The most base desire in life is that for money, selfishness expressed in the most course way. It is also the most necessary desire, without it we would be destitute, without even the most basic essentials in life. The way we earn money is through business, enterprise. It is their purpose, as codified in law, only to make money. This is set out in Britain's "Companies Act" in the clauses about minority protection. Companies aren't legally allowed to be moral, they must be selfish, they can only defend giving money to charity on the grounds of "enlightened self interest" - that it will improve their reputation and allow them to make more money in future.
Thus business is the material basis of society, and perhaps the most successful achievement of our civilisation, though not the most worthy. It is in accordance with our materialistic desires. However it knows not pity when it exploits people for profit. It will sell people its products whether they need them or not, it will promote its output whether it helps or harms society, it doesn't matter to the business if it makes medicine or weapons, it doesn't matter to them whether the weapons wage war or keep peace, and it doesn't matter to them if the medicine saves the life of a saint or a rapist. The goal is not the public good but selfish, material gain.
The second level is our vegetable desires, the realm of feelings, the non-aggressive desire for sustenance. This is not a focused desire, 'good' and 'bad' feelings in human beings are highly subjective and not linked to consequences. Thus I link them to charities. Charities like Oxfam - originally 'the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief' - aim to feed the poor without any discrimination. The do not judge whether the person they are helping is worthy or unworthy. They do not stop to ask whether in the long term the relief they give will improve or worsen the situation of the society. They do not prioritise worthy poor over unworthy poor. They see suffering and they relieve it. They satisfy the desires of those who need it.
This is the level of the vegetable feelings - undiscriminating, driven by emotion, potentially doing much good, the poor need to eat, to be housed and clothed, but this force does not pay too much attention to the consequences. Thus it misses the opportunity to use its power to do more good by making people help themselves or to prevent unscrupulous people taking advantage of their assistance. Just as a tree can offer its fruit to either human beings or to pests, so a charity which exists to help the needy can both do good and facilitate evil.
The third level is that of more active forms of desire. Animals are different from vegetation as they have the capacity to discriminate. They can be very combative creatures as they pursue power. In this category I place political groups. Like charities, their mission is not purely self interest, rather they serve an ideology. Unlike charities they discriminate, they have beliefs about right and wrong. When they pursue their political agenda they seek to use their power to force improvement.
Thus they can be more powerful forces for good than charities. If robbers are stealing from ordinary people and making them poor, a charity can keep the ordinary people alive by giving them more food, but a political party which gains power can send the police to stop the robbers. They can create a framework which does far more good than a charity is capable of achieving.
However political parties, being combative like animals, find it very difficult to cooperate with each other. Instead their desire for power can severely undermine their own ideology as they attack other parties sharing the same beliefs in order to achieve dominance.
The forth stage is of human beings. What social agents can be described as humane? They cannot be wholly selfish like businesses. They cannot be undiscriminating like charities. They cannot be combatively seeking power like political parties. Thus in this position I place religious groups. I define them thus - their mission is to improve the social welfare in a discriminating way, with a very tight concept of right and wrong, they cannot give assistance to people who try to harm others. They do not seek political power - which would mean forcing their will upon others - but rather to spread the truth non-forcefully as they sincerely understand it.
Does this mean religion is the highest desire? No, there are still problems with this model. Just because religious feelings are sincere does not mean they are authentic. They still have the feeling "I am right and you are wrong". It implies the wish to be a teacher and to show others you are more worthy than them.
Higher desires, and thus higher social entities, must improve upon this. Each level does not abandon the previous one but rather refines its nature. So a charity must make money in other to give it away, a political party must believe in improving the world as a charity does if it is to serve the public, and religion must discriminate between right and wrong as a party ideology does if it is to teach people to improve their own lives.
So the entity of the fifth level will have to make money, it will have to work to help people, it will have to judge between right and wrong, it will have to teach others the difference, but it will also not assume it is right - it must be dynamic and non-sectarian in its principles, it must be open to people of all beliefs and really, genuinely inclusive of them.
This is how Subud works, this is why it is inclusive of everyone without abandoning helping others, recognising right and wrong, and so on. This is why the spiritual exercise teaches us to be complete in our lives.
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