Indeed, monkeys, our closest cousins, make for an interesting case towards a better understanding of human morality. Note that monkeys cannot trade – they only steal whatever they want. Snatch and grab is their only recourse. Now contrast them with humans – who buy bananas, and everything else – and you will arrive at conclusions very different from Thomas Hobbes (of Leviathan fame) who, it must be noted, never saw a monkey in his life.
If we contrast humans and monkeys, we note that there is a “natural order” in the affairs of humans because we are “rule-following animals.” And the rule is this:
Possession Indicates Property.
We buy and sell all through our lives without resorting to any “paperwork,” only because of this Golden Rule. When I give Parimal a hundred rupees for 5 packs of Silk Cut, and he hands the same over to me, Property has changed hands, Parimal is now the owner of the State note, and I am the owner of the cigarettes. And everyone in the bazaar agrees that we have treated each other with Justice, and that the exchange of properties was legitimate. The new pattern of ownership is accepted as legitimate by all.
Because they cannot trade, monkeys are lawless. So if monkeys took to the sword, mayhem would ensue. And it has:
Item #1: Raj Thuggeray issuing notice to the State Bank of India that they must hire Marathi manoos as clerks. This is blatant misuse of the talwar, whose purpose is to see that fair competition prevails, that all candidates for clerkship compete fairly with each other, so that SBI hires the best.
Once again, there is this difference in political philosophy: We idealize a world where FORCE is minimized, and used only according to The Law. People like Thuggeray believe precisely in the misuse of force, on coercion. Yet, they are “recognized” as politicians heading political parties. We are not. Funny old world.
Item #2: The story of the grabbing of tribal lands rich in iron ore by the Tatas and the Essar Group. Here the precise rule being violated is that which we observe in all our markets: Possession Indicates Property. Once again, those who are wielding the Sword of State are acting like lawless monkeys.
What do we do?
I recall many a stay in Koppa, a small village on the outskirts of Bangalore, where I used to hold seminars for students. Here, monkeys were a huge menace. They would raid the dining hall. They would raid our rooms. Indeed, my own room was raided once.
One day, I took a walk through Koppa just to check out the place. There was only one temple they had. It was dedicated to the Monkey God – Hanuman.
I found it rather strange that it was precisely where monkeys are a nuisance that the people worship the Monkey God.
This - from Nial Ferguson's The Ascent of Money - may interest your readers. It seems to suggest that a certain level of civilisation is needed before people will trade. He writes:
ReplyDeleteThe life of the hunter-gatherer is indeed, as Thomas Hobbes said of the state of nature, 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'. In some respects, to be sure, wandering through the jungle bagging monkeys may be preferable to the hard slog of subsistence agriculture. But anthropologists have shown that many of the hunter-gatherer tribes who survived into modern times were less placid than the Nukak [a primitive tribe that recently wandered out of the Amazonian rainforest.These days they live in a clearing near the city and are reliant for their subsistence on state handouts. Asked if they miss the jungle, they laugh. After lifetimes of trudging all day in search of food, they are amazed that perfect strangers now give them all they need and ask nothing from them in return.] Among the Jivaro of Ecuador, for example, nearly 60 per cent of male deaths were due to violence. The figure for the Brazilian Yanamamo was nearly 40 per cent. When two groups of such primitive people chanced upon each other, it seems, they were more likely to fight over scarce resources (food and fertile women) than to engage in commercial exchange. Hunter-gatherers do not trade. They raid. Nor do they save, consuming their food as and when they find it.
sure.prosperity(and gains from trade) accrue to only a civil society.i too read the ascent of money,but am disappointed that he buys milt friedman's account of the great depression. ie. he is kinda pro central bank.
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