It is probably hopeless to take on this subject without thinking of specific examples. But I suspect that a lot of the wealth accumulated by bankers is earned through speculation and arbitrage, both of which tend to stabilize markets. Speculators stabilize prices over time. They buy in times of plenty, when prices are low, boosting prices and supporting producers. They then do the work of storing the goods, and sell in times of shortage, when prices are high and producers cannot meet demand, pushing prices down. Arbitrageurs stabilize prices over place, between markets. The Law of One Price is not a law of nature, it requires people to risk their wealth by buying assets that they believe can be resold elsewhere at a profit. Again, where prices are low they are boosted by this activity; where they are high they are depressed.I am less convinced that investment bankers and hedge fund managers are a net boon to humanity, and perhaps it’s not unreasonable to dislike a group of people who make money by destabilizing the entire global economy.
I cannot fathom how any serious person could harbor such a belief, that reward should be simply proportional to effort, though it does lead to the widely-held conclusion. No one wants to see someone who puts a lot of effort into planning a crime be rewarded. Nor should someone who expends much energy scratching their stomach expect to be paid handsomely. Wait, that's different they'll say, those are efforts toward ends which are not valuable. Well, who decides what ends are valuable? Is it not other people, who not only say they support the ends, but prove it by freely offering valuable remuneration to producers of goods and services? I share your mistrust of ideology, but suppose we could do with at least a governing principle. I favor the society in which people can get ahead by asking themselves "How can I get what I want by giving other people what they want?"If you have some vague general notion that equality is a good thing, and you believe that people ought to get approximately the same reward for an equivalent amount of effort, then a capitalist enterprise, in which a large number of people toil for a modest reward while the owner of the enterprise collects a far bigger reward, is morally indefensible.
Now, my friend, you are being rhetorically mischievous. (Not a bad trait, in my book...) Given the context of my statement it was at least implied that I was talking about productive effort in the sense that productive effort is generally understood. For clarity sake, however, let me rephrase. "Capitalism is indefensible as a means of achieving a morally equitable distribution of wealth." The problem, really, centers on the idea that morality and the distribution of wealth are equivalent. I don't believe they are; most Marxists do. I still believe capitalism poses a number of serious problems, of which long term instability is a much greater one than a lack of fairness. It has a saving grace, however -- so far, we have devised nothing better. You should be pleased! A call for a better alternative is a standard wasoxygen gambit -- and I have already employed it without being asked!
It was a pleasure wearing the "Rhetorical Mischief" medal, but I must now return it. You have performed that oldest trick in the book of rhetoric, switching labels. I complained to your former self that we ought not simply reward effort, because not all effort is toward valuable ends. Now you object that you were only speaking of "productive" effort. Very well, who decides what ends are productive? Is it not other people, who not only say they support the ends, but prove it, etc.? It is not a stretch to suppose that thieves, rapists, and stomach-scratchers seek to improve their "productivity." This restatement is also not obviously true, to me. Since "equitable" does not mean "equal" but something closer to "fair," which implies a moral judgment, can we just say we are aiming for a "fair distribution of wealth" without dulling the point too much? What is a fair distribution of wealth? One distribution is strictly equal shares for everyone. Capitalism won't get you there, probably some kind of authoritarianism is needed. But without capitalism probably very little wealth will be created anyway, so the authorities will simply have to ensure that everyone is equally poor, by taking away from the less poor and giving it to the more poor. Out of boredom or good nature, some people will do some work, and receive their one-seven-billionth portion of the proceeds. I imagine the authorities will expect to be a little less poor than the average in exchange for doing society this service. Another possible distribution is that people keep the stuff that they themselves create, unless they choose to give or trade it. No need for a belabored explanation here; is there something in it that is not fair, or "morally equitable," young emcadwaladr?"Capitalism is indefensible as a means of achieving a morally equitable distribution of wealth."
Actually, you are giving me too much credit by accusing me of equivocation here. Worse -- I will have to acknowledge actual incompetence. I discover I have (as you implied later) been using "equitable" incorrectly, believing it meant something like "equalish; tending toward equality." Since it doesn't mean that, my restatement was at best incorrect and at worst nonsense. Though seated at the moment, I stand corrected. Between your objection and galen's I am also forced to admit my original statement doesn't do the best job of conveying my intent. I was writing a memoir -- not a form that lends itself to philosophical rigor -- but it still seems an amendment is in order. You may still disagree, but at least we will better understand what we are disagreeing about. Here is my revision: "Well, quite obviously, from a certain perspective – it isn’t. If you have some vague general notion that equality is a good thing, and you believe that people ought to get an approximately the same reward for an equivalent amount of productive effort, then a capitalist enterprise, in which a large number of people toil for a modest reward while the owner of the enterprise collects a far bigger reward, is morally indefensible. Period. This really isn’t rocket science, and any young person that approaches the world with the set of moral precepts he or she was taught in elementary school will probably come to this conclusion with very little help. Morality is a slippery concept though." For the record, even in my original text I stated a conditional: "If you have some vague general notion that equality is a good thing, and you believe that people ought to get an approximately the same reward for an equivalent amount of productive effort..." Neither, you, galen, nor I appear to meet those conditions at present -- ergo we are not bound by this standard. Note also that I said: "...then a capitalist enterprise, in which a large number of people toil for a modest reward while the owner of the enterprise collects a far bigger reward, is morally indefensible." Do you have stomach-scratching capitalist enterprises where you live? I, myself, have never seen one... I agree with your last two paragraphs, except that, historically, the authorities have always expected to be a good deal less poor.
a large number of people toil for a modest reward while the owner of the enterprise collects a far bigger reward
You neglected to mention the frequent cases in which a large number of people toil for a modest reward while the owner of the enterprise goes bankrupt.
I get a sense that in trying to capture what I believe to be intuitively obvious to a 22-year-old, I have given you, and others, a false impression of my current stance. In general, I’m an advocate of capitalism. The word itself is loaded with unintended connotations for some people – by I think you and I use it in approximately the same way. I know of no better system for organizing the productive forces of society, by which I mean that capitalism does a good job of making things, inventing things, and keeping the majority of people happy. I do not believe it is perfect or beyond reproach – but then I don’t believe ANYTHING is perfect or beyond reproach. I do believe that schemes intended to water down capitalism with socialism don’t really show an understanding of what separates them. I also believe that a great deal of what gets called capitalism now would have horrified Adam Smith, and maybe even Milton Freedman. I don’t think cronyism discredits the whole idea, but I do think cronyism and the worst of the banking practices are threats to both free markets and to the stability of the economic system as a whole. The trick is to find solutions that don’t boil down to a general surrender to state control. My constant fear is that too many people are becoming all too willing to grant the government more and more power to fix problems that, in many cases, the government itself created. Sorry if my previous answer may have seemed rather flippant.
I have to disagree with you here. I'm with wasoxygen: reward shouldn't necessarily be proportional to effort. But I'm still a socialist. I have no concern for whether people are paid "fairly" or not - quite frankly, that's their problem, and most people are capable enough to negotiate fair salaries, assuming they have a salary. My concern is rather that we ought to ensure that no person is allowed to die of poverty. In brief, I believe that one person's right to life is more valuable than another's right to total property ownership. So how do we establish this social insurance? Through a universal basic income. My leftism has very little to do with any notion of equal pay for equal effort.If you have some vague general notion that equality is a good thing, and you believe that people ought to get an approximately the same reward for an equivalent amount of effort, then a capitalist enterprise, in which a large number of people toil for a modest reward while the owner of the enterprise collects a far bigger reward, is morally indefensible. [...] I’m not saying there is nothing more to leftist thought than that – I’m only saying that there isn’t much more.
For what it's worth, I passed through your position on the way to where I am now. You would like to put a minimal floor under people -- which does at least seem minimally humane. I now have several problems with this view, of which I will sketch the two principal ones. First, put a floor under people and a surprising number of them will lie on that floor and complain about how uncomfortable and unfair it is. The number of these people will gradually grow and the amenities of the floor will gradually grow -- along with the size of the state required to maintain the apparatus. Second, and more importantly, when the state decides its duty is protect every citizen (or now, perhaps -- even every person) from the consequences of his or her own actions, the state inevitably loses interest in the preservation of individual rights. As Rousseau said -- the state has the right to "force citizens to be free." The state becomes unlimited in its scope. While both of these are slippery slope arguments, the historical record backs them up. I do not reject your position out of hand however, and would be interested in any proposals you might have for avoiding these pitfalls. Charles Murray proposed a minimum income a few years ago. Interesting. You may call your position socialism, but I doubt that many of the socialists I knew would have recognized it as such. Can you put it on a placard? That might help...
1. This is easy to claim, but I've yet to see any concrete evidence of it, and your claim of historical evidence is dubious - as far as I know, no modern nation has ever implemented a basic income (excluding Brazil and some pilot programs in India, both of which were met with great success). 2. This argument doesn't hold much weight for me because I'm sort of in favor of coercive paternalism. But even if I wasn't, the basic income as I envision it would tend to protect its citizens from inability to earn money, and the protection from their actions would be a side effect. As far as the basic income's fundamental socialism, I think the issue here is that you're referring to socialism in the Marxist sense, no? I most certainly am not.
1. While I can’t make a specific case with regard to a guaranteed minimum income, the more general case of my assertion is not that difficult to support. Since 1965 (when Johnson’s Great Society programs began) the poverty rate hasn’t shown any marked improvement overall, and has actually gotten worse for the age 18 to 64 demographic. Over the same period, the population also increased by 61%, so the total number of poor persons has increased quite substantially, even according to the government’s own figures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States (see first two graphs) Welfare spending is a harder subject to find reliable statistics on, but the government’s numbers certainly do not show a downward trend when measured as a percentage of GDP (and the GDP itself is a suspiciously high figure considering the things that pass for goods and services these days). http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/welfare_spending What was originally envisioned as a set of policies to alleviate hunger now provides, among other things, housing subsidies, daycare, healthcare, educational subsidies, transportation subsidies, subsidized utilities and free cell phones. Whether one approves of these programs or not, one can hardly deny that they constitute an overall expansion of the welfare state. Anecdotally, with the exception of a few small gentrification projects in inner city areas, I am personally unaware of any instances in which slums have miraculously morphed into middle class neighborhoods during my lifetime. I have, on the other hand, lived in two neighborhoods where the opposite transformation has taken place. While anecdotal evidence is not conclusive, I doubt that you can find a single instance in which a poor neighborhood became a middle class one through the agency of welfare spending. A minimum income might have some advantages as a replacement for other forms of welfare, but I doubt it would accomplish anything magical. 2. The phrase “paternalistic coercion” is an astonishing one. To me, life has been a struggle between two essentially conflicting concepts from the enlightenment – equality and freedom. In my youth, I favored equality; now, I favor freedom. “Paternalistic coercion” is the repudiation of both. The error that rank-and-file Marxists make is that of believing a central committee will somehow express the collective will of the people. The error implicit in “paternalistic coercion” is that of believing a body of planners who consider the public an inferior caste of bipeds will continue to treat them with paternal concern. In the middle ages, at least the nobility usually understood that every able-bodied person under their thumb increased their power. Now, when great swaths of the population do little more for the state than cast an ill-understood and increasingly irrelevant vote from time to time, those who govern them are unlikely to have much scruple about their treatment. There are definitions of socialism that simply call for the governmental ownership of the means of production and distribution – not even making a pretence about equality. Functionally, however, this is simply totalitarianism with a trendy name.
No, the error of all Communists, irrespective of rank, is in believing that something as complex as an economy is something that can be controlled to the benefit of the majority. Intentions be damned; it isn't possible in principle for a centrally planned economy to operate at anything near efficiency. The Chinese found a clever mix of state capitalism and distribution of wealth to keep the many happy for a few decades, but that will peter out as soon as their growth reaches a point where they can no longer sustain 8-10% year after year.The error that rank-and-file Marxists make is that of believing a central committee will somehow express the collective will of the people.
The two critiques aren’t mutually exclusive. Yours is a structural critique; mine is a critic of the beliefs of rank-and-file members. I agree with you about China too, though I am picky about definitions. As soon as the Chinese government turned the means of production over to private ownership, they ceased to be meaningfully communist.
Depends on the definition of welfare. By your exclusive definition, maybe you're correct. If we use a more inclusive definition that counts corporate welfare then one only need to look to NY and DC to find fabulously wealthy neighborhoods that were former slums, neighborhoods financed exclusively through government largess.Anecdotally, with the exception of a few small gentrification projects in inner city areas, I am personally unaware of any instances in which slums have miraculously morphed into middle class neighborhoods during my lifetime. I have, on the other hand, lived in two neighborhoods where the opposite transformation has taken place. While anecdotal evidence is not conclusive, I doubt that you can find a single instance in which a poor neighborhood became a middle class one through the agency of welfare spending.
LOL! I guess I didn’t state explicitly that by “neighborhood” I meant a community of people in a location and not the mere location itself. Pricing the poor out of a zip code and replacing them with lobbyists and attorneys really wasn’t my intent – but I give you credit for thinking outside the box. My opinion of “corporate welfare” is that it is a rhetorical terms for what amounts to either a misguided attempt to manage the economy or a slimy quid pro quo. I am opposed to both. I don’t think the government is competent enough handle the former, and if I don’t think the government should be in the business of distributing wealth I certainly don’t think it should be in the business of concentrating it either.
1. That's fair, although a.) correlation =/= causation with regard to the increase in poverty, and b.) the basic income is a totally different kind of welfare, not just an expansion of existing welfare, so I'm not sure it's totally fair to extrapolate what will happen based on our past experience with welfare. 2. I'm not sure I understand, what does paternalistic coercion have to do with rejecting equality? For me the point of paternalistic coercion is to allow (through some at least semi-democratic system) people as a whole to encourage themselves and each other to do things they know are good for them but often can't muster the internal motivation to do. For more explanation, I'd suggest reading Sarah Conly's "Against Autonomy".
The content of the discussion aside, I made a pretty two-fisted attack on your position and you have responded with intelligence and admirable grace. I hereby award a badge for the latter, rarer commodity. I owe a better response than I currently have time to give. Let me mull it over awhile.
Sorry for the delay. I’ve been on an island. 1. You are quite right that there’s a difference between correlation and causation, but I’m only trying to show that measures taken to reduce poverty in the US have failed to produce that result. To work the correlation/causation argument into it, you would need to be arguing something like – “If we hadn’t taken the measures that we did, poverty would be even worse than it is due to some other cause.” Unfortunately, that’s a counterfactual. We did do what we did, and one cannot prove what would have happened if we hadn’t. That said, there are some differences between a minimum income and the current scheme. I’m skeptical it would be much better, but I certainly don’t KNOW. 2. The relationship between “paternalistic coercion” and equality can be understood by considering the words themselves. “Paternalistic” means that one entity (in this case the government) takes a position of fatherly guardianship over another (in this case the public). This is an expression of an inherently unequal relationship. Historically “paternalistic coercion” is what governments tend to do (assuming they are at least well-intentioned) but it is not the only way one can conceive of government. Another way of conceiving of government is as a largely administrative entity, bound by a charter (e.g. the US Constitution), and having the role of simply carrying out those essential functions (e.g. defense, diplomacy, regulation of currency, public sanitation) that cannot be carried out reliably or effectively by private means. Under such a conception of government, an official who is responsible for a certain function is superior in authority to members of the public within the scope of that function, but isn’t granted the mystique of authority over them generally. The idea of governmental paternalism is antithetical to this conception of government. The second word, “coercion” expresses inequality explicitly. If one person can coerce another (and coercion means to force by violence or the threat of violence – by police authority, for example) the two persons cannot be meaningfully equal. I hope this helps lay out the terrain as I see it. “For me the point of paternalistic coercion is to allow (through some at least semi-democratic system) people as a whole to encourage themselves and each other to do things they know are good for them but often can't muster the internal motivation to do.” Well, I don’t wish to be harsh. I certainly understand how you, or anyone else, might entertain this view. In my experience though, things rarely work out this way. Australia is, I think it is fair to say, a nanny state. In Australia it is now illegal to take a doggy bag of food home from a restaurant. The reasoning, of course, is that someone might leave the doggy bag unrefrigerated long enough for the food to become dangerously contaminated with sal minella or some other harmful bacteria. This is paternalistic coercion at its finest. But how was such a law brought into being? Was there a great public outcry, a general yearning of Australians to be spared the possible consequences of their own carelessness with restaurant meals? I seriously doubt it. What almost certainly happened was that some legislator (or, worse, some bureaucrat) got it into his or her head that half-a-dozen deaths from food poisoning a year was half a dozen too many, and that if some miniscule fraction of the population couldn’t handle the civil liberty of taking their leftovers home, it was better to punish everyone than to take the risk. Of course this is a trivial example, but it is indicative of a mindset. In reference to gun control, I once heard a very prominent liberal politician (Pelosi, I think) make the argument that “No one needs a gun.” I’m not interested in a debate over gun control here, but simply in the argument she chose to use. Arguably, no one DOES need a gun – but you could also save a very substantial number of lives by banning motorcycles, skis, skateboards, swimming pools, football, etc. If that is to be one’s justification, it is notable that quite a few assassins have found a curious inspiration in J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. When it comes right down to it – no one NEEDS a book. I simply do not care to live in a world that has been childproofed by some coalition of do-gooders who feel that they know best. And THAT is assuming their intentions stay benign. I would like to admit that my more-or-less libertarian free-market position has at least one serious problem. It is all well and good to say that people should be held responsible for their own lives and upkeep – but that presupposes that when you tell them to “get a job” they CAN “get a job.” For complicated reasons, I think the present population (of the US, anyway) has far outstripped the job market. The standard conservative response to this is that jobs will be created as soon as government gets out of the way of business. I think that’s true, but only to a point. A large part of the collapse of the job market, long term, is the probably inevitable consequence of technology (i.e. automation). I’m not sure how we could solve this problem, especially from a libertarian perspective – but I hardly think that creeping totalitarianism should just become our solution of default.
1. OK, I think we've largely reached an agreement on this point as far as the actual fact-y bits :) 2: I'm not sure that's the case. I might argue that paternalism is just an extension of that conception - it involves the government carrying out yet another essential function, i.e. ensuring that its citizens live good lives (whatever they decide that means), that people can't carry out as effectively privately. Your arguments re: coercion are fair, though - I guess my point was that paternalistic coercion rejects equality between people and their government, not between individual people. I guess this is as good a place as any to explain that I envision the ideal paternalistically coercive state being entirely democratic, which is to say that my arguments tend to be moral rather than political. If a population rejects paternalistic coercion, certainly it would be wrong for their government to institute it anyway. In this way I advocate a sort of milder form of coercion: people only ought to be coerced into things they want to be coerced into. Does that make any sense? I think that last paragraph also addresses your next paragraph - the way things will tend to work out politically has very little bearing on the morality of the system I propose as an ideal. I agree wholeheartedly with the denotation of this paragraph, although I reject the implication that basic income represents "creeping totalitarianism". Like I said earlier, "the basic income as I envision it would tend to protect its citizens from inability to earn money, and the protection from their actions would be a side effect." (This was a couple posts back, I can edit in a link if you want.)Another way of conceiving of government is as a largely administrative entity, bound by a charter (e.g. the US Constitution), and having the role of simply carrying out those essential functions (e.g. defense, diplomacy, regulation of currency, public sanitation) that cannot be carried out reliably or effectively by private means.
The idea of governmental paternalism is antithetical to this conception of government.
I would like to admit that my more-or-less libertarian free-market position has at least one serious problem. It is all well and good to say that people should be held responsible for their own lives and upkeep – but that presupposes that when you tell them to “get a job” they CAN “get a job.” For complicated reasons, I think the present population (of the US, anyway) has far outstripped the job market. The standard conservative response to this is that jobs will be created as soon as government gets out of the way of business. I think that’s true, but only to a point. A large part of the collapse of the job market, long term, is the probably inevitable consequence of technology (i.e. automation). I’m not sure how we could solve this problem, especially from a libertarian perspective – but I hardly think that creeping totalitarianism should just become our solution of default.
1. The fact-y bits themselves don’t care whether we agree on them or not. That’s actually the beauty of fact-y bits. :) 2. We could indeed get into an “essential function” debate – which would end up just ferreting out our respective values. In an absolute sense, nothing is “essential” – including life. Things are only “essential“ in the sense that they are prerequisites for other things. “I guess my point was that paternalistic coercion rejects equality between people and their government, not between individual people.” Yes, I get that, but it’s a statement of the very heart of the problem with socialism. Unless, you are governed by a computer, your government is composed of individuals. Look, you wouldn’t be happy with an absolute monarchy, would you? And the reason you wouldn’t is that the king is just an ordinary schlub in fancy clothes who has vastly more power than everyone else. It doesn’t change the relationship to cross out “king” and write in “government”. Democratic institutions help, but Australia is a democracy and some overactive legislator or trumped up little bureaucrat still gets to forbid you to take your leftovers home. The core principle of conservatism is simply that, since government is an inherently dangerous necessity, we ought to keep it as small as possible. If we don’t, we will get tyranny eventually. The scope creep (i.e. what constitutes “essential”) is the rub. I tossed public sanitation onto the list (because I think it is essential) but there were many people in the early 19th century who didn’t think it was the government’s concern. We have dug our way down to the crux of the matter. “In this way I advocate a sort of milder form of coercion: people only ought to be coerced into things they want to be coerced into. Does that make any sense?” I believe I understand your intent – I just don’t think it works that way with real human beings. Call me a cynic – but I don’t. “I agree wholeheartedly with the denotation of this paragraph, although I reject the implication that basic income represents "creeping totalitarianism". Like I said earlier, "the basic income as I envision it would tend to protect its citizens from inability to earn money, and the protection from their actions would be a side effect.” Ok – we not only have differences about the definition of “essential,” but also about the definition of “earn”. Under a basic income scheme, people would “earn” money not by productive activity, but simply by existing. I had two uncles (one now deceased) who were both on disability. Neither of them was anything close to bedridden. They got around, visited, worked on projects at home, and did all sorts of things. They were not unable to work. They were only unable to do the jobs they had once done. On the other hand, I know two completely blind people and quite a few developmentally disabled people who do work – and not just meaningless make-work jobs either. What on earth is fair about the government taking taxes from a blind man and giving the money to someone with a slightly bad back? Rats – I’m out of lunch hour… Quite an interesting discussion, BTW.