XIV  SOCIETY AND COMMUNITY

     Something of this Geist seems to abound in the discussion of society and community. The relationship
between Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft in Toennies can be augmented by Schmalenbach's 'sociological
category of communion.' It might be said that when Gilgemesh completed his search, which included the
quest for immortality, he raised his eyes and saw his city, only then to realize that the community was
finally the actual objective of his odyssey. Even more than reconciling man, God, nature, and history,
Hegel's Geist may, in fact, function as a common denominator that reconciles Gilgemesh, Donne, and
Adam Smith into a certain commensurability. We may be able to do the same with Toennies and
Schmalenbach.

     Gordon Wood has rendered the Constitutional order in the United States a 'mechanical device,' which,
if not grafted, was somehow affixed upon an organic existence. (1 ) Quite similarly, Toennies asserts that
"Gemeinschaft (community) should be understood as a living mechanism, Gesellschaft (society) as a
mechanical aggregate and artifact." (2) It may be that for Wood, the Constitution represents Gesellschaft.
It may have been, but it may be suggested that over time, it has been transformed, grafted upon the
society, animated by the spirit of the times, to become Gemeinschaft.

     Now, it is not altogether clear that, at least in Toennies, there is basis for such transition to occur.
Perhaps it would require special circumstances in which a sort of transubstantiation takes place. It also
might be that just that scenario has been played out in the United States. We became a nation officially
two hundred plus years ago, but it was somewhere along the road that we in actuality assumed that
position, perhaps the foremost contribution to the process being the blood-letting of the Civil War.
Elsewhere here referred to as a possible Thermidore, the washing over us of the blood of so many may
have made of  us one family of a common blood, not unlike the native American custom of making blood-
brothers, but on a much greater scale. But Hegel's notion offers us some measure of basis for such
transition, as well. And with perhaps  less certainty, one might also invoke the Alegharian Aspect and the
Filoque as such bases, a transubstantiation which echoes in E Pluribus Unum, much as that which
Christianity holds to occur  in the Eucharist. Indeed, the Civil War, as great a part as it may have played
in such a process, proves inadequate if only because so much of our people post-date it in their arrival on
these shores. In Toennies, there are points which might be interpreted as forging confluence.
Gemeinschaft is not necessarily delimited to the original categories of blood, family, and kinship.
Toennies goes beyond these to encompass that of place, mind, neighborhood, friendship, and mutuality:

	"The Gemeinschaft by blood, denoting unity of being, is developed and 
	differentiated into Gemeinschaft of locality, which is based on a common 
	habitat. A further differentiation leads to the Gemeinschaft of mind which
	implies only co-operation and co-ordinated action for a common goal. 
	Gemeinschaft of locality may be conceived as a community of physical
	life, just as Gemeinschaft of mind expresses the community of neutral life.
	In conjunction with the others, this last type of Gemeinschaft represents
	the truly human and supreme form of community. The first or kinship 
	Gemeinschaft signifies a common relation to, and share in, human beings
	 themselves, while in the second one such a common relation is established
	through collective ownerships of land, and in the third the common bond is
	represented by sacred places and worshipped deities. All these types of
	Gemeinschaft are closely interrelated in space as well as time. They are, 
	therefore, also related in all such single phenomena and in their development
	as well as in general human culture and its history. Wherever human being are 
	related through their wills in an organic manner and affirm each other, we find
	Gemeinschaft of one or another of the three types. Either the earlier type involves 
	the later one, or the later type has developed to relative independence from some
	earlier one ..."(3)

     Toennies continues in elaboration of the manner in which the house that constitutes the realm of the
more limited grouping where "people live together under one protecting roof ... and share their
possessions and their pleasures; [they] feed from the same supply, they sit at the same table ..."(4) might
be extended:

	"As invisible spirits the dead are venerated here, as if they were still powerful
	and held a protecting hand over their family. Thus common fear and common
	honor ensure with greater certainty peaceful living and cooperation. The will
	and spirit of kinship is not confined within the walls of the house nor bound
	up with physical proximity; but where it is strong and alive in the closest and
	most intimate relationship, it can live on itself, thrive on memory alone, and
	ovecome any distance by its feeling and its imagination of nearness and 
	common activity ..."(5)

This sentiment of "one's own (chez soi) is also manifest in the spirit of the neighborhood Gemeinschaft
premised on:

	"... cooperation in labor, cooperation in law, order, and management, and lead[s] 
	to common supplication fro grace and mercy to the gods and spirits of land and
	water who bring blessing or menace with disaster ... but then it needs to be 
	supported still more than before by well-defined habits of reunion and sacred
	customs."(6)

     Similarly, a community on friendship is "conditioned by and resulting from similarity or works and
intellectual attitude:"(7)

	"Such a tie, however, must be made and maintained through easy and frequent
	meetings ... A worshipped deity, created out of a common mentality, has  an
	immediate significance for the preservation of such a bond, since only , or at
	least mainly, this deity is able to give it living and lasting form. Such good spirit,
	therefore, is not bound to any place but lives in the conscience of its worshippers
	and accompanies them on their travels ... Thus, those who are brethren of such a
	common faith feel ... everywhere united by a spiritual bond and the cooperation
	in a common task."(8)

An essential aspect of the 'reciprocal, binding sentiment' which  'represents the special social forces and
sympathy which keeps human beings together as members of a totality,' Toennies in one breath refers to
as Geist while in the next calls understanding [verstehen].(9) It is also 'concordia' (eintracht), and while
he makes much of language as the 'real organ of understanding,' the relationship also forms its laws. It,
indeed, "constitutes a natural law as an order of group life."(10) 

     Gesellschaft represents the negation of all of this. And while Toennies sets up a delineation between
community and society   which seems quite definitive, it approaches the arbitrary and begins to break
down, at least in some areas. For example, this is particularly the case in some of the areas just discussed,
and most notably, the economic sphere. Gesellschaft is described as "an artificial construction of an
aggregate of human beings."(11) It may on the surface resemble community but individuals within the
system "are essentially separated in spite of all uniting factors."(12)  There is a tension among the isolated
persons such that "intrusions are regarded as hostile acts:"(13)

	"Gesellschaft (ens fictivum), an aggregate by convention and law of nature, 
	is to be understood as a multitude of natural and artificial individuals, the wills
	and spheres of whom are in many relations with and to one another, and remain
	nevertheless independent of one another and devoid of mutual familiar
	relationships."(14)

     What Toennies is depicting here is precisely the condition described by Adam Smith.(15) Toennies
calls it 'bourgeois society' or 'exchange Gesellschaft:'

	"In Gesellschaft every person strives for that which is to his own advantage
	and affirms the actions of others only in so far as and as long as the can further
	his interest. Before and outside of convention and also before and outside of
	each special contract, the relation of all to all may therefore be conceived as
	potential hostility or latent war."(16)

    This condition of general competition, which he says some have conceived as the natural state of man --
the war of all against all -- bears the potential of being ameliorated through mutual consent for the
common purpose of limiting it, but it is a tenuous truce. Having just established  criterion for an extension
of community premised on just such mutuality, he now appears to reject the possibility. This later
condition does, however, not seem to possess the Verstehen or Geist, and that is probably the crucial
point. If that is the case, however, it would be more appropriate to plot a continuum between
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, with the Geist of what was earlier described here as a categorical
imperative of recognition of mutual natural interdependence as the animating character of the sliding
scale of society to community.

     This element of transubstantiation may be involved in Schmalenbach's scheme in which he adds a
'sociological category of communion' to those of society and community. These last two categories
approximate Toennies' Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft, and the somewhat separate category he argues not
only has a fundamental 'religious' aspect, but the entire basis for confluence of the three constructs of his
typology seem to lie in the arena of economic relationships.(17)

     Much as in Toennies, where the categories were not necessarily mutually exclusive but could
apparently coexist to some extent within a given population, the three categories of Schmalenbach's
analysis bear reciprocity and may occur, if only in transition, collaterally. His communion arises initially
at the neumonal level, and while its locus is the psychic and emotional, its existence may be protracted,
though such existence would tend to be rather precarious. There is a sense in which communion may be
seen as forming the fusion of society into community (premised on the view of those two as in Toennies
along a continuum of separateness and unity), but he describes other potential tracks which he argues are
equally tenable. It will be remembered  that there were described various bases for community and that
natural interdependence, although but one of these, could structure Gemeinschaft, and in such instances,
on Schmalenbach, the fusion process would be this communion. He even carries the requisites further
than Toennies, arguing that natural features are inadequate as bases for community in and of themselves:

	"They only establish the possibilities for the emergence of community. Even 
	consanguinity does not generate social relations unless a commonality is 
	recognized 'by the persons concerned.' Community, then, can be characterized
	as that order of social coherence which develops on the basis of natural 
	interdependence."(18)
 
     There would appear to be a need to address the question or idea as to where it is that individual
identity arises. Both Toennies and Schmalenbach show the problem which the absence of such a
perspective leads to -- a segmented, almost transient identity in a society of separateness. Schmalenbach,
in discussing the transmutations of his typology describes the varied ethos as 'the spirit of society,'(19) and
while that in  a manner 'closes the loop' for this discussion, there is, in fact, a religious aura to much of his
discussion. While that may be something short of surprising based on the assumed religiousity -- a
religious connotation carried by the terminology 'communion' -- it should probably not be so inasmuch as
the conceptualization may suffer in the translation. Rendering the German 'Bundes' as 'communion' as
Naegale and Stone have done here carries with the clear advantages equally obvious disadvantages,
although both encompass the notion of 'en rapport.' A further problem which appears in the tract involves
Schmalenbach's assertion that the entire concept of  'contract' is essentially alien to community.(20) 

     One wonders just how that would work with regard to the 'social contract,' but as well for the multitude
of arrangements about which the mutual interdependency is structured. That contract is central to the
institutional framework of our order makes this a crucial issue here, as is the author's commentary on
religious congregation and communion, and while it is probably not necessary to trace through that
argument in detail, it argues in short that such congregations are held together by primary objects of
religious feelings as objects of the religious orientation of the individuals. These 'felt objects' give the
group coherence and it is thus that the congregation becomes a communion. It is emotional experiences,
embedded in the unconscious, which are the real component stuff of this relationship of communion, not
so much any religious social structure. Now, it is not feelings which form the basis of community, but
feelings are really mere conscious expression of the deeper emotional expansion of the unconscious where
communal bonds are formative as psychic phenomena which modification of is the formulation of
community. Critically, it is the felt objects which give coherence to the religious group and "every
experience of communion has the effect of establishing communal bonds,(21) but " ... the essence of
community is association constituted in the unconscious."(22)

     This 'contract' was, as well, a central component in Locke's system where we also found it in
connection with the notions of Association. Throughout his work, the mid-19th century American
political economist Henry Carey develops precisely this ideological construction of moral economy in his
conception of Association. In his last book, THE UNITY OF LAW, he delineates his idea of progress in
terms of this combination concept:

	"Throughout nature, the power of combination is in the direct ratio of the 
	individualization of the various parts. The more perfect he becomes, the more 
	rapid is the circulation and the greater the force excited. So precisely is it with 
	man. The more societary positives and negatives are brought together, and the
	more his power of association, the greater is the tendency toward development
	of his various faculties; the greater becomes his control of the forces of nature,
	and the more perfect his own power for self-direction; mental force thus more 
	and more obtaining control over the accumulations of the past. The physically
	weak, and the physically strong, whether male or female, youthful or aged, tend 
	more and more to meet on terms of strict equality ..."(23)

     The theory was not new for him at this juncture. Earlier, in his PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL
ECONOMY, he had written:

	"The tendency to association is natural to man. It has its origin in the desire of
	maintaining and improving his condition. Each feels that he may derive benefit
	from his neighbor, and knows that to enable him to do that he must grant aid
	in return."(24)

     The natural tendency heightens with industry and draws people more tightly into 'protective'
communities. The protective function, Carey contends, marks the birth of government as a sort of social
contract. The developing division of labor is the dynamic which motivates societal change. We also find
this conceptualization articulated in THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Men and society operate under        
identical laws as does the physical universe. It is as well a rudimentary formulation in Carey's
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE (especially Volume III). Near the end of this work, he has
structured a systematic statement of the identity of social and natural law.(25) It might seem clear that
Carey must have been familiar with not only Oparin, perhaps, or at least such theory, but most especially
Liebniz, for this is precisely his message in MONADOLOGY. This self-organizing negentropic universe
is the essence of this vision of natural law. And, as Liebniz 'extends'       physical law to human society
and social order, here Carey is echoing similar notions, which constitute the essential character of his
principle of association, and which is the ground out of which government sprouts. He even argues an
'organic analogy of society' depicting government as analogous to intelligence as the source of what he
terms 'public energy' with similar 'duty and use' in 'the natural order' (26) and structures a systematic
statement of the identity of social and natural law.(27) But Carey is not unique in such formulizations. A
more or less contemporary of him, Daniel Raymond, developed much the same line of reasoning in his
THOUGHTS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. Raymond launches upon his project by differentiating the
usage of the term wealth relative to individuals and the nation. This term applied to the individual, he
suggests, in terms of property owned, simply cannot be applied in that manner to a nation. It can only
possess the means and the will toward the production of wealth for the sustenance of individuals. In the
process of developing the argument, he raises some serious questions regarding the idea of the nation as
the mere aggregation of the individuals within it as espoused particularly by Adam Smith, among others
(or at least Smith's 'disciples'). But he does more. Raymond posits that the nation is a Unity, to be taken as
one (and one that he says is indivisible). Further, where interests of individuals may conflict and are
'perpetually at variance with national interests,' those of the nation do not vary. This artificial entity
possessing the Unity principle, the Nation, may only possess' wealth in its capacity through its
constituents via their labor. He suggests that "the same law that governs all the parts must also govern the
whole."(28) This capacity to produce life's comforts and necessities rests upon the level of industry of its
constituents. Hence, his Unity principle toward wealth approximates both Liebniz and Carey's Association
principle. And, importantly, such wealth is augmentable. And, as in Carey, the extent of government is
the cultivation of such national wealth.

     Some thirty years ago, Eldridge Cleaver argued:

	"Every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth is entitled to the best,
	the highest, the most perfect standard of living that man and his wisdom and
	his technology can create. Period. So we start from there ..."

     The development that Cleaver undergone over the interim period may be explicable out of that
thinking. When Kymlicka, Rawls, and the rest make reference to the 'good life,' whatever else the notion
conjures up, invariably those words of Eldridge must crop up. Not because they are so much of kindred
spirit, but simply due to the fact that they are so dissimilar in their meaning. And that quotation from
Cleaver can be joined by utterances made not long before them by Martin Luther King in a similar vein
(as mentioned earlier is this examination). Referring to the words of John Donne, he was fond of
repeating:

	"No man is an island. We are all intricately bound up with one another, so that 
	the death of any man diminishes all men. Therefore, never send to ask for whom
	the bell tolls -- it tolls for thee."

     Taken together, these two quotations represent a starting point for these considerations. They form an
anchor of a philosophical system -- an ideological base which not only offers a profound critique of the
entire argument of those such as Kymlicka and Rawls, but as well an alternative to the entirety of the
contemporary  political philosophy that they represent. They express the spirit of a politics the sum and
substance of which suggests a deep-rooted challenge to that entire analysis. There is an almost fanciful,
even magical, character that runs throughout any survey of conceptualizations around the 'good' and the
'good life,' a character which renders  the jaded politic of its approach sorely inadequate. One cannot have
the 'good life' unless it is produced. And the question arising from that conversation remains as to
precisely how it is that this is to be done.

     What Cleaver and King have done in those two quotes is substantively grounded the answer to that
question. While Eldridge had begun to flesh in definitively what the 'good life' has to mean for humanity,
King has provided the political aspect of the economy he constructs. The intricate mesh King was talking
about is the interconnected interdependency that is the human situation which Cleaver's 'good life' rests
upon. In consequence of that, the inability of any segment of the human population to achieve its potential
in productive capabilities thereby diminishes the living standard of all. Hence, the relative potential
population density determines the level of that standard of living because the relative level of such
attainment dictates the general living level. 

    An essential aspect of such an understanding rests upon a clear comprehension of the deficiencies of
the concomitant 'liberal' framework devoid in its political dress of the economic requisites. In fact, this
seems much the case in most of the philosophical approaches which the contemporary usage of that term
would embrace. There seems to be, for example, a certain such poverty in the 'denuded' individual of
Rawls. Redistributive systems generally have no pretense of maximizing either potential, either for
individuals of in the aggregate. What they do however, is diminish the capability of a society to expansive
wealth production. Reapportioning the existent wealth of the world would probably leave the mass of the
earth's billions little better off than they are at present, at least immediately. Over the long run, by
reducing social surplus and investment, not only would growth and development be stymied, but even the
capacity for maintaining existent productive levels would be lost. The result therefore of Rawlsian type
schemes, while they might produce greater 'equality' of a fashion, would be to render the population into a
downward spiraling equality of poverty.  If it was Rawls' intent simply to redistribute income, leaving
social surplus to be productively deployed, the dilemna would be no greater than before. The amount of
wealth to be redistributed having been considerably reduced, the resulting division would be all the more
unsatisfactory and inadequate. Furthermore, the social surplus category cannot be divorced from 'income'
because that is precisely where it arises.

     The United States is frequently faulted by economists for having a much too low savings level ratio. It
has been suggested that we might do well to provide more incentives for savings. The Japanese have
provision for foregoing taxation on savings and that nation possesses a much higher level of savings.
While such instruments as IRA accounts have been toyed with here, some have suggested a more
substantial savings exemption which would convert the income tax system into a consumption tax. This
would probably greatly increase savings levels, while it would also tend to reduce consumption over the
short run. However, those segments of society which would be positioned to take maximum advantage of
such savings exemptions would be those with the greatest income levels. Thus, such measures, at least in
the short term, might actually increase 'maldistribution.' Over the long run, increased savings would
provide the basis for investment requisite for increased economic activity and thereby raise all living
standards, but that would rest upon judicious dedication of the reinvestment toward maximized
development. Arguably that could best be achieved through market mechanisms. In Rawlsian
redistribution, however, such mechanisms could not work since social surplus would be eliminated by the
system of reallocation. The approach he takes is at base a consumption oriented one -- and a falling
consumption one, at that -- and demand side approaches offer no prescription for the increased investment
necessary to turn the spiral of wealth creation, although they can contribute to it. Moreover, the abrogation
of differential wage rates would make socially necessary occupational activities that are less than attractive
or premised on high levels of some technical expertise unwanted or unfilled. Thus, Rawls' redistributive
system would sabotage not only invention and innovation, entrepreneurship, and amusement, but as well,
garbage collection, police work, and the like. We are by now all too familiar with the inability of citizens
of Moscow to hail cabs or get waited on in restaurants.



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