101. The Republic Part 1b

Note: This post is the one hundred and first in a series about government and commercial ethics. Click here for the full listing of the series. The first post in the series has more detail on the book 'Systems of Survival' by Jane Jacobs which inspired this series.

Note also: this is a continuation from post 100.

"Power Corrupts. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely"

proverb



"Hey Bob, Supe had a straight job
Even though he could have smashed through any bank
in the United States. He had the strength, but he would not

...

Superman never made any money saving the world from Solomon Grundy
And sometimes I despair the world will never seen another man,
Like him"


Crash Test Dummies, Superman Song



In Book 2 of the Republic, Thrasymachus has quit the field and Socrates thinks the discussion is over. But Glaucon and Adeimantus pursue the argument further, pressing Socrates to explain to them how justice is not just something that is sought for the benefits it brings, but is also an end in itself.

Glaucon gets Socrates to agree that there are three classes of goods: those which are unpleasant in themselves but serve a worthwhile purpose (e.g. medicine), those which are pleasurable in and of themselves (e.g. eating) and those which serve a worthwhile purpose and are worthwhile on their own merits, and furthermore to agree that justice falls into the third category.

'How would you arrange goods --are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them?

I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied.
Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results?

Certainly, I said.
And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of money-making --these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them?

There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask?
Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place justice?

In the highest class, I replied, --among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results.

Then the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided.'

Glaucon points out that Greek society seems to be of the opinion that justice falls into the 'troublesome' class of goods. From this argument it follows that if a man had the power of avoiding retribution – if, for example he possessed a ring of invisibility - then that man would be foolish to still be just, but instead would be better off pursuing injustice.

'They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice; --it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice.'

It also follows that it is enough to merely seem just rather than actually being just, since this will bring on the rewards from others that are given to the just, and avoid the punishments handed down the unjust.

Glaucon explains how the life of the unjust man who seems just will compare to the life of the just man who is seen as unjust,

'the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound --will have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled: Then he will understand that he ought to seem only, and not to be, just; the words of Aeschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust than of the just. For the unjust is pursuing a reality; he does not live with a view to appearances --he wants to be really unjust and not to seem only:--

His mind has a soil deep and fertile,
Out of which spring his prudent counsels. In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in the city; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will; also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice and at every contest, whether in public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies; moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honour the gods or any man whom he wants to honour in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the unjust better than the life of the just.'

At this point Adeimantus jumps in to add that Glaucon’s account of justice is consistent with the message from poets and prose writers and parents and tutors, all of whom encourage the young to become just, not for the sake of justice and their own spirit or soul, but for the rewards that come from being seen as just, with respect to opportunities for advancement and so on.

'Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just; but why? not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation; in the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages, and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the others; for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious; and this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says, that the gods make the oaks of the just'

This is, in my opinion, the most eloquent of all the books in the Republic, and I have to say it makes a very convincing case for the notion that justice is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Plato seems to feel the same way as he has Socrates praise the argument made by Glaucon and Adeimantus and admit that he feels unequal to the challenge of refuting it.

Indeed, the rest of the book is a roundabout approach to refuting this argument with Socrates first constructing the ideal state (the Republic) and then showing how someone who has uncontestable power and uses that power for their own ends (a tyrant) will end up the worst off of all men, in the same manner that tyranny is the worst form of government.

To be honest, I'm not really sure what to say about this book other than that it was thought provoking.

On the one hand, like the interlocutors in the Republic, I have a gut feeling that even if one was all powerful, the regular rules of justice should still apply. On the other hand, it does seem that society mostly seems to value justice as an end rather than on its own merits, and I do see how if one person was all powerful, the notion of 'take vengeance' which is a central part of the guardian syndrome would cease to have meaning for everyone else, since they would be powerless to take revenge on an all powerful person.

Certainly, any notion to construct a system of morals which argued that people pursued justice because it was in their own self-interest, would strugghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifle not to admit that the all powerful person could be expected to disregard justice as a notion for lesser beings.

For that reason, David Gauthier took up this issue in his work, 'Morals by Agreement' eventually reaching an argument similar to the one employed in the movie, 'Megamind' - that even an all powerful person would have an interest in society being successful since a successful society is just more pleasant to be around than a downtrodden one. Gauthier ends up by arguing that it is because people have a certain element of socialness, or care for other people, that even if they had absolute power, they would still place a value on behaving justly towards others, even when they have no need of it to get what they want.

But still, at some level, the ability to requite or take vengeance does have to be present in order for the concept of justice to operate. For example, people hardly treat animals with anything resembling the human notion of justice but I suspect that if animals were able to rise up and rebel against their human oppressors, showing that they had the power to 'take an eye for a ribeye' this would lead to a new relationship which might extend the human notion of justice towards animals further than it goes currently.



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site note: Posting may move to Wednesday for a while due to other commitments on Tuesday nights.

98. The Republic, Part 2

Note: This post is the ninety-eighth in a series about government and commercial ethics. Click here for the full listing of the series. The first post in the series has more detail on the book 'Systems of Survival' by Jane Jacobs which inspired this series.

In this post, I'm going to talk about 'The Republic' by Plato. In 'The Republic' Plato sets out his vision of the ideal state, but in this week's post, I just want to cover chapter 8, near the end of The Republic, in which Plato sets out the other types of states and how, starting in his ideal republic, states decay from one mode of government to another over time. Plato wasn't trying to say that this progression is always exactly followed and the introduction that I read was quite dismissive of the realism of Plato's proposed progression, but personally, I found his description to be quite true to the history of our own culture - which is a little worrying since he claims that democracy is followed by tyranny.

Anyway, the first alternative form of state that is first to emerge from the ideal republic is one that Plato says corresponds roughly to the Spartan model and he refers to it as Timarchy, or "the government of honour". The government of honour differs from Plato's ideal Republic in that the ruling class has begun to be corrupted by a love of money so that they maintain private stores of wealth and build castles to protect them. In addition, the state is governed by a warrior-king rather than a philosopher king and there is a near constant state of warfare.

(note: The Republic is written as a dialogue. In this book, Socrates is doing the talking and his friends Glaucon and Adeimantus are playing the role of agreeable yes-men.)

"In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training—in all these respects this State will resemble the former [Plato's ideal Republic].

True.

But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars—this State will be for the most part peculiar.

Yes.

Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who live in oligarchies; they will have, a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them; also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please."

As he describes each state, Plato also describes the sort of person who inhabits that state, and shows how each personality type derives from the last.

"He [The man in the Timocratic state] should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated, and yet a friend of culture; and he should be a good listener, but no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man, who is too proud for that; and he will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to authority; he is a lover of power and a lover of honour; claiming to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms; he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase.

Yes, that is the type of character which answers to timocracy.

Such an one will despise riches only when he is young; but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not single-minded towards virtue, having lost his best guardian.

Who was that? said Adeimantus.

Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes up her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life.

Good, he said.

Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timocratical State."

Plato's description of a society that is warlike and contentious, filled with brave men who build castles and live under a 'government of honour' certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to the medieval period and its code of chivalry.

In Plato's telling, the 'Government of Honour' eventually gives way to an Oligarchy, "A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it."

"The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law?

Yes, indeed.

And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.

Likely enough.

And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.

True.

And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured.

Clearly.

And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected.

That is obvious.

And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man.

They do so.

They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work."

Plato notes many defects of Oligarchy, including the inability of the Oligarchs to carry out a war successfully, the corruption of having the same group of people doing too many tasks - running both business and government, and the creation of class warfare between the wealthy class and the poor class.

The match isn't quite as good, but again, there is a resemblance between the oligarchy that Plato describes and the period of the Industrial revolution, the inequality described by Dickens, powerful 'robber-barons' who controlled the government, a long period with (relatively) little warfare, societies where government was reserved for those with a minimum level of wealth, and a great growth in global trade and wealth which was not particularly widely shared leading to the rise of marxism and communism.

Next Plato describes the descent from Oligarchy to Democracy. Basically, where the Oligarchy retained a level of self-discipline, as needed to allow for the accumulation of wealth, in a Democracy restraints are thrown to the winds and people can do as they please.

"And then democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power; and this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot.

Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has been effected by arms, or whether fear has caused the opposite party to withdraw.

And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have they? for as the government is, such will be the man.

Clearly, he said.

In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full of freedom and frankness—a man may say and do what he likes?

'Tis said so, he replied.

And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases?

Clearly.

Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures?

There will.

This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States."

Again, Plato's description of democracy bears a strong resemblance to our current society that emerged from the World Wars of the early 20th century. Plato notes that the primary characteristics of Democracy are freedom and liberty. So much so that even slaves, women and eventually animals are given the same liberty that is normally reserved for men. But Plato believes that the primacy of liberty and the accompanying unwillingness to allow for any restraint is what sets the stage for tyranny to emerge from democracy.

"By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them.

How do you mean?

I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and the metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the stranger is quite as good as either.

Yes, he said, that is the way.

And these are not the only evils, I said—there are several lesser ones: In such a state of society the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young.

Quite true, he said.

The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other.

Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips?

That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no one who does not know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other State: for truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at any body who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just ready to burst with liberty.

When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing.

And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no one over them.

Yes, he said, I know it too well.

Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny."

Plato describes how idle spendthrifts, who are unwelcome in most states, but "in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power" come to try and squeeze the wealthy class for their money, leading the wealthy to fight back and become more like oligarchs, leading to an escalating battle until finally the people back a champion who takes their cause against the wealthy and the spendthrifts and this champion is able to seize power under the mantle of serving the people, who don't realize until it is too late how their champion will turn upon them and become a tyrant.

One of the most compelling parts of the chapter is where Plato describes how the tyrant is driven by necessity into a more and more depraved existence, forced to drive out all the best and brightest from society since they will be seen as rivals to his power.

"At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes every one whom he meets;—he to be called a tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private! liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to every one!

Of course, he said.

But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

To be sure.

Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him?

Clearly.

And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war.

He must.

Now he begins to grow unpopular.

A necessary result.

Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are in power, speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is being done.

Yes, that may be expected.

And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them; he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything.

He cannot.

And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; happy man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he has made a purgation of the State.

Yes, he said, and a rare purgation.

Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the reverse.

If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself.

What a blessed alternative, I said:—to be compelled to dwell only with the many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all!

Yes, that is the alternative.

And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he require?

Certainly.

And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them?

They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he pays them.

By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort and from every land.

Yes, he said, there are.

But will he not desire to get them on the spot?

How do you mean?

He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set them free and enrol them in his body-guard.

To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best of all.

What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he has put to death the others and has these for his trusted friends."

In book 9, Plato goes on to describe the miserable existence of the tyrannical man, a mirror of the miserable state that he governs. The miserable life of the tyrant is Plato's final answer to the question of whether it is better to live a life of virtue or vice, since it is vice that leads to tyranny, and tyranny leads to the misery of the one who practices it (obviously I'm oversimplifying here), but that is not the main point in this post. In this post, I just wanted to highlight the prescience of Plato's description of the succession of states and how well it seems to correspond to our own pro(re)gression. We can only hope that he was wrong about tyranny following democracy, or at least that it will follow on sometime in the future after we have passed on ourselves.

The Trouble With Professional Hockey....

So what's the problem with the NHL these days? The owners and players are all idiots? Perhaps, but it wasn't that long since we were in the same mess with largely different owners, management and players. And not too long since we had similar problems with baseball, and certainly most pro sports have had their share of this type of trouble.

In fact, it seems like pro sports leagues head to a breakdown anytime the owners don't have the players under their thumb. So while it may be tempting to write off the current NHL lockout as Bettman's fault or Goodenow's fault, or collectively the fault of all involved, it seems more logical to look for a systematic explanation of why these problems keep recurring.

If the NHL is a professional league, with the price of everything involved (tickets, merchandise, franchises, etc.) set by market forces, why does the whole thing fall apart if player salaries are also set by market forces?

The problem as I see it, is that a franchise is a business, but whereas the goal of a business is to make money, sports franchises have a dual goal of making money and winning championships. Because teams are not just businesses but represent the 'pride' of a city or an owner, they are willing to pay overly high salaries and take on losses in an effort to win. And whereas in a normal industry, if some of the companies simply had too small a revenue base to compete, they would merge, be taken over or fold, that isn't allowed or considered acceptable in sports leagues.

A salary cap can prevent the problems of owner overspending but it brings with it its own questions. Why should owners of clubs with higher revenues basically be given a license to print money? Doesn't it seem a little artificial to force everyone to be equal? Why should ticket prices and other revenues be set by market forces if the costs (salaries) aren't?

If you're like me, there's a fundamental sense of confusion and conflicting priorities which underlies almost every aspect of the NHL that involves the commercial side of the game. We feel that an owner should make an effort to win and not just try to make as much money as possible. We feel that small market teams should have a fighting chance even though their economics don't justify it. We don't respect a player who leaves for another team because they can pay more money, at least not in comparison to the player who takes less money to stay with the team he likes. We feel that places where people care passionately about the game should have teams over places where people don't really care, even if the disinterested have more money to support a team. The same goes for ticket prices where the wealthy, leave-a-tie-game with-ten-minutes-left corporate seats in the front with the poor but enthusiastic fans in the back row just seems wrong.

All these questions come back to the same issue. On the one hand, hockey is a game which we all instinctively feel should have a certain moral code to it but at the same time hockey is a business and there are certain rules that govern how you run a sensible and ethical business. These two sets of ethics do not match.

Now, if you read my earlier post on corporate subsidies, you have probably already guessed where I am going with this (if so, you may want to skip the next three paragraphs). For those who didn't, here's a recap:

Back in 1992, Jane Jacobs wrote a book called, Systems of Survival in which she built on Plato's Republic to argue that humans have two ways of making a living: our traditional one based on control of territory and a somewhat newer one based on trading. Each of these ways of making a living has it's own set of ethics, with ethical trading relying on shunning the use of force, competing, honesty, openness to novelty, invention, collaboration with strangers and a bunch more.

In contrast, ethical territorial (or 'guardian' as Jacobs calls them) activities (such as government) rely on a different set of values including shunning trading, respect for hierarchy and tradition, loyalty and a bunch more.

In Jacobs' view, unethical behavior inevitably arises when values which are ethical in one way of making a living are used in the other way. i.e. When the two ethical systems are mixed together. An example she gives is organized crime, where the mixture of legitimate commercial activity with activities that normally only a government is allowed to perform (such as use of force) leads to a 'monstrous hybrid' of the two ethical systems.


Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that Jacobs' theory is true. That is, we have a system of ethics based on control of territory and a different, conflicting set of ethics for commercial enterprises. And that we inevitably run into problems when we mix the two.

This raises the question: Is hockey naturally a business which has been corrupted by introducing the ethics of guardian (government/military/territorial) activities or is it naturally a non-commercial enterprise which has been corrupted by the introduction of commercial values.

It seems like a no-brainer to me (but in case you need more info to make your decision I included the full list of ethics for each ethical system from Systems of Survival at the bottom of the post). I would say that from backyards, to minor hockey, to the junior leagues, to the college leagues, and even to the Olympics, hockey clearly shows itself to be naturally successful as a non-commercial enterprise.

And in fact, commentators often point to the purity of non-commercial leagues as a contrast to the impurity of the professional NHL (where people just care about the money).

So from my point of view, the true solution to the NHL's problems is to remove, as much as possible, the commercial aspect of the game. i.e. Make it an amateur league. Good modern examples of thriving amateur leagues would be the collegiate sports systems in North America (especially in the U.S.), the sports leagues for Hurling and Gaelic Football in Ireland (in which each county has a team made up of modestly paid players from that county, or the kids and adult recreational leagues in just about every sport in just about every country around the world.

Imagine for a moment, a league where if you lived in Winnipeg you would have a team made up of players from the Prairies (we'd probably give 'em Northern Ontario too), who would play for the team for their whole careers. If you had a bunch of good players in the same era from your region, you could build a dynasty; if you didn't you might face some lean years. The players would be paid enough not to need to take another job but that would be all. The team would be owned by a public body with any revenue beyond what was needed to run the team either folded into general government revenue, used to support minor sports leagues or just given to charity. The lure of big money would be reduced by keeping ticket prices as low as possible without creating big scalper markets, giving away TV rights in return for a promise to show the games with minimal commercials, and the removal of advertising from the rinks.

Sounds pretty good to me.

Even if we acknowledge that it is unrealistic to ever have that occur with the NHL, I still think it is worth knowing why it is we have the problems we do, and how, in an ideal world, they would be fixed.

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For the record, I tend to sympathize with the players in the current dispute and favour a gradually steepening luxury tax (reaching punitive levels and possibly even a hard cap up around the very highest payrolls) as the best solution (among our shortsighted options) for the current problems. I might have more sympathy with the owner's need for cost certainty if they were willing to adopt revenue certainty as well and give away any revenues beyond a certain amount.

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Commercial Moral Syndrome:

Shun Force
Come to Voluntary Agreements
Be Honest
Colllaborate easily with strangers and aliens
Compete
Respect Contracts
Use Initiative and Enterprise
Be Open to Inventiveness and Novelty
Be Efficient
Promote Comfort and Convenience
Dissent for the sake of the task
Invest for Productive Purposes
Be industrious
Be Thrifty
Be Optimistic

Guardian Moral Syndrome

Shun trading
Exert Prowess
Be Obedient and Disciplined
Adhere to Tradition
Respect Hierarchy
Be Loyal
Take Vengeance
Deceive for the sake of the task
Make rich use of leisure
Be Ostentatious
Dispense Largesse
Be exclusive
Show Fortitude
Be Fatalistic
Treasure Honour