Capitalism versus socialism (cont.)

"So, my girl, you are saying that the whole capitalist socialist debate comes down to one of creativity over synergy?”

The venerable John D. Rockefeller was humoring Zelda Fitzgerald, or was he?

“After 175 years of watching this interminable and intractable debate, it would be most invigorating to see real resolution. Though after all the brilliant minds that have wrestled with this issue, I dare say a girl like you seems rather full of hubris to think that you can solve it. But I must confess I am intrigued; what is this synergy? I am not very familiar with the term.”

“First Mr. Rockefeller, I take umbrage at being called ‘my girl.’ After all, I was born in 1900, and you were born in 1839, I believe, but if you include the afterlife, that makes me 114 and you, let’s see, are 175. So still we are both surely fairly mature by now.”

 “Don’t by flippant with me, Mrs. Fitzgerald, or I may be inclined to show my mettle. I have been underestimated my whole life by the foolish.”

“Well, anyway, I guess I should be thankful you are interested. I know it is abstract and subtle,” said Zelda, “but if someone among the living is concerned about politics, there should be nothing more important that understanding this hidden root of the capitalist versus socialist leaning debate: 

“Synergy is where the sum of the parts as a whole is greater than the sum of the parts taken separately, and it’s the intrinsic root justification for socialist leaning policies. Synergy as defined seems kind of impossible, but life forms figured out its importance eons ago. It’s why single cells formed into multi-celled organisms, why wolves hunt in a pack instead of separately, why fish swim in schools. And its why humans make corporations, governments, and specialized trades.”

“But capitalism and the free market do all of those things,” said Rockefeller.

“I think I understand what Mrs. Fitzgerald is on about,” said Jennings Bryon. “Collective cooperation on some level is the essential thing necessary for synergy to occur, and socialist ideologies explicitly facilitate collective cooperation.”

“That’s right!” said Zelda. “But although any human social system has to utilize both synergy and creativity, the root justification of capitalist ideologies is facilitating individual creativity.”

“And yet creativity is often accomplished as a cooperative effort,” said Haley. 

“Yes,” said Zelda, “but at its root real creativity must occur in individual brains, and creativity, unlike synergy, is also often facilitated by competition. Creativity only occurs within individual brains, but synergy only occurs between people, as a collective.

“The thing is, to facilitate human creativity and synergy, although they are both crucial for human survival, can often result in conflicted or conflicting strategies. That’s the root of the debate! And you can tell what I’m saying is true because people’s economic ideologies tend to track their careers. And this is because differing careers rely more on creativity or more on synergy at their core.

“Consider that teachers, professors, bureaucrats, caregivers, laborers, and (ironically) artists, are all human synergy facilitators. And all of the people in these trades and professions tend towards socialist ideologies.

“Whereas entrepreneurs, bankers, and engineers all are responsible for creating new forms of productivity, and they lean to capitalism. But we need all of these professions.  At root, as a method of enhancing ‘productive work’ individual competitive creativity is intrinsically no better, or worse, than collective cooperative synergy.

“So the debate resolving solution is to understand that neither ideology is better. We need to be pragmatic, issue by issue as we build a mixed economy. Which because of what I’ve been saying is the only system that can or ever has worked anyway.”

Looking out over the lights of Asheville, Zelda said, “When partisans (whatever they label themselves) see the tension between collective synergy and individual creativity as an emotional dual between good and evil for freedom, or equality, instead of as a dialogue between two equally valid productive work enhancement strategies, when it is seen as a dual, instead of a dialogue, people and their economic cultures become cynical, hypocritical, greedy, and corrupt, and that dualism is the real problem.”

She looked at her fellow spirits for a thoughtful response, but it seemed they had faded to mist. Were they bored by her complex soliloquy? Zelda sighed and faded as well....

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Ben Yoke, a philosopher and writer, lives with his wife and two sons in Weaverville.