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CHAPTER 6 Metaphysical Notes on Usury, The Supreme Principle of Reason The supreme principle of reason says: "nihil est sine ratione. . . nothing is without a reason."1 I quoted this principle at the head of this Book for a reason.
Today, people around the world are giving themselves up recklessly to the "calculative thinking"11 of the marketplace. People calculate what is better--a loan or a lease--; but, they seldom reflect on the meaning of usury. Why? Because they are too busy being indentured. The marketplace is not the place where people buy and sell freely, without coercion. Milton Friedman's "free private enterprise exchange economy" is a figment of his imagination: too many important economic transactions are neither "bi-laterally voluntary" nor "informed."12 A simple thumbing of daily newspapers reveals the marketplace as the locus of much deceit, fraud, corruption, usurpation, wickedness, suffering, and misery. The marketplace, as currently constituted, is a wicked "game of catallaxy."13 The "creative destruction"14 in Capitalism has absolutely nothing creative or enlightened about it. The substantial increase in the per-capita mortality of businesses in places like the United States and Canada says much about Being and wealth creation in these places. It is time we listen to what the statistics say. Here's what they say. The potential loss of freedom in the marketplace can be monstrous. Hundreds of millions of people have become indentured in the marketplaces of the world considered the most enlightened and free. Canada is a land of fabulous wealth and resources. Why is it that debt outstanding of persons and unincorporated businesses, as percent of personal disposable income, has risen in Canada from 71% in 1984 to 100.9% in 1994? Canada's population is a mere 30 million. Why is it that 551,645 consumers and businesses had to go bankrupt in Canada, during the ten-year period ended in 1995? What is concealed in the destruction? What is the source of the power from whence all destructive economic actions proceeds?15 Is the "creative destruction" in Capitalism worthy of our Being? We must heed Heidegger's "world-question of thinking."16 --and their managers. The power of the "calculative thinking" of science and technology is at an all-time high; but that of "reflective thinking" leaves much to be desired.17 We can build machines with more calculative brainpower than most executives and bankers are endowed with, yet we cannot check the poverty that begs in the financial capitals of the world--ironically, not too far from Automatic Banking Machines. This is why Heidegger asked in his Address in 1956: "If this is the way it's going to be, may we give up what is worthy of thought in favor of the recklessness of exclusively calculative thinking and its immense achievements? Or are we obliged to find paths upon which thinking is capable of responding to what is worthy of thought . . . ?"18 [my emphasis]. Sufficient Reasons --Darwinistic Manipulations of the Rule of LawIn this book I have occupied myself with "rendering sufficient reasons"19 for the possible destruction of small funding-limited firms. I have tried to understand what can determine--more precisely, underlie or ground--the modern relationship of the entrepreneur qua wealth creator to his banker qua usurer. The expert system rules that I have assembled are not intended to be a comprehensive or complete representation20 or schema of destructive experiences in Capitalism. For example, expert system rules cannot bring into full view the real suffering, pain, destitution, and misery which are experienced by many entrepreneurs and their families when their firms are destabilized, bankrupted, abnormally liquidated,21 or cannibalized by rapacious creditors or their agents, following speculative overinvestments--not necessarily by the destabilized firms, but by speculators and their bankers! But the assembled rules do reveal and illuminate modes of Capitalist thinking-and-doing insofar as these can be unconcealed a priori.22 The evidentiary rules, even if parsimonious, reveal the categories and the a priori conditions for the possibility of creative destruction and wealth predation in so-called liberal democracies. Much more important, they unconceal the potential for destruction from Darwinistic manipulations of the Rule of Law. The manipulations are Darwinistic insofar as they give stealthy "advantages, however slight,"23 to Big Business or Big Government at the expense of Citizens. The advantages, qua manipulations of the Rule of Law, guarantee the formation of what Adam Smith called "absurd and oppressive monopolies."24 Darwinistic manipulations of the Rule of Law are potentially most dangerous because they cause power and wealth to accumulate and concentrate ipso facto in a few Masters.
We must heed Heidegger's "world-question of thinking." We must bring into view what is concealed and suppressed under the sophistical splendor of the rhetoric of the so-called "free" marketplace. We must guard ourselves against the deceptive sophistry of the marketplace and the ideological ramblings of its champions. We must unconceal 'causality' in the marketplace--we must understand and relate 'effects' and 'causes' (and veiled aims, interests, and motives). We must decode the thinking of the Capitalist--in the legislation and in the procedures and practices of the marketplace--insofar as it affects our economic Being. Most important, we must not lack the will to get to the bottom of things--and the courage to act accordingly. The Madness in Capitalism Every bankruptcy is a potential tragedy--a struggle with guilt and evil.26 More than half a million consumer and business bankruptcies, in a country of thirty million, over ten years (approximately the duration of the last business cycle), is a real-world monstrosity. What is hidden in this number? What is repressed? The large number of business failures hides two things:
Entrepreneurial wealth creation requires unity between the entrepreneur and his banker. Business disruptions and failures result when this unity breaks down. The disruption occurs when the banker cannot recognize his aims and interests in those of the entrepreneur--and vice versa. Let me use Hegel's philosophical mode of thinking--specifically, his philosophy of lordship and bondage27--to look more closely at this point. The self-consciousness of the entrepreneur is focused on wealth creation, for the purpose of liberating itself from economic bondage. The self-consciousness of the banker is focused on usury. But what is usury? It is nothing but the bondage of the entrepreneur. This means that the reality of the entrepreneur qua wealth creator is directly opposed to the reality of the lender qua usurer. And what does this mean? Hegel's Philosophy of Mind provides the answer. According to Hegel, insanity is "a state in which the mind is shut up within itself, has sunk into itself, whose peculiarity . . . consists in its being no longer in immediate contact with actuality but in having positively separated itself from it"28 [italics in the original]. This definition has been analyzed by Daniel Berthold-Bond in Hegel's Theory of Madness.29 It should be very interesting to apply this analysis to bring into view the potential for economic madness in Capitalism. In his analysis, Berthold-Bond explains how the disruption of the unity of Reason and Nature gives rise to "two centers of reality in insanity."30 This decentering is nothing but a shifting out, an absolute separation of the subjective and the objective realities31--and, therefore, a deranged break in the "unity of Thought and Being."32 --a perfect unity of Thought and Being. In insanity, on the contrary, the unity and the difference of the subjective and the objective still have a merely formal significance from which the concrete content of the actual world is excluded."34 What does this mean? In the healthy marketplace, the "unity of Thought and Being" of the entrepreneur and his banker is perfect or near perfect. In the insane marketplace, this unity is totally shattered. Instead of unity, two contradictory realities conflict: the reality of usury (the being-for-self of lordship) and the reality of entrepreneurial wealth creation (the being-for-another of bondage). If the usurer "clings"35 to the idea that the Being of the entrepreneur is nothing but Bondage, when the "actual objectivity"36 of the free will of entrepreneurial wealth creation contradicts it, then the usurer's idea is not only absurd but patently insane. It is precisely this irrational clinging and fixation from whence originates the madness in Capitalism. (See Plate 6-1.) Could the sudden withdrawal of credit from sound funding-limited firms result from a decentering of the self-consciousness of lenders from that of borrowers, following overinvestments (e.g., in commercial real estate) at banks and trust companies? Could the sudden withdrawal of credit mask a serious break in the connection of bankers with the real world of the entrepreneur. Could the "splitting up"37 of the Capitalist reality--into the reality of usury and the reality of wealth creation, the reality of lordship and the reality of bondage--account for the possibility of economic madness in the marketplace? The high per-capita business mortality rates and consumer failures in Canada and in the United States conceal large-scale economic disruptions, pain, and alienation in Canada and in the United States. Behind the gloss and sparkle of the marketplace is concealed a massive disruption of unity--the potential for economic madness. The despair is compounded when bankers cannot recognize themselves in the usury they produce; and when entrepreneurs cannot liberate themselves from the narcissism of usury as bondage. Both, in and through their desires, fail to achieve "the unity of the self with the world it inhabits" and "the unity of the self with itself."38 But why the destruction? When the self-consciousness of the usurer destroys an independent funding-limited firm, it "gives to itself the certainty of itself as a true certainty"39 of lordship. But in so doing it destroys the rational unity--the condition sine qua non of the healthy soul. Without such unity, the potential for economic madness increases. And so does the potential for economic despair--and for political upheaval. Theory of Economic Madness I must say a few words about the need for a Theory of Economic Madness. The future of our Being in the world is haunted by potential destruction from evil and madness--"that evil which is always latent in the heart, because the heart as immediate is natural and selfish."40 The tragedy of evil is intricately bound up with the "deranged consciousness"41 of usurious Being in the marketplace. The self-consciousness of usury is an "inner perversion"42 of the self-consciousness of wealth creation. It is a contradiction of our "own essential being."43 As such, it is a perversion of unity--or madness.
When the Rule of Law favors Darwinistic net advantages, the Being of beings is disrupted. Hegel wrote: "sound Reason knows immediately what is right and good."46 If the law is self-contradictory insofar as it gives Darwinistic advantages to some at the expense of others, then the law is not grounded in itself as Reason, but in the "archaic past of the soul."47 The high levels of consumer and business failures are manifestations of the illness in the marketplace--more precisely, in the Rule of Law that caters to that marketplace. Reflective thinking asks: what are the roots of idiocy, folly, and manic frenzy in the marketplace?48 Consider these characteristics of Capitalism:
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| 1 See Martin Heidegger, The
Principle of Reason, translated by Reginald Lilly, 1991, at 3 ("The principle of
reason"). 2 Ibid., at 40.3 Ibid., at 39 and 52-58.4 Ibid., at 53 ("The principle [Satz] of reason is a Satz in the eminent sense of being a leap") and 60 ("leap of thinking").5 Ibid., at 40.6 Ibid., at 80 and 125 ("the tiny word 'is' names the being of beings").7 Ibid., at 41-42 ("why" and "because") and 129 ("humans are the animal rationale . . . ")8 Ibid., at 32-49, especially 36 ("The 'why' seeks grounds. The 'because' conveys grounds"), and 125-127.9 Ibid., at 112 (" . . . When God plays, a world comes to be a play in which they [humans] are at stake").10 Ibid., at 44 ("The principle of reason is . . . not a statement about reason, but about beings, insofar as there are beings") and 49 ("The principle of reason is an uttering [Sagen] of being. It is this, but in a concealed manner.").11 Heidegger's expression; Ibid., at 122 and 129 (on "calculative thinking" vs. "reflective thinking").12 According to Friedman, the possibility of the market place rests on voluntary co-operation, or "the elementary--yet frequently denied--proposition that both parties to an economic transaction benefit from it, provided the transaction is bi-laterally voluntary and informed" [italics in the original]. See Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, with the assistance of Rose D. Friedman, 1962 and 1982, at 7-21 (The Relation between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom), especially 13.13 On the operation of the market system as a game--a "game of catallaxy"--, see Friedrich A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 2, 1976, at 107-132 (The Market Order or Catallaxy). Hayek claimed that "freedom is inseparable from rewards," and that rewards "have no connection with merit" (at 120). People who play the game according to the "rules of just conduct" are not guaranteed a "just" outcome (at 126). But there is one consolation: "all coercive measures of government should be equally likely to benefit anybody's chances" (at 126). This view is consistent with Ecclesiastes 9:11: swiftness, strength, wisdom, understanding, and skill, do not guarantee the outcome of the "race"--only "time and chance" do. This doctrine can be distorted to legitimize fraudulent deviations from Justice. The distortion is a wicked strategy calculated to debase or ruin the connection between reason and reality, for the hidden purpose of legitimizing the idolatry of Money. Of course the game can be turned around against Capitalists: imagine all borrowers inaugurating a new "game of catallaxy" where interest and loan repayments are not guaranteed--because they are a function of "time and chance"!14 The notion of "creative destruction" in Capitalism is due to Schumpeter; see Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), with a new Introduction by Tom Bottomore, 1976, at 81-86 (The Process of Creative Destruction), and 143-155 (Growing Hostility), especially 145 ("individual insecurity . . . is of course the best recipe for breeding social unrest").15 Leibniz defined the relation between power and causality as follows: "As power is the source whence proceed all actions, the name of cause is given to the substances in which these powers reside, when they reduce their power to act; and they call effects the substances produced by this means, or rather the simple ideas . . . , which, by the exercise of power are introduced into a subject." See Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, translated by Alfred Gideon Langley, 3rd ed., 1949, at 221-224 (Bk. II, Ch. XXII).16 See Martin Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, 1957, 1991, at 117-129 ("what is worthy of thought").17 Ibid., at 122 ("the difference between mere calculative thinking and reflective thinking").18 See Martin Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, 1957, 1991, at 129 ("the world question of thinking").19 Leibniz identified two supreme principles of reason in La Monadologie, as follows: "Nos raisonnements sont fond--s sur deux grands principes, celui de la contradiction . . . Et celui de la raison suffisante . . . " See Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, La Monadologie, based on the --dition Critique of --mile Boutroux, with an introduction by Jacques Rivelaygue, 1990 (Grasset), 1991 (Librairie G--nerale Fran--aise), at 140-141. On the Kantian transcendental method of thinking and the "rendering of sufficient reasons," see Martin Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, 1957, 1991, at 75-83 (Lecture Ten).20 On "[t]he critical question . . . concerning the a priori conditions for the possibility of the representation of objects of experience," see Martin Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, 1957, 1991, at 77.21 "Abnormal Liquidation" is Schumpeter's expression; see Joseph A. Schumpeter, Business Cycles (1939), 1964, at 125 and 430.22 For Kant's method of thinking, see Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781), a revised and expanded translation based on Meiklejohn, edited by Vasilis Politis, with an Introduction and Chronology by J.M. Dent, 1993, at 76-77 (concepts, thought, and understanding), 78-79 ("understanding as an absolute unity" and "common representation"), 85 (categories), 106 (understanding), 94-97 (causality), 96 ("concepts of objects in general must lie as a priori conditions at the foundation of all empirical knowledge"), 98-99 (The Possibility of a Connection in General).23 Darwin's expression; see Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859), in Darwin, 2nd ed., edited by Philip Appleman, 1970, 1979, at 54.24 Smith's expression; see Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), edited by Edwin Cannan, with a Preface by George J. Stigler, 1976, Vol. Two, Book IV, Chapter VIII, at 165.25 For insights into the origins of imperium and dominium in modern law, see Roscoe Pound, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law, 1922, 1954, at 107-132 (Property), especially 111.26 On "the close association between madness and tragic action," see Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegel's Theory of Madness, 1995, at 7 (Sophoclean tragedies as "struggles with guilt and evil").27 G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), translated by A.V. Miller, with Analysis of the Text and Foreword by J.N. Findlay, 1977, at 111-119 (Lordship and Bondage), and 343 (being-in-and-for-self and being-for-another).28 G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, Part Three of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830), translated by William Wallace, together with the Zus--tze in Boumann's Text (1845), translated by A.V. Miller, with Foreword by J.N. Findlay, 1971, at 131.29 See Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegel's Theory of Madness, 1995.30 See Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegel's Theory of Madness, 1995, 41. See also Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, 1971, at 128.31 See Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, 1971, at 128 ("shifted out," "two centers," and "deranged idea,") and 129 ("'What I think is true', . . . receives in the mentally deranged a wrong, an irrational meaning . . . that the subjective and objective are absolutely separate").32 Ibid., at 129 ("perfect unity of Thought and Being").33 Ibid., at 129 ("healthy soul").34 Ibid., at 129.35 Ibid., at 128 ("Error and folly only become madness when the individual believes his merely subjective idea to be objectively present to him and clings to it in face of the actual objectivity which contradicts it").36 Ibid., at 128.37 Hegel's expression; See Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, 1971, at 130 ("splitting up").38 On Hegel's phenomenology of desire, see Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegel's Theory of Madness, 1995, at 46-47 (Desire).39 Hegel's expression; see Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, 1977, at 109 ("self-consciousness is Desire").40 See Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, 1971, at 124 (-- 408). See also the discussion of evil and guilt in Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegel's Theory of Madness, 1995, at 169-172, especially 170 ("It is thus the unconscious--or more generally, nature--which is identified with evil for Hegel, and which is the source of guilt").41 Hegel's expression; see Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, 1977, at 225.42 Hegel's expression; Ibid., at 225.43 Hegel's expression; Ibid., at 225.44 Plato, The Laws, translated with an Introduction by Trevor J. Saunders, 1970, at 211-214 (The Possession of Money), especially 211.45 Aristotle, Politics, translated by Ernest Barker, revised with an Introduction and Notes by R.F. Stalley, 1995, at 28-30 (on usury: 1258a35), and 30-33 (on monopoly: 1258b39), especially 30.46 For Hegel's discussion of self-consciousness and Reason, see Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, 1977, at 252-256, especially 253 (Reason as Lawgiver).47 On the archaic soul in madness, and sources, see Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegel's Theory of Madness, 1995, at 4-6, and 206-211 (The Missing Link: Poverty, Destitution, Social Marginalization), especially 207.48 Hegel distinguished between three types of madness: idiocy, madness proper or folly, and mania or frenzy; Ibid., at 21 (Hegel's Typology of Madness).49 According to Hegel, madness proper "occurs when the natural mind which is shut up within itself . . . acquires a definite content and this content becomes a fixed idea . . . "; see Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, 1971, at 133-135 (The Second Main Form of Insanity--Madness Proper).50 For Hegel's philosophy of lordship and bondage, see G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, 1977, at 111-119 (Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage), and 342-343 (man as a "Thing"; being-in-and-for-self and being-for-another).51 See Ecclesiastes 9:11.52 On the death instinct, see Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology,Vol. 11, compiled and edited by Angela Richards, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1984, at 311 (death instinct) and 316 (life and death instincts).53 See Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, translated with an Introduction and Notes by Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson, with an essay by John R. Silber, 1934, 1960, at 15-39 (The Radical Evil in Human Nature), especially 32.54 Ibid., at 25 (wickedness).55 Ibid., at 32 (radical evil).56 Kant's expression; Ibid., at 32.57 Ibid., at 33 ("insidiousness of the human heart (dolus malus)").58 The quotes are from Kant's discussion of "deliberate guilt (dolus)"; Ibid., at 33.59 Kant's expression; Ibid., at 33 ("innate guilt (reatus)"). |
| MADNESS IN CAPITALISM A MODEL OF THE UNHEALTHY ECONOMIC SOUL--BASED ON HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY |
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