Organisation of Society II: The Dual System: Coercion and Freedom in a Liberal Structure

In this final chapter we try to address the second part of the cycle: how to organise a society, which on the one hand needs hierarchy and authority to facilitate genuine autonomy for all, and on the other hand, must make sure that people have the ability to exercise this autonomy-based liberty. Here we emphasise the premise according to which humans are innately social. We will explain how this sociality is crucial for effective public action and how it is tied to the sense of association among people which, in turn, is restricted by the physiology of our brain. Consequently, ideas of solidarity will not be considered as an appropriate substitute for genuine sociality. As the organisational principle we suggest is based on this very intrinsic nature of human sociality, society is divided into separate domains where the principles of organisation are also different reflecting the varying significance of social considerations in different aspects of social life. In what we propose, there is a clear separation between the private and the social domains which are defined according to the nature of human interactions. In principle, it is the distinction between interactions where it socially matters who the two sides are and those where it does not. We will also identify a further subdivision into spheres where we have some crossovers in the form of social interactions with an economic dimension or private interactions (which could be economical) with social dimensions. We will also identify different behavioural patterns (different forms of rationality) reflecting individuals’ sociality and the nature of interactions. The two major implications for society are that the principles that govern the private domain cannot be used to measure activities in the social domain; and, that the private domain which is home to socially minded individuals will have to be managed differenty to the way in which natural liberty is currently organised. There is a difference between how self-interested individuals pursue their own interests and how socially minded individuals do this. The final part of the chapter is dealing with the political implications of all that we have said so far. There are three main problems that the principle of democracy faces in the kind of complex society we proposed. The first is the one derived from the presumption that no matter what effort society invests, at any point in time, not all individuals will be equally autonomous. The second, which follows from this is how to use the political system to ensure that the hierarchies that may be needed remain value-based and cannot command abusive powers. The system will have to both take advantage of socially significant differences among humans and at the same time provide sufficient protections for the universal elements in our humanity (we refer to it as the distinction between social function and social value). In addition, the system will have to be such that effectively governs the relationships between the various domains of social life while allowing each domain to be managed by its relevant principles. In current liberal societies, the economics of natural liberty dominates all spheres of social life. When we wish to break away both from the unity of principle in social organisation and from the nature of this principle, there is a need to replace it with a decision-making mechanism that will ensure the balance between different domains of social life.