As per Jane Jacobs book, I am wholly sold on the 2 systems of survival explanation. However, this ties in nicely to another topic that I focus on heavily: Status.
Quick, off-the-cuff hypothesizing:
Status applies only to guardian culture.
Trading culture is status-free, to the extent that it's trading culture.
In my just so story, rapacity, plunder, and war have been a respected part of culture for SO much longer than has trading (low caste, almost everywhere you look), that it is near-genetic to look for guardian-type status markers, rather than to trading-type efficiencies. The difficulty a lot of libertarians (and other geeks :) ) have with the modern world is that by observation, life is better to the extent that we can work in a trading context. However, we're all hardwired, and our culture promotes (though maybe not as much as some cultures) the guardian context almost exclusively through status, corporate life, government, military, theater/movies, etc.
Status is inimical to trading culture...and vice versa. To win, a person has to be able to swap back and forth between cultures, and sometimes mix them. (look at my thought process here...I just assumed that trading culture is the only legitimate approach, but that folks must address guardian culture to succeed in the world... This marks me as irredeemably libertarian. However, I now at least understand that not everyone thinks that)
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2 comments:
YES.
I was gonna post something like this -- but more, really, maybe I'll still get to it -- as a comment to your 3 political positions + Jacobs post. (I more-than-half disagreed with that post, mostly in that I thought its focus misleading in that something like this post is more essential. A taste: Every political arguer is in roughly guardian mode while advocating, even if he's arguing for pure trade liberty!)
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