The Maholian Way - Part Two: The Maholian Way in the lives of two

Of course this complementarity has been around since humans (or their predecessors) emerged as social beings. Since that time we’ve not only moderated our actions in the interests of those whom we care about and with whom we want to maintain good relationships; much of the time the very purpose of our actions has been to benefit those same people. And this has affected our behaviour within the two organising systems, the market and governmental system. I mentioned earlier that these systems ostensibly – or as they tend to be theoretically formulated – do not rely on us having good will or fellow feeling towards those affected by our actions, but of course we very often do have these feelings, and they do affect how we act within these systems.

So, for example, people having economic dealings with one another in close-knit communities will frequently act not purely out of self-interest, because they have valued relationships with the other parties to the dealings, they desire the wellbeing of these people, and they are also concerned about their own reputation as a decent person. And even though the market system is characterised as competitive, there is much more cooperation within it than is commonly realised. We directly compete with others wanting to buy or sell the same goods, services and labour, but we cooperate with all our fellow workers in an enterprise, and with suppliers, service providers, customers and everyone else in the production, distribution and sales chain. Often this cooperation is sustained over time and leads to strong relationships.

Likewise, ‘players’ within the governmental system – in their capacities as politicians, civil servants, interest group members, voters and citizens – are often motivated by a commitment to do the right thing by others. For example, all the organisations of civil society – from trade unions, business associations and resident action committees to sports clubs, churches and self-help groups – can be seen as promoting the interests of their members, but they can also be viewed as a whole lot of individuals caring about fellow members or about others in the wider society. Politicians and civil servants as well are frequently driven by a desire to serve society.

Notwithstanding all these instances in which we care about the effect of our actions on others, there are many other cases in which we don’t. An important change in modern times is that, as Maholians put it, the reach of our actions has expanded enormously, while the reach of our relatedness has often shrunk. Thus, through the globalised market or through actions of our governments, we can now trade with, pollute the air of, or drop bombs on people of whose existence we are not even aware. And in our own neighbourhoods we may play music too loud or fail to check on the wellbeing of our neighbours because we don’t even know them, given that there’s been a shift from communities based on locality to communities based on shared interests. So we can now act over vast distances while at the same time not even knowing who lives next door. Distance can be a barrier to the building of relations, but so can differences of interest, wealth, class, ethnicity, age, gender and life circumstances.

• Page 9