Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics [Hardcover]

 

 

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Jane Jacobs' Systems of Survival is a welcome new perspective in moral philosophy. Her book is a set of fourteen conversations among five interlocutors who meet to discuss 'morality in practical working life.' Their aim is to identify 'our system or systems of moral behavior concerned with work,' and their ground rule is to 'cleave to behavior people use, or are supposed to use, in their work. This is going to be puzzling enough without straying into strictly personal behavior.'

Human beings are different from other species in having not one but two major ways to get a living. Like other scavengers and predators we take what we can. But we, alone in nature, talk. Among other benefits, talk makes trade possible--voluntary, mutually beneficial exchange. Taking and trading are our two major ways of making a living. 'Don't say only two!,' a character insists. Two is an extraordinary surfeit, an embarrassment of riches. We, alone in nature, have two largely independent 'systems of survival.'

The good government of relations between the two systems is a main moral problem for every human collective. In millennia of history human beings have discovered and perfected two different 'moral syndromes'--two different systems of precepts, norms for the moral government of our two ways of getting a living. 'Guardians' take change of taking, including the work of keeping what they take, distributing largess, maintaining solidarity, and reproducing new guardians. These are our politicians, military leaders, militia, police, and administrators. Their 'moral syndrome' grows out of the practice of hunters and warriors--an ethos of heroes. For those who make a living in trade there is a different complex of moral precepts, a Commercial Moral Syndrome. Although it would not be incorrect to describe the commercial syndrome as 'bourgeois,' neither moral syndrome is exclusively or uniquely Western. The two 'systems of survival' (taking and trading) show up everywhere in human culture, and these two moral syndromes are recognized in precept and practice the world over.

Jacobs' moral syndromes are systems of norms. In practice they generate expectations, and subject us to the demands and scrutiny of others. Each moral precept has a functional pay-off in terms of 'survival,' but only when it appears in the appropriate syndrome, that is, together with conduct equally in accord with the other precepts of the appropriate ethic. Jacobs' precepts are 'syndromes . . . not random collections of do's and don'ts.' The moral good of each precept requires and presupposes compliance with the others. To mix the syndromes--a government 'industrial strategy' would be an example, where guardians play the stock market--produces monstrous moral hybrids.

To protect against them Jacobs suggests that we cultivate the old Puritan virtue of self-examination in a new way. Self-examination sounds private, a subject for diaries or confession. But the self to be examined is not a private one. It is a working self, a person working with others, called to examine what we are being expected to cooperate with. 'Managers at all levels in an organization should habitually think about the enterprises's legitimate values and the morality of what it's doing or planning to do.' In political administration and business alike, managerial self-examination should be part of a regular discussion among colleagues at work. 'Feeling alone is what scares managers . . . If they have allies--or can persuade allies into existence--moral courage becomes more practical.'

Jacobs agrees with Hannah Arendt 'that each by each, everyone should habitually be aware of the moral implications of what he or she is asked to do and, each by each, should stand up for the right to be moral.' She adds that we cannot rely on 'an intelligentsia to make critical and discriminating judgments for us.' 'We need,' she says, 'continual but informal democratic explorations on the part of people who must thread their way through governmental, business, or volunteer and grass-roots policies, or must wrestle with the moral conflicts and ethical puzzles that sprout up unbidden in all manner of occupations.'

This review originally appeared in Literary Review of Canada 3 (Feb. 1994).

Hard Science periodically produces an elegant theory that makes sense of many issues and eliminates a mass of complex, messy alternative explanations. Reading this book was the first time I have ever come across anything elegant and broad-based in application in the soft sciences. Whether or not the idea is new, the format of the book brings the idea in an easy to understand and not-boring form to the common people like myself.
Sure the characters are cardboard - but I didn't read this as an "Artsy" book - they are just a means of throwing ideas about in an experiential form. I never found Plato's debaters very rounded either.
I am not clear how the non-profit sector fits into this - but I am very grateful for the understanding the book has brought me.

A very interesting dialog on paradigms which helped me understand better why "commercial" types and "government" types so often see each other as just plain evil and can't get past that emotional reaction.

The book explores two moral systems with very different ideas of honor, which is at the emotional root of how we perceive each other. Should be required reading in high school political science and social studies classes.

The reader needs to look past the cardboard cut-out "characters" which are there only to present the arguments, and focus on the insights produced from the arguments.

A quick, yet very informative read. I recommend also learning more about paradigms and how they limit what we CAN perceive... makes this book even more powerful in understanding limits to understanding.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Missing Something
Jane Jacobs - Systems of Survival

We deserve better from the woman who brought us "The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Read more

Published on Jan 23 2003 by Scott Esposito

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent about the 2 dominate strategies, misses others
An excellent, thought provoking work, some examples from 1980's are interesting as we see the same patterns unwinding in Enron's and similar catastrophys. Read more

Published on July 17 2002 by Les

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusually thought-provoking
I have seldom read a more thought-provoking, stimulating, and fascinating book than this.

The author uses two techniques that are particularly useful in conveying this rich... Read more

Published on Jun 26 2002 by Thomas Cox

5.0 out of 5 stars Morality in conflict but necessarily interdependent
Our society has principles that forbid us to kill and yet our society also has principles that require it to prepare for and engage in war. Read more

Published on July 30 2001 by Tom Gray

5.0 out of 5 stars Life-changing
I rate this as one of the ten best books I have read in the last decade. For years I could not understand how everyday people can commit moral transgressions. Read more

Published on July 21 2000 by Chris Crawford

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing intellectual leap, and an easy read!
Jane Jacobs is one of those amazing outsiders who can take a collection of clippings from the newspaper, historical texts, and conversations with friends, and identify patterns no... Read more

Published on Mar 15 1999

2.0 out of 5 stars alright
this book can be very introspective at times but digging to deep into a subject can get boring after a while. the format could have been better

Published on Feb 9 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Jane Jacobs explains one of the oldest conflicts in society.
This is one of my favorite books. I have read and re-read it again and again. Jane Jacobs explains why governments do good things -- and bad things. Read more

Published on Jun 12 1998 by Laurence Jarvik

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opening synthesis of grand concepts
Jane Jacobs' division of morality into two "syndromes", "commercial" and "guardian" has given me an enormously helpful and practical frame of... Read more

Published on Nov 18 1997

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