—”What is the basis of civilization, language, science, religion, race, a mixture or other circumstances, such as a specific political organization, etc.?”—-
THE BEST ANSWER
The answer is deceptively simple.
(a) We are born with one resource to spend: **TIME**, and by early adulthood, we must produce more than we expend over a three week period, or we will die.
(b) We are able to produce only so many **calories** in that time. And, alone, barely enough to survive as a gatherer.
(c) We are however, capable of **cooperation**.
(d) The **returns** on cooperation are not additive but multiplicative – on the order a power of five to ten per person added to the division of labor. (Really. its that much).
(e) All our biological abilities: language, reason; our habitual abilities: manners, norms, and traditions; our institutions: money, law, banking, politics, religion, and even war, assist us in **cooperating** in every larger numbers.
(f) and through that vast system of heartless, mindless, communication, cooperation, we produce and transform infinitely **more** calories than we could on our own.
(g) for this reason, we have only one form of wealth, time, and we are not wealthier than cave men. We have only made everything **infinitely cheaper** in the only **currency** we have to spend when we are born: **time**.
(h) however, we are all born **rational** actors, and act morally (do not lie, cheat, steal, or free ride) and immorally (lie, cheat, steal, and free ride) as is in our best self interest.
(i) And the **velocity and scale** of cooperation is dependent upon truth telling, adhering to promise and contract, and incentives for both reward and punishment if we fail to speak the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, adhere to promise and contract, and follow only those incentives that impose no costs upon the investments(costs) of others.
(j) **Science** (Demonstrated determinism of the physical world), **Economics **(Demonstrated human Behavior) and **Tort**(Demonstrated human Conflict) are the only languages of truth that we know of.
(k) Humans evolved **language** to ‘deceive’, negotiate, and speak ‘morally’, not to speak truthfully, scientifically, economically, or legally. And humans evolved to **cheat** where they have the opportunity, and continue to do so.
(l) So the primary **difficulty** in history is creating language, habits, and institutions, that **assist** us in truthful, voluntary, reciprocally beneficial, cooperation while **suppressing** untruthful, involuntary, irreciprocal impositions.
In the end, as inhuman as it may seem, **we are all just calculating opportunities** to work together to pursue the highest return at the lowest cost in the shortest time with the greatest degree of certainty at the lowest risk. We are calculating, and the ‘equals sign’ in that vast set of calculations is when we cooperate.
We work together to increase the returns on **time**.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev, Ukraine