanity ended up in the year 2000 dominated by the same free market ideology that was dominant in 1900.\u00a0 It is that accumulation (also called the free market, or simply freedom) has a homeostatic quality.\u00a0\u00a0 When accumulation is perturbed, compensatory mechanisms are set in motion: For example, capital flight, tax competition between countries, –lowering taxes to attract business; thus defunding the welfare state while at the same time funding neoliberal think tanks and university chairs; inflation and unemployment.\u00a0 These unintended consequences force the establishment of one or another regime of accumulation by the ballot or by the bullet.\u00a0\u00a0 (A regime of accumulation is, roughly — a set of institutions that motivates investors to invest.)\u00a0 Not infrequently, as in Chile after the 1973 coup, the goal of raising investor confidence is pursued by lowering wages, lowering taxes on business while raising VAT (sales) taxes, breaking unions, violating elementary human rights (e.g. \u2018disappearing\u2019 opponents), privatizing the public sector, offering guarantees to foreign investors, and so on.\u00a0 Many of the people who did it were \u00b4Chicago Boys\u00b4 convinced that their theories were correct, supported by military leaders convinced in their own minds that they were patriots saving their country.<\/p>\n

Second:<\/strong> Compare the paragraphs above with these (renumbered) highlights of the Davos Manifesto of the World Economic Forum declared on March 20, 2020:<\/p>\n

I. A company treats its people with dignity and respect. It honours diversity and strives for continuous improvements in working conditions and employee well-being. <\/em><\/p>\n

II. A company considers its suppliers as true partners in value creation. \u2026 It integrates respect for human rights into the entire supply chain.<\/em><\/p>\n

III. A company serves society at large through its activities, supports the communities in which it works, and pays its fair share of taxes. \u2026 It acts as a steward of the environmental and material universe for future generations. It consciously protects our biosphere and champions a circular, shared and regenerative economy. It continuously expands the frontiers of knowledge, innovation and technology to improve people\u2019s well-being.<\/em><\/p>\n

IV. A company is more than an economic unit generating wealth. It fulfils human and societal aspirations as part of the broader social system. Performance must be measured not only on the return to shareholders, but also on how it achieves its environmental, social and good governance objectives\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

V.\u00a0 A company \u2026 acts \u2026 as a stakeholder \u2013 together with governments and civil society \u2013 of our global future. Corporate global citizenship requires a company to harness its core competencies, its entrepreneurship, skills and relevant resources in collaborative efforts with other companies and stakeholders to improve the state of the world.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*** The Complete Davos Manifesto Can Be Read Here ***<\/a><\/p>\n

The first and second points are not incompatible.\u00a0\u00a0 One<\/em><\/strong> can be regarded as for the most part a description of what is; <\/em>while Two<\/em><\/strong> can be regarded as for the most part a recommendation of what should be <\/em>and is already being pioneered in the best practices of the best companies. Hence they are on different logical planes: the plane of description and the plane of prescription.<\/p>\n

In any event, to what extent to regard points One<\/strong> <\/em>and Two<\/strong> <\/em>as:<\/p>\n