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Thursday
September 22, 2005

Two Worldviews - The Trader and Taking Syndromes by A. Robert Malcom

Jane Jacobs, in Systems of Survival, points out that there are only two methods of survival. In addition, she points out that humans are unique in possessing both -- all other animals have only one. These two methods of survival are, as Jacobs notes, fundamentally different outlooks on life. As such, they have profoundly different consequences. Originating in very different contexts, these outlooks each evolved into a set of syndromes that encompass a whole range of notions congruent with each particular view of the world. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (25 messages)

Post 0

Thursday, September 22, 2005 - 4:04am

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Thanks, Robert! This reflects well another taxonomy that I have posted here before from Dierdre McCloskey, Bourgeois Virtues. http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Economics/McCloskyBourgeoisVirtue.html

McCloskey teaches at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
http://www.uic.edu/depts/engl/faculty/prof/dmccloskey/bio.htm

It seems that Jacobs draws on McCloskey. At least, she used the label "bourgeois virtue." Google returned quite a few hits, including this 19-page PDF
http://www.thecommunitystore.com/pdf/resBK_SystemsSurvival.PDF
and this Wikipedia biography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs

I will take this to my Law Enforcement Ethics class tonight.

Post 1

Thursday, September 22, 2005 - 4:16am

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According to Chance and Jolly, in their work Social Groups of Monkeys, Apes and Men, there are two major catagories of primate behavior societies - acentric and centripetal. Acentric societies are those which are considered to be loosely structured. You might say they're individualistic. The centripetal societies are the ones which are noticeably highly structured. They are centered around one or more of what are called alpha-male leaders. The factor which makes the difference between the two societies is how the respective members react to danger. When they dare venture out into the open, acentrics are always remaining on the alert. They continually keep looking around their enviroment. They want to make sure that, in some manner, there would be a way open to either retreat or depart up into branches if available - in any case scattering much like the sparks of a roman candle, somewhere into safety. Centripetals, on the other hand,do it quite differently - they take the opposite viewpoint. Instead of spending their time paying attention to the enviroment around them [probably sensing that to scatter will only make, most likely, for a number of relatively easy prey], they instead keep checking on where they are in relationship to the alph-male. And, whenever they perceive that they are in any danger, they crowd around him - in other words, the solidarity approach.

Since Homo sapiens, however, descended from the ape primates, not monkeys, thequestion becomes as how are the apes classified? The question is raised, in part,because apes do not quite act like either group, socially speaking.

Now, there are two criteria for determining the classification: 1) is there a leading male, or the sign of a ranking order among the males? and 2) when there is perceived danger, do the members scatter or clump? Surprisingly, thew signs are not nearly as clear as, say, the baboons which Ardrey had such a fascination for. None the less, the answer does turn out that, yes, the apes are centripetal - but only loosely so.

But - that is not all. The social structuring goes further than this. In figuring out how the centripetal society works, the essential key in establishing the highness in the ranking order is the ability to command attention from the group. As Chance and Jolly also found out, there are two ways this can be done. One is called the agonic mode. The other is called the hedonic mode. An obvious example of the extreme of the agonic mode is Ardrey's baboons, where the issue of dominance is verociously attained by biting and threat displays utilizing the baboon's large canines. However, from a developmental standpoint, there is a problem in this - the brains remain quite undistinguished, and there would as such be no kind of subversive herecies daring to penetrate it. And this would be so much so that it would most unlikely ever be that the brain would become more distinguishable.

The apes, from which our forebearers came, followed a different path. They discovered the hedonic mode. Ape are more advanced than monkeys because they have learned something most important - you don't have to bite someone in order to get that one's attention. You can "show-off", become conspicuous, find something interesting. In other words, the issue of dominance is achieved thru attracting attention. There is a benefit in this - the efforts in doing this forces much greater usage of the brain in seeking out other different and newer attention attractions.

Post 2

Thursday, September 22, 2005 - 12:08pm

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Thanks for the article, Robert! Your response to Michael (re apes, baboons, alpha-males, centripitality) was really good, too.

Ed

Post 3

Thursday, September 22, 2005 - 1:19pm

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Actually it wasn't a response, but a clarification of the terms used in the article - agonic and hedonic - which I thought would have raised questions... he merely got his in before I got mine...

These and the earlier evolution articles are parts of my manuscript building the foundation for the ethics/aesthetics resolutions offered in the third part...

(Edited by robert malcom on 9/22, 1:22pm)

Post 4

Saturday, September 24, 2005 - 12:18am

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Most interesting sir.

Since reading the first Foundation novel, which Marotta reviewed the other day, I've been scheming my own mathematisation of history. If this conceited ambition of mine is to work it depends on such package associations as you have described above. I shall add them to those I have already collected.

Much obliged for any more you've got.

Post 5

Saturday, September 24, 2005 - 11:04am

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Robert,

I sanctioned this article because I believe that anthropological inquiries like this are good - especially as to how they impact on ethics.

However, Objectivist-type ethics has more to do with man as a conceptual being than with the evolutionary roots of the type of animal he came from and such animal's behavior.

Still, a very interesting read. Not an idea to be discarded. I see it as a minor addition to the "conceptual being" basis of ethics.

Michael

Post 6

Friday, March 9, 2007 - 11:23am

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Robert, that was an excellent article. Jane Jacobs has been a favorite of mine for decades.

I enjoyed your translation into "individualism" vs "tribalism" but would point out one thing. She was quite specific in having the "Guardian" precepts as applicable to government today. In her view the 'Commercial Syndrome" precepts - the Trader/Individualist - evolved later but then coexisted with the "Guardian" precepts. She believed that the "Guardian" precepts were appropriate to the organizing and managing of territory - to government - and that the problems of history often arose from failing to understand the differences and attempting to apply commercial precepts in a setting that called for guardian precepts or visa versa (e.g., mixed economy, corruption in govt., force or fraud in private, etc.)

She saw them as symbiotic - needing each other. The traders needed the guardians to protect against predators.

I see it as a fascinating validation of the arrival at Objectivist ethics by reasoning from man's nature and what his life requires. Evolution, developing almost in the blind, driven mostly by practical results, creats a close, but somewhat flawed version of the Objectivist's reasoned understandings. Being able to see that evolutionary pattern from an Objectivist's perspective makes our history a grand experiment that validates the concept of limited government but only for the support of individualsim.

We see man's nature as that of a trader and individualist, but recognize that doesn't preclude the occasional predator - taker. For them, we maintain the guardian structure -as the servant of the Trader.

Post 7

Friday, March 9, 2007 - 3:47pm

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We see man's nature as that of a trader and individualist, but recognize that doesn't preclude the occasional predator - taker. For them, we maintain the guardian structure -as the servant of the Trader.

That's the theory anyway - in practice, if ye mix the healthy with the poison, eventually poison wins....

Post 8

Thursday, October 2 - 4:33pm

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At Steve Wolfer's goading, I checked out Systems of Survival from my university library. (I just started it last night.)

I recommend this highly to anyone who has not benefited from this remarkably insightful work. Robert Malcom's summary here does distill what may be of essence to us Objectivists, the distinction between the Trader and the Guardian. That said, however, this work delivers much more.

Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics

Copyrighted 1992, the work is cast is the format of dialogues. The participants revolve around the business life of a publisher, Armbruster, who invites them to discuss morality. They do so in a series of meetings. Armbuster opens the discussion by telling of a service he performed in Europe for a client and for which he was paid a nice fee. He took the check to a bank and had it deposited in his account back home in New York City. What guarantees did he have, he wondered after leaving for home. Why did that work so well in a world that seems torn by ethicial conflicts --- and moral failures?

At some level, the dialogue mode fails only because Jacobs can only be so many people at once. (To be fair, the same problem plagues Robert Heinlein, Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy: all the characters are just moods and voices of the author.) Nonetheless, the stories she spins are compelling -- especially now as the banker tells of having to cover up massive defaults ...

Post 9

Thursday, October 2 - 6:27pm

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Robert,

Jacobs saw 'mixing' as poison as well, but she was talking about mixing commercial moral precepts in a guardian context (letting people in government do business, for example), or mixing guardian moral precepts in a commercial context (like using dishonesty in a context where truth and openness should rule).

Post 10

Friday, October 3 - 9:02am

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There the road forks.

For Jane Jacobs, Steve, as you noted, both systems are valid. They derive from who and what we are, historically and therefore, culturally. In the book, the publisher, Armbruster, says that examples must come from our own everyday experience, and not from some tribe dedicating their spears to the Great Bear.

For Robert Malcom (strongly) and for me (weakly) the Guardian mode is no longer appropriate to our cultural context. That is why earlier, I pointed to McCloskey's Bourgeois Virtues. She, too, notes that we have always had only two ways to discuss virtue: the armed camp or the farm. However, we are not warriors or peasants. We are almost every one, a middle class, bourgeois trader.

I point out, also, that in the world of private security, the Guardian mode is weak at best and the Trader mode -- after a fashion -- could be better. What can you do for us that will help us get you cleared and tagged? No driver's license? OK, other ID? Is there a manager in your area we can call?

Even "territory" is weak. My experience is that guards from competing companies cross lines to help each other more often than police (city, state, federal) cross jurisdictions. The anecdotal story is the traffic accident on the street that separates two cities and the cops out there with tape measures to see who gets to avoid the paperwork. (That would be also the sumptuous enjoyment of leisure, another Guardian attribute.)

We could also draw a continuum with a fascist state or a baronial manor being 100% Guardian and with anarchy being 100% Trader. The minarchists argue for minimum Guardian at some constitutionally constrained admixture to the generally Trader society. The problem -- as I see it -- is objectively defining whether, when and which Guardian attributes are appropriate in which contexts.

Socially, we also maintain Guardian values. Last Tuesday (Sept 30) on NPR "Talk of the Nation" I heard an interview with Bill Bishop, author of The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Likeminded America is Tearing US Apart. One statistic cited was that people associate with those who disagree with themselves about politics inversely with education. Would you lie to protect an Objectivist? Why do we have a Dissent forum, except to preserve our Territory? Is not the inflexible citation of authoritative sources (Rand, Peikoff, Kelley, etc.) not a form of showing toughness? (How about the showing toughness of supposedly being willing to kill admittedly innocent people in service to a philosophical abstraction?) On a less intense note, how about the way that SOLO split into RoR and SoloPassion, as the territory could not maintain two competing Guardianships?

I'm just saying that Jacobs has a strong point: the two modes are operant. If I may recast Malcom's assertion -- and I concur -- Guardians are to Traders as Priests are to Scientists.

Post 11

Friday, October 3 - 9:51am

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Michael,

You say, "For Robert Malcom (strongly) and for me (weakly) the Guardian mode is no longer appropriate to our cultural context."

The Guardian syndrome should not be appropriate for anyone - as a system to FOLLOW. It is appropriate to everyone as an understanding of where we came from. It, in combination with the Commercial syndrome, is the precursor of morality, political science, and economics. It is a system that evolved and 'filled-in' till we could create, conceptually, theoretical understandings in these areas and then implement them. They deeply enrich our understanding of our relations with each other, but they aren't a standard, they are more archeology and biology.
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You say, "We could also draw a continuum with a fascist state or a baronial manor being 100% Guardian and with anarchy being 100% Trader. "

Anarchists have so much trouble in these areas. If you want to draw a continuum of freedom, it would not be fascist at one end, since the businesses are still trading even through controlled by government. It would have communism at that end - which wipes out all of freedom. But neither fascism nor communism are really examples of guardian functions since you will notice the tyrannies violate many of the Guardian precepts. Anyone that sees tyrannical governments as examples of and outcomes of the Guardian syndrome of Jacobs, is bending her words to fit their agenda, or misunderstanding her.

Also, you put anarchy at the most free end of your spectrum and the fact is that people would be either hiding in caves or out hunting with clubs - as hunt and/or be hunted are the only two options that would be open under a long-term anarchy (I used caves and clubs instead of condos and guns, because with enough time under anarchy technology based items would disintergrate as well as those things depending upon maintaining legal relationships - like condos).
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You say, "The minarchists argue for minimum Guardian at some constitutionally constrained admixture to the generally Trader society. The problem -- as I see it -- is objectively defining whether, when and which Guardian attributes are appropriate in which contexts."

Again, this is attempting to take what arose as cultural evolution and use it as THE best theoretical construct. Like taking the commonly evolved consensus of the cosmos and attempting to force it on astronomers. The truths that exist in those two syndrome have to do with an internal fit of the loosely knit sets of percepts. Minarchists argue for laws derived from individual rights, which also is the precursor to a free market. See how badly your attempt to mush Guardian and minarchist together goes?
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I'll get to the rest of your post a little later.

Post 12

Saturday, October 4 - 3:52am

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Steve, I don't want to spend too much time splitting hairs here, but I would like to clarify a small point by way of underscoring our basic agreements on basic questions.

Although I considered the USSR, I put the fascist state at the far end of the Guardian mode for several reasons. For one, the operant theory of Marxism-Leninism includes the mandate that the Party rule the Gun: the military is subservient to the civilian government, just as in the USA. A fascist state is a military state. Although Stalin had a policy of socialism in one country and although Hitler wanted to conquer the world, in a wider context Marxism is internationalist and globalist, while fascism is nationalist and isolationist. Like Protestant versus Catholic, there are deeper agreements between fascism and communism, as there are between you and me. I just want to explain my perceptions and thinking to you.

Post 13

Saturday, October 4 - 11:42am

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Michael, the part that is NOT hair-splitting, is that Jacob's Guardian syndrome is NOT fascist or communist - it isn't on that spectrum you were creating. It contains moral precepts that are most effective or prevalent when a person or organization is engaged in guarding, protecting, defending, legislating, etc. It isn't Attila the Hun - a metaphor for initiation of force. Attila will be more effective in Guardian activities if he follows those precepts, but so will an honest, innocent person that is forced to defend himself and others over time from an attack by others. Let me ask, is a soldier a better soldier if he doesn't mix doing business in with being a soldier, if he exerts prowess, if he is obedient and disciplined, if he adheres to tradition, if he respects hierarchy, if he is loyal, if he treasures honor? Those are some of the Guardian syndrome precepts.

Early in the book, one of the characters asks why responsibility doesn't show up on either the Guardian or the Commercial syndromes' list of precepts, and where are cooperation, courage, moderation, mercy, common sense, faith, energy, patience, and wisdom? The explanation is that those moral precepts are common to BOTH syndromes. That they are esteemed across the board, in professional life and in personal life, in public and in private life.

Post 14

Saturday, October 4 - 8:02pm

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Early in the book, one of the characters asks why responsibility doesn't show up on either the Guardian or the Commercial syndromes' list of precepts, and where are cooperation, courage, moderation, mercy, common sense, faith, energy, patience, and wisdom? The explanation is that those moral precepts are common to BOTH syndromes. That they are esteemed across the board, in professional life and in personal life, in public and in private life.

Right. I just got there. (We have a lot going on, moving into a new home, finding work, etc., and the 4th of the Month is when my column is due for The Numismatist, so I had to set Jane aside for a couple of days. Sorry.)

Anyway, yes, as you note, there are many virtues common to both ethics. Also, to make nearly the same point, in the original essay "Bourgeois Virtue" (American Scholar 63 (2, Spring 1994) Dierdre McCloskey presents a chart of parallels ( foresight wisdom prudence; moderation frugality thrift) and says that the intent is not to elevate one over the others but to sidestep such a debate. In other words, these may be "universal" -- though she does, indeed, classify some as being more typical of the middle class trader.

You asked if a soldier is a better soldier for following the Guardian ethic. Indeed, he is; and no, he does not need to be a looting Attila to be an honest guardian. The context for my agreement, however, is this: within traditional understanding. I see a historic change as a consequence of the Enlightenment and capitalism.

You refer to " moral precepts that are most effective or prevalent when a person or organization is engaged in guarding, protecting, defending, legislating ..."

I am not so sure. I agree that this was the case. I agree also that this is perhaps the easiest path even today. But beyond that, I have to ask, if the Trader Syndrome is not more appropriate to private security within a context of free enterprise and an open society. (I wrote much more on that, but deleted it all several times and put the thoughts into a scratch folder for development later. It's a challenge, Steve, I'll grant you that, to think things through freshly.)

I see this as part of something larger. Religion, hierarchy, authority, tradition, deception, honor, force and community allow groups to secure a territory. Philosophy, science, reason, experiment, honesty, trade, openness, invention, profit and self take individuals to new horizons.

Post 15

Saturday, October 4 - 8:50pm

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There is another aspect here on the 'Guardian' syndrome - namely that these syndromes arose out of the two fundamental ways of survival, the one in common with all the other animals, namely 'to take'[her words]assuming the taking could be gotten away with, or the uniquely human way, to trade, exchanging value for value voluntarily... THAT is why, tho she sought to justify in some manners a validity of it, called that syndrome the Taking Syndrome, as that was the fundamentalness of it, just as trading [initially bartering or exchanging] was the fundamental of the other syndrome...

Post 16

Saturday, October 4 - 11:11pm

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Robert,

I understand the point you make, but she talked about these syndromes as evolutionary - they arose from primitive precursors of what they became over time. And, her point was that, over time, they came to complement each other. That the guardians needed the commercial enterprises and that the commercial enterprises needed the guardians. This was her ending point. As Objectivists, her syndromes are interesting to us, but they don't replace our moral philosophy, one which has been logically derived from our metaphysics and epistemology.

Post 17

Wednesday, October 8 - 4:57am

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SW: As Objectivists, her syndromes are interesting to us, but they don't replace our moral philosophy, one which has been logically derived from our metaphysics and epistemology.

Moving ahead in Jacobs last night, and coming back here to catch up, I was pleasantly surprised to see Steve touching on exactly the point I was going to make.

Objectivists derive the concept of "virtue" rationally, reasoning from first principles. Jacobs ezplains her theory from empirical evidence, showing experientally how these two modes of survival developed.

Of course, there is no rational-empirical dichotomy. (See Gregory Brown's Necessary Factual Truths. That which is logically necessary is factual and that which is experientially known must be internally consistent.) The connection is that for an Objectivist the virtues of Jacobs's Trading Syndrome are not accidental: they are required. The broadly lived virtues of the trader are integral to Objectivism and if anyone in Atlas Shrugged displays the Guardian syndrome, it is Cuffy Meigs: toughness, deception, defense of territory...

Jacobs does point out, Steve, as you note, that in some contexts, traders need guardianship, as for instance in the operation of insurance. An Israeli kibbutz or a family of bankers may seem like instantiations of guardianship internally -- "we're all in this together" -- but to survive and thrive, they must be traders to the outside world.

I recommend this book yet again because plowing through it last night, I was again impressed with the deep and consequential development of these ideas. Jacobs does not waste a single word. The hardest part of this for me is to keep going. I often stop to consider what I have read -- and when I think I can breeze past a known assertion, I see that Jacobs has a subtle slant on it.

Also, to reveal yet another aspect of Jacobs' insight: the virtues of the scientist are those of the trader, not of the taker. Science thrives in trading cultures.

Post 18

Wednesday, October 8 - 1:01pm

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To carry further - this is almost the first I've seen of a foundational regards FOR the trader as an operator of good, outside of Ayn's Capitalism the Unknown Ideal... [Hawley's novels could be said as anectdotal supporting of the trader as of the good]... that Jane's Syndromes were derived from empirical evidence was what most grabbed me, as it gave independent support to Ayn's philosophical position... as well as showing the same two fundamental worldviews that Ayn postulated...

In somewhat the same way [tho, from what so far have read, only accidentally] is Deirdre's Bourgeois Virtues, which is attempting, in four massive volumes [this is the first], to show - using the liberal's view of virtues [the 'feminine' virtues of love, faith, and hope; the 'masculine' virtues of courage and temperance, and the 'androgynous' virtues of prudence and justice] - that capitalism is good, and that the trader is a virtuous person... personally, I have my doubts, tho the idea is to use the opponent's lingo and defeat or persuade a change of view therefrom...

Post 19

Wednesday, October 8 - 1:38pm

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I agree with both Michael and Robert on two things: Jacobs book is great and that her presentation of the Commercial Syndrome (or Trader) is a precursor, a natural, evolved set of precepts that in key ways mirror the rationally derived principles in Objectivism.

We disagree, to a degree, on the Guardian syndrome, which Michael and Robert, from an anarchist view point, see as government and to a large degree toss out or see as evil or wrong or undesirable. I see Jacob's Guardian Syndrome as the natural evolved set of precepts that go two ways - one being into crime, totalitarian government, religion - all the areas that are antagonistic to individuality. But the other area it splits off into is proper government, valid laws, proper exercise of self-defense (personally or delegated).

The use of force is either moral or immoral depending upon the context. And that is why there is a reason to see the Guardian Syndrome as the precursor of moral applications of force as well as the precursor of immoral systems - depends upon the context. And, it always has to be kept in mind that these are, as Michael said, empirically derived systems - they are the description of observed historical trends, NOT prescriptions.