I read this quote once;
"War is the continuation of policy by other means,"
- Clausewitz
As I began to start trying to come to grips with basic economics I found a not uncommon posit based off Clausewitz that says politics is the continuation of economics by other means.
Economics is basically the study of “goods”; their production, distribution, and consumption.
A Good is an object or a service that satisfies a need or desire of an individual.
A need is… uhhhh…
Well Maslow says needs’ can be viewed as a hierarchy of 5 tiers.
The most important needs are physiological; breathing, food, water, sleep…
Next are needs of security, then socialization, then esteem, and finally what he referred to as self-actualization.
So from simple definitions it would seem that humans engage in activities that produce goods and/or services to satisfy a series of increasingly important needs required for a healthy existence.
This activity is called economic and to control this activity in large groups we use political means such as regulations and laws enacted and enforced by some form of authority.
When one group disagrees with or won’t follow another group’s regulations or laws controlling their economic activity then war is used to assert authority.
This seems to allow the control of larger and larger groups over time, at least for the victor of the wars.
Now getting into the etymology of a few of these terms real quick-like…
The term “politics” comes from the Greek politika which was derived from Aristotle’s “Affairs of the City” and means ‘relating to, of, or for citizens’.
“Economics” comes from the Greek words for house (oikos) and law (nomos) giving the term a meaning of ‘laws of the house’.
The term “citizen” has a more complex etymology deriving from Latin into Old French and taking on subtle distinctions of usage over passing generations but the general idea is ‘an individual who operates economically as a functioning member of a city’.
So the word origins suggest we have individuals with needs living in households that require “laws” to operate in such a manner that the individual’s needs are more or less being met.
In turn the individual’s home is a part of a city (i.e. a group) with an authoritarian relationship that allows the citizen access to goods and services (like security) that meet needs they might not otherwise be able to satisfy in return for a portion of the economic activity of the household, dictated by law, being used in the interests of the city as a whole rather than consumed by the individual citizen performing the economic activity.
Somewhere between the economic activity an individual performs for themselves and the economic activity they perform for the group/s they are a member of creeps the idea of authoritative control.
As a matter of fact the whole modern subject of Economics is derived from the earlier and broader subject of “Political Economy” itself derived from “Moral Philosophy” (i.e. Ethics).
Once you’re talking Ethics you’re smack in the realm of trying to define “legitimate authority” as opposed to less equitable “dominance hierarchy’s”.
Max Weber describes the idea of “legitimate authority” as authority considered justified and “legitimate” by both the ruler and those ruled.
When authority is considered legitimate the commands of rule are much more likely to be obeyed by the ruled group without much reliance on dominance or other forms of coercion.
He gave three forms of legitimate authority;
Rational-legal – a formal system of written laws
Traditional – established habit and custom passing from generation to generation
Charismatic – authority derived from the leader/s themselves accepted as legitimate by the ruled group.
At this point we’re into la-la-land as all these “legitimate” concepts trace back to stuff that has you arguing the existence of god or other such futile discussions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_of_force
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