For America, With Love
Heinrich Anker
NEU! Vom amerikanischen Traum zum amerikanischen Albtraum: Wie der neoklassische Wirtschaftsliberalismus Menschen, Gesellschaft und Demokratie zerst?rt. Das Beispiel USA, ISBN10: 3991467577
How the USA can break free from the shackles of neoclassical neoliberalism.
What the Founding Fathers of 1776 have to say to their descendants. Or: Why neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden can be the future of the USA.
? Dr.rer.pol. Heinrich Anker, Switzerland, March 2023, translated from German into English by Dr. Andrea Zimpernik.
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Abstract
The Declaration of Independence dated 1776 is a world cultural heritage. It is linked to the greatest social experiment of all times, i.e. the introduction of democracy. Despite all its crises, setbacks and shortcomings, this heroic experiment has contributed to an enormous amount of positive developments globally; it has truly proven itself - quite in contrast to the other great experiment in history, socialism, whose collapse did not mark the end of history. Today, democracy is in danger in the most democratic and prosperous countries of the world: hostile forces, primarily those calling for a "strong leader", are trying to undermine it. This essay attempts to show that the Declaration of Independence of 1776 has lost its former appeal, which can primarily be attributed to the effects of neoclassical neoliberalism. It has turned the "moral center" of the United States upside down. However, it is not too late to go back to the Declaration of Independence - thanks to the wisdom of its creators, it has the potential to point the way towards a more peaceful, democratic world today. The key: the Pursuit of Happiness must be freed from the clutches of neoliberalism and returned to its original interpretation. It is not Happiness that is the supreme maxim in the lives of people, societies and countries, but the Pursuit of Meaning. Those who can live a meaningful life in freedom and responsibility also have the chance to find happiness. Happiness is always a matter of luck, whereas meaning in life can always be found. Those who build their lives on happiness but fail to achieve it have wasted their lives. On the other hand, a life built on meaning is not wasted, even if happiness does not materialize. Important for the superpower USA is that happiness can never be forced on people - the USA must take this to heart in the future if it wishes to conduct foreign or world policy in accordance with its own state philosophy.
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Introduction
?One of the greatest reasons why so few people understand themselves is that most writers are always teaching men what they should be, and hardly ever trouble their heads with telling them what they really are. ? Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759
The economic, political and social effects of neoclassical neoliberalism of the last fifty years have resulted in a profound crisis in the USA; both its ability to adapt externally and to integrate internally are highly dysfunctional. The storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 illustrates this impressively, as does the large number of worldwide military interventions since World War II.
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Jeffrey Sachs [2018, p. IX] describes the internal state of the USA as follows:
?A large majority of Americans feel that the country is moving in the wrong direction (…). In domestic politics, the United States is squandering its affluences as the super-rich relentlessly pursue more wealth at any cost. Meeting the needs of the poor, modernizing infrastructure, and protecting the environment are put aside in favor of cutting taxes for the rich, slashing public investments, and eliminating environmental regulations.? Yet, the crisis is much deeper – it affects the core of society. The Harwood Group [1995] proved this with a population representative survey: ?People describe a society at odds with itself and its own most important values. They see their fellow Americans growing increasingly atomized, selfish, and irresponsible; they worry that our society is losing its “moral center”. They believe our priorities are mixed up. ?
Externally, the USA acts with unparalleled military power and corresponding aggressiveness. No other country in the world has a military budget that is anywhere near as high, nor does any country even remotely meet its number of military bases worldwide. [1] No other country has carried out anywhere near as many belligerent interventions as the USA since World War II [Sidita, Kushi, Monica Duffy Toft, 2022, pp. 1-28]. [2]? As it is domestically, the USA is deeply divided over its position and role in the world. One faction does everything possible to maintain the global supremacy achieved in World War II, which requires defeating Russia and China militarily; in contrast, the other faction advocates abstracting from U.S. exceptionalism and striving for a place in a multipolar world rather than seeking supremacy in a unipolar world.
Deep fissures run through U.S. society - as if there were several Americas on its territory. At the same time, domestic politics and foreign policy of the USA cannot be separated. U.S. society is as insecure as it is aggressive, both internally and externally.
As a rule, serious problems cannot be solved at the level they arose. Where such profound problems as in the USA await a solution, any attempts at a sustainable, pragmatic resolution are futile, i.e. direct individual political, sociopolitical and economic measures. A viable coherent solution can only be found if all parties involved are prepared to refer to a common superordinate level, from which possible measures for solution can be derived and implemented. All parties must recognize this superordinate level as not subject to further questioning, i.e. it must be a level that is accepted by all parties as the final recourse. This final recourse must be valid for a long time, it must exceed, i.e. transcend, any temporal limitation, in order to fully fulfill its orientation function.
A state constitution or a basic law could serve as a final recourse. An otherworldly - religious – faith might be a final recourse, or a worldly belief like that of the existentialists, who deem human dignity "sacred".
As a final recourse model of social units from the partnership, the family, clubs, associations, private and public companies, or NGOs up to entire countries and societies, a three-dimensional collective meaning system is introduced in the present work - it is the "moral center", which is in dissolution in the USA. A transcendent, social, and temporal-historical dimension are distinguished. [3]
The transcendent dimension includes maxims which are valid for a long time, i.e. they go beyond (transcend) the here and now. Such long-standing supreme maxims, like “liberté, égalité, fraternité” for the French state and society, define the ultimate purpose of a social association, its ultimate reason for being, its raison d'être. To determine what the ultimate raison d'être of a society or country is, a social researcher might ask citizens questions such as, "Why does your country need to exist at all?" or, "What makes your country indispensable?" "What would you miss most if your country no longer existed?" "What is especially important to you about your country?" "What unites the people in your country?" Such questions render a society’s or its citizens’ supreme maxims, which are not subject to further questioning.
To give an example, the preamble of the Swiss Federal Constitution, which states the purpose of the state, is a result of these questions. The preamble begins with the invocation of otherworldly transcendence - "God" and "Creation" - and continues on the level of worldly transcendence:
?In the name of Almighty God!
The Swiss People and the Cantons,
mindful of their responsibility towards creation,
resolved to renew their alliance so as to strengthen liberty, democracy, independence and peace in a spirit of solidarity and openness towards the world,
determined to live together with mutual consideration and respect for their diversity,
conscious of their common achievements and their responsibility towards future generations,
and in the knowledge that only those who use their freedom remain free, and that the strength of a people is measured by the well-being of its weakest members,
adopt the following Constitution …?
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These are the supreme maxims that bind Switzerland and its citizens together. In 1848, Switzerland received its first state constitution, not least inspired by the U.S. Constitution of 1789, the second in 1874. In 1999, the country's electorate approved the third one - this is an indication of the respective long duration (temporal transcendence) of a collective sense system.
The laws and regulations derived from this state purpose represent the social dimension of the collective meaning system. They determine how citizens want to interact with each other in everyday life to act in accordance with the state purpose and make it concrete. The transcendent dimension is on the non-material, abstract level, the social on the concrete action level. On the latter, adjustments are necessary far more frequently than in relation to the abstract superstructure.
The third dimension of a coherent collective system of meaning, the temporal perspective pointing to the future, is missing from the preamble of the Swiss Federal Constitution. A concrete, lofty goal, which could be pursued together forging strong ties among the citizens, a so-called vision, does not exist. Not least because of this, the truly prosperous country of Switzerland is bobbing along in a certain crisis of meaning and orientation: no one really knows anymore in which direction the country should develop. The only remaining goal is maintaining the status quo of material prosperity. This uncertainty gives rise to conflicts that pose a crucial test to the country. Half of the Swiss, for example, share the vision of becoming a member of the European Union, while the other half promotes the vision of complete political autonomy. Some want to adhere to Swiss neutrality rigorously, which welded the country together during World War II and got it through the war relatively unscathed. For others, Swiss neutrality is a lack of solidarity with the world; they would like to loosen or even abandon it altogether. Those who do not know the goal cannot harness the wind...
"If you have visions, you need to see a doctor!" once said Helmut Schmidt, the former German Chancellor. He was wrong! Visions are present images of an anticipated future, and the clearer and more memorable they are, the more action-relevant they are, the more motivating they become, because images have power, according to Roberto Assagioli [2003, p. 169]:
"The power of images is great, and it can be said that they represent a necessary intermediary between the will and other mental functions." [4]
For the citizens of the American colonies, an extraordinarily powerful vision that united people and strengthened their will was independence from the mother country. To this day, the United States is considered the haven of freedom. Not least because many Americans today see themselves as deprived of the great good of their freedom and feel controlled by others, the country is in the midst of an identity crisis.
This points to the fact that the collective system of meaning, the "moral center" of the USA, has lost its power to unite and motivate people. As a result, society (social dimension) is falling apart, and concrete ideas about how the country should develop in the future (temporal dimension) can no longer be defined on a binding basis, let alone implemented. This means "treading water," with the result that hope for a better future for the country and one's own situation in life fades with conflicts becoming even more accentuated.
Where visions, i.e. viable prospects for the future, are lacking, insecure people who have become disoriented react positively to idealized images of the past that are projected into the future. "Make USA great again!" is one of Donald Trump's nostalgic - "retro visionary" - battle cries. He promises the prospect of a good future - the principle of hope! In doing so, it is kept so vague that everyone and anyone can imagine something different. Thanks to its generality, this "battle cry" appeals to many different population groups, even those who do not necessarily feel close to Trump. Visions have a high political mobilization power if they appeal to people's longings. Donald Trump seems to be highly attuned to this; perhaps he even has an instinct for such visions.
The following lines are an attempt to "archaeologically" uncover the core, i.e., the DNA or "moral center" of the former collective system of meaning of the USA, in particular its supreme maxims. Perhaps, it is hoped, clues and inspiration can be gleaned from what has stood the test of time and made the USA a free, independent, cultural, economic, and military leader so as to develop a forward-looking collective meaning system under whose umbrella the USA can once again come together as a functioning whole.
The two archaeological "excavation sites" that will be examined more closely for this purpose are, on the one hand, John Winthrop's [1838, p. 47] famous sermon of 1630 entitled "A Model of Christian Charity" and, on the other hand, the Declaration of Independence of 1776. In the context of the Declaration of Independence, Adam Smith's work "Theory of Moral Sentiments" also appears, which was first published in 1759. Adam Smith exchanged ideas with several of the Founding Fathers of 1776. When the term "pioneers" is used below, it refers to the generation of John Winthrop; the term "Founding Fathers" refers to the authors of the Declaration of Independence of 1776.
Christian Charity - the Core of the Original Collective Meaning System of the USA
The transcendent dimension, the spiritual-ideational cement of the collective meaning system of the society the pioneers of the USA wanted to found, is charity. It is the supreme maxim. The following is the sequence in which John Winthrop describes the actions and behavior that can be subsumed under Christian charity:
“Wee must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other’s necessities. Wee must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekeness, gentlenes, patience and liberality. Wee must delight in eache other; make other’s conditions our oune; rejoice together, mourne together, labour and suffer together, allwayes haueving before our eyes our commission and community in the worke, as members of the same body.”
Being there for one another, promoting others and allowing each other to grow - this understanding of charity implies empathy, dialogue, understanding and service. This corresponds to what is understood in today's secular world by meaning orientation and meaning fulfillment. Winthrop describes what can result from a meaning-oriented (co-) existence understood in this way, as follows:
“Soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, (…), and will command a blessing upon us in all our wayes. Soe that wee shall see much more of his wisdome, power, goodness and truthe, than formerly wee have been acquainted with.”
John Winthrop connects lived charity or lived meaning with the vision of a flourishing society in which all can grow together and climb to new heights together. It is not out of place to use the term "bliss" for this image. Although not directly addressed, it resonates implicitly in Winthrop's vision. This gives us clues to the semantic content of the term "happiness" or "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence of 1776. The conclusion from this is, happiness is inseparably linked to a meaningful life or a life guided by charity.
Back to Europe. With recourse to the golden rule of the world of the Christian faith, Kant formulated the Categorical Imperative and in this way secularized charity. It became a phenomenon of the reasonable insight to deal with the second-person perspective (“you”) sensibly in the same way as with oneself.? Those who do not do this, get into self-contradiction or absurdity according to Kant. Equally, he claimed that a life oriented to the “you” and at the same time to the “I”, is a meaning-oriented life, i.e. a good and therefore possibly happy life.
Adam Smith, Protestant Scottish pragmatist, as a pioneer of modern social sciences, went one decisive step beyond the philosopher and idealist Kant. For Adam Smith, charity and the fulfillment of meaning are no longer the domain of religious commandments or secular norms, which are imposed on the individual from outside as regulations and must be followed. Adam Smith places the guiding authorities of charity or the fulfillment of meaning in the human beings themselves. According to Adam Smith, humankind as such is endowed with a conscience, the capacity for empathy and the resulting abilities for dialogue and understanding. This means that humans are able to practice charity or pursue their own meaning from within – autonomously. Empathy and their own conscience make humans, in Adam Smith's view, beings responsible to the “you”, and as such, every individual has a right to freedom.
This has profound consequences. Maxims and norms that govern people's actions from the outside are culturally determined, i.e. they apply only in certain cultural circles. If one assumes, however, that charity and meaningful action are inherent in human beings, it can be concluded that not only people of a certain culture are able to practice charity or live a meaningful life, but all human beings. If, then, according to Adam Smith, this capacity is inherent in the very nature of human beings, it is universal. There are no fundamentally "better" or "worse" people; there are no people of a lesser God. This is where the unbreakable dignity of every human being stems from, which, in turn, represents a close proximity to universal human rights.
Although the Declaration of Independence 1776 still refers to God, Christian charity can no longer be interpreted into it; it is rather its secular equivalent, the fulfillment of meaning, which can be distilled out of it. The "Pursuit of Happiness" is the synthesis of the fulfillment of meaning and the potentially resulting happiness. For the Founding Fathers of 1776, fulfillment of meaning is based on the triad of equality ("all Men are created equal"), "life" and "liberty" enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. [5]? Within this framework, a meaningful life can be lived. "Pursuit of Happiness" is the synthesis of the experience of happiness resulting from a meaningful life. This is the core of the original collective meaning system of the United States. Its roots are in the Protestantism of Luther and Calvin and their conception of the human as an intrinsic being governed by conscience, to which Adam Smith additionally attributes the capacity for empathy. Empathy and conscience, in turn, enable people to shape their lives based on dialogue and understanding in freedom toward and responsibility for one another.
Let us take stock: equality, life, freedom, happiness through fulfillment of meaning or charity based on the human capacities for empathy, dialogue, understanding, and conscience are the building blocks, which can be brought to light "archaeologically" from the original collective meaning system of the USA. This is the DNA or “moral center” of the original collective meaning system of the USA.? The society-forming, civilizing characteristics, which the pioneers of the USA, Adam Smith as well as the Founding Fathers of 1776 ascribed to humankind, can be found mutatis mutandis in the human images of the modern sciences:
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This leads to interesting conclusions:
Quintessence 1: The human characteristics, which are connected with the original collective meaning system of the USA, are confirmed by different contemporary scientific disciplines. Even today, they can be built upon.
Quintessence 2: A fascinating thought with regard to a revision of the former or the creation of a new collective meaning system for the USA. According to Adam Smith, empathy, dialogue, understanding, conscience and the human will to meaning or charity are universal human phenomena independent of gender, race, geographic origin, culture, education, etc. What better thing could happen to the USA than to be resurrected as a melting pot - Diversity! - and restored to strength?
Quintessence 3: The "Pursuit of Happiness" is understood by the pioneers, the Founding Fathers, by the liberal classicist Adam Smith as well as by Kant to mean that people have the right to pursue their purpose in life in freedom and responsibility, from which a happy life can result. They did not focus directly on happiness, but understood it as the result of a life filled with charity or meaning. However, this is precisely one of the main reasons for the momentous collapse of the original collective meaning system, the “moral center”, of the USA.
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From Meaning and Charity to the Misery of Radical Selfishness
In his utilitarian exuberance, his urge to make people happy with the help of the natural sciences awakening in his era, Jeremy Bentham, a particularly busy protagonist of utilitarianism, opened Pandora's Box. His were the first attempts to operationalize, scale and measure happiness, i.e. to quantify it. One instrument thereof was the so-called hedonic calculus. This led to a momentous hypostatization of happiness. The Utilitarians put happiness under the microscope and detached it from the precondition of a meaningful life. Nota bene: Meaningfulness is only possible in social interaction, because meaningfulness means to serve each other. By separating happiness from the fulfillment of meaning and thus from its social dimension, as if with a scalpel, the Utilitarians made it a purely psychological phenomenon, the object of the individual egocentric inner life. The society forming, civilizing power of the pioneers' and Founding Fathers' pursuit of meaning and happiness was dropped.
In this process, the "Pursuit of Happiness" and the entire previous collective system of meaning in the USA acquired a completely different semantic content. Individual happiness is no longer the result of a meaning-oriented cooperation, but an end in itself. As such, it turns individuals into hunters of their own personal happiness. In the pursuit of their own happiness, people get in each other's way and tread on each other's toes; they become competitors, whereas the happiness associated with meaning of yore brought people together constructively.
The original understanding of happiness, in accordance with John Winthrop and the Founding Fathers, was constitutive for U.S. society. The "new," utilitarian and ultimately neoclassical-neoliberal happiness, on the other hand, was and is destructive, destructive not only for society as a whole, but also for individuals. The pursuit of one's own happiness fundamentally changes the way people communicate and relate to one another, and thus also their self-understanding and identity.
Where human beings experience unconditional esteem, i.e. recognition as a subject, not tied to specific achievements - keyword: security - they can develop basic trust. This gives them the courage to open up to their environment and their fellow human beings without fear of losing their identity - face! - even if they encounter criticism, resistance and rejection. They are able to classify such reactions correctly and deal with them productively, i.e. if necessary to rethink themselves and to work on themselves. Thus at peace with themselves, people can approach each other and come to an understanding - they are capable of compromise. If, however, people constantly experience hostility, rejection and resistance because others address them as competitors in their own strive for happiness, as troublemakers in their hunt for happiness, or confront them with unfulfillable expectations, they build a protective wall in order to become invulnerable or at least to present themselves to the outside world as invulnerable. Yet, they can no longer get out of this protective wall. They are fearful and therefore get more and more under the wheels - the worst is not to be noticed by the others - or they appear closed, even aggressive, and thus again reap rejecting feedback, which they cannot properly classify. Hence, in the pursuit of their own happiness, people move further and further away from each other and surround themselves with a wall. In the civilized world, fashion accessories serve as protective armor or as intimidating threats or declarations of war. ?In the world of men, not least, these are roaring exhaust pipes or weapons of some kind; in the world of women, it is the perfect body, sprayed-on lips and a face paralyzed by Botox but free of wrinkles, or demonstrative jogging: "I'm hard on myself, I can be hard on you, too!" The facade of aggressiveness can mask deep fears. For healthy interpersonal relationships, this is a disaster; for neoliberal profit hunting, on the other hand, such fears are an inexhaustible business area. [6] ?A completely different facet of disturbed identities is the growing number of mass murders and school shootings in the USA. Often, these are people, who never had the luck to experience security or to be taken seriously as human beings...
Due to their ethical attitude, the Utilitarians focused not only on the happiness of the individual, but also on the greatest happiness of the greatest number; yet, this was and is to this day - stripped of the society-forming dimension of meaning - merely the sum of all "individual instances of happiness". This is no longer a "flourishing society" with people promoting each other synergistically on the path of life, growing together and developing further. In the utilitarian society, the “I” no longer gains its identity in interaction with the “you”.
The Utilitarians vehemently deny this: they insist on charity because they assume that my happiness is the happiness of the “you”, i.e., that the “I” will only be happy if “I make you happy”. Consequently, “I need” for my happiness. Ergo, there is an instrumental relationship between “you” and “I”. This is not the self-forgetfulness of charity; this is not a meaning-fulfilling devotion to the “you”.
The separation of happiness from the pursuit of meaning and the hypostasizing of happiness as the ultimate purpose of life are the great errors of the Utilitarians. By detaching happiness from its social references to meaning and from its social context, the Utilitarians, and subsequently the neoclassicals and later the neoclassical neoliberals, severely damaged the core of the original collective meaning system of the United States: they turned it upside down from its feet.
Irony of history: It could have turned out differently. The highly influential utilitarian thinker John Stuart Mill became aware of the fundamental constructional error of the utilitarian conception of humankind and model of society. In his autobiography, published in the year of his death 1873, Mill [1952, p. 120f] had the human greatness to call the utilitarian focus on happiness or on the direct pursuit of happiness a mistake:
?Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. ?
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Happiness is not suitable as a target variable or as a dependent variable (in linear systems of equations). If you only think about your happiness, it makes itself scarce! You cannot strive for it at all willfully! According to John Stuart Mill, happiness can only occur if you pursue a meaning in life that is beyond happiness!
This realization of John Stuart Mill can be attached to the present state of knowledge. What John Stuart Mill wrote in 1873, can be found in the humanistic psychology of Viktor Frankl [1985, p. 17] in an amazingly similar way:
? (…) happiness (…) cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the byproduct of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. ?
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For Frankl, "personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself" and "one's surrender to a person other than oneself" are the two ways of fulfilling meaning. In particular, "one's surrender to a person other than oneself" is directly reminiscent of Winthrop's understanding of charity.
John Stuart Mill's intervention, which pulled the rug out from under utilitarianism and thus the direct pursuit of happiness, came too late. Psychological, mathematizing economic theory based on people’s individual pursuit of happiness and self-interest had advanced too far. The neoclassicist Edgeworth finally "freed" humankind from the last traces of altruism, which the Utilitarians had still granted, and finally turned the human being into the ruthless, solipsistic, coldly calculating and thus scientifically completely predictable homo economicus. From then on, the notion of a socially oriented human being striving for meaning ceased to exist – until the present day! In the eyes of the neoclassical-neoliberal economic theory, the human being is merely a stimulus-reaction-apparatus like Pavlov's dog. This is the hearth, glowing in the depths of the social eruptions in the USA: the brutal alienation of the human beings from what makes them human, i.e. from the individual’s will to meaning, from the individual’s will to freedom and responsibility as a citizen. Especially within a collective system of meaning like that of the pioneers and Founding Fathers, which attributes a paramount role to freedom, it is intolerable for people to be instrumentalized for the economic system. The psychological injuries left by neoliberalism’s de-industrialization of the rural regions of the USA is staggering.[7]
This alienation drives many people into the arms of political prophets of salvation who promise to bring back the "good old days" and the lost "moral center" of the USA into the present. However, the ideas that Donald Trump stands for do not correspond in any way to the deeply democratic spirit of the USA, but on the contrary exhibit authoritarian traits. This is shown, for example, by an analysis of his Presidential Speech at the Inauguration ceremony on 20 January 2017 [Trump, Donald, 2022]. It is striking that Trump uses the term "freedom" only in connection with the country, but not in relation to its citizens, that there is no mention of "liberty" at all, and the term "justice" remains unmentioned, as do "democracy" and "right" or "rights." Trump only addresses the religious level of the Declaration of Independence of 1776, but not the individual rights enshrined in it: "liberty" and "all Men are created equal" are not an issue for him. On the contrary, he does not regard himself as an equal among equals or as a servant of the citizens, but claims the position of a leader who is distinct from the people. Here the Mosaic leader who understands the people, speaks for them and leads them into a new millennium, there the people who obediently follow the leader and enjoy protection and security in return, as in the vassal state. These ideas go in the direction of the leader principle and Hobbe's Leviathan, from which the pioneers fled - nota bene - to America and which the Founding Fathers finally renounced in 1776. Christian circles in particular should also notice that Donald Trump does not follow the Christian triad of "faith, hope, and love" wanting to heal, but the version familiar from fascism, "faith, hope, and hate" - hatred of scapegoats, hatred of the foreign. Where the door was opened to hatred, it often enough ate its children in the end.
Neoclassical neoliberalism, especially pronounced in the USA - falsely evoking the term "freedom" - has ruined the U.S. collective system of meaning on all three dimensions. The story of its final decline began in 1947 with the founding of the Mont Pèlerin Society, the first assembly of neoliberals organized by Friedrich Hayek on Mont Pèlerin above Lake Geneva. At that time, in addition to Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Ludwig von Mises and Karl Popper were among the participants. The result today: The transcendent dimension of the collective meaning system of the USA, the right of all people to the "Pursuit of Happiness", has become the right to purely material "happiness" of a few plutocrats and oligarchs. As a result, the social dimension of the U.S. collective meaning system is also breaking down. Instead of a co-evolutionary, conducive togetherness, U.S. society is being further and further frayed by a multifaceted self-interested antagonism that no longer allows for empathy, dialogue, or understanding. Neither does this antagonism allow orientation toward a common challenging goal for the future, nor for joining forces in society to achieve it.
The pioneers already warned sternly against turning away from charity. John Winthrop [1838, p. 47] in his sermon of 1630 painted what would happen if charity were no longer lived:
"But if our heartes shall turne away, soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worshipp and serve other Gods, our pleasure and proffitts, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good land whither wee passe over this vast sea to possesse it (…).”
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This is where the USA stands today. The pioneers already knew the conditions of a functioning society. They were the ones who wanted to create a new society and became the model for many Western democracies. Their social concept has proven itself in reality over a long period. Moreover, they saw clearly, what the dangers are for the "moral center" of a "flourishing society": The individual pursuit of happiness turns people into adversaries - direct pursuit of happiness means "either you or me", whereas fulfillment of meaning means "both you and me, i.e. "we". "We" means "society".
What to prefer - happiness or meaning in life? A meaningful life is and remains meaningful, even if happiness does not materialize. Those who, on the other hand, chase after luck and do not catch it, must look back on a wasted life. Meaning in life can always be found, but happiness remains a matter of luck - a frightening tightrope walk. Do we want to sacrifice our entire lives to the fetish and myth of "happiness"? Even from the point of view of neoclassical neoliberals, that would be completely wrong: you should never put all your eggs in the same basket...
The "we" in the DNA of the original collective meaning system of the USA can be derived from the creation story according to John: "In the beginning was the Word!" - and "Word" means dialogue, understanding and the love of the creator to the creation and to the human beings, whose mind secures them a special position. [8]? Martin Luther affirmed that the dialogue between God and humans could be a direct one, made possible by the individual’s conscience. [9]? As a Scottish Protestant, Adam Smith took up this concept of freedom and responsibility and doubtlessly brought it into this world: he spoke of "sympathy" (or empathy), but above all of the "impartial inner spectator", which makes the human being governed by conscience, destined to freedom and responsibility. With recourse to the empirically verifiable capacity of self-distancing and self-transcendence[10] - basic prerequisites for the meaning of human action - Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997)[11] rescued conscience in his humanistic psychology into the present. In this he was supported from a rather unexpected side; by the evolutionary biologist Gerhard Neuweiler [2009, p. 189].
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The corporate world as a factor of a meaning-centered turn in economy and society?
The neoclassical neoliberals around the highly publicized Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman first unraveled the business world from the back and from there pushed forward into society, politics and culture with their Social Darwinist ideology. In other words, they used the business world as a bridgehead to push back and destroy the original collective system of meaning and the society based on it. This was an ingenious move: almost everyone is exposed to the economic world repeatedly, in various ways and roles. It is an effective multiplier for ideologies and corresponding behavioral patterns, which can be reinforced by means of economic, or economic and sociopolitical and legal norms and sanctions. The neoclassical neoliberals used this "Meccano" with enormous coldness, the highest rigor and methodological dishonesty[12] ?- with corresponding penetrating power. They received support by Keynesianism no longer being able to solve the pending problems of the 1970s – stagflation. This was an ideal window of opportunity for the monetarist revolution of the neoclassical neoliberals.????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Currently, neoclassical neoliberalism as an economic concept is in a deep crisis, perhaps even on the brink of extinction. The damage it causes to people, society and the natural environment has long since exceeded its benefits. What is more, the way it drives people in Western democracies into the arms of right-wing populist and even proto-fascist forces makes us fear for the achievements of the Enlightenment, as they were expressed not least in the Declaration of Independence of 1776. They once made the USA the cradle of democracy.
Just as the decline of Keynesianism was the window of opportunity for the monetarist revolutionaries, i.e. the Chicago neoclassical neoliberals, their looming demise in turn opens a window of opportunity for a new era of economic research, teaching and practice. Based on what has been said so far, it must be a meaning-centered corporate world and a meaning-centered economic system; meaning-centered in the sense that it place itself at the service of people and society as well as of the natural environment, which is the basis of all life. In this process it is to be clarified what society needs from the economic world and what vice versa so that they can come together to form a synergetic "flourishing society".
The starting point for the meaning orientation of the corporate and economic world is the collective system of meaning of a society or a country. It serves the companies and thus ultimately the economic world as the highest point of reference or source of meaning for entrepreneurial action. As such, these companies then also become the source of meaning for their employees and other stakeholders. The meaning-oriented company, which is aligned with the collective meaning system of the USA, becomes a meaning generator for its employees and other stakeholders, not least the shareholders, local communities, suppliers, NGOs, etc. In this way, an increasingly dense meaning system is created that encompasses the economic world and society in equal measure.
Can this work, can companies, the economic world be taken into the obligation of the collective meaning system of a society or a state system and shaped accordingly? The neoclassical neoliberals have particularly impressively provided proof thereof. Today the entire western economic world and increasingly also the western societies function more or less according to the neoclassical collective "meaning" system. Here we are again confronted with an irony of history: This "meaning" system is not one of freedom, but of totalitarianism. Nothing motivated Friedrich Hayek more than the struggle against the unfreedom of socialism. The neoclassical neoliberals intended to help the Western world of states to achieve happiness, but rather captured it - once more - for the sake of its (supposed!) happiness. An economic doctrine that aims at prescribing happiness to people a priori withholds from them a fundamental decision. It is the decision whether they want to orient their lives fundamentally towards meaning - a phenomenon of the human mind - or towards the material and materialistic happiness of goods and services; the latter has proven to be a fetish and a mirage in the present work. As a fetish because we assume, without thinking, that we have to catch happiness at any price, as a mirage because we cannot bring it about consciously and willingly, because it is not where we think we will find it, i.e. where we see it flickering. Neoclassical neoliberalism wants to force people to attain happiness although it cannot be brought about - it lets people run into emptiness, into a vacuum of meaning. Nothing worse can happen or be inflicted on the human being as a being with an unquenchable thirst for meaning! It is hell on earth. Since the will to meaning is of fundamental importance for the human being, the lack of meaning is the human Achilles heel par excellence. Nothing makes the people more susceptible to the false promise of the salvation in the happiness of consumerism and more easily seduced by politicians promising salvation while wanting to heal the crisis of the country with the Leviathan. Thereby, they tear the country further apart and deepen existing conflicts by naming scapegoats and delivering hate messages.
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Aspects of a sense-centered corporate and economic world
After 50 years of neoclassical-neoliberal "tyranny“, it sounds almost heretical to ask, “Can the economic world be changed from short-term profit maximization to meaning orientation?” The answer is simple: There is no other choice! The meaning-oriented, i.e. performance-oriented enterprise is more effective and more efficient than the one oriented towards short-term profit maximization, which serves as an end in itself. There is a plethora of research confirming this, making corresponding proposals that. Yet, for decades, neoclassical-neoliberal economic theory systematically pushed them into the background. However, since neoclassical-neoliberal economic theory’s Doomsday, the Global Financial Crisis starting in 2007, they have been attracting more attention.
One of the most prominent economists who called for a meaningful - synergetic - connection between the economy and society was Peter F. Drucker [2007, p. 11f]:
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Kramer / Porter [2011] showed how devastating the record of neoclassical neoliberalism is. Their balance sheet:
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The St. Gallen based management teacher Fredmund Malik [2005] recalls how counterproductive the neoclassical-neoliberal economic doctrine is for the economic world and stresses the necessity of replacing it:
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It was probably not least under the impression of such findings that 19 August 2019, became a memorable day for the corporate and economic world. At that time, the U.S. Business Roundtable [2019] set a highly remarkable example. In a media release, it distanced itself from the neoclassical-neoliberal economic philosophy of short-term shareholder value or profit maximization:
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Like the collective system of meaning of an entire society, that of a company is also three-dimensional. The contents are mutatis mutandis the same. In turn, a distinction is made between a dimension of transcendence, a social dimension and a temporal dimension.
Dimension of transcendence: In the corporate world, the terms "mission" or "purpose" are commonly used for this. Whichever term is chosen, it is a matter of determining how the company looks beyond itself and its immediate economic interests, i.e. transcends itself, by looking outward and determining in what way it wants to serve people and society, i.e. what it wants to stand for. The mission of a company answers questions such as: "What is our real raison d'être?" "Why do we have to exist?" "How do we want to put our company at the service of customers and society?" "What and/or who do we want to be good for?"? The mission is not about enumerating the company's products or services, but about the functions that the company fulfills for customers and society.
The dimension of transcendence, the spirit of a company, provides coherence and identity. While the spirit of the company may be the same over generations, the actual products and services may vary. A company that wants to contribute to mobility, for example, can do so in due course by building means of transport, but also by developing apps that allow travelers to get from A to B as environmentally friendly or quickly or economically as possible. The same purpose is achieved by means of conferencing and communication software that makes travel from A to B superfluous.
Social dimension: This has several levels. On the first level, it is a question of determining how the company wants to deal with its customers. A meaning-centered company defines behavioral norms that make its customers feel valued. On a second level, it is a matter of determining how the people in the company themselves want to deal with each other in order to feel appreciated. This involves, for example, modes of behavior in the company, but also the participatory definition of areas of responsibility that employees experience as meaningful. These are meaningful not least when employees can see a direct connection between their activities and the company's mission. Another level relates to interacting with stakeholders of the company, such as shareholders, suppliers, local communities, competitors, NGOs, etc.
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Temporal-historical dimension: In the corporate world, the term commonly used for this is "vision". The "purpose" shines like a fixed star for the company and provides orientation over time. The vision, on the other hand, describes concrete goals that the company wants to achieve. These must be ambitious so that they challenge people mentally and make them innovative and creative. A lofty, ambitious goal brings people together and lets them grow together - in the spirit of Ralph Waldo Emerson: ?Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm!? Ergo: ?Nothing great was ever achieved without meaning!?
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When the people of a company trust each other, when they share the mission and vision of the company, and when they show appreciation for each other, companies achieve the 6f level: they are fit, fast, flexible, focused, friendly and fulfilling. Analogous to the "flourishing society", this is a "flourishing firm". This remains unattainable for a company that follows the neoclassical-neoliberal maxim of profit maximization and accordingly treats people as self-benefit maximizers. Such self-interested companies have a strict hierarchical structure and obey the "laws" of mechanical machines, whereas meaning-centered companies can be compared to living organisms or complex adaptive systems. Externally, they are highly adaptable and internally, they have a correspondingly high level of integration. Such companies are robust, resilient, and highly competitive and profitable in the medium and long term.
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From this perspective, what Jim Clemmer [2020] calls the "profit paradox" is not paradoxical but highly plausible:
?That’s the paradox to be managed; companies that exist only to produce a profit don’t last long. And companies that don’t pay attention to profits can’t exist to fulfill their long-term purpose. Pursuing profits without a higher purpose or pursuing a purpose without profit are equally fatal strategies. These aren’t either/or positions to choose between. They’re and/or issues to be balanced. We need to get them in the right order. Many studies have shown that profits follow from worthy and useful purposes. Fulfilling the purpose comes first; then the profits follow. Profits are a reward. The size of our reward depends on the value of the service we’ve given others. ?
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As with people, so in the company: first comes the performance, the service for the benefit of someone and/or something, then happiness or profit follow. Within a collective system of meaning, people establish companies or institutions to achieve something together, which they would not be able to manage alone...
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Since over the last 30 or 40 years, economic policy has given the strictly self-interested neoclassical-neoliberal entrepreneurship more and more advantages over the meaning-centered, performance-oriented companies, it is not illegitimate, but in the collective interest, to demand that the economic policy authorities promote the emergence of meaning-centered companies in the future by providing them with advantageous framework conditions. [13] Economists are facing a great deal of work, a major part of which has already been on the table for a long time. However, it has been stowed away in a drawer and needs to be brought back on the agenda.
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From the destructive neoclassical-neoliberal motto "The winner takes it all!" to co-evolution
The all-important advantage of the meaning-centered company is that it does not primarily - and without consideration of negative consequences for people, society and the natural environment - strive for its own profit, but for the more effective and efficient solution for the benefit of people, society and the natural environment. The self-interested, primarily profit-oriented company is like a black hole that sucks all resources from its environment, while the meaning-centered company is in a synergetic exchange with people, society and nature. The keyword, which must be introduced into the economic sciences, is called "co-evolution", i.e. exchange and common growth on all levels, from the material to the spiritual, because meaning-centered entrepreneurship does not begin with any technique or technology, but with an appropriate mental attitude! In the spirit of Adam Smith, "What do you need?" "What do I need?" "How do we come to a fair agreement with each other, how can we grow together?"
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Co-evolution is the liberal antithesis to the neoliberal battle cry: "Might makes right – the winner takes it all!?[14]
With a growing number of companies and other institutions opting for the primacy of performance instead of the primacy of short-term profit maximization or the maximization of shareholder value, their network is also broadening and densifying. An ever broader and denser meaning-centered, co-evolutionary network in the corporate world itself and in exchange with society is generating more and more synergies leading to the "flourishing society" that Adam Smith and, mutatis mutandis, the pioneers and Founding Fathers of 1776 were striving for.
After the neoliberal shock back to a sustainable collective meaning system
The human qualities, which form the basis of the original collective meaning system of the USA and which made the USA the cradle of freedom, democracy and human rights, still prevail after the neoclassical-neoliberal crash, because they are inherent in human beings themselves - in all of us! The neoclassical-neoliberal "meaning" system has suppressed these human capacities and consequently brought the American society to the brink of disaster; yet, humanity could not be driven out. Now, deciding to resort to the human image of the pioneers and Founding Fathers, considering a new collective system of meaning, is not a conservative turn. It is rather the realization that it is - mutatis mutandis - the best of all options, also with a view to the future.
Option 1: If human beings are absolutized as "entirely good" and therefore as vulnerable, a protective, at the same time patronizing, even totalitarian order arises. This caused the failure of socialism in 1989.
Option 2: If, on the other hand, human beings are regarded as radically self-interested, as the Neoclassics and the neoclassical neoliberals do, the state has no place; the only maxim is not to hinder the strong in order to give natural selection free rein. The effects are not only destructive for economic life - stock market crashes like 2000 and 2007/8, global corporations escaping the control of sovereign states, extremely fragile supply chains, etc., - but also for society. Continuously growing income disparities impoverish more and more people, and the de-industrialization of rural regions in turn deepens the rifts in U.S. society: "A society, losing its moral center".
Option 3: The more victims option 2, the free neoliberal-neoclassical play of (natural) forces, has produced and continues to produce, the more Americans experience their country as "a society at odds with itself and its own most important values" and the more insistently the call for the "strong leader" resounds, who ensures security, justice and order with an iron fist. Such a society moves in the direction of the Hobbesian state concept of the all-powerful, totalitarian Leviathan - a tragedy, considering that Adam Smith, in accordance with the Founding Fathers of 1776, once set out to free people from exactly that Leviathan! In other words, the neo-liberal image of humans as being driven solely by their egoistic instincts awakens needs for security, peace, order as well as justice and leads in turn towards totalitarianism and dictatorship. This is how it was under Mussolini, this is how it was under Hitler, and this is the direction numerous Western states, including the USA, are taking in the current right-wing populism.
The totalitarian nature of neoclassical neoliberalism is expressed not least in the fact that it sees people merely as mindless natural beings and wants to subject their actions to natural laws: "The market commands!", "The laws of the market force us!", "If you don't do it, someone else will!", "What the other person wins, I lose!" These expressions imply the work of an anonymous, intangible and influenceable power to which we are subject - in the world of the neoliberals' imagination, but only in theirs - and which relieves us of all freedom and responsibility for our actions and their meaning and incapacitates us. The human being as a being with a will to meaning does not endure this! It is the perfidy of the neoclassical neoliberals to have declared these forces as anonymous and irrevocable. As such, human beings are defenseless, at their mercy like sick people who are unaware of their suffering and paralyzed. As a lightning rod for the associated frustration of one's own will to meaning and for the rage at having to bow to anonymous powers, scapegoats have to be found: "elites," "races," certain population groups are exposed to hatred. Thus, the tragedy according to the script of "faith, hope, and hate" takes its devastating course.
Option 4: The second possible answer to option 2 and the loss of the "moral center" is an extremely high moral charge of everyday life such as gender-neutral language, wokeness, "last generation," "cultural appropriation" as well as enormously rigid Christian doctrines of faith on the one hand, conspiracy theories such as QAnon on the other. They defend their worldview as the absolute truth, as having no alternative, and thus as non-negotiable. They only accept the "Pursuit of Happiness" they represent. Yet, it was the Founding Fathers’ ingenious act to work towards a world that grants every human being the right - guided by empathy and conscience - to follow their own path in life. This requires all parties to interact based on rather than in denial of dialogue and understanding. The question would be, “Why do people barricade themselves behind the refusal of dialogue? What would they need to free themselves from it?” Instead of aggression against each other, perhaps empathy for each other would help...
Option 5: In addition to the "entirely good" and "entirely aggressively self-interested" and the extremely morally charged human being, there is the image of the human as an ambivalent being capable of "goodness" as well as "aggressive self-interest". This is the human image of the Protestant reformers, the pioneers of the USA, the liberal classicist Adam Smith, the Founding Fathers of 1776, and mutatis mutandis, it is still valid today. It is the image of humans as intrinsically controlled, empathic, meaning seeking, self-controlling beings striving for dialogue and understanding. In the daily struggle between selfishness and altruism, freedom and responsibility, sense and non-sense, humans may stumble repeatedly. However, carried by a “we”, humans stumble ever higher, toward the better, the more human - toward a "flourishing society" as Adam Smith envisaged it, which (mutatis mutandis) already corresponded to the vision of John Winthrop and the Founding Fathers. According to their image of humans and their collective system of meaning, individuals and society were able to flourish in a way never seen before.
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Today, the Western world and the United States are once again violently reeling. The rigor of Option 1 ended forever in 1989, but the quixotic, breath-taking rigor inherent in Options 2, 3, and 4 is coming back all the stronger, with all the clearer claims to power - at the expense of democracy, freedom, and self-responsibility, as well as the possibility of leading a meaningful life.
It is time to show again, how grandiose the collective meaning system of the pioneers and Founding Fathers was. There are two ways to maintain a social system. One is to clamp humans in the vice of correctness until they can only behave in conformity with the system. Thus, Homo Marxensis was strapped onto the stretching rack of absolute brotherhood. The same way, homo economicus was tied to the bed of the absolute selfishness. Hobbes for his part subjected humans for the purpose of peace and order to the almighty Leviathan, and different ideological groups, religious circles and conspiracy theorists claim for themselves absolute infallibility. Measured against all this "infallibility magic", the collective system of meaning of the pioneers and Founding Fathers represents a double revolution.
Revolution 1: The creators of the original collective system of meaning in the USA did not assume that humans are perfect. They rather conceived fallible, even fragile human beings, who can sin, produce nonsense and contradiction, who stumble repeatedly and have to pick themselves up repeatedly in order to "stumble towards the truth" and to learn the lessons of life.
Revolution 2: The Founding Fathers did not try to mold the erring, imperfect flesh-and-blood human being according to any ideal characteristics in order to arrive at some kind of ideal society. They were looking for qualities in the humans themselves that would allow them, despite all their shortcomings, to live as self-determined, meaningful and in this sense happy a life as possible, with as much freedom as possible.
Inner and social peace always needs two; one who produces nonsense, but notices this based on empathy and conscience, admits it and asks the damaged “you” for forgiveness, and a “you” who, again based on empathy and conscience, grants forgiveness. This presumes dialogue and understanding and is guided by the fairness on which the pioneers, the Founding Fathers, Adam Smith and, finally yet importantly, the behavioral economist Ernst Fehr counted.[15]
People are in principle intrinsically controlled. They are therefore collectively capable of meaningfully shaping their coexistence on their own account and by common consent - if necessary by appealing to an independent judge, whose power is limited by the judiciary. The result is an elastic, adaptable, living organism, which allows its individuals the freedom to fulfill their personal meaning, does not suppress tensions, but deals with them productively - mediating and balancing, with a learning effect.
The corresponding collective system of meaning of the pioneers and Founding Fathers truly is a world cultural heritage. How this could get caught up in the gears of neoclassical neoliberalism, a senseless, totalitarian, inane machine-like world, would be worthy of deeper investigation; it might reveal the location of the Achilles heel of the vision of the pioneers and Founding Fathers. [16]? A hypothesis: the neoliberal promise of quick happiness.
What made America so strong in history - in all its trials and tribulations - was not sheer military power, or the will to strive for supremacy in a unipolar world. The pioneers and Founding Fathers never thought of that - they were not in the least Neoliberals avant la lettre! What made the USA so strong was the vision of a dignified life in freedom and responsibility, the Pursuit of Meaning as the most human of all human qualities, as the most fundamental of all needs. Its satisfaction might create happiness as the optimum result. With this vision, the USA became a shining example for the world. Let us not forget: This role model can refer to the inherent characteristics of humans, to the "nature" of humankind! However, this attitude requires regarding the human being as an ambivalent being, capable of "good" as well as "evil". Statements like "Humans are only good“, ?Humans are only bad! “, or "Humans seek only happiness!" bereave human beings of the possibility to act freely and responsibly; they directly lead into totalitarianism.
What else could be more challenging than to serve the world again as an example? This would change its face; make it more peaceful, because the essence of meaning and happiness is this: It cannot be prescribed and imposed on countries and people by any supremacy or superior power, since meaning and happiness must be found by everyone themselves. What is more, as the pioneers and Founding Fathers chose a way to fulfill THEIR meaning and hope for their happiness, the USA must allow the rest of the world to do the same. The USA had to experience itself that the attempt to impose happiness on third parties has shaken its very fiber down to its "moral center"! The resulting questions are, “What does "happiness" mean? Is my happiness your happiness? Is my happiness today also tomorrow's?” [17] ??"What is more important to me, directly pursuing my happiness or fulfilling a meaning from which happiness may flow?"
Meaning and happiness do not even need to be decreed, since the will to meaning is deeply anchored in human beings. It will always make its way - in the end, every power alien to the human spirit has broken down. Examples are the French Revolution after centuries of oppression by nobility and clergy, India and Gandhi, South Africa and Nelson Mandela, William Wilberforce, who defeated slavery in Great Britain with a few faithful, the Founding Fathers of 1776 and their fight for freedom, the people in the former USSR and their flight to freedom...
This vision is completely different from striving for supremacy in a monopolar world in the spirit of neoliberalism and imposing its ideas of meaning and happiness on it! However, neoliberalism carries this striving for supremacy in its DNA. Only the law of the jungle applies, and the war lasts until only one is left. Today the neoliberal circles of the West already assume with frightening matter-of-factness that "in the end" it will come to the decisive battle of the USA against China. Yet, the neoliberals do not consider (at least) three things. After the Bing-bang, the ultimate show down, not one but none might be left. What is more, every world empire has an end. The true power of the USA, its spiritual legacy, is not in destructive weapons and an overwhelming economic power, but in the spirit of freedom, (life) meaning and happiness. These can never be pursued in selfish, even warlike opposition, but only together - based on empathy, conscience, dialog and understanding. This is what the pioneers and Founding Fathers want to say to their descendants, i.e. provide for the path to the future!
What is the key to a flourishing society? Ask the “you”, "What do you need for a meaningful, dignified life?" Due to the fairness "gene", you will often get back even more than you have given yourself!
It is not at all a matter of fighting directly against neoliberalism. Those who attack their opponents make them strong. It is rather a matter of outshining it ever more brightly with the vision of freedom, human dignity, meaning and happiness, empathy, understanding and dialog, and consigning it to oblivion! Maybe it took - one hesitates to say - the aberration and the crisis of neoliberalism to remember again the wisdom of the pioneers and Founding Fathers and to sense again their humanity and power, the "moral center". Often, it is only after a long journey abroad or after a painful odyssey that one realizes how good it is to be back in one's own country. ? Americans, come home!?
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Author details:
Heinrich Anker (1952) studied economics, history, sociology and media studies at the University of Bern, as well as psychology in a part-time program. Initially he worked as a journalist; from there he moved into the profession of media and social research, which led to corporate culture research, consulting and development as an independent consultant. He earned his PhD with an empirical thesis on "Media Change and Society". His interest in the connections between human images and economic, political and social orders, structures and systems already awoke during his studies. Now, against the backdrop of current events, he feels the need to pick up this thread again in the form of an essay. Anker has written several works in the field of media and corporate culture. The monograph Anker, Heinrich (2017): Wealthier Together. From Maximizing Short-Term Shareholder Value to Coevolution, Bloomington: iUniverse, was published in English.
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[1] US military spending is estimated at $858 billion in 2023, close to what the following 10 countries spend: China, India, UK, Russia, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, Italy; their budget amounted to $801 billion. Source: Statista:?? https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/157935/umfrage/laender-mit-den-hoechsten-militaerausgaben/ , Download 04.01.2023.
[2] From 1776 to 2019, the USA undertook 400 military interventions, 200 of which occurred between 1950 and 2019, again 25% of which occurred after the Cold War. Sidita, Kushi, Monica Duffy Toft (2022): “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A New Dataset on US Military Interventions, 1776–2019”, in: Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2022, Vol. 0(0) 1–28, source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00220027221117546 , Download 04.01.2023.
[3] This three-dimensionality corresponds to human beings’ ability to perceive in everyday life. In a system with three axes - it spans a space - humans can reliably classify themselves. This is all the easier for them if one of the axes practically does not change, the one of transcendence.
[4] Assagioli, Roberto (2003): Die Schulung des Willens, Paderborn: Junfermann, S. 169.???
[5] The Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution share the concepts of ?Liberty? and ?all Men are made equal?, respectively the triad "liberté - égalité - fraternité". What they differ in are the terms "fraternité" and "life". The element of "fraternité" as part of the collective system of meaning of the European democracies - which developed under the influence of the French Revolution - points to the fact that the democracies of Europe are more socially structured than the United States. One indication of this is the more pronounced income disparity in the USA compared with European countries, according to the OECD [2016, p. 55]. However, this does not directly explain the fact that social tensions are significantly higher in the USA than in Europe. As long as the career from rags to riches was possible thanks to "liberty", i.e. as long as the American Dream could still be dreamed of, this disparity was not a problem. The issue only develops into a problem when social mobility no longer functions properly, and the economic, political, cultural, media elites, and their lobbies close themselves off more and more, and the American Dream crumbles for an increasing amount of people. This impermeability deprives people of hope for that better future that they can achieve with their own diligence, intensifies the struggle for survival and directs hatred toward these elites. Donald Trump, for example, was preaching to this choir with almost cold-blooded virtuosity during his inauguration speech on 20 January 2017. Nevertheless, this also shows that the problems Trump addresses are real. Yet, it is very difficult to solve them because he himself belongs, or would like to belong, to the economic elite that helps to cause these problems.
[6] Cf. inter alia. [Hüther, Gerald 2013, S. 35].
[7] Convincingly on this, Packer, George (2015): Die Abwicklung. Eine innere Geschichte des neuen Amerika, Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, engl. edition: Packer, George (2013): The Unwinding. An Inner History of the New America, Ferrar / Strauss / Giroux, New York.
[8] When the great philosopher of religion Martin Buber said: "The ‘I’ becomes I only in the Thou", he initially referred to the development of the human ‘I’ in the dialogue with the divine Thou. If we assume that every human being, as part of creation, carries this divine Thou within him or her, this means that we human beings can also find our ‘I’ in the interaction amongst ourselves, i.e. with the Thou.
[9] ?(…) allein mit ‘Gottis wort und geyst (…) werden die seynen geregirt innwendig.’?; Scherzer, H.K. (1986): ?Luther? in: Maier, H., Rausch, H., Denzer, H. (Ed.) (1986): Klassiker des politischen Denkens, vol.1: Von Plato bis Hobbes, München: Beck / Beck’sche Reihe, Bd. 1361, 1986 (6., revised edition), p. 205.
[10] Self-distancing refers to the human beings’ ability to detach and distance themselves from their drives and instincts and in this way objectify them. The capacity of self-transcendence ("I transcend myself") means that I am not only able to detach my gaze from myself, but am also able to recognize my social and natural environment and to interact with it. Thanks to these two abilities, which are inherent in the human spirit, I am able to not only think, feel and act, but to perceive THAT I think, feel or act and WHAT I think, feel or act, and at the same time, I am able to EVALUATE this with ethical standards. Kant's categorical imperative is implied as such a measure. Kant was familiar with Adam Smith's "impartial inner spectator". As an empathic being, which is controlled by conscience, the acting human being is always at the same time subject, but also object, i.e. the observed. This is lived everyday life! How often have we scolded ourselves because of an oversight or rejoiced over ourselves when we have done something well. In modification of Ernest William Henley’s (1849-1903) closing lines of the poem ?Invictus? (1875), it might be said: ?I am the captain of my soul; I am the master of my fate.”
[11] Thanks in part to his work Man's Search for Meaning, a moving account of his time in Nazi concentration camps, Frankl is known to wider circles in the United States.
[12] ?Masterfully, the neoliberal masterminds have worked to change society while trying to disguise this by claiming 'value freedom'. James Buchanan, Nobel laureate and MPS member [MPS: Mont Pèlerin Society - HA], wrote in 1977: 'I think we need to become more normative in our efforts, we should utilize the results of our scientific value-free analysis in the argument for political reform. We must use the 'way it is' to enforce the 'way it ought to be' to which the 'way it is' refers - notwithstanding the fact that such mixing is methodologically unacceptable.’? Schulmeister, Stephan (2018): Der Weg zur Prosperit?t, Salzburg/München: Ecowin, p. 87.
[13] The meaning-centered business and economic concept is not the same as that of the social market economy. The social market economy assumes that the economic world is the realm of neoliberal competition with the substrate earned in the economic world distributed according to the rules of social need. The concept of the meaning-centered economic and business world is based on the image of the meaning-centered human being, not distinguishing between the economic world and society. They are meaningfully - synergetically - connected. The social market economy no longer exists today: consequently, homo economicus has completely overhauled society and turned it into a market society, not least with the help of social democrats such as former German Chancellor Gerhard Schr?der and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
[14] For more on the topic of co-evolution in the business world, see [Anker, Heinrich, 2012] and [Henderson, Rebecca, 2020]. Henderson does not speak of co-evolutionary and meaning-centered entrepreneurship, but makes an important contribution to this topic area, in particular to the constitution of the meaning-centered enterprise.
[15] Asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness is by no means only a Christian postulate - it can also be found in other cultural circles, not least the Islamic Feast of Sacrifice, which is always also an occasion to reset the counter of the wrongdoings experienced and committed, to reconcile and to dare a new beginning. The topos of asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness is an essential characteristic of human beings par excellence, i.e. it is ultimately not limited to certain cultural circles. Therefore, people should always start their encounters on this basis. According to Michael Tomasello, interpersonal dialog is a priori oriented towards understanding.
[16] Presumably, according to one hypothesis, neoliberals caught the Americans in the fetish of "happiness": by means of reinterpreting the collective meaning system, they pretended that happiness was to be pursued directly and not achieved as a result of meaningful action.
[17] In this context, it is also interesting to note that Milton Friedman refers to Abraham Maslow's famous pyramid of needs with regard to happiness. According to this pyramid, humans must first satisfy their material needs, i.e. their happiness with goods, in order to climb the social level and finally the spiritual level, the level of meaning. Friedman and his followers now claim to provide for that material prosperity which makes it possible for people to climb further stages of development. This sequence of stages is inherently totalitarian! How can one want to lump all people together, to force them all into the same stereotype? Abraham Maslow himself recognized that this rigid stage model is untenable and that the human being’s primary need is his/her will to meaning. Abraham Maslow: ?I agree entirely with Frankl that man’s primary concern is his will to meaning.” [Frankl, Viktor, 1997, S. 181].For America, With Love