[From Mike Acree (990321.1430 PST)]
My silence for the past week reflects no lack of interest, just
busyness. Some good points have been made in the meantime, and there's
a double gratification in seeing someone else make well the points you
would have made. I'm sorry, in one way, for having started this thread,
and for letting it go on so long without a retraction. I'm entirely
content to recognize PCT as a purely descriptive theory, and to
acknowledge that the prescription came from a premise I was tacitly
supplying myself. It had not occurred to me to make that assumption
explicit--namely that I didn't like conflict escalating to the point of
open revolt, which PCT describes as the consequence of a system of
law--just because I was also tacitly assuming it to be pretty
universally shared; but I should have learned by now that making such
assumptions is a risky business. More importantly, I agree that there
are advantages to keeping PCT value-free. Several of you corrected me
on this--I believe Rick, Martin, Marc, Bill, and perhaps others; rather
than respond to you individually on this point, let me just make
explicit here my agreement in particular with Bill's post (990317.1519)
on the subject. The only thing odd about that message was the
penultimate paragraph:
Even if we can reason from PCT that punishment is ineffectual and
counterproductive, PCT does not tell us whether we should or should
not do
things that are ineffectual and counterproductive. Your use of these
scare-words presupposes that everyone must shun activities which some
theory says will have effects of a kind that we are supposed to
dislike.
But who or what says that we have to believe the theory, or that we
have to
react to deductions from it as you assume we will react?
from the beginning I had deliberately chosen the terms "ineffectual" and
"counterproductive" as the softest substitutes I could think of for the
outcome of open revolt which you predicted. I did that partly because I
wanted to call attention to the nature of the process and not just the
ultimate outcome, but it's still odd to be accused of using scare-words
here. But I agree, to repeat, that a system of law will not be
ineffectual and counterproductive for anyone whose purpose is escalating
conflict, or for anyone, like governments in general, who has enough
power to prevail in the short run and doesn't care about the long run.
Your last sentence, by the way, makes it sound as though the
consequences predicted by PCT will hold only for those who accept the
theory; I assume this is not what you mean, but rather that the theory,
however true, won't determine people's behavior (with which I agree).
To return to some responses to my original argument, reproduced below:
Me (990315.1545 PST)]
What I have argued is the following:
1. Government entails law.
2. Law entails punishment or the threat thereof.
3. PCT holds that punishment is ineffectual and
counterproductive.
4. Therefore, PCT holds that government is ineffectual and
counterproductive.
5. Anarchy, by definition, is a lack of government.
6. Therefore the presumption of PCT is against government and
in favor of anarchy.
Martin Taylor 990315 19:33--
I've never understood (3).
I've never understood, for my part, how anyone who read B:CP could fail
to understand (3), but your explanation, below, gives me a clue.
As I understand PCT, if the existing connections
of the output of a control system are ineffective in controlling its
perception, the relevant part of the hierarchy is likely to reorganize
until control works.
On the assumption that "punishment" implies that the punisher ensures
that
some controlled perception of the "criminal" goes far from its
reference
value, I would have thought that _consistent_ punishment would result
in
reorganization that led to unpunished actions being substituted for
the punished actions as a means of controlling the perception whose
control actions resulted in the punishment.
Here, for reference, is (part of) what Bill said on the subject:
"_Any_ system based on the control of behavior through the use of
rewards (or, of course, punishments) contains the seeds of its own
destruction. There may be a temporary period, lasting even for many
generations, during which some exciting new system concept so appeals to
people that they will struggle to live within its principles, but if
those principles include incentives, which is to say arbitrary
deprivation or withholding at the whim of human beings, inexorable
reorganization will destroy the system from within. . . .
"In our American society there is a widespread belief in the rule of law
(enforced by physical punishment) and in the use of incentives tied
directly to our ability to stay warm, well fed, and otherwise happy.
There is a stubborn insistence that our worsening social problems can
_only_ be solved by strengthening the punishing force behind the law and
by sternly withholding necessities from those who will not behave
properly. Even further, there is a strong belief that these methods are
all that are preventing total collapse of our system, and that
increasing social tension is traceable to insufficiently vigorous and
consistent use of reward and punishment. If we are to trust the theory
in this book, however, we must conclude the exact opposite. The more
faithfully we adhere to the system of incentives and the rule of law,
the closer must the country approach a state of open revolt. What our
leaders (and we ourselves) are doing in an effort to save the country
from dissenters, revolutionaires, and malcontents is the direct cause of
the increase in numbers of such persons" (pp. 269-270).
It looks to me as though the difference between you, and Rick, and
apparently some others, on the one hand, and Bill, on the other, is that
he is taking the long view--which I regard as the appropriate
perspective in appraising social systems--whereas you are looking only
at isolated encounters. Social psychologists have recently discovered,
after about 20 years of research, what _people_ have always known, which
is that the best strategy for dealing with conflict (e.g., in Prisoner's
Dilemma) depends on whether you will be dealing with the same partners
only once or in an indefinitely long series of encounters. Bill doesn't
deny (neither do I) that coercion or punishment may get you what you
want in the short run, where the short run may extend over generations.
What he does argue is that attempts at control through law--through
punishment--are met with resistance, which is met with stronger efforts
at control, and so on in a continuing spiral of violence and
destruction. I've indicated in a previous post that I found his
remarks, written over 25 years ago, prophetic. The escalation of the
war on drugs, which began in earnest under Reagan (i.e., after
publication of B:CP), is an outstanding example. A press release on the
latest round just crossed my desk, regarding a proposed law in South
Carolina that would make it a crime to buy or sell urine. You might
almost think the author had read B:CP: Suggesting that "With foolish
proposals like this, states are definitely the lavatories of democracy,"
the release argued that "the bill actually demonstrates a very serious
point: That every government program or law eventually requires another
program or law to try to make it work. And when that follow-up program
or law doesn't work either, the politicians will expand it even further,
adding more rules, more penalties, more surveillance, more bureaucrats
to administer it, and so on, ad absurdum. . . . First, the government
makes drugs against the law. But, unlike with crimes of violence, drug
use is a consensual crime -- so there is no victim to file a complaint
with the police. So how does the government catch these so-called
criminals? It's easy: The government starts mandating more drug tests
to trap the offenders. But people who are threatened by these laws make
it their business to know the regulations and how to circumvent them. So
people quickly figure out ways to get around drug tests, and businesses
quickly crop up to cater to them. What happens next? The same thing
that always happens: Politicians propose still more laws. In this case,
it's a law against bootleg urine. And so the cycle continues." (Press
release of the Libertarian Party, March 17, 1999)
I have a bit of a problem with the logical sequence, too. (1) has to
mean
that Government entails _nothing but_ law, and (2) has to mean that
law
entails _only_ punishment or the threat thereof, if (4) is to follow.
Neither seems true, to me.
So, if (1) and (2) are incomplete, and (3) is false, the conclusion
(6)
cannot follow in logic.
You're right that the sorites isn't perfectly tight, even with the
missing value premise added. I think the additional stipulations that
government entails nothing but law, and that law entails nothing but
punishment, are not strictly needed, though. It is true that
governments--national governments, at least--do things besides making
and enforcing law. Our government, for example, intervenes constantly
in the affairs of other nations to try to make sure the "right" guys
win. But these observations don't help your case. What is needed for
material damage to my argument is simply a denial that there are other
characteristics of government or of law which override the fecklessness
and destructiveness of control by punishment. It may be possible to
make such an argument; but until someone does, I think the essence of my
argument still stands.
Rick Marken (990316.0750)--
1. Government entails law.
OK. But so does virtually every organization, from AT&T to Microsoft
to the CSG to the clubs I was in as a kid.
As your response to (2) implies, you are using _law_ in two different
senses.
2. Law entails punishment or the threat thereof.
In most organizations this is largely true. But law could
simply "entail" a description of organizational agreements.
If some people who agree to the laws don't follow those
agreements then they are just seen as uncooperative by the
rest of us who signed up to the agreements; no punishment
involved.
Right. The crucial difference with government--and of law as opposed to
club rules--is just the lack of that agreement. The "social contract,"
as the saying goes, isn't worth the paper it isn't printed on.
I think PCT shows that _any_ organization based on control of
behavior by rewards and punishments is likely to have a large
number of its members existing in conflict with each other. To
the extent that governments control behavior using rewards and
punishments they are a creator of conflict; the same is true for
any organization that is based on control of behavior by rewards
and punishments: AT&T, Microsoft, the CSG and the clubs I was in
as a kid.
I don't see the CSG using rewards or punishments, and I'm amazed that
you do.
I pointed out in a previous post that you can hurt me--you can kill
me--but you're not in a position to punish (or reward) me. Both Chapter
17 of B:CP and Chapter 8 of MSB make it clear that a precondition of the
use of reward or punishment as a means of controlling others depends on
being able to maintain a state of deprivation in the controlee. The
aspiring controller, in other words, must be in a position of power, on
whom the other is dependent. Governments and parents have the power to
punish. But the University of California, my employer, neither induces
a state of deprivation in me nor takes advantage of a preexisting
deprivation. Our contract is very much like the negotiation with the
old man getting his shoes tied in Chapter 8. It reduces error for both
of us better than the alternatives we could find. Neither my work nor
my paycheck is a reward for the other party, nor would termination of
the contract by either of us be a punishment.
(These points are relevant to the later exchange about controlling a dog
through reward and punishment. Rick (90316.1320) wrote as though such
control were possible because the dog weren't smart enough to perceive
the arbitrary contingency that its owner had set up. Bruce Gregory
(990317.1645) responded with his usual sarcasm, but I don't think anyone
made the essential point that dogs can be controlled through reward and
punishment because we have the power to keep them captive and dependent
on us.)
I agree that PCT suggests that, _if_ people want to minimize inter-
and intrapersonal conflict they should find ways to organize
themselves that are not based on controlling each other through
the use of rewards and punishments. To the extent that government
is based on controlling people through the use of rewards and
punishments then PCT does suggest that it would be nice (assuming
everyone wants to eliminate conflict) if this aspect of government
were changed.
Yes. And if you eliminate this aspect, government disappears.
Ideas like "anarchy" (and "capitalism", "communism", etc) were
developed by people who had no idea how humans work; they didn't
know that people are input control systems. What I would like to
see developed by people who do understand PCT are some ideas
about how people can organize themselves into a minimum conflict,
maximally satisfying society (if such a society what you want to
achieve) that are based on an understanding of people as perceptual
control systems.
I completely support starting from PCT rather than any political or
economic doctrines. I'm not yet convinced that you do, but I'm still
observing.
Martin Taylor 990316 15:30--
I postulate an organization interested in influencing driving
behaviour.
It has the power to punish people whose driving violates its rules. It
makes a rule that says _everyone_ who drives on its road _must_ drive
on
the right, no matter how much they want to drive on the left. They
coerce
to the extent of fining or jailing people who actually drive on the
left.
This is an instructive example. Let me make it explicit at the outset
that I will be going somewhat beyond your words here to address a
problem in what I see as your underlying approach. I'm also writing
here as though I were singling you out, but in fact I think most people
share that approach to a significant degree.
I'll start with what I propose is a very similar example. Many people
arrive at the Post Office before the doors open. Suppose, contrary to
fact, that the Post Office had always stationed a policeman at the door
to line people up in the order in which they arrived. This then could
be claimed as a similar virtue of coercion, reducing conflict for all by
enforcing order. I hope it is obvious what is wrong with this analysis:
lining up in the order they arrived is just what people do spontaneously
without the cop. There are, to be sure, occasional
linebreakers--"mavericks"--the response to whom may be anything from a
glare to a fistfight. (If the cop has many friends, linebreakers are
more likely, and nothing can be done about them, even if we wanted to.)
There are also exceptions in emergencies--people trampling over each
other to get out of a burning building, or into a Who concert. But by
and large people discover on their own that such voluntary
arrangements--happening among complete strangers, without any
discussion--minimize their overall error, even though it means a longer
wait.
To return to your highway example: The problem in speaking of coercing
people to drive on one side or the other is the implicit assumption (you
make it explicit later) that, without that coercion, people would drive
"every which way" and kill each other off very quickly. That's a pretty
ridiculous assumption (I think Bruce Gregory and others later implied as
much), but my point isn't just that it's ridiculous (if people didn't
anticipate the problem, it wouldn't take them long to notice it and do
something about it--voluntarily, without your traffic czar); my point is
that, when you leap so quickly to coercive solutions--to traffic flow,
fire services, or anything else--you prevent yourself from ever
discovering the solutions that would arise through cooperation. You've
made such a habit of coercion--through the laws you advocate--that
you're afraid to lay down your gun long enough to find out what would
happen. You've started out assuming the worst about people--in terms of
intentions and capacities--without allowing yourself a means of ever
discovering that you were wrong. A gratuitous insult, a recipe for
trouble, and bad science, all at the same time.
(I find after having written the above that Bill (9990320.0202 and
990320.0900) and Rick (990320.1240) had made some of the same points.)
Rick Marken (990316.2120)--
My point is that "If we are to trust the theory in this
book [PCT]...we must conclude...[that] the more faithfully we
adhere to the system of incentives [offering rewards for "good"
behavior] and the rule of law [punishments for "bad" behavior],
the closer the country must approach a state of open revolt"
(BCP, p. 270). That doesn't mean that we have to abandon the
notion of having a government, or that we should throw out all
rules or that we should never say "nice work" when someone does
a good job. It means what it says: _faithfully_ (diligently,
inflexibly) adhering to (having a reference for) the idea
(perception) that one _must_ control people (using rewards and
punishments) is bound to lead to conflict.
I think our society works as well as it does because most people
in most situations, _don't_ adhere faithfully to the idea that
they _must_ control other people with rewards and punishments,
even if they verbally say that they _are_ committed to this idea.
My reaction on reading this was some relief that we were finally talking
about Chapter 17, but I can see that it's a struggle. It's sad, and a
little grotesque, to see you (and Martin, 990317.0010) seizing on the
adverb _faithfully_, as though your system of law could still be saved
so long as enforcement were only half-hearted or inconsistent. It's true
that there can be, and have been, problems with overzealous as well as
underzealous law enforcement, but that's not the problem Bill was
calling attention to. Martin emphasizes (in various places) that "good
coercion" can improve everybody's ability to control, but it is hard to
see how people's sense of control will be improved if they can't predict
whether a given law will be enforced against them or not. I don't even
think you could base a successful child-rearing manual on that
principle.
Martin Taylor 990317 7:47--
Idea (1) [that each rule must be followed faithfully and failure to
follow it will result in punishment] is the key, though, because it is
the primary reason why people
agree with Charles Dickens that "the law is an ass." A rule is applied
in a situation that was not imagined by the drafters of the rule, and
in which it punishes or rewards someone that "should" not be rewarded
("should" meaning the PCT conflict-reducing "should"). In practice,
most
judges and most policemen don't adhere to rule (1), applying the law
usually in the way it was originally envisioned. And it is this
failure
to emphasise "faithfully" that allows systems of laws to work well
in enhancing the control ability of the members of a society.
If your point here is that rules can't be written to cover every
contingency, so that human judgment is always required in the
application of any rule, then I agree. My favorite example is
Polanyi's: The photo-finish camera was assumed to have eliminated human
judgment from horse racing, until a photo revealed a thick thread of
saliva projecting from the second horse beyond the lead horse's nose.
But, again, Bill was making a more fundamental criticism of rule by law.
I know very few who even _want_ to control very many of the actions of
any other person, let alone assert that they are committed to the idea
that they _must_ do so, whether they want to or not.
A surprising assertion, given just the laws that have been advocated on
the CSGNet. But our friends aside: If there are so few people who want
to control others, how did we get from there being 3 federal crimes in
1789 to over 3000 today?
Rick Marken (990316.0920)--
There may be a way to formulate
a drug rule, for example, that everyone can live with, sans threat
of coercion.
That would be an interesting trick--i.e., betcha can't do it. I think
the closest we can come to a drug rule everybody can live with is no
rule. As it is, our present system effectively, and generously,
subsidizes those who want to impose their preferences (for no drug use)
on others. Policing everybody else's private behavior--both the
surveillance and the enforcement--is _very_ expensive. There can't be
very many people with both the means and willingness to pay for the
enforcement of such laws against everyone else, unless the rest of us,
including drug users, can be coerced into sharing the cost through
taxation.
Mike
