A
Cascade of Errors (1517-2017)
Carmine
Gorga
On this day, October 31, 2017, it is pleasing for me
to post on the Internet this Thesis that tries to outline the cascade of errors
that—inadvertently—flowed from Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, which are believed to
have been affixed onto the door of the Cathedral at Wittenberg on this very day
500 years ago.
Luther’s rejection of external authority and the
Catholic Church’s unwillingness/inability to answer each one of those Theses in
order to (re-)establish the foundation of her moral authority eventually
resulted in the separation of man’s and women’s action from morality.
These are the errors that flow from the implicit Declaration
of Freedom of Conscience:
1. The
conscience becomes unmoored from the virtues;
2. Hence,
freedom is no longer moral freedom,
but becomes political freedom;
3. Political
freedom is granted by other people’s will: the will of the King in a monarchy;
the will of the majority in a democracy;
4. As
Shakespeare knew, freedom of conscience leads to a tortured conscience: “to be
or not to be”;
5. The
elimination of doubt is resolved by the assumption that the mind is the fount of all certitude;
6. This
lead to Descartes’ affirmation of “I think, therefore I am”;
7. Which
led to the separation of the mind from the body—and soul;
8. Which
led to rejection of God in human affairs; see David Hume et all:
9. Since
“I” am, who needs anyone or anything
else?
10. This
error actually started with St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed that “all that
exists is;”
11. This
is an error of philosophical proportions, because
only Being is—everything else Exists, and exists only
in relation to Being;
12. The
separation of mind from body and soul made room for Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), in
which morality becomes—explicitly—an expression of our fickle feelings:
13. In
time, Freud came along;
15. Smith’s
theory of moral sentiments has had so much sway, not because it borders on empty sentimentality, but because it is
the result of a highly sophisticated interaction of elevated feelings
and opinions;
16. Smith’s
construction of the autonomous conscience is crowned by the conception of the
"impartial spectator";
17. But,
who is the impartial spectator?
18. The
theory of moral sentiments falls apart upon the discovery that the impartial
spectator is lui meme, he
himself;
19. Yet,
Adam Smith gave intellectual permission to Jeremy Bentham to publish his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation (1789),
which provided the foundation for “utility” and utilitarianism—especially in
economics;(Note-Smith totally rejected any kind of utilitarianism and Bentham’s version of
utilitarianism)
20. Even
though the conception of the “util” was eventually discarded because no one
ever measured a util, utilitarianism still has sway in economics;
21. For
a good reason after all, because economics is based on money—and money is “the best labor-saving device” ever devised;
22. Economists
have yet to discover this verity;
23. It
is The Theory of Moral Sentiments,
more than Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776),
that stands at the foundation of (moral)
capitalism;(Note-Bentham’s utilitarianism is the foundation of
moral capitalism)
24. Nowhere
to be found in the Wealth of Nations is
the doctrine of economic justice;(Note-Justice,
without any modifier, is the major virtue that is required by Smith for society to progress)
25. And
since Adam Smith is the father of modern economics, nowhere to be found in
economics today is the doctrine of economic justice;(Note-Bentham’s Max utility
is the foundation of modern economics)
26. Adam
Smith was aided in the destruction of economic justice by John Locke, who, in
his Two Treatises on Government (1689)
diverted our attention from the doctrine of economic justice onto a similar
looking, but incompatible, stunted search for the justice of property rights; (Note-Locke is an early utilitarian who
built upon Hobbes,just as Bentham did)
27. Which
gave rise to the antinomy of Karl Marx, who preached the “injustice” of
property rights”;
28. Property
rights can be justified only if based on economic justice;
29. The
doctrine of economic justice ruled the world from Aristotle through Thomas Aquinas
to John Locke;(Note-Locke is an early utilitarian)
30. Today
we are ruled by the doctrine of social
justice;
31. Trouble
is, no one has ever defined or will ever define what social justice is;
32. So,
we allow the few to assert their freedom to
legally acquire as much wealth as they wish, unrestrained by any sense of
morality;
33. And
then we beg them to give us something
to take care of the poor;
34. On
which basis? On the basis of legal and moral extorsion;
36. My
right is tied to my responsibility
toward you; your right is based on your responsibility toward me:
37. We
argue about our mutual responsibilities and we agree on the common good: your good and my good.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carmine Gorga is president of The Somist Institute.
The mission of the institute is to foster sensible moral leadership. He is a
former Fulbright scholar and the recipient of a Council of Europe Scholarship
for his dissertation on "The Political Thought of Louis D. Brandeis."
By inserting Hoarding into Keynes’ model of the economic system and using
age-old principles of logic and epistemology, in a book and a series of papers
Dr. Gorga has transformed the linear world of economic theory into a relational
discipline in which everything is related to everything else—internally as well
as externally. He was assisted in this endeavor by many people, notably for 27
years by Professor Franco Modigliani, a Nobel laureate in economics at MIT. The
resulting work, The
Economic Process: An Instantaneous Non-Newtonian Picture,
was published in 2002 and has been reissued in a third edition in 2016. For
reviews, click here.
During the last few years, Dr. Gorga has concentrated his attention on the
requirements for the unification of economic theory, policy, and practice
calling this unity Concordian
economics. He is also integrating this work into political
science, which he calls Somism,
and culture in general, which he calls Relationalism.
