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Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and
Politics by Jane Jacobs, Hodder and Stoughton, pp 236, Pounds Sterling
16.99

A giant cockroach is force-feeding me a Baked Alaska pudding. I’m terrified
of cockroaches and Baked Alaska makes me nauseous. I wrack my brain as to
how, why, what led to me getting into this predicament? In my search for an
explanation, I reshuffle each term of the situation – cockroach, Baked
Alaska, me. Only one insight offers relief and comprehension: this is a
dream, wake up. Here is another kind of nightmare: a banker makes
well-intentioned loans to Third World countries, and bankrupts them. And
another: an academic is arrested for breaching computer software copyright,
but he was only trying to help his students. To unpick these predicaments,
we need to move outside their terms, to use language that is different from
theirs. In her first book since The Death and Life of the Great American
Cities a decade ago, Jane Jacobs examines the ‘moral foundations of commerce
and politics’ but does little more than describe their terms, so she never
wakes up.

Her book is a lively, eclectic Platonic discussion between a publisher, a
crime novelist, a scientist, a lawyer, an environmental activist and a
banker. The thesis they hammer out is that all social activity is governed
by a two-pronged ethical structure, the ‘guardian moral syndrome’ and the
‘commercial moral syndrome’. The commercial syndrome governs commerce and
science, and includes precepts such as, ‘Be optimistic’, ‘Compete’, ‘Respect
contracts’, ‘Be open to inventiveness and novelty’, ‘Promote comfort and
convenience’, ‘Dissent for the sake of the task’. The guardian syndrome is
concerned with territorial responsibilities, and is defined by such terms as
‘Shun trading’, ‘Adhere to tradition’, ‘Take vengeance’, ‘Dispense
largesse’, ‘Be exclusive’, ‘Make rich use of leisure’, ‘Be ostentatious’.
Such qualities define armies, governments, police and state rulers.

These two moral syndromes allow the establishment of structures that on the
one hand support daily needs, and on the other combat corruption and
enemies. There is a danger though that one syndrome’s precepts must not
get mixed with the other’s. When they do, you get nightmare scenarios.
Banks start dispensing guardian syndrome ‘largesse’ (loans) to the Third
World. Or the state, giving scientific grants, imposes restrictive
‘guardian’ principles (like ‘adhere to tradition’) on what should be a
commercial activity, which explains the crippling tendency to conservation
in government-funded science research.

Jacobs’ analysis is flexible and becomes subtler as her book progresses, but
she is essentially on a road to nowhere. Her anthropological approach has
been thoroughly superseded by philosophy, semiotics and psychoanalysis.
Writers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan have
effectively articulated unified accounts not so much of morality, but of
what morality signifies.

Implicit in Jacobs’ approach is an anachronistic, discreet cultural
Darwinism – not for nothing does the title mention ‘survival’ (as in
‘fittest’). Jacobs seems to regard society as a kind of biological fact,
rather than something constructed and therefore deconstructable. She
believes that ethical structures evolved so that human beings could become
more successful than animals. (She often refers back to our hunting and
gathering days.) Of course, this anthropological ideology means that deep
explanations of human culture, of the meaning of morality for example, are
closed off. Indeed, in what sense is Jacobs’ two-faced morality ‘moral’
anyway – why isn’t it just expedient? Jacobs is forced to face this question
because she only observes contradictions, and never seeks an explanation for
them.

Describing contradictions makes for a not unenjoyable excursion into the
vagaries of social interaction, but provides no relief from their tangles
and deceptions. Ultimately, there is something pessimistic and circular
here. If we are all pragmatic beasts, tethered to a contradictory morality,
doesn’t this condemn us to a nightmare of reiterated mistakes – never to
awaken?

Andrew Clifford is a critic and writer.