QUO VADIS

TOM C . VEBLEN

America’s role in the new global Collaborative

One of humankind’s most compelling stories is its sustained effort to increase human productivity through collective endeavor. The Family was the first of these unique social conventions and, for tens of thousands of years, that was it. But then, humans being the creative social animals they are, the story moved on, relentlessly, to the discovery of ever more innovative collective configurations:

The Individual
The Family
The Tribe
(ancient Nubia and Israel, modern Afghanistan and Palestine)

The Affiliative
(guilds, associations, labor unions, churches, businesses, libraries, schools, etc.)

The State
(Athens, Rome, Florence, Germany, Norway, Mexico, Israel, Dominica)

The Collaborative Society
(Great Britain, United States, Canada, Australia, European Union)

The increasing capacity of these collective endeavors to amass, order, and position resources in response to human needs and aspirations is a wonder. Even more of a wonder are their cultural permutations and persistence.

When guided by moral excellence, human endeavor, whether individual or collective, advances human wellbeing. But when informed by such instincts as greed, cruelty, and selfishness, human endeavor invariably leads to strife and misery. And so, in spite of humanity’s best intentions, collective endeavors continually go astray, subverting reason, justifying means with ends, imposing rule by status, and coercing individuals. You would think that after so many years of experimentation,we’d be done with this nonsense. No such luck. In spite of humankind’s best efforts, despots continue to rule, bureaucracies continue to adopt nefarious means, and states continue to be taken over by leaders who, corrupted by power, cheat their followers and wreck havoc on their neighbors.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that humankind is still working on the problem. It is inescapably within our nature to try to do better. Endeavoring, we are intent on perfecting ourselves, individually and collectively. Or, to put it another way, we are, desirably, in the process of perfecting ourselves, individually and collectively.

ENDEAVOR

  1. try, attempt, strive, make an effort, do one’s best, struggle, exert oneself, undertake, aim, aspire, take a stab at, have a go or crack or whack or shot at.
  2. effort, pains, attempt, try, strive, struggle, venture, enterprise.

    —Oxford Thesaurus

THE AMERICAN WAY

The concept of collective endeavor is clearly a work-inprogress, with the “Collaborative” its most recent manifestation. Still unfolding, this wide-ranging experiment in large-scale human cooperation exhibits an historically unprecedented way to unleash individual enterprise in all fields of human activity.

American society possesses an exceptional capacity to advance the spiritual and material well-being of its individual members. Private enterprise, directing forces of change along predetermined paths toward concrete goals and objectives, is largely responsible for this phenomenon.

The United States is a prime example. Its founders, a like-minded band of revolutionaries, set out to establish a free society in which the person, not the state, was sovereign. This was to be a society in which the State would be directed by the Individual, and not the other way around.What a grand, revolutionary scheme!

Sharing their hard-won life experiences, understanding of Enlightenment concepts, and belief in private property and enterprise, the founders began by outlining a free society’s moral foundations, declaring in 1776

...that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...

Then, having further clarified their intention “...to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness,” they turned to the hard work of materializing the vision.

The Founders’ idea was not simply to fashion a government, but to ennoble a society that would evolve in concert with man’s deepening understanding of the natural and social orders of which he is a part; a society that was a collaborative of all its Families, Tribes, Affiliatives, and States; a society whose government would be, as Abraham Lincoln later observed, of, by, and for the people. The blueprint they devised—composed of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the Federalist Papers—visualized this society, starting with a new, constitutionally enabled republic, a “nation of nations.”Contract rather than status would determine the direction and outcomes of the national enterprise. Common law would assure the rights of private citizens. Separation of church and state would confine doctrinal conflicts to the private sector.

By the late 1800s, the country’s more perceptive observers began to realize that the United States was becoming more than just another nation state. The unique political, economic, and social collaboration put in train by the founders was creating a culture in which private enterprise was destined to play a dominant role in directing national resources; politics was privatized; commerce played a dominant role in wealth creation; science embodied the rule of reason; and education promoted individual autonomy and virtue.

As illustrated throughout US history, creating a Collaborative is no task for the faint-hearted. Innovative societal constructs require more than architects. They require, as well, builders who are enterprising and moral, and who intuit the spiritual and technical imperatives of the grand scheme. Given the scope of the founders’ vision and the impediments to its realization, generations of morally responsible and creative builders were required—free individuals whose initiative, responsibility, and compassion were at one with the founders’ wit and imagination.

As the work progressed, the genius of the scheme and the blueprint was revealed. The keys to social acceptance and a good life in America turned out to be (and remain) engagement, education, and income-producing property —probably in that order. Get going and you will prosper; keep learning and you will gain acceptance; invest wisely and you will be admired. As a result, American society possesses an exceptional capacity to advance the spiritual and material well-being of its individual members. Private enterprise, directing forces of change along predetermined paths toward concrete goals and objectives, is largely responsible for this phenomenon.

What, then, are the fundamental elements that propel the American Collaborative’s continuing progress? Four stand out: (1) a national vision comprehending all of humankind, regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity; (2) leaders philosophically dedicated to the idea of individual sovereignty; (3) citizens motivated to sacrifice both for their own and the common good; and (4) individual and collective endeavors working to materialize national and global societies in which moral conduct means fair play and harmony.

THE GLOBAL CONFLICT

Looking beyond America to all of humanity, a new social order championing political freedom and justice is taking shape in the world. A product of the European Enlightenment and American experimentation, this new Collaborative order intends to advance the human condition through the rule of law, representative democracy, protection of private property, and promotion of private enterprise.

Societies embracing the new world order are making significant progress morally, intellectually, and materially. Internalizing collaborative concepts of individual sovereignty, political inclusiveness, and free markets, they create and manage wealth to improve individual as well as national well-being. Outstanding examples include those well into the experiment, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, India, and Chile; and those still in the preliminary stages of experimentation —China, Russia, Egypt, Jordan, and Indonesia.

Unfortunately, a good many of the world’s other societies, driven by different cultural determinants, are faltering. Economically stressed countries like Syria and North Korea, dictatorships such as Iraq under Hussein and Castro’s Cuba, along with poorer tribal areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan, have become breeding grounds for bitter discontent and violent, radical reaction. Ruled by political actors with varied aims and ideologies, these societies have lashed out at the collaborative societies and, in doing so, pose an existential threat to the world’s newest and most promising social order. Authoritarian, and deathly opposed to individual sovereignty, they have attacked the United States and its allies morally, culturally, and militarily.

The United States, its national existence threatened, has, in turn, responded by reordering its national security priorities, reforming its domestic police forces, energizing its citizens and allies, and engaging militarily with the sponsors of radical authoritarianism, beginning with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Iraqi dictatorship. The decisiveness of America’s response has been unsettling, as evidenced by the recent global surge of virulent antiglobalization, anti-American, and anti-individualism outbursts.

And so the debate on globalization of the Collaborative rolls on. What is globalization and what does it mean? And what is the next best thing for us to do, individually and collectively? Guided in large part by the global media, the current debate surrounding these questions so far has generated more heat than light. In seeking the light, the first imperative is to get the questions right:

Is there really a new (emerging?) world social order that holds promise for the advance of humankind’s wellbeing? If so, is the promise such that we should support it? If not, what’s the alternative?
Is the role adopted by the United States in globalization an appropriate one? If not, what role should it play? How can the United States be most effective in discharging that role?
Given the present reality, how best can the sovereign individual contribute to the advance of humankind’s well-being? And how should a Collaborative’s participants proceed?

Endeavoring, we are intent on perfecting ourselves, as individuals; for the affiliate, as enterprises large and small; collectively, as a nation; and collaboratively, as proponents of the emerging world order guided by many of the political and economic principles undergirding The American Way. Endeavoring, can we envisage a superior state of being, in which good (virtue) triumphs over evil (vice), and humility, gratitude, good faith, humor, and passion direct the intellect? Can there be a global condition in which, when push comes to shove, the Collaborative’s promotion of individual sovereignty trumps the vices of the Family, Tribe,Affiliative, and State?


Tom C. Veblen (CC ’95) is convener of the Superior Business Firm Roundtable, an educational and deliberative forum for intellectually curious business practitioners.

 

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