Rational Human
Are all humans rational? If they are not, should laws even apply to them?
There are days like today when Jio Financial Services climbed 10% in a day.
Why? Cheap thrills!!
Unable to come up with an explanation, all the punditry mentions news from weeks or months ago that could have caused it.
So much for rationality.
Markets exist for price discovery.
What is the highest price a buyer is willing to pay?
What is the lowest price a seller is willing to take?
When it comes to valuing companies millions of people use theories that were propounded half a century ago to arrive at a value.
In the stock market, all the information about a company is available. Then, based on the theories mentioned above a valuation can be arrived at. Despite this, we still find one group of people who think the price is right to sell and another who think the price is right to buy. If all decisions are rational, then one of them is wrong.
But all decisions are not rational. In some ways, this is just a reflection of the optimist vs the pessimist.
How can one person think a stock is undervalued when, at the same time, another thinks it is overvalued?
The mere fact that trades are executed every day on the stock market is proof that humans are not rational.
Law
Laws are rules.
According to Greek mythology; Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was abducted by Hades the god of the underworld because he was extremely taken by her beauty. Demeter looked for her daughter all over the Earth. She went crying to the sun god who revealed to her that Hades had kidnapped her daughter.
Upset that Zeus had not revealed this to her, Demeter the goddess of fertility took a leave from her duties and terrible starvation visited the lands. Hearing this, Zeus sought to find a solution. It was determined that Persephone would marry Hades and become the Queen of the underworld and would spend 6 months with her mother and 6 months in the underworld.
When Persephone goes away to visit Hades, Demeter becomes sad and fertility reduces and these 6 months are known as Winter.
Except the Greeks did not know Australia where it is summer at the same time. Australia is very much on the Earth and not in the Underworld.
Centuries later, the actual reason for the onset of winters was explained. It has nothing to do with Zeus, Hades, Demeter or Persephone and everything to do with the tilt of the Earth
When you have a rule or an explanation that requires exceptions, you can rest assured that the rule is wrong.
Murder is wrong in almost every law. Except -
In self-defence
In a fit of insanity
If a person is mentally unwell
Are not all of us mentally unwell? To some degree…
That aside, if we are all irrational, (at least those participating in the stock market do not seem to be!), then should there even be laws?
Underlying every law is an assumption that a rational human would act in a certain way. But if humans are not rational then should laws exist? Can you even use the same yardstick for everyone?
Of course, you should not. But laws were invented to serve capital.
Capitalism
Even an animal leaves the carcass for other animals once it is done. All life on earth takes as much as it needs and leaves the rest.
Humans, on the other hand, would do anything to keep “their” food from falling into the hands of another. We will preserve, refrigerate, and even bury it in the ground to keep it from going to another.
How is hoarding up food when others are starving rational? Isn’t caring the foundation of humanity?
Margaret Mead, an anthropologist was once asked what is the first sign of civilisation.
The Femur connects the hip with the knee, it is one of the longest and strongest bones in the body. In the wild, a fractured femur is a guaranteed death. You can no longer run, hunt, or do anything in fact and it takes weeks to heal. A human with a broken femur that has healed is the surest sign of civilisation. The first one to be discovered is 15,000 years old.
To care is to be civilised.
What do you think would happen to a homeless person with a broken femur in your city?
Capitalism is the religion of the insane. Governed by laws that assume everyone is rational.