Mind Your Tools, Motherfo…
by rsbakker
Definition of the Day – Critical Thinking: 1) the transformation of intellectual sophistication into absolute moral superiority; 2) a way to make verbal radicals out of functional conservatives; 3) an archaic process for making goat cheese.
So I made the mistake of doing a vanity Google the other day and once again learned the peril authors face making overt political claims. The most obvious problem is – surprise-surprise – the human brain. You say something like ‘trickle down economics does not work,’ and the brain, which is designed to sort, clumps you into some crude category like ‘commie.’
I believe that in many (but not all) economic contexts, markets are far and away the most efficient means of distributing goods and fostering innovation. Food is an example where markets are extremely efficient: you don’t want governments managing your groceries – unless you find yourself in the middle of a famine. I append that ‘unless’ to explain why markets, although great for food in times of relative equilibrium, are horrible when it comes to things like healthcare. The social utility of supply and demand breaks down anytime the individual utility of a commodity becomes existential, which is to say, demand becomes a matter of life and death. In these situations, the very dynamics that render distribution efficient in times of plenty overturn the applecart.
Given the combination of social super-complexity and human stupidity, centralizing social decision-making is often (but not always) the worst thing to do. I like to show Marxist-leaning friends of mine my wife’s index of jobs and professions, a book that will shortly become the size of a phone-book, I’m sure. ‘This,’ I tell them, ‘is why centrally planned economies had to fail.’ Why? Because in market economies all these social positions come about spontaneously. Could you imagine any bureaucracy capable of developing and administrating the mind-boggling complexity of contemporary economies?
Market economies are social selection mechanisms, the same way brains are neural selection mechanisms and nature is a natural selection mechanism. The economic problems societies pose are generally too complicated for any brain to tackle, so we have a system that – ideally – both fosters and tests a variety of solutions. An experimental system. I am pro-market through and through, where markets actually seem to work. Where they don’t seem to work, I am anti-market through and through. How else should I look at them?
Markets are simply social tools. Who gets turned around when someone suggests that your hammer is the wrong tool? Who actually thinks their hammer is right tool for every task?
Idiots. What else could they be? Granted, the complexities often fool people into thinking they should hammer in screws and screw in hammers – that goes without saying. It’s the dogmatism that’s the problem. Anyone who insists up and down that a screwdriver is the best way to hammer nails is either insane, a retard, or a screwdriver salesman.
So why is it that people who are perfectly willing to be experimental in their garage suddenly become ideologues in the voting booth? Well, because something funny happens when problems become social as opposed to individual: our brains actually switch to a completely different problem-solving mode, one that is the product of endless generations of violent social competition (and perhaps presently steering the US toward disaster). Suddenly the simple question of what tool to use (and how) becomes fraught with questions of social identity. Saying ‘trickle-down economics’ is an ineffective tool – a claim as close to factual as you can make in the ‘dismal science’ – identifies you as a member of some competing group. It literally turns you into a kind of ‘enemy.’ Since violence and scarcity characterized so much of our evolutionary past, these identifications often tend to be ‘low-resolution,’ simplistic and facile, because the consequences of multiple false positives are generally more benign than the consequences of one false negative. It’s literally better to write off whole communities than it is to be wrong about one potential threat. Parochialism paid real dividends in our evolutionary past, and now (when it could be the end of us) we simply cannot stop acting those ancient imperatives out.
Thus the peril of authors making overt political claims.
Three Pound Brain 
I think it’s closer to the mark to describe markets as “social relations” rather than “social tools.” Doing so highlights the stakes that all parties seem to recognize when confronted with the prospect (or opportunity) of changes to those relations.
And ‘social’ doesn’t capture that? As you say, all parties recognize the stakes – already. What I’m saying is that they tend to recognize them in the wrong way. Looking at them as ‘tools’ is meant to ameliorate that.
The difference is that “tools” imply an externality that doesn’t match the way we experience markets. It just seems odd…like describing the nuclear family as a “tool.” Sure, you can argue the inadequacies of the nuclear family as an effective social tool (a la Huxley’s “Island”). But describing an experienced social relation as a tool doesn’t ameliorate the reaction if you try to take kids away from their parents and put them in boarding houses.
That’s not to deny your point about how easily these discussions devolve into oppositional groupthink. (How many of the audience members in the interminable Republican primary debates who cheer wildly at promises to do away with Dodd-Frank have the remotest clue of what the act does or could independently articulate a case for its repeal?) And that may be all there is to the critics of your “trickle-down” comments. But, when it comes to fiscal policy, people often have a pretty good read on whether a change of “tool” is desirable (i.e., whether it will leave them hammered or screwed).
Hilarious! Remember the premise here is that all concepts are cartoons. There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect concept,’ just illuminating ways of looking at things. I just think ‘tool’ is the proper tool in this instance.
Very interesting post.
The idea that life and death can’t be decided by markets is dumb. Of course it can. It’s really the only way to do it. If I’m not paying for my treatment then why wouldn’t I demand the best treatment available?
You’re also wrong that markets aren’t good when there are crises like famine. Markets will create massive incentives for people to solve the problem. Price gouging laws and other interference to make things better only result in more people to suffering.
Markets have both the moral high ground and the consequentialist high ground. Why not be in favor of markets in everything when they are clearly better than all alternatives.
Look for what is not seen. Why aren’t there more hospitals in the US? Why aren’t there more doctors? Why can’t I prescribe myself medicine?
For my own good the do gooders have caused me tremendous unnecessary suffering.
Here you go, Scott. This is who you’re trying to convert. Good luck.
Life and death is determined by the market all the time, it just tends to be really bad at it a lot of the time. “The market” is not a free market ideal any more than it is a planned economy ideal, but various markets tip towards one or the other extreme. Are all those health care problems in the US that’s causing you so much grief due top misguided moral crusades that are totally divorced from economic reality, or are they caused by a drive to maximize profit that’s downplayed or absent in other nations? Or a mix of both? Or neither? Or both and something else? Or one and something else? Or a whole lot of something elses? A lot of people have obviously pushed very successfully for their own vision of the profit driven health care market in the past, and that hasn’t worked out so great for many others. Why is that?
If your moral imperative includes keeping people alive and healthy, then various approximations of “free” markets for essential goods and services are so far from the high ground that the peak’s not even visible at this point. If you’re going to talk about consequentialism, then based on historical cases where lack of regulation and the overriding drive to maximize capital have caused repeated cycles of bank runs, depressions, artificial shortages, famines, and the suffering of countless millions, isn’t that pretty good evidence that enabling the businesses to dirve up profits even more is probably not such a good idea for most people? In other situations the exact same kind of case can be made against planning and regulation. If neither screwdriver or hammer can fix a wreck alone, what’s the point of insisting that one is always self evidently better than the other?
The idea that life and death can’t be decided by markets is dumb. Of course it can. It’s really the only way to do it. If I’m not paying for my treatment then why wouldn’t I demand the best treatment available?
Seems a bit of a false dychotomy? The only other alternative is one where whatever someone happens to demand is what they get? Are you saying that’s the only other alternative?
You’re also wrong that markets aren’t good when there are crises like famine. Markets will create massive incentives for people to solve the problem. Price gouging laws and other interference to make things better only result in more people to suffering.
What problem? You have goods and…there’s a famine going on over there. There is no problem to solve? You have goods, you have demand. Things are great!
I’m inclined to think you have a good heart and it can’t help but think of a famine as a problem. And so you think the market could only ever think the same way you do.
Say your dying of thirst in the desert, have no coin and come across a vending machine full of drinks. Does the machine somehow change because your dying of thirst? No. To the machine, there is no problem.
If you start redesigning the machine to react differently to this situation (ie, to treat it as a problem), then that’s what those anti price gouging laws are, redesigns of the machine. Maybe you think the price gouge redesign sucks and your redesign is the one that works, but your both attempting to change the machine, because as is, it is not enough.
Callan there wouldn’t be a vending machine in the desert without the market.
Gareth, there are about three components to my example and you’ve ignored one. The one where they don’t have any coins.
Tell me what would you do if someone ignores about 1/3rd of your example – what would you say that, if the positions were reversed, you’d also be fine with that being said to you?
Fair enough. I find flippant answers annoying as well.
To your first point I did not create a false dychotomy? I pointed out what my incentives would be. I’m pretty sure this is how it works out in real life too. In the US lots of people use the full amount of unemployment insurance before finding a job.
To your second point. The idea is you could make even more money by bringing a good to a region in which it is more scarce. Food to a famine.
To your third point. If I am the man with no coin then I have a problem. The machine is fine. How else could it be? Should the vending machine charge different amounts based on my thirst?
“Dont’ worry about packing water or coin for the trip. Some idiot put a vending machine in the desert and If you get really thirsty it’s free!”
In that scenario what is the incentive to put the vending machine in the desert? My flippant answer was there wouldn’t be a vending machine. Flip or not I think it’s right.
I pointed out what my incentives would be. I’m pretty sure this is how it works out in real life too. In the US lots of people use the full amount of unemployment insurance before finding a job.
You described before a system where if someone demands something, they get it. To me this seems a different structure from having an allocation (and incidentally using it all up).
Is it a structure your arguing against, or does even the faint wiff of someone possibly freeloading is the thing you argue against? Perhaps the moral degredation of freeloading?
The idea is you could make even more money by bringing a good to a region in which it is more scarce. Food to a famine.
So you’ve seen famines reported on the news. Have you assumed the famine occurs because it doesn’t strike those people to buy food?
To your third point. If I am the man with no coin then I have a problem. The machine is fine. How else could it be? Should the vending machine charge different amounts based on my thirst?
“Dont’ worry about packing water or coin for the trip. Some idiot put a vending machine in the desert and If you get really thirsty it’s free!”
Sounds viable. Parks have water fountains, yet right next to the park a shop sells chilled bottled water. Presumably they make sales.
Indeed if the machine only gives water to you when your really thirsty, then you have a constant state of thirst (you just wont die from it). Seems quite unpleasant to me – perhaps creating a demand (from someone who would otherwsie demand no more, for being dead from dehydration).
Or you set it that you have to que for X amount of time for Y amount of tepid water, but if you pay you get it now, chilled, as much as you want to buy.
I dunno – I’m guessing there’s no incentive for you to agree to this, because you think the person dying from dehydration deserves it for whatever moral reason. Am I guessing right or making an unfair evaluation (I utterly state my guess is just a guess and could be lamely off the mark)?
But markets are not the most efficient or desirable means in all circumstances. Should national parks be privatized? Should we allow free and open organ markets? Should we allow infants to be bought and sold? Should the poor man with heart failure be forced to wait while the rich man has his hangnail looked after?
Markets will just as happily see people starve as otherwise. The trick all along, Gareth, has been to harness the creativity and efficiency of markets while limiting their destructiveness: there’s a reason why all the most powerful, affluent nations in the world are ‘welfare states.’ The ‘do gooders’ made that possible.
So perhaps I’m deceiving myself but I think I have rational reasons for thinking that markets are the best solution in nearly scenario. It’s seems equally likely to me that you are being dogmatic in your claims that markets don’t work.
Yes do away with national parks. I should not be forced to subsidise someone else’s vacation.
Yes we should allow organ markets. This would save lives. I believe this issue in particular is often cited as an example of well meaning people actually causing untold deaths.
No I don’t think you can buy and sell people.
Yes the poor man should have to wait. It sucks for him but society will have more better doctors because of the incentive of the providing care to the rich man.
Untold deaths, huh? Got any data for this unsung holocaust?
It depends what you want from your society. If you think a nation whose greatest natural wonders have all been coopted for corporate marketing or sequestered for the use of the highest bidder is good, then sell the national parks.
Given a commitment to baseline human needs and dignity, the list of market ‘failures’ is well-nigh inexhaustible. The privatization of rainwater. All laissez faire approaches to basic utilities. Credit default swaps. Tulip bulbs in Holland. Innumerable bond markets. In fact, we have the laissez faire policies of the 19th century to thank for the regulation we have got. Every ersatz monopoly…
But there’s an in principle argument here: To be ideological is to be rationally committed to single answers. Saying I’m being ‘ideological’ for insisting that we eschew ‘one size fits all’ answers in favour of experimentation is to simply misunderstand the meaning of ideology. I don’t care what ideology the answer comes from, so long as it works.
But the big question is the one you avoided: Why are all the most successful, powerful, technologically advanced nations welfare states? You can add to it: Why did the USA experience it’s greatest period of economic expansion when the wealthy were taxed at the highest rates ever? How could the Soviet Union even become a superpower at all, if what you say is true?
This faith in markets strikes me as almost magical, Gareth. What about externalities?
But the biggest question of all has to do with power: the more of society you turn over to markets, the more powerless the poor becomes, the less they buy into the legitimacy of their system, the more social upheaval you are doomed to suffer. You say, why should I subsidize someone else’s vacation (because they are subsidizing your roads?). Why should the poor cede the bulk of their labour – their life – to the white hat on the hill? Cook their food? Build their houses? Stitch their clothes? The world you’re imagining is every bit a fairy tale as the communist one – just inverted. As the past thirty years prove, the rising tide does not float all boats. In fact, it swamps quite a few.
Gareth, mainland China already harvests the organs of its executed criminals as long as they can receive consent of the criminal or relatives, and those organs already end up being sold by transplant brokers both domestically and abroad. Are judges doing the right thing if they’re pushing for more poor people to receive the death penalty so that there’s more organs for the market? What about harvesting just generally unproductive members of society, beggars and drifters and the like? If there’s enough monetary incentive, i.e. market forces, for judges to act according to the wishes of the rich, is it morally right for them to push for harsher sentencing laws? What about the case of the relatives? Is it morally right for those people to provide character testimony leading to harsher sentences in exchange for a payout?
And why can’t you buy and sell people? There’s a huge world wide slave market running even now, where people are being trafficked for forced labor every year. Both suppliers and buyers are making money hand over fist, taking part in a vibrant market. Isn’t that the right thing to do?
I think many people cannot tell the difference between market value and ethical value. Many free market jihadist defend the market not because is effective, they defend it because they view it as moral, at least here in the US. In their eyes the US health care system is better than the Canadian system not because is more effective, clearly it is not, but because it is moral. It is a twisted form of morality, a form of secular religion, I just hope canadians dont convert.
Walter, I think something to note is that market value *is* ethical value; a subset of ethical value. I think this is so for two reasons. First, markets are a way of solving collective action problems, and as such a good way to collectively satisfy all our preferences—a classic utilitarian move. There is a really good reason so-called free market libertarians (with or without the “libertarians”) love them some Mill and some Smith, both standouts within that broader conceptual tradition (Mill from the late 19th Century analytic, and Smith from the Scottish enlightenment).
Second, people who advocate markets make implicitly ethical claims all the time. The whole “a rising tide lifts all boats/a bigger pie gives more slices/[some other metaphor about how aggregate wealth generates better average utilities].” The classical market reply to changing tax and transfer conditions based on raising the living conditions of the worse off are usually the above stated, and are themselves claims about the best types of values to promote and the best ways to promote those values.
The problem you identify is that it just isn’t clear that—as Scott notes—in all cases markets really are the best way to promote collective utility (do markets always cause the boats to rise highest?), if aggregation and averaging are commensurate of if there is something else at play (does a rising tide really lift all boats, or does it lift some and capsize others?), or that in all cases maximisation of collective utility is just what we should want (is the highest tide really the best thing there is?).
Geez this got long fast, but I guess what I’m saying is that the free market kids aren’t wrong in making their claims moral claims, because that’s what they are. What is important is that their ethical views might be wrongheaded either through the arguments of others, or just on their own merits.
First, markets are a way of solving collective action problems
No, markets want to make money. If they solve problems, it’s simply as a side effect of that being the shortest path to making money. And when it doesn’t happen to be the shortest path, they ignore problems or even profit from them.
Or atleast be explicit and say markets are driven by a greater benign force for good, if that’s where your coming from. Beliefs like that don’t get undone by reasoning, so I’d rather skip tackling the reasonings you’ll give if behind it all is a belief.
I’ve read columns here arguing that the rich deserve better medical care because their wealth means they’re more valuable to society. Everywhere you look, it seems, progressives are in ideological retreat. The problem with rising inequality is that public discourse is fairly (but not entirely) transparent to capital. The more wealth concentrates, the easier it becomes to concentrate wealth.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-stupidest-things-we-use-to-judge-people-we-dont-know/
#1 and #2 seem particularly appropriate.
(Please stop judging me because I like Cracked)
Anyhow, judging and sorting is just what we do. What is not right is to judge so quickly, to condemn so fully based on a few facts. I have several extremely brilliant coworkers sitting next to me, and I disagree with them based on politics, taste in comedy, and other matters. Because I knew they were smart prior to knowing their opinions on these various matters, I was able to halt the prejudice that comes so easily.
That said, if I stranger tells me they like Jeff Dunham, they are getting seriously judged unworthy. It’s just too easy.
Oh, I know! Maybe we can alter our neurochemistry to make ourselves less judgmental! Yes, that’s the ticket! [extreme sarcasm]
Sarcasm, at is most extreme, is indistinguishable from
joe pescisincerity.Out of a possible 10… 9.2
I love communists. I just think they’re misguided. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Humans are selfish and possessive.
I don’t know Gary… Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and Finland are supposed to be awesome places to live, and they’re really communists in disguise. Granted, they are not really ‘planned economies’ completely, but the degree of taxation means the government controls a tremendous portion of the nation’s wealth. Most Western European countries really blow the US out of the water in terms of social spending, and are generally better places to live.
Of course, the world does not just turn based on “quality of life” indexes. The military and economic power of nations may turn on there being inherent inequalities in society (e.g. the US and China). And when a Norwegian multi-billionaire gets sick, he probably flies his jet over to Johns Hopkins to have some 1st generation Indian-immigrant surgeon excise what ails him.
The world is a strange place.
but doesn’t seems strange that at face value a country would be much better off if everyone put the common good above personal interest (at least that seems obvious to me), though we have decided to put personal interest above common good. Now I know people aren’t selfless, some argue it is impossible to be selfless, but wouldn’t it maximize efficiency to put more effort on providing for the common good. (less waste the more we share; and the greater spending power the more the average person has to spend).
I actually think the communists (who are ideological inversions of libertarians) weren’t so wrong about altruism as they were about human cognitive capacity. For me, they’re almost as bad as Nazis. All ideologies are bad, but those that have a long history of tyranny and murder are contemptible. How could anyone be a communist given its historical track record?
Well, at least you said “almost”. I would put it like this: on the far left, they regret the perversion and catastrophic failure of communist ideals in dictatorships around the world. On the far right, they regret that Nazi Germany was prevented from completing the realization of the ideals it was busily achieving. I think there’s a difference there.
I’m not sure ‘better intentions’ makes much difference – if any at all, when millions are killed in their name.
That’s a good point about their track record, If I am not mistaken Stalin killed more people than Hitler, its really atrocious. I would be curious about your stance on the altruism of people, I would like to think people can be better than individual greed, but I recently read a poll where less Americans were interested in closing the gap between rich and poor and more interested in opportunities to becoming rich; maybe I just need to adopt a better country as my home.
3) an archaic process for making goat cheese.
Aww, and I thought my mind had become un-fetta-ed!
Take 6D6 pun damage, ya’ll!
“Markets will create massive incentives for people to solve the problem.”
-Gareth
Like many things in economics we can look at the short-run and the long-run.
This is true, in the long-run and is one of the problems with food-aid. Why grow food for sale in the market when a central planner is giving it out for free? This is why Haitians are selling US-AID bags of rice at the Dominican border.
In the short-run though, this is not true. In a time of famine, central distribution will allow food to get to people before they starve.
“Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and Finland …they’re really communists in disguise. Granted, they are not really ‘planned economies’…”
-Jorge Azpurua
This statement is slightly contradictory. The reason these economies still prosper is because despite the greater role of government in providing services such as healthcare, they are NOT really planned economies as you have said. The key here is that the market incentive of greed is still present or else those Swiss bank would not be full of rich people’s money….
The effects of short term food aid are bad too.
It incentivises risky behavior. Why by food with a long shelve life? Why save money for a rainy day?
How does a centralized planner destribute the goods more effectively than a market? First come first serve? Friends first? Women and children?
Unless it’s mana from heaven how does a centralized authority get the goods to distribute. Does it go around and take the canned goods and rainy day money from those that planned ahead?
I like how you phrase it as a victimisation at the end, Gareth.
Not that I’m a big fan of some large martial entity stepping in and making claim to my assets, myself.
I’ve never watched anyone starve to death. Not adults, not children.
Suppose you can have the choice to keep your rainy day money, but the trade off is you have to spend a bit of time watching some people slowly die? Or would that be a victimisation too – that hour a week of watching you did could have been spent in front of the TV, for example.
Or I guess not even that – the rainy day savers would be victimised to give up a share for someone elses rainy day. The rainy day savers would be the real victims, aye?
I think physical distance to them makes leaving people to starve quite easy – so easy one can even begin to paint oneself the victim.
But actually, if you were willing to do the ‘dirty work’ of spending say an hour a week watching those who will starve to death, those who’s pregnancies will abort due to starvation, those childrens who’s brains will not fully form for starvation during critical early stages, I could actually see your argument as having validity because of that.
But right now I estimate your in conflict with your own values. Hell, so am I – how much do I donate to starving countries….*shrug*
Benjamin wrote:
“This statement is slightly contradictory. The reason these economies still prosper is because despite the greater role of government in providing services such as healthcare, they are NOT really planned economies as you have said. The key here is that the market incentive of greed is still present or else those Swiss bank would not be full of rich people’s money….”
True, although I’d like to point out that those Swiss bank accounts are full of money from rich people that are NOT Swiss.
While there are very wealthy people in the welfare states, the degree of income inequality is substantially lower than in places like the US/China. So low, in fact, that I’d be tempted to call those countries “communist”. The means of production may not be owned by the state, but the state grasps so much of what the private companies and individuals produce that it might as well be.
I can still sleep at night knowing that I have extra while others have none. I can relax watch sports, play video games and even read the occasional fantasy book. I don’t deny that I could help.
I think what it comes down to is I place more value on my personal happiness than I do on the suffering of unknown masses. I tend to think we all make that calculation whether we admit it or not.
I don’t know how I would react in your scenario above but I suspect it might be the opposite of what you are suggesting. I think sadly that I would be very soft hearted to in your face suffering at first and then over time become more and more hard hearted as physical distance gets replaced with some other form of distance.
“I think what it comes down to is I place more value on my personal happiness than I do on the suffering of unknown masses. I tend to think we all make that calculation whether we admit it or not.”
I absolutely agree*, but it’s a moral failing no? Under any moral system you care to choose other than relativism or nihilism. Specially when you consider how easy it would be for most people living in the Western world to give up on just a fraction of their irrelevant trinkets in order to VASTLY improve the quality of life of someone in a developing nation.
Just be glad we don’t live in Scott’s universe though, because Yatwer would make us pay for all eternity for our scumbag greed.
Matthew 19:24 and all that rot.
Just be glad we don’t live in Scott’s universe though, because Yatwer would make us pay for all eternity for our scumbag greed.
Not that anyone would then punish Yatwer for her/its deeds.
I can still sleep at night knowing that I have extra while others have none. I can relax watch sports, play video games and even read the occasional fantasy book. I don’t deny that I could help.”
I suspect you live in a well fare state where the government takes care of those you claim you can ignore. Try living in a third world nation where the poor are not looked after, is not easy to relax, even for the wealthy.
I confess to been selfish, my own well fare matters more to me than those of strangers, even so I still support a well fare state for three reasons.
1. I lived in a third world country; I was not poor, but still walk with fear 24/7. The wealthy live in constant fear; their windows all have metal bars, high walls, even the occasional stroll at night is a danger. Ignoring the poverty of others is a danger to your well being, unless you pretend to hire your own personal army, or live all alone in your own private island away from the huddled masses.
2. The market is capricious. I never know when I might need the help of a well fare state. Today I win, tomorrow I lose. In a well fare state I know I will not end up out on the streets.
3. Poverty is just plain ugly. I cannot really relax to read a book with the stench of open sewers next to me, or enjoy a nice meal in a restaurant when people are begging in the street, it ruins the whole experience. I rather pay my taxes and support a well fare state where I can enjoy the products of my labor without the inconvenience of unaided poverty.
Markets are ok, as long as there is a system to help to regulate it and help those who need help.
I think what it comes down to is I place more value on my personal happiness than I do on the suffering of unknown masses. I tend to think we all make that calculation whether we admit it or not.
I think morality and math have a hard time with each other. I mean, what are you going to do, sacrifice 100% of your personal happyness to help unknown masses? It’d still just be a drop in the ocean.
So what about a fraction – well, morality kinda goes all dyslexic at fractions. Morality doesn’t understand fractions (by now you know I’m refering to the parts of the brain that think about morality, when I say morality). Especially when the pressing need of the unknown masses wont be solved by it even less so than 100%.
So in a moral world without fractions, morality thinks there’s nothing to be done. But in a world with fractions, one can start an avalanche by just kicking a few stones (or contribute to an avalanche). One doesn’t have to throw 100% of oneself down the mountain face to start or contribute to said avalanche.
But morality is dyslexic. It loves binaries. It can’t grok fractions.
So consider, when you consult your morality, that maybe it’s a bit stupid (mine too – where do you think I’m getting this data from!) in terms of math. The intellect part of your brain might have to build it some math crutches to help it along.
(ps: Maybe dyslexic isn’t the right word since were dealing with math, but wtf-ever)
I don’t know how I would react in your scenario above but I suspect it might be the opposite of what you are suggesting. I think sadly that I would be very soft hearted to in your face suffering at first and then over time become more and more hard hearted as physical distance gets replaced with some other form of distance.
Well if you were soft hearted you’d switch to paying over resources (and so don’t have to view the starving). If you don’t, your not soft hearted. Not even at first.
Ultimately I suspect agency is the key issue here – you balk at someone forcing over your earned assets to someone else, not even because of the assets, but because someone is forcing your choice. As I said above, I’m not a fan of some martial entity forcing assets off me, either. I might give to charity and think I’m great for it, but if I had been forced by someone to give the exact same amount I’d be pissed the hell off!!!
So, trying to leave it to you and preserving your agency: It depends whether you feel your morality is you/what chooses in part or whole for you – what does it feel if you happened to be the one viewed by your own impassive, distanced face on someone elses head, as you starve to death? Or does your morality or something else feel that you are the ‘special kind’ or such and so never have to think about being in those starving pair of shoes?
I’m thinking about it. I don’t yet have a strong argument why it’s not a moral failure but my intuition is that it’s not.
Also there is a knowledge problem with helping others. What can I do to help individuals in developing countries? Send Money? Build Houses? Teach them c++?
Well, from my perspective there are a minimum number of permissible actions:
1. In the event of a catastrophe, yes, send money through a charity that’s reputable and trusted.
2. Inform yourself so that you don’t end up buying blood diamonds, or chocolate harvested by slaves.
3. Insist on finding out about corporate practices and try to buy things only from companies that pay their foreign employees livable wages.
I don’t do all of these things to the degree that I should, but I don’t hold myself to any particular moral standard because
A. It’s hard.
B. It’s philosophically difficult to justify any particular moral system. I’ve been somewhat fond of utilitarianism since 2003, but I’m well aware of its philosophical shortcomings.
C. In the end, I die, and what I did or didn’t do in life doesn’t end up mattering. Probably.
I’m fond of the charities that have a goat buying program (also there are cow buying ones). That way the person who recieves the animal might possibly breed it and have a way of advancing themselves, not just relying on you. So it buys them a resource that has a chance of generating further resources for them. I’ve only managed to buy one goat for someone so far (I’d actually like it if you could pay more to get a photo of the goat with the person who gets it…yeah, I like a trophy!)
C. In the end, I die, and what I did or didn’t do in life doesn’t end up mattering. Probably.
Touch the pond and concentric ripples extend, even after the touch is pulled away.
I’m not sure there’s a pond, let alone ripples.
I’m not anti-science. Perhaps delusional or wrongheaded but I’m not purposefully rejecting fact in favor of belief. It’s unfortunate that economics is impossible to test or one of us would have proof on our side.
Still without real proof I turn to logic and history. Markets have a clear mechanism that’s logical and easy to explain. Trade allows individuals to specialize. Specializing allows people to be more efficient. In order to maximize personal utility individuals are incentivized to act morally. History is tougher not because I think the trend is against my side but because you can tell any story you want. Welfare state dominance being one mentioned already. My read of history is that societies have done better when they’ve taken more market based approaches.
Anyway what societal tools am I dogmatically discarding? I suppose I don’t really know that many different ways to organize a society so I see a toolbox with five broken paint stirrers and one baddass sawzall.
I meant experiment in the policy sense. Look around at other solutions, take some risks, be ready to eat crow and try again. Trade is a great example because for the longest time it seemed to be the gold standard when it comes to macroeconomic facts: but there’s real evidence that trade with China, for instance, has not led to the ‘win-win’ efficiencies predicted – for a whole jungle of reasons.
The thing is, Gareth, the tool box has a monstrous variety of tools – a morass, in effect. You could argue that many sectors of many advanced economies resemble ‘centrally planned’ mini-economies rather than ‘free markets’ simply because of collusion or outright monopolistic domination. The ‘market’ is not some essential thing; it’s an organon of possibilities that turn on preexisting cultural and social conditions. Remember the Bush plan for Iraq? ‘Incentives’ only make sense within some cultural context. ‘Markets’ only make sense within some institutional context. ‘Efficiencies’ have variable shelf-life and non-universal consequences. Externalities are ineliminable.
Relying on markets in times of famine, for instance, is like driving a sports car in the absence of roads.
The ease of explanation you refer to, the very fact that markets seem to allow for mathematical modelling for instance, and thus the veneer of ‘scientific rigour,’ is one of the reasons I think so many people become so enamoured of them.
First I would say that trade with China has been a win win. The claim is China’s growth in recent years has brought millions of people out of poverty. What claim can counter the benefits of that?
Collusion and monopolies and other bad things exist in markets. They are not a stable state though. As soon as a they start charging too high in rents they risk losing their advantage.
Externalities are ineliminable. It’s not as if externalities are a unique problem to markets. Please tell me what policy tool doesn’t have externalities?
I agree that the veneer of mathmatical rigour is dangerous. It’s easy to be fooled by someone running curve fitting algorithms. Still I would think the fact that a tool lends itself to modeling would overall be benefitial.
I guess I just don’t see this monstrous toolbox. Sure a hammer can be red or blue or yellow but it’s still a hammer. The same with trade policies. It can be a tariff, a tax, a blockade etc, but the tool is still just coercive force to extract rents for favored groups.
So you believe in some kind of market essentialism?
“but there’s real evidence that trade with China, for instance, has not led to the ‘win-win’ efficiencies predicted – for a whole jungle of reasons.”
Isolating the effects of trade with a single nations on factors such as wages or unemployment is nearly impossible. You simply cannot isolate other factors changing the economy at the same time (technology, demographic shifts come to mind).
Suggested reading:
Free Trade Under Fire
Douglas A. Irwin
In fact, most statistical evidence suggests (but doesn’t prove) positive effects of trade (regardless of any trade partner). I know this is not the focus of the discussion, but this general consensus that trade with China has resulted in something other than a positive is frustrating. Trade with China may only be a “win-lose” situation if your world is limited to a small part of a single region of the world, instead of, say, humanity (or even North America).
Scott, you always stress the complexity of everything. Please don’t stop when it comes to trade with China. I am writing from Qingdao, Shandong province. China is about as complex a country as it gets with people desperate to get a horrible job in the export industry in order to survive.
So, agree with Gareth!
Exactly, complex. Trade isn’t always win-win – only under certain circumstances.
But Gareth’s argument is self-regarding: “Why should I subsidize…” When everyone I know is scrambling, worse off than their parents, looking at impoverished retirements, why should I give a damn about how well the Chinese are doing? The bottom line is that free trade with China has undermined the bargaining power of the NA working class – which is exactly why corporate America is so staunchly in favour of it.
Trying to evaluate ideologies based on historical events is hard. I fully concede that none of the mostrous communist regimes are truly communist. They just use the ideology to further their political ends. It’s funny that the intellectual elite seem much more susceptible to this sort of trick.
That said communism fails so many basic logic tests I fail to see the appeal.
What’s the incentive to work hard if my income is independent of effort?
How do you decide what to invest in?
How do individual preferences get satsified?
How do you get people to do what they should?
Two more points. I think the point above about not caring about the Chinese is a good example of the false compassion of progressives.
Also I don’t understand how fascism is somehow the polar opposite of communism? Was Nazi germany some sort of laissez faire market economy? The logic here is flawed. The fascists disliked the commies so everybody who dislikes commies are fascists. The two ideologies seem to me to be more similar to each other than they are to a market based system.
Whoops this was meant to be in response to comments below.
And what are the pros of communism?
I think the benefit is that the worst off in society does as well as the best off. So if you are unfortunate enough to be the worst off in society you in theory would do best relative to everyone else in a communist one.
If you combine John Rawls theory of justice with a notion that relative wealth is what matters most then I think communism seems a winning solution.
I’m sympathetic to Rawls but I don’t think relative wealth is all that matters.
I’ve always liked Rawls, to the scorn of my friends.
The big thing is that communism understands that the market, like all other modes of social organization, is a system of power. I think this why Murphy was concerned with my condemnation – for fear that this insight would be lost. The communists were wrong – catastrophically wrong – to think that a nondemocratic State could provide a more just form of social organization. But the insight remains valid. In ethical terms, ‘wealth’ is simply control over other people’s actions. The people who are giving more of their life to the system than receiving certainly have the right to ask whether they are being exploited.
No complex system can survive without addressing issues of social justice – simply because it eventually loses all legitimacy. The markets don’t give a flying fuck about social justice: it only comes about as a happy side effect of universal prosperity. And there is no evidence that I know of Gareth, that ‘free’ markets always produce universal prosperity in all contexts, and there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Positions that think social justice simply falls out of market efficiencies mystify me for this reason. They strike me as ideologically optimistic in the communist sense. Positions that think social justice doesn’t matter just strike me as naive and tyrannical. Where do you stand?
I’m not anti-science. Perhaps delusional or wrongheaded but I’m not purposefully rejecting fact in favor of belief. It’s unfortunate that economics is impossible to test or one of us would have proof on our side.
Impossible to test? This is the very foundation of belief!
Part of this, I would have payed, is exactly what metrics one would test an economies output by. Every poster here might have a different metric and we might argue over that.
But no metric at all? It’s impossible to test?
In terms of that I disagree with Scott, because in that there is no experimentation with that, there is no eating crow. If you are uttely blind, experiment A, B & C all have the exact same result: Darkness. And either you eat crow every single time, or toast yourself every single time. As it’s impossible to test, well shit, your not going to have any data incoming that decides toast or crow. And hell, eternally toasting yourself beats eternally eating crow (if you want to talk incentives), when you don’t know what the fuck is going on or ever will.
“I don’t want to be anti-science, I don’t want to embrace belief – but there is no other choice, I have to be both those things! This is the unmeasurable! And thus…Free Markets rule! A toast!”
Either claim that sentence as your own or start describing metrics an economy could be measured by to some small or large degree.
Or the middle, unsure of metrics, but not promoting the subject (Free markets) either.
Or is economics simply the new apparent emperical, much like a thick tome of text appears emperical (ie, bibles), but it easily subverts to whatever divine movement deigns?
I guess it is a coin trick, after all.
Take 6D6 pun damage, ya’ll!
Is it my fault economics is a soft science? You can certainly pick your metric and look for correlations. I tend to think happiness == wealth. People tend to think of themselves as happier in countries with high gdp. So despite gdp per capita being an extremely stupid calculation it seems about as good as any number for evaluating by. Economically freer countries tend to have higher gdp. Prooves nothing but hopefully you are satisfied.
I don’t know what market essentialism is. I googled it but it wasn’t immediately clear. I consider myself an anarchist. I see the instigation of force as illegitimate.
Since the origin of this thread was your frustration at being called a commie, how would you classify yourself? Fairly or unfairly I would throw you in the same boat as the rest of the modern progressive community.
Progressive
A group in favor of private property but with massive levels of wealth redistribution. They see government as the most efficient vehicle for solving group coordination problems. They see poor people who vote republican as being about the stupidest people on earth and voting against their own economic self interest. They claim science as their own and declare all others as theological. They listen to NPR or the Canadian equivalent and they think Diane Rheum has both a wonderful voice and makes thoughtful points. Oh and one last very important ingredient to being a progressive. Suckers for veneer of expertise.
I can’t tell you how many times I heard this document mentioned on NPR when it first came out.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12385.
I read on a blog that it was garbage and what do you know it was. Our models predict X. 12 months later our models confirm that X was achieved. That’s economics for you. Garbage in garbage out.
Is it my fault economics is a soft science? You can certainly pick your metric and look for correlations. I tend to think happiness == wealth. People tend to think of themselves as happier in countries with high gdp. So despite gdp per capita being an extremely stupid calculation it seems about as good as any number for evaluating by. Economically freer countries tend to have higher gdp. Prooves nothing but hopefully you are satisfied.
There’s part of you that would not be satisfied with 2+2=5. It’s satisfaction is the question.
You have two semantically vague terms – happyness and wealth. Terms which will just mean a different thing to every eye that scans them. Two terms which also has no way of being disproven – it’s the same as trying to disprove good=good. It’s always true and thus always vacuous.
Before you rush to convince or satisfy something outside of yourself, what do you do? When you go to a pizza shop do you say you want “Food”? Or are you specific?
Right now your dealing in the psuedo emperical, a new bible, and avoiding working with specifics that you work with every day.
Is it my fault economics is a soft science?
It’s funny how you don’t want to be forced to do anything, but when it supports what your already doing, someone is forcing you to use soft science. Who is forcing you?
Advance warning. I am not going to commit to making the effort to express this as well as it should be expressed.
I pretend to be a Socialist because I live in the rural, southern U.S., which is about as conservative a place as can be imagined to exist. To the people around here (and to many Americans in general) Socialism is so far beyond the pale as to be treasonous. So, I wear my Socialism t-shirts in part because I enjoy tweaking self-righteous people. I also think that room needs to be made in the political landscape of the U.S. for a more diverse set of views (or a better representation of them) than the ones we have now, because I hope (maybe foolishly) that a larger market (hah!) of ideas will lead to better decisions. So, the best way (I think) to make the sort of room we need is to push the boundaries of discourse. Somebody has to be willing to fly the flag, why not me? Especially since I basically don’t respect anyone (including myself) intellectually. Nobody reading this is smart enough to tell me any different.
Or, maybe I am really a convinced Socialist, and I am just fooling myself with the whole “meta” game. *shrug* I don’t know, and neither do you.
I have a USA – WORLD PEACE T with a giant star-spangled banner that I like to wear at University functions for precisely the same reason!
Scott, it is hardly the case that people were killed in the name of “better intentions” and that clearly wasn’t my point… The history of communism can’t be reduced to these kinds of terms. There is a reason for the far left’s hatred, not fondness, for Stalin.
I’m sure. But otherwise, bracketing intentions and fine distinctions, what do we have but the real world consequences of a given social organizational scheme by which to judge? The track record for communism is arguably more horrific than fascism.
An organizational scheme which, to be clear, Marxists despise. Not a fine distinction. The track record for Stalinism is arguably more horrific than fascism. Very arguably, actually, since even the numbers of deaths attributable to the Soviet regime are routinely inflated in these debates. There’s quite a sinister strand of Cold War argument which is very keen for the commies to be worse than the fascists. 20 million is a popular number in this discussion, which historians who’ve looked into it say is not supportable. 4 or 5 is more like it, and why isn’t that bad enough? Still a stretch to call it worse than the Holocaust and not just because of bodycount.
I was thinking of the Cultural Revolution, actually. And I’m talking communism (as were you), not Marxism. The best Marxists understand the difficulties of doing end runs around the liberal democratic state – and the horrors that seem to result. The tend to be democratic socialists politically.
Let’s not forget Maoist China, the Khmer Rouge, and the DPRK as well. How many time do people have to “get Marxism wrong” before genuine Marxists start considering the unpleasant implications of “true Marxism”?
Are there any consequentialist readings of marxist ideology as phenomenon by the far left? And how influential are such critiques among those circles?
I can’t take far left academic darlings like Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou seriously once they start going all “radical” in eschewing hatred for praise (qualified or not) of Marxist derivatives like Stalinism or Maoism. Either they’re putting on a show, or they’ve developed their ability to cherry pick history in favor of their own ideology to something approaching comic book superpower. If academics on the far right insisted, even as a joke, “Hitler did wonders to vitalize the nation, now if only we could harness that power to liquidate the right people,” that would still be pretty damn tasteless.
But aside from that, how often do those among the far left who hate Stalin bring that same critical eye towards Marxist ideology? If this wonderful world view repeatedly inspired misreadings that ended up causing horrors on a massive scale, is the original then really so benign and above reproach as the far left still tends to view it?
I’m kind of ignorant on the topic of communism, but does capitalism rack up on it’s scoreboard using two nukes to kill tens of thousands of non combatants (women, children), some of them taking some time to die? Plus the latter generations of mutation and cancer.
Just seems like communism is directly associated with organised killing, while capitalism is associated with…markets only?
Scott, fair enough. I did elide the terms communism and Marxism… I’m too used to people who don’t make the distinction, which is why I said Stalinism… anyway, agree with your reply.
And I understand your concern.
Now, bakker I was thinking. while i am also no communist, though i am an eventual anarchist, I believe that eventually we will be conscious enough to be anarchists. But aside from that, it does seem like capitalism is the most efficient means of distributing goods. But there are inefficiencies in it, I think a big one is greed. I am in particular thinking about Marx’s quote that we have the right to come together as well as to compete. It seems to me that if we could find a way to do that we would be one step closer to maximum efficiency. Do you think this is true, and what are you thoughts either way.
[…] a similar patten can be applied to Communism. In this I agree with Scott Bakker. When we think about politics we think how the world should be. So we come up with a picture, and […]