The Sovereign Self, The State and Civil Society

Reaction to the presentation on “Alternative Economic System” by the Penuel Group

Forum by Faith-based Congress Against Immoral Debts (FCAID)

Asian Theological Seminary, Quezon City

25 May 2015

Bienvenido “Nonoy” Oplas Jr. Minimal Government Thinkers, Inc.

1. “The Sovereign Self - Humans by nature are individualist, selfish, self-centred, self-directed, self-preoccupied, etc. Their basic drive is individual freedom, personal happiness, and privatized utopia. To achieve compels them to know, comprehend, objectify, accumulate, dominate, prevail, and thus, become sovereign.”

This is similar to the observations made by Thomas Hobbes (left) and somehow by 2 other “social contract" theoreticians, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau.

T. Hobbes In the beginning, there was no state, no law, nothing is right or wrong. Everyone is free to do as he pleases. Life was nasty, short and brutish. Civilization was not possible in this “state of nature.” Submission to authority, have laws, will result in a life better than that

2. “Sovereignty–The Sovereign agents are the freer beings. They could exist inside and outside the law. The sovereign could, at one time, uphold the law, and at another time limit or even suspend it their pleasure. This description of sovereignty fits the divine; for gods are almost by definition the only ones that could exists inside and outside the law. Such position is the ultimately seductive. “ Similar to the observation by John Locke: Social contract between people and government, latter should protect the life and property of the former. Failure to do so is breach of contract. Sovereign people have the right to rebel against abusive "servant.”

3. “Coercion & Intervention - Certain form of coercion is needed to help the self escape its own interiority, interest, and private utopia. Proverbs, sayings, taboos, beliefs, traditions, principles, regulations, and codified laws were all products of attempts coax humans to this great escape from self-absorption, “

Jean Jacques Rousseau said that the social contract between people and state, the former shall have individual freedom but can be incompatible with rising authority of the state.

4. “Laws, Rules, and Regulations –… discrete rules to regulate the desired process of socialization and cooperation. It is necessary for people to have a definite demarcation line to determine excessive exercise of freedom and rights that have gone awry by objectivising, abusing, dominating, and dehumanizing the “other.”

Right. Laws and rules are established to serve as referees to human disputes. “he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help…” -- Plato, Socrates - Glaucon, Book 1, The Republic (~ 380 BC)

5. “Coercion & Intervention Fail–Laws, rules, and regulations and the fundamental precept of “love your neighbour” are all detrimental and deleterious to individual freedom, to one’s happiness and insistence to sovereignty.” . “By ‘law’ we mean the general

rules that apply equally to everybody… Even general, abstract rules, equally applicable to all, may possibly constitute restrictions on liberty. But this is unlikely. The chief safeguard is that the rules must apply to those who lay them down and those who apply—that is, to the government as well as the governed – and that nobody has the power to grant exceptions.” -- F. Hayek, TCL, Ch. 10.

Over Governmentality– The control on private self-interests, which the state can and should provide, will have a liability on the other side as well. Laissez faire advocates, those who prefer minimal government and unregulated market, will be quick to point out that an excess of collectivism and state intervention may very well overstep the threshold from managed capitalism to dictatorship.

1. Alternative pol. & econ. ideology

Lao Tzu (600 BC) the Liberal. • considered the first intellectual in China

and the world (he came earlier than Plato), who championed individual liberty.

• “The more restrictions and limitations there are, the more impoverished men will be... The more rules and precepts are enforced, the more bandits and crooks will be produced.”

• “Through my non-action, men are spontaneously transformed. Through my quiescence, men spontaneously become tranquil. Through my non-interference, men spontaneously increase their wealth.”

"On the market of a capitalistic society the common man is the sovereign consumer whose buying or abstention from buying ultimately determines what should be produced and in what quantity and quality... Wealth can be acquired only by serving the consumers. The capitalists lose their funds as soon as they fail to invest them in those lines in which they satisfy best the demands of the public.”

2. Alternative Econ: free market econ. "The characteristic feature of modern capitalism is mass production of goods destined for consumption by the masses. The result is a tendency towards a continuous improvement in the average standard of living, a progressing enrichment of the many. Capitalism deproletarianizes the 'common man' and elevates him to the rank of a 'bourgeois'.

3. Alternative view of global health We are in a world of longer life, reduced illness and death from contagious diseases.

Life expectancy in Asia, 1970 and 2010

4. Alternative view of climate change It is natural (nature-made, not man-made) & cyclical (warming-cooling-…)

Concluding Notes

1.Despite all the warts and imperfections of the planet and its people, we are living a world of rising and continuing prosperity. Rising life expectancy, fewer deaths per age bracket compared to past decades. 2. The planet is not ending soon in a collapsing-burning-flooding-submerging scenario. Climate cycle is cool. 3. Free market means free individuals. All markets are composed of individuals, young and old, men and women, ;rich and poor, producers and consumers. 4. Alternative econ system is one away from big and intrusive government but towards small, minimal government, and maximum civil society of mature, volunteerist individuals.