Conservative Ideology and Socialism Two Ways

Welcome friends!

I must apologize for the breakdown in my scheduling the last few weeks.  It’s been a little crazy around here and I’m not just talking about President Trump and the Republican Party.  So let’s make up for lost time and dive right in shall we?  What caught my eye this week was an amusing online comment about wealthy American “socialists” who live in gated communities and high rises not caring that immigrants and “black” people are taking jobs from hapless “white” people.  Always fun to read these sorts of posts if one can get past the fractured syntax and inventive spelling because it’s a little window into how other people see the world and by other people I mean in this instance people one might not otherwise engage in conversation in everyday life.  Ah yes the beauty of the internet.  Bringing people together, right?  Of course I’m not entirely sure if I was connecting with a semi-literate American redneck or a professional Russian troll still learning the English language but anyway they seem to get along quite well these days so doesn’t really matter much to me.  I am on the other hand always interested in how conservatives use and understand others (such as Russian trolls for example) to use the term “socialism.” It occurred to me although all conservatives are trained from early childhood to despise “socialists” with a passion verging on clinical paranoia they quite often display certain socialistic tendencies themselves.  Ironic.  Anyway, I thought I’d say a few words about that this week.

When American conservatives excoriate  domestic “socialists” what they have in mind is what you and I might call liberal / progressive democrats who support social programs designed to help struggling people.  I’m sure we all understand the haughty Ayn Randian elitist conservatives who despise that sort of thing on the principle if struggling people are destined to die they should get on with it and reduce the surplus population.  That type of conservative has been common both here and abroad for a very long time most likely from at least the time of the ancient pharaohs.  I talk about those conservatives often enough but they’re not really the focus of this post.  No, there’s another species of conservative in the USA that is more of the economically struggling salt of the earth “populist” variety.  It’s a running joke of course the latter group of conservatives finds common cause with the former group because the former group clearly views the latter group as little more than a mildly amusing species of vermin they need to play with in the name of political expediency until they manage to sufficiently shrink and neutralize democratic government to render such distasteful interactions unnecessary.  It may seem superficially curious these struggling working class conservatives would have such a rabid hatred of the people who have their best interests at heart.  Some of these conservatives are convinced liberal “socialists” are only concerned about struggling immigrants and racial minorities and funneling resources to them in particular.  Humorous of course because although there may be a few programs specifically tailored to immigrants and racial minorities most of the programs under consideration are means tested programs available to all.  Others are convinced the reason some people are struggling is that liberal “socialists” are trying to help them and if we just got rid of the programs designed to deal with these social problems the problems themselves would evaporate.  Also rather comical because historically of course the social problems predate the programs designed to address them and there is no reason at all to suppose something has changed in the interim that would prevent them reappearing if we no longer attempt to address them.  But that’s the story fed to them by the traditional conservative elite that has never seen the need to deal with social problems or I suppose more accurately has always refused even to acknowledge social problems as such and that’s the story they’re going with.

The funny thing about recent developments of course is conservatives of the struggling salt of the earth variety have re-discovered their own version of socialism in the guise of former presidential advisor Mr. Bannon’s pet project“economic nationalism.” Many conservatives seem to be struggling to recognize this agenda for what it is.  So let’s just set the record straight.

The non-socialist traditional conservative elitist response to white working class Americans losing their jobs is a big shrug of the shoulders.  So what?  What happens to you or your family is none of our concern.  We’re not your nannies.  If you lose out in the modern competitive economy that’s your problem not ours.  If insufficient jobs are available on the free market then it’s right and fitting you not have a job.  You should just go someplace and die.  Did an immigrant take your job?  So what?  You competed and the immigrant was either willing to work for less or had some other advantage.  Did some sort of minority take your job?  So what?  No one is entitled to a job.  The non-socialist approach is open borders, free movement of labor, free markets both domestically and internationally, and whatever happens happens.

What one may call the traditional liberal or at least neoliberal brand of “socialism” is to have the same sort of free market for labor and goods and services traditional conservatives embrace but to acknowledge and attempt to address the rather obvious distributional issues associated with that approach by coming up with programs to help people who may be losing out or temporarily struggling.  We’re talking about help for people having trouble finding a job.  Help with education.  Help with housing or food if necessary.  The most drastic option is probably spending tax dollars to generate jobs that would otherwise not be forthcoming on the market.  As many people have pointed out these fixes aren’t the same as dumping money down a hole in the ground as many traditional conservatives might suggest.  When we find a way to get money to struggling people they spend it, consumer demand increases, and the economy inevitably grows.  People are a lot happier as well and that has to count for something.

The new / old “economic nationalism” implicitly acknowledges the drawbacks of the free market but instead of allowing it to function and trying to fix problems after they appear it attempts to manipulate the conditions surrounding the market to head off potential problems.  Examples of this approach would be laws to buy only products made in America (regardless of whether those products are the best or the cheapest) or to prevent companies relocating to other countries (despite the potential competitive advantages of doing so) or to prevent companies from automating or using labor saving technology (despite the potential cost savings).  Depending on the “society” this form of socialism is meant to address it might involve preventing people immigrating or I suppose even ensuring that members of some ethnic or racial groups get certain jobs, etc.  As any traditional conservative or neoliberal will tell you these types of market restrictions and manipulations come at a cost.  One may be unable to get the cheapest or most qualified worker.  One may lose out relative to foreign competitors.  The problems are in the same category as those associated with other more common market manipulations like minimum wage laws and union contracts.  However, this rigging of the market approach is one way to keep everyone or at least some people in the game.  Nothing is free in this world including trying to help struggling people.  And to the extent we’re getting money to struggling people we may at least still get the consumer demand effect.  My point in this post is not to adjudicate which type of socialism works best or makes the most sense.  It’s simply to point out they’re both forms of what is essentially socialism.  They’re both predicated on the proposition we should care what happens to other people in our “society” however we choose to define it.  We should care if our neighbor has a job.  We should care if people can afford housing.  Other people matter.

Now if one is truly opposed to socialism that’s fine with me.   Everyone is free to hold his or her own opinion on the matter.  I tend to think what happens to other people in our society is important.  Other people should have jobs and a way to make a living.  We need to keep thinking and working until we have a system that does that.  But that’s just me.  If one supports one type of socialism over another that’s also fine with me.  As I just explained I’m not entirely sure what would work best myself.  But you know what I really can’t abide?  Someone who rants on and on about the evils of socialism from one side of his or her mouth all the while promoting a form of socialism out the other side.  We’re not going to get anywhere at that rate.  Can we at least agree to try to talk sensibly about these issues?

Immigration And Conservatism Old And New

Welcome friends!

Did you read about President Trump’s new national health care policy?  The one he crowed about so frequently during the campaign?  The terrific plan that does everything Obamacare does but much cheaper?  No?  Not surprising.  No one else has either.  Turns out President Trump never really had any such policy in mind and at least according to one of his aides as reported in the papers recently was never really very interested in health care policy anyway.  Didn’t really need anyone to tell me that.  You may recall a few weeks back the president delivered the memorable gag line, “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”  He apparently just assumed some Republican or other would have a workable plan.  Alas, no.  Paul Ryan and the leadership of the Republican Party, who have spent the better part of the last decade talking about it, couldn’t come up with a politically viable health care policy when the time came to present one.  So what was the practical result of all the conservative grandstanding and speechifying on the unmitigated disaster Obamacare apparently represented and continues to represent to them?  Nothing.  Rather predictably an irate President Trump put down his golf clubs for a few moments to search for some suitable scapegoat and after first trying on the Democratic Party and finding that didn’t really pass the laugh test instead took aim at the stridently ideological and impractical far right of his own party.  As far as the actual issue of health care he petulantly declared his intention to “let Obamacare explode,” which most knowledgeable people feel is unlikely to happen without active sapping.  Hopefully the Democrats and the pitifully small number of moderate Republicans in Congress can fend them off and make any needed changes to the program to ensure it continues to help Americans get the health care they need.  But none of that is really what I wanted to discuss today.  Bam!  That’s what they call a pivot in political circles!  No, what I’ve been really been wanting to say a few syllables about is immigration and in particular illegal immigration in light of the new political landscape ushered in by Mr. Trump and his Trumpkins.  Not only because it’s a big issue right now in both the USA and Europe but also but even more interestingly to me because there seems to be something a little bit odd about how we’ve been discussing it here in the USA anyway.  Substance is always interesting to me but if you read this blog at all you’ll know what really sets me on edge is when people talk funny.  So let’s take that up this week shall we?

Historically American conservatives of the economic variety have supported not just your garden variety controlled immigration that pretty much everyone supports but the much more radical notion of the free movement of labor.  They’ve long been enemies of collectivist thinking in any form including that involving nations, societies, neighborhoods, unions, and so on because they feel the only proper unit of analysis for any reputable theory of social ethics is the individual.   To economic conservatives who people are and where they come from is not meant to matter.  What matters is their role in the economic system.  Owners of capital.  Workers.  CEOs.  Fending off thinking of groups is where all the conservative talk of creeping socialism and democracy run amok and the ostensibly dire need to restrict government and so on comes from.  In this influential wing of American conservatism one’s fellow citizen should be of no more interest to one than any other random potential worker in any other country in the world.  According to their social philosophy based on a sort of dumbed down version of neoclassical economic theory everything is best handled by the free market and the way to facilitate a free market is free trade as far as the outputs of production and the free movement of labor as far as the inputs of production.  The issue they find compelling is not how well the peons of any particular nation are doing but total output.  If the largely mythical perfectly competitive free markets can be achieved and maintained then we needn’t worry about how other people are doing.  They will logically be doing just as well as they ought to be doing.  I say this idea is based on a dumbed down version of neoclassical economic theory because as I’ve explained in many previous posts that theory doesn’t really say that at all.  In its modern form it sidesteps distributional issues entirely and is thus not meant to provide a basis for a complete theory of social ethics and is indeed logically incapable of doing so.  The all important missing bits of economic conservative ideology that explain why we needn’t be concerned with the welfare of other people do not come from economic theory but from some other unspecified source.  If you find out where let me know.  I’ve wondered about that for some time myself.

The other traditional wing of conservatism here in the USA is of course social conservatism, which is a different beast entirely.  Social conservatives as one might suppose are much more attuned to societal issues but rather narrowly focused on social control in the sense of enforcing ethnic and cultural and in particular religious conformity.  They have traditionally spent very little time thinking about economic issues other than to argue we should not rock the boat and should accept whatever distribution falls out of our current system, hence their ability to find common cause with economic conservatives on distributional matters or at least with those economic conservatives who are satisfied with the degree to which our system currently conforms to their free market ideology.  Although economic conservatives tend to do the most talking social conservatives have always been a prominent force in this country.  Despite the overall trajectory of the nation’s history toward increasing diversity we’ve always had a sizable group of people who have resented the arrival not only of new people but new ideas (again given their interests typically religious ideas but really any foreign political, social, and economic ideas).  These people don’t have any particular objection to using government power to coerce other people into toeing the line on the issues they find important.  However, they tend to share economic conservatives’ distrust and fear of democracy because of course democracy can at least potentially be used to express the interests of the very people they find undesirable and of course the constant discussions and negotiations raise the specter than people may adopt new ideas and want to try some things.  They’re much happier talking about bibles and constitutions and unchanging natural laws and basically anything immune from the forces of what they view as misguided human meddling.

And now of course we have yet a third iteration of American conservatism on our hands, President Trump’s so-called “economic nationalism,” which is apparently meant to simultaneously address the distributional beliefs and concomitant adulation of “the free market” of traditional economic conservatives, the social control and ethnic and social homogeneity so beloved of social conservatives, and a new concern: the collective economic interests of the nation as opposed to the economic interests of foreigners.  Yes, we’re basically talking about a version of what they call in Europe or did at one time anyway national socialism but you know American conservatives always have a hard time with the word socialism so of course they call it by a different name.  This sort of thing has long been a mainstay of European conservative politics but is something of a newcomer on these shores.  The social aspect is interesting because one would of course like to consider how it relates to the social aspect of traditional American liberalism and leftism.

In the USA liberalism and leftism has always been predicated on one having and expressing some interest and concern about what is happening to one’s fellow man.  And woman.  And child.  And little furry things.  And fish.  And trees.  And … whoa, let’s not get carried away.  I’m just saying entities other than oneself.  I suppose that must be the distinguishing feature of that end of the political spectrum in this country.  The belief that although individual rights and so on are very important other people are also important.  Society matters.  One’s nation matters.  One’s fellow workers matter.  When one develops this sort of mindset one perceives a whole slew of problems that remain largely invisible to economic conservatives such as how we as a society should address issues involving other people in our society struggling along some dimension or other such as poverty, unemployment, underemployment, sickness, being treated unfairly in terms of economic outcomes, and so on and so forth.

The notion that one should be concerned about other people and society in general is course as the name suggests the basis of socialism broadly conceived.  Theoretically the issue of being concerned about society is different from the issue of supporting or not supporting democracy.  That is to say one can have democratic socialism or anti-democratic socialism, which we typically call communism in this country.  American leftism has always been predominantly focused on the democratic sort because democracy is sort of a big deal in this country.  It’s our thing.  It’s what we do.  If we’re going to do leftist style socialism it’s going to be democratic socialism.  As I’ve pointed out before historically some leftists primarily abroad famously lost sight of the democratic part of the equation.  In particular, the old time communists used to rail against what they called bourgeois political democracy because they felt it was or could be or would inevitably be captured and manipulated by the wealthy classes.  Here in American even leftists who shared their assessment of the shortcomings and weaknesses of democracy in the face of concentrated economic power have opted to try to fix democracy and make it more robust rather than go the other direction and write it off as a hopeless red herring.

Conservative economic nationalism clearly has many similarities to the national socialism of the bad old days of early twentieth century Germany.  However, one presumes or hopes anyway most American conservatives, like most American liberals, would draw the line at actually jettisoning democracy entirely.  In our context what these conservatives tend to talk about is more like neutering democracy.  Limiting it.  Shrinking it.  Yes, the very sort of thing traditional economic conservatives in this country have long recommended.

Having finally and rather laboriously set the stage let’s think a bit about immigration in the context of this new sort of conservative economic nationalism / national socialism and old time traditional liberal or leftist democratic socialism.  The first point of interest here is that as I’ve just pointed out traditional economic conservatives have long been the proponents of open borders and the free movement of labor in contrast to liberals and leftists who wanted controlled immigration because they were concerned about the welfare of those already in their society or system.  Given this background it’s ironic the new breed of economic nationalist conservatives have apparently been able to turn around and smear liberals and leftists with the claim they support uncontrolled immigration and have no concern for their economically struggling fellow citizens.  What seems to have happened is the Democratic Party, the home of whatever liberal and leftist thought there is in the USA along with a great deal that isn’t particularly liberal or leftist, was pulled so far in the direction of economic conservatism under the banner of so-called “neoliberalism" they vacated an intellectual space that was then claimed by conservative economic nationalists.  Awkward as they say.

The second point is there is quite a bit of variation in how conservatives view immigration and in particular illegal immigration.  Economic conservatives are or should be according to their stated philosophy all in favor of immigration and honestly shouldn’t be excessively bothered by even the illegal variety.  It should all help to make labor markets more “efficient” as economists use the word.  Social conservatives on the other hand tend to be pretty suspicious of immigration of any sort including even the controlled legal variety and the issue of illegal immigration is no different in type but kicked up a notch in terms of the threat to social homogeneity and social control.  Conservative economic nationalists are particularly exercised over illegal immigration as it involves foreigners infringing upon our territory so to speak.  One suspects they are probably pretty suspicious of even the legal variety as well although unlike social conservatives they would presumably be sensitive to arguments establishing economic benefits or at least the absence of harm to current residents.  Just to complete the list, most liberals and leftists are probably comfortable with controlled immigration because they recognize the potential benefits and are not particularly challenged by a certain degree of social and cultural diversity.  By certain degree I am of course referring to the point I’ve made in many other posts that there is some minimum of values, meta-values if you will, that we all really need to support in order to live together peacefully.  However, like the conservative economic nationalists liberals would be concerned that legal immigration not undermine the situation of current residents.  We all belong to human society but it’s a lot easier to address issues if one shares a political and legal framework for doing so.  Like all the other groups they oppose illegal immigration but their views are moderated by the understanding it’s a difficult and potentially very expensive nut to crack and there may be some humanitarian issues involved.

That takes us to our third and final point that although no one in the country aside from perhaps some very strident economic conservatives has ever really supported uncontrolled immigration we do clearly have some disagreement in this country about the significance of the problem and the feasibility and advisability of different approaches to dealing with it.  Many social conservatives and now economic nationalist conservatives clearly consider it a very important issue perhaps even rising to the level of an existential crisis and are willing to pour money into such noteworthy projects as a wall across the southern border of the USA.  Liberals and leftists see illegal immigration as a problem we need to address in some way but tend to not see the problem in quite as dire terms.  As a typical liberal in many respects I can’t help but wonder about the likely efficacy of a wall and I have some concerns about the cost of constructing and maintaining such an object.  Indeed, I wonder whether a problem of this sort can really be solved without dealing with the underlying economic and security issues that drive illegal movement across the border.  And of course I see a humanitarian component to the problem as well at least in terms of those attempting to enter the country illegally due to extreme poverty or violence.  Again, broadly speaking we all belong to the society of humans.  Conservative economic nationalists of course appear to see no such difficulties.  Indeed the tribalism and nationalism of this form of conservative socialism may be considered a hallmark of the type.  In the same sense traditional economic conservatism in the US considers that one should treat the welfare of other citizens of the USA as irrelevant the new economic nationalist conservatism in the USA draws a firm distinction between those in the USA, whose welfare is granted significance under that variant of conservatism, and those outside the USA, whose welfare is treated as irrelevant.  The willingness to turn one’s back on someone is a notable characteristic of all forms of American conservatism although the identity of the person or persons to be cut loose clearly varies between the different strands.  Economic conservatives would prefer to cut loose everyone.  Social conservatives would prefer to cut loose ethnic or cultural minorities.  National socialist conservatives would prefer to cut loose foreigners and especially their shock troops illegal immigrants.

We should fight for the sensible and humane liberal and leftist notion of democratic socialism informed by respect for a proper sphere of personal liberty.  We should look after our people but also give a thought to what helps others as well not only to discharge our duties to our fellow humans but because when other countries do well we’re more likely to do well ourselves.  We should reject the dark tribalistic greed and power based winner take all zero sum game notion of a nation at virtual economic war with other nations and at economic, social, and cultural war with the imagined enemy within advocated by social conservatives and economic nationalists as well as the even more corrosive and dystopian every person for himself or herself philosophy of the economic conservatives.  The three headed monster of conservatism is on the prowl and we’re all the prey.  Let’s fight it with all our humanity and reason!

The American Dream

Welcome friends!

I have to say one good thing about having a conservative like Donald Trump in the White House is that some of us are hearing a lot more from the conservative man and woman in the street now than previously.  I think in the recent past they must have been hanging out mostly in their own alternative fact universe of wacky radio shows, tacky and casual with the truth supermarket tabloids, and insane conspiracy theory websites.  I remember they were responsible for a great deal of ugliness, hatred, turmoil, and violence in my youth but recently not so much.  I thought maybe they had fallen into a great hole in the ground or gone somewhere. Kind of hard to engage with people when one can’t find them or anyway is unwilling to go where they reside.  I’ve always heard plenty from professional conservative pundits and spokespeople and so on but as I’ve explained many times in this blog those people talk such transparent rot one never knows what they really think about anything.  I always sort of wished I knew what the people who listen to such people thought they were hearing but honestly I just don’t know too many conservatives.  But they’re all coming out of the woodwork now aren’t they?  Ever time I glance at an online news comment stream there they are trying their best to explain their warped, incoherent, contradictory, horrifying worldview to the rest of us.  Fired up I suppose by having gotten their man in the White House and having taken control of both houses of Congress as well as the Supreme Court.  I suppose it is a bit disgusting in many ways but from a purely intellectual standpoint there are some interesting bits.  One interesting bit for me is that the recent debate on national health care policy has reminded me we have some pretty fundamental disagreements about what American is or should be all about. Let’s take a moment to consider the issue.

The American Dream.  We all hear about it from time to time.  But what the heck is it?  Well, I don’t know.  I think it’s different things to different people.  I’ve gradually come to understand that for many if not most conservatives it’s basically the dream of getting very rich... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

Democratic Socialism

Welcome friends!

Can we talk about socialism again?  I read an article the other day about Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders and the huge public relations issue some media pundits presume must attend his description of himself as a “democratic socialist.”  I’m sure this must all seem a bit comical to our foreign friends but the article was referring to the fact that here in the USA the word “socialist” is anathema to many people because it brings to mind a rather unattractive mix of communist authoritarianism and economic policy incompetence.  Indeed, under the prevailing conservative mode of discourse the terms socialist, communist, fascist, and Nazi are considered pretty much interchangeable.  Obviously not what people who describe themselves as democratic socialists have in mind.  It’s always fun to talk through real issues but not nearly as much fun to talk through the sort of fake issues that arise when people talk past one another because they’re not using words the same way.  I know I’ve discussed it before but maybe I should take another shot at bridging the gap.  Who would have thought one little word could generate so much confusion?

Let’s take it from the top, shall we?  Broadly speaking I think it’s fair to describe anyone who talks about what they think works best for society at large as a socialist in some fundamental sense because really I suppose that must be the defining feature of socialist thinking.  What happens to your compatriots matters.  Now it seems to me most people living here in the US are socialists in this most fundamental sense of the word.  The alternative to socialism at this level is a rather extreme form of individualism suggesting people should not really concern themselves with other people.  What’s important is what works for one personally.  If everyone else drops dead that’s their business.  It’s every man and woman for himself or herself.  Well, I suppose there’s also a rather sycophantic variant one encounters from time to time suggesting what’s really important is not one’s own welfare but the welfare of some other particular person or group of people.

One may suppose the distinction between those who support socialism at this most basic level and those who oppose it must mirror quite closely the distinction between what we call in this country liberals and conservatives because liberals do typically express an interest in other people while many conservatives do like to talk about what benefits them personally or sometimes what benefits some other ostensibly very special people they particularly admire.  But it’s not really that simple.  Well, maybe it’s that simple on the liberal side but things can get a little messy on the conservative side.  That’s because there are also plenty of conservatives who like to talk about what they think is best for society at large and are thus socialists at this fundamental level.  This I believe is where the public discourse in the US gets a little convoluted.  Although conservatives of all stripes are prone to rail against socialism I don’t think they’re really talking about the same thing.  Half of them are on one page and half on another.  Some conservatives are Ayn Randian it’s all about me (or possibly some other very special people) types who rail against the dangers of considering other people important at all.  However, other conservatives believe everyone is important but are concerned to rail against particular ideas about what that belief entails.  They’re talking about two different things.  With respect to their relationship to liberals, one group of conservatives is disputing a fundamental objective in the area of social ethics while the other group is disputing the means to advance a social objective they share with liberals.

How this confusion started and manages to persist year after year and decade after decade is an interesting question.  One possibility is that conservatives tend to be a little casual in their thinking.  From what I can tell many conservatives just aren’t very concerned with details.  They prefer or perhaps find it more useful to paint in broad strokes.  If they find someone agrees with them they’re good to go; it doesn’t really matter if the agreement is paper thin or based on a misunderstanding.  But I don’t think it’s just that.  I think in this case conservatives are aided and abetted in their confusion by academic economists or a heck of a lot of them anyway.  I’ve gone over this issue plenty of times but since it’s one of those things I find particularly annoying in American culture let me just go over it again.

The basic problem is that academic economists often present their policy prescriptions as though neoclassical microeconomic theory were a complete system of social ethics or anyway a suitable basis for a complete system of social ethics when it manifestly is not and never could be.  In particular, economic theory or I suppose more specifically the component of economic theory known as welfare economics is often presented as a belonging to the fundamentally socialist tradition of investigating what economic arrangements work best for society at large; however, because it doesn’t really work it also functions rather well as a basic template for people who think we shouldn’t concern ourselves with such matters in the first place.  It’s an intellectually sloppy mishmash of opposing themes and concerns that mirrors the schizophrenia of modern conservatism itself.  For this sort of confusion to persist at the level we’re talking about, and we’re talking about people teaching at prestigious universities who are a hell of a lot smarter and more knowledgeable than we are (most likely), one infers something must be in play beyond a sincere interest in straightening things out.  The confusion must be convenient for someone.  One possibility I’ve thrown out before is that many economists are conservatives who perhaps share some ethical beliefs relating to economic outcomes but not being philosophers or possibly just not being interested in delving into such matters they either don’t know how to express their beliefs honestly and directly or deliberately choose not to do so for rhetorical reasons.  Another possibility is self interest.  One presumes at least some rich people don’t like other people talking about social ethics in ways that threaten their financial interests and are willing to pay someone to use whatever ancient rhetoric happens to be lying about to shut that conversation down.

Just to review and at the risk of beating a dead horse neoclassical microeconomic theory cannot serve as the foundation of a serious system of social ethics for two reasons.  First and most importantly, it is based on a conception of utility that would be unpalatable as an ethical objective to most people if one could measure it and actually use it effectively for that purpose.  That is to say, if so-called interpersonal utility comparisons were ever to become possible the ethical implication of maximizing that sort of utility would be that it is really disembodied utility, not people, that ultimately matters so for example if one person were found to be a superconductor of utility in the sense that fulfilling his or her desires produced such prodigious amounts of utility it dwarfed the amount produced by fulfilling the desires of all lesser mortals combined and that superconductor of utility wanted everyone else in the world to drop dead then the ostensibly ethical thing to do would be to get on with killing everyone else thus maximizing utility.  I don’t think anyone would seriously support such a system of ethics.  Second, if one is thought to be unable to measure the relevant sort of utility either for logical reasons based on how one chooses to define utility or for practical scientific reasons then one cannot really hope to address the thorny issue of what to do when the needs or desires of different people bump into one another, which is the entire point of discussing social ethics.  The sleight of hand by which economists suggest getting to any market outcome is something we can all agree upon and we can handle distributional issues as a second step in some old way just doesn't really work.  If one has distributional concerns not all market outcomes will do and anyone with a complete system of social ethics will have distributional concerns.  It’s not the case that just getting to any market outcome gets one halfway home so to speak.  It’s not the case that there’s an easy way to make things right at any given market outcome without diverging in any way from what many people feel comprise market institutions.  Getting to an acceptable market outcome and addressing distributional concerns are part and parcel of the same issue.  If we’re going to keep it real we need to discuss both.

One we get rid of the notion that microeconomic theory comprises or can support a complete system of social ethics we arrive at the sort of issues that separate liberals from that subgroup of conservatives who are fundamentally socialists at heart in the sense they’re concerned with social welfare.  Those issues revolve around what political, legal, and economic institutions advance social justice and the welfare of society at large.  In this latter discussion the term “socialism” often appears as a term to describe the belief that simply setting up market institutions may be insufficient to address all ethical concerns one may have about distributional issues and that we may have to get in there and do something to make it turn out better.  The opposing “conservative” view is once we set up market institutions we should be good to go and the issues associated with resolving interpersonal conflicts of needs and desires we cannot address using the sort of utility discussed in economic theory turn out right for one reason or another.  The debate involves both ethical issues (for example what ethical concerns we’re meant to address) and scientific issues (for example how particular real world markets match up to their theoretical counterparts).

The funny thing is we discuss these sorts of issues all the time.  The only difference now is that Mr. Sanders has added the term “socialism” to the mix and as I mentioned previously that particular word is a bit of a red flag for many people.  Perhaps I should take a moment to discuss how that word came to have such a negative connotation for many American conservatives.  After the Great Depression created worldwide economic havoc conservatives of the time argued we should do nothing and let the market right itself.  (Doing nothing has been a conservative thing for some time.  It’s not a new invention.)  Some of these conservatives were probably rich people who were doing well enough and really didn’t give a damn about other people but some of them were probably people who were concerned about other people but sincerely thought nothing was the best thing we could do under the circumstances.  After a few years of rather large numbers of people going without jobs or incomes and poorer people beginning to starve and so on the political landscape rather understandably began to shift.  The emerging consensus was that doing nothing wasn’t really cutting it.  People were getting desperate.  They wanted someone to at least try to do something.  Being human and humans being social animals the natural and inevitable result was the notion society should get together and collectively address the problem one way or another.  Of course what exactly to do was more of an open question.  In Europe both Russia and Germany got what their supporters characterized as types of socialism but notably without the all important democracy part and fundamentally at odds with one another in various other ways such as economic policy.  Here in the US the federal government started trying to fix things up a bit in the political response that most closely corresponded to the phrase democratic socialism all the while carefully avoiding the term socialism presumably because of the anti-democratic connotations of the foreign sort.  And that’s how things have remained in this country ever since.  It’s fine to talk about things from a democratic socialist perspective in the USA; we’re just not supposed to actually say the S word lest people get the wrong idea. But I guess things change.  Perhaps young people can just think a bit more clearly than their befuddled and hot headed elders?  I don’t know.  Just throwing out possibilities.

Let’s wrap it up.  I believe one can describe most people in the US as democratic socialists in the sense they support democracy and believe we should have a system that works for everyone and promotes social justice and fairness.  There are a few conservatives who don’t like democracy or get upset when people evince a concern for other people: extreme conservatives, libertarians, neo-fascists, anarchists, and various other types of that ilk.  But I doubt there are very many people like that.  I don’t think we have significant social divisions at that level.  We have somewhat greater potential for significant divisions when we get to the issue of whether our current system is the complete package in terms of social ethics but my sense is a lot of people believe we still have some work to do in that area so I don’t think that’s really it either.  No, I think the really significant disagreement we have in this country at the moment is between those who think our current system has a few problems and we can resolve them by backtracking toward some ostensibly purer and more unencumbered market system along the lines of Victorian England or I suppose America circa the early years of the last century and those who agree that our current system has a few problems but think it’s because we’re so enamored of market arrangements or so fearful of potential government incompetence that we’ve been too timid to get in there and effectively regulate or supplement markets or market outcomes to make them correspond more closely to our social objectives.  Oh hell, in even more practical terms one of our most basic issues must be how to get a bit more money flowing to the people who really need it and would spend it thus promoting economic growth: allowing the marketplace to work its magic and lift all boats or purposefully developing some policies that specifically address that issue.  You know my opinion.  I think purposeful policy is really the only way to go.  We already tried Victorian England.  It didn’t work.  The marketplace doesn’t care whether you or anyone else survives or not.  It might be very magical and all but it’s not necessarily the sort of magic that will pay the rent.  You may get lucky or you may not.  Many people may survive or only a select few may survive.  In my opinion we can do a little better than that.  Collective intelligence and purposeful activity is the human way.  Of course we should be careful out there to be sure.  An economy isn’t something you want to jump into and just do whatever comes to mind.  On the other hand we can probably do a little better than setting up some market institutions and then doing nothing and hoping it all works out for the best.  Markets are meant to serve our purposes; we’re not meant to serve markets.  Call it democratic socialism or call it something else but let’s get on with it, shall we?

Economic Conservatism Chinese Style

Welcome friends!

I thought this time out I might as well complete my thoughts from last week.  In case you can’t remember back that far or have chosen to forget, which would be entirely understandable, I was discussing how I spend most of my time fighting the good fight against the two headed monster of conservatism here in the US but I realize each head of our domestic monster has a foreign counterpart that’s both uglier and meaner.  Last time I talked about social conservatism in majority Muslim countries, which makes our own domestic social conservatism look like tiddlywinks.  This time I thought I might say a few words about the strident economic conservatism coming out of the authoritarian market state that is contemporary China, which I suppose in some ways must represent an alluring albeit as yet unattainable Shangri-La for economic conservatives here in the US.

I suppose if you’re a relative old timer like me and you haven’t been following the news very closely for the past several decades you may have a little trouble visualizing contemporary China... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

Socialism Is What Now?

Welcome friends!

Can we talk a bit about something that’s been bothering me for a while now?  It’s the confusing way some people talk about “socialism” here in the US.  Well, yes, by some people I’m referring once again to conservatives.  If you read the papers at all you’ll know American conservatives seem to be finding so-called socialists hiding under every bed these days.  They used to find communists hiding under every bed when I was a kid but I guess now the USSR has faded into oblivion they’ve dropped that terminology.  (Well, for the most part anyway.  Conservative Tea Party favorite and former Representative for the state of Florida, Allen West, was in the news recently claiming there are “78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.” He meant in the US Congress, which was the focus of the question he was answering at the time.  Well, I guess the question from one of the local Tea Party crowd was actually how many “card carrying Marxists” Mr. West thought there were in the US Congress.  Do Marxists really carry cards?  Anyway, I guess he didn’t get the memo that we’re supposed to be talking about socialists these days.)  Now you know how open minded I am, right?  People can be concerned about whatever they like as far as I’m concerned.  We can talk through issues like the pros and cons of socialism or communism or conservatism or any other ism you like.  In fact, I rather like talking through those types of issues because they’re interesting to me.  No, what really irritates me is when we can’t discuss the real issues because some people just can’t talk straight.  And it seems to me that’s what happens whenever certain people here in the US bring up socialism in the context of contemporary public policy issues.  I usually end up feeling a bit like Chef Skinner in the movie Ratatouille.  I actually had the following conversation the other day with a lawyer who stopped by my office for a little chat: Me: “They’re consorting with it, deliberately trying to make me think it’s important!”  Lawyer: “Is it important?  Me: “Of course not!  They just want me to think that it is!  Now they want me to see it everywhere.  Oooooo, it’s here!  No it isn’t!  It’s here!  Am I seeing things?  Am I crazy?  Is there socialism or isn’t there?  But oh no ... I refuse to be sucked into their little game!”

OK, let’s take a deep breath and just start at the beginning.  The first thing we should probably talk about is the significance of this whole idea of just being concerned about other people.  You may think I’ve gone back a bit too far at this point.  I mean, given that humans are essentially social animals one might wonder if there are many people about who would seriously maintain that one shouldn’t be concerned for other people.  Usually we just call such people sociopaths, which is a form of mental or psychological abnormality.  And the opposite of a sociopath is ... I don’t know what, a sane person?  I’m not sure the position even has a philosophical name.  So am I going to start talking about mental illness now?  No, not at all.  It turns out there is indeed a strain of thought in popular culture today that pretty much says one should not be concerned for other people.  That was the overall theme of the oeuvre of the novelist and philosophical dabbler Ayn Rand.  (Well, I guess some rather more serious people espoused vaguely similar views including Herr Ubermensch himself, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Vilfredo Pareto, the fascist loving Italian economist so important to neoclassical economic theorists everywhere.  However, one doesn’t hear American conservatives talking about them very much these days for some reason.  The relative density of the material perhaps?)  Now I’ve discussed Ms. Rand before, but the significant issue to keep in mind here is she is apparently quite the popular figure in radical conservative circles.  Indeed, recent conservative Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said at one point his enthusiasm for Ms. Rand’s theories was the main reason he entered politics in the first place.  (You may recall he later recanted.  Talk about flip flops: life’s inspiration to dog house in the blink of an eye.  But you know conservatives say the darndest things when they get in front of a crowd, so who knows what he really thinks.  I for one wouldn’t be surprised at all to find Mr. Ryan once again singing the praises of his former idol at some point in the future.)

Now if one were an adherent of Ms. Rand or any of her ilk then I suppose one might be tempted to come up with a name for the unfortunate tendency of certain misguided people to be concerned about other people.  I mean, one wouldn’t want to go about complaining other people are sane, would one?  That would be ridiculous.  Since thinking about other people often translates to thinking about society at large, it seems to me these people have a tendency to start playing games with the definition of socialism to make it cover this basic human impulse.  However, that’s just confusing as hell to me.  First of all, it implies pretty much everyone with a conventional moral sense involving concern for other people is a socialist.  Now we can talk that way if we want.  It’s fine with me.  It’s just a word, and I suppose it does make a modicum of sense etymologically.  I’m perfectly happy describing myself as a socialist as long as we all know what we mean.  But it’s going to get rather confusing if we do that because that definition of socialism doesn’t actually correspond to the definition one finds in the dictionary.  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, socialism is either about “collective or government ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods” or about the abolition of private property.  (There’s also a technical definition in Marxist theory but I don’t think we need to concern ourselves with that here, not being theoretical Marxians.)  So the dictionary has quite a narrow definition of what socialism is all about.

But maybe these arch conservatives don’t mean to say simply having a concern for other people is socialism per se, maybe they just mean to say it leads inexorably to socialism as defined in the dictionary.  In that case, I would advise them to say what they mean and reserve the term socialism for things they actually think represent socialism.  That would make things a lot easier for everyone to follow.  And by the way, we can discuss it in more detail some other day, but is if this is what they have in mind then I think they are way, way off base.  I mean, yes, in some cases people have clearly started out with an ostensible interest in the welfare of other people and ended up in some pretty strange places.  In the twentieth century alone both Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany used the term socialism to describe their social and political philosophies, both were ostensibly focused on the welfare of their national populations at large, and we know how both of those particular systems turned out.  However, I would hardly conclude that the problem with their political and social theories occurred at the initial stage of simply professing an interest in the welfare of other people.  As I said, it’s a common belief and always has been as far as I know, and I think it’s clearly possible to hold that belief without concluding we need to set up a police state, kill off our political opponents, and eliminate minorities in murder factories.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I understand the fear and outrage of the people who had the misfortunate of seeing those systems up close.  I wouldn’t care to be packed off to a gulag or a gas chamber either.  But the diagnosis of the problem just isn’t very credible to me.  Can we dig a little deeper into these philosophies and come up with something that makes a little more sense?  Were there maybe some intermediate steps between professing a concern for other people and murdering them where these people may have gone astray?  I think we can be concerned about one another and yet not become fascists or communists.  We do it all the time.  We’re doing it right now.

Oh, and by the way, you may have noticed something a little funny in the way Herr Hitler and his cronies used the term socialism in the name of their political movement National Socialism.  It doesn’t seem to fit the current dictionary definition very well, does it?  I mean, the Nazis were all about private industry and fending off the Red Menace.  Nazi Germany was an authoritarian market state, not a communist state.  I’m just throwing this out to highlight once again the type of confusion that can result when we start talking about “socialism.”  Clearly, when German conservatives in the mid-twentieth century talked about national socialism they had something in mind that is not really reflected at all in the definition of socialism one finds in our current English dictionaries.  And it’s quite possible other people in other times and places have had things in mind when they talked about socialism that do not correspond to our current dictionary definition.

Anyway, to return to my main theme, I certainly don’t mean to imply all American conservatives are fans of Ms. Rand’s theories or other similar anti-social philosophies.  Indeed, I think a much more common and traditional interpretation of both economic and social conservatism in this country is that it is based on a particular theory of what is best not only for oneself but for society at large and hence does, in fact, reflect a concern for the welfare of other people.  Now if we were using the most general definition of socialism I discussed earlier, the one that doesn’t really correspond to the dictionary definition, then I suppose these conservatives would also qualify as socialists.  However, let’s stick with the dictionary definition, shall we?  I’m already starting to get a bit of a headache trying to keep track of what we’re even talking about.

The more general problem with trying to use the concept of socialism as defined in the dictionary when discussing contemporary policy issues is that the definition, although clear and reasonably precise, is largely irrelevant in most realistic situations.  Here in the US, as in most of the rest of the developed world, we have what might best be called a mixed system.  It’s basically a market system but with certain government policies in place to make things run a little more smoothly and equitably.  Over time we have found in some cases private markets don’t seem to work very well for various reasons, so we have regulations of various types to handle those situations.  Under certain particularly problematic conditions we just have government provide the services in question.  We also have had some concerns about how things are distributed in some cases.  We pay taxes for both reasons.  I don’t know how you feel about it but to me our system seems to work pretty well in general.  We have our private realm.  We have our public realm where we look after the national infrastructure we all need to keep things moving along (police, roads, bridges, whatever).  We rarely have huge market gyrations and economic pandemonium, at least when do nothing Republicans aren’t at the helm.  We try to help out people who are struggling so we don’t end up with an army of starving poor people standing about on street corners and the inevitable revolutionaries and malcontents that typically go with that sort of social pathology.  You know, maybe it’s not the best system in the world.  There’s always plenty of room for improvement, to be sure.  But it’s certainly not the worst system in the world by any means.  And it has the great virtue of being a very flexible framework we can use to address most of the problems that may come down the pike.

So let’s try to apply the dictionary definition of socialism and see where we are.  Well, let’s start with the easier bit.  One component of the definition is “a system of society or group living in which there is no private property.”  Now I don’t really see many people here in the US arguing for the complete abolition of private property, so I suppose that implies there aren’t very many people about who would qualify as socialists on that account.  However, I guess one could make an argument that condescending to pay taxes implies some limits to the concept of private property.  And this is where we start having trouble.  For my part, I think it’s completely consistent to believe we should respect private property in general but people still need to do their part for the common good and pay their taxes.  That doesn’t sound like the dictionary definition of socialism to me.  I mean, nobody’s abolishing anything as far as I’m aware.  However, if one flips things around slightly and instead of making the extreme position of abolishing private property socialism you instead make any infringement or curtailment of private property rights whatsoever socialism then I suppose you might arrive at an entirely different conclusion.  So is no one a socialist or is everyone a socialist?  Well, I think the dictionary implies the answer is no one, but is it perhaps a bit too easy to misread it as implying the answer is everyone?  And that’s why it’s just a lot clearer to me to not talk about socialism at all in this context and instead just talk about how one feels about paying taxes or whatever.

Let’s move on to the second definition of socialism: “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods” (or the associated definition “a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state”).  Well, we’re basically in the same boat.  Again, the definition is perfectly clear but just doesn’t shed much light on realistic situations.  I mean, even at the most basic level I suppose the government in our system is enforcing certain laws involving contracts and private property, so I suppose one could say the government is administering the means of production and distribution of goods in some way.  No, I’m not being facetious.  After all, there is a philosophy that says government has no business getting even that involved in those types of issues.  That philosophy would be anarchism, which in a practical sense suggests we resolve these pesky issues according to whoever has the biggest gun.  So is everyone who isn’t an anarchist perforce a socialist?  Well, I don’t know about that.  But maybe that’s not what we mean by government administering the means of production and distribution of goods.  Conservatives are famous for their tendency to turn a blind eye to certain preferred government activities and to talk about “minimizing” government when they’re actually quite concerned government continue to perform certain tasks they consider personally useful.  So maybe the dictionary definition was written under this general sort of myopic perspective and is meant to imply government administration and control involves government taking on some role other than simply enforcing contracts and property rights.  Maybe we’re talking about regulation?  So if one supports regulating a particular market in some way, does that make one a socialist?  Well, again, I don’t know about that.  Does supporting a particular type of regulation in a particular case imply one is advocating the collective or government administration of the means of production and distribution of goods in some general or global sense?  I don’t think so.  Heck, even most economists see the advantages of regulating certain types of real world markets in certain ways in certain situations.  They have a whole theory of when that makes sense.  Are they all socialists?  Well, what about the most socialistic looking situation in which one thinks government should provide certain services directly because one perceives certain problems providing those services via private markets?  Again, to me that doesn’t necessarily imply one thinks government should control and administer all services, so even that doesn’t seem to me to fit the dictionary definition of socialism.  We’re back in this peculiar situation in which if one follows the dictionary definition exactly then basically no one in the US can fairly be called a socialist, but if you flip it slightly and make socialism apply to all of these mixed cases in which one supports any degree of government involvement at all then I suppose pretty much everyone turns out to be a socialist.  Again, wouldn’t it just be a lot easier to talk about what one thinks government should be doing, if anything, in particular situations?

Let’s have an example.  A few years back, right after the Republicans’ Great Recession, we had that issue of government propping up, with conditions, certain firms it deemed “too big to fail” that were on the verge of doing just that due to their own ineptitude.  (Particularly well compensated ineptitude in this case, but that’s neither here nor there.)  So that was an interesting and complicated real policy issue.  On the one hand, we don’t usually use public money to keep failing private companies afloat, with or without conditions.  On the other hand, we had a rather unusual situation on our hands and we didn’t necessarily want to sit by and allow the implosion of these particular companies drag down our national economy and harm people who were not really involved in any way.  There are all kinds of relevant issues I think it makes sense to discuss in this situation.  If we feel we need to intervene in this case, who’s getting the money?  Will the money be paid back?  When, and how?  What conditions go with the money?  What happens if we don’t put up the money?  What policies can we put in place to reduce the probability of having to take this type of extraordinary step again?  So those are the types of real issues I think people should be thinking about in this sort of situation.  Then we have the rather more sophistical issue of whether the policies represent “socialism” or not.  Hmm, sounds like hashing that one out may take a little while.  But I wonder, does it really help to set aside important substantive issues to play a parlor game of political definitions?

So why do conservatives talk so much about socialism if it sheds so little light on the real policy issues we need to discuss?  Well, as I’ve suggested before, I think it’s becoming increasingly clear contemporary conservatives just don’t like complexity very much.  Unfortunately, the real world is complex.  Hence, Republicans don’t seem to like talking about the real world very much.  They’re much more comfortable dealing with the sort of generalized paranoia and fear that relies primarily on emotion rather than intellect.  So their arguments are typically not about the complicated policy questions that arise in real world situations.  Their arguments typically sound more like the following: Our opponents are socialists!  They don’t believe in the American way of life!  They want to throw everyone into a gulag!  (Well, OK, maybe they don’t usually say that last one, but they certainly imply it.)  Oh my gosh, if I didn’t know it was so much hot air I’d probably run down to the local gun store to stock up on ammo with the rest of the loonies.  But I’m not sure Republicans realize most Americans have moved beyond this type of pandering and fear mongering.  I hope they do realize it someday soon because we could use a good public conservation about some of the real issues we face as a nation, and by a good conversation I mean one that doesn’t involve looking for socialists under the bed.

References

Florida Rep labels congressional Democrats as Communists.  CNN Political Unit.  April 11, 2012.  http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/11/florida-rep-labels-congressional-democrats-as-communists/.