In his book, entitled "Intent" [TNF-E001], Etsko Schuitema explores the essence of being human.  In it he extends his findings into an examination of their implications for social order and for how an individual experiences this.  It becomes an examination of the ' Human Condition".   He compares the appropriate form of the Human Condition and the characteristics of a supportive social order with that which is delivered by the  form of social order that has become globally dominant and most widely aspired to .  This comparison is instructive.

There is a malaise in the general experience of the Human Condition which is widely reported.  Concern over this observation is expressed, all to often as mere lip service, by politicians, business leaders, religious bodies and charitable movements.  Schuitema shows that what we increasingly experience individually is consistent with the predictions of his analysis when we each individually, and also when each society in which we live, forgets what it is to be Human.

He shows that to be Human is to be free to aspire to fulfillment.  He shows that the achievement of these two goals - freedom and fulfillment - are a result of myriad inter-personal transactions in each of which both parties seek to be both giving and yet also just.

He shows that a social order infused with this focus on quality of process, rather than on the product or outcomes of each transaction, can be self-ordering to a very large extent.  It will also be stable.  He also shows that the opposite focus dehumanises the individual.  This inevitably results in tyrannical and controlling instruments of governance and similar forms of economic activity.  These  are inherently unstable and call upon themselves ever greater forms of control over individuals and processes.    Individuals must be increasingly oppressed within social orders of this type for stability to be extended for even short historical periods.  These controls destroy the capacity of individuals to contribute to their society and so the maintenance of any social order is increasingly one-sided and inevitably oppressive. 

It can be seen that it is generally accepted, intellectually at least, by the dominant philisophies that the purpose of a social order is to facilitate and extend human rights globally at the individual level.   Shuitema's analysis is not inconsistent with this position.  The purpose of any social order is to facilitate the personal transactions of life in free and fulfilling ways.  This requires the freedom to engage in processes involving the mutual giving of value and justice.  Through the experience of these processes individuals are able to grow in their humanity and dignity. 

Instruments of governance and the means of commerce which find themselves having to become increasingly controlling and one-sided in order to maintain social order will become increasingly oppressive and tyrannical.  The only individuals who will achieve any form of fulfillment and experience and any experience of freedom will be those whose transactions with other individuals are similarly one-sided and which are favoured by the oppressive and tyrannical  social order that has come into being.

The point must inevitably come in such societies where all giving by individuals ceases.  For the few there will remain nothing else to take...  especially once most less powerful individuals have been persuaded to expend more than they have earned  thus indenturing themselves through massive liens against future income.  There only remains the marginalisation and 'commercial rape' of the least powerful, or their enslavement, if such a social order is to persist for any further time.    

Only collapse, and eventual regeneration from the resulting destruction and chaos, will follow.    This cycle has repeated itself throughout our known histories.  It will not stop unless we learn to build social orders which grow our individual humanity.  

Homo sapiens must evolve beyond mere thought and learn wisdom too.  

Or it will become extinct through its own increasing ability to consume resources and from them only produce detritus!