Homo aequalis
Homo equalis: genesis and blooming of the economic ideology is a book written in 1977 by Louis Dumont, a Anthropologue French which was interested in the system of Caste S in India. Through its analysis, it makes a return on the Western company to include/understand the values and ideologies of them.
The goal of the author is not mean; he wants to think the modern ideology. To be done, the author starts from a report: there exist two types of companies. The companies of the holist type are the first. They develop the whole, i.e. the company. Thus, all that is marginal is strongly repressed. The order, the social hierarchy and conformity are the key words of this type of company. The second type of company is known as individualist. In this case, it is the need for the individuals which takes precedence over that of the company. The supreme value is the equality between the individuals But this type of company is much rarer. One finds it only in Occident and it was formed small-with-small since the XVIIIe century. From this report, the anthropologist affirms that it is the evolution of the economy which allowed individualism characteristic of our company. At the beginning, the economy and the policy are narrowly overlapping in the religion.
It is enough to think of the monarchy of divine right and prohibition to accumulate money, that to play money plays or to create banks. Gradually, as Dumont affirms it, the economy will become independent at the same time of morals and the policy. To illustrate his matter, the author evokes various points of view of the economy. It is about the vision of the mercantilists, Quesnay, Locke, Mandeville, Smith and finally of Marx. As one approaches the XXe century, the authors have a vision where the economy becomes an increasingly independent and increasingly strong branch. I will illustrate that, but front, I will quote an example which shows that the passage of a type of company holist to individualist goes hand in hand with the transformation of the economy.
If one observes the economy with the Middle Ages, one sees that the richness is known as real, because these are the grounds that the lords have who organize the exchange. Those which hold them have the capacity. The system is arranged hierarchically and there is a strong interdependence between the human beings, because the lord needs the peasant for food and reciprocally, the peasants needs the lord for the ground and protection. He results from it a strong social cohesion and thus a great conformism. When one passes to a system of movable richness, i.e. a system of exchange whose mode of transaction is the money. It is enough to work more to go up in the social hierarchy, because everyone is placed on an equal footing. The report/ratio with the others is not necessary any more and it is the report/ratio with the objects which precede. It results an independence from it from the individuals and that brings the disappearance of conformism, the equality, freedom, autonomy but the other side of the coin is that it can develop a anomic company where the disorder is the consequence of the absence of interdict.
From that, the anthropologist will develop the vision of several philosophers to show the evolution of the Western company. For the mercantilists, it is necessary to reason on the level of the very whole nation. The only means for this one of growing rich is to make international business, because it is the only case where the balance of the payments can increase. With Quesnay, one always reasons in a manner holist with three types of classes, the industrial farmers, workmen and the shareholders. Only agriculture is regarded as nonsterile. But, with Locke, the policy is different. All the men are equal and thus the property belongs to the individuals, they are not thus any more the lords who have the grounds and thus the company becomes individualistic. The aspect most interesting for me relates to the independence of the economy compared to morals.
Dumont takes again Mandeville to illustrate that. In the Fable of the bees, the writer describes a hive which symbolizes the company. This one is dominated by the defect, but it is prosperous. One is however nostalgic virtue and a day, a prayer is exaucée; the hive becomes virtuous then, but poverty reigns. Thus the economy would be directed towards the good and would have its own morals. If one tries to impose standards to him, it leaves room to poverty. As Adam Smith underlines it, by seeking their own interests, the human beings contribute to the collective good. But however, Mandeville will not claim that all the defects are beneficial at the company; one needs “the skilful handling of a politician”. Let us take two contrary with morals but beneficial examples at the company. If an individual is proud, it will have tastes of luxury and thus it will be necessary to produce goods and that will make turn the economy, which will contribute to the wellbeing of the company. Another example: the fire of London was beneficial, because it contributed to create jobs. This idea will be begun again by Smith. All its work is centered on an aspect: the value of a good comes from work. It is thus the man who is the creator of richness, that implies an equality for all. With Marx, one reaches the apotheosis of the economy. Indeed, not only the economy is independent of morals and the policy, but it is it which dominates them, just as the history and sociology.
It is the infrastructure which determines the superstructure. Some claim that Marx is holist, but the author claims the opposite. Indeed, Marx seeks the good not company taken as a whole but of the whole of the individuals. It centers its philosophy on the work which is individual. Like Dumont says it: “Marx is also in the final analysis him with interior of a kind of design of natural right of the man, transcending all social constitutions and particular stages of production”.
While referring to these authors, Dumont shows that the emancipation of economic with respect to the policy and of morals involves a natural harmony of the interests, which implies laissez-faire, the free trade and the ultimate position which is the economic liberalism.
This relationship between the economic system and the ideology of the company makes it possible to release several remarks. First of all, through the work of Dumont, there is a true apology for the economic liberalism. Indeed, at our time, the freedom of the individuals, the equality between them are essential values. Since they are related to our economic mode which is liberalism, it becomes awkward to give this one causes some, because would be to return to uneven companies of holist type. One can quote the countries which tried to apply a system other than liberalism. One finds Communism under Stalin, the Nazism, Fascism, the absolute monarchy, feudality. None was completely liberal and none left room to an individualistic company.
Source
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Louis Dumont, homo aequalis: genesis and blooming of the economic ideology .