TEN. The globalization of the biblical, enslaving, usurious kind involves the downfall of modern civilization and the people’s falling into savagery alike the screenplays of American «futuristic» nightmare films. A globalization alternative to it is not possible without solving the problem of establishing a mechanism to control self-regulation of the global production and consumption system to the end of ensuring that all people share in human dignity.
These are the «ten commandments» which one must bear in mind when making an assessment of the entire economic science and press. They are at the same time the axioms of modern economics, of the economics that has a right to exist and develop in our age.
Keeping them in mind let us go back to what Ford thought about organizing production and distributing products and services within the society.
4.3. Fordizm —
the First Advent of Bolshevism to America
Joseph Stalin defined the essence of the fundamental economic law of capitalism the following way:
«The main features and requirements of the basic economic law of modern capitalism might be formulated roughly in this way: the securing of the maximum capitalist profit through the exploitation, ruin and impoverishment of the majority of the population of the given country, through the enslavement and systematic robbery of the peoples of other countries, especially backward countries, and, lastly, through wars and militarization of the national economy, which are utilized for the obtaining of the highest profits» (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”, “Remarks on Economic Issues Connected with the November 1951 Discussion”, Ch. 7. “The Basic Economic Laws of Modern Capitalism and of Socialism”[58]).
Today it is hardly possible to call the population of the «golden billion» countries impoverished: it is stupefied by over-consumption due to the global redistribution of income from usury and debts that cannot be repaid performed by the supra-national bank corporation. Yet nowadays striving for the highest possible profit is still characteristic of the Euro-American type of capitalism.[59]
And yet we find the following on the very first pages of the book “My Life and Work” by H. Ford:
«As things are now organized, I could, were I thinking only selfishly, ask for no change. If I merely want money the present system is all right; it gives money in plenty to me. But I am thinking of service. The present system does not permit of the best service because it encourages every kind of waste — it keeps many men from getting the full return from service. And it is going nowhere. It is all a matter of better planning and adjustment. (put in bold type by the authors)» (Introduction. “What Is the Idea?”).
This extract leads us to assume that H. Ford as businessman is not the type of businessman whose qualities served as the basis for defining the fundamental economic law of the Euro-American type of capitalism. It is so because Ford clearly condemns money-grubbing, i.e. getting a maximum profit from a business and seizing it solely for one’s private needs (we shall speak about it later), proclaimed as a goal that every «normal» member of society seeks to achieve. Ford does not accept the capitalism of his time as a system. He also contrasts the self-seeking money-grubbing that reigns in that system with the universal norm of social behavior: acting to the BENEFIT of other people and society.
Yet unlike the true Marxists — anti-capitalists — Ford is not a revolutionary. He is seeking not to overthrow the social and economic order that has formed in the course of history but to reform it. And he is a reformer who rejects violence as a means to achieve social progress. He is a teacher. He had learned a great deal about organizing production and distribution of products within the society, about politics as a whole (including global politics[60]) and interpreted what he had learned. And he had carefully written that knowledge down in his books[61] to enable others — who share his creative approach to life and to problems one must face in it — could use his knowledge and practical skills to the benefit of their contemporaries and descendants.
But before we go on quoting Ford’s book “My Life and Work” we shall make a short digression into the realm of laws and rights (which are different things).
* * *
Digression 3 :
Objective Rights and Subjective Laws
A right is an open opportunity of doing something while being safeguarded against a retribution for what has been done.
In the Russian world understanding the notions of «right» and «righteousness» are interconnected and the words that designate those notions are cognate. Therefore right is a reflection of objective righteousness predefined by God, so consequently a right is superior to a law passed by a government as a law can also represent an unrighteousness existing in the society. Only an ill-natured person can claim the words «right» and «law» to be synonymous. Such a person is seeking to make people confuse these two notions to the end of substituting rights with unrighteous laws.
It follows that if one accepts the terms of a theory where «Right» and «Law» are synonymous then one should distinguish between two categories of rights existing in social life:
objective rights given to man and mankind from above. The main right superior to all other is the right of every man to act as God’s deputy on Earth guided by his conscience and in concord with the message of the Revelations[62];
subjective «rights», established in social life by its participants themselves. They depend on their morals and are arbitrary, and can therefore be both righteous and unrighteous.
Consequently conflicts between objective and subjective rights may and do exist in the society. In following objective rights one acts in concord with God’s Will. Those who introduce, interpret and execute subjective «rights» attempt to impede the implementation of God’s Will by their arbitrary rules. In such a case Rights are superior to laws as reflected in an old Russian proverb: «The one who is righteous in the eyes of God cannot be accused by tsars». This philosophy is profoundly different from the canonical moral duplicity of the New Testament: «give to god what is god’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s».[63]
Besides any written law characteristic of the society in a specific period of history — if viewed in terms of the theory of control — falls into one of the three following information modules:
algorithms[64] for normal control following a specific conception of social life and of life and activities of physical and juridical persons within this society;
algorithms for defending control that follows this conception against attempts to exercise control within this society following other conceptions that are incompatible with the former one;
algorithms to make up for the deficiencies that are inherent to the conception supported by the algorithms of normal control as such deficiencies give rise to social tension and conflicts.
But the problem of distinguishing between conceptions and the problem of how different conceptions manifest themselves in diffe r ent fra g ments of one and the same legislation common for the state as a whole is beyond the majority of members of parliament, soc i ologists and average people. This results in the deficiency of legi s lative algorithms in most countries. Such deficiency is of a two-fold nature: