All religions, by the act of repetition of metaphysical value judgments, stated as mythic, supernatural, or pseudoscientific analogies, set the terms by which the state may govern, by limiting the laws that may be imposed without the revolt of the people – who claiming a ‘higher authority’ demands that they revolt against these transgressions. This is the purpose of religion. To establish a higher authority beyond which the intentions of man may not transgress. Or more simply, to limit the powerful.
Westerners since the time of the Yamnaya (Aryans) have practiced natural law: rational cooperation. This Arianism: Universal natural law, was merely the empirical tradition of a warrior elite, derived from the intolerance of warfare by voluntary warrioes – the wealthy heads of families and clans – for who oath and trust on and off the battlefield determined their ability to fight enemies in the absence of wealthy authority that commanded them. Warrior epistemology is unforgiving. It is religion and commerce that tolerate and benefit from lies.
Roman law, and Church Law, evolved as reflections of Natural Law. And Natural law, like the Aryanism it evolved from, is universalist. Meaning that it sets the rational terms for cooperation between the meritocratic: strong, productive, truthful(empirical). And that rational cooperation between the powerful is impossible in the absence of natrual law. Stated perhaps more clearly: it is only under truthful testimony, and non-imposition of costs: the oath of warriors, warrantied by the punishment of death, that rational cooperation is possible. Otherwise, rational prediation is only logical. Ergo, to join the franchise (elite) one must be truthful in word and deed – lest he not come home from the next raid.
Natural law, like Physics is efficient, and like Evolution, is meritocratic, and by meritocratic we mean eugenic. But even though it’s meritocratic we enforce only the principles of non-parasitism: truth, contribution to the commons, and self sustenance. Meaning that reproduction is limited to those who can produce in the current era. But that we still provide insurance for those who encounter harms is provided.
Natural law is predicated on this first principle: why should we cooperate rather than kill, rob, or enslave you? The only reason for cooperation is that it is more beneficial than predation. Predation by the underclass through exploitation of consumption through over reproduction(downward redistribution), and predation by the upper classes through exploitation of productivity (upward redistribution) to increase consumption.
THE CLASS COMPROMISE
The compromise of cooperation under natural law is that the upper classes agree not to prey, not to exploit, and not to kill or enslave, in exchange for the lower classes not exploiting the increased productivity that the suppression of parasitism (the creation of order) by the upper classes makes possible.
This is a trade. This is natural law. A voluntary exchange. And out of this exchange arises all that the west has made for this world: reason, science, technology, and medicine: the products of truth telling. The empirical people, are the result of empirical metaphysics: natural law of cooperation.
We domesticate the lower classes with this trade. It is a compromise like all trades. But it is a powerfully benefical trade becaue the externalities produced by this compromise are an extraordinary rate of evolution of knowlege and production without the constant increase in parasitic consumption that comes from lower class reproduction.
MARRIAGE COMPROMISE
Marriage provides the same exchange between the violence and productivity of the male in favor of the long-term success of his tribe, versus the reproductivity and consumption of the female in the short term favor of her offspring.
Man’s violence was domesticated and woman’s reproduction was domesticated. The method by which we domesticated man and woman equally was the marriage. This limited reproduction and consumption to the productivity of the parents. This controlled the woman’s reproduction and consumption in exchange for the man getting access to sex, thereby controlling his desire for violence and predation.
Our laws and religions evolved with the same ‘scientific’ (empirical) principles that were in concert with physical laws:
Trust all as kin. Accuse and Testify truthfully. Carry your own weight in order to exist and reproduce (or at least cause no harm, and contribute to the best of your ability). Your sustenance can only be provided by fully informed, productive, warrantied, voluntary exchange limited to externally of the same. And in exchange for participation in that franchise (market) all men are required to police all other men at all times without exception (ever man a sheriff).
CHURCH STATE COMPROMISE
The church takes responsibility for the family, and education between kin. The state for the natural conflicts that arise between members inside (justice) and those outside (war) the nation and its territory.
This is a compromise. A trade. A division of labor. The nuturing female and the limiting male.
You see, individualism is an effort to destroy our great compromises.
The great compromises – exchanges – that made our success possible in the ancient and modern worlds.