Economics is a tragicomic praxis par
excellence. Tragedy and comedy are seen by Aristotle as two different dramatic modes
for talking of two opposite types of human action. The former deals with noble
actions, the latter with mean actions. I propound that economics is even more
Aristotelian than drama in that while the latter does not create the action it reflects
on, the former as a fundamental human activity generates the actions it later
encompasses as a discipline. Economics also deals with noble and mean actions
with far-reaching significance equally stoically.
Economics is not simply a special way of
being and acting in the world. It is also a codified depiction or narration of
this mode of being. This economic mode relates to the construction of the
world. Aristotle describes the origin and development of drama and poetry in
two profound human instincts, namely, imitation and harmony. Imitation is
propelled by repetition, in general. Economic activity strives towards harmony
in the world through this repetitive imitation or imitative repetition. It is
born in the incessant re-enactment of simple acts aimed at producing goods and
services necessary for sustaining humanity. This simple repetition diachronically
generates increasingly complex forms of social life.
Harmony as order and stability is sought
through this vital iterative reproduction of actions by the differentiation of
tasks and distribution of produced goods. However, this repetition, where it bestows
order on the world on one hand, can also lead to chaos on the other as the
countless repetitions lead to problems of forecasting, control, and information
and communication lags in the social system keeping the possibility of conflict
ever alive.
Aristotle also maintains that human beings are
more imitative in their conduct that all other animals. Human consciousness and
the capacity for recollection of one’s difference from others is a prerequisite
for imitation because primarily that would be imitated which is not considered
to be a part of one’s own self. The repetitive
production of life turns upon our crucial ability to act upon nature and by
doing so transform the world, nature, and ourselves. This transformational
interaction itself is built around repeated acts of creativity, invention and
innovation aimed at superseding limits imposed by nature.
The primacy of plot over character is
underscored in the Aristotelian view of drama. This corresponds roughly to the relationship
between structure (supra-individual forms of social existence like the
institutions of the market, state and civil society) and agency (the individual
and collective capacity for change). If one looks at the internal coherence
enjoyed by economic analysis, irrespective of the school or the type of
analysis, one is astonished to find the same constructed completeness and
self-sufficiency regarding its propositions, proofs necessarily following from
these and the tools of analysis that is considered a prerequisite for the drama’s
plot by Aristotle. Just like a bad plot, bad theory is also said to exhibit
lack of coherence or specious induction.
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