In her 1992 book “Systems of Survival, A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics,” Jane Jacobs revises an ancient and unpopular belief in the absolute human need for two legitimate and indispensable but often contrary moral systems.
Reference is made to Plato’s “Republic,” in which Plato’s conclusion was that in order for justice to exist and prevail a republic must never let the occupations of commerce (bronze souled men) mix with the occupations of guardianship (silver and gold souled men – soldiers/police and rulers). There is also a brief mention of Machiavelli who first challenged the foundations of Christian civilization by saying that there is a moral system that will lead you to heaven which can be found in books and churches and then there is a moral system that will lead a prince to govern well.
Jane Jacobs joins this group of philosophers who believe there exist two legitimate moral systems. “This book explores the morals and values that underpin viable working life. Like other animals, we find and pick up what we can use, and appropriate territories. But unlike other animals, we also trade and produce for trade. Because we possess these two radically different ways of dealing with our needs, we also have two radically different systems of morals and values – both valid and necessary.”
Her methodology for clarifying and analyzing the two systems involved looking at three kinds of evidence to find and categorize precepts: 1) news or stories that exalted an individual’s behaviour or qualities. 2) Formally laid out expectations such as found in job-training manuals and in sociology. 3) News and stories that deemed some individual’s actions as scandalous or criminal. In all cases, the precept identified the principle and the job of the individual. What became obvious after a while was that the precepts came to form clusters with certain jobs. The following list is the result of numerous clusters forming and linking to each other into two lists of syndromes.
Among her findings there are some universal moral values (cooperation, courage, moderation, mercy, common sense, foresight, judgment, competence, perseverance, faith, energy, patience, wisdom) that are “esteemed across the board in all kinds of work…. These two lists I gave you are the residues left after I subtracted universals…”
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The Commercial Moral Syndrome |
The Guardian Moral Syndrome |
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Shun force |
Shun trading |
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Come to voluntary agreements |
Exert prowess |
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Be honest |
Be obedient and disciplined |
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Collaborate easily with strangers and aliens |
Adhere to tradition |
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Compete |
Respect hierarchy |
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Respect contracts |
Be loyal |
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Use initiative and enterprise |
Take vengeance |
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Be open to inventiveness and novelty |
Deceive for the sake of the task |
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Be efficient |
Make rich use of leisure |
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Promote comfort and convenience |
Be ostentatious |
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Dissent for the sake of the task |
Dispense largesse |
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Invest for productive purposes |
Be exclusive |
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Be industrious |
Show fortitude |
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Be thrifty |
Be fatalistic |
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Be optimistic |
Treasure honour |
The Commercial Moral Syndrome
“[T]hese are the classic bourgeois values and virtues….this is about the concrete, nitty-gritty commercial life.”
For commerce to be successful and to expand people need to come to mutually agreeable voluntary agreements. The use of force has a way of making people not want to trade therefore diminishing the possibility of growth or expansion. So shunning the use of force is a commercial growth virtue and attempting to coerce a partner through blackmail, bodily harm, or through stealing is considered highly despicable. Shunning force for a commercial person applies both for the actual trader and for government. A business person with a private army would be shunned as much as possible by other business people just as much as business people complain about government intervention (negative changes) in their industry. “When violence or intimidation enters a transaction, it is no longer trade. It is taking by force.”
Honesty is also indispensable, “Be honest, in its turn gives substance to voluntary agreements.” In the old days fraud in weight measurement was death to the good reputation of any trader. Today, fraud is still a punishable offence in all its vast manifestations. Honesty in business is good for the long term viability in a way that dishonesty is not. This is also why collaborating easily with strangers and aliens, that is, distant trading partners, is a virtue. The presumption of honesty facilitates trust in business transactions. To perpetuate this commercial mode of life, virtues that support the long term existence of business are promoted. Honesty must be usual. “it’s an instance of functional necessity becoming a cultural trait.” Guardians not commercial people must enforce it symbiotically.
Compete: in addition to doing the best job or providing the best value, competition is linked to voluntary agreements, honesty, and shunning force by the fact that the long term costs of not competing are overwhelmingly high compared to the short term benefits of not investing in growth, innovation, and expansion. In a sense all the short term benefits that come with long-term costs have been weeded out of the commercial syndrome by thousands of years of time and experience.
“Respect contracts gives substance to voluntary agreements.” The author describes two types of law: The old hierarchal law based on status (the guardian syndrome) and the new commercial law based on voluntary agreements. She gives a history of how the Custom of Merchants became codified and through long struggles eventually gave us civil rights many of which “are actually rights to make contracts as equals.” “Contractual law allows ordinary people to Use initiative and enterprise – makes it feasible as a practical matter….and Be open to inventiveness and novelty, Be efficient, Promote comfort and convenience, and Dissent for the sake of the task.” This last one is the source of innovation: whenever something new or improved gets developed there was dissent against the status quo for the sake of a better way of doing things.
Dissent for the sake of the task is clustered with three other precepts: Invest for productive purposes, Be industrious, and Be thrifty. These are sometimes called the protestant work ethic and all require a certain level of dissent from the norm that keeps bringing new things and new wealth into creation.
The last precept, Be optimistic, comes with a sense that business people really believe they are making the world a better place. Many business people are continually working to solve real world problems and succeeding most of the time (or at least believing they will until the very end). Next time the guardian moral syndrome and monstrous hybrids.