Humanism and the Buying and Selling of Money

One of the oldest practices in Human history is the selling and buying of money.  Thus, there is nothing specific to Profit-Seeking in Capitalism.  Likewise, there is nothing in that respect that is de-Humanizing in Capitalism.  But, in a transition to a Humanist Morality, the elimination of the assistance by others for Profit would be a first step.

Wealth and Conspicuous Consumption

From the youngest age, regardless of their economic condition, Americans seem motivated to maximize personal Profit. The motivation is part of the general Ethos rooted in Capitalism.  Leisure time is no exception--such periods seem devoted to conspicuous consumption, dedicated to the purchase and display of excess wealth.  There seems to be no opportunity in American life for an alternative to the production of personal Wealth.

Education Loan and Education Pressure

Someone who has to rely on an Education Loan is at a disadvantage in comparison with one who does not because of the obligation to repay that they have incurred.  Their educational focus must be entirely on the classroom material being delivered, with no leeway for reflection.  But even with such attention, Education remains an exercise in pressure, as the primary goal of Education, from the earliest age, is to maximize Personal Profit, even if the motivation to do so remains obscurely conditional.

Free Education and Student Loan

The call for Free Education is primarily a corrective against the ills of the Student Loan business, to which a student is obligated almost immediately upon a graduation.  A student thus becomes almost completely at the mercy of an employer, having to labor under conditions, performing tasks, dictated by the latter.  The consequence is essentially a lifetime of servitude, even if superficially a life of conventional 'freedom'.  So, one of the benefits of Free Education is that it liberates a student to at least some Liberal Arts Education, in which they have the opportunity, without obligation, to reflecting on the nature of society, and their role in it.  With such an opportunity, a student can also participate in the building of society.  In recent decades, such an opportunity has seem far-fetched, but it was once envisioned as central to both Education and Society-building.

Compassionate Capitalism

Ultimately, Compassionate Capitalism is Self-Indulgence.  It is an opportunity for feeling Good about Oneself, without any Causal Efficacy.  It lacks the capacity to go beyond a Feeling, since the motivation to change a situation is lacking.  The motivation to change a situation must be Objective, which can derive from neither Profit-Seeking nor from feeling Good about Oneself.  Compassionate Capitalism is a Moral deadend.

Capitalism and Compassion

Perhaps the most decisive moment in the development of Capitalism is Smith's unexplained abandonment of his previous advocacy of Compassion as the basis of Morality, in favor of personal Profit-Seeking.  The historical consequence has been routine political conflict--Capitalists rigorously adhering to Smith's Principle, and those who seek opportunity to modify the Principle with occasions of Compassion.  The current mainstream conflict in the U. S. is an example of this conflict.  However, both sides of the conflict have neglected the interests of those who have routinely been marginalized by both sides, outsiders who have become numerous enough and robust enough this year to mount a potential formidable challenge.  One attempt to neutralize the challenge has been the attempt of the less than rigorous side to co-opt the rhetoric of the traditionally marginalized, and recast it in the rhetoric of traditional Compassionate Capitalism.  The degree of success of the strategy remains to be seen.

Humanism and Education

A Humanist Education teaches that each is a Part of an Organic Whole, so that any skill that a Part learns benefits all.  This concept of Education is, of course, very different from that taught for centuries, according to which each is taught to maximize personal Profit.  Human society is changing, and in a matter of centuries, the slow trend is that it will be determined by Humanist Education.

Free Education and Education Reform

A current political topic is Free Education. But a more radical topic concerns the content of Education.  In the U. S., from the earliest age, the function of Education has been to seek the maximum personal Profit in the Market Place, which it does so by competing for available work.  Absolutely absent from the system is any kind of Liberal Arts Education in which there is reflection upon the role of Education in society, and upon one's role in society. Free Education would be a start in a Liberal Arts Education--an opportunity to reflect on one's role in society independent of the curriculum the aim of which is the interests of the Market Place.  Absent more radical reform, beneficiaries of Free Education would still only compete for available positions.

Pollution and Morality

For many, for a long time, the 'Environment' has signified the inert world that Humans inhabit, a concept deriving from Descartes' concept of the lifelessness of the corporeal world.  The economic implication of that concept is that such a world is a potential source of Profit for it its owner.  But with the emergence of a Biological concept of the corporeal world, which Humans inhabit imminently, Humans are Biologically effected by all events.  For example, while in the Cartesian model, pollution is Profit-producing that may affects onl the owner of the natural resource, in a Biological model, any pollution has potential ill Biological effects on any other Human.  In other words, there is a Moral distinction between the Cartesian model and the Biological model--for the former, Profit-Seeking of the Individual has the high priority, whereas Humanism follows from the Biological model.  Regardless, in the current political situation, the conflict is merely bi-partisan, and economic.

Health Care and Morality

In the current U. S. political situation, two terms that are often used interchangeably are 'Universal Health' and 'Single Payer'.  Now, the distinction is usually considered to be economic, i. e. how an expense is to be paid for. But is it is Moral.  Two primary distinctions are between a patient and a consumer, and someone who is not a source of profit and someone who is. Furthermore, the distinction is between someone for whom society is responsible, and the protection of Profit-Seeking.  In other words, between the seemingly interchangeable terms 'Universal Health Care' and 'Single Payer' lies traditional Profit-Seeking Individualist Morality and Humanist Morality.

Humanism and Profit-Seeking

Humanism puts the Well-Being of the Whole before the Profits of Individuals.  It essentially constitutes a Moral inversion of centuries.  It is arguably the decisive political issue in the United States of the moment.  It may seem similar to superficial positions.  But the significant point of distinction from those positions is if Profit-Seeking remains an option, then the Moral status quo is being maintained.

Global Capitalism and Global Electric Media

The term Global has come into currency via McCluhan, for whom it signifies Electric Communications. For him it signifies a contrast with Print Media, which has dominated Human society for centuries, beginning with the Gutenberg Era.  But he does quite comprehend the Individualism that that that that domination has bred, nor, in particular, the economic domination that it has enabled, e. g. the private property of the page in front of oneself.  In contrast, in Global telecommunication, interaction is shared and collective, a expression of the commonality of the electric medium.  Of course, the medium is still used for private mercenary purposes.  But as is the case with the Print Media, which is taking centuries to slowly become obsolete, so, too, is the use of Global Electric media to promote Global Capitalism.

Globalism and Economics

The term 'Globalism' is most commonly used as 'trans-Nationalist', and hardly signifying 'Global' at all. 'Global' connotes a holistic concept, whereas 'trans-Nationalist' is an Atomist concept, signifying as it did centuries ago, a conjunction of National markets.  Likewise, most 'Globalism' these days promotes trans-Nationalism, the Holism of which is betrayed by some Nationalist failure, notably protectionist, such as the recent Brexit.  In contrast, Globalism, connoting a Whole, begins as an Organic concept, and derives the economic well-being of its Parts from that Whole.  Plainly, Human society is a long way from real 'Global economics'.

Humanism and Humanity

The concept of Humanism requires a concept of Human, and thus far, the most prominent concept of Human is that of Evolutionism.  Thus, Humanism is a Species concept.  Accordingly, one mode of De-Humanization is social fragmentation, i. e. Individualization.  In other words, only the promotion of the Whole of the Species qualifies as Humanism.  Conversely, the promotion of fragmentation deprives all of a society, even those who benefit in some respect, of their Humanity.

Organism and Humanism

If a Species is the basic unit, and one of its Members is an Organism, then a Species can be conceived as a Super-Organism.  Likewise, an Organism that is part of a Organism is a Sub-Organism.  Super-Organism, Organism, Sub-Organism, are not absolute terms, just relative to one another.  They constitute a conceptual scheme necessitated by the jettisoning of Atomism, which is inadequate to Biological representation.  Thus, because Human Society is an organization of Biological beings, Political and Economical problems need to be represented in Organist terms if they are to solved according to Humanist principles.  Hitherto that has generally not been the case.  Instead, Human society has generally been interpreted as Atomist, i. e. as Individualist, with solutions to conflicts generally disjunctive.  Dialectics have attempted to present synthetic solutions, but these solutions are inadequate to a Biological concept of society, constituted by Organisms of varying degrees of complexity, the basic Atomism of which are still its fundamental terms.  In other words, in contrast with Evolutionism, Marxism remains an system of Individuals rather than of Species, and, hence, not committed to Humanist principles, even as they fight exploitation.

Philosophy, Organism, Political-Economy

The concept of Organism is only a recent appearance in Modern Philosophy, and the way it is treated is an indication of its inadequacy to what Evolutionism entails.  The two most prominent concepts of it are from Kant and Whitehead, and they share a combination of it, despite some differences, in terms of Efficient Causality and Teleological Causality.  So, in neither of these prominent cases, does Life, nor a One-Many structure seem, involved.  In other words, they seem bogged down by what seems to be irrelevant ancient Causality.  Spinoza at least seems occasionally to involve Formal Causality and Material Causality, which opens up the possibility of a One-Many analysis, though, he never seems to decide whether his concept of a Mode is an Atomist construction, or a Holist construction.  In either case, he never considers the possibility that the Species is the basic unit.  Consequently, Modern Philosophy has lacked the conceptual resources to resolve the Political and Economic problems that have been besetting Global society for the past several centuries.

Organism, Brexit, NAFTA

As has been previously discussed, Evolutionism establishes the concept of Organism as the fundamental unit of the Human species.  It is thus a Global unit, a Cosmopolis, with respect to Nations are Parts.  Nationalist Economics and Globalist Economics are incompatible, so, for example, the recent Brexit, and the upgrade of NAFTA, merely shift the incompatibility from Global Capitalism.  In order to eliminate the incompatibility completely, a radical adjustment is required--to an Organic concept of it.

Evolution, Human Species, Organism

One of the quiet implications of Evolutionism is that the Human species is the fundamental unit of its members, i. e. that it is not an association or a construction of fundamentally independent individuals.  Furthermore, it is a Biological entity, determined by Environmental principles.  Thus, the fundamental structure of the Human species is an Organism as a living Whole, of which it its members are its Parts.  This structure is not a recent happenstance, but has determined its history from its origin, and continues to to determine it as its history continues.  This concept of the species as an Organism eludes most hitherto concepts of Human history and Human Political Philosophy.

National Capitalism, Global Capitalism, Organicism

The implications of Extraterrestrial travel for Evolutionism are far from of contemporary Philosophical concern.  More immediate is the tension between Nationalist Economics and Globalist Economics, exemplified by the recent Brexit, but just as instantiated by NAFTA.  These are products of a contradiction of Capitalism that neither Smith nor Marx addresses.  Initially, the scope for Smith of the Free Market is inter-National, as a counter to intra-National protectionism.  But he eventually extends the concept to the National Market, without considering the potential for National ill-effects, e. g. the loss of domestic jobs when cheaper Labor is available elsewhere.  Socialist protectionism is no better than Capitalist protectionist, closing off access to inter-National markets.  What's needed is an Organic Global model, which breaks down rigid National barriers, and replaces the concept of relative locality with that of a part of a whole.  In this way, Free Trade is at the service of the Whole, a model that is plainly far from any of those inefficient ones that are currently extent.

Evolution and Terrestriality

Environmentalism provides evidence that the Human species is not independent of other species, thereby repudiating Aristotelianism, according to which it is a Terrestrial species, but independent of other species, and Theological doctrines, according to which its origin is celestial.  Now, according to standard Darwinism, a new species originates by adapting to a different environment via the development of some new characteristic, e. g. the Human thumb.  So, in that case, a principle that transcends merely Human behavior, e. g. involves the behavior of apes, too, determines the origin of the Human species, and the species is not independent of Terrestrial history or principles.  But something new has developed in the dynamics of Evolution in recent centuries.  Humans have begun extraterrestrial exploration, which is an apparently unprecedented event in what has hitherto been a long history of Terrestrial Evolution, i. e. it is a departure from all hitherto environments. Furthermore, the standard pattern has been broken--rather than a species adapting to a different established environment, it constitutes a species adapting to a wholly new, previously uninhabited, primarily unknown environment.  In the long term, these celestial realms may prove to have been inhabited all along.  But until then what seems a likely Evolutionary step to a new species, is also a step to a new environment.