Cooperation: reciprocal exchange
„We are all victims of causality.“
A rational mind tells me that reliability of expectations is most easily achieved by the manipulation of the right-hand side of the equation. By maximizing gains while simultaneously minimizing investments I can exploit the political-economic context with the help of reciprocal exchange. Hence I shall express all my needs in material terms, allow for their arbitrary convertibility with other goods and partners in a short-term time horizon, and press for the assimilative dissemination of rules guiding the exchange.
Applied in a way coherent with context development this behaviour might lead to successful accumulation of resources. The value of the equation is temporarily enhanced. The lust for repetition and growth further propels this mode. Although “it is only a game” – the mode of cooperation is the basis of all further human enterprise – be it venture, community gardening or development policy – and therefore literally its past.
The player: always in search for a team and an audience
The price to pay is this: the very pursuit of meeting needs under conditions of scarcity raises the dependency on determining the central mechanisms by which access to resources is (biasedly) granted. In other words: the accumulation of resources might consolidate the foundations of autonomy; however, it does not generate freedom from control, but amplifies the need to control. Cooperation nurtures an illusion of independence, which covers up feelings of vainness – the futile attempt to satisfy all human needs in material terms – by vain gestures. It is ultimately a cult of the dead.