[From Mike Acree (2001.02.13.1127 PST)]
Bill Powers (2001.01.13.1635 MST)--
The problem is this: that the economic system which maximizes the wealth
of
the poorest citizens may not be the one which minimizes wealth
disparities.
An astute observation, but it's just another version of the trickle-down
theory.
I have consistently tried, in this latest economics thread, to avoid making
claims about economics per se, and to limit my points to methodology, as I
did in the Mises post. That's what I was doing in this post, in asking Rick
whether he were willing in his economic modeling to allow the wealth of the
poorest sector to vary independently of the disparity in wealth, or whether
he would constrain them a priori to covary. He didn't answer. Both he and
you, as in your response above, see, quite correctly, a substantive economic
implication lurking in the methodological question, pounce on that as
morally unacceptable, and leave the methodological point unacknowledged.
Ok. But how do you suggest we proceed? I remain as interested as ever in
understanding the differences between us. Understanding differences in
moral perspectives like this seems to me one of the most urgent, if not the
most important, problems we face, as a species. It is an especially
tantalizing task, as I've said before, with someone with whom you appear to
share such a major frame of reference. It's perfectly clear that
discussions within economic or political theory are going to accomplish
nothing, ever. Neither historical data nor toy spreadsheet models are
nearly unequivocal enough to change minds. Correspondingly, I don't think
the strength of our convictions derives from economic or political theory
per se; none of us is that much of an expert in these fields. You suggested
once that the problem was that system concepts weren't high enough to reach
where the differences between us lie, but I have, at least tentatively, a
different view. From the persistence and force with which moral arguments
intrude (I say "intrude" because they are not coming from PCT itself, as I
have twice been reminded when I made them), it is quite clear to me, at
least, that that level is what's driving the arguments, from both sides. At
the conclusion of the Anarchy thread 2 years ago, I posted a message on The
Moral Basis of Political Disputes, attempting to take the discussion up (?)
a level. That post started a long thread under that title, but the content
of my message was entirely ignored. (Rick replied with the often-repeated
accusation that I was drawn to PCT as a way of justifying my prior
anarchistic beliefs, when I had replied several times that PCT was the main
influence in persuading me of anarchy. From there the discussion remained
on the original level of politics.) Perhaps what I was saying seemed just
too silly for words--though that usually doesn't keep people from making
some sort of response. More likely, I didn't make myself clear. I'm aware
that my writing tends to be concise; more than once, including in this
thread, you or someone has made a point as if in answer to me, when I
thought it had been clearly implied in the post to which you were
responding. Not knowing what the problem was, and with no particular hope
that the response this time will be any different, I'm reposting the
relevant portion of that message. I don't believe it's impossible in
principle for us to work our way back to a point of agreement, from which we
might begin to understand our divergence, but it's something I can't do by
myself. I have ideas, but they remain speculation without a response from
you. That imposes absolutely no obligation on you; you may simply not be
interested in the same goal of mutual understanding that I am. But if you
are, and discussions within economics and politics don't work, and
restricting the discussion to methodology doesn't work, and moving to the
moral level doesn't work, I'm stymied, at least for now.
All best,
Mike
[From Mike Acree (990309.1230 PST)]
Liberals and conservatives in American culture today can be seen as
differing merely in having picked up different aspects of Christian
asceticism--as it were, the material and the spiritual. The sin of the left
is greed; the sin of the right is lust. Both sins have in common that money
and sex are things of which humans control for a rather high level. People
aspiring to either ascetic standard of morality commonly feel that they need
extra help, in the form of external controls--rewards and punishments. But
if you are to suffer such deprivation, it is intolerable to see others
unconstrained; hence the press for universalizing such proscriptions,
through the institution of the Church or the State, or preferably both.
Hence the idea of legislation making crimes of one or the other of these
sins makes sense to almost everybody, and as a result we have criminalized
both. This analysis would account for the curious indifference of both
liberals and conservatives to the hardships their laws cause others. The
typical response is one we have heard several times on the Net: "_I_'m
happy with taxation (or heterosexual monogamy); if I'm willing to suffer the
deprivation, you should be, too." But I have also heard liberals, in
unguarded moments, complain about taxes, and boast about creatively
arranging their dinner parties or their honeymoon in Bali as a tax
deduction; and for conservatives who have strayed we need look no farther
than Congress. Ascetic codes lead people to feel frustrated and deprived,
therefore commonly entitled and inclined to override others, and therefore
probably more inclined to expect that others will do the same.
This typology is obviously not exhaustive; there is plenty of room for
people who want to punish both sins. Al and Tipper Gore come famously to
mind, but so do many conservatives. There are also those who, largely under
the influence of Rand, reject both standards of morality. For them, it
might be said, with the same crudeness as the previous characterizations,
the fundamental sin is power. Like Rand, these libertarians remain
fiercely, often obnoxiously, moralistic. (In each case, of course, it is
the exercise of the respective capacity that is the sin, rather than the
feeling itself--making money, making love, making war.) It is fair to ask
whether this view constitutes a third ascetic standard (one also with some
Christian roots), and the answer seems to me pretty clearly affirmative.
The ideal of minimal-government (as opposed to anarchist) libertarians is a
government that would punish only their sin--coercion (understood in a more
specific sense than Rick's, which seems to equate it with force or violence
per se). And it is not unknown for libertarians to give the impression of
being frustrated dictators. The fondness for military metaphors may be one
indication: years ago Rand had a feature in her newsletter called the
"Intellectual Ammunition Department," and the continuing popularity of the
phrase suggests that few of her followers felt any discomfort with it.
There is also, especially among the young, a kind of punk nihilism which
cynically rejects all standards. I have some sympathy with their
conclusions, tending myself toward Nietzsche's cynical characterization of
ethics as the invention of the weak for the control of the strong. But this
position is missing for me, even more conspicuously, the same element as the
others: an orientation to the positive connections between people. Even as
things stand, the reason why most people do not rob or murder each other is
not the fear of being caught and punished (and, conversely, that fear is
often ineffective against those who are so inclined). A sense of respect
for others as autonomous beings survives to some degree--the quality I'm
struggling to articulate may be contained in what Bill has referred to as
"grace"--but our systems of legal and ethical rules go far toward
undermining it. Bill has written in various places of the phenomenon of
extrinsic motivation, a kind of Gresham's law of motivation. An interesting
example of how we relax our own efforts at control as it is taken over for
us is the ethics of research. We responded a few decades ago to some
egregious abuses by creating the ubiquitous bureaucracy of Institutional
Review Boards; now, as a result, people have come to treat research ethics
as a matter of complying with the paperwork. Practices not explicitly
covered by the rules, such as talking about research participants in
restaurants, go on as before, but with perhaps even less sense of awareness
and responsibility. In the general case I'm concerned with, surely the
greatest obstacle to a felt sense of respect for others is simply childhood.
The best most children can hope for is to be treated like pets--to be owned,
controlled, trained, protected, perhaps to be cuddled when young--but to be
consistently regarded with respect, as autonomous human beings, is rare.
I don't think the political ideas I've advocated depend on the universal
achievement of any such attitude; such an achievement would surely never be
more than partial, anyway (as it already is). But neither is the vision
utopian in the sense of being unworkable in principle; there is much that
could actually be done, at least over the long run, and different political
arrangements vary in the degree to which they promote that outcome.
To my claim that the basis of political disputes may lie at a lower level
than system concepts--namely, people controlling for a perception of
themselves as moral, by a standard they feel incapable of meeting unaided,
while controlling simultaneously for a sense of justice, which requires that
everyone be subject to the same constraints--it might reasonably be objected
that moral concepts are system concepts, too. To this I have no important
objection; I have merely shifted the system concept from political or
economic to ethical. I'm not especially pleased with this conclusion, but
it does look to me as though focusing on the political or economic concepts,
to the exclusion of the moral, will miss the fundamental source of the
resistance. I intend these comments, I hasten to add, as a possibly useful
observation about political conflicts, not as an invitation to an ethical
debate.