Last week I re-read a book called “Delusions of Economics … and the Way Forward” by Gerald A. Cory Jr. I am not particularly interested in reading books on the subject of economics, but this one caught my attention. I originally read the book a couple of years ago after meeting the author while enjoying a beer at a tiny bar and grill in Davis, California. I find this particular restaurant to be an interesting place to meet exceptional people because of its close proximity to the highly prestigious University of California, Davis. It is not unusual for out-of-town people to drop in to relax a bit and meet a few of the “locals.” My discussions with Dr. Cory happened on a couple of those occasions.

Dr. Cory caught my attention both because of his rather amazing background and experiences, but mostly because he seemed to have a unique view on science, economics, and human progress. One of his topics that intrigued me was “consilience,” by which he means the effort to unity the sciences, both natural and social. His point being that science doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it is in a large measure a social phenomena and therefore is incomplete without considering the entirety of the problem, including people.

Cory’s book on economics started with a brief discussion of how we (homo sapiens) evolved from the first life on earth. He pointed out that in the beginning (hundreds of millions of years worth of “beginning”), all life was essentially “ego” driven. By “ego” he means, self-interest. The whole purpose of life was to stay alive and create offspring. Once the offspring were created, it was up them to survive and create offspring. Interest for the well being of others didn’t exist. Over millions of years life evolved and changed, always based upon the driving force of “survive and reproduce.”

At some point a mutation (actually a bunch of mutations) resulted creatures referred to as “amniotes.” Aminiotes are four-legged terrestrial vertebrates that evolved a tough membrane cover of the reproductive DNA carried by eggs (and later in placentas internal to the mother) that facilitated the survival of DNA-bearing eggs on land. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amniote

The mutations that allowed this change to occur included the creation of genes for “other-interest”, which Cory calls “empathy.” Humans are on this lineage that includes genes for empathy, or other-interest. However, the earlier genes for self-interest didn’t go away, they continued in the mix resulting in genes for both self-interest and other-interest (or said another way, ego and empathy).

The importance of this for this discussion is that there are built-in, genetically created impulses toward self-interest and other-interest. These two interests are always in opposition to each other, creating a “pull and tug”, each countered by the other. If the “forces” are balanced, then there is homeostasis in a kind of dynamic balance. On the empathic side are drives of self-sacrifice, submission, giving, responsiveness, supportiveness and others over self. The egoistic side includes power-seeking, domination, seizing (taking), assertiveness, competitiveness and self over others. When things are balanced there is compromise, fairness, sharing and justice.

One interesting result of this behavioral “model” is that perhaps the Buddhist’s suggestion of becoming “egoless” is questionable. If Cory is correct, egolessness would result in far too much empathy, and the death of the organism (us). The goal isn’t egolessness, it is a balance. Perhaps instead of attempting to eliminate ego (a clearly impossible, and undesirable condition), the suggestion should be to be aware of its presence, and take steps to moderate its influence to achieve something closer to the desirable dynamic equilibrium necessary for a health life, and healthy society.

The reason that Cory goes into so much detail about these opposing forces, and the desirable state of dynamic equilibrium, in a book on economics is that the currently most influential economic theories being used to understand and manage national and global economics fail to include the opposing forces to the ego driven instincts. They are based upon the idea that ALL economic actions are based upon each party in a transaction attempting to maximize what they can get with absolutely no sharing or empathic aspects to transactions. It is all get as much as you can get away with… period, with no thought to the impacts on others, on the environment, on future generations, global peace, or any other “other-interest” considerations.

I think this does a pretty good job of describing how businesses currently approach economic decisions. This agrees with what I learned in my college economic courses. The instructors and texts hammered home the idea that it is the absolute “duty” for everyone in the economic system to fight as hard as they can to maximize their returns. This is supposedly the source of the “invisible hand” that allows the economy to properly achieve a fair and equitable society. Pretty clearly, this kind of equality has not been achieved, and is getting much worse with time. It is a failed model, and a failed approach to understanding the “value” of things. What is often overlooked is that the “competition” isn’t between the supplier and the customer, it is between suppliers. The supplier relies upon “empathy” to promote the most desirable product, the forces of the ego are between suppliers of similar products.

Cory’s contention is that the problem is that the balancing values of empathy (other-interest) are not included in the calculations, and that is why things are getting so far out of hand with the rich rapidly getting much richer, and the poor approaching catastrophe. It is also why we have concerns of global warming, too much plastic in the oceans, ever growing numbers of homeless encampments and much, much more.

Cory’s final point is that the economic model of “supply and demand” (based on self-interest) only works for situations where the items being traded are not essential. Under that condition, then the “customer” can change behaviors based upon price. They can purchase a less expensive house, a less fancy car, perhaps a different vacation. However, this does not apply and does not work for things that are necessities, such as healthy food, health care, shelter and others. Those things NEED to be available no matter what the “customer” can afford to pay. They do not have the option of not eating because food is too expensive, they NEED to eat.

It appears that we have a LONG way to go before achieving anything close to the economic, and social justice, conditions that we want and need – but perhaps opening up the “models” to include the other half of our genetic propensities can inform our actions, regulations, and ethics in ways to work toward a more equitable society, rather than our present approach that seems to be driving us all apart rather than together.