Cooperation, Competition and Coercion
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** Discussion Group, Anyone?
Hey, I’m thinking about starting a discussion group that would meet every two weeks via Zoom.
The goals would be to build connections and to learn from each other.
In line with Eleanor Roosevelt’s dictum (https://practopian.org/quotes/great-minds-discuss-ideas.html) , we’ll try to focus on a discussion of ideas, and keep consideration of people and events to a minimum.
My idea is to center each of our meetings around some brief (reading time of 5 - 20 minutes) but thought-provoking writing that we can discuss. I’ll start off with some of my writings, just to get things going – and also because I think I’m well qualified to lead a discussion about stuff that I’ve written! – but will be happy to discuss works by others too as we progress.
The only requirements for participation are an open mind, and an interest in discussing ideas that seem relevant to the human condition in the first half of the 21st century.
If this sounds interesting to you, then drop me a line at my newest email address – hbowie@hey.com (mailto:hbowie@hey.com) – and I’ll get back to you to coordinate details.
** Quotation
Since the biological distinctions between different groups of Homo sapiens are, in fact, negligible, biology can’t explain the intricacies of Indian society or American racial dynamics. We can only understand those phenomena by studying the events, circumstances, and power relations that transformed figments of imagination into cruel – and very real – social structures.
– Yuval Noah Harari, 2015, from the Book titled Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
** News and Analysis
Still in her prime, Maya Moore sacrificed her career, stepping away as one of the greats in basketball for a long shot bid to help free a prisoner she was convinced had been wrongfully convicted.
In a shock to the sport, she left the game – temporarily, she said – in early 2019 to free Jonathan Irons, a Missouri man who continuously claimed innocence as he served a 50-year prison sentence for burglary and assault with a gun.
And on Wednesday, her sacrifice paid the ultimate dividend.
Irons, 40, walked out of a Missouri prison a free man after spending 23 years behind bars. After an appeal Moore partially funded and publicly backed, Irons’s sentence had been overturned. In a scene of tearful celebration outside the front doors of the Jefferson City Correctional Center, Moore and her family at long last greeted the man they’ve come to consider one of their own.
“I’m pumped that people are understanding where the real change lies as far as giving something up,” Moore said at a news conference on Thursday. “That’s all of us, giving something up, if you have any sort of power.”
– from “W.N.B.A. Star’s Role in Freeing Man From Prison Shows Female Athletes at Forefront (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/sports/basketball/maya-moore-jonathan-irons-freed.html) ” by Kurt Streeter at The New York Times
** Blog Post: Cooperation, Competition and Coercion
Riot police dispersing protestors
Let’s take a closer look at some of the major ideas regularly animating our public discourse today.
** Cooperation vs. Competition
When we contemplate the society in which we live, we often tend to frame our disagreements in terms of cooperation vs. competition: Are we working together collaboratively with others, or are we competing with them?
Politically, those on the left tend to be associated with a spirit of egalitarian cooperation, while those on the right are often viewed as proponents of unrestrained competition within a free market economy.
From an economic perspective, these alternatives can be portrayed as a choice between centralized planning or laissez-faire capitalism.
The tension between these two alternatives can be somewhat resolved through reference to multi-level selection theory (https://evolution-institute.org/the-business-world-needs-multilevel-selection-theory/) , pointing out that we can cooperate at some levels (say, within a company), and compete at others (between companies, for example).
In our current state of polarizing identity politics, those favoring cooperation can easily be portrayed as socialist defenders of society’s freeloaders, while those arguing for unrestrained competition can be painted as standard bearers for a true economic meritocracy.
And even when viewing things from a somewhat more enlightened perspective, these labels still seem to trap us between two poles, leading us to describe any sort of alternative as a “third way (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way) ” of some kind.
** Coercion
But when we look at the major societal choices facing us today, and the major political battles in front of us, I’m starting to think the primary question is not really whether we want a society that is more cooperative, vs. one that is more competitive, but rather the following:
Are we ready for a society that is less coercive?
When we see a policeman choking the life out of someone (https://www.startribune.com/bodycam-video-shows-minneapolis-police-officer-pulled-gun-on-george-floyd-early-on/571778072/) by kneeling on his neck until they can no longer even beg for breath, that is an example of coercion by violent force.
And when that act of murder is done in front of a crowd of onlookers (https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/george-floyd-new-video-officers-kneel-trnd/index.html) , some of whom are capturing the entire sequence on video, it is an example of coercion through a threat of violence to others in that community.
And when millions of people are denied access to housing (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/03/12/americas-inequitable-housing-system-is-completely-unprepared-for-coronavirus/) , to clean water (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5551618/) , to nutritious food (https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-hunger-us) , and to healthcare (https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/) , or forced to work eighty or 100 or 120 hours per week just to keep their heads above water, that is an example of coercion through critical resource deprivation.
And when women are persuaded or forced into sexual submission by those in power (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement) , either to avoid bodily harm, or to avoid termination of their careers, those acts are also examples of coercion, either through violence, threats of violence, or threats of critical resource deprivation.
And when we see police and our national guard being called out to resist peaceful protesters, wearing full riot gear, and using tear gas and flash grenades to disperse protestors (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/06/08/timeline-trump-church-photo-op/) , and arresting card-carrying journalists (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/journalist-arrest-seattle-chaz-protest-police-prison-black-lives-matter-a9606846.html) , and forcing protestors into unmarked vehicles (https://www.salon.com/2020/07/17/theyre-kidnapping-people-trumps-secret-police-snatch-portland-protesters-into-unmarked-vans/) , we see further examples of coercion.
And when we look at the levels of gun ownership in the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country) , and listen to the reasons why people in the US seem to think they need so many guns, the most impassioned defenses of Second Amendment rights all revolve around the ability of citizens to defend themselves against coercion (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/reports/2019/04/24/468951/guns-lies-fear/) , either from our government, or from criminals.
And when we study the levels of incarceration in the US (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm) , we are again viewing examples of violent coercion on a massive scale.
And when we regard the growing levels of wealth inequality in this country (https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/08/wealth-concentration-returning-levels-last-seen-during-roaring-twenties-according-new-research/) , we are seeing an example of large-scale coercion through critical resource deprivation.
And so, when viewing the current political moment, including all of the protests telling us that Black Lives Matter (https://blacklivesmatter.com) , and now asking for defunding of the police (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/19/what-does-defund-the-police-mean-and-does-it-have-merit/) , we are seeing something that cannot be framed in terms of traditional arguments pitting progressives against conservatives.
No, what we are seeing, I believe, is a broad and deep revulsion over the levels of coercion now underpinning our entire American society. And along with this revulsion a deep questioning:
If we have gotten rid of slavery, and have signed on to provide equal rights to all Americans, then why do we continue to need this level of coercion in our society? If we are now the land of the free – not just for white males, but for all of us – then why do we need so much coercive power, and why do we need to exercise it so often?
** The Alternative
All of this is perhaps why economist Peter Boettke, when prompted recently by evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson to cast judgment on laissez-faire capitalism, responded that he did not see our current societal problems primarily through this lens (https://evolution-institute.org/the-role-of-the-market-in-the-third-way-of-entrepreneurship-a-conversation-with-peter-boettke/) .
I see instead a world of a permanent war economy, manipulation of money and credit, and rent-seeking society that privileges some at the expense of others – all of which distort and damage our politics, our markets, and our society. In essence, Power and Privilege have been amassed in an effort to govern over, rather than a self-governing democratic era where we dissipate power and deny privilege and seek to govern with each other as dignified equals. True liberalism in this sense would be seen as the emancipatory philosophy that it was written to be – seeking to eradicate the bonds of oppression imposed by the Altar, the Crown, the Sword, and from both crushing poverty and the protected privileges of the mercantilist class.
And so we have to ask: if we were to eradicate the bonds of oppression in our society, and eliminate privilege, and distribute power fairly, so that we can govern with each other as dignified equals, then would we really need the levels of coercion we are seeing all around us today? Would we really need to have the highest prison population in the world – even greater than that of Russia and China?
And so I think people are beginning to sense that the solution to a fear of coercion cannot continually be more coercion. It is as if our own society was locked into an arms race (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race) with itself: when an armed shooter invades a school, we respond by trying to put armed police in every school in the country. But where does this lead? Where has it already led? Perhaps this is why Seattle police chief Carmen Best recently remarked, on a national news show (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-chief-carmen-best-on-face-the-nation-june-14-2020/) :
But what I believe, especially after I was at a march the day before yesterday with Black Lives Matter, and I was looking at the 60,000 people that were there, [with] signs saying “defund the police”, “stop police brutality”, “no qualified immunity” – and there were thousands of people carrying those particular signs – and I just realized it was a pivotal moment in history. We are going to move in a different direction and policing will never be the same as it was before.
And so perhaps we can dare to hope that we are truly turning a corner in our American society, that what we are seeing is not just another pendulum swing from right to left and back again, but a moment in time when we can begin to dial back the levels of coercion running rampant throughout our country, and start to work our way back to the untarnished ideals that our country’s early leaders expressed on paper, even if the reality has been so long deferred – the notion that all humans are created equal, with rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the idea that we can have government of, by, and for the people.
For if we can achieve a society that truly embodies these emancipatory ideals, then I can but pray that coercion at the levels seen in American society today will no longer be needed, and can be replaced with commensurate investments in our common good.
Towards a more progressive future.
– Herb Bowie, first published at Practopian.org (https://practopian.org/blog/hbowie/cooperation-competition-and-coercion.html) on July 17, 2020
If you liked this blog post, feel free to give it a few claps on Medium.com (https://medium.com/@hbowie/cooperation-competition-and-coercion-5d4f3b959082) .
** Next Steps…
Thanks for reading!
Feedback is always welcome at feedback@practopian.org (mailto:feedback@practopian.org) .
This post, and so much more, can always be found at Practopian.org (https://practopian.org) .
** Recent Writings You Might Have Missed
- “Can the US Become a Truly Egalitarian Society? (https://practopian.org/blog/hbowie/can-the-us-become-a-truly-egalitarian-society.html) ” As with many of us, I’ve been thinking deeply lately about the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breanna Taylor, and so many other people of color, and wondering how and why these atrocities continue to occur in my country, and what we can do to turn things around.
- “Democracy (https://practopian.org/basics/democracy.html) ” A Practopian “Basics” piece that fleshes out the following core value: “We believe in democracy, with all citizens having an equal say in defining their society’s laws, and an equal opportunity to influence their governments.”
- “Why Do We Call It Capitalism? (https://practopian.org/blog/hbowie/why-do-we-call-it-capitalism.html) ” As Americans we generally believe in capitalism as a superior economic system, and are typically convinced that our country is run on capitalistic principles. But I’ve been wondering lately: If these things are really true, then why do so few Americans actually possess any capital?
- “Core Design Principles for Teams (https://practopian.org/blog/hbowie/core-design-principles-for-teams.html) ” David Sloan Wilson and his pals at Prosocial World have done the heavy lifting for us, providing the eight Core Design Principles to maximize the effectiveness of human groups of all sizes.
- “An Appreciation for the Song ‘The Weight’ by The Band (https://practopian.org/appreciation/the-weight.html) ” I recently came across the Playing for Change Song Around the World video of Robbie Robertson’s composition “The Weight,” and it made me want to think – and write! – more deeply about how this song works, and what it means, and the timeless nature of its appeal.
- “Patterns of Human Cooperation (https://practopian.org/blog/hbowie/patterns-of-human-cooperation.html) ” As humans our superpower is the ability to work cooperatively with others of our species. But these seemingly simple ideas of cooperation and coordination turn out to be devilishly complex in practice, especially in large undertakings.
- “Understanding Human History (https://practopian.org/blog/hbowie/understanding-human-history.html) ” When I was in school, history was one of my least favorite subjects: It just seemed like a bunch of arbitrary names and dates and events that I had to memorize. In hindsight, I realize now, the problem I had with the subject was that it had been “storified.”
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