Quote
Tony Judt: A manifesto for a new politics
As a culmination of his political thinking, the eminent historian Tony Judt, paralysed by motor neurone disease, makes an impassioned plea for a new arrangement of society
Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For 30 years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth.
The materialistic and selfish quality of contemporary life is not inherent in the human condition. Much of what appears "natural" today dates from the 1980s: the obsession with wealth creation, the cult of privatisation and the private sector, the growing disparities of rich and poor. And above all the rhetoric which accompanies these: uncritical admiration for unfettered markets, disdain for the public sector, the delusion of endless growth.
We cannot go on living like this. The crash of 2008 was a reminder that unregulated capitalism is its own worst enemy: sooner or later it must fall prey to its own excesses and turn again to the state for rescue. But if we do no more than pick up the pieces and carry on as before, we can look forward to greater upheavals in years to come. And yet we seem unable to conceive of alternatives.
It's difficult to feel optimistic about the upcoming election. Voters are invited to choose between two major parties: one – New Labour – that has governed for the past 13 years and is responsible for the political and financial crisis facing the country; the other – the Conservatives – who are largely to blame for "breaking" the society they now promise to fix. Neither party conveys any sustained understanding of what is wrong with Britain today and both propose remedies which would do little to address the underlying challenges.
Social inequality on a scale unmatched in western Europe; dependence on and deference towards the most irresponsible financial sector in the world today; an over-mighty state, in thrall to private media influence and increasingly deaf to the concerns of civil libertarians and lawyers; a governing class drunk on "reforms", "innovations" and the presumptive merits of the private sector: these should be at the heart of public conversation in Britain today.
We need to rethink the state, and rearticulate the language of social democracy. Social democrats should cease to be defensive and apologetic. A social democratic vision of the good society entails from the outset a greater role for the state and the public sector. The welfare state is as popular as ever with its beneficiaries: nowhere in Europe is there a constituency for abolishing public health services, ending free or subsidised education or reducing public provision of transport and other essential services. We have long practised something resembling social democracy, but we have forgotten how to preach it.
In the early years of this century, the "Washington consensus" held the field. Everywhere you went there was an economist or "expert" expounding the virtues of deregulation, the minimal state and low taxation. Anything, it seemed, that the public sector could do private individuals could do better.
Today there has been a partial awakening. To avert national bankruptcies and wholesale banking collapse, governments and central bankers have performed remarkable policy reversals, liberally dispersing public money in pursuit of economic stability and taking failed companies into public control without a second thought. A striking number of free-market economists, worshippers at the feet of Milton Friedman and his Chicago colleagues, have lined up to don sackcloth and ashes and swear allegiance to the memory of Keynes.
This is all very gratifying. But it hardly constitutes an intellectual revolution. Quite the contrary: as the response of the Obama administration suggests, the reversion to Keynesian economics is but a tactical retreat. Much the same may be said of New Labour, as committed as ever to the private sector in general and the London financial markets in particular. To be sure, one effect of the crisis has been to dampen the ardour of continental Europeans for the "Anglo-American model"; but the chief beneficiaries have been those same centre-right parties once so keen to emulate Washington.
In short, the practical need for interventionist governments is beyond dispute. But no one is rethinking the state. There remains a marked reluctance to defend the public sector on grounds of collective interest or principle. It is striking that in a series of European elections following the financial meltdown, social democratic parties consistently did badly; notwithstanding the collapse of the market, they proved conspicuously unable to rise to the occasion.
If it is to be taken seriously again, the left must find its voice. There is much to be angry about: growing inequalities of wealth and opportunity; injustices of class and caste; economic exploitation at home and abroad; corruption and money and privilege occluding the arteries of democracy. But it will no longer suffice to identify the shortcomings of "the system" and then retreat, Pilate-like, indifferent to consequences. It is incumbent on us to reconceive the role of government. If we do not, others will.
If we had to identify just one general consequence of the intellectual shift that marked the last third of the 20th century, it would surely be the worship of the private sector and, in particular, the cult of privatisation. With the advent of the modern state (notably over the course of the past century), transport, hospitals, schools, postal systems, armies, prisons, police forces and affordable access to culture – essential services not well served by the workings of the profit motive – were taken under public regulation or control. They are now being handed back to private entrepreneurs.
What we have been watching is the steady shift of public responsibility on to the private sector to no discernible collective advantage. Contrary to economic theory and popular myth, privatisation is inefficient. Most of the things that governments have seen fit to pass into the private sector were operating at a loss: whether they were railway companies, coal mines, postal services, or energy utilities, they cost more to provide and maintain than they could ever hope to attract in revenue. For just this reason, such public goods were inherently unattractive to private buyers unless offered at a steep discount. But when the state sells cheap, the public takes a loss. It has been calculated that, in the course of the Thatcher-era UK privatisations, the deliberately low price at which longstanding public assets were marketed to the private sector resulted in a net transfer of £14bn from the taxpaying public to stockholders and other investors.
To this loss should be added a further £3bn in fees to the bankers who transacted the privatisations. Thus the state in effect paid the private sector some £17bn to facilitate the sale of assets for which there would otherwise have been no takers. These are significant sums of money – approximately the endowment of Harvard University, for example, or the annual gross domestic product of Paraguay or Bosnia-Herzegovina. This can hardly be construed as an efficient use of public resources. The outcome has been the worst sort of "mixed economy": individual enterprise indefinitely underwritten by public funds. In Britain, newly privatised NHS hospital groups periodically fail – typically because they are encouraged to make all manner of profits but forbidden to charge what they think the market might bear. At this point the hospital trusts (like the London Underground, whose PPP collapsed in 2007) turn back to the government to pick up the bill. When this happens on a serial basis – as it did with the nationalised railways – the effect is creeping de facto nationalisation with none of the benefits of public control.
The popular cliché that the bloated banks which brought international finance to its knees in 2008 were "too big to fail" is of course infinitely extendable. No government could allow its railway system simply to "fail". Privatised electric or gas utilities, or air traffic control networks, cannot be allowed to grind to a halt through mismanagement or financial incompetence. And, of course, their new managers and owners know this.
Shifting the ownership on to businessmen allows the state to relinquish moral obligations. This was quite deliberate: in the UK between 1979 and 1996 (that is, in the Thatcher and Major years) the private sector share of personal services contracted out by government rose from 11% to 34%, with the sharpest increase in residential care for the elderly, children and the mentally ill. Newly privatised homes and care centres naturally reduced the quality of service to the minimum in order to increase profits and dividends. In this way, the welfare state was stealthily unwound to the advantage of a handful of entrepreneurs and shareholders.
Governments, in short, now increasingly farm out their responsibilities to private firms that offer to administer them better than the state and at a saving. In the 18th century this was called tax farming. Early modern governments often lacked the means to collect taxes and thus invited bids from private individuals to undertake the task. The highest bidder would get the job, and was free – once he had paid the agreed sum – to collect whatever he could and retain the proceeds. The government took a discount on its anticipated tax revenue, in return for cash up front.
After the fall of the monarchy in France, it was widely conceded that tax farming is absurdly inefficient. In the first place, it discredits the state, represented in the popular mind by a grasping private profiteer. Second, it generates considerably less revenue than a well-administered system of government collection, if only because of the profit margin accruing to the private collector. And third, you get disgruntled taxpayers.
As in the 18th century, so today: by eviscerating the state's responsibilities and capacities, we have undermined its public standing. Few in Britain continue to believe in what was once thought of as a "public service mission": the duty to provide certain sorts of goods and services just because they are in the public interest. A government that acknowledges its reluctance to assume such responsibilities, preferring to shift them to the private sector and leave them to the vagaries of the market, may or may not be contributing to efficiency. But it is abandoning core attributes of the modern state.
In effect, privatisation reverses a centuries-long process whereby the state took on things that individuals could not or would not do. The corrosive consequences of this for public life are, as so often, rendered inadvertently explicit in the new "policy-speak". When British politicians and civil servants bother to justify the abandonment of traditional public service monopolies, they talk of "diversifying providers". When the UK work and pensions secretary announced plans in June 2008 to privatise social services – including short-term palliative welfare-to-work schemes which enable Whitehall to publish misleadingly low unemployment figures – he described himself as "optimising welfare delivery". The chief shortcoming of the old public services was the restrictive regulations and facilities – one-size-fits-all – with which they were notoriously associated. But at least their provision was universal, and for good and ill they were regarded as a public responsibility.
The rise of enterprise culture has destroyed all that. A private company does not present itself as a collective good to which all citizens have a right. Unsurprisingly, there has been a sharp falling off in the number of people claiming benefits and services to which they are legally entitled.
The result is a hollowed-out society. From the point of view of the person at the bottom – seeking unemployment pay, medical attention, social benefits or other officially mandated services – it is no longer to the state, the administration or the government that he or she instinctively turns. The service or benefit in question is now often "delivered" by a private intermediary. As a consequence, the thick mesh of social interactions and public goods has been reduced to a minimum, with nothing except authority and obedience binding the citizen to the state.
Any society, Edmund Burke wrote in Reflections on the Revolution in France, which destroys the fabric of its state must soon be "disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality". By eviscerating public services and reducing them to a network of farmed-out private providers, we have begun to dismantle the fabric of the state. As for the dust and powder of individuality: it resembles nothing so much as Hobbes's war of all against all, in which life for many people has once again become solitary, poor and more than a little nasty.
The left has failed to respond effectively to the financial crisis of 2008 – and more generally to the shift away from the state and towards the market over the past three decades. Shorn of a story to tell, social democrats and their liberal fellows have been on the defensive for a generation, apologising for their own policies and altogether unconvincing when it comes to criticising those of their opponents. Even when their programmes are popular, they have trouble defending them against charges of budgetary incontinence or governmental interference.
So what is to be done? What sort of language – what political or moral framework – can the left propose to explain its objectives and justify its goals? There is no longer a place for the old-style master narrative: the all-embracing theory of everything. Nor can we retreat to religion. But even if we concede that there is no higher purpose to life, we need to ascribe meaning to our actions in a way that transcends them. Merely asserting that something is or is not in our material interest will not satisfy most of us most of the time.
What is it that we find lacking in unrestrained financial capitalism, or "commercial society" as the 18th century had it? What do we find instinctively amiss in our present arrangements and what can we do about them? What is it that offends our sense of propriety when faced with unfettered lobbying by the wealthy at the expense of everyone else? What have we lost?
QuoteOf all the competing and only partially reconcilable ends we might seek, the reduction of inequality must come first. Under conditions of endemic inequality, all other desirable goals become hard to achieve. Whether in Delhi or Detroit, the poor and the permanently underprivileged cannot expect justice. They cannot secure medical treatment and their lives are accordingly reduced in length and potential. They cannot get a good education, and without that they cannot hope for even minimally secure employment – much less participation in the culture and civilisation of their society.
In this sense, unequal access to resources of every sort – from rights to water – is the starting point of any truly progressive critique of the world. But inequality is not just a technical problem. It illustrates and exacerbates the loss of social cohesion – the sense of living in a series of gated communities whose chief purpose is to keep out other people (less fortunate than ourselves) and confine our advantages to ourselves and our families: the pathology of the age and the greatest threat to the health of any democracy.
If we remain grotesquely unequal, we shall lose all sense of fraternity: and fraternity, for all its fatuity as a political objective, turns out to be the necessary condition of politics itself. The inculcation of a sense of common purpose and mutual dependence has long been regarded as the linchpin of any community. Inequality is not just morally troubling: it is inefficient.
In post-religious societies such as our own, where most people find meaning and satisfaction in secular objectives, it is only by indulging what Adam Smith called our "benevolent instincts" and reversing our selfish desires that we can "produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole race and propriety". We should be paying greater attention to the things states can do. The success of the mixed economies of the past half century has led a younger generation to take stability for granted and demand the elimination of the "impediment" of the taxing, regulating and generally interfering state. This discounting of the public sector has become the default political language in much of the developed world.
But only a government can respond on the requisite scale to the dilemmas posed by globalised competition. These are not challenges that can be grasped, much less addressed and resolved, by any one private employer or industry. The most that can be expected of the private sector is short-term lobbying in defence of particular jobs or protection for favoured sectors – a recipe for just those pathologies and inefficiencies normally associated with public ownership.
It was not by chance that the late-Victorian reformers and their 20th-century liberal successors turned to the state to address the shortcomings of the market. What could not be expected to happen "naturally" – quite the contrary, since it was the natural workings of the market that created the "social question" in the first place – would have to be planned, administered and, if necessary, enforced from above.
We face a similar dilemma today. The reaction against unrestrained financial markets has obliged the state to step in everywhere. But since 1989 we have been congratulating ourselves on the final defeat of the over-mighty state and are thus ill-positioned to explain to ourselves just why we need intervention and to what end.
We need to learn to think the state again. How, in the face of a powerful, negative myth, are we to describe its proper role? We should begin by acknowledging, more than the left has been disposed to concede, the real harm that was done and could still be done by over-mighty sovereigns. There are two legitimate concerns.
Coercion is the first. Political freedom does not primarily consist in being left alone by the state: no modern administration can or should ignore its subjects altogether. Freedom, rather, consists in retaining our right to disagree with the state's purposes and express our own objections and goals without fear of retribution. This is more complicated than it may sound: even well-intentioned states and governments may not be pleased to encounter firms, communities or individuals recalcitrant in the face of majority desires. Efficiency should not be adduced to justify gross inequality; nor may it be invoked to suppress dissent in the name of social justice. It is better to be free than to live in an efficient state of any political colour if efficiency comes at such a price.
The second objection to activist states is that they can get things wrong. The American sociologist James Scott has written wisely of the benefits of what he calls "local knowledge". The more variegated and complicated a society, the greater the chance that those at the top will be ignorant of the realities at the bottom.
We have freed ourselves of the mid-20th-century assumption – never universal but certainly widespread – that the state is likely to be the best solution to any given problem. We now need to liberate ourselves from the opposite notion: that the state is – by definition and always – the worst available option.
Our first task is to remind our audience of the achievements of the 20th century, along with the likely consequences of a heedless rush to dismantle them. This may sound less exciting than planning great radical adventures for the future, and perhaps it is. But as the British political theorist John Dunn has wisely observed, the past is somewhat better lit than the future: we see it more clearly.
The left, to be blunt, has something to conserve. And why not? In one sense, radicalism has always been about conserving valuable pasts. In October 1647, in the Putney debates conducted at the height of the English civil war, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough warned his interlocutors that: "the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he . . . every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government . . ." Rainsborough was not pointing to some misty-eyed egalitarian future; he was invoking the widely held belief that the rights of Englishmen had been stolen and must be reclaimed.
In a similar way, the anger of early 19th-century radicals in France and Britain was driven in considerable measure by the belief that there were moral rules to economic life, and that these were being trampled underfoot by the new world of industrial capitalism. It is that sense of loss – and the revolutionary sentiments it stoked – which fired the political energies of early socialists. The left has always had something to conserve.
We take for granted the institutions, legislation, services and rights that we have inherited from the great age of 20th-century reform. It is time to remind ourselves that all of these were utterly inconceivable as recently as 1929. We are the fortunate beneficiaries of a transformation whose scale and impact was unprecedented. There is much to defend.
We do not typically associate "the left" with caution. In the political imaginary of western culture, "left" denotes radical, destructive and innovatory. But in truth the democratic left has often been motivated by a sense of loss: sometimes of idealised pasts, sometimes of moral interests ruthlessly overridden by private advantage. It is doctrinaire market liberals who for the past two centuries have embraced the relentlessly optimistic view that all economic change is for the better.
It is the right that has inherited the ambitious modernist urge to destroy and innovate in the name of a universal project. From the war in Iraq through the unrequited urge to dismantle public education and health services, to the decades-long project of financial deregulation, the political right – from Thatcher and Reagan to Bush, Blair and Brown – have abandoned the association of political conservatism with social moderation which served it so well from Disraeli to Heath, from Theodore Roosevelt to Nelson Rockefeller.
If it is true, as Bernard Williams once observed, that the best grounds for toleration are "the manifest evils of toleration's absence", then much the same should be said of social democracy and the welfare state. It is difficult for young people to appreciate just what life was like before them. But if we cannot rise to the level of a justificatory narrative – if we lack the will to theorise our better instincts – then let us at least recall the well-documented cost of abandoning them.
Social democrats need to apologise a little less for past shortcomings and speak more assertively of achievements. That these were always incomplete should not trouble us. If we have learned nothing else from the 20th century, we should at least have grasped that the more perfect the answer, the more terrifying its consequences.
Incremental improvements on unsatisfactory circumstances are the best that we can hope for, and probably all we should seek. Others have spent the last three decades methodically unravelling and destabilising them: this should make us much angrier than we are.
To abandon the labours of a century is to betray those who came before us as well as generations yet to come. It would be pleasing – but misleading – to promise that social democracy, or something like it, represents the future that we would paint for ourselves in an ideal world. But this would be to return to discredited story-telling. Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past. But among the options available to us today, it is better than anything else to hand.
Can we still afford universal pension schemes, unemployment compensation, subsidised arts, inexpensive higher education, etc, or are these benefits and services now too costly to sustain? Is a system of "cradle-to-grave" protections and guarantees more "useful" than a market-driven society in which the role of the state is kept to the minimum?
The answer depends on what we think "useful" means: what sort of a society do we want and what sort of arrangements are we willing to seek to bring it about? The question of "usefulness" needs to be recast. If we confine ourselves to issues of economic efficiency and productivity, ignoring ethical considerations and all reference to broader social goals, we cannot hope to engage it. For too long, the left has been in thrall to the 19th-century romantics, in too much of a hurry to put the old world behind us and offer a radical critique of everything existing. Such a critique may be the necessary condition of serious change, but it can lead us dangerously astray. In the 19th century, "history" sat uncomfortably on the shoulders of a generation impatient for change. The institutions of the past were an impediment. Today, we have good grounds for thinking differently. We owe our children a better world than we inherited; but we also owe something to those who came before.
However, social democracy cannot just be about preserving worthy institutions as a defence against worse options. Nor need it be. Much of what is amiss in our world can best be captured in the language of classical political thought: we are intuitively familiar with issues of injustice, unfairness, inequality and immorality – we have just forgotten how to talk about them.
George Orwell once noted that the "thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the 'mystique' of Socialism, is the idea of equality." This is still the case. It is the growing inequality in and between societies that generates so many social pathologies. Grotesquely unequal societies are also unstable societies. They generate internal division and, sooner or later, internal strife – usually with undemocratic outcomes. As citizens of a free society, we have a duty to look critically at our world. But that is not enough. If we think we know what is wrong, we must act on that knowledge. Philosophers, it was famously observed, have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.
Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land: A Treatise on Our Present Discontents will be published by Allen Lane this week (£20). To order a copy for £18 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846. To read a recent Guardian interview with Tony Judt go to guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jan/09/tony-judt-motor-neurone-disease
On Judt I recommend his lecture in the New York Review of Books (not the New Yorker, sorry) and this really very sad profile/interview:
http://nymag.com/news/features/64626/
Long (very) on prose and rhetoric, short on logic.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 06:58:12 PM
Long (very) on prose and rhetoric, short on logic.
Americans. Speaking English, thinking German :P
One of the reasons it appeals to me is this question of a sort of hollowing out of society which is what I worry has happened. I think we've lost the moral cohesion that's terribly important for any society. He rejects religion which I'd like back in the public sphere (though I'm not a believer) but I think it has to be rejected because it's dead over here. I think what appeals is this conservative (in the sense of conserving) social democracy does reinject a moral and philosophical purpose to society which we need.
Are you in agreement with the assesment of this author?
Myself I've long held capitalism in its pesent form to be wholly exploitative and almost entirely destructive. The 2008 meltdown was merely the beginning since "they" swung back to their usual shennanigans as soon as "they" were bailed out of trouble by public funds... However the nation states that bailed the guilty parties out are now tottering towards bankrupcy or at least financial paralysis, which was perhaps the goal from the onset since said states were the only actors that could (can?) put a stop to this systemic highway robbery that is called neo-liberalism.
But perhaps we must wait until the motherfuckers have eaten themselves out of a natural habitat before we can finally move on to somethign else. That is if this 'natural selection' process doesn't bring us all down with them along the way...
G.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:04:00 PM
... I think we've lost the moral cohesion that's terribly important for any society. He rejects religion which I'd like back in the public sphere (though I'm not a believer) but I think it has to be rejected because it's dead over here. I think what appeals is this conservative (in the sense of conserving) social democracy does reinject a moral and philosophical purpose to society which we need.
Religion as a 'check & balance' mechanism?
G.
Current society lacks moral purpose because communal moral purpose is in opposition to individual freedom of choice. Communists have moral purpose; Utopians have moral purpose; Religions have moral purpose. States that elevate individual freedom of choice do not have moral purpose absent an external threat.
Quote from: Grallon on March 20, 2010, 07:08:18 PM
Are you in agreement with the assesment of this author?
Broadly. I don't think he answers the problem of local conditions. But I think his central point about our society is correct, I think that privatisation has actually just created lots of companies that are too big to fail without delivering gains in efficiency is similarly correct.
QuoteReligion as a 'check & balance' mechanism?
Religion as purpose and, I suppose, automatic fraternity. I still think the recent crash was fundamentally a moral failing and that Wall Street was made by and a reflection of Main Street.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 07:13:33 PM
Current society lacks moral purpose because communal moral purpose is in opposition to individual freedom of choice. Communists have moral purpose; Utopians have moral purpose; Religions have moral purpose. States that elevate individual freedom of choice do not have moral purpose absent an external threat.
Exactly.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 07:13:33 PM
Current society lacks moral purpose because communal moral purpose is in opposition to individual freedom of choice.
It constitutes an opposition only when you evacuate the 'responsability' side of the 'individual freedom' equation...
G.
How is the dissolution of society a good thing, exactly ?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 07:18:11 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:15:55 PM
Exactly.
And that's a good thing.
or rather, if there is not moral purpose, what's the point from which you judge such a stance is "good" ?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 07:18:11 PM
And that's a good thing.
No I think it's obvious and not terribly relevant when discussing social democracy that it opposes individual freedom of choice in the sense that it is opposed to liberalism, that's part of its origin and philosophical basis. Liberalism is about the individual social democracy is about the community and society. I worry that Thatcher was right and that there is no such thing as society.
I also don't think the communist thing is useful where the extent of crusading moral purpose is that found in a Methodist church hall or a Fabian meeting. At worst it's sort-of tinged with religion and slightly utopian. But I'd argue that we've lost any communal story in our society, it's just become individual gratification. A world of wankers.
But you're right a religion provides a moral purpose to a society, a sense of direction and communality. So does utopian thought, even of the rather delicate and incremental form social democracy takes.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 20, 2010, 07:28:58 PM
or rather, if there is not moral purpose, what's the point from which you judge such a stance is "good" ?
You judge it empirically, by the number of people who have complained about having other people's choices imposed on them.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 07:35:31 PM
You judge it empirically, by the number of people who have complained about having other people's choices imposed on them.
That happens in a liberal society as well - that's arguably in the nature of democracy. Thatcher's privatisations didn't happen by universal acclaim, they happened because one party won and so they were able to enact law.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:30:51 PM
...
But I'd argue that we've lost any communal story in our society, it's just become individual gratification. A world of wankers.
...
Somebody termed it '
replacing "le gouvernement des hommes par l'administration des choses" - (the government of people by the management of things/merchandises)'. I think it was Max Weber - I can't recall.
That is where we're at now; everything and everyone is a commodity tradable on a virtual markeplace. <_<
G.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:30:51 PM
No I think it's obvious and not terribly relevant when discussing social democracy that it opposes individual freedom of choice in the sense that it is opposed to liberalism,
That's a partial reading of the origins of liberalism, which has been historically quite concerned about fashioning society - indeed, creating the concept to oppose the State; the irony is that it created a State so strong as to render both invisible and indispensable. The very emergence of the concept of society, among liberals, needed to be thought of in moral terms (see Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments), but in moral terms that placed the individuals in relation to other individuals (rather then in relation to corps, casts, families). Now we've come to this perversion of celebrating the dissolution of relationships other than legal - and many leftists who clamour always for codes, rules and regulations are participating in the dissolution...
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 07:35:31 PM
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 20, 2010, 07:28:58 PM
or rather, if there is not moral purpose, what's the point from which you judge such a stance is "good" ?
You judge it empirically, by the number of people who have complained about having other people's choices imposed on them.
Therefore, there are no notions of justice, good or bad, other than what polls proclaim ?
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:38:28 PM
That happens in a liberal society as well - that's arguably in the nature of democracy. Thatcher's privatisations didn't happen by universal acclaim, they happened because one party won and so they were able to enact law.
Certainly. It's impossible to avoid disagreements about the disposition of jointly held assets or jointly conducted activities. What is possible though is to stop the spread of group decision making into more personal aspects of life.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 20, 2010, 07:44:34 PM
Therefore, there are no notions of justice, good or bad, other than what polls proclaim ?
There are many notions of justice and good or bad. I don't get your point.
My point is this: you are faced with a contradiction.
If there is no moral content to a society, then why is favoring the individual to the detriment of any other political construction "a good thing" ? For it to be "a good thing", you need to have a society which is structured around providing and allowing things which are deemed good; or else "liberalism" becomes solely a preference - the preferences so loved by economists - which does not or should not provide any guideline for any sort of policy.
In other words, you are discrediting morals in government based on a moral position; that a government structured around individualism is a good thing.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 07:44:58 PM
Certainly. It's impossible to avoid disagreements about the disposition of jointly held assets or jointly conducted activities. What is possible though is to stop the spread of group decision making into more personal aspects of life.
What do you mean?
From my perspective privatisation was about the disposition of 'jointly held assets' but it was also a group trying to make a point against another group (the government going out of their way to break the unions and deliberately provoking a fight) and it did affect the most personal aspects of people's lives and their communities lives. Communities fell apart, 40-something men lost jobs that still haven't been replaced and so on. Where is that on the line from 'jointly held assets' and the 'personal aspects of life'?
I also agree with Oex about my description of liberalism. I'd add that the great early liberals were as utopian and moralist as anyone else. In the UK you won't find a more moralising politician than Gladstone. They generally believed in liberalism to a moral purpose, individual freedom of choice was not a sufficient reason for doing something. Repealing the stamp tax on paper for example wasn't worthwhile because it would create a free popular press but because it would enable self-improvement by the working poor; inevitably, though, it did the former far more than the latter.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:15:33 PM
Broadly. I don't think he answers the problem of local conditions. But I think his central point about our society is correct, I think that privatisation has actually just created lots of companies that are too big to fail without delivering gains in efficiency is similarly correct.
I noted in his article that he specifically targeted railway privatisations. However, I can quite clearly remember the days of British Rail, when one or two lines got the investment and every other line had to make do with whatever was left, from second hand rolling stock to stations that had not seen any work done on them in thirty years. So I can't really agree that privatisation of the railways has been a failure.
Most of the railway "horror stories" concern one or two franchises - the rest are much more successful. And I have a certain degree of personal knowledge of this. The grandiosely named "Midland Main Line" was one of British Rail's "afterthought lines". The difference in the quality, frequency and flexibility (number of destinations directly served) of the service now is incomparably better to the bad-old-days under British Rail, and carries many more passengers. The major mistake with rail privatisation was separating responsibility for the track from responsibility for the trains, which left all the franchises hostage to the fortunes of a totally separate organisation.
Fewer franchises that actually controlled their own track would have been a much better option when this was all thought up.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:57:47 PM
What do you mean?
From my perspective privatisation was about the disposition of 'jointly held assets' but it was also a group trying to make a point against another group (the government going out of their way to break the unions and deliberately provoking a fight) and it did affect the most personal aspects of people's lives and their communities lives. Communities fell apart, 40-something men lost jobs that still haven't been replaced and so on. Where is that on the line from 'jointly held assets' and the 'personal aspects of life'?
It's all the way over at the end of the line marked jointly held assets. If the government had told the miners they had to stop whacking off and watching footie on weekends and spend the time reading self-improving books that would have gone to the other end of the line.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 20, 2010, 07:54:17 PM
My point is this: you are faced with a contradiction.
If there is no moral content to a society, then why is favoring the individual to the detriment of any other political construction "a good thing" ? For it to be "a good thing", you need to have a society which is structured around providing and allowing things which are deemed good; or else "liberalism" becomes solely a preference - the preferences so loved by economists - which does not or should not provide any guideline for any sort of policy.
In other words, you are discrediting morals in government based on a moral position; that a government structured around individualism is a good thing.
Gotcha.
I judge society by my personal values and hope that society reflects them as much as possible. I think when the OP talks about a "moral purpose" the author means something different, but now that you press me on it I have to admit I'm not exactly sure it is.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 08:16:58 PM
I judge society by my personal values and hope that society reflects them as much as possible. I think when the OP talks about a "moral purpose" the author means something different, but now that you press me on it I have to admit I'm not exactly sure it is.
He talks about collective and common purpose - for example building Jerusalem - I brought in moral purpose which confused things. Sorry.
Dealing specifically with the privatisation vs keep public debate, I find the analysis on both sides of overly simplistic. In this province we went through a privatisation spree over the last 20 or so years and the results are very much mixed. There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable. For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.
However, there are also some things that are better left to the private sector. For example, we have had a fair amount of success making our utilities run on a private model - although still heavily regulated.
I wont go into health care atm... :)
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 06:58:12 PM
Long (very) on prose and rhetoric, short on logic.
This sums up so much political writing in Britain.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 06:44:34 PM
On Judt I recommend his lecture in the New York Review of Books (not the New Yorker, sorry) and this really very sad profile/interview:
http://nymag.com/news/features/64626/
That was a really good read on Judt. I've read Post War and have Reappraisals on the shelf...
Quote from: Razgovory on March 20, 2010, 11:27:43 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 06:58:12 PM
Long (very) on prose and rhetoric, short on logic.
This sums up so much political writing in Britain.
Compared to the brilliant political prose coming out of the rest of the world?
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2010, 11:31:25 PM
Compared to the brilliant political prose coming out of the rest of the world?
Britain does seem to enjoy a monopoly on literary criticism mascerading as poliitical analysis.
I think it is interesting how in the West "moral conservatism" seems to be going hand in hand with free market capitalism, while I don't think it has a bigger enemy and a destructive force. Free market capitalism destroys all competing ideologies - and "moral values" are the most vulnerable to its charm. The alleged erosion of family, glamourisation of free sex and drugs lifestyle, etc. - these are all direct consequences of these things selling well and free market capitalism offering the fix.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:30:51 PM
But you're right a religion provides a moral purpose to a society, a sense of direction and communality. So does utopian thought, even of the rather delicate and incremental form social democracy takes.
The problem with religion is that it is not rational (or even logically explainable) and as such it can only survive through generational indoctrination - something that is not going to happen again without enormous social costs - you can't just tell people to start believe in some fairy tale overnight (this of course notwithstanding the fact that it is an insult to an individual's intellect, and as such is unacceptable - but I am simply addressing your social engineering point).
This leaves us with a utopia.
It works out then because there are probably only a handful of rational people living on the earth.
My hypothesis is that "rational" societies die out due to their immorality and lack of social cohesion. Hence the apparently weird survival of religious belief into the modern age.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:15:33 PM
Broadly. I don't think he answers the problem of local conditions. But I think his central point about our society is correct, I think that privatisation has actually just created lots of companies that are too big to fail without delivering gains in efficiency is similarly correct.
This is a very current discussion in Sweden. The privatisation of various welfare-functions. I disagree with the notion put forth by the author (and you?) that no gains have been made in that process. All the reports Ive read on the subject, and they are plenty, point to several important differences between private-run and government-run:
1. Emplyoees have much higher job-satisfaction in the private sector than in the government sector.
2. Patients/users are more satisfied with quality of service in the private sector.
3. Private sector is much more economically efficient.
4. They are also much more flexible.
5. Private sector have a tendancy to focus more on patient/user/customer-satisfaction than government sector.
The thing that seems to escape most of the state-should-run-all-welfarestate-functions-advocates is that a government-run hospital, welfare-system, healtcare-system or whatever, is that you always end up with some sort of planned economy-model, and those are
never effective, nor are they focused on the individuals working in them or using them.
What "rational societies" have existed?
Quote
It's difficult to feel optimistic about the upcoming election. Voters are invited to choose between two major parties: one – New Labour – that has governed for the past 13 years and is responsible for the political and financial crisis facing the country;
:bleeding:
I hate this myth.
Can't be arsed to read the rest for a proper comment.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 21, 2010, 06:43:09 AM
My hypothesis is that "rational" societies die out due to their immorality and lack of social cohesion. Hence the apparently weird survival of religious belief into the modern age.
I think I disagree. It is perfectly possible to have a highly socially cohesive and "moral" "rational" society. The problem I think that from a modern perspective any "rational utopia" would have a much easier time to develop into a "total" society and the risk of this would be higher than in a religious society (because we are more used as a civilization to freedom of religion than to "freedom of rational thought"). The result is that a rational utopia in the modern West would have a tendency to become more oppressive and totalitarian than an irrational one.
I guess an example of this could be a pre-Directorate French society.
Besides, I reject the notion that our modern society is immoral or that it does not attempt to enforce morality or social cohesion.
Political correctness. Social welfare. Universal healthcare. Hate speech and hate crime laws. Affirmative action. Consumer and employee protection laws. Minimum wage. Anti-Holocaust-denier laws. These are all tools of the "new morality" enforced by law, in the interest of a greater social cohesion.
The only thing that differs, compared to the "old morality" (provided by religion) is how we define the "Community" and the "Other" - frankly I think our new method is better.
Now, I agree that free market capitalism and free liberal society are in direct opposition to both. But the fun thing it has made the "old morality" and the "new morality" fight each other tooth and nail, while the free market ideology - the moral enemy of both - is selling the tickets.
I stopped where it started to argue that coal mines should be better off under state control.
Quote from: Martinus on March 21, 2010, 07:15:31 AM
Besides, I reject the notion that our modern society is immoral or that it does not attempt to enforce morality or social cohesion.
Political correctness. Social welfare. Universal healthcare. Hate speech and hate crime laws. Affirmative action. Consumer and employee protection laws. Minimum wage. Anti-Holocaust-denier laws. These are all tools of the "new morality" enforced by law, in the interest of a greater social cohesion.
The only thing that differs, compared to the "old morality" (provided by religion) is how we define the "Community" and the "Other" - frankly I think our new method is better.
Now, I agree that free market capitalism and free liberal society are in direct opposition to both. But the fun thing it has made the "old morality" and the "new morality" fight each other tooth and nail, while the free market ideology - the moral enemy of both - is selling the tickets.
Hey, I seem to be liking a post of Martinus :huh:
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable. For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.
Why should running a prison never be profitable?
There was the recent story of the company running a juvenile detention center bribing a judge to "increase the demand" for its services, but it's not exactly as if the history of state-run faciliities is free of any blemish. Plus you've got the example of the prison guard union in California helping to bankrupt the state.
What's Judt's grand vision then? Metaphorically rolling back the clock to the Attlee years, in which building (anew) a British socialist state gives society back its moral cohesion?
Quote from: Pitiful Pathos on March 21, 2010, 07:36:19 AM
What's Judt's grand vision then? Metaphorically rolling back the clock to the Attlee years, in which building (anew) a British socialist state gives society back its moral cohesion?
His principal policy proposal appears to be reducing income inequality.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2010, 07:39:04 AM
Quote from: Pitiful Pathos on March 21, 2010, 07:36:19 AM
What's Judt's grand vision then? Metaphorically rolling back the clock to the Attlee years, in which building (anew) a British socialist state gives society back its moral cohesion?
His principal policy proposal appears to be reducing income inequality.
Well, that's the goal, not the means. I am curious how he would like to see that achieved.
"Moral cohesion" sounds horrible.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
Dealing specifically with the privatisation vs keep public debate, I find the analysis on both sides of overly simplistic. In this province we went through a privatisation spree over the last 20 or so years and the results are very much mixed. There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable. For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.
Well this is entirely right. I think the privatisation of the railways is a case in point. It's notable that the only significant development in terms of infrastructure (our first high speed rail line) will be built with government support. Even then it needs very long-term commitment to spend money which requires cross-party consensus. I think there's a reason the railways has always had to have a lot of government guidance. It's an industry that needs long-term coherent plans and long-term commitments to spending.
QuoteHowever, there are also some things that are better left to the private sector. For example, we have had a fair amount of success making our utilities run on a private model - although still heavily regulated.
This I find somewhat true. I think the issue is what Judt points out. Even after privatisation all of these things are still too big or too important to fail. So you've got no private risk with these privatised businesses. All that'll happen if the railway infrastructure firm cocks up, or struggles to make money is that they'll get endless government help because we can't let them fail.
I broadly agree about telephones and water. I am somewhat less sure about energy, simply because that again seems a sector that needs a very long-term commitment to money that not many private companies would want. For example in the UK we want to get more nuclear plants yet EDF - world leader's at this - will need the British government to put up hundreds of millions to build the plants because they're such a large investment project. It does seem striking that the UK and, to the best of my knowledge, US and Canada don't have huge nuclear sectors I think because (in the UK and possibly the others) the private sector won't bear that sort of cost and local communities have too much power. The world leader in nuclear power is France, which still has national champions, where the government's very involved in the energy sector and power's slightly more centralised.
I'll return to this later.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 20, 2010, 07:13:33 PM
Current society lacks moral purpose because communal moral purpose is in opposition to individual freedom of choice. Communists have moral purpose; Utopians have moral purpose; Religions have moral purpose. States that elevate individual freedom of choice do not have moral purpose absent an external threat.
Minor quibble: communists believe that one can have both moral purpose and complete personal freedoms. That is why communism doesn't work above the enterprise level.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2010, 07:32:58 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable. For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.
Why should running a prison never be profitable?
Because the State should not be paying the premium to make it profitable. It should just be run at cost.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 21, 2010, 08:15:07 AM
I broadly agree about telephones and water. I am somewhat less sure about energy, simply because that again seems a sector that needs a very long-term commitment to money that not many private companies would want. For example in the UK we want to get more nuclear plants yet EDF - world leader's at this - will need the British government to put up hundreds of millions to build the plants because they're such a large investment project. It does seem striking that the UK and, to the best of my knowledge, US and Canada don't have huge nuclear sectors I think because (in the UK and possibly the others) the private sector won't bear that sort of cost and local communities have too much power. The world leader in nuclear power is France, which still has national champions, where the government's very involved in the energy sector and power's slightly more centralised.
The utilities work here in British Columbia because energy production is relatively cheap hydro electric generation. Our natural gas delivery also works on a private model but again we have access to cheap natural gas in our back yard. Oil exploration, development and refining is of course private but that is because the profit margins are large enough to sustain capital intensive exploration and development.
All of which is to say that I we agree. Going private only makes sense when profit margins are available without government subsidy. If government is essentially paying for the operation it should also control it.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 08:53:06 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2010, 07:32:58 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable. For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.
Why should running a prison never be profitable?
Because the State should not be paying the premium to make it profitable. It should just be run at cost.
No matter how much money the state loses by doing so?
Quote from: The Brain on March 21, 2010, 09:06:43 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 08:53:06 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2010, 07:32:58 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable. For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.
Why should running a prison never be profitable?
Because the State should not be paying the premium to make it profitable. It should just be run at cost.
No matter how much money the state loses by doing so?
The cost is what it is. The State will lose more money by paying for the profit of a private operator on top of that cost.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 08:53:06 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2010, 07:32:58 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable. For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.
Why should running a prison never be profitable?
Because the State should not be paying the premium to make it profitable. It should just be run at cost.
Understanding that "cost" is higher in a government-run system than a privately-run system, given that the latter has incentive to reduce costs and the former does not?
I think the choice isn't between what shouldn't be run without profit and what should be, it is between efficiency and risk. Government should run things for which efficiency is not as important as reliability. Monopolistic enterprises such as most public transportation systems are an obvious example. Prisons may be less so.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 09:08:53 AM
The cost is what it is. The State will lose more money by paying for the profit of a private operator on top of that cost.
Neither of these statements are true
a priori.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 09:08:53 AM
Quote from: The Brain on March 21, 2010, 09:06:43 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 08:53:06 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2010, 07:32:58 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable. For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.
Why should running a prison never be profitable?
Because the State should not be paying the premium to make it profitable. It should just be run at cost.
No matter how much money the state loses by doing so?
The cost is what it is. The State will lose more money by paying for the profit of a private operator on top of that cost.
Except that the cost isn't "what it is".
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2010, 09:11:51 AM
Understanding that "cost" is higher in a government-run system than a privately-run system, given that the latter has incentive to reduce costs and the former does not?
That is the normal assumption but as we have found out here that is not always the case. This is one of the criticisms I have for the privitisation crowd. They work from the assumption that the private sector can always do things for less cost but with the same outcomes or value. For some things that is true. For others it is not.
QuoteI think the choice isn't between what shouldn't be run without profit and what should be, it is between efficiency and risk. Government should run things for which efficiency is not as important as reliability. Monopolistic enterprises such as most public transportation systems are an obvious example. Prisons may be less so.
Again you are making the assumption that private actors will always be more efficient. I realize that a strong cultural truism in the US but it is not our experience here. The thing about private actors in a non-government related field is that the most inefficient businesses simply fail. But when private actors are being funded and subsidized by government that does not occur. The opposite can occur. The private actor simply adapts to find ways to get as much out of the government as possible to increase its profitability.
This is one of the reasons I think Obama's health care strategy is bound to fail. I dont understand all the details but generally he seems to be trying to keep a private structure which is now going to be funded largely from tax dollars.
Quote from: The Brain on March 21, 2010, 09:14:28 AM
Except that the cost isn't "what it is".
Yes it is. You are simply making the same assumption that Grumbler makes that private actors can always reduce cost. That is too simplistic. I agree that sometimes they can but not always and the question has to be asked for each venture and not merely assumed.
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2010, 09:11:51 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 08:53:06 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2010, 07:32:58 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable. For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.
Why should running a prison never be profitable?
Because the State should not be paying the premium to make it profitable. It should just be run at cost.
Understanding that "cost" is higher in a government-run system than a privately-run system, given that the latter has incentive to reduce costs and the former does not?
I think the choice isn't between what shouldn't be run without profit and what should be, it is between efficiency and risk. Government should run things for which efficiency is not as important as reliability. Monopolistic enterprises such as most public transportation systems are an obvious example. Prisons may be less so.
Why do you assume the former doesn't have an incentive to reduce costs?
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 09:29:11 AM
That is the normal assumption but as we have found out here that is not always the case. This is one of the criticisms I have for the privitisation crowd. They work from the assumption that the private sector can always do things for less cost but with the same outcomes or value. For some things that is true. For others it is not.
But your assumption that "cost is what is is" for prisons is true because...?
It is ironic to see you criticizing "the privatization crowd" by erecting a strawman that is the exact reverse of your own unsupported (and arguably unsupportable) assertion! :lol:
QuoteAgain you are making the assumption that private actors will always be more efficient.
Again, no, I am not. Private actors are generally more efficient, because they have incentives to be, but that isn't
always true. You saying that i am making an assumption also doesn't make it true.
QuoteI realize that a strong cultural truism in the US but it is not our experience here. The thing about private actors in a non-government related field is that the most inefficient businesses simply fail. But when private actors are being funded and subsidized by government that does not occur. The opposite can occur. The private actor simply adapts to find ways to get as much out of the government as possible to increase its profitability.
Private actors being funded/subsidized by the government maximize the efficiency by which they get money from the government. Your experience is exactly what someone would expect from the "cultural truism" called economics.
QuoteThis is one of the reasons I think Obama's health care strategy is bound to fail. I dont understand all the details but generally he seems to be trying to keep a private structure which is now going to be funded largely from tax dollars.
There are many reasons why many elements of the new health care proposal will likely fail. The publicly-funded private structure (with no government watchdog to check how the money is spent) is one of them, but not the biggest one (Medicare has generally been satisfactory in the US). The biggest one is that the bill is trying to repeal a law of economics by not really mandating coverage but banning discrimination in accepting clients based on pre-existing conditions. Many people will be able to get by with little to no coverage until they become ill and then will sign up for health care. This is called a Recipe For Disaster.
There are ways of getting where the US wants to be using a private health care system, and ways to get there using a public health care system. there are even ways to get there with a system that combines the two.
The Congress and US President decided to pursue none of those. The No Emperors' Clothes Left Behind health care system will require an overhaul within seconds of being passed.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 21, 2010, 10:28:06 AM
Why do you assume the former doesn't have an incentive to reduce costs?
Experience and logic lead one to that conclusion.
A common misconception but not necessarily a true one.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 09:30:42 AM
Quote from: The Brain on March 21, 2010, 09:14:28 AM
Except that the cost isn't "what it is".
Yes it is. You are simply making the same assumption that Grumbler makes that private actors can always reduce cost. That is too simplistic. I agree that sometimes they can but not always and the question has to be asked for each venture and not merely assumed.
I see.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 21, 2010, 10:50:22 AM
A common misconception but not necessarily a true one.
Okay.
See, this thread illustrated my point I made in the other thread: I tried making a reasonable, balanced post without references to homosexuality and it got completely ignored.
Had I instead called for the death of all Christians and Muslims, and advocated mandatory gay sex, I would have got some reaction. :P
All prisons should be abolished because they promote gay sex.
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2010, 10:38:07 AM
It is ironic to see you criticizing "the privatization crowd" by erecting a strawman that is the exact reverse of your own unsupported (and arguably unsupportable) assertion! :lol:
No strawman here. I was dealing with your express statement.
QuoteUnderstanding that "cost" is higher in a government-run system than a privately-run system, given that the latter has incentive to reduce costs and the former does not?
Very dogmatic of you.
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2010, 09:11:51 AMBecause the State should not be paying the premium to make it profitable. It should just be run at cost.
Understanding that "cost" is higher in a government-run system than a privately-run system, given that the latter has incentive to reduce costs and the former does not?
I think the choice isn't between what shouldn't be run without profit and what should be, it is between efficiency and risk. Government should run things for which efficiency is not as important as reliability. Monopolistic enterprises such as most public transportation systems are an obvious example. Prisons may be less so.
[/quote]
I think prisons are an obvious risk, much more so than public services you mention. The 'reliability' there simply concerns ensuring that individuals' human rights are not trampled, and not that trains run of time - something arguably much more important.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 05:42:59 PM
No strawman here. I was dealing with your express statement.
QuoteUnderstanding that "cost" is higher in a government-run system than a privately-run system, given that the latter has incentive to reduce costs and the former does not?
Very dogmatic of you.
:lmfao:
Seriously.
You are accusing me of asking a dogmatic
question?
Seriously? You are doing that?
I am gonna stop, and just let you answer that. I deleted the rest of the post, so as to give you room to retreat before you are routed.
Quote from: Martinus on March 21, 2010, 05:52:51 PM
I think prisons are an obvious risk, much more so than public services you mention. The 'reliability' there simply concerns ensuring that individuals' human rights are not trampled, and not that trains run of time - something arguably much more important.
Agree 100%, but note simply that this isn't as "obvious" (which was my point).
You don't run prisons as public institutions because you think the cost of running any prison is the same no matter who is running it or what their incentives push them to do. You run prisons as public institutions because you want the employees to be as accountable as possible to the public. Prison officials who are spending time watching costs too closely can miss the fact that they are there to protect society from the felons, protect the felons from each other, and rehabilitate insofar as possible. It is a different mindset.
Quote from: Martinus on March 21, 2010, 06:08:25 AM
I think it is interesting how in the West "moral conservatism" seems to be going hand in hand with free market capitalism, while I don't think it has a bigger enemy and a destructive force. Free market capitalism destroys all competing ideologies - and "moral values" are the most vulnerable to its charm. The alleged erosion of family, glamourisation of free sex and drugs lifestyle, etc. - these are all direct consequences of these things selling well and free market capitalism offering the fix.
This is just what I was thinking reading this thread. sometimes we are in sync marti.
Quote from: Martinus on March 21, 2010, 11:29:35 AM
See, this thread illustrated my point I made in the other thread: I tried making a reasonable, balanced post without references to homosexuality and it got completely ignored.
Had I instead called for the death of all Christians and Muslims, and advocated mandatory gay sex, I would have got some reaction. :P
I didn't ignore your posts marti. They were some of the better spins and helped me to understand the thread better. I realized awhile ago that often people don't quote you or respond to you if they don't want to argue with you (and by you I mean me or the general "you") The best way to get argument or attention at languish is to drop those bombs you mention mart. I prefer your posts in this thread to any other I've read recently. KUTGW :thumbsup:
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2010, 06:03:34 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 05:42:59 PM
No strawman here. I was dealing with your express statement.
QuoteUnderstanding that "cost" is higher in a government-run system than a privately-run system, given that the latter has incentive to reduce costs and the former does not?
Very dogmatic of you.
:lmfao:
Seriously.
You are accusing me of asking a dogmatic question?
Seriously? You are doing that?
I am gonna stop, and just let you answer that. I deleted the rest of the post, so as to give you room to retreat before you are routed.
That quote is a statement, question mark or not, Mr. Beck.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2010, 06:58:08 PM
That quote is a statement, question mark or not, Mr. Beck.
The question mark at the end indicates otherwise, Mr. Limbaugh. That is what that punctuation mark means.
It's even
in the name! :lol:
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 09:30:42 AM
Yes it is. You are simply making the same assumption that Grumbler makes that private actors can always reduce cost. That is too simplistic. I agree that sometimes they can but not always and the question has to be asked for each venture and not merely assumed.
The question doesn't need to be asked. All that is needed is that government only consider bids that are less than the cost of running the facility publicly.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2010, 07:25:22 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 09:30:42 AM
Yes it is. You are simply making the same assumption that Grumbler makes that private actors can always reduce cost. That is too simplistic. I agree that sometimes they can but not always and the question has to be asked for each venture and not merely assumed.
The question doesn't need to be asked. All that is needed is that government only consider bids that are less than the cost of running the facility publicly.
If all costs can be quantified in a form useful for comparisons, this would be true. All costs are not, however.
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2010, 06:03:34 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 05:42:59 PM
No strawman here. I was dealing with your express statement.
QuoteUnderstanding that "cost" is higher in a government-run system than a privately-run system, given that the latter has incentive to reduce costs and the former does not?
Very dogmatic of you.
:lmfao:
Seriously.
You are accusing me of asking a dogmatic question?
Seriously? You are doing that?
I am gonna stop, and just let you answer that. I deleted the rest of the post, so as to give you room to retreat before you are routed.
I see. So you are backing away from it. Wise move. Frankly your comment made as much sense as your comment in the earlier thread about the groups who signed treaties not being around anymore.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2010, 10:27:36 PM
I see. So you are backing away from it. Wise move. Frankly your comment made as much sense as your comment in the earlier thread about the groups who signed treaties not being around anymore.
I repeat: Are you accusing me of asking a dogmatic
question? No weaseling, it is a yes or no question.
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 06:03:19 AM
I repeat: Are you accusing me of asking a dogmatic question? No weaseling, it is a yes or no question.
This is pure Languish. :D
I would like to know what a dogmatic question is. The only possible meaning is a question over dogma but that doesn't make sense in context.
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2010, 08:15:26 PM
If all costs can be quantified in a form useful for comparisons, this would be true. All costs are not, however.
Such as? What is an example of a cost that are not can be quantfied?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 22, 2010, 07:10:33 AM
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2010, 08:15:26 PM
If all costs can be quantified in a form useful for comparisons, this would be true. All costs are not, however.
Such as? What is an example of a cost that are not can be quantfied?
The cost of scandals like Abu Gahraib (sp), for instance. The cost of a prisoner escaping. The cost of rehabilitation forgone to cut costs for counselors, or whatever. The opportunity cost for spending the money on prisons vice health care (or whatever the next-best option would be).
I am not sure why you would even question that some costs cannot be quantified. You have had some economics education yourself, if I recall correctly.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 22, 2010, 07:08:17 AM
I would like to know what a dogmatic question is. The only possible meaning is a question over dogma but that doesn't make sense in context.
I don't know either. That is why I ask. Frankkly, CC's comment made as little sense as his inability to understand that the FN Canadians of today are not the same individuals as those who signed the peace treaties with Britain in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2010, 06:52:16 AM
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 06:03:19 AM
I repeat: Are you accusing me of asking a dogmatic question? No weaseling, it is a yes or no question.
This is pure Languish. :D
Indeed. I cannot think of another place where someone would call a question dogmatic (especially given that one antonym to dogmatic is "questioning!) :D
Quote from: Razgovory on March 22, 2010, 07:08:17 AM
I would like to know what a dogmatic question is. The only possible meaning is a question over dogma but that doesn't make sense in context.
Maybe it's a question where the answer is not open-ended, and the only alternatives allowed by the question are within the "dogma" the person asking the question espouses? For the record, I haven't read the question being called dogmatic here, just speculating on the word.
For example, the question whether Jesus's nature was "homousios" or "homoiusios" with the God could be called dogmatic, since it only allows two narrowly defined possibilities (and does not allow for the possibility that Jesus was not at all one with God in any capacity or that indeed God exists etc.).
Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2010, 08:05:22 AM
For example, the question whether Jesus's nature was "homousios" or "homoiusios" with the God could be called dogmatic, since it only allows two narrowly defined possibilities (and does not allow for the possibility that Jesus was not at all one with God in any capacity or that indeed God exists etc.).
Typical Mart, bringing homos into every argument :P
Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2010, 08:05:22 AM
Maybe it's a question where the answer is not open-ended, and the only alternatives allowed by the question are within the "dogma" the person asking the question espouses? For the record, I haven't read the question being called dogmatic here, just speculating on the word.
The question challenged the apparent dogma of the original statement (that costs for the state running a prison were always the same as those of a private corporation running a prison) by pointing out a case in which it wouldn't be true (that the private company had incentives to cut costs that the government entity did not). There is no dogma attached to that concept. Indeed, the dogma enters the discussion with CC's later assertion that "This is one of the criticisms I have for the privitisation [sic] crowd. They work from the assumption that the private sector can always do things for less cost but with the same outcomes or value." Since the "privatization crowd" actually makes no such assumption, the assertion of this strawman comes from an anti-privatization dogma, which CC later disavows.
The sides here are not "the privatization crowd" with the dogma that "the private sector can always do things for less cost but with the same outcomes or value" and CC's more reasonable side, but rather sides based on more nuanced evaluations of what non-monetary value we should place on certain outcomes, and therefor how much government interference with "distribution efficiency" we are willing to accept in order to achieve those outcomes.
Quote from: Brazen on March 22, 2010, 08:33:16 AM
Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2010, 08:05:22 AM
For example, the question whether Jesus's nature was "homousios" or "homoiusios" with the God could be called dogmatic, since it only allows two narrowly defined possibilities (and does not allow for the possibility that Jesus was not at all one with God in any capacity or that indeed God exists etc.).
Typical Mart, bringing homos into every argument :P
:D
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 20, 2010, 07:54:17 PM
My point is this: you are faced with a contradiction.
If there is no moral content to a society, then why is favoring the individual to the detriment of any other political construction "a good thing" ? For it to be "a good thing", you need to have a society which is structured around providing and allowing things which are deemed good; or else "liberalism" becomes solely a preference - the preferences so loved by economists - which does not or should not provide any guideline for any sort of policy.
In other words, you are discrediting morals in government based on a moral position; that a government structured around individualism is a good thing.
One can have a moral position without believing that the state should actively pursue one. Similarly, a society can have "moral content" even if that society is not organized around directing the pursuit of one single moral vision. I don't see where the contradiction arises here.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 20, 2010, 07:15:33 PM
Religion as purpose and, I suppose, automatic fraternity. I still think the recent crash was fundamentally a moral failing and that Wall Street was made by and a reflection of Main Street.
What was the moral failing?
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 22, 2010, 09:24:59 AM
One can have a moral position without believing that the state should actively pursue one.
There are therefore two different problems. The first is how to separate the State from the individuals that act within its various institutions. My reading is not merely that you cannot, but that tracing the line between what is the State and what isn't the State is an important performative act - quite frequently informed by morals - that, in effect, become the State. The issue is even more important in societies where the State is tied with the democratic process: can we hold the belief that an absolute freedom of morals is "good" (i.e., it should be pursued) without reference to a value-system, and can we sustain such a thought without reference to shared morals ? I would argue that you cannot.
The second lies in what means "actively pursuing" a moral position. I contend that a justice system, for instance, is "actively pursuing" a moral position, reinforcing certain actions, sanctionning others. My personal morals might very well hold that private property of the means of production is theft, and amoral, something tells me the State is not going to enforce such a view.
QuoteSimilarly, a society can have "moral content" even if that society is not organized around directing the pursuit of one single moral vision. I don't see where the contradiction arises here.
The mistake here is to take moral content as if it were war objectives that "society" established (how ? by whom ?) and then single-mindedly pursued. Usually, moral content seems a much more a cloud of related ideas, linked by various related concepts, and which can cristallize heavily under stress. I am not a communist who argues that the State dictates (or should dictate) what the moral outcome should be. What I do decry is the illusionary undermining of morals as meaningful terms of relationships. That morals should never come into play, and that they, indeed, never come into play. My point here is that there is a moral system that is being celebrated / reinforced by the various social actors, and this is one of all-powerful egoism, and an individualism that is centered on the self, rather than towards the others. And that is certainly not divided beween left/right.
I think the question of whether the law or the state policy should be inspired by morality is a fallacious one - since it always is to a degree.
I think the real question (and therein lies the difference between a communist regime or a theocracy on one hand and a liberal democracy on the other) is what vision of morality (in the meta-sense) the state adopts.
If the state wishes to enforce a maximalist morality then it creates a totalitarian state, where every moral choice becomes also a legal one.
If the state wishes to enforce only a minimalist, "basic" morality (leaving a significant part of moral questions up to the decisions of its citizens without a legal fiat) then it creates a pluralistic society.
I could agree with such a presentation, except for one - major - thing: it is a presentation that once again, places the State in a rapport of exteriority: the State as a creator of society, as an enforcer of morality, leaving said society as a collection of islands that have little need to create their own moral rapports.
I am, again, not saying this is how things functions in reality, but rather how it is often presented. And then, such presentations have a real effect on the realities of relationships.
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 08:38:41 AM
The sides here are not "the privatization crowd" with the dogma that "the private sector can always do things for less cost but with the same outcomes or value" and CC's more reasonable side, but rather sides based on more nuanced evaluations of what non-monetary value we should place on certain outcomes, and therefor how much government interference with "distribution efficiency" we are willing to accept in order to achieve those outcomes.
I am glad you restated your position. This makes a bit more sense. However, the privatization crowd often does make the argument you made earlier that private actors can always do things for less cost and even here you continue to make the argument that private actors can always do things more efficiently. It is an assumption which underlies the logic of privitization.
However, it isnt necessarily so.
One of the things that gives the private sector the impression of efficiency is that private actors who are not able to successfully compete no longer exist. However, this process of removing inefficient private actors is distorted by government subsidy.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 22, 2010, 11:13:40 AM
I am glad you restated your position. This makes a bit more sense. However, the privatization crowd often does make the argument you made earlier that private actors can always do things for less cost and even here you continue to make the argument that private actors can always do things more efficiently. It is an assumption which underlies the logic of privitization.
Can you cite me some writings of actual members of this "privatization crowd" that states hat private actors can always do things for less cost?
And, yes, the assumption behind economics is that free markets are the most efficient way to distribute goods and services, because they have the lowest exchange costs. It is an assumption that underlines all of economic market theory.
QuoteHowever, it isnt necessarily so.
Can you give me an example of where a government monopoly has proven more efficient at distributing goods or services than a private actor was or would have been? You keep saying that economic theory is wrong, but you don't support that assertion.
QuoteOne of the things that gives the private sector the impression of efficiency is that private actors who are not able to successfully compete no longer exist. However, this process of removing inefficient private actors is distorted by government subsidy.
Government subsidies don't exist in a free market. It is true that government subsidies distort the markets by keeping in business private actors that should be out of business, but this is an example of the government decreasing efficiency, not increasing it.
The thing that gives the private sector (in a free market) the impression of efficiency is the existence of efficiency.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 22, 2010, 11:00:59 AM
I could agree with such a presentation, except for one - major - thing: it is a presentation that once again, places the State in a rapport of exteriority: the State as a creator of society, as an enforcer of morality, leaving said society as a collection of islands that have little need to create their own moral rapports.
I am, again, not saying this is how things functions in reality, but rather how it is often presented. And then, such presentations have a real effect on the realities of relationships.
I disagree. I think the society that fosters freedom and equality (including equal opportunity measures) can and does create a set of moral values people could stand behind. The problem with a society like this is that it does not have natural measures of combating "viruses", i.e. competing values that enter the system and appear to have a purpose of perverting it (which make it appear unstable in a short run). The upside however is that it has much better tools to evolve and eventually "assimilate" and "disarm" such viruses, making them work for the overall good (which makes it much more stable in the long run, since it tends to diffuse revolutions).
Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2010, 10:56:20 AM
I think the question of whether the law or the state policy should be inspired by morality is a fallacious one - since it always is to a degree.
I think the real question (and therein lies the difference between a communist regime or a theocracy on one hand and a liberal democracy on the other) is what vision of morality (in the meta-sense) the state adopts.
If the state wishes to enforce a maximalist morality then it creates a totalitarian state, where every moral choice becomes also a legal one.
If the state wishes to enforce only a minimalist, "basic" morality (leaving a significant part of moral questions up to the decisions of its citizens without a legal fiat) then it creates a pluralistic society.
Yes, this. However, I somewhat reject the idea that a "society" or a state can really have a morality of its own. IMO--morality is a property of the choices and actions of individuals. It doesn't really scale into collective action. A state can be an enforcer of moral values, but it holds no morality or virtue of its own. It's a reflection of the values of the individuals who created it. Not, the people ruled or governed by it, mind you, but those who created it.
I do disagree with the notion I think Yi mentioned that a non-interventionist state is lacking moral imperative. I think the non-interventionism is itself a moral reflection of the values of the individuals involved. ie--Deciding not to interfere in a gay guy's sex life is itself a choice with a moral component to it, and the individuals who make up the society he lives in, at least the majority of them or the decision-making portion of them, consider it a moral value to be non-interventionist in that area. In other words, not all morality is reflected through the actions that the state takes. Just as much is reflected by the action the state doesn't take.
Of course you can quantify costs like scandals and inmates escaping.
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 11:26:07 AM
Government subsidies don't exist in a free market. It is true that government subsidies distort the markets by keeping in business private actors that should be out of business, but this is an example of the government decreasing efficiency, not increasing it.
The thing that gives the private sector (in a free market) the impression of efficiency is the existence of efficiency.
You have taken us completely off topic. What we are taking about are ventures that are taken over by private actors but which government still pays for. We are not taking about private actors operating in a free market but private actors performing functions for government at the pay of government.
How is this in any way operating in a free market?
edit: also, often these ventures are also monopolies so I really dont understand what point you are trying to make in the context of the discussion I was having with our British friend.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 22, 2010, 10:47:03 AM
There are therefore two different problems. The first is how to separate the State from the individuals that act within its various institutions.
That can be said any time two or more persons get together for some common endeavor. The proposition you seem to be stating here is tautological - because any system of organization involving more than one atomized indivudal acting alone (a literary construct) automatically implicates moral principles, therefore all common activities are informed by such principles. True enough but trivial. The question is whether a meaningful distinction can be made between collective institutions that reflect moral principles and those that autonomously promote and seek to implement a particular moral agenda.
QuoteMy reading is not merely that you cannot, but that tracing the line between what is the State and what isn't the State is an important performative act - quite frequently informed by morals - that, in effect, become the State. The issue is even more important in societies where the State is tied with the democratic process: can we hold the belief that an absolute freedom of morals is "good" (i.e., it should be pursued) without reference to a value-system, and can we sustain such a thought without reference to shared morals ? I would argue that you cannot.
There is a distinction between the proposition that collective action is "informed by morals" and the separate proposition -- which sheilbh appeared to be advancing and Yi rejecting that the institutionalized instantiation of the collective can and should autonomously purse particular moral agendas on its own. It is the difference between (for example) a business partnership that reflects the morals of the persons who happen to have created it (perhaps in the way on a day-to-day basis they deal with suppliers, customers or employees) and a similar partnership that -- apart from the individual actions of the persons who constitute it -- actively pursues a particular moral goal - for example, converting people to a particular set of religious beliefs so they can be "saved".
QuoteThe second lies in what means "actively pursuing" a moral position. I contend that a justice system, for instance, is "actively pursuing" a moral position, reinforcing certain actions, sanctionning others. My personal morals might very well hold that private property of the means of production is theft, and amoral, something tells me the State is not going to enforce such a view.
A "justice system" does not pursue anything - it is the resultant of the various legislative and judicial decisions that constitute it. The underlying legislation and procedures may be informed by moral principles of those who created them, and they may have significant effects that relate to moral principles. But that does not make it accurate to say that the system itself is animated by some particular moral program.
QuoteThe mistake here is to take moral content as if it were war objectives that "society" established (how ? by whom ?) and then single-mindedly pursued. Usually, moral content seems a much more a cloud of related ideas, linked by various related concepts, and which can cristallize heavily under stress. I am not a communist who argues that the State dictates (or should dictate) what the moral outcome should be. What I do decry is the illusionary undermining of morals as meaningful terms of relationships. That morals should never come into play, and that they, indeed, never come into play.
But no one is contending this. The proposition at issue was shielbh's: "social democracy does reinject a moral and philosophical purpose to society which we need". Yi (I think?) and I both took this a proposition about the state and/or "society" adopting a particular set of animating moral concepts to use in order to direct action. In which case, the mistakes you flag above are problems inherent in shielbh's position (how are these purposes established and pursued? what does it mean for a society to have "a" moral purpose?), not Yi's. And yet your original post critiqued Yi in defense of shilebh's proposition.
Quote from: The Brain on March 22, 2010, 12:29:31 PM
Of course you can quantify costs like scandals and inmates escaping.
To whom is this written?
If to me, then, yes,
I can do so: 4 and 14, respectively.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on March 22, 2010, 11:56:06 AM
Yes, this. However, I somewhat reject the idea that a "society" or a state can really have a morality of its own. IMO--morality is a property of the choices and actions of individuals. It doesn't really scale into collective action. A state can be an enforcer of moral values, but it holds no morality or virtue of its own. It's a reflection of the values of the individuals who created it. Not, the people ruled or governed by it, mind you, but those who created it.
I do disagree with the notion I think Yi mentioned that a non-interventionist state is lacking moral imperative. I think the non-interventionism is itself a moral reflection of the values of the individuals involved . . . In other words, not all morality is reflected through the actions that the state takes. Just as much is reflected by the action the state doesn't take.
A liberal state could reflect:
+ the result of the input of individuals whose own values revolve affirmatively around principles of collective non-intervention
+ individuals with widely dispersed values where no one tendency is strong enough to impose itself on others without provoking an effective political response
+ radical skepticism which prevents individuals from commiting to any particular moral framework
+ attitude of philosophical modesty where individuals do hold moral positions but while not radical skeptical are also less than 100% certain about their validity. Thus, "liberal" political institutions are preferred to allow for flexibility, challenge and the potential for revision or evolution.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 22, 2010, 12:35:37 PM
You have taken us completely off topic. What we are taking about are ventures that are taken over by private actors but which government still pays for. We are not taking about private actors operating in a free market but private actors performing functions for government at the pay of government.
You don't understand what my topic is, I think. The issue isn't who is paying for a good or service, but rather what you hope to accomplish by purchasing that good or service. Some of the things you would hope to accomplish are things that government alone would want to do (e.g. put people in prison) while others are things that both governments and non-governmental actors would want to do (eg drive from point A to point B). Where possible, you would like to determine the best way to accomplish the goal via competing ideas or implementations of an idea (eg "should I buy a Ford or a Chevy?"). That is more difficult in the case of prisons not because there is some government subsidy involved, but because there is little competition for the job and there are non-quantifiable variables involved (eg cost versus escape rates). The latter is what makes some tasks unsuitable for the private sector, not the fact that competing private sector firms will not be more efficient.
Quoteedit: also, often these ventures are also monopolies so I really dont understand what point you are trying to make in the context of the discussion I was having with our British friend.
I don't understand your use of monopoly in this context, and the point I am making is that the cost of doing something is not fixed.
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 12:56:26 PM
Quote from: The Brain on March 22, 2010, 12:29:31 PM
Of course you can quantify costs like scandals and inmates escaping.
To whom is this written?
If to me, then, yes, I can do so: 4 and 14, respectively.
I think that you are pretty irrelevant in this matter.
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 01:11:53 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 22, 2010, 12:35:37 PM
You have taken us completely off topic. What we are taking about are ventures that are taken over by private actors but which government still pays for. We are not taking about private actors operating in a free market but private actors performing functions for government at the pay of government.
You don't understand what my topic is, I think. The issue isn't who is paying for a good or service, but rather what you hope to accomplish by purchasing that good or service. Some of the things you would hope to accomplish are things that government alone would want to do (e.g. put people in prison) while others are things that both governments and non-governmental actors would want to do (eg drive from point A to point B). Where possible, you would like to determine the best way to accomplish the goal via competing ideas or implementations of an idea (eg "should I buy a Ford or a Chevy?"). That is more difficult in the case of prisons not because there is some government subsidy involved, but because there is little competition for the job and there are non-quantifiable variables involved (eg cost versus escape rates). The latter is what makes some tasks unsuitable for the private sector, not the fact that competing private sector firms will not be more efficient.
Quoteedit: also, often these ventures are also monopolies so I really dont understand what point you are trying to make in the context of the discussion I was having with our British friend.
I don't understand your use of monopoly in this context, and the point I am making is that the cost of doing something is not fixed.
If you are ignoring who is paying for the service then your are turning a blind eye to the distorting effects of the government role in funding that service. The private actor no longer has to worry about maintaining its business in the free market. It turns its attention to milking as much as it can out of government both in terms of obtaining more revenue from government and cutting as much of the service as it can to improve profits. This can turn out to be a very bad deal for the government. So much so that the government would have been better off never privitising the service in the first place.
Quote from: The Brain on March 22, 2010, 01:35:56 PM
I think that you are pretty irrelevant in this matter.
You think poorly. :hug:
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 22, 2010, 01:36:46 PM
If you are ignoring who is paying for the service then your are turning a blind eye to the distorting effects of the government role in funding that service. The private actor no longer has to worry about maintaining its business in the free market.
I see no reason to make this assumption. The market comes into effect when buyers and sellers both wish to do business. The fact that there is but a single buyer of a given service (running a prison, for example) doesn't keep multiple sellers from competing for that business, and this provides exactly the incentive to reduce the cost to government that one would seek - though not without its own, perhaps less quantifiable, costs.
QuoteIt turns its attention to milking as much as it can out of government both in terms of obtaining more revenue from government and cutting as much of the service as it can to improve profits. This can turn out to be a very bad deal for the government. So much so that the government would have been better off never privitising the service in the first place.
You are describing bad government here, not privatization. If a government department is providing a service, it turns its attention to milking as much as it can out of government both in terms of obtaining more revenue from government and increasing the size of the bureaucratic empire it contains so as to maximize the ego gratification of the bureaucrats who are running it.
Good government requires performance or it finds a new supplier. The problem good government has is not that they are helpless in the face of corporations once a contract is signed, but that even good government can find it so difficult to quantify the desired performance (especially in terms of risk) that it must needs take on the function itself.
Quote from: garbon on March 22, 2010, 01:43:19 PM
He's on the rag. :console:
Sorry to hear that. Give him my condolences.
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 01:50:15 PM
Sorry to hear that. Give him my condolences.
Give 'im yourself.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 22, 2010, 12:53:32 PM
The question is whether a meaningful distinction can be made between collective institutions that reflect moral principles and those that autonomously promote and seek to implement a particular moral agenda.
Yes, I thought that was clear enough from what followed. I should have stated the conclusion more explicitely. And that is still the question that was asked from the begining (see below).
QuoteThere is a distinction between the proposition that collective action is "informed by morals" and the separate proposition -- which sheilbh appeared to be advancing and Yi rejecting that the institutionalized instantiation of the collective can and should autonomously purse particular moral agendas on its own. It is the difference between (for example) a business partnership that reflects the morals of the persons who happen to have created it (perhaps in the way on a day-to-day basis they deal with suppliers, customers or employees) and a similar partnership that -- apart from the individual actions of the persons who constitute it -- actively pursues a particular moral goal - for example, converting people to a particular set of religious beliefs so they can be "saved".
Indeed, but I contend such is an artificial separation that, in itself, thrives on being "separated". Are institutions' mandates really that different from the day-to-day operations that "reflect" and hence, promote, the moral beliefs of the people within ? Is it likewise possible that individuals are not already fully formed when they join - if they join - collective endeavours, and are in turn shaped by them? Justice systems, for instance, might very well be historical constructions, they are still not free for alls and chaos. Sociologically, there are many ways to construct and reconstruct the coherence of a system, and no one remakes everything in each judgement. Can people differenciate between an individual and a collective morality ?
We make such clear cut separations because it helps us think what we'd like to see the respective place of morals, of State, of society, to be regarding one another. And that, in itself, is both performatory (it underlines what "ought to be") and moral (what is the purpose of men coming together).
Now, if you prefer to envision the initial question under this single one, it might be more fruitful: can we, should we, deal away with that question: what should be the purpose of men coming together ? That is a question which makes it directed at all three terms of State, society and individual.
If one wants to brush aside this question as nowadays irrelevant, then I contend we need a new way to conceptualize the collective. Can democracy survive by being purposeless ? I am not too sure. Historically, the form of the State has been tied in with the Common Good, leaving the definition of which the matter of politics, much to the absolutist monarchs' chagrin. If we remove the "Good" from the equation, how can we still think the "Common" (probably many ways, but many seem unsavory...)
My initial reaction to Yi was that actively denying purpose to State and Society, or placing it solely in the realm of the material both stems from a moral perspective in and of itself, and has important moral consequences as well (why not defend despotism, a mutually consented slavery, etc.) - it was that, much more than a support of Sheilbh or the article he quoted (for I am not sure it provides any good answer). Once again, I much prefer to "think with" Yi, Sheilbh or you (good thinking partners in any way) than to argue for or against an already formed opinion. This is also why I will refrain from dissecting quotes, but feel free to do so if you want.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 22, 2010, 02:00:33 PM
Indeed, but I contend such is an artificial separation that, in itself, thrives on being "separated". Are institutions' mandates really that different from the day-to-day operations that "reflect" and hence, promote, the moral beliefs of the people within ?
I think that, in many cases, they are. People subordinate their own personal moral beliefs to the "morality" of the institutions to which they belong all of the time. Indeed, this was the subject that the Millgram experiment was exploring, and its results indicate that people are not nearly as rational about their moral decision-making as they believe they are, especially once caught up in a larger endeavor.
To the extent that institutions reflect the moral values of individuals, I think the individuals involved were the ones that were most forceful when the institution was formed. Once those mores become institutionalized, they are very difficult to change.
Catch 22 reflects this almost perfectly, and the whole of the movie
They Might Be Giants turns on this idea.
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 01:49:23 PM
I see no reason to make this assumption. The market comes into effect when buyers and sellers both wish to do business. The fact that there is but a single buyer of a given service (running a prison, for example) doesn't keep multiple sellers from competing for that business, and this provides exactly the incentive to reduce the cost to government that one would seek - though not without its own, perhaps less quantifiable, costs.
Nice in theory but doesnt work well in practice in many cases since there are very few private actors that can actually provide many of the services that replace what governments do. Also, again the cost of providing the service does not reduce simply because a private actor has taken over the venture.
Take prisons for example. Facilities still need to be maintaine, prisoners fed, services privided to the prisoners etc etc etc. The only way to reduce cost is to reduce service. Governments can do that without contracting the service out.
However, as I said in my original post there are some places where some contracting out does make sense. For example turning the operation of the Vancouver International Airport to a private local airport authority was a great move. Not because of greater cost reduction or efficiency. That government already ran a very cost effective efficient operation. But what the private authority was able to do was to raise operating capital to finance airport expansion from private sources which was paid for by raising user fees for the airport - something our politicians did not have the political will to do.
This is also an good example where the revenue stream did not come from the Government but from the users of the airport (airlines, passengers and stores/restaurants/hotels within the airport so as to avoid the distorting effects of government funded ventures.
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 02:08:43 PM
No can do. Don't know him.
It won't take much effort to rectify that.
Social democracy is dead in Britain?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukpublicspending.co.uk%2Fukgs_line.php%3Ftitle%3DUK%2520Public%2520Spending%2520As%2520Percent%2520Of%2520GDP%26amp%3Byear%3D1990_2010%26amp%3Bunits%3Dp%26amp%3Bbar%3D0%26amp%3Bstack%3D1%26amp%3Bsize%3Dl%26amp%3Bspending0%3D35.82_37.00_38.42_40.37_40.42_41.34_40.24_39.02_37.54_35.98_35.39_36.06_36.49_37.13_38.12_39.53_38.51_40.43_40.54_43.87_46.40%26amp%3Blegend%3D&hash=1c54a1cf53ac9a4212aa96816d99e5bb84cf494c)
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 22, 2010, 02:22:23 PM
Nice in theory but doesnt work well in practice in many cases since there are very few private actors that can actually provide many of the services that replace what governments do. Also, again the cost of providing the service does not reduce simply because a private actor has taken over the venture.
Good thing no one is arguing these points, then. :)
QuoteThe only way to reduce cost is to reduce service.
Argument by assertion.
QuoteHowever, as I said in my original post there are some places where some contracting out does make sense.
Glad to see you restating your position. We agree on this.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 22, 2010, 02:00:33 PM
Indeed, but I contend such is an artificial separation that, in itself, thrives on being "separated". Are institutions' mandates really that different from the day-to-day operations that "reflect" and hence, promote, the moral beliefs of the people within ? Is it likewise possible that individuals are not already fully formed when they join - if they join - collective endeavours, and are in turn shaped by them? Justice systems, for instance, might very well be historical constructions, they are still not free for alls and chaos. Sociologically, there are many ways to construct and reconstruct the coherence of a system, and no one remakes everything in each judgement. Can people differenciate between an individual and a collective morality ?
The danger is (as grumbler alluded to) that institutions can assume a life of their own, in a manner that the people who originally created them did not expect or anticipate. That danger may be even greater where the institution is relatively unlimited in terms of means and authority and defined by an open-ended mission in the form of a moral imperative (e.g. a "committee of public safety") as opposed to an institution that is delineated more in procedural terms. (e.g. a "securities and exchange commission"). Where an institution is not saddled with particular procedural limitations and is defined by a high-sounded moral direction (uphold morals, liberate the massses, chastise the sinners, protect the Revolution, uproot heresy, etc), experience suggests trouble can easily follow.
QuoteIf one wants to brush aside this question as nowadays irrelevant, then I contend we need a new way to conceptualize the collective. Can democracy survive by being purposeless ? I am not too sure. Historically, the form of the State has been tied in with the Common Good, leaving the definition of which the matter of politics, much to the absolutist monarchs' chagrin. If we remove the "Good" from the equation, how can we still think the "Common" (probably many ways, but many seem unsavory...)
I will respond with another question: can democracy survive notwithstanding the lack of clear agreement as to its ultimate purpose or the nature of the Good? One could argue that not only can democracy survive such a condition, but indeed it actually requires its existence to thrive. Where democracy has too strong a purpose and too much homogeneity in terms of notions of the Good, it is prone to degeneration to tyranny. Perhaps one key difference between ancient and modern democracies is that the latter emphasizes pluralism whereas the former was hostile to it.
QuoteOnce again, I much prefer to "think with" Yi, Sheilbh or you (good thinking partners in any way) than to argue for or against an already formed opinion.
That must be against some board rule, no?
At the very least it strikes against the languish value system. Luckily, we lack a moral mission statement. :)
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on March 22, 2010, 11:56:06 AM
Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2010, 10:56:20 AM
I think the question of whether the law or the state policy should be inspired by morality is a fallacious one - since it always is to a degree.
I think the real question (and therein lies the difference between a communist regime or a theocracy on one hand and a liberal democracy on the other) is what vision of morality (in the meta-sense) the state adopts.
If the state wishes to enforce a maximalist morality then it creates a totalitarian state, where every moral choice becomes also a legal one.
If the state wishes to enforce only a minimalist, "basic" morality (leaving a significant part of moral questions up to the decisions of its citizens without a legal fiat) then it creates a pluralistic society.
Yes, this. However, I somewhat reject the idea that a "society" or a state can really have a morality of its own. IMO--morality is a property of the choices and actions of individuals. It doesn't really scale into collective action. A state can be an enforcer of moral values, but it holds no morality or virtue of its own. It's a reflection of the values of the individuals who created it. Not, the people ruled or governed by it, mind you, but those who created it.
I do disagree with the notion I think Yi mentioned that a non-interventionist state is lacking moral imperative. I think the non-interventionism is itself a moral reflection of the values of the individuals involved. ie--Deciding not to interfere in a gay guy's sex life is itself a choice with a moral component to it, and the individuals who make up the society he lives in, at least the majority of them or the decision-making portion of them, consider it a moral value to be non-interventionist in that area. In other words, not all morality is reflected through the actions that the state takes. Just as much is reflected by the action the state doesn't take.
Yeah I agree. But some baseline morality enforced through law (don't kill, don't steal, don't let people own each other, for example) is necessary or desirable to allow for a good running of the society (social cohesion).
The question, as always is where to draw a line - for some a moral society needs to enforce e.g. equal access to healthcare or education, for others it doesn't.
Quote from: Warspite on March 22, 2010, 02:29:34 PM
Social democracy is dead in Britain?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukpublicspending.co.uk%2Fukgs_line.php%3Ftitle%3DUK%2520Public%2520Spending%2520As%2520Percent%2520Of%2520GDP%26amp%3Byear%3D1990_2010%26amp%3Bunits%3Dp%26amp%3Bbar%3D0%26amp%3Bstack%3D1%26amp%3Bsize%3Dl%26amp%3Bspending0%3D35.82_37.00_38.42_40.37_40.42_41.34_40.24_39.02_37.54_35.98_35.39_36.06_36.49_37.13_38.12_39.53_38.51_40.43_40.54_43.87_46.40%26amp%3Blegend%3D&hash=1c54a1cf53ac9a4212aa96816d99e5bb84cf494c)
The latest figure I've seen is 52%. :(
It's quite noticeable that during the recession, while the private sector was shedding jobs rapidly, the public sector actually expanded. While you might expect this to be true of a sector of government whose workload has increased, such as the Employment Service, one would not expect the increase to be across almost every department as it has been.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 22, 2010, 04:10:33 PM
That must be against some board rule, no?
At the very least it strikes against the languish value system. Luckily, we lack a moral mission statement. :)
That lack
is our moral mission statement. :)
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 22, 2010, 04:10:33 PM
The danger is (as grumbler alluded to) that institutions can assume a life of their own, in a manner that the people who originally created them did not expect or anticipate. That danger may be even greater where the institution is relatively unlimited in terms of means and authority and defined by an open-ended mission in the form of a moral imperative (e.g. a "committee of public safety") as opposed to an institution that is delineated more in procedural terms. (e.g. a "securities and exchange commission"). Where an institution is not saddled with particular procedural limitations and is defined by a high-sounded moral direction (uphold morals, liberate the massses, chastise the sinners, protect the Revolution, uproot heresy, etc), experience suggests trouble can easily follow.
Of course. But institutions already do exist despite their original purpose. This is why the "justice system" is not the only thing that is continuously built: institutions evolve all the time. Yet they are judged according to their mission. Again, I would argue that the difference between procedural and moral imperative isn't as great as you portray it. Or rather, that institutions that openly display their moral imperatives are somewhat crude (and therefore easily spotted - perhaps more transparent, if one wants to portray it in a more positive way) while those that hide it under procedural routines are more successful yet no less moral. The case in point is the institution of the modern police, which is characterized with an especially wide-ranging realm of applicability (maintaining order), and a lack of specific method so as to be flexible enough to conform to any situation. A police state does not need to have liberal moral guidelines to have an efficient police.
In other words, institutions vary depending on their place within or society. Institutions that are very much removed from the core of it, at the end of a long chain of relationships, can certainly appear to be neutral. That, in essence, is their strength, upon which we rightly build. However, institutions located more at the heart of our society already have, and still have, missions vaguely defined by moral imperatives. They can, however, branch out through a multitude of guises. The security and exchange commissions is one way of upholding the ideal of a just transaction, for instance.
QuoteI will respond with another question: can democracy survive notwithstanding the lack of clear agreement as to its ultimate purpose or the nature of the Good? One could argue that not only can democracy survive such a condition, but indeed it actually requires its existence to thrive. Where democracy has too strong a purpose and too much homogeneity in terms of notions of the Good, it is prone to degeneration to tyranny. Perhaps one key difference between ancient and modern democracies is that the latter emphasizes pluralism whereas the former was hostile to it.
Again, this is what I was getting at. Note that I was not arguing against the indeterminate nature of the Common Good, but the fact that we discard the notion of "Good" altogether. That we actively seek to remove it from the equation, rather than argue about what it means. That is what I meant: that the promotion of indifference results in an undermining of the political relationship.
And this is certainly something that separates ancient democracies from modern ones: the Ancient "started" with the idea of the City, that this link between men, was in itself moral. The idea that one man could reject the City was abhorrent to them. Our own myths start by as pseudo-histories, by which we think as collection of individuals forced to associate through external circumstances. The "natural sympathy" of Adam Smith is now long dead, and we are left with relationships that exist only externally, and which we have sought to a-moralize altogether. What value is there to the community ?
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 02:35:56 PM
Argument by assertion.
And logic, experience, wisdom and irrefutable observation.
What do you got?
QuoteGlad to see you restating your position. We agree on this.
Your memory is failing you. If you go back to my first post you will see this has been my position all along and you have been arguing for no purpose. Shocking!
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 22, 2010, 07:06:09 PM
And logic, experience, wisdom and irrefutable observation.
If you really believe that all of your experience tells you that the only way to cut costs is to cut services, I suggest you either lack any experience, or don't learn from it.
QuoteWhat do you got?
Logic, common sense, and the enormous number of examples throughout history in which costs have gone down while service has remained the same or improved. Example: long distance telephone service in the US.
QuoteYour memory is failing you. If you go back to my first post you will see this has been my position all along and you have been arguing for no purpose. Shocking!
If you are reverting to the "the only way to cut costs is to reduce service" mindset, then perhaps you are clinging to your untenable position. Makes no difference to me, as I don't think you will find it easy to locate two other people on the planet that believes that this is true
a priori. Maybe Hans, as he has all kinds of strange beliefs.
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 08:47:57 PM
Example: long distance telephone service in the US.
Well, that's because of economies of scale and technological progress. Not sure either would be extremely useful in the penitentiary system (though I can imagine you could be reducing costs of prison operations via some panopticon-style computerization, but I don't think the business is lucrative enough to warrant R&D investments that would require that).
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 08:47:57 PM
If you are reverting to the "the only way to cut costs is to reduce service" mindset, then perhaps you are clinging to your untenable position. Makes no difference to me, as I don't think you will find it easy to locate two other people on the planet that believes that this is true a priori. Maybe Hans, as he has all kinds of strange beliefs.
Grumbler, I appreciate your effort to ensure everyone understands what a strawman argument is by giving a perfect example.
But really, you can make a better Ad Hom attack then lumping me in with Hans.
I give you a C+. Your first effort was quite good but it all fell apart to the end of the post.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 23, 2010, 10:54:21 AM
Grumbler, I appreciate your effort to ensure everyone understands what a strawman argument is by giving a perfect example.
:lmfao: Dude, I am
quoting you! You cannot argue that my repeating you word for word is a strawman!
QuoteBut really, you can make a better Ad Hom attack then lumping me in with Hans.
It is not an
ad hom. You need to learn the meaning of these logical fallacy terms before you use them.
QuoteI give you a C+. Your first effort was quite good but it all fell apart to the end of the post.
Alas, you earned only an F yourself. Two chances to use a term correctly, and whiffed both times. Not even with new math can 0% correct become a passing score. :(
Sorry Grumbler,
appealing your grade will not work. The only reason I gave you as high as a C+ is so you wouldnt have to repeat my course. But I will not give you a higher mark no matter how much you complain.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 23, 2010, 02:46:32 PM
Sorry Grumbler,
appealing your grade will not work. The only reason I gave you as high as a C+ is so you wouldnt have to repeat my course. But I will not give you a higher mark no matter how much you complain.
:huh: I am guessing that reading comprehension isn't your strong suit. I appeal nothing. I do assign grades just as you do, though. It is just that i have specific justification for my grades, and you just have arbitrary grades.
Don't worry. No one expects you to know any more about grading than about, say, reading, or the law, or economics. Those are pretty specialized subject that require some education and a certain amount of ability.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 22, 2010, 05:11:02 PM
Again, this is what I was getting at. Note that I was not arguing against the indeterminate nature of the Common Good, but the fact that we discard the notion of "Good" altogether. That we actively seek to remove it from the equation, rather than argue about what it means. That is what I meant: that the promotion of indifference results in an undermining of the political relationship.
And this is certainly something that separates ancient democracies from modern ones: the Ancient "started" with the idea of the City, that this link between men, was in itself moral. The idea that one man could reject the City was abhorrent to them. Our own myths start by as pseudo-histories, by which we think as collection of individuals forced to associate through external circumstances. The "natural sympathy" of Adam Smith is now long dead, and we are left with relationships that exist only externally, and which we have sought to a-moralize altogether. What value is there to the community ?
I'll return to this thread some time, but I just want to say I agree with this. My own politics are on the left and so I think we on the left should be making an argument of communal moral purpose: to reduce equality in our society. What the right say is their own business. I think Judt's argument also is aimed at the left - it's a polemic for his own side and an attempt at a rallying cry.
My worry, more generally, is that the commonalities of our society (and politics) are dying out. That we increasingly lack the sympathy required to address and understand each. I think we increasingly are leading self-selecting lives that mean there's very little tying the white working class family and liberal metropolitan, or the second generation immigrant and the shires Tory; we've lost not just a sense of purpose but a story to tell ourselves about ourselves. Thatcher was right. There is no such thing as society, there's only individual families and people - but that's not basis enough for a nation.
Instead our politics has reduced to different versions of management consultancy and our society has stopped caring about much at all really. I mention religion not in the sense of Holy Rollers but as something that tied many different sorts of people together in an inoffensive hypocrisy. I think the sense of purpose that you had with earlier parts of this century such as building a New Jerusalem to some extent replaced that so it wasn't until the Thatcher revolution that the Church shaped hole (decidedly not the God shaped one; he is, at best, a bit player) appeared.
To return to myself and the left I think the left has always had a moral purpose. As Harold Wilson said Labour is 'nothing if not a moral crusade'. It's story is one of sharing of burdens to build a more equitable and fair society, but it's forgotten how to tell that story. I think the Tories have forgotten theirs too. But this reflects a wider social problem where all we have is ourselves and our goods, our debts, our desires endlessly provoked.
I think Americans may be more relaxed about this because the atmosphere and feeling I have of this country now seems to me like the sort of thing you'd have in the prelude to the culture wars. I think it's more fundamental than previous debates within our society because right now I feel like we're all looking at a different picture, watching a news show about a different country - that's how wide the gap seems to be.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 29, 2010, 04:56:07 PMMy own politics are on the left and so I think we on the left should be making an argument of communal moral purpose: to reduce equality in our society.
A Freudian slip, perhaps? :P
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2010, 01:11:53 PM
You don't understand what my topic is, I think. The issue isn't who is paying for a good or service, but rather what you hope to accomplish by purchasing that good or service. Some of the things you would hope to accomplish are things that government alone would want to do (e.g. put people in prison) while others are things that both governments and non-governmental actors would want to do (eg drive from point A to point B). Where possible, you would like to determine the best way to accomplish the goal via competing ideas or implementations of an idea (eg "should I buy a Ford or a Chevy?"). That is more difficult in the case of prisons not because there is some government subsidy involved, but because there is little competition for the job and there are non-quantifiable variables involved (eg cost versus escape rates). The latter is what makes some tasks unsuitable for the private sector, not the fact that competing private sector firms will not be more efficient.
I think this dichotomy may be unwarranted, for a number of reasons.
First, only because the state is the only or a main customer for some type of good or service does not need to mean there can't be a teeming competitive market for that good or service, especially when the nature of the good or service does not force a natural supplier monopoly. Prisons are an example of this. So is the military armament industry.
Second, when the state is purchasing or providing a service, even one that is already being provided by a private actor, it may have different goals or priorities than the private actor. Transport is actually a prime example of this (as is postal service) - the interest of the state is to provide an uninterrupted service on a most complete possible catchment area, whereas the interest of a private provider would be to focus on the most profitable areas and abandon the rest (this is why most states maintain state/community run bus service or postal service - because if it privatized everything, some remote place would not be getting any service at all).
Quote from: Martinus on March 29, 2010, 05:36:06 PM
I think this dichotomy may be unwarranted, for a number of reasons.
First, only because the state is the only or a main customer for some type of good or service does not need to mean there can't be a teeming competitive market for that good or service, especially when the nature of the good or service does not force a natural supplier monopoly. Prisons are an example of this. So is the military armament industry.
The US does not have "a teeming competitive market" for either prison services or military armaments. Maybe Poland is different, but I doubt it. My point concerned "little competition" which I think is the case in the US for prisons, fighter planes, tanks, and all sorts of things for which the government is the only buyer.
QuoteSecond, when the state is purchasing or providing a service, even one that is already being provided by a private actor, it may have different goals or priorities than the private actor. Transport is actually a prime example of this (as is postal service) - the interest of the state is to provide an uninterrupted service on a most complete possible catchment area, whereas the interest of a private provider would be to focus on the most profitable areas and abandon the rest (this is why most states maintain state/community run bus service or postal service - because if it privatized everything, some remote place would not be getting any service at all).
You cannot have
my point. :contract:
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 29, 2010, 04:56:07 PM
I think the sense of purpose that you had with earlier parts of this century such as building a New Jerusalem to some extent replaced that
I think a lot of trouble could be saved if those seeking to build a New Jerusalem first took a long look at the Old one.
QuoteTo return to myself and the left I think the left has always had a moral purpose. As Harold Wilson said Labour is 'nothing if not a moral crusade'.
But when given a choice, Britons rejected that vision and Labour was forced to remake itself.
The idea of a fair and more equitable society is a powerful one but the simple truth is that it is very difficult to achieve without some kind of directed reallocation of resources. There are three ways of doing this:
1) Class warfare - convince a majority to enact coercive legislation taking resources from a minority of "haves"
2) Moral appeal - this is what you are talking about - an appeal to abstract justice in an attempt to reconcile the "haves" in surrendering resources in the name of some higher principles. The question is can this be done - can the "New Socialist Man" be formed or does this just devolve in practice to #1 with some high-sounded rhetoric attached?
3) Appeal to reason - convice the haves that it is in there own interest to surrender some resources in the short run - because if the masses are healthier, better educated, etc. and the nation is served by superior public services and infrastructure, then all boats will be lifted -- including the value of the assets of the"haves" -- i.e. a "trickle up" theory.
To the extent the shift from Old to New Labour involves emphasizing 3 over 1 & 2, it doesn't strike me as such a bad thing.
I don't think you can so easily separate 1, 2 and 3. Government policies, individual actions and social mores always include a mix of appeal to interests, moral imperatives and social coercion. Which is why I think our undermining of moral is undermining the whole fabric of society. That's the "abolitionist" conundrum. Was it more useful to rationally denounce slavery as unproductive, or morally bankrupt ? Historically, the rationalist argument came last, when the moral one was already in force. Likewise, was it more sound to let slavery run its course over 2-3 centuries more before it failed, or was it socially worth the risk to make a moral stand ?
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 30, 2010, 02:43:37 PM
I don't think you can so easily separate 1, 2 and 3.
Eu contraire. 1 directly conflicts with 2 and 3.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 30, 2010, 02:43:37 PM
I don't think you can so easily separate 1, 2 and 3. Government policies, individual actions and social mores always include a mix of appeal to interests, moral imperatives and social coercion.
That is true, and both Old and New Labour have appealed to all 3. The question is one of emphasis.
QuoteWas it more useful to rationally denounce slavery as unproductive, or morally bankrupt ? Historically, the rationalist argument came last, when the moral one was already in force. Likewise, was it more sound to let slavery run its course over 2-3 centuries more before it failed, or was it socially worth the risk to make a moral stand ?
It is an odd way to ask the question - namely to ask which approach carries the greater utility (is "more useful"). Can a moral approach be justified over a rationalist one, on a the basis of meta-argument about utility?
As a historical matter - the rationalist argument can be said to have preceded the moral one - slavery and its cousin serfdom largely died out in much of Europe and the northern parts of the Americas because it was no longer a useful or effective method of social organization. Only after that trend was well established and slavery became the preserve of a few peculiar societies did the moral argument gather force.
I do think that slavery is more obviously a moral wrong than mere economic inequality in the abstract. And it is also true that rationalist approach quickly reaches its limits in addressing slavery - slaveowners will not be convinced that it is in their interest to surrender slavery without vast compensation, and abolitionists have a hard time convincing non-slaveowners to front the cash to pay such compensation. That leaves moral suasion and coercion, with the latter typically playing a leading role.
I don't have a huge problem with using coercion to stamp out slavery; but I would have serious concerns about using similar methods to improve the national Gini coefficient.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 30, 2010, 03:15:19 PM
As a historical matter - the rationalist argument can be said to have preceded the moral one - slavery and its cousin serfdom largely died out in much of Europe and the northern parts of the Americas because it was no longer a useful or effective method of social organization. Only after that trend was well established and slavery became the preserve of a few peculiar societies did the moral argument gather force.
This is hugely contentious - I was at a conference last week again rehashing the debate without coming to any conclusion... Historians are at pains at trying to find the "ineffectiveness" of slavery in the decades preceeding the abolition movement (more slaves entered Saint-Domingue in the last 20 years of the colony than during the century before), and, of course, ineffectiveness compared to what? To the mechanized fields of cane of Australia in the 20th c. or to salaried manpower of the mid 19th c. ? For slaveholders of the 18th c., there was nothing else that was remotely available for his production. Then, there is the issue of consciousness of it. Were the esoteric calculations of cliometricians available to the slave-holders and abolitionists ?
The "gathering force" argument doesn't hold to the scrutiny of the begining years of the abolitionist movement, except if you take such a large time scale as to make it irrelevant and then, again, if you *do* take the larger time-scale (say, the era of christianity), you are left with utility calculations that are unavailable to historical actors, who simply do not reason in such terms. Unless, again, you hold to universal economic laws that hold true regardless of any time period (and then we are left with irreducible disagreement and faced, again, with a hugely contentious issue).
In any case, the point was simply to address the limits of the rationalist argument in trying to present itself as a amoral, yet total way of building the foundation of society. It would not be necessary to underline the point if the utilitarian argument was not used with such a pretetion by its more vocal adherents - and I do think the "amoralist" crowd are participating in a weak form of it, even if they are unaware.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 22, 2010, 09:26:54 AM
What was the moral failing?
An orgy of desire fulfilled - as I say I've always blamed 'Main Street' for the Wall Street disaster. They were a Frankenstein's monster not something entirely divorced from the rest of us.
Incidentally I also think the response has been unpleasant. I'm very uncomfortable with what's said about bankers now and I think the focus on bonuses, for example, comes from a too easy desire to transform a complex issue that we know happened in 'the banks' into something we can humanise and personalise. The problem stops being systemic and to do with complex financial systems and becomes the fault of greedy, overpaid, reckless bankers with their enormous bonuses. It's easier to be angry when you've got a human face that you can use as a target.
QuoteBesides, I reject the notion that our modern society is immoral or that it does not attempt to enforce morality or social cohesion.
Political correctness. Social welfare. Universal healthcare. Hate speech and hate crime laws. Affirmative action. Consumer and employee protection laws. Minimum wage. Anti-Holocaust-denier laws. These are all tools of the "new morality" enforced by law, in the interest of a greater social cohesion.
Morality isn't enforced by governments. We're talking politics but both Judt and I are describing the moral purpose of the left and the worry that society lacks a common purpose or a content.
Governments use policy to change society. In this country Labour established the NHS because they wanted to change society. Similarly Thatcher's policies of privatisation had a moral element - especially, off the top of my head, BT, British Gas and the council houses. Hers was to spread ownership from a theoretical people to actual people. That people who owned shares and property would have those Victorian values she admired (and she wasn't being sexually censorious, from what I can gather she personally viewed gays and promiscuity with utter incomprehension rather than repulsion). She wanted encourage thrift and a sense of ownership. In the same way as the left has for many years emphasised the idea of self-improvement, so the right wanted the responsibility of ownership.
What we now have, however, is a politics (and I'd argue a society) denuded of that content, that moral sense of purpose. The Tories 'broken society' stuff is a hint at it but it's so bloody woolly that working it out's like hugging mist. On almost every issue - as that quiz suggests - we have these pseudo-technocratic shuffling of ideas going on but there's no over-arching belief that seems to motivate any of them. I think that helps create a disconnect between society and politics which is especially damaging as, as I've argued, our society is drifting apart into like-minded, self-segregated communities who look out the window and see a different street.
I don't think very many politicians in this country want to change society, I think they want to govern for some reason and to manage. What's worse I think we've lost faith in our ability to change our society. I've been reading a lot of Larkin lately and I think he's perfect for this sense especially in 'High Windows' 'I know this is paradise ... everyone young going down the long slide/ To happiness, endlessly.' I'm in that young group, but I do find this social dissolution and individualism (largely expressed through Visa) a bit unpleasant.
That poem incidentally is superb - I can't recommend it enough. It starts with him noticing a couple of kids and guessing 'he's fucking her' and she's on the pill (being Larkin I imagine he's also imagining spanking her), but the end shifts it to an image of high windows and 'sun-comprehending glass': 'and beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows/ Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.'
QuoteA liberal state could reflect:
+ the result of the input of individuals whose own values revolve affirmatively around principles of collective non-intervention
+ individuals with widely dispersed values where no one tendency is strong enough to impose itself on others without provoking an effective political response
+ radical skepticism which prevents individuals from commiting to any particular moral framework
+ attitude of philosophical modesty where individuals do hold moral positions but while not radical skeptical are also less than 100% certain about their validity. Thus, "liberal" political institutions are preferred to allow for flexibility, challenge and the potential for revision or evolution.
I agree. I'd note that all of this, of course, requires a 'liberal man' as much as any other state. It's like Gladstone's self-improving print worker. It's difficult to adhere to any of these values without coming from a rather well-educated and (I'd imagine) affluent society that has instilled and seeped in those values. Liberal humanism's like the ideological devil, it's managed to convince us it's not really an ideology at all: it's just rational common sense.
It's like libertarians not worrying about social collapse from their ideology based on the fact that it's rational. It certainly is, if everyone's a libertarian (white, middle-class, probably a bit geeky, possibly gay and almost certainly posting on Languish).
Quote3) Appeal to reason - convice the haves that it is in there own interest to surrender some resources in the short run - because if the masses are healthier, better educated, etc. and the nation is served by superior public services and infrastructure, then all boats will be lifted -- including the value of the assets of the"haves" -- i.e. a "trickle up" theory.
Well I mean this is me speaking more as someone who supports the left and so wants them to win: what's the last election you can think of won by reason. I've always argued that politics needs a sense of story about it. This is the argument I've made about unionism. The standard rational, economic arguments for keeping the union are, in my opinion, wholly unsatisfactory. They don't touch the heart, they make Scots feel like poor cousins and cause the English to feel resentment. The great appeal and strength of the SNP isn't a rational argument, it's romantic nationalism.
I'd also argue that Europe's great failing in the UK is to develop a story that explains its purpose to the British (post-war healing, 'never again' and so on have less resonance here). Similarly I think on immigration we've got too much wonkishness from everyone but the extreme right. We need less reason - though it should always be there - and a more emotional explanation of our position and our society.
I think reason has very definite limits in politics and provides the sort-of how to, while generally speaking it's an irrational and emotional response that provides the impulse to act.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 01, 2010, 07:03:31 PM
Morality isn't enforced by governments. We're talking politics but both Judt and I are describing the moral purpose of the left and the worry that society lacks a common purpose or a content.
Governments use policy to change society. In this country Labour established the NHS because they wanted to change society. Similarly Thatcher's policies of privatisation had a moral element - especially, off the top of my head, BT, British Gas and the council houses. Hers was to spread ownership from a theoretical people to actual people. That people who owned shares and property would have those Victorian values she admired (and she wasn't being sexually censorious, from what I can gather she personally viewed gays and promiscuity with utter incomprehension rather than repulsion). She wanted encourage thrift and a sense of ownership. In the same way as the left has for many years emphasised the idea of self-improvement, so the right wanted the responsibility of ownership.
Hmm. I think I understand your position much better now. Makes sense. I would ask this: What happens when the morality or goal that the government or society or whoever is striving toward is not one of which you approve? Or, say, of which a very large minority of the population disapproves? If the ruling polity is focused on the goal of curing homosexuality and purging it from the society, or purging poverty via exceptionally confiscatory and oppressive means or striving to save the souls of each and every citizen according to whatever the prevailing faith happens to be through whatever means necessary---for example. All of those things have been feasible as goals for society to strive for in the not too distant past or in certain places today. Would such societies be better off with no moral goals at all? There will always be a minority who disagrees with or is hurt by the morality I think, yes?
QuoteWhat we now have, however, is a politics (and I'd argue a society) denuded of that content, that moral sense of purpose. The Tories 'broken society' stuff is a hint at it but it's so bloody woolly that working it out's like hugging mist. On almost every issue - as that quiz suggests - we have these pseudo-technocratic shuffling of ideas going on but there's no over-arching belief that seems to motivate any of them. I think that helps create a disconnect between society and politics which is especially damaging as, as I've argued, our society is drifting apart into like-minded, self-segregated communities who look out the window and see a different street.
Maybe I am missing something about your argument, Sheilbh, but I think it is contradictory. You complain that a "society" based on common moral goals is collapsing/disintegrating, but at the same time you complain that it is replaced by "like-minded, self-segregated communities" - aren't the latter exactly the type of "societies" that you would like to return? The only difference is that your disappearing "society" would be a like-minded self-segregated community based on some arbitrary element such as nationality, ethnicity or simple geographical proximity.
Perhaps what we are simply witnessing is not a collapse of the society (your "like-minded, self-segregated communities" are a far cry from the social atomization that those who bemoan the society's collapse are pointing at), but redefinition of the society from communities based on arbitrary quirks of birth into communities based on common values - think of Nial Stephenson's "Diamond Age" - which becomes more and more possible as communication and travel makes us more into a global village.
The only difference is that such societies now get to compete via a democratic process, rather than via wars, as in the days of yore.
Nb, I think your "society-wide morality" of the past is largely a myth - mostly, it was just the morality of the dominant ethno-social class that simply had a monopoly on power.
And for the record, if you want to reverse the process, the answer is simple: shut off the internets.
It's largely thanks to the internet, for example, that I often feel more strongly about being a part of various communities with people I never met face to face (this board not excluded) than being a part of the same community as some fundie catholic family that could be living next door.
Shut off long distance communication, restrict long distance travel, and you could restore a perfect society or community that would be suffocating in its own filth of common morality.
Quote from: Martinus on April 02, 2010, 02:14:00 AM
And for the record, if you want to reverse the process, the answer is simple: shut off the internets.
It's largely thanks to the internet, for example, that I often feel more strongly about being a part of various communities with people I never met face to face (this board not excluded) than being a part of the same community as some fundie catholic family that could be living next door.
:yes:
Quote from: citizen k on April 02, 2010, 02:19:53 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 02, 2010, 02:14:00 AM
And for the record, if you want to reverse the process, the answer is simple: shut off the internets.
It's largely thanks to the internet, for example, that I often feel more strongly about being a part of various communities with people I never met face to face (this board not excluded) than being a part of the same community as some fundie catholic family that could be living next door.
:yes:
I have to agree as well. I have more meaningful communication with people on this board than I do with my neighbours.
I don't answer the door.
Quote from: The Brain on April 02, 2010, 06:44:29 AM
I don't answer the door.
If you think your door is asking questions, seek help.
But, while awaiting help, not answering is a good policy.
I favor knocking all non-americans off the internets.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 01, 2010, 08:43:26 PM
All of those things have been feasible as goals for society to strive for in the not too distant past or in certain places today. Would such societies be better off with no moral goals at all? There will always be a minority who disagrees with or is hurt by the morality I think, yes?
I didn't say any moral purpose is better than none.
However I would say that in most cases that is what is attractive, at the start, in unpleasant regimes. It was, I think, the attraction of communism and Khomeini both.
QuoteMaybe I am missing something about your argument, Sheilbh, but I think it is contradictory. You complain that a "society" based on common moral goals is collapsing/disintegrating, but at the same time you complain that it is replaced by "like-minded, self-segregated communities" - aren't the latter exactly the type of "societies" that you would like to return? The only difference is that your disappearing "society" would be a like-minded self-segregated community based on some arbitrary element such as nationality, ethnicity or simple geographical proximity.
I think you're right, I've contradicted myself so I'll sort of back up a bit. I think politics based on common moral goals has gone but that society has disintegrated because it lacks the imagination for sympathy.
We cannot imagine the good in other people's views or their perspectives at all. Where I find morality worthwhile, such as the useful hypocrisy of the CofE, isn't because it injects a moral purpose into society but a sympathy and a common denominator to some extent.
The examples I've given are broad groups like the metropolitan middle class, the commuter shires, the working class. I think that there was something in common for all these groups - like a lie in religion, or an engagement with the competing moral visions of our politics - so that even when they seemed motivated by different things there was still a connection. I think that sympathy's gone and we're left with mutual suspicion and fear.
I do also worry about a wider social disintegration but that's because I dislike modern capitalism :P
Edit: And I'd add that I worry our society's lost the ability to deal with morality in any sense. I think we - and Judt makes this point - seem no longer able to talk about the bit moral issues. Those words: 'justice', 'fairness' and so on are used by looneys (look at the poor civil libertarians like Liberty), joked about by the rest of us and only possible in distancing quotation marks. I think, to use Judt's idea, that it's a fault precisely as our society has become more unfair to not be able talk seriously about what we fairness whatsoever. At best it's part of the bumph that Brown tries to ram into his absurd 'Britishness' and 'British values' stuff.
I think this is one of these "good old days" nostalgia things, that rarely bother to check the facts before proclaiming that "we no longer feel sympathy".
When was this "golden age" of the British society, when people felt sympathy for each other? The "Oliver Twist" times of child labour or debtors prisons? The Boer wars or the Amritsar massacre? Or perhaps the reign of terror in Ireland? (Not to mention the 1980s under tories).
At these times you had one mainstream moral ideology that had monopoly on power, and the discord that you so bemoan was absent, because all dissidents were defined to be outside of the "community" or "society". Now we have a pluralistic society where different definitions of what is moral and what isn't (or fair or just) can compete - and we try to drop these "big words" not because we no longer believe in them, but because it doesn't help a debate if every side defines its own position as the absolute good and therefore all others as absolute evil.
Quote from: Oexmelin on March 30, 2010, 06:04:47 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 30, 2010, 03:15:19 PM
As a historical matter - the rationalist argument can be said to have preceded the moral one - slavery and its cousin serfdom largely died out in much of Europe and the northern parts of the Americas because it was no longer a useful or effective method of social organization. Only after that trend was well established and slavery became the preserve of a few peculiar societies did the moral argument gather force.
This is hugely contentious - I was at a conference last week again rehashing the debate without coming to any conclusion... Historians are at pains at trying to find the "ineffectiveness" of slavery in the decades preceeding the abolition movement (more slaves entered Saint-Domingue in the last 20 years of the colony than during the century before), and, of course, ineffectiveness compared to what? To the mechanized fields of cane of Australia in the 20th c. or to salaried manpower of the mid 19th c. ? For slaveholders of the 18th c., there was nothing else that was remotely available for his production. Then, there is the issue of consciousness of it. Were the esoteric calculations of cliometricians available to the slave-holders and abolitionists ?
The "gathering force" argument doesn't hold to the scrutiny of the begining years of the abolitionist movement, except if you take such a large time scale as to make it irrelevant and then, again, if you *do* take the larger time-scale (say, the era of christianity), you are left with utility calculations that are unavailable to historical actors, who simply do not reason in such terms. Unless, again, you hold to universal economic laws that hold true regardless of any time period (and then we are left with irreducible disagreement and faced, again, with a hugely contentious issue).
In any case, the point was simply to address the limits of the rationalist argument in trying to present itself as a amoral, yet total way of building the foundation of society. It would not be necessary to underline the point if the utilitarian argument was not used with such a pretetion by its more vocal adherents - and I do think the "amoralist" crowd are participating in a weak form of it, even if they are unaware.
I think we are talking past each other.
Abolitionism could only arise because there were large areas of the planet -- namely western Europe and the northern parts of the Americas -- where slavery or its equivalents had disappeared because of economic and social obselescence. I am not making an argument about the economic viability of slavery in those places where it still existed in the late 18th and early 19th century. Rather, the argument is that within the Euro-American sphere, those locations had already became exceptional. Had slavery still been prevalent in New England in 1800 or serfdom in Western Europe in the same time period, an ideological movement of abolitionism would not have arose in the first place.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 01, 2010, 07:03:31 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 22, 2010, 09:26:54 AM
What was the moral failing?
An orgy of desire fulfilled - as I say I've always blamed 'Main Street' for the Wall Street disaster. They were a Frankenstein's monster not something entirely divorced from the rest of us.
Seems to me there is two ways this idea can be expressed - the Frankfurt School theory of modern consumers mindlessly filling propaganda-driven (i.e. advertising) "false needs" or a more classical moralist concept of the virtues of simple living. I assume you are stating the latter case. If so, I would note that: (a) historically, the persistance of human desire has proven resistant to such appeals, and (b) practically speaking were individuals en masse overhaul their lifestyles in such a virtuous way, the result would be an economic collapse so deep and severe it would make the recent recession look like a mere pothole. See Mandeville.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 02, 2010, 11:05:24 AMHad slavery still been prevalent in New England in 1800 or serfdom in Western Europe in the same time period, an ideological movement of abolitionism would not have arose in the first place.
We are not so much talking past each other as having a profound disagreement. You seem to be a strict historical materialist. I am not.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 02, 2010, 11:13:31 AM
historically, the persistance of human desire has proven resistant to such appeals
Human desire for what? Material goods ? Mutual recognition ? Social distinction ?
We have now a system built around the very idea of consumption of material goods (to say nothing of the practice of consumptions). Of course it is going to be portrayed as a) natural and b) inescapable
Quote from: Oexmelin on April 02, 2010, 11:14:41 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 02, 2010, 11:05:24 AMHad slavery still been prevalent in New England in 1800 or serfdom in Western Europe in the same time period, an ideological movement of abolitionism would not have arose in the first place.
We are not so much talking past each other as having a profound disagreement. You seem to be a strict historical materialist. I am not.
Now you are just calling me names. :lol: ;)
I do think the fact that a particular form of social organization existed for a long time, but then disappears in light of differing economic and social conditions is suggestive of causal link of obsolescence in response to the changed conditions. In that sense, I confess guilt to the charge of historical materialism. I am open to alternative interpretations but I would have to see the argument.
QuoteHuman desire for what? Material goods ? Mutual recognition ? Social distinction ?
We have now a system built around the very idea of consumption of material goods (to say nothing of the practice of consumptions). Of course it is going to be portrayed as a) natural and b) inescapable
Was the system intentionally and purposely built from scratch or did it evolve over time? And how much of a break does it represent from the past? The very same concept of appealing to a more pure less materialistic past itself recycles tropes from classical Rome and Greece - societies that transformed themselves into powerful engines of distribution of consumer goods (mass produced in the Roman case), while at the same time producing literature that romanticized an earlier, more rustic golden age.
Is such a system inescapable? No - systemic economic collapse and the resulting mass impoverishment can help "restore" an anti-materialist order that de-emphasizes consumption, but it is difficult to convince me that this is a desirable outcome.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 02, 2010, 11:36:47 AM
I do think the fact that a particular form of social organization existed for a long time, but then disappears in light of differing economic and social conditions is suggestive of causal link of obsolescence in response to the changed conditions. In that sense, I confess guilt to the charge of historical materialism. I am open to alternative interpretations but I would have to see the argument
Herein lies your main problem, and the reason why I chose the slavery argument. Either slavery disappeared out of material causes (i.e. it was no longer profitable enough) or it disappeared out of "different social conditions" - which should be more narroly defined to be meaningful (things always change because of "different social conditions"). Does christianity - which frowned upon slavery - count as a different social condition ?
It if is, then it because more more difficult to ascribe "causal links" (the bête noire of historians who long for causes but can only find plausability) and we are left with a much more complicated, but in the end, much more rewarding IMO, weberian roadmap. And even if it isn't, we are left with trying to explain what, exactly, became materially different for historical actors, and how material causes led to human action.
If christianity isn't, then you are left with historical materialism (i.e., changes of patterns of consumption, travel routes, etc.). Which is why I used the late slavery example, because it provides both a moral conundrum for materialists, and a problem for materialistic interpretations. Slavery had *in fact* been reintroduced in the West. Was it out of material causes that it became reintroduced ? How was it fought ? You simply reexport the analytical problem back in the past (i.e, material causes in the past enabled immaterial causes in the future - but were material causes in the past
really material ?)
Historical materialism is a very useful tool, but can grow so big so as to make history look like predestination (religious bent), preordained (à la Jared Diamond), or programmatic (Marx).
Quote from: Oexmelin on April 02, 2010, 12:12:50 PM
Herein lies your main problem, and the reason why I chose the slavery argument. Either slavery disappeared out of material causes (i.e. it was no longer profitable enough) or it disappeared out of "different social conditions" - which should be more narroly defined to be meaningful (things always change because of "different social conditions").
Production and consumption does not occur in a vacuum; they are human activities embedded within human systems of social organization - this is a fundament of Marxian analysis and one of its sounder contributions. Slavery itself is a system of social organization with material ramifications, so one could legitimately accuse me of tautological argumentation. My defense is that I am taking a much more modest position than you seem to ascribe to me. I am not adopting any particular narrative or causal explanation for slavery's pre-18th century disappearance in the West. I am merely stating the negative position that it did *not* occur as the result of some directed ideological campaign against slavery itself. To the extent that I have assigned the somewhat loaded term "rationalist" to refer to this development, you have a fair criticism, albeit one that goes to terminology more than substance. The key point is that abolitionism itself or some similar moral program did not create the conditions under which abolitionism as a movement arose.
QuoteDoes christianity - which frowned upon slavery - count as a different social condition ?
You have embedded a dubious assumption here - does Christianity frown upon slavery? Christian abolitionists contended it did; Christian slaveholders claimed it did not, and both had sound cases to make. "Christianity" definitely does count as a social condition but it is simply far too broad and complex a phenomenon to be subject to this kind of reductive analysis. Rather than giving an answer to the question of the justice of slavery, Christianity provided one of the frameworks within which the contending principles would frame their thinking and contentions. The underlying crude material fact driving these articulations is not varying degrees or types of Christian-ness, but the simple reality that slaveholding Christians had an interest to interpret Christian ideas and doctrine in ways that non-slaveholding Christians did not, and vis-a-versa.
QuoteIf christianity isn't, then you are left with historical materialism (i.e., changes of patterns of consumption, travel routes, etc.). Which is why I used the late slavery example, because it provides both a moral conundrum for materialists, and a problem for materialistic interpretations. Slavery had *in fact* been reintroduced in the West. Was it out of material causes that it became reintroduced ? How was it fought ? You simply reexport the analytical problem back in the past (i.e, material causes in the past enabled immaterial causes in the future - but were material causes in the past really material ?)
History is not physics - it isn't amenable to giving definitive answers to these kinds of questions. But it seems like there is solid ground in stating that changing patterns in consumption, production, transportation and distribution contributed to the early 19th century rennaissance of slavery. Slaves were a very costly investment, and regardless of their adherence to various theories about race and subordination, slaveholders would not likely to commit to such an investment without giving careful thought to returns.
QuoteHistorical materialism is a very useful tool, but can grow so big so as to make history look like predestination (religious bent), preordained (à la Jared Diamond), or programmatic (Marx).
Any system of analysis can be abused or taken too far; that does not invalidate the usefulness of that mode of analysis.
Isn't this a bit of a chicken and an egg problem?
I mean the first "spark" of a social change is probably moral in nature (albeit of a type of morality that goes against the social mores, so it's not necessarily a point in favor of the society being morally inclined). Once this first spark creates verifiable "economic" cases, it becomes economic and this leads to the cause being adopted by the mainstream populace. Only then, I'd argue, the mores of the society change so it becomes immoral to own slaves.
Quote from: Martinus on April 02, 2010, 01:02:27 PM
Isn't this a bit of a chicken and an egg problem?
I mean the first "spark" of a social change is probably moral in nature (albeit of a type of morality that goes against the social mores, so it's not necessarily a point in favor of the society being morally inclined). Once this first spark creates verifiable "economic" cases, it becomes economic and this leads to the cause being adopted by the mainstream populace. Only then, I'd argue, the mores of the society change so it becomes immoral to own slaves.
Marbas (k)
Quote from: The Minsky Moment
Production and consumption does not occur in a vacuum; they are human activities embedded within human systems of social organization - this is a fundament of Marxian analysis and one of its sounder contributions.
I do not have a problem with embededness (which is what I meant by weberian framework) - but Marxism puts it in the top spot in the hiearchy of things. Which this...
QuoteThe underlying crude material fact driving these articulations is not varying degrees or types of Christian-ness, but the simple reality that slaveholding Christians had an interest to interpret Christian ideas and doctrine in ways that non-slaveholding Christians did not, and vis-a-versa.
Seems to do as well. "True motives" are economic interests (or self-interest, economically defined) and the rest is ascribed to mere intellectual window dressing. Whether your point is that abolitionism (or, again, other moral issues) pre-18th c. did not occur out of a moral crusade, or that it did occur out of material condition is slightly different, but it is again brushing aside any ideological contribution as, if not entrirely irrelevant, at lease very secundary. This, again, is a hierarchization of "causes" that make modes of production the main driving force of human history, and the rest arising out of it.
In this case, again, only as an example, is moral issues are not what led the abolitionists of the 17th c., what was the great material shift that happened in the 30-40 years that it took for the debate to arise, convince people, and lead to the interdiciton of the slave trade by the British ?
As for the rest, it is more tangential to the debate, hence why I went rapidly. I will simply state that when I mentionned Christianity, I was not aiming at 18th c. or 19th c. abolitionists, but at medieval christianity, which did, indeed, frown upon christian owning christians.
Quote from: Martinus on April 02, 2010, 10:57:20 AM
I think this is one of these "good old days" nostalgia things, that rarely bother to check the facts before proclaiming that "we no longer feel sympathy".
Well, there aren't many facts to check. I mean we don't, alas, have a sympathy index.
QuoteWhen was this "golden age" of the British society, when people felt sympathy for each other? The "Oliver Twist" times of child labour or debtors prisons? The Boer wars or the Amritsar massacre? Or perhaps the reign of terror in Ireland? (Not to mention the 1980s under tories).
I don't think there's ever been a golden age and, in reality the imagining of one tells us more about the present.
You're right there's been an enormous lack of sympathy in society before I think in those times, however, they have pointed to very serious social and economic issues that needed massive reform and change. The examples you give all indicate that: the 19th century of debtors prison; the obscenity of Empire and so on.
The response to the inequality of the 19th century and Empire was not to celebrate our lack of care or moral sympathy but to marshal a moral crusade against it. This never happened as much with Empire because we never saw people in Empire as British, not least because of their race. But I think that represents the problem, if you disqualify from a common feeling then you're obviously more able to attack them. The post-war consensus represents the triumph, I think, of that argument.
QuoteNow we have a pluralistic society where different definitions of what is moral and what isn't (or fair or just) can compete - and we try to drop these "big words" not because we no longer believe in them, but because it doesn't help a debate if every side defines its own position as the absolute good and therefore all others as absolute evil.
I'll take this bit by bit.
There has always been different moral crusades, or common purposes, within our politics and that is entirely right - it's the nature of democracy that you should have the left arguing 'never again' while the right desire an 'ownership society' and self-responsibility and so on. I don't want a one party state, nor do I think it would be the inevitable result of a resurgence of social democracy. In politics I think we've lost the moral purpose - I can't think of a significant way any party wants to shape our society. I think that reflects a wider social belief that we can't change society, which is in turn why we retreat from the big words and the big ideas. The reason for that I would argue is a sort of social collapse which I find concerning.
The second thing is that I don't think talking about fairness or justice inevitably leads to your opponents being absolute evil and yourself absolute good. That is not my reading of British history at least. I actually think that self-segregated ideologically cohesive communities are more likely to lead to that - as I said earlier I worry we're on the verge of an American style culture war - because you don't really have to deal with your opponent.
I think immigration is a particular example of this. I recoil from what I hear, to be honest, working class people saying about it; I find the opinions I hear when I go down to Dorset (ye olde England extraordinaire) incredible, like absolute take-your-breath-away stuff. I look at this issue and I can to some extent understand how this gulf of opinion has arrived but it's fundamentally like we're confronting different worlds. The same goes when I hear people talking about welfare or benefits and other issues too. I feel it also when I hear my middle class citiefied friends talking about those people. There's no sense of common feeling so much as there is just resentment and alienation for and from swathes of this country and our society and I find that scary.
But if you don't have any core sympathy or common feeling within a society then any moral purpose within its politics will be what you describe; it will be absolutes pitted against each other. I get this sense when I listen to some American politicians and pundits on the extreme and I really, really dislike it and I worry that it's where we're heading.
I think on the left to some extent old school social democracy - with its 'moral crusade' is a potential tonic.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 02, 2010, 02:21:07 PMI actually think that self-segregated ideologically cohesive communities are more likely to lead to that - as I said earlier I worry we're on the verge of an American style culture war - because you don't really have to deal with your opponent.
Which is why the examples quoted of the internet recreating communities is itself symptomatic: you never quite deal with your neighbors on the internet, and, while you might create solidarities, those are solidarities which I feel are in a vaccuum. There are no constraints, no day-to-day interaction, only an opt-in opt-out situation, which is not quite a true community, where bad things happen and you are forced to deal with having to live together. You create customized, tailored communities. The downside, for example, of living with a few trolls on a board are very slight, whereas having to learn with, and contend with, political opponents that you can meet at church, school, on your doorsteps is what creates sympathy, and empathy .
That being said, perhaps in the future the internet will indeed create true communities. It will remain to be seen how this will cope with the geopolitical and social world.
Quote from: Oexmelin on April 02, 2010, 02:14:27 PM
As for the rest, it is more tangential to the debate, hence why I went rapidly. I will simply state that when I mentionned Christianity, I was not aiming at 18th c. or 19th c. abolitionists, but at medieval christianity, which did, indeed, frown upon christian owning christians.
But not on the concept of slavery itself - Christians could enslave Muslims and pagans and did without objection from the Church; medieval theologians accepted Augustinian or Aristotlean views that were not hostile to slavery. And of course the Church did not express great concern over the institution of serfdom, in which Christians held other Christians in thrall as a form of quasi-property.
Quote"True motives" are economic interests (or self-interest, economically defined) and the rest is ascribed to mere intellectual window dressing.
The quotations are your words not mine. I simply noted the fact that an economic interest and the fact that ideological expressions often followed the economic interest. It does not follow that economic interests are the *only* motives or the only "true" motives. But I would contend that economic interests are motives and that they can be powerful ones. The coincidence of material interests and the direction of moral theorization is probably not random happenstance.
QuoteIn this case, again, only as an example, is moral issues are not what led the abolitionists of the 17th c., what was the great material shift that happened in the 30-40 years that it took for the debate to arise, convince people, and lead to the interdiciton of the slave trade by the British ?
Of course moral thinking drove the formation of the abolitionist movement. But that formation occurred (and only could occur) within a particuliar social-material context in which slavery had already long ceased to exist, and its absence become a fundamental aspect of the social fabric. Classical society had all of the intellectual tools to develop an abolitionist movement - including the Gospels, Christianity and decent levels of literacy, ample avenues for elite correspondence and cooperation across long distances - but it never developed as such in the context of a society in which slavery was an accepted norm and a basic part of the antique economy. There are individuals who decry instances of slavery or counsel against holding fellow Christians in bondage, but no general attack on slavery as a social institution.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 02, 2010, 03:15:43 PM
Of course moral thinking drove the formation of the abolitionist movement. But that formation occurred (and only could occur) within a particuliar social-material context in which slavery had already long ceased to exist, and its absence become a fundamental aspect of the social fabric.
Then let's test the reverse: would you, could you, maintain that the social-material context in which slavery existed, or was abolished could only occur within a particular moral context ?
I have a feeling Oexmelin and Sheilbh are arguing completely different things.
To Oexmelin: The only way a common morality-based community like Christendom could exist was because anyone outside of that morality (defined by religion) was immediately outside of the community as well so the morality rules did not apply to them. This is hardly a goal we should be aspiring to.
Quote from: Oexmelin on April 02, 2010, 02:33:57 PM
Which is why the examples quoted of the internet recreating communities is itself symptomatic: you never quite deal with your neighbors on the internet, and, while you might create solidarities, those are solidarities which I feel are in a vaccuum. There are no constraints, no day-to-day interaction, only an opt-in opt-out situation, which is not quite a true community, where bad things happen and you are forced to deal with having to live together. You create customized, tailored communities. The downside, for example, of living with a few trolls on a board are very slight, whereas having to learn with, and contend with, political opponents that you can meet at church, school, on your doorsteps is what creates sympathy, and empathy .
Only that those parochial communities where such proximity existed were hardly full of sympathy and empathy. Quite contrary - history teaches that such societies were extremely intolerant of any deviancy and exterminated it (whether physically or at least socially and politically) with an extreme prejudice. Show me one historical example of a society where such sympathy and empathy existed that was actually greater than what we have today. This seems to me like another of "kids these days" rants, nothing more.
Quote from: Martinus on April 02, 2010, 03:24:33 PM
I have a feeling Oexmelin and Sheilbh are arguing completely different things. Quote
Not quite. I have been lead "upstream" through the conversation with Minsky, in trying to see what's the space for morals in human communities, and how morals should or do, play a role in society. Once upon a time, I feel, the material organization of society was meant to reflect morality: the pursuit of a just society, whether through equality or merit, or what have you. My general feeling is that we keep the material component strong, celebrate the evacuation of morals, and look towards a society that is not particularly just, but rather legalistic.
As for the "goal we should be striving for", my point is to wonder if we can still build communities at all, if the only thing we try to have to link each other is a-moral Law. In other words, I wonder if we can still make "goals we should be striving for" at all, if we discard any sense of morality.
Again, a "sense of morality" should not necessarily be a moral code of conduct as those we associate with Christianity, or those requested by bigots, for instance. Humanism, to me, is inseparable from "a sense of morality", for instance. So is the dignity of man. It does not need to be totalitarian in spirit either: I think the celebration of debate, of the political life for itself, is - or rather *needs* to be moral. People need to be strongly *believing* in those to engage in democratic life - if not, they will be content to engage with *rules*. To repeat myself, what I fear is not the fact that people will disagree on what the Common Good *is*. It is the fact that people do not care about making it a "Good" at all.
Ok, in that case I think you and Sheilbh are wrong in your premise that morality or "common good" thinking is absent from modern politics. Every bigger legislation or, say, public spending decision, is ultimately a moral/common good decision - look at the health care reform debate in the US - it is at its core a debate about moral choices. The thing is, you can build a good moral case for going either way because you always have conflicting moral principles at stake and need to make a choice.
Frankly, if you want people to have more empathy for each other, including for people of opposing views, you need LESS morality in politics, and more of a "dirty compromise" thinking, that is actually more relativist and deal-oriented, than principle-oriented.
If you come from moral positions, you have babykillers vs. mullahs, and no debate is possible.