Social Reconstruction by Replacing Interest Rates with Trade Instruments

The way to replace interest rates in economic, financial, and social issues by using trade-related instruments is formally developed in great detail. The world-system meaning of unity of knowledge derived from the episteme and applied to the complementarities of the Mind-Matter universe of three dimensions, namely knowledge-time-space, is formalized. Methods of the measurements underlying such conceptual ideas are introduced. This takes us to the field of circular causation and its implications around statistical “estimation” and “simulation.” The simulation results are followed by ethical, policy, and institutional implications. Many equilibrium results, devised now in the evolutionary world-system of process learning, are formalized and presented.

Productivity Analysis in Ethically Induced Financing Environment

This chapter carries further the content of Chapter 6 to the measurement of an ethically value-induced index of productivity. A learning-form of the endogenously ethics-induced production function is formulated. This is empirically simulated for the case of Islamic banks in Indonesia that claim to introduce the moral and ethical elements of the Islamic Law in the affairs of finance and banking. Inferences are drawn for instructive purposes in the area of introducing the moral and ethical law in the study of business affairs, which is a significant subsystem of the grand world-system.

Bringing God into the Banking System

The contrasting meaning of ethics as exogenous factor in mainstream socio-scientific theory and as endogenous factor in the evolutionary learning universe of our praxis in this book is developed at length. In this regard, the contrast between the possibility of the epistemic multiverse of unity of knowledge in the monotheistic worldview and the impossibility of rationalism in this regard is laid bare. Several contrasting works in the review of the literature further establish the basis of these two dividing worldviews in respect to several applied themes in science, society, economics, finance, money, and banking. Thus, the universality and uniqueness of the monotheistic law in the construction of the unified, that is pervasively complementary and thus participatory, world-system is further established.

How is God Studied in Relation to Science and the World-System?

The chapter discusses the possibility of God in terms of the monotheistic law as the functional ontological way of integrating God with the world-system. Thus, the metaphysical impossibility is replaced by this functional precept. With this groundwork, the epistemology of unity of knowledge is explained, formalized, and the chapter shows how to apply the resulting phenomenological model to the construction of the unified world-system with the monotheistic law. Several physical and social science concepts are thereby explained and revised in light of the phenomenological model. In this way, the early groundwork of the entire work in God, explained by the monotheistic law with the unified socio-cybernetic and system worldview, is established.

Money, Price, Output, Interest Rate, and Factor Employment

This is a chapter in general-equilibrium study of the Walrasian type. It is extended to money, output, and prices along with their other important economic effects (e.g. employment and stability). The Walrasian monetary model and the quantity theory of money model are both compared and contrasted with the endogenous theory of money model in light of the systemic view of unity of knowledge that grounds the phenomenological model in this book.

The Moral Content of Monetary History

The previous chapters are carried forth with a greater emphasis on money and the real economy with the financial bridge between these systems. The argument of the gold-backed monetary system is explained from both the historical and contemporary viewpoints. The phenomenological model of unity of knowledge is applied to the case of monetary and real economy systems with the financial connection. The open economy case of trade in the absence of interest rate is examined. The analytical method of circular causation in this regard is pointed out as a functional approach that is taken up profusely throughout this work.

The Idea of God in Relation to the Social System

The chapter continues from the groundwork of the socio-cybernetic perspective of the monotheistic law and its functioning in the moral and social construction of the unified world-system. The especial case of the financial and banking system is introduced to bring forth the functional meaning of God as the monotheistic law that is activated in the moral and ethical uplift of the world-system with its specific details. Here, the business model marks the particular case of a unified world-system guided by the epistemology of unity of knowledge. A rigorous formalism underlies this extensive worldview. The phenomenological model of unity of knowledge is further formalized to give it a functional explanation for later explanations in this book.

Financial Interest and Human Depravity

The analytical study of theory, the contributions in the literature, and the study of wellbeing as the primal objective pursued in this whole work are shown to face the permanent predicament of interest rates prevailing in these concepts and systems in its various forms and values. Interest rate is singled out to be the central factor of human predicament in terms of wellbeing and progress. Thus, a new monetary theory arising out of the morally induced concept of quantity theory of money is developed. An extensive review of the literature is carried out in light of the phenomenological model of unity of knowledge. The measured configuration of unity of knowledge in such world-system issues is shown by means of the principle of pervasive complementarities, equivalently participation between the good things of life. The good things of life are equated with those found in the value-laden basic-needs, life-fulfillment regimes of human development, thus moral sustainability.

The Moral Possibility of Islamic Banking System as Institution

This is an applied chapter on the application of the phenomenological model of unity of knowledge to a critical understanding of the Islamic law, economics, finance, and banking philosophy of the Islamic banks in Indonesia. The chapter explains how the Indonesian Islamic banks are trying to introduce the moral and ethical factors in the mundane business of finance and banking as a sign of integrating God (i.e. the monotheistic law) with this world-system. The chapter goes on with its critical examination of the Indonesian case in the light of its theorem of universality and uniqueness of the monotheistic law as functional ontology. An extensive review of the literature is undertaken to establish its critical worldview of the predicament prevailing in the moral premise with Islamic economics, finance, and banking. The alternative prescription is provided in light of the phenomenological model of epistemic unity.

Conclusion

This is a concluding chapter. It summarizes the system and cybernetic power of unity of knowledge as the episteme and carrier of morality and ethics from the monotheistic law to the world-system. The point with which this book started, the universality and uniqueness of the monotheistic law in the socio-cybernetic understanding of God and the world-system, is further summarized. There is no other way, the conclusion challenges.