Abstract
Peter Corning is the director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems in Friday Harbor, Washington, “a research organization that specializes in evolutionary/functional approaches to complexity and a new biological approach to social justice.” His most recent book is Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Although not written by a trained economist, Peter Corning’s Fair Society should be of much interest to any open-minded economist. Because of its focus on distributional fairness, the book fits in well with the welfare economics literature, if one feels the urge to JEL-classify it. It is accessible to a broader audience, yet very substantive. He makes explicit in the first chapter that he aims to “reboot the public debate” on economic policies, a praiseworthy endeavor. Indeed, he does end up proposing an alternative perspective from which economic policies could be debated which should constitute Fair Society’s main appeal for policy-oriented economists. Moreover, Corning puts forward a compelling criticism of the mainstream economics or the theory of “utopian capitalism,” as he calls it. In his mind, conventional economics stands out as a particular welfare ideology that promotes a distorted notion of progress. Particularly, it is ill informed as to human nature and the purpose of society.
Corning’s essential thesis is not complex: an economic system compatible with human nature is more likely to be sustainable and (politically) stable. By human nature, Corning, mostly, refers to the sense of fairness that humankind inherited genetically and maintained culturally. Corning does not deny self-interested tendencies. His conclusions regarding human nature are arrived at as a result of scientific inquiry rather than philosophical speculation. By drawing on what he terms the “science of human” nature encompassing a wide range of disciplines such as evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics, Corning provides a biological and evolutionary basis for his blueprint: the “bio-social contract” for the “fair” society. He describes the new contract as follows:
A biosocial contract is about the rights and duties of all the stakeholders in society, both among themselves and in relation to the “state.” It is about defining what constitutes a “fair society.” It is a normative theory but it is built on an empirical foundation. I believe it is legitimate to do so in this case, because life itself has a built-in normative bias—a normative preference, so to speak. If we do, after all, want to survive and reproduce within the collective survival enterprise—if this is our shared biological objective—then certain principles of social intercourse follow as essential means to this end. (153)
As evident from the excerpt above, Corning envisions habitants of the fair society to be associated with one another as empowered stakeholders cooperating to advance the “common” objective. His approach is, broadly speaking, community-centric.
The strongest chapter of the book appears to be the fifth chapter where Corning proposes an “objective measure of well-being” as an alternative to GDP and other rival measuring sticks such as a happiness index. According to Corning, GDP consists of traded goods that are in essence harmful in the biological sense; and happiness is too subjective to be measured accurately. Instead, societies should be considered to be doing “well” to the extent that they are meeting the “primary needs” of their populace. His list of primary needs, built on the survival indicators literature, is diligently constructed and grounded in biology, meaning to leave no room for ambiguity. A need is argued to be “primary” if the failure to meet it causes one (biological) “harm.” The list consists of fourteen such items as sleep, thermoregulation, and mobility. Measurement issues aside, this is a conceptually fresh approach to assessing well-being. That said, any conversation about well-being would be incomplete without a proper reference to (natural) resource use given that a significant portion of economic activity involves meeting the primary needs he listed. Although Corning does make a distinction between “primary needs” and “instrumental needs,” he does not explore extensively the implications of whether a particular resource use (or an instrumental need) is more desirable than others in the process of meeting primary needs.
A portion of our daily activities typically involves deploying instrumental means for thermoregulation. Our material (technological) adaptions can range from suitable clothing and shelter to the use of personal fans, shade trees, warm bedding, fossil-fuel heating systems, air conditioning, and so on. (97)
Although Corning evaluates the individual in the social context of their community, he does not display a similar enthusiasm towards the role of harmony between human beings and nature, the focus of buen vivir philosophy. Interestingly, of the policy proposals put forward in the final chapter, none specifically targets climate change, one of the most threatening sources of “biological harm.” Corning, who aims to restore “distributional fairness,” is likely to be mindful of ecological sustainability as his affirmative stance toward the Organic Valley of Family Farms experiment indicates. In his “stakeholder model,” ecological sustainability will most likely be part of the conversation. The narrative of this chapter presents the perfect opportunity to address the relationship between ecological sustainability and collective survival. Corning seems to have missed it.
Overall, Corning brings to the table something that has been terribly missing from the policy conversation. What is the relevance of our evolutionary heritage to the debate on the basic structure of society today? Corning argues that our evolutionary history not only sheds lights on the origin of our social norms but also on the purpose of communal living. It is simply meeting biological survival and reproductive needs of group members. Groups (tribes, villages, etc.) that cooperated more effectively supplanted other groups that lacked a similar harmony. Drawing on Darwin’s group selection theory, Corning argues that fairness norms and institutions that emerged to contain overly competitive behavior functioned as the glue that held the community together as an effectively cooperating unit, and, in turn, increased their survival chances.
Corning’s insight seems applicable to contemporary policy debates. For instance, the popularity of the higher minimum wage, even in politically conservative states, could be attributed to what the measure symbolizes given that its ultimate beneficiaries make up a rather small group. The minimum wage must be perceived as “fair” even though it is not wholly meritocratic on paper. This is not an anomaly. According to Corning, our fairness is a joint product of three principles: primary needs should be met equally (equality), hard work should be rewarded (equity), and everybody should contribute to society, the “collective survival enterprise,” to the best of their ability (reciprocity). Expectedly, institutions that cohere with the fairness norms held by the majority will find wider political support. The minimum wage is favored as an institution for its potential to help those who are offering productive contributions afford their basic needs. Another case in point is Social Security that has become the “third rail” of American politics. It is no coincidence that Social Security enjoys such a widespread appeal globally. It is egalitarian (favoring low-wage workers in the calculation of benefits), equitable (we pay for it), and embodies a reciprocal ideal (it is built on intergenerational cooperation).
In this chapter, Corning missed an important opportunity by not investigating the discontent of the notion of merit/desert any further than he did. Although he questions market valuation as an arbitrary standard, he fails to acknowledge that the economists who championed utopian capitalism have vastly exploited the ambiguity surrounding what constitutes merit.
Corning’s attempt to integrate our evolutionary heritage into the question of economic provisioning would have been a lot stronger if he made a more compelling case for why our evolutionary heritage matters today. One could make an argument to the contrary. For instance, the obsession with one’s relative position, which may have served a useful function at some point by increasing the survival chances of the individual, has become a liability for society today, as Robert H. Frank (2011) pointed out. Social norms that may have helped smaller groups meet their survival challenges could similarly have become obsolete in modern nation states that rely on impersonal cooperation among many. This potential critique should have been pre-empted by reiterating the instrumental of value of fairness norms in explicit terms.
Corning’s comparison of capitalism to socialism remains simplistic as he compares one particular historical experience, American capitalism, to socialism as a theory. Although his justification for treating socialism as a blueprint with no reference to the “socialist” experiments (e.g. USSR) has some validity, this concern should not have prevented Corning from touching upon such experiments as Cuba. Corning is concerned that capitalism has not worked as advertised, specifically in the United States. On the other hand, he has high praise for the Danish, Dutch, and Swedish models:
We are, in fact, talking about achieving a society that more closely resembles what already exists in countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden, where fairness … goes under the heading of welfare capitalism. (191)
Although what Corning proposes amounts to a form of welfare capitalism, his proposal draws its appeal, in my opinion, from the unique mode of justification it offers. In this regard, his argument would be better served if he articulated the significance of these European experiences for his bio-social contract. While he is meaning to say that these countries are more successful in meeting the basic needs of their citizens, one may wonder why, say, Swedish capitalism has evolved differently than its American counterpart if fair-mindedness is universal. This is a key question that has not been properly addressed. Corning seems to repeat many times throughout the book with conviction that the major obstacle that stands in the way of achieving a fair society anywhere is the fact that the formidable power of “the retrograde” 30 percent who largely control politics and wealth overcomes the roughly 70 percent of the population who support the principle of fairness and social justice. This somewhat reductionist approach, although interesting, should be supplemented with the role of culture and history, and the divergent evolutionary paths for which they are responsible.
The book ends with a list of policy recommendations from a higher minimum wage to stakeholder (as opposed to “shareholder”) capitalism to build a fair society most of which have already been advocated by economists operating within and outside the mainstream. Corning certainly builds up the expectations for a more impressive finale but fails to deliver. One may legitimately expect more than a literature survey to finish the book. In fairness, there is, perhaps, very little left to propose under the sun.
When it comes to whether any political system can deliver on these reforms, he seems optimistic:
… what is most practical is to build a nonpartisan political movement—a “fairness coalition”—that can act in a concerted way in every state and every congregational district to change the hearts and minds of our political establishment and enable (or compel) our political leaders to act on meaningful reform measures …. (192)
Perhaps, single issue-oriented movements such as the recent $15/hour minimum wage campaign across the country could exert such a pressure, at least at the local level. All in all, despite its underwhelming finale, Corning’s commendable attempt at expanding the domain of public debate makes a useful read for those who are interested in the relevance of our evolutionary heritage for policy-making/reform efforts today.