the model of man of society and its … · the model of man of society and its applicability in...

192 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ

THE MODEL OF MAN OF SOCIETY AND ITS APPLICABILITY IN TURKISH SOCIETY

İsmail Özsoy*

Birol Görmez**

I. INTRODUCTION Throughout the history, people, societies and institutions have been in a state of

flux depending on the conditions of the day. But, conversions have not always implied an absolute development, but on the contrary, they have also occured as some predictable deteriorations paralyzing the human and the society. For instance, although humankind has continuously experienced improvement in natural sciences such as technology, physics, chemistry, medicine; it has experienced rises and falls in the field of social sciences such as world peace, human rights, economic development. In other words, it has not been able to live a stable progress. Mankind has tried several economic and political system so far to live in welfare and happiness by hindering the predictable deteriorations in question and providing a continuous improvement in every field. It is likely that these trials to continue hereafter as well. Then, what are the actual reasons of these setbacks arising at times? How could a stable progress be made in every field? Why have some problems not been able to be solved out yet, although they have been thought over deeply and suggested various remedies? Have the matters been analyzed incorrectly? Has something not been included in analysis process? To our way of thinking, due to the unrealistic analysis of the human nature, systems are constructed on weak rudiments and hence, suggested systems hoped to solve out the problems produce additional matters. Worse still, these additional matters are misanalyzed either. To put in a nutshell, a vicious circle arises. Therefore, what should be handled primarily is the best-analysis of the human nature. In our opinion, only if the human nature is analyzed well without leaving out any feature of it, centennial incurable maladies are likely to be remedied. As a matter of fact, throughout the history, humankind has given various responses to the questions of what the human nature is and what kind of human type could provide world felicity. For instance, the model of economic man (homo economicus) Adam Smith, the pioneer of the classical economic thought, introduced and on which the theories of Orthodox economic thought and the capitalistic economic order was constructed is a response to the question of what the ideal human type should be for the civilization of the society in every aspect.

Adam Smith took selfish, greedy and rational sides of human nature, which might damage the world felicity in case of not being restricted by normative criteria, as basis of its model of economic man while analyzing the structures such as division of labour, competition and price system, which he considered necessary for the formation of a civilized society. To Adam Smith, the man maximizing his individual utility naturally maximizes the utility of the society. Guiding to economic activities by the invisible hand in order to contribute to society interest as maximum as possible depends on the performance of those activities in favour of the maximization of the individual

* Prof. Dr., Fatih University Department of Economics ** Research Assistant, Fatih University Department of Economics

193 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ utility. To state this hypothesis, he says: “...By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to ptomote it.”252 Although this statement hypothesized almost two centuries ago is currently accepted on the whole, it has been criticized by both heterodox schools of economics and other social sciences. The main reason of these criticisms is that the economic man whose behaviour patterns posited not to lead to any social, political and economic problems and the institutions instituted by himself unanticipatedly pave the way to some matters. For instance, as Aydıner253 stated, quoting from the weekly magazine, Newsweek, in USA, the cradle of capitalism, the real incomes of people have doubled since 1960. American’s opportunity of acquiring cars, refrigarators, spin driers have doubled in comparison with that in the past. But, divorce rate-two times-, suicide of youngs-three times-, and depressions-ten times- have increased. However, capitalism formulates the happiness (utility maximization) in the way that the harder workers would earn more money, and the ones having more money would be happier by consuming more goods and services. That is to say, the consumers getting more utility by consuming more goods and services are supposed to be happier, and not to commit suicide, not to be depressed. Besides this, capitalistic system led to some other problems such as imperfect competition, externalities, public goods, economic instabilities, unemployment, poverty, hunger, inability of democracy to progress, violation of human rights, violation of freedom of enterprise, suicide, toxicomania, racism and suffering of families.

Even it is true that the individual pursuing his own interest serves the societal interest as well up to a certain extent, but henceforth some problems arise since he gives much more weight to his own interest than social interest. Therefore, it is not certain that anything in favour of an inividual is necessarily and concurrently to be in the public interest.254 Moreover, pursuing the individual interest could even hinder the social interest to occur. As a matter of fact, this deficiency is an indicator of imperfect functionality of the economic man. But, how will the problems the man pursuing only his own interest ( homo economicus) lead to be solved? Many responses have been given to this question. It is one of those suggestions that government intervention is a must provided that the free market economy operates. It is suggested that the government should intervene in economy and social life by means of various policies driven by its various institutions. Therefore, since 1960, the governments have changed the market outcomes for the purpose of balancing the macroeconomy, redistributing the income, guaranteing the basic living standart of people by providing the full employment.255 But, the view that the governments are the organizations contributing to public interest continuously without pursuing their own interests was abandoned after a while. What led to the abandonment of this view in question were the theories drawing attention to the point that the people in charge of designing policies to solve problems could attempt to maximize their own or some other people’s interest and therefore they could damage the social interest more than providing utility.

As can be seen, the main reason reducing the efficiency of the government intervention is the same as the reason reducing the efficiency of the operation of the

252 Özsoy, İsmail (2006), ‘Human Transformation in the Transition Economies: The case of Georgia’, Journal of East-West Business, Vol.12, no.4, 2006, pp. 71-103 253 Aydıner, Furkan (2004), Global Kapitalizmin (Mutluluk) Krizi, http://www.koprudergisi.com/index.asp?Bolum=EskiSayilar&Goster=Yazi&YaziNo=61, accessed on 26.07.2008 254 Özsoy, İsmail, "İktisadî Adam ve Toplum Adamı (Homo Societius versus Homo Economicus)", Birinci İktisat Tarihi Kongresi, İstanbul / Türkiye, Sep. 2007 255 ÖZSOY, 2007, ibid.

194 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ free market grounded on the price system. Homo economicus, caring about his interest primarily and not hesitating to damage the society to gain this interest, not being able to balance the individual interest and social responsibility and concern gave way to government and market failures. These failures show us that an alternative human type, minding any kind of moral values more than the maximization of any sort of economic goals concurrently with having the productive feature of economic man, socially concerned, preferring social interest to individual interest, is needed. In Ben-Ner and Putterman’s words, a mixture of self-interest and normative constraint, not self-interest alone, is what now appears to be required in order to achieve maximum Smithian prosperity.256 This study reanalyzes the human nature by combining the true findings of economic man and its alternative models of man and integrating them with new thoughts and gives information about a recently introduced model of man, the model of man of society. It is apparent that the responses to the question of what the human nature are concurrently the responses to the problem of how the political and economic systems should be designed As Dr.Furkan Aydıner stated: if human has a wild nature, then, as Hobbes suggested, it is possible to gather them in peace only by means of a iron-glooved state.257 Therefore the model of man of society supports the arguments that the current capitalistic order based on economic man ought to be restructured.

Alternative to economic man alleged to have caused to countless economic, social and political problems of our time, many new models of man have been suggested. In the ensuing chapters, firstly, three of the alternative models to economic man to be studied. Later on, our suggestion, the model of man of society (homo societus), is to be dealt with broadly in comparison with economic man.

II. ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF MAN Many models of man alternative to homo economicus, whose decision making

process is not affected by the normative elements such as religion, moral principles, and whose behaviours are set in accordance with individual interest reckoning, have been improved.

For instance, model of homo sociologicus of sociology (Hirsch and Friedman 1990), model of homo institutional economicus of institutional economics (Hodgson 1998 and Tomer 2001), model of homo socio-economicus of social economics (O'Boyle 1994, Waters 1988 and Etzioni 1988) and lastly model of homo humanistic economicus of humanistic economics (Tomer 2001) are the alternative models to homo economicus.

One of the reasons of these models of having been built up is undoubtedly to give some idea about the human type which could find remedies to unsolved matters. With these models, the issues regarding to human nature and effecting every field of life, such as human courses of conduct, behaviour motives, preferences, and expectations, were tried to be elucidated. These suggested models aimed at resetting the tie between society and economics. In the succeeding part, we study the model of homo institutional economicus, the model of homo socio-economicus, the model of homo humanistic economicus and the basic characteristics of the corresponding heteredox schools of economics.

256 Ben-Ner, Avner and Louis Putterman. 1997. Values and Institutions in Economic Analysis 1. 27 Jan 1997 version. http://www.brown.edu (accessed Aug 16, 2005). 257 Aydıner, Furkan (2004), Global Kapitalizmin (Mutluluk) Krizi, http://www.koprudergisi.com/index.asp?Bolum=EskiSayilar&Goster=Yazi&YaziNo=61, accessed on 26.07.2008

195 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ Institutional Economics and Homo Institutional Economics

The basis of institutional economics was laid by Thorstein B.Veblen, John R.Commons and Wesley Clair Mitchell (Old institutional economists) as an alternative to neoclassical and marxian economics of thought. In the course of time, it was seperated as old institutional economics and new institutional economics. At the present time, the new institutional economics developed into a heterodox school of economics, including such a wide range of economics of thought as Public choice and constitutional economics, Freiburg school of economics and ordo liberalism, Austrian school of economics, Property rights and transaction costs.

The common denominator of both old and new institutional economic streams is that it takes institutions as explanatory factor. The basic issue on which institutional economics focuses is to probe the institutional alteration process and the influence of this alteration on economic life more than viewing the effects of institutions on economic behaviours.258

To state more broadly, rules and institutions affecting the economic life became the main focus point of institutional economics. What does ‘institution’ mean for institutional economists? While the term ‘institution’ is defined by Thorstein Veblen, the founder of this school, as ‘habits of thought’, by Commons as ‘collective action in control, liberation and expansion of individual action’, by Mitchell as ‘widely accepted well-standardized social habits’, it is discussed by Douglas North, new institutional economist, as ‘rules of the game’.259 The basic philosophy of institutional school of economics impressed by the economic thought of German school of historian greatly is the philosophy of pragmatism constructed on utilitarian philosophy. The philosophy of utilitarianism, founded in Aipikuros’era, the archaic Greek philosopher, was developed as a seperate school of thought by Jeremy Bentham for the first time. Utilitarianism defined in various ways is defined as both the theory of good and the theory of true at the present day. Utilitarianism as the theory of good is welfarist. ‘Good’ is the one providing the maximum utility and utility is defined according to pleasure, satisfaction or a list of objective values. As a theory of true, utilitarianism is consequentialist. The true move is the one yielding the maximum utility.260

John Stuart Mill, the follower of Jeremy Bentham, improved the philosophy of utilitarianism and later on Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey developed the philosophical movement denominated ‘pragmatism’ by benefiting from the philosophy of utilitarianism. To W.James, pragmatism is a method. Pragmatism as a method states that human life has a goal. Hence, all institutions, all information are perfect only if they contribute to human life and help people achieve their objectives. Theories are meaningful as long as they render a concrete benefit.261 The view ‘something not beneficial is not true’ constitutes the core of pragmatism. John Dewey developed noteworthy views on institutions. He defended the thesis that institutions appear as a result of needs could not be always valid, and sometimes needs could be explained and even changed by institutions. In this context, he frequently criticized the institutions of America and requested the formation of new institutions that could

258 http://www.canaktan.org/ekonomi/kurumsal-iktisat/yeni_kurumsal.htm, accessed on June 29, 2008. 259 http://www.canaktan.org/ekonomi/kurumsal-iktisat/yeni_kurumsal.htm, accessed on June 29, 2008. 260 http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faydac%C4%B1l%C4%B1k, accessed on June 29, 2008. 261 http://felsefetarihi.net/pragmatizm.htm, accessed on July 27, 2008

196 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ satisfy the social needs.262 These views of Dewey were accepted by institutional economists as well.

To institutional economists, economic life is not unchanging but dynamic. That is to say, it could change to time and place. Therefore, it is not possible to set generally accepted economic laws. Parallel to this principle, old institutional economics considered the government intervention necessary in conformity with the socio-economic facts of the period in which it grew. However, this intervention should not be perceived as the government to take part in the markets actively. The government should make the rules to eleminate the matters and take precautions so that these rules to be obeyed.263 Conversely, new school of institutional economics defended the restriction of the role of the government in economic life. The opinions of the school of institutional economics about the role of the government in economy changed in course of time.

To summarize, according to school of institutional economics, the arts such as sociology, psychology, politics, finance, management, history shouls be benefited while analysing the economic events. The importance of institutions in the development of economic events and activities is great.264 The object for study of institutional economic thought is institutions. Institutional economics is a heterodox school of economics focusing on institutions made by people. To this school, there is a mutual interaction between institutions and values. While the preferences of people, their future expectations, and habits determine the structure of the institutions, concurrently, all these concepts in question are restricted and shaped by them. Put it differently, the relationship between institutions/organizations and values could be likened to a two-way street. While the preferences of individuals help determine which institution/organization is to continue ; on the other hand, institutions/organizations effect the individual preferences.265

Homo institutional economicus does not have an unchanging character like homo economicus depending on the dynamism of the economic life. He is continuously in a state of flux. His behaviours are shaped by internal and external factors. Habits as internal factors and rules, institutions as external factors are the most important elements determining the preferences and behaviour patterns of homo economicus. He can care about his individual interest like economic man. But, that the maximization of his interest is not the basic factor directing his behaviours and what he wants are determined by institutions and social evolution predominantly removes him from being a rational man like an economic man. Consequently, he is not a good utility reckoner and does not endeavour to maximize the utility. Institutional economic man’s behaviours not intended to maximize his interest could result in inefficient use of the resources. The evolution of the behaviours of homo institutional economicus is explained completely based on environmental elements. But, on the other hand, it is not taken into consideration that these behaviours could be shaped based on the decisions made independent of the environmental factors as well.

262 http://www.canaktan.org/ekonomi/kurumsal-iktisat/eski_kurumsal.htm, accessed on June 29, 2008. 263 http://www.canaktan.org/ekonomi/kurumsal-iktisat/eski_kurumsal.htm, accessed on June 29, 2008. 264 http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurumsal_iktisat, accessed on June 29, 2008. 265 Özsoy, İsmail, "İktisadî Adam ve Toplum Adamı (Homo Societius versus Homo Economicus)", Birinci İktisat Tarihi Kongresi, İstanbul / Türkiye, Sep. 2007


Social economics and Homo socio-economicus Among the social economic strands of thought are mainly institutionalism,

Marxism/materialism, post-Keynesian economics and humanistic Argentine R.Amadeo defines social economy as the organization of the all elements of the society. The main sphere of interest of social economics is the coordination of alternative behaviours and decisions, which are displayed by millions of people in various ways and which have different advantages and disadvantages, allocation of resources for the fruition of these alternatives and introducing a new economic order. Social economics moves economic thought away from the dehumanised, mathematical, and amoral stance, which has formed the basis of conventional economics since the Industrial Revolution, to the position that explores the ethical foundations and implications of economic analysis, along with the individual and social dimensions of economic problems. Thus, it tries to help shape economic policy that is consistent with the integral values of the person and a humane community.

Social economic man (homo socio-economicus) strives for individual economic betterment like economic man as per one side of his personality. This feature constitutes the ‘I’ side of his personality and explains the economic dimension of his behaviours. As per the other side of his personality, he is a social being concurrently. In other words, he is not isolated from his family, friends, and community. He is aware of his responsibilities to the other people and his rights other people owe to him. This awareness constitutes the ‘We’ side of his personality and explains the social side of his behaviours. These ‘I’ and ‘we’ sides of his personality, which are frequently in conflict with each other, are the main factors affecting the behaviours of social economic man. Social economic man can not stop the conflict between the ‘I’ and ‘ we’ sides of his personality and thus, he can not balance his social responsibilities and the maximization of individual interests. The dominating one of ‘I’ and ‘ we’ sides determine the behaviour type. Social economic man can not manage to be a good interest maximizer like economic man, for bearing some responsibilities to society. He can not be succesfull mainly although he can behave as rational as an economic man. Because his decisions are primarily shaped by his emotions and value judgements for being a member of community. His logic and experience affect his decisions secondarily. In other words, ‘we’ side mostly dominate ‘I’ side and thus he can not set a balance between them. Social economic man is not a pure individual human like economic man. He is a communal being and has a conscience. He acts under the effect of many factors such as justice, human dignity, duty, loyalty many other moral and ethical considerations.

Humanistic economics and Homo humanistic economicus Humanistic economics is predominantly defined as a view based on humanistic

psychology, moral philosophy, humanistic sociology and last but not least on common sense. To state broadly, humanistic economics of today attempts to define, analyze and assess the socio-economic institutions and policies and imposes normative rules on how these elements could be developed for human welfare. Basic human needs, human rights, human dignity, human equality, freedom, economic democracy and economic sustainability is the framework of the mentioned attempts of humanistic economics.

Humanistic economics can be seen as a response to modern world operating on the philosophy introduced by today’s dominating economic order thought, which is

198 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ defined by E.F. Schumacher as ‘the religion of materialism’. One of the differences of Humanistic economics from mainstream economics is its drawing a difference between needs and wants. To this economic thinking, the needs of humankind can be classified as ‘the lower needs (material needs)’ and ‘the higher needs (spiritual needs)’ in accordance with Maslow’s the theory of hierarchy of needs. The concept of lower and higher needs describes a polarity, which goes from the physical at one end to the nonphysical (or spiritual) at the other. The two ends of the polarity of human motivation define two different "selves"--a lower and a higher. Standard economics is the economics of only the lower self. Thus it describes human beings and the world they inhabit as only the world of the lower self, and from the humanistic perspective this is a truncated view of the person and a truncated world. Humanistic economics envisions itself as a full economics--describing a world of complete people, with their lower and higher motives, in a complete world that can serve everyone’s real needs, rather than their false and constantly economically generated wants.266 Each self, the lower and the higher selves, in a person means a direction in consistent with their names, downward and the higher upward. Since it is not possible to go in two directions at the same time, tension results.

One of the approaches to ascertain and explain the human is humanistic economic man. Humanistic economic man has features overlapping that of social economic man. His basic needs develop as specified in the hierarchy of needs enhanced by Abraham Maslow. To Maslow, the degree of personality development of an individual is at the level corresponding to the category of needs, which are dominant thereupon, independent of his will and choice267 Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs from the lowest to the highest are: 1) physiological (breathing, food, water...etc), 2) safety (security of body, of the family, of property...etc), 3) belonging/love (friendship, family...etc), 4) esteem (self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect to others, respect by others...etc), 5) self-actualization (the achievement of one’s full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity, and a grasp of the real world), and 6) transcendence. While the concept of physical or material needs refer to the lower needs, the nonphysical or spiritual needs refer to the higher needs. As can be understood from the hierarchy, the personality of humanistic economic man has two sides: simple (lower) side and supreme (higher) side. While simple side (lower self) of his personality reflects his material needs, supreme side (higher self) reflects reasonable, ideal and moral aspects of his personality, that is to say his spiritual needs. Like the conflict between the ‘I’ and ‘we’ sides of social economic man, there is tension between the lower and higher selves of humanistic economic man as well. Humanistic economic man, before all else, aims at satisfying his material needs. When a person satisfies lower needs on the hierarchy, he or she can then move on to higher needs. That is to say, a person can not perceive the needs of the upper level without satisfying the needs of the current level. For instance, a person who satisfies his nourishment need but is not in secure, does not have the need to read books. Only after the needs in a category are satisfied, the person moves to satisfy his upper level needs. This movement does naturally draw the degree of personality development of the person to the upper level. Humanistic economic man tends to satisfy his upper level needs after satisfying his lower level needs. Put it differently, satisfying the material needs is not an ultimate goal for him. The movement from the lowest to the highest stages as the development progresses is tantamount to move from the pursuance of

266 http://www.humanisticeconomics.net/, accessed on July 21, 2008 267 http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow_teorisi, accessed on July 10, 2008.

199 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ material needs of self to ideal, moral aspects of self. We should also note that humanistic economic man’s higher human nature includes, among other things, the capacity for altruism, self-reflection in line with deeply held values and truths, creativity, spontaneity, commitment, and nonpower seeking. The existence of this high human potential does not, however, imply its realization; humanistic economic man almost always fails to live up to this potential.

Evaluation To define the human, his function and place in economic and social life, many

human models have been developed. Each of the models has made a true judgement besides false judgements about human nature, but failed to analyze the human nature perfectly. The above detailed man of models alternative to economic man highlighted the different sides of human nature, but could not analyze it in a holistic way and save from the conflicts. For instance institutional economic man, between his internal and external elements, social economic man, between the ‘I’ and ‘we’ sides of his personality, humanistic economic man, between the lower and higher selves of his personality, live conflict. It is inevitable that economic systems designed based on those human models which are continuously in conflict bring about many social, political and economic problems. It is impossible that a person in conflict to make the best decision in favour of both his and society’s interest. Failing to set the balance between the individual and social interest results in the unfair operation of production, distribution and consumption processes among people. While some people gain advantage of these processes, some others end up losers. This situation is against economic justice. In this study, we give some detailed information about a new human type, called man of society (homo societus) and who pursues not only his individual interest but also social interest, and evaluate the applicability of this model in Turkish society depending on a survey. Our aim is to give opinion about the behaviour patterns of the ideal man of model who could help the humanity equalize currently dominating economic system, which was constructed on the feature of ‘thinking no end on himself and his interest more than everything else’ of human nature, eliminate the social, economic and political problems from the prevailing system, and last but not least integrate the system into moral values in order to make the system more sustainable.

III. THE MODEL OF MAN OF SOCIETY

The Concept of Man of Society

The model of man of society is not an alternative to the man of models other schools of economics, social sciences, and behavioural sciences developed. Put it differently, the model of man of society is not a specific model rejecting the other models comletely. The model of man of society is a model accepting the correct and rejecting the incorrect findings of other models about the human nature, and completing the deficiently analyzed sides of it. The model of man of society reconciles the conventional economics with heterodox economics, social and behavioural sciences and includes the best parts almost all of man models, by ovelapping with the findings of these schools and sciences.268 The model of man of society is based on and supported by:

268 Özsoy, İsmail, "İktisadî Adam ve Toplum Adamı (Homo Societius versus Homo Economicus)", Birinci İktisat Tarihi Kongresi, İstanbul / Türkiye, Sep. 2007


(1) Productive aspect of economic man of A.Smith

(2) Neoclassical assumption that people have rational preferences among outcomes that can be identified and associated with a value, and that individuals maximize utility and firms maximize profit

(3) Optimal allocative and distributive aspect of Marginalism based on the law of diminishing marginal utility.

(4) Ken Wilber’s model of human development

(5) Abraham Maslow’s model of hierarchy of human need.269

Man of society is a reliable, just, alruist and rational balancing man. There is no immoderateness in his behaviours. That is to say, he is always moderate. He has both an individual and a social personality. The term ‘man’ represents the feature of his being an individual, and the term ‘society’ represents the feature of his being a member of the society. In any case, his decisions are featured of making other people happy and contributing to social peace. His motto is ‘live and let live’ or ‘let live and live’.

‘Need, Utility and Man of society’ Human is not a pure physiological being who has only material or physical

needs such as eating, drinking, sheltering, dressing, travelling, reading, listening to music. Because he is not composed of a body. He has a spirit besides a body. His spirit has also some spiritual needs to be satisfied. But, these spiritual needs do not consist of ones called higher needs in Maslow’s hierarchy. Because, it is not aimed to contribute to society in the satisfaction process of higher needs described in the hierachy of Maslow. The satisfaction of spiritual need such as being happy or getting relieved by meeting the material or non material needs of other people is not discussed in the hierarchy. In other words, Maslow did not give place to a spiritual need that could be met by means of satisfying other people’s needs. For instance, at the fourth level, for the satisfaction of the spiritual need of ‘respect by others’, another needy person is not helped materially or spiritually. It is possible to observe the same at the satisfaction of all other higher needs. Additionally, Another spiritual need, ‘believing in creator, which must be definetely satisfied, is also not given place in the hierarchy. However, man of society meets some of his spiritual needs by helping other people materially and spiritually and believing in Creator. Man of society has many types of spiritual needs that arise in the form of believing in God, gaining his consent, going to the heaven, cleansing from the sins by favouring the mankind. In summary, the spiritual needs of man of society should be handled in a broader context than described higher needs of Maslow. He has the opportunity of letting other people live, since he lives in a world where millions of people, to whose pains he can not be indifferent, inhabit, but not on a deserted island no one else except Cuma lives like Robinson Crusoe does. What are the basic features of man of society’s material and spiritual needs? What kind of utilities does the satisfaction of the needs provide? What kind of sources does he need to meet his requirements?

Human need is composed of material/bodily need, which is still disputable whether it is finite or infinite, and infinite, vital for humankind, spiritual non material need (spiritual need). It is possible to divide material need into two parts as necessities 269 Özsoy, İsmail (2006), ‘Human Transformation in the Transition Economies: The case of Georgia’, Journal of East-West Business, Vol.12, no.4, 2006, pp.71-103

201 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ and unnecessities. To exemplify the material needs; nourihment, heating, sheltering are necessities; listening to music, travelling, reading are unnecesities. Believing in God, gaining the consent of him, going to the heaven, loving, being loved, being successful,

being appreciated, a happy family life could be given as examples to spiritual needs. No doubt, some means are needed to satisfy the mentioned needs. That is to say, the satisfaction of material and spiritual needs requires some goods and services and sope people to produce these means. This reality makes the man a social being, forces him to take a role in the society, and leads to division of labour. In other words, it is impossible for men to meet his all material and spiritual needs arising in different forms and being satisfied in different ways without the other lifeless and alive beings composed of other people, animals, plants. Therefore, humankind has to be in cooperation with all other beings. At the end of these cooperations, he gains utility by meeting his needs.

Material needs are limited and satiable, since human body has a limited capacity and is mortal. On the other hand, spiritual needs are unlimited and insatiable, since the spirit is immortal. Spirit desires the eternity. The infinite life of the spirit makes his needs infinite and insatiable. Thus, considering all kind of needs as unlimited and infinite as posited by conventional economics is not true. While the satisfied material needs render material utility, the met spiritual needs render spiritual utility. For instance, whereas drinking water gives material utility, cash or non-cash donation to a charity provides spiritual utility in the form happiness, peace and pleasure. The satisfied spiritual needs provide much more happiness than met material needs. The unsatisfied spiritual needs burden much more pain and distress than the unmet material needs. This difference is absolutely observed in the long run, if not in the short run. Besides, whereas the utility gained from the satisfaction of spiritual needs and the pain suffered due to it’s dissatisfaction are unlimited, the utility gained from the satisfaction of the material needs and pain suffered from dissatisfaction of it is limited. This contrast is no doubt related to infinity of the spirit and finity of the body.

To meet the needs and thereby gain utility, some sources are required. While there is a strong requirement for goods and services for the satisfaction of material needs, goods or services may not always be required for the meeting of spiritual needs. To exemplify, to meet the nourishment need, a material need, we need something to eat or drink. But, besides the requirement of goods for the satisfaction of a spiritual need, we may not always have to have something material to meet it. For instance, it is possible to be happy and thereby gain spiritual utility by commiserating with a sad person, helping a blind person cross the street. As seen, we may not always need to have material sources to get spiritual utility. Even a person who is not able to gratify his material need by using his own material sources could satisfy his spiritual needs thanks to his endless emotions such as sympathy, clemency, compassion, conscience, altruism, we name as spiritual source and by helping other beings in various ways. Furthermore, while all people can not possess goods and services named as material sources, all people possess spiritual sources innately. Some people benefit from these spiritual sources, but some others do not, and naturally these emotions become blunt in time. To sum up, material and spiritual needs are the needs which make people dependent on each other. People could get material and spiritual utility by making use of their both kinds of sources.

Man of society is a being using his all sources in favour of other people as well. Unlike economic man, he is not a person pursuing only his individual needs and not

202 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ aiming at meeting other’s needs. Besides the material needs, he tries to maximize his spiritual needs too. Moreover, he is richer than economic man, since he makes use of his spiritual sources besides the material sources. While he uses his limited material sources firstly for himself and his family and secondly for all other alive and lifeless beings beginning from his closest environment, he uses his unlimited spiritual sources for all beings without putting them in order. How will the process of using sources for others operate? It is likely to elucidate this process by using the law of diminishing marginal utility based on marginalism that labelled on economic theory.

Marginalism and Man of Society Man of society is altruist. He feels the pain other people suffer from. He does

his best to mitigate the pain of other alives. He tries to satisfy not only his needs but also other beings’ needs in accordance with his feature of altruism. In this way, he gains spiritual utility besides the material as well. It is possible to explain this behaviour type by using an example frequently used to illustrate the law of diminishing marginal utility. Let’s presume an awfully thirsty person. At the first sup, he gets a huge material utility since the greatest part of the bitter of thirst is eliminated. But, as he goes on supping the water, the severity of the eleminated bitter, thus the gained additional material utility, marginal utility, declines. At a certain point, the intensity of the pain and the marginal (material) utility becomes zero. After that zero point, keeping on drinking water does not provide any material utility to him, on the contrary it may be even harmful. This zero point is a point that is certainly encountered during the satisfaction process of any kind of material need. The said satiety point, that is to say zero point, is concurrently the point of meaningless of life for economic man who lives only to meet his needs but does not care about the material needs of other people. As from this point, life does not have any meaning. Getting rescued from this sinister point depends on sharing the water with needies. As a result of the share, the material utility of the water owner turns into spiritual utility and his total utility becomes everlasting. The altruistic character of man of society gives him the opportunity of making his total utility everlasting. To achive this, either he lends the water in excess of his need at zero point to a needy or if he foresees that he can not have excess water at zero point, he saves some water by not satisfying his entire need, then lends it to the needies and gains spiritual utility. In this way, he gains infinite spiritual utility by rescuing himself from the restraint of material utility. Above all, he rescues himself from the point of meaningless of life by getting unlimited utility from a simple water-drinking process. On the other hand, he transfers the material utility by sharing his water In this way, while he gets material and spiritual utility, another person gets material utility. It is noteworthy that spiritual utility is not subject to the law of diminishing marginal utility like material utility. Reaching the satiety point of spiritual utility is not possible. Because, there is no limit for spiritual satisfaction. Man of society is an altruist person who could get infinite utility besides only material utility by sharing what he consumes.

Man of society as a rational man gives more importance to spiritual utility than material utility, since the satisfation of spiritual need gives limitless and more utility than the satisfaction of material need and strives to maximize his total utility. To achieve this goal, he utilizes all his sources most efficiently. But, the more importance given to spiritual utility does not necessarily mean that man of society quits the material utility in a way to let his family and himself suffer pain of unsatisfied material need. In other words, man of society uses his material sources firstly to satisfy his and his family’s material needs following the principle of ‘charity begins at home’ . Later on, he tries to satisfy his non-material needs by making use of his material sources. On the

203 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ other hand, he uses his infinite spiritual sources for all beings without setting any priority.

We link that each man of society gives the priority to himself and his family while distributing all his material sources to the fact that each man is primarily an inividual and subsequently a member of society. To put it differently, there is selfishness in the nature of each man and thus man of society to a certain extent. But, this emotion is at a reasonable level that is enough only to help him maintain his and his family’s being. That is to say, man of society is not an economic-man-type selfish man, who does not care about other’s needs and endeavours to maximize his individual utility even though it is in disfavour of others. Unlike the economic man, he is not a man who does not share all everything granted to him even though the quantity of granteds is in excess of the required quantity to meet his and his family’s needs. As a matter of fact, the efficient allocation of sources in the market depend on the existence of this emotion. Man of society as a consumer plays an important role in not only the efficient but also in the just allocation of sources as a rational, utility maximizer and moderately selfish person. In this way, he contributes to social peace by helping the prevention of social clash and alienation. It is possible to say that there is a similarity between economic man on which A.Smith bases his economic thought and the model of man of society in the aspect of the efficient allocation of sources.

Rational Behaviour and Man of Society Man of society who uses his material sources both for his and others’ material

needs increases the total social utility since he contributes both to his material and spiritual utility and others’ material utility. In other words, after the satiety point where material utility is zero or before this point, he increases his total utility as a result of the increase in his spiritual utility by means of spending his material sources for other people. Concurrently, he conduces to increase in total social utility by increasing others’ material utility. Besides, since the helped people are at the first tages of the consumption, their material utility is more than his own marginal material utility gained from consumption of one more unit. Hereby, man of society helps the society maximize its welfare and happiness by transfering the material sources from the people who need less to the people who need more and by leading to the allocation of sources among material and spiritual needs.270 This type of behaviour is undoubtedly more rational than economic man’s behaviour type oriented to maximize his own utility. Furthermore, his contribution to total social utility makes man of society a more preferable man of model compared to economic man since it makes the social structure more peaceful. It may not be perceived as an economic behaviour that man of society spends his sources in excess of his needs for other people. That is to say, it may be considered as an irrational behaviour. In fact, this kind of behaviour is rational. Because man of society has to meet his spiritual needs besides his material needs and get spiritual utility along with material utility. Therefore, it is a rational behaviour that he spends his sources for gaining both kinds of utility and thereby increasing total utiliy. The spiritual utilities of man of society could have religious forms such as gaining the consent of God and thereby going to the heaven as a result of the aid to other people along or be some relief in the form of happiness, peace, pleasure. Whatever the form of spiritual utility is, helping other people is an appreciable behaviour since it contributes 270 ÖZSOY, İsmail, "İktisadî Adam ve Toplum Adamı (Homo Societius versus Homo Economicus)", Birinci İktisat Tarihi Kongresi, İstanbul / Türkiye, Sep. 2007

204 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ to social peace and this kind of behaviours could be displayed only by altruist people who feel the pain of other people from the bottom of their hearts.

Altruism and Man of Society Human is a social being. He can not live a hermit life for a long time. He has to

communicate with all other people beginning from his closests. One of the necessary conditions of his being succesful in these mutual communications is his ability of empathy. One reason that man has empathy with others, among others, is that morality requires ‘moral man’ to be a social being271, meaning that he has to have social concerns. Empathy is the ability of recognizing another's state of mind or emotion. It is described as the ability to ‘put oneself into another's shoes’, or to in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself. Thanks to this ability, anyone could foresee the reactions of other people against his remarks or behaviours. In this way, he converts his remarks and behaviours into a manner, from which no one sufferes and on the contrary becomes happy to hear and see. Sometimes, he also puts himself in a troubled someone’s place, feels the same trouble and seeks the best solution. Therefore, empathy is a sublime aptitude, granted to human being, and which lead to increase in social peace and happiness by raising the mutual love and respect in the society. Man of society puts himself in others’ place in every economic and non economic decisions and does not take only his own interest but also others’. Thus, man of society who sets the balance individual interests and social interets is a just person. He does not do anyone injustice and let anyone do injustice. He does not wink at injustice. Consequently, we could say that there is justice in every economic activity in which man of society takes part. To generalize, there is no injustice in such economic processes as production, distribution and consumption, where man of society is the dominant economic unit.

There are many factors enabling man of society to set empathy with other people. One of them is that he is altruist-charactered innate. Altruism linking all people in a society to each other strongly and thus increasing the brotherhood exists in every human nature. But not every person could utilize this capacity. Altruism, that is to say mourning for others’ troubles is like a character in man of society. This is the sublime side of his character. But it is not correct to say that this emotion developed at the same degree in each man of society. The development degree of the mentioned character could change from person to person, society to society and even time to time.

The other two factors directing man of society to construct empathy with other people are religious elements and moral values, which could be defined as normative values. It is not likely to explain all behaviours of man of society with positivist thought. Man of society could also display behaviours, which are devoid of metaphysics postulates, which are based on the material side of the world. The behaviours of man of society, who has a soul that has some needs to be met, could include both positive and normative elements.272 Therefore it is not possible to explain all economic behaviours in the framework of maximization of individual utility. Man of society could shape his behaviours under the effect of religious elements and moral

271 Dingley, James C. 1997. Durkheim, Mayo, Morality and Management. Journal of Business Ethics. Augustos ’97. 16(11): 1117-29. http://search.epnet.com (accessed June 4, 2004). 272 ÖZSOY, İsmail, "İktisadî Adam ve Toplum Adamı (Homo Societius versus Homo Economicus)", Birinci İktisat Tarihi Kongresi, İstanbul / Türkiye, Sep. 2007

205 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ values. Put it differently, it is inevitable that man of society to be affected by normative values during the process of economic and non economic decision making.

The altruist man of society is concerned with all other alive and lifeless beings in the farthest place of the world, begining from himself and the closest environment. He can not be indifferent to other beings’ pain. Others’ distressing is his distressing and others’ happiness is his happiness. Therefore, he also strives for the satisfaction of other beings’ needs at least he does for his. To this end, he helps other people materially and spiritually. He does not make race, religion or any kind of discrimination while helping other people. He never helps with the intention of getting material gain, getting known and respected by the society. As we mentioned before, material aid shows by no more use of the related goods or services as from the satiety point and the transfer of them needies starting from the closest environment. Many people who shares his requirement with other people before the satiety point could be also observed in a society. This kind of men embody the ideal men of society. The transfer of the material sources staring from the near surroundings enables the just and optimal or efficient allocation of sources. The share of unneeded and planned to be transferred materials with unknown and uncontrollable people may result in the collection of them in some certain hands, thus

unuse of them by other needies. This misallocation of sources goes against efficient and just allocation. Besides, not giving priority to relatives and neighbours, that is to say near surroundings, may give rise to unfriendliness, which certainly damages social peace man of society attaches great importance. Besides, the transfer of unneeded material sources surely contribute to eleminate the injustice in distribution of income. In spiritual aid, the source is transferred to needies without any restriction or ordering. Because spiritual sources are infinite and abundant enough to suffice for everyone’s needs and do not decline as used.

Standard Man of Society and Ideal Man of Society It is hard to say that the development degree of virtues such as altruism, charity

in each man of society is the same. We could explain this difference by analyzing the law of diminishing marginal utility in the following way: A standart man of society uses his material sources firstly to meet his and his family’s needs. He satisfies his needs completely and reaches the satiety point. After reaching this point, he transfers his unused sources to dependents. In case that his sources are barely enough to meet his and his family’s needs, he does not think of saving some of his sources by foregoing to meet some needs and transfering them to needies. The man of society acting in this way is called standard man of society. Standard man of society’s such socially concerned emotions of altruism and charity are less developed than those of other men of society. Shortly, for standart man of society charity begins at home. His main motto is live and let live. He gives the priority to maximizing his and his family’s utility. He does not think of helping other people without guaranteeing his and his family’s physical existence. He can restrict his material or spiritual needs. Put it differently, he does not help others as much as he could affford.

On the contrary, ideal man of society’s emotions of altruism, and charity are developed at the highest degree. The law of diminishing marginal utility can not explain the consumption behaviours of ideal man of society. Ideal man of sociey can use all his material sources for other people’s needs, even though he and his family are

206 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ in need. If he still has some sources after meeting other people’s needs, he satisfies firstly his family’s and later his needs. Because he gives more importance to infinite spiritual utility than material utility. Thus, others’ interest is more important than his. It is diffucult to see ideal man of society abundantly and in every society. What is the main factor guiding ideal man of society to the highest degree of altruism and generosity? To us, the main reason of this kind of behaviour patterns of ideal man of society is the dominance of spiritual utility of gaining God’s consent and thereby going to the heaven than other kind of spiritual utilities. In other words, it is impossible to see this kind of ideal behaviours to be displayed by any man of society unless mentioned kind of spiritual utility dominates the other kind of spiritual utilities. Shortly, for ideal man of society, charity does not begin at home. His motto is “Let live and live”. He does not care about his and his family’s physical existence without guaranteeing the physical existence of others. He never puts a limit on his aids. He insistently seeks ways for more and various aids.

The basic difference between standard man of society and ideal man of society is the difference between their degrees of social concern. Compared to standard man, ideal man contributes more to everything in favour of the society. Because he atttaches more importance to social peace and happiness than his. But, in any case, both types of man of society are the indispensable elements of an ideal society.

Is man of society whose features we have analyzed a utopia? Or is it a living being? A questionnaire was carried out in Turkey to search the existence of man of society in Turkey. In the succeeding part are the results of this survey which is similar to the one in Georgia and which proves that man of society lives among Georgian people.

IV-MAN OF SOCIETY AND ITS APPICATION IN TURKISH SOCIETY To check whether the model of man of society was valid in Turkey, a

comprehensive survey with 328 participants was performed. Our findings are like the following:

To the question of putting in order the aims of gaining money; responded 73.2 % of 328 participants as ‘my first aim at gaining money is to aid my family’, 34.1 % as ‘my second aim at gaining money is to improve my work’, 29.3 % as ‘my third aim at gaining money is to increase my capital’, 41.5 % as ‘my fourth aim is to aid poor people’. As can be seen from the results, these data overlap with the such principles of standard man of society as ‘live and let live’ and ‘charity begins at home’, which imply giving the priority to the maintenance of his and his family’s existence. Our participants, unlike economic man, display the behaviour of a standard man of society by giving the first three priorities to the welfare of himself and his family, but also not neglecting the poor people. Neverthless, the choices of the participants indicate that they are not ideal men of society.

‘Have you ever spent money for charitable purposes?’ To this question, 97.6 % of participants responded as ‘yes’. This ratio also means that they are men of society. Because man of society does not think of only his happiness, but also others’.To this effect, he aids other people materially and spiritually.

Thirdly, to the question of ‘What portion of your monthly income dou you spend for charity purposes?’ responded 56.1 % of participants as ‘between 1-5 %’, 9.5 % as ‘between 10-20 %’ 27.1 % as ‘between 6-10 %’, 4.6 % as ’20 % and more’. 9

207 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ people did not give any response. Whereas a standart man of society spends his income in excess of his needs for charity purposes, an ideal man of society spends the greatest part of his income for charity works even though he is not able to meet his needs. Almost all participants’ spending a certain proportion of their income for charities indicates that they behave in accordance with the feaures of man of society.

‘What sort of charities have you made so far?’. This question was responded as ‘cash/non cash’ by 54 %, ‘material and non-material’ by 4.8 %, and ‘sacrificial/zakhat/stipend’ by 12.8 %. 93 people did not give any response. Man of society could aid in various waysç If needed, he could display an altruistic behaviour by lending his house to someone else or he could make someone else happy by a sweet smile. The responses to this question explicitly show that participants help other people by making use of all kind sources, and thus they act like a man of society.

To the question of ‘Where does the biggest part of your charity go?’ responded 39.9 % as ‘to destitutes’, 25.3 % as ‘to school construction’, 22 % as ‘to mosques and qur’an courses’, 10.4 % as ‘to construction of dormitories’. 8 people did not answer the question. Man of society aids everyone and every institution without making any discrimination. His main aim is the happiness and peace of the society.

The question, ‘How much income is required do you think to start the charity works’, was answered as follows: 20.1 % as ‘between 0-500 YTL’, 28.7 % as ‘between 500-1000 YTL’, 31.7 % as ‘between 1000-2000 YTL’, 13.1 % as ‘between 2000-3000 YTL’. The rest responded as ‘ 3000 YTL and more’. As of 2008, minimum wage is about 500 YTL in Turkey. Nearly one-fifth of participants stated that they could aid other people when their monthly income was between 0-500 YTL. This is an ideal man of society-type manner. Because the monthly income amounting 500 YTL is an income level not sufficient to meet many individual and family needs. Besides, by stating that they could contribute to charity works, 93 % of the participants proved that they were men of society.

To the question of ‘When dou want to give financial aid?’, responded 62.8 % of participants as ‘anytime I could afford’, 23.8 % as ‘after meeting my individual needs’, 8.8 % as ‘Whenever I am asked to’, 3.4 % as ‘When I am in a good emotional state’. 4 people did not give any response. 8.8 % of participants state that they could aid other people whenever they are asked. This statement implies that they do not highlight to their income level to aid other people, which is a behaviour pattern overlapping with the character of ideal man of society who helps other people irrespective of is income under minimum wage. Besides, 23.8 % of participants, after meeting individual needs, 62.8 % of participants, helping anytime affordable, profiled a standard man of society. As can be seen, depending on the responses, we could state that Turkish people behave in accordance with the features of the model of man of society.

The question of ‘What factors make you benevolent?’ was responded as ‘religious views/ for God’s sake’ by 56.7 %, ‘ humane emotions’ by 37.2 %, ‘to get into public eye’ by 1.5 %, ‘ to make proit/to expand business environment’ by 4 %. To interpret the findings, whereas 93.5 % of participants state to aid other people for spiritual reasons and without following interest, 5.5 % of them state that they aid for material interest. In other words, almost all of the participants proved that their aid aim was following the features of man of society. Besides, our hypothesis that the behaviour types of man of society are supported by religion was,in a sense, appoved by the people in 56.7 %.


To the question of ‘How long have you been thinking of charity seriously’ responded 82.3 % as ‘always’, and the rest as ‘started to think recently’ or ‘never thought’. While people who think of helping other people from time to time are standart men of society, the ones who never forget to aid others are ideal men of society. Since 82.3 % of the participants stated that they always thought of helping other people, they were for ideal men of society.

The question of ‘Can you do works of charity as much as you wish?’ was answered as ‘No’ by 60.7 %, and as ‘Yes’ by 37.5 % . 6 people did not give any response. Since an ideal man of society is a man who never gets satisfied with his charities and seeks to find new ways to help other people much more, 60.7 % of the participants proved that they were ideal men of society. On the other hand, 37.5 % indicated that they were standard men of society.

To the question of ‘Do you want to increase the charity amount?’ responded 83.2 % of participants as ‘Yes’, 15.5 % as ‘No’. 4 people did not give any response. An ideal man of society consistently wants to increase the charity amount. He is almost insatiate in doing charity works. A standard man of society restricts the charity amount. Considering these features, we could assert that 83.2 % of participants responded to this question like and ideal man of society, stating that they wish to their aids.

‘What are the instruments you draw on to transfer your financial or other sorts of aids?’ To this question, responded 48.2 % of the participants as ‘by hand’, 28.4 % as ‘through intermediary institutions’, 21 % as ‘through fund drives’. 8 people did not give any response. Both ideal and standard men of society avoid show off and injuring the needies. Besides, he supports not only acquaintances but also even all other alives in the romotest corners of the world. Taking into consideration the responses to previous questions, we could assert that the responses to this question also support the attitudes of ideal man of society.

‘Dou you plan to make schools, hospitals if you have enough money?’ . Whereas 86.9 % of the participants responded as ‘Yes’, 12.5 % of them responded as ‘No’. 2 people did not give any answer. An ideal man of soceity never gets satisfied with small aids. To the best of his ability, he extends big aids. In short, The ratio of 86.9 % connotes that nearly nine-tenth of participants illusrates the models of man of society.

The participants asked to list in order the objectives of above mentioned big-scale aids stated that their aims were ‘fulfilling their duties to God’ by 46.3 %, ‘for feeling responsible’ by 26.2 %, ‘To feel peaceful’ by 22 %. 18 people did not answer the question. Religious beliefs shape the behaviours of man of society in various ways. In our questionnaire, stating that their aim is to fulfill their duties to God, 46.3 % of participants strengthened our this hypothesis. Besides, the answers given by 26.2 % and 22 % also prove that they do not seek a material gain and thus they are men of society.

‘We must leave the world in better conditions for the next generations’. This statement was supported by 86.6 % of the participants. The rest stated that they either were ambivalent or did not agree on the statement. Beautifying the world, not damaging it, and leaving it to posterity in more livable fashion is the course of action that can be shown by a man of society. Man of society contributes to all works not only in favour of the material and spiritual utility of the society of which he is a member, but also in favour of the whole world. In addition to benefiting the current generation, he endeavours to assist in works beneficial to posterity. Therefore, it is correct to say that

209 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ the ratio of 86 %, covering the agreement of the participants on the statement, substantiated that they were men of society.

74.7 % of the participants stated that they agreed on the postulate that ‘The world needs responsible people’. On the other hand, whereas 10.4 % told that they were of the postulate, 11.9 % stated that they were ambivalent. In solving the problems at which the world is encountered, the dominant role should be given to human being. Even the most ideal political, economic, legal systems can not stand unless They bring up educated, responsible, just, reliable people, men of society, who protect and improve the systems. In the light of this ascertainment, we could state that the participants constituting 74.7 % are aware of the fact that the world needs man of society.

The statement of ‘I endow to charitable works, what the government does does not concern me’ was responded 31.7 % of the participants as ‘I agree’, 43.9 % as ‘I don’t agree’ and, 22 % as ‘not sure’. Even eveyone pursues only his own interest, and does not help other people, man of society makes every effort for the peace, welfare and happiness of the society. While he contributes to philanthropical activities, he also encourages other people and institutions to contribute to the sublime activity in question. Overcoming all social, economic or other problems are contingent on the plenitude of man of society who never gives up aiding destitute people materially or spiritually and regardless of whether he is in need or not. Taking into account these explanations, one-third of participators (31.7 %) could be defined as men of society.

Another statement to see whether Turkish people are appropriate for the model of man of society was ‘Works of charity and public interest could be supported only by the government, not by the firms and countrymen’. This statement was agreed on by 31.1 % of the participants, but not 46.9 % of them. 19.5 % stated betweenity. 8 people did not give any answer. Public interest and benevolence should be supported by everyone and every institution. No one or no institution is exempt from contributing to the welfare of the world. But it is not possible to say that every individual and institutional unit in the world undertake to fulfill this duty, except man of society. Man of society considers it a duty to aid destitutes materially or spiritually as much as he can. So, he strives to fulfill this sublime duty without waiting other responsible people to do it. Taking into consideration these principles, we could say that almost half of the participants, 46.9 %, gave their opinion in accordance with the features of man of society.

One of the statements used to test the applicability of man of society in Turkish society was ‘Getting anxious about the current various problems is not contributive, so I can not do anything’. The results of this statement are similar to the results of the other questions and statements. Whereas 21.9 % responded in an affirmative way, 49.7 % declared disagreement. 24.4% told ambivalence and 13 people did not give any answer. Whether other units in a country care about the matters humankind is encountered at, Whether other people are benevolent, Whether the problems are too tough to carry out succesfully by no means affect the philantropic personality of man of society. He has social sensibility anyhow. He endeavours to remedy to the problems of other beings. In the light of these ascertainments, 49.7 % of the participators could be defined as man of society.

‘Everyone should spend some certain part of his income for the welfare his neighbours and all other people’ Whereas this statement was accepted true by 68.9 %, accepted wrong by 9.1 %. 18.9 % stated betweenity. 10 people did not give any answer. As afore mentioned, the approaches of ideal and standard men of society to sharing of

210 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ income with destitutes are quite different to each other. Whereas ideal man of society desires to share his income with needies regardles of whether his and his family’s needs are met, standard man of society starts to think of aiding other people only after satisfying his own and his family’s needs. But, it is their common feature that they are sensible to the pain of other people. Thus, it is a man of society-like approach to spend some part of income for the welfare of others. So, 68.9 % of the participators responded to the statement following the charitable characteristic of man of society. The participators were asked to give their opinion on the following similar statement as well. ‘A man, who earns barely enough to meet his needs, is not responsible for endowments’ This statement was found disagreeable by 41.8 % of them. Although this rate is a little lower than the rate of the previous statement asserting the applicability of the model of man of society, it still proves that the participators, thus Turkish people, are appropriate for the model.

‘I am responsible for helping my neighbours and relatives, but not the other people in my country and in other countries’. This statement was found agreeable by % 28.7, but disagreeable by 50.7 %. The rest of the participators stated ambivalence or did not give any answer. Considering man of society’s characteristic of helping all beings without making any discrimination and irrespective of their country, it could be said that 50.7 % of the participants are appropriate for the model of man of society. Besides this statement, another similar one ‘I am responsible for mitigating the pain of the miserable people and helping them wherever they live in the world’ was also asked to give opinion. The responses to this statement could be also interpreted that the model of man of society is applicable in Turkish society. Because, 66.4 % of the participants affirmed the statement in question.

‘Each student should be volunteer for the social projects at school.’ This statement was found agreeable by 67.1 %, which is an indicator of the appropriateness of the model of man of society in Turkey. The rest of the participators were either ambivalent or did not agree with the statement.

‘A man should always purchase the products of the firms bearing social responsibility.’ 48.7 % of the participators affirmed the statement in question. But, 20.4 % of them did not. Man of society is the encourager of benefaction. He does not support the firms damaging the society in accordance with the principle of justice. Because, man of society neither violates other people’s rights nor winks at the violaters. It is natural that he purchases the products of the firms bearing social responsibility, since he is the encourager of works of charity and benefaction. But, socially responsible firm does not mean a firm contributing to social projects at the expense of shrinking, facing crisis. Institutional man of society should guarantee its existence above all. Because, the end of existence naturally means the end of its socio-economic contributions such as reducing the unemployment, increasing production, thus raising per capita income per annum and economic living standard..etc. This is not something desirable. In short, we could define the socially responsible firm as a firm aiming at doing infinite and continuous works of charities, but not doing it at the expense of shut down. Considering the justice feature of man of society, 48.7 % of the participants responded like a man of society. Another similar statement used to test the applicability of man of society in Turkey was ‘It could be costly for me in the long run, but I prefer supporting the firms bearing social responsibility’ This statement was found true by 54.8 % of the participators, which means that they are appropriate for the model of man of society.


‘A businessman makes a mistake if he decelerates the growth of his businesses due to his works of charity. Because he won’t be able to contribute to society in the future.’ Firms have institutional social responsibilities as well. One of those responsibilities is to contribute to works of charity. But these works should not lead to its failure, and not hinder its growth. Above all, we should note that there are some other responsibilities of firms such as not violating the rights of rival firms, that is to say, not violating the competition rules, not deluding the public in any way, not leading to negative externalities...etc. These are the primary liabilities of firms to society. A firm conforming to these liabilities, but not contributing to works of charity could be defined as a standard institutional man of society. On the other hand, a firm contributing to society materially or spiritually besides paying attention to its primary liablities could be defined as an ideal institutional man of society. Benevolent firms could participate in charities either by funding a foundation devoted to charitable purposes or alloting some part of the shareholders’ dividends to works of charity. Thus, a businessman should give the priority to being financially able and extending the production capacity by taking into consideration its primary liabilities. 41.1 % of the participants who have overlapping opinion with the statement are men of society.

‘I prefer being remembered as a philanthropist to being remembered as a wealthy man.’

It is the character of man of society to prefer being known as a benevolent who does not aid destitutes for inferior interests. For an ideal man of society, possessions, which are not used for the needs of necessitous people, and for a standard man of society, properties exceeding the needed amount to satisfy personal and family needs are nothing else than futility. Therefore, principally, both types of man of society tend to help indigent people. People, agreed on the statement by 66.2 %, exemplified man of society. Besides, whereas 18 % of the participants disagreed, 1.4 % of them were ambivalent and 8 people did not give any response.

‘Man should leave his useful properties to society after death.’ A man of society should leave at least some certain part of his properties to society after death. He could also portion some other part to his inheritors. Put it differently, it is not a man of society-like behaviour not sharing his properties and income when alive or dead. Thus, 65.3 % of the participants who found the statement true are men of society. On the other hand, 14.4 % of of them disagreed with the statement, and 18 % of them stated betweenity.

Depending on the findings regarding to the appropriateness of the people in our sample, we could easily say that Turkish people highly tend to behave like a man of society rather than like an economic man. In other words, our model of man of society is applicable in Turkish society. Moreover, some of the participants behave like ideal man of society, going beyond the futures of the standard. Many other studies, like our study, have brought into sharp relief that man of society is a living being. For instance, as Prof. İsmail Özsoy stated in one of his proceedings, Georgian people, who experienced a great transformation in many fields after the collapse of socialism, displayed the behavioural features of man of society.273 Besides, to the report of Maggie Fox from Reuters, as a result of a research that psychologist Elizabeth Dunn

273 ÖZSOY, İsmail, "İktisadî Adam ve Toplum Adamı (Homo Societius versus Homo Economicus)", Birinci İktisat Tarihi Kongresi, İstanbul / Türkiye, Sep. 2007

212 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ and many other scientists at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School carried out, it was found out that the spendings, even small, on someone else make spenders happier than the spendings for themselves. Dunn reported that those spending on others, regardless of how much they earned, stated that they experienced more happiness than those spending for themselves. Besides these researches, currently in many countries, the people in charge in various charity houses and people chipping in these houses are typical men of society. As seen, man of society is not a utopian being. On the contrary, he is alive.

No doubt, to reach the accurate result, the applicability of this model should be investigated in other countries of different cultures, religions, races, traditions..etc. Only at the end of the comprehensive studies in many countries, it would be possible to decide about the widespread validity of the model.

V. CONCLUSION With the accelaration industrial revolution brought forth, capitalism was

founded in 18.century. Capitalism became the dominant economic system as a result of the collapse of its opponent, socialism. Capitalistic order, that increased the limited production and consumption possibilities of feudalism by reason of the colossal advances in machinery, transportation, communication and information technologies, undoubtedly has enabled the humankind to consume more various goods and services in greater amounts. However, capitalism has also led to some political, economic and social problems besides his contributions to aforementioned fields. To us, the basic reason of these problems are the misanalysis of human nature. Put it differently, the misanalysis of human nature that is open both to benefaction and malice and thus the misdesignation of economic, political, legal, and social orders regulating the communal life constitute the basis of current matters. Therefore, the complicated human nature should be reanalyzed in a holistic approach. Our suggestion, man of society, is the fruit of our study for this purpose. However, man of society is not an alternative to other models. The model of man of society is the complimentary of other models. The results of the surveys carried out in Turkey and Georgia, the survey in USA and many other researches proved that human nature is more appropriate for the model of man of society than the model of economic man. Therefore, the current economic order should be revised and restructured. But, the restructural of the current economic order does not mean its to be rejected. The restructural means the integration and surrender of it with and by some moral values.

The man of society as an altruist, charitable, social solicitous, and a just being is introduced as an ideal human type of our century. The man of society sharing all or some portion of his income in excess of his need with other needies attaches much more importance to his spiritual utility than his material utility. Different from the economic man getting only material utility by using all his possessions merely for himself, the man of society gains spiritual utility as well as material utility by sharing all everything granted to himself with others. Thus, behaving more rationally than economic man, he maximizes not only his total individual utility, but also total social utility. Furthermore, he gets rid of the point of meaningless of life by making his total utility infinite through sharing his gain and possession.

To summarize, man of society as a producer or consumer, different to economic man, is not a being, who is independent of moral values, and who seeks to maximize

213 II. ULUSLARARASI SOSYAL BİLİMCİLER KONGRESİ his individual interest. Together with being productive, he attaches more importance to any kind of moral values than any kind of economic interests such as utility and profit. He is an altruistic man integrating economy with moral values and balancing the individual interests with social concern and social responsibility. He aids other beings orally, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, medically, divinely. He is charitable, never remains passive in works of charity. He does not let it go at only material aids, he also aids spiritually. Material and spiritual suffers of other people concern him. To him, an ember does not only burn where it falls, it burns himself too. He lives and lets live or lets live and live. He does not make any discrimination while aiding others. He aims at spiritual utility but not material utility. The education systems should be reregulated to bring up the men of society whose existence has been proved by several surveys. Educational institutions should teach not only the positive sciences but also the normative values such as local and universal moral values. The world needs the altruist and just man of society more severely than ever before. It is likely to remedy current various problems by the hand of man of society.

REFERENCES

Books, articles and proceedings

• Etzioni, Amitai. 1988. The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics. New York: Free Press.

• Hirsch, P., S.Michaels, and R.Friedman. 1990. Clean models vs. dirty hands: Why economics is different from sociology. Structures of Capital: The Social Organization of the Economy. Ed. S. Zukin and P. DiMaggio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 39-56.

• Hodgson, Geoffrey M. 1998. The Approach of Institutional Economics. Journal of Economic Literature. March. 36:166-192.

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• Özsoy, İsmail, "İktisadî Adam ve Toplum Adamı (Homo Societius versus Homo Economicus", Birinci İktisat Tarihi Kongresi, İstanbul / Türkiye, Sep. 2007

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