Psychological requirements for a cooperative ethical economy

Dr. Michael Towsey, currently a Research Fellow in bioinformatics at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane (and a faculty member at Prout College), examines the scientific bases in neuro-economics and psycho-economics, so that individuals and groups could be better prepared for a cooperative economy.

Worth reading, we are only excerpting the conclusion:

“A healthy human society can only be founded on a social theory that recognizes humans as multidimensional beings, that is, as having metaphysical and spiritual aspirations in addition to their physical aspirations. Given the history of utopian visions gone wrong, it is important to guard against naivety – a cooperative society will not be established without struggle and without a commitment to cardinal human values and Neo-ethics. Human beings are both selfish and cooperative – our struggle is to encourage the latter in as many ways as possible and to control the former in as many ways as possible.

Cooperation must not be allowed to become another dogma.

Coordinated cooperation will require a good scientific understanding of the physiological, psychological and environmental factors which encourage cooperation and those which do not. The research to date offers good grounds for optimism. Human beings have a strong genetic and physiological foundation on which to build a better society and there is every reason to suppose that a cooperative society can be built given any reasonable effort in that direction. “

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