One question that should trouble most reading this is why is there such a disjunct or severe bifurcation between Kant’s unique and remarkable critiques and the miasma of his political philosophy. Perhaps, surprising as it seems, it is due to his primarily bourgeois sensibilities; certainly his political ideas are reactionary in the extreme. Yet, this is the same Immanuel Kant who produced the tremendous critiques which showcase that jewel in the crown of the trilogy -- the Critique of Practical Reason (CP).

The second critique, CP, is in essence the central work which both the first and third critiques are anchored on. If it was not for the issue of morality, it can be arguably said that Kant would not have produced the critiques as we know them for a crucial purpose of his project was to show that we can indeed have meaningful notions of the good and act that out, without being accused of metaphysical speculation or rendered impotent through scepticism. And importantly, we do not need the dogmatism of religious zealots to inform us of what is the right thing to do; our practical reason takes care of that and it is a driving force in defining us as humans.

This second part looks at how practical reason shapes Kant’s moral constructivism and is the basis of his political constructivism which runs counter to his political theory. In other words, Kant’s political reason is that which is morally driven.   

The moral basis of things

Just as Kant was adamant on providing certainty in knowledge in CR through his transcendental philosophy, he was determined to  provide reliable grounds for doing the right thing in the form of the categorical imperative, for instance. But it is not the categorical imperative as much as the moral force itself that helps create one’s reality which is at the heart of CP; it is also what underwrites the egalitarian and empowering principles of Kant's philosophical project. These ideas salvage Kant’s reputation from the harshness of his political thinking to provide, through extrapolation, what can be called his political reason.  

Early on in the CP Kant says,

In practical philosophy, which has to do only with the grounds of determination of the will, the principles which a man makes for himself are not laws by which he is inexorably bound, because reason, in practice, has to do with a subject and especially with his faculty of desire…The practical rule is always a product of reason, because it prescribes action as a means to an effect which is its purpose...It is a rule characterized by an “ought” which expresses the objective necessitation of the act and indicates that, if reason completely determined the will, the action would without exception take place according to the rule. (CP 20)    

What Kant is saying is that the will is influenced by practical reason and that is the same as free will reflective of human freedom. Man is not bound by a law by which he now must follow no matter what, but has the choice to do what is right from his own reason and if he does so it will be for the highest good of all as a duty. The moral choice comes from within and is not imposed from without: This is crucial in Kant.

Kant tries to clarify this a little later -- “But for reason to give law it is required that reason need presuppose only itself, because the rule is objectively and universally valid only when it holds without any contingent subjective conditions which differentiate one rational being from another.” (CP 21) Here Kant implies that there is no personal point of view or subjectivist perspective in producing a moral imperative for oneself. For a moral imperative is validated through practical reason which exists in each person, and that in turn is based on a moral grounding of each individual from which those imperatives and practical reason emanate; and in this way the imperatives can be regarded as universal: So we can expect that others can have similar moral imperatives and that they can understand where our own comes from. This is not an imposition of an external law or an internal one, but an imperative based on our free will which we make into a duty for ourselves without any desire for external rewards or recognition.  

We further learn from Kant,

It would be better to maintain that there are no practical laws, which must have an objective and not just subjective necessity and which must be known a priori by reason instead of by experience, no matter how empirically universal. Even the rules of uniform phenomena are denominated natural laws (for example, mechanical laws) only if we really can understand them a priori…Only in the case of subjective practical principles is it expressly made a condition that not objective but subjective conditions of choice must underlie them, and hence that they must be represented always as mere maxims and never as practical laws. (CP 27)        

Kant hearkens to the first critique on how laws are generated based on synthetic a priori conceptions and why this does not apply to moral imperatives. The ideas of the former are constitutive and regulative, whereas the latter are directive/directing in how to act. The moral imperative is not a law in that it has a way of getting agreement on its validity because it has empirical backing or can be accepted as a theoretical construct. Its force comes from its subjective-universal applicability which does not qualify it as some universal law, but rather as a maxim which one uses that can be accepted by others on a subjective-universal ground that applies to everyone. When that is used as the basis for a shared moral imperative then its force is guaranteed in a way by it not having a determinate end like the happiness of the individual or mankind. Rather the moral imperative is to ensure that we are worthy of happiness: This is what gives it objectivity from the subjective-universal ground of the will. This is central to a lot that follows and is one of Kant’s great insights.

We then reach one of the central ideas in Kant, on the links between freedom, the will and morality (Kant’s italics in all quotes):

The question now is whether our knowledge of the unconditionally practical takes its inception from freedom or from the practical law. It cannot start from freedom, for this we can neither know immediately, since our first concept of it is negative, nor infer from experience, since experience reveals only the law of appearances and consequently the mechanism of nature, the direct opposite of freedom. It is therefore the moral law, of which we become immediately conscious as soon as we construct maxims for the will, which first presents itself to us; and, since reason exhibits it as a ground of determination which is completely independent of and not to be outweighed by any sensuous condition, it is the moral law which leads directly to the concept of freedom. (CP 30).   

To Kant our knowledge of freedom comes from the practical law or moral law. We cannot understand this from the world of appearances but from the exercise of our will and freedom to choose against what the sensuous or natural world’s restrictions pose on us. For instance, the physical restrictions of the world and dangers it can bring, together with a sense of limitation that one has to struggle to survive, goes against the grain of the moral law which can make us choose -- as an act of will – freedom; or that which opposes self-interestedness (and sometimes, even survival).

Kant develops this idea further by saying that the (moral) will is pure will as there is no precedence for it in the realm of the phenomenal world as understood by natural law. It is one of a kind and can be understood as grounded on morality itself. The moral law seems to operate like a natural law but does not have the same result in that it is not a reflection of phenomena happening in the world and rationalizing causes for it. Yet, the moral law operates on the basis of generating a system of law like the natural one but is actually in the form of a maxim that a person can follow.

So Kant says,

Therefore, it is at least not impossible to conceive of a law that alone serves the purpose of the subjective form of principles and yet is a ground of determination by virtue of the objective form of a law in general. The consciousness of this fundamental law may be called a fact of reason, since one cannot ferret it out from antecedent data of reason, such as the consciousness of freedom…and since it forces itself upon us as a synthetic proposition a priori based on no pure or empirical intuition. It would be analytic if the freedom of the will were presupposed, but for this, as a positive concept, an intellectual intuition would be needed, and here we cannot assume it…

Pure reason alone is practical of itself, and it gives (to man) a universal law, which we call the moral law. (CP 31)

Kant is looking for a certain ground from which to launch the moral law and he finds it in pure reason. From this we can have certainty and communicate it to others and aim to create moral solutions to situations because we have not only the common practical grounds of reason itself, but we can project this in the form of a universal law in general (the awareness of which when generated in this manner is a fact of reason). But moral laws are not universal laws like natural ones; though they have universality due to their form which is similar to natural ones. Kant is interested in finding how we can provide certainty to moral ideas and have a basis for commonality in expressing them by showing the subjective-objective content-form they have; this also allows for universality and acceptability among peoples.

Furthermore, the idea of heteronomy (relying on something external to us) is opposed to autonomy (relying on something within us), and the latter is a distinctive feature in the expression of free will. This is an important idea that will provide the basis for further examining and recuperating from the damaging impact of Kant’s political ideas. Our man further says,

The autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws and of the duties conforming to them; heteronomy of choice…not only does not establish any obligation but is opposed to the principle of obligation and to the morality of the will.

The sole principle of morality consists in independence from all material of the law…and in the accompanying determination of choice by the mere form of giving universal law which a maxim must be capable of having. That independence…is freedom in the negative sense, while this intrinsic legislation of pure and thus practical reason is freedom in the positive sense. Therefore, the moral law expresses nothing else than the autonomy of pure practical reason, i.e., freedom. This autonomy of freedom is itself the formal condition of all maxims, under which alone they can all agree with the supreme practical law. (CP 33-34)       

Free will and the ability to choose is the idea behind moral laws and the duties it brings and it is centred within us; this makes us autonomous beings. Relying on something external to guide us and give us meaning and direction is to lose autonomy and provides a way out of moral responsibility and the obligation it brings.

The object of the moral law is the desire to do something, but we must not be a slave to that or be obsessed with an end goal to determine what is the right thing to do as it must be done as a universal principle as opposed to an end goal everyone is legislated to follow. The format of a law for our maxims shows us that it is universal and independent, but the positive aspect of our freedom comes from the obligation we give ourselves to do what is right irrespective of the impact on our comfort zones. This is what makes us free individuals, that is, the ability to break free from what constrains us. 

Then the lines that dive deeper into Kant’s idea on the connection between the supersensuous noumenon and the phenonmenal world:

The sensuous nature of rational beings in general is their existence under empirically conditioned laws, and therefore…heteronomy. The supersensuous nature of the same beings…is their existence according to laws which are independent of all empirical conditions and which therefore belong to the autonomy of pure reason. And since the laws…are practical laws, supersensuous nature…is nothing else than nature under the autonomy of the pure practical reason. The law of this autonomy is the moral law, and it, therefore, is the fundamental law of supersensuous nature and of a pure world of the understanding, whose counterpart must exist in the world of sense without interfering with the laws of the latter… (CP 43)    

Kant merges the idea of the laws of phenomena that come from reason which explain the conditional world we live in as experienced empirically with that of the seemingly unconditional world of the noumenon, as grasped and given intelligibility by practical reason. Only the latter can give an understanding of the noumenal world which natural laws cannot; and the natural world can be understood better via the underlying moral laws of practical reason which are an expression of our autonomy. The world of seeming dependence on empirical changes is underpinned by the unchanging world of freedom and morality which are direct aspects of the noumenon. Therefore, Kant’s vision of the world and the universe is a moral one.

This central idea in Kant’s thinking is further developed:

For, in fact, the moral law ideally transfers us into a nature in which reason would bring forth the highest good were it accompanied by sufficient physical capacities; and it determines our will to confer on the sensuous world the form of a system of rational beings. The least attention to ourself shows that this Idea really stands as a model for the determination of our will. (CP 43)   

It seems that Kant is saying that we can shape the world we live in, and therefore create our destiny, via expressing our freedom as moral beings for the highest good of all and this could be supported by the physical world under the right conditions. This reality which can be manifested as a moral expression of ourselves is a noumenal expression translating itself into phenomenal expression. This implies that with force of the moral law we can co-create the world we live in. It is not that we end up changing the so-called law of gravity as such, but that we change the world in a way that positively reflects our stewardship of life and the environment of the planet, through creating and sustaining the appropriate socio-economic structures.

Kant goes on to develop another of the central themes of his philosophy which forms the basis for his moral constructivism: It is not the idea of good and evil that is the datum for the moral law but the latter that provides the source for such notions. And he goes on to expand on this,

This remark, which refers only to the method of the deepest moral investigations, is important. It explains once and for all the reasons which occasion all the confusions of philosophers concerning the supreme principle of morals…Whether they placed this object of pleasure, which was to deliver the supreme concept of good, in happiness, or in perfection, in moral feeling, or in the will of God – their fundamental principle was always heteronomy, and they came inevitably to empirical conditions for a moral law. (CP 64)

Kant points out that to place the source of the highest good and the joy it may bring in a source external to oneself inevitably results in surrendering our freedom to an external law, condition or force. Heteronomy involves empirical evidence and natural law explanations to ascertain the good it generates for a person. This would be a subreption. The moral law is not only a priori and has no basis in the natural world nor metaphysical speculation, but it comes from within and thereby signals our autonomy and guarantees the certitude of the moral drive.

The idea of co-creation of reality is expanded by Kant when he says that morality as expressed via the practical law is geared towards the highest good of all, and so what we work towards in that construction of a society for everyone’s good is such that it does so for the welfare of all. This does not, however, preclude taking challenging decisions that could place us in jeopardy when, for instance, speaking truth to power. Whatever the consequence to ourselves, we will do what is right for the welfare/highest good of others; for the end goal is not the happiness of others so much as doing what makes us worthy of happiness and in that respect, we would add to the happiness of ourselves and others. (CP 69-70, 93)

The moral law is the ground from which the highest good commences. It may seem circular but there is hardly a way out for Kant on this score in that the drive and source of the highest good is itself, so it is directing in nature but not directed towards a specific goal as that would be the way the natural laws would work which are empirically/verification oriented and thereby heteronomous. (CP 109-110)

These central Kantian ideas take fuller form when expanded into how the practical will avoids the dual dilemma of empiricism and mysticism; this is also what Kant was avoiding when he wrote the CR. When the motivation and goal of our actions are our comfort and happiness instead of doing what is right, then we are guilty of seeking validation for our acts in the form of empiricism; this would fit utilitarian doctrines and is heteronomous. This would also entail seeking a reward in doing something to gain satisfaction rather than an inner motivation that would reflect one’s conscience.

Similarly, to do something based on ‘God’s will’ is not only to make metaphysical assumptions according to Kant, but to dive into mysticism/the transcendent and thus rely on divine edict’s outside of oneself; this too is to indulge in heteronomy. Our agency, free will and autonomy is denied unless we rely on our moral judgement and our capacity for this based on our will and practical reason: This is the building block for our empowerment. We are “indeed legislative members of a moral realm which is possible through freedom and which is presented to us as an object of respect by practical reason.” (CP 82) Our will towards the highest good helps us co-create a moral realm as the expression of our freedom as autonomous beings.

Yet, Kant makes the point that it is empiricism that is more worrying than the mystical. It is looking for results that can be measured to secure one’s justification for doing something that is a greater distraction for our moral disposition. He says “that empiricism is far more dangerous than all mystical enthusiasm” (CP 71) as its apparent immediacy is always a compelling factor. We are normally trapped within the exigencies of physical issues that tend to cloud the need to rely on moral judgement. This is why Kant’s political ideas contradict what his moral thought gives us (which is the ground of his critical philosophy) -- that expediency and its empirical seduction cannot triumph over the moral will of one’s conscience which is our supreme human trait.

A core aspect of Kant’s practical reason would resonate with some revolutionary activists:

It follows of itself that, in the order of ends, man (and every rational being) is an end in himself, i.e., he is never to be used merely as a means for someone (even for God) without at the same time being himself an end, and that humanity in our person must itself be holy to us, and it is only on account of this and in agreement with this that anything can be called holy. (CP 131-132)  

This is the kind of spiritual force that is usually found simmering at the heart of revolutionary thought where morality, purpose and action fuse into a whole without external incentive other than the drive for self realization for the highest good of all. True, sometimes this is mired in the goal of ridding a country of a dictatorship or oppressive regime, and that may seem heteronomous. But an unadulterated revolutionary motivation would see that no man is a commodity, and that each person is a free and autonomous being beyond measurement: For our essence is spiritual and thereby Immeasurable.

Bringing it together

A brief survey of the three critiques reveals that the first one looks at theoretical or speculative reason, what it is, and how we create knowledge. The CR looks at how we claim certainty in knowledge rather than explain what it is we exactly know. The CP looks at the free will, freedom, practical reason and their moral grounding. This in turn gives us autonomy and provides certainty in our moral claims and actions. The third critique (CJ), which is not looked at here, is about how we communicate in relation to nature, beauty, the sublime and art. It allows us to make claims about what is beautiful which though it may be subjective, still allows us to expect universal understanding from others on this. The CJ also examines issues related to the moral dimension which is the essence of Kant’s thinking.

The CR shows that we project what we know and that much of the world is understood by us a priori from the way human consciousness is ‘wired’ or ‘designed’. The CR sets the base for practical reason which goes on to show in CP, that we co-create moral realms through not only categorical imperatives but that the moral dimension is what makes the world intelligible to us: It fuses the noumenal basis of reason into understanding things in a holistic and coherent manner. So we project our moral creations and that shapes our world. This is Kant’s projection of empowerment and egalitarianism of each individual as they express themselves as free agents who can decide their destiny.

The fact of reason makes us aware of the intrinsic connection, or different side of the same coin aspect, of speculative reason and practical reason. And when we look at what is termed here Kant’s political reason we are looking at another dimension of Kant’s ideas that is, however, in contradistinction to his political thinking. Political reason expresses itself via synthetic a priori political theorizing that appropriately and effectively replaces and projects a viable set of political ideas for Kant.

Earlier it was mentioned that Kant’s subreption occurred when he made moral claims from his political ones, and the combined fetishized notions of them slipped into transcendentalism and transcendence: Because the moral drive has been hegemonised by the political one of expedience and Rightism/legalism. And republicanism, constitutionalism, and Rightism/legalism are treated as transcendent goals or Ideals to be realized and used to justify a reactionary status quo. We understand political reason to be underwritten by moral drives and practical reason (which also underpin pure reason and thereby theoretical/speculative reason).

Thus, political theories would be fused with moral drives as an expression of the moral ground. They are not hegemonised by morality but made intelligible solely by morality just as the workings and resultant products of reason itself are intelligible due to its practical essence.

Therefore, political reason gives proper and cogent expression to Kant’s political philosophy. It is also fused with practical reason -- which is what ultimately anchors his critiques and overall philosophical project. In other words, the accurate way to understand Kant’s political ideas is to apply them as moral constructs.

The material for Kant’s political theory would also be synthetic a priori in that there are notions of democracy, general will, social contract, equality, public good etc which are a priori constructs. These are then formulated into theories which would support ideas of republicanism (as various shades of democracy), authoritarianism, totalitarianism, socialism, anarchism, and all that would be termed radical political thinking. When we try to work this out empirically it is called politics and academically, political science. So another way to put it is that Kant’s political reason is the expression of a synthetic a priori projection of theoretical constructs aligned with the moral drive.

We could say that pure reason has the dimensions of practical reason (that underlies it), theoretical/speculative reason, and political reason. The latter can be expressed as theoretical constructs, and itself is an expression of practical reason and of the moral essence grounding it.

It can also be said that Kant’s republicanism, legalism, Right-ism and constitutionalism, as well as his fixation with a hierarchical system of government is a product of his theorizing which he attempts to verify with examples from his time and experience. These are manifestations of transcendental thinking which are used to explain and rationalize politics, traditional societal structures and forms of control. That Kant’s political ideas are reactionary in the extreme and even harsh in many aspects can only be speculatively said to be the result of his bourgeois attitudes and existence, and from biographical information that in his later years he conformed to authority; though this may have also been his way of showing that he was a good citizen of his land.

The problem starts when he takes his political theorizing to logical extremes, wherein the transcendental logic used to draw conclusions in a linear fashion finally produces puerile statements as seen where whatever good he attempts to rationalize through stability leads to despotism. Legal or constitutional despotism is still despotism; these are subtleties lost on the later Kant whose sharpness of mind is blunted by a form of worship of authority, and fetishized logicism.

It becomes problematic and painfully embarrassing when Kant facilely tries to combine his profound moral thinking with the effrontery of his politics. But we now can see the contradiction is severe for his entire moral philosophy is at odds with his political theory in that it is the former which is an expression of the spiritual in man, and the assertion of his freedom in contrast to being a driveling and sniveling slave to authority.

We need to extrapolate Kant’s ideas and see that the proper application of his practical reason to political reason can add to clarity in the form of the concept of practical political reason. Hence, we grasp the emphasis that the intelligibility granted to political reason comes from the moral dimension espoused as practical political reason (PPR). Through the term PPR it is easier to see that it is our moral grounding that determines our political thinking and thereby our political theories and actions. This means we have political theories that are projected from the morally grounded ideas of freedom, justice, egalitarianism, and wealth sharing and distribution for the highest good of all. So PPR would take us away from Kant’s reactionary bombast and towards uncharted territories in that it is an expression of our creative powers to meet challenges and forge the society we want.

Kant’s moral constructivism would include John Rawls’s notion of it, but it is developed here as people co-creating their own moral realm and society. As moral agents we create a moral realm, or world, made intelligible and free from the constraints that may be imposed by the phenomenal world; but also recognizing the pragmatic need to adapt to its physical constructs. Yet, the phenomenal world can also be influenced and shaped by the moral co-creation of human beings, as societal structures and phenomena can be changed to reflect moral consciousness.

Therefore, through each person via categorical imperatives and the exercise of their autonomy and free will grounded in morality we co-create a just and fair society that allows for the betterment of all and the highest realization of human potential. This is hardly utopia but what can be created when PPR is in force. It is just that we have not really given this a proper go yet.

Sergio Leone Does Adam Smith

Before looking at the issue of markets again and how the so-called Free Market has no relation to what Smith was talking about, it is worth looking at the relevance and application of the IH notion of adjusting irregularities as special providence. So far, Smith’s examples as used here may seem a little abstract but his ideas are far more potent for reasons beyond the claims of FM fantasists and hard core Capitalists.

Take look at A Fistful of Dollars. When Eastwood, or the man with no name, pits one rival faction against the other in the nihilistic town he visits, he is only interested in earning money. He amorally and immorally manipulates and shoots his way into earning his coins. But he decides to help the wronged woman kept as a mistress by the villain of the piece (Gian Maria Volonte) and unites her with her son and husband. In the process he kills her captors and even gives all the money he has to help and her family.

As a result Eastwood pays a terrible price; but on the mend from his punishment he invokes a revenge that brings down total destruction on the rival clans. As Smith says, when Eastwood pursues his own interest (mixed up with greed and a trigger happy style) he ironically -- against his own intentions -- ends up helping the woman and her family, starts a chain of events that rids the town of its corruption thereby playing an unwitting balancing force that allows the town to start anew.

It is almost like there is an IH that sweeps through the drama to provide some form adjustment via the irregularity of self interest and selfishness of the Eastwood character. Just as in Kurosawa’s original masterpiece Yojimbo on which Leone based his film, Leone’s “Dollars Trilogy” and the ones that follow it have a moral centre.

The other fascinating instance is in a Leone film called A Fistful of Dynamite, but now in its fully restored version is known as Duck, You Sucker. James Coburn plays a weary Irish Republican Army man running from his past who ends up teaming up with a notorious bandit, played by Rod Steiger, in Mexico. Though each pursues their self interest and in the case of Steiger, his greed: they both despite trying to avoid getting caught up in the Mexican Revolution end up doing just that. In the process they help the revolutionists fight the fascists of their time through set pieces of violence.

Again, in the most unlikely manner a balance is restored as the characters follow their interests and destinies to the end under the Direction of a greater force, as if by an IH.

Also, on a more personal note, I have rarely (in the Smithian sense) managed to persuade someone to a cause by telling them that it is for the good of humanity. But on explaining to them how this would be in their interest to do so, and that of their close ones, have managed to get people involved in good causes. In that process they bring others onboard and before long a virtuous cycle is created of getting done that which, in the medium to long term, benefits the environment, society and/or the underprivileged. This process happens automatically and adjusts itself accordingly almost as if guided, as in most other cases, by an IH.

And Justice For All

Let us come back to the so-called markets. As can be seen Smith was not promoting Capitalism. Neither was he promoting a so-called Free Market. The idea of the FM is not only a contradiction in terms but does not allow any notion of balance and fairness to come into play. By now we can see that Smith was more concerned with a social-economic system that promoted balance and harmony rather than the free-wheeling framework of wildly shifting disequilibriums promulgated by Capitalism and neo-classical economics.

Back to another passage in TMS, where Smith writes in I.I.36 (bold and italics mine):

To see the emotions of their hearts, in every respect, beat time to his own, in the violent and disagreeable passions, constitutes his sole consolation. But he can only hope to obtain this by lowering his passion to that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of going along with him. He must flatten, if I may be allowed to say so, the sharpness of its natural tone, in order to reduce it to harmony and concord with the emotions of those who are about him. What they feel, will, indeed, always be, in some respects, different from what he feels, and compassion can never be exactly the same with original sorrow; because the secret consciousness that the change of situations, from which the sympathetic sentiment arises, is but imaginary, not only lowers it in degree, but, in some measure, varies it in kind, and gives it a quite different modification. These two sentiments, however, may, it is evident, have such a correspondence with one another, as is sufficient for the harmony of society. Though they will never be unisons, they may be concords, and this is all that is wanted or required.

What this passage encapsulates is the sympathetic vibrations of energy people tend to set up in relation to one another in functioning together as a group of people or society. Emotions and thoughts are adjusted through conscious or unconscious effort when collaboration and consensus is being built to move things forward. A strident tone, no matter how justified, tends to lose support, hence, the need to “flatten…the sharpness” to get some form of harmony among people. Consensus building is a good thing.

This is radically opposed to the rampant egoistic obsessions that many ideas of Capitalism and the FM tend to promote. Smith’s ideas have to do with people getting along not through compromising of values, but by consensus building. Which also means it eschews insistence of things through the barrel of a gun (and the ideologies that go with it).

Smith, in always trying to keep things real, makes it clear that the process of consensus building and cooperative ventures do not create unisons so much as concords and that, indeed, is as good as it gets. It is analogous, in a way, to unity in diversity, or vice versa. Individual identities and ideas are kept but they are adjusted to see what in common can get things working. This somehow resonates with most people’s idea of democracy.

This does not imply being able to suddenly propose revolutionary ideas that can shift paradigms to a new level, but on a closer look this paradigm shift may be achieved through the use of persuasion, and convincing others of how it benefits them individually etc that result in ideas for the good of all.

This contrasts with the jaded and predictable manner that extremists and hard core Capitalists do things. It always has the use of force underlying it or overlaying it or pointed at you in the form a gun. Apparently, that’s a sign of freedom and the way to keep it going. Naturally, when you rob others’ land, property, livelihoods, families, life blood and consciences for the sake of selfishness and blind capital accumulation you have to do it through force and keep it via domestic and international violence.

But as Smith says, even such irregularities from what can be seen as regular peaceable behaviour between peoples is given balance and readjustment which sees a reordering of society. Hence, the current economic crisis sweeping the world which while causing so much problems for us, is the cleansing process which will bring down the old, corrupt, violence drenched past that will get us to work together inevitably to issue in a new age of peace, harmony and prosperity which may also have existed in other times not subject to the ‘officially’ promulgated history of the world.

This process of building ideas up to principles that can be used or applied throughout a society is a process of social constructivism that in a way is in concord with that of the moral constructivism of Kant and, almost without doubt, the political constructivism of Rawls. Smith’s social constructivism allows his economic constructivism to take place. The IH as a function of Divine teleology allows for social processes to be generated thereby creating situations for economic practices to be in concordance with them. Economic ideas come forward for the good of the individual and society, and are balanced, fair and just for all.

A more detailed look at this can be found in Justice as Fairness Revisited and The Awakened Eco-nomy. In the end this post too is just a blog, like any other, and it is hoped that those with sharper minds and a more intense passion will develop things from here to see where it can go.

End of the Reign of the Magicists

So where does this leave those Nobel prize winning ideas for economics and all other dandy econometric models and stuff taught at universities to churn out more intellectually misguided people (having partially suffered from this, I know whereof I speak)?

Hey, what about those Laws or Demand and Supply (DS), Say’s Law, Taylor Rules, NAIRUs (non-accelerating interest rate of unemployment) and those of the sublime perfect market which talk about Pareto optimatlity curves, (false) equilibriums where everyone has to use cost-benefit analysis to fight for scare resources to maximize utility. Everything else outside of this is that inconvenient thing called an ‘externality’.

Milton Friedman delusionally described the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ externalities where being charitable would be a ‘good’ thing but aiming for so-called corporate social responsibility (another contradiction in terms) is a ‘bad’ thing which bucks (no pun intended) econometric models because it could undermine the sole reason for corporations existing which is, of course, profit making while the world goes to hell.

What this means is that if you ask a corporation or a capitalist to factor in human decency and fairness into a ‘law’ of neo-classical economics or its profit taking model, you are talking ‘externality’, man.

But my friends, what is this so-called Law of DS or equilibrium? Let’s go against what our schools and many tertiary institutions teach you not to do, let’s actually think a little and try a bit of common sense (no certificates awarded for this). Apparently there are these kind of push and pull factors which seem to be observed when wants for commodities are met with a flow producing them that intersect at the right price. What are these forces that create such wants and flows and intersections and push and pull like the tide of the sea?

What is optimum growth and equilibrium? Are these points of description of the most suitable or desired or needed form of growth in given circumstances as decided by curves, governments, societies or people’s feedback? Or are they what economists claim they should be? What is this idea of balance, and rising and falling of forces that produce new forms of things and energies? You have nothing but economic and social theories and models to explain this.

If you ask what gravity is, well it’s this force that’s composed of gravitons. How did this come to be? Well these are natural forces, just like DS or equilibrium or optimum growth that are codified by professors in academic ‘disciplines’ and don’t need anything else to explain them. If you ask what is behind gravity or equilibrium you are told that is not necessary to ask because the current theories are borne out by empirical observations and that sufficiently explain things.

So is there a giant squid at the centre of the earth whose suction causes gravity? Sure, possibly, but why do you need that when you have a law of gravity? The latter is a sufficient explanation so the squid can be left to Captain Nemo and his like. Is economic ‘equilibrium’ a sign of the IH, yes, in so far as it describes ‘economic forces’ and any notion of some other elements behind the IH is mysticism and irrelevant (‘economic forces’ being sufficient to let us sleep soundly each night). It is not scientific or modern nor a reflection of ‘enlightened’ reasoning to go beyond a ‘satisfying’ set of theoretical explanations.

But all these explanations are circular at worst or question begging at best for each time you ask what causes these phenomena like equilibrium, they are ‘economic’ forces and what are these forces….these are theoretical constructs to explain this that and the other…what is the basis of these constructs…observations backed by hypotheses or vice versa as tested against the world….that show that these forces are indeed at work…ah ha…back to square one with stunning clarity.

When pressed as to why they do not go beyond such silliness in their theoretical reasoning -- it’s to avoid mysticism. So what we are offered in effect is this: there are mysterious forces at work, just at Klein describes the IH and other things in Smith in a manner that would make Agatha Christie proud, but we have some ‘explanations’ that should do the trick. Aren’t you impressed by our intellectual sleight-of-hand; see how clever we are; we are the smartest of the species coming up with all kinds of reasons to explain and make more things convoluted and complicated so that we can progress onwards in a civilized manner devoid of mysticism.

The illusional, delusional, tricks-of-academia and intellectual-do-it-with-mirrors is just that – magic. In place of the genuinely mysterious, the mystical, and the miraculous we have Magicism. Magicists, like many economists and scientists, believe that things just happen to be. These are natural forces which coincidentally are what they, well, are! There is no reason why the whole universe, solar system with its bodies moving around without crashing into one another, and sudden life that evolves with spectacular biodiversity cannot be explained away by theories and constructs as one massive coincidence. In other words, magic. It all happens to be there, presto! Just like that.

This Magicism has no bearing on what we use to describe an extraordinarily beautiful sunset or a special moment with a loved one: that kind of magic is an analogue of the miraculous and has an alignment with a moral centre and Divine Order.

Magicists also denigrate religious or spiritual experiences as purely personal ones peculiar to an individual or if shared then part of mass delusion. There are countless theories to explain this…why all this supposedly occurs and why life, the world and humanity is the way it is…meaning, it is what it is: abracadabra. You just explain away anything that’s greater than the human ego and its obsession with itself and excessive sensual indulgence by theories and magic.

So the IH and market forces happen as a result of magic. If you want a spiritual explanation to things then you have to rely on mysticism. Smith as a FM proponent and glorifier of Capitalism cannot simply be subscribing to that, now, can he? Notice the circularity as to how Smith has been appropriated? If you want only reason and scientism to show you the way forward solely through ‘hard’ facts and math etc, then you have Magicism.

Not that you cannot have theories balanced by the spiritual and a moral centre to the world and the universe (e.g., Newton, perhaps Einstein, Kant, Smith and Rawls – though the latter would prefer not to bring in the spiritual overtly). But to do that is to slide into mysticism. Why do that when you can be inaugurated as high priest in Magicism and be a Magicisit cum laude at an accredited Institution of Learning, or be called an Expert and win International Prizes?

Then you have philosophers who are Magicists. They will talk about a metaphysical basis to things and when pressed beyond that will tell you either what they say is sufficient, or that they cannot or don’t see why they have to say what exactly it is behind the Metaphysics. This is a metaphysical smoke screen to hide their ill concealed Magicism.

Those that have a metaphysics and believe there is Absolute Mind behind it like Hegel or the World as Will and Idea as Schopenhauer, are partial Magicists. There is an Absolute but it is devoid of love, compassion and the miraculous. Such ideas sadly get misappropriated by ignorant and rascally elements who then turn them into an excuse for totalitarian ideas or mind bogglingly self defeating pessimism. So partial Magicism has its dangers too.

Or, there will be thinkers, writers or philosophers, eminently talented too, who opine that there is some ‘centre of life’ which, well, is a centre of like, all that is, etc…doesn’t necessarily mean Divinity, but there’s something out there…Magicism bordering on the occult or vice versa. At best one can ascribe partial Magicism to them.

In fact, if you take the trouble to look closely at the ideas of full blown Magicists, you will find that they are inadvertently (or otherwise) occultists. They will tell you that the truth (if it can be known and to what extent it can be know, etc, etc) comes via their full blown or partial Magicism, the ‘clarity’ of academic jargon, econometric models, theories that are constantly outdated/replaced, and formulas of politically correct commonality by the self serving media or politicized hype to show you why you ought to remain disempowered and beholden to their incantations and…Occultism.

Where does life come from, what happens at death, why do people believe in Divine Order/God/Supreme Being…well, here are the theories, degrees, and career paths to sort that out, and a whole lot of magic and occultism to boot. Why? Because, the spiritual like all else that matters in life like justice, fairness, and compassion are externalities.

When you bring in externalities into academia, science, the workplace or the corporation you ruffle feathers because it gets in the way of ego, material grasping, profits and whatnot. Magicists and occultists do indulge in a quick mention that there ought to be a balance between being reasonable and ‘getting the job done’ (because apparently being unreasonable is the way to really professionally effectively get things done). But here again, where does the notion of balance come from…magic.

We have reached that point when all that defines existence and human decency and social and planetary responsibility are externalities that are the adjunct of mysticism, while all else like profit margins, banksters (gangster bankers), big bonus freaks and greed and perpetual war are at least theoretically explained as part of the reality of life…a.k.a magic: because it just happens, that’s the way it is. Things being the way they are without much to explain for them (beyond egocentric opinions and selfishness or endless theories) are just an unsubtle code for: yes, you guessed it, Magicism.

But we are now at long last on the path to seeing the end of the reign of the Magicists and Occultists. People are finally, after being led to near global bankruptcy using useless paper fiat currency backed by printing presses and endless war, starting to wake up and say enough is enough. That there is a moral centre to life, to the world and to the universe and that we are not going to take this violence and ignorance and nonsense anymore.

The Fair Market

There are indeed natural forces at work in the Universe that govern all life on earth as well. This must be the truism of the millennium. All life is part of a natural force. As Dylan Thomas wrote “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age”, and “Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea”.

The only externalities are the Magicists promoting their Magicism. But like all else in nature that has had its time, the Magicist structures and mechanisms are starting to decay, fall apart, and will eventually be reabsorbed into the world as part of the cycle of things guided by forces more powerful than egomania, celebrity cultism, media manipulation et al.

Contrary to the dying exhortations of FM fantasists and hard core Capitalists, freedom doesn’t guarantee fairness. The well worn adage that your freedom to swing your arm ends where the other person’s nose begins still rings true. There is simply no unbridled freedom to do as you please because we live in society and have a responsibility; and if we want things to go well for ourselves, to also see that things go well for others. There are limits to freedom. Try jumping off a skyscraper to show that you can do anything you want with impunity and you will discover the parameters imposed by what we call gravity.

As part of all natural forces in the universe and our planet, everything is subject to parameters. That’s why there’s life in the first place. Given the conjunction of conditions at the right time and place the synchronous and miraculous happens. There are indeed natural laws that affect us all as there are moral laws that affect us all which help us to maintain sanity and balance in our lives thereby allowing us to create the society we dream of living in, if we so choose.

What is this moral centre? Just look into the human heart: there is a sense of right and good there. The mystery is how it came to be there and why virtually everyone resonates with it. But there is no befuddled mystery, as Smith would say, if we recognize the Divine Architect behind things. What we need to do is concentrate on doing what is right for ourselves and thereby others which is fulfilling that part of the plan on Earth.

But the human ego gets in the way. It gets in the way to cut off that Light and enhance the Darkness, and from that shadow world comes fear, doubt, scarcity, greed, envy, anger, hatred and resentment. From that sense of Darkness comes fear that unless you can be free to do whatever you want irrespective of the consequences you -- your ego -- will be harmed. Speak to anyone who claims to believe you can be free to do anything you want and to hell with everything else and/or who are hardcore Capitalists and they will show you the obverse side of Fear.

Bring out cooperation, collaboration, justice, fairness, compassion and decency and those who live in Fear will tell you why something might happen that leaves them at the mercy of others whom they despise and want to lord over because they judge that everyone else is like them. Naturally, in that case, the only option is to fight tooth and nail to support ego based desires, wants, fantasies and Fear.

Fairness, however, does allow for freedom. As Rawls points out, in order to be fair you would have to have these basic principles of liberty of allowing as much freedom to others as you allow yourself, fair and equal opportunities for all, and look after the interests of the least advantaged and certainly those of the disadvantaged. A mature democratic society would also be based on overlapping consensus and through ground up working of self interest creating the principles by which your society should be governed. There is a moral centre for Rawls because people intuitively have a sense of what is good and fair.

Smith goes beyond Rawls in believing there is a Divine force behind the moral centre. And in doing so, and has been discussed, believes not in a so-called FM or Capitalist way of doing things but in a Fair Market. All the ideas of Smith and those that resonate with him (and in his own way this would include Marx) are proponents of a Fair Market. A system where when most things are carried out in a fair and reasonable manner and aligned to a moral centre, will ensure balance and harmony not just for the individual but everyone.

Market corrections are the realigning of things as if by an IH, to be in resonance with a moral centre (which we intuitively are aware of when we are open to Divinity and the fact that God does exist). This is about balance and harmony.

What are termed ‘market corrections’ today is within the heartless framework that treats compassion as an externality thereby promoting the notion of punishment to set things right. The market or FM of today is a blind godless unforgiving system of punishment for what ‘delivers’ and what doesn’t because it is based on Fear. In new ways of doing business and having a natural flow of a community based nature of running society (as discussed in more detail in The Awakened Eco-nomy) we move away from Fear and all its concomitant horrors.

There is freedom for all human beings as we have been given the gift of free will and choice. But this is choice with an understanding of the reality that there are always parameters to everything: free will means the ability to choose between aligning oneself to the moral centre of Divinity or choosing not to align to it. The consequences are obvious and all around us as we can see the choices made which have resulted in a collective consciousness in the world which largely chose Magicism and the Fear, destruction and suffering it brings.

Fortunately, more of us are slowly coming to realize that we can choose the Fair Market, which allows for all of us being able to fulfill our positive potential to the highest.

In his own way Smith is in good ancient company, he is in effect promulgating a Tao of Economics: Yin-Yang balance that is the expression of the Creator in a Universe and world whose physicality we seem to experience most of the time without always being conscious of that beyond the immediate perception of our limited senses.

But when you open your heart, your mind will follow it to the moral centre within and align everything to the Source where all life comes from. When Fear drops away and the veil is lifted, a re-visioning of the world takes place and you can actually see that the Invisible Hand has been visible all along.

 

                                              THIS IS A SHARED PATH
                                         Cyclists, dog walkers and pedestrians
                                               please show consideration to
                                               those using the path with you

Rawls's ideas are for a well ordered state that is generally a developed society with democratic traditions. There are three main ideas that a society that subscribes to justice as fairness will incorporate:

The two principles of justice, overlapping consensus, and public reason.

Many of these ideas, it must be stated, have been revised by Rawls over the many years of his fruitful work.

One of the assumptions Rawls makes is that people are capable of a sense of right and wrong, as well as a sense of justice.

And in a well ordered society these two principles of justice will be generated:

a. Each person has an equal claim to an adequate scheme of basic liberties, and fair political value.

b. That there are fair and equal economic opportunites for all. And that social and economic inequalities are to be arranged to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society, which leads to the difference principle:

c. that is, arrangements in society that look after the interest of the least advantaged in society.

(There is also the Just Savings principle in which each generation adds to the wealth of a society to pass on to the next generation, and so forth)

This provides the basis for a society to balance freedom, opportunity and duties. The principles are also to take a lexical priority in their enactment meaning that there must be a satisfaction of the principle of liberty first, before it can lead to a proper satisfaction of free and fair economic opportunites and access to public/official posts, and before proper attention can be given to those whose interests need attention as the most disdadvantaged in society.

It must be noted that in the case of the difference principle, Rawls is appealing to working citizens who are in the most disadvantaged positions. It is taken as a given that the interest of those who are handicapped and have special needs etc, will be taken care of by societies in their own manner in accordance with a sense of justice. Rawls in his political conception of justice is looking to basically establish a political framework for a just and fair society which will, naturally, have to be tweaked to suit the society in question.

Rawls makes it quite clear that his ideas are NOT an ideology, they are a set of guidelines and principles that will be adapted accordingly by different societies. That it why he introduces the idea of reflective equilibrium and political constructivism.

Reflective equilibrium essentially refers to an individual or society reaching a point of understanding and balance for all its differing views which can be translated into a social contract with the government of the day on how a country should be run. Based on one's/society's reaction on the ground to issues and different views of people, the set of one's principles are adjusted to accommodate these ground realities. In fact, new ways to interpret and enact one's ideas come into play because of such readjustments and fine tuning of ideas in practice.

Political constructivism would follow from this in the sense that the political institutions of a state and in particular the leaders concerned help construct the political framework of a society based on adjustments made with action and reaction from the body politic.

This makes it impossible for an ideological approach to anything to take hold for long.

The process in which this occurs is via Overlapping Consensus which applies in particular to multicultural democracies (which is increasingly the trend of most democracies). The consensus comes about through the reaction of different people bringing in political judgments based on their upbringing, values, cultural and religious influences which shape their perceptions. But in the political construct in which the consensus occurs the sense of justice and political actuality shapes the views that a society can accept in reality.

We need to bear in mind that this has nothing to do with expedience, but rather in doing what is right in a fair and just manner.

People can bring in arguments as to why a certain policy must be issued or interpreted in a certain way based on, for eg, religious grounds but with the Proviso that its justification when brought in is discussed in a manner that can satisfy all concerned in a multifaceted society.

This process of interaction to ascertain such ideas and policies and ways to enact them as described above is also known as the process of public reason.

An example: abortion in many societies is a controversial issue. In a multicultural democracy the way a just and fair political decision is made (and the ensuing laws put into motion) would be done in the context of public reason and the consensus that allowed for it.

So there will be many who are pro or anti abortion based on their cultural, religious and personal views of the matter (of course many may just be indifferent for various reasons as well) known as burdens of judgment. But the decision made on the matter, while reflecting all these views and been tested against the principles of justice, must be one that also allows for mutual respect and reciprocity.

Rawls is really big on being reasonable. That is the trait of civilised societies, at any rate.

Therefore, those who are against abortion do not have to undergo it, can call for proper measures to ensure that the practice is not taken lightly, and would want to exercise their claim to protest against it.

But just as they want to be able to do the above, they must realise on this shared path of democracy they are on, that those who want to have access to legalised methods of abortion for their own reasons are entitled to do so. And the pro abortionists would also make claims to being able to state their views, campaign etc.

Naturally, this is far too complex an issue to be dealt with summarily but it should, hopefully, make clearer some of the ideas expressed here.

At any time, when people insist on one point of view without proper regard for that of others and aim to stifle it because they believe they have a monopoly of the truth, then they are not only making it difficult for justice as fairness to operate, but will be making it difficult for general principles of democracy, as most of us understand them, to operate as well.

The bottom line for Rawls is really balance.

A true ecology in politics of avoiding extremes and trying to find that point of equilibrium which, naturally, is always shifting to reflect the dynamics of a society.

To some it is like the Aristotelian golden mean, to others it is like mentioning the old Edwardian family table-saying, "I have reached an elegant sufficiency and anything additional would be superfluous."

So often, people's ideas of justice mean what they say goes, and fairness means things going according to their interests. Unfairness, is when others have things go their own way instead.

But if we drop our obssession with our egos and learn to conquer inner foes and look towards balance, fairness and a sense of right and wrong, we will realise that first, after looking to our own faults which may be in dire need of cleansing, we should look to living in peace, balance and harmony with everyone else as far as that is humanly possible.

Needless to say, Rawls's ideas have not been popular among hate and fear mongers.

Arrogance has never gotten anyone or any society very far without generating equally severe enemies.

Unsurprisingly, Rawls himself was man of great humility.

Some starting points for discovering more about Rawls:

Guardian Obituary

London Review of Books

New York Review of Books

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy