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27 August 2003 (Wednesday): great big sloshy ideas

The problem, currently, is having too much to write about, not too little. Maybe tomorrow I'll allocate a block of time to compose a proper entry.

The inspiration for such blurred frenzies of thought: an essay on public education by John Taylor Gatto in the September issue of Harper's, and Barbara Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed, an experiment in living among the working poor. It's making me uncharacteristically angry, and I'm looking for a useful train of thought toward which to direct this anger. I am not a communist at heart; if people fail through their own stupidity, fine. If they struggle because they're not as talented, as bold, as disciplined as the next person, this is humanity doing housecleaning, a brutal fact of life. But to trap an entire class of people in privation, to punish hard work and ingenuity rather than rewarding them, to drain their lives and minds until there is nothing left for thought or love or art, all in the name of greed -- if this is true, it is unacceptable. It's unnecessary. It does nothing to help us evolve, if that's indeed what we're here to do.

Our purpose, I would venture, is this: to keep most of us fed while keeping the best of us hungry for greater things. But the loopholes in socialism breed complacency, the blind spots in capitalism breed oppression -- how to design a system with the right set of incentives and deterrents? I'm trying to mentally construct a society whose foundation is not profit or compassion, but fairness. Liberty and justice for all. It's a tricky one.

More on this later, hopefully.

posted by enjelani @ 10:55 PM PST

Replies: 50 comments

To allude to recurring theme: one problem with a society based on fairness is that there are too many people to do it. Justice can only be determined on a case-by-case basis, but the logistics of that become overwhelming with so many people in the world. You can codify justice to an extent, but morality can't be created by a machine. People will fall through the gaps between the cogs and then you have something worse than honest injustice: you have injustice with the implacable face of machined morality. Creepy.

Heheh. I just used the phrase "implacable face of machined morality." ;) Blah blah blah. I need more coffee.

posted by Zach @ 29 08 2003 06:25 AM PST

Umm, where to start... My statistics teacher used to say, "Begin with the main point". So here it is, bluntly stated: I think that a class of people is trapped in privation, not in the name of greed, but in the name of... justice. For, it is not unjust when a Walmart checker whose labor is worth $5 an hour receives $5 an hour: It would be unjust if she received $10.

To me, the problem with economic socialism is not that its "loopholes" create perverse incentives, but that it is immoral in the first place. What is so "fair" about taking wealth from people who created it, and giving it to people who didn't create it? Who has the right, in the name of "evolution" or anything else, to interfere so grossly in other people's affairs?

This must sound shocking indeed in a city where Willie Brown passes for a pro-business conservative :) ... But why is it so hard for people to understand the value of non-interference? Such a simple notion: Leave your neighbor alone, it's a small price to pay for his leaving you alone in return. One day, I hope, income redistribution will seem as outrageous as censorship of the press, and for the same reasons. I wonder if I'll live to see that day.

posted by beefeater @ 30 08 2003 01:37 AM PST

The conditions of the working poor are not that far removed from slavery, without the beatings and the racial element, of course. They do have freedom, but with survival as a focus, they can't do much with it.

They make enough to live in squalid conditions and afford dinner from the McDonalds dollar menu. Excepting violence and the freedom to move about, that's pretty much a modern version of how the slaves lived. If that sounds unreasonable, think of this: We hear about the American Dream, the promise of a better life through hard work. Some of the exceptional and lucky few manage to emerge, but most don't. The reason is that there are institutionalized mechanisms in place to ensure that they stay impoverished. The reason? We need them. We need our garbage emptied, Life cereal boxes placed on Wal-Mart shelves, clean sheets in our Budget Inns. They are what make businesses run. This in turn creates wealth for business owners. Remember slavery? Hard labor, enough food to live on and a straw mat in the corner of a barn, all resulting in considerable wealth for plantation owners.

So instead of thinking of it in terms of income redistribution, think of it in terms of responsibility to the many hard workers whose efforts help bring wealth to those who had the capitol, smarts, and also worked hard to create, say, a textile factory or a hotel chain. Justice to me would be a society in which business owners were obligated to pay hard workers a wage which is appreciative and treats people with dignity and humanity. When you don't, you perpetuate the ranks of the poor, create breeding grounds for crime (not to mention, well, breeding in general), and give people an excuse to be angry.

I'm not talking about socialism. I'm talking about a miniscule shifting of the scale — an increase in the minimum wage just enough so that a family can live with self respect. At the same time, you provide both incentive and enough disposable income so that someone can take night school to escape a dead-end job. If someone chooses instead to spend it on cable TV, then it's his own fault when he's working at Wal-Mart for the rest of his life. Because, as I mentioned, the business world needs a whole heck of a lot of them to stay where they are. Fine by me, because the responsibility is still on them. But give them some self-respect and give them a choice.

Check me out. And I used to be an ardent and proud Social Darwinist (still am to some small degree). But somewhere along the way I realized that society is not a jungle. Ironically enough, the jungle is simple, just, predictable, and efficient compared to the civilized world of man.

posted by jim @ 30 08 2003 05:50 PM PST

...And check me out, too. Once upon a time I had been a mainstream liberal, more or less in the spirit of Enjelani's post. Redistribution undermines incentives, I used to think, but it is fair. And then one day I asked myself: What's so fair about it?

But back on topic. Imagine that you are in love with a black girl, but you cannot marry her because interracial marriage is against the law. Now imagine that you are in love with a black girl, but you cannot marry her because she does not want to marry you. In both cases, you are in misery; in both cases, it's not necessarily your fault; in both cases, you have no real choice. Yet most people will agree that only the first situation is unjust. The second, though perhaps no less painful, is merely unfortunate.

What this illustration goes to show is that just laws and unjust laws can sometimes lead to similar outcomes: a boy unable to marry a girl, for example, or huge disparities between rich and poor. Put another way, we cannot infer from the outcomes alone that the rules are unjust: We must examine the rules themselves.

The issue, therefore, is whether or not "there are institutionalized mechanisms in place to ensure that [the poor] stay impoverished". I don't believe there are (and you don't cite any examples). All mechanisms I can think of merely enforce the non-interference principle: whatever you do, you can't force unwilling bystanders to pay for it. These mechanisms are not unjust; quite the contrary, injustice results when they are removed or circumvented.

posted by beefeater @ 30 08 2003 11:20 PM PST

Beefeater - OK...check me out too. I used to be your basic conservative who believed in non-interference. Now somehow I've ended up as a liberal who believes that things like institutional evil exists, and that we should oppose those institutions.

You ask if there really are "institutionalized mechanisms in place to ensure that [the poor] stay impoverished"? The answer is yes. You wanted examples? Here you go:

The Poor Pay More, for groceries, health care, water and energy (at least in developing countries), and banking services.

(all hardly things that the poor can opt out of...thus falling under the "institutionalized" category)

I can already hear you saying "but those are simply market forces at work." No argument from me on that. But they are market forces that have become institutionalized mechanisms which ensure that the poor stay impoverished.

You say that you highly value non-interference--that "whatever you do, you can't force unwilling bystanders to pay for it." Well, grocery stores, hospitals, utilities, and banks are forcing unwilling people to pay higher prices than their richer neighbors. That doesn't seem like non-interference to me. I know that you are talking about laws, and I'm talking about markets, but whether by law or by market institutionalized mechanisms are in place to ensure that [the poor] stay impoverished.

Solution? Not (necessarily) the redistribution of wealth to the poor by means of taxation, but the righting of prices. It should not be legal to charge the poor more for groceries because they can't hop into their (non-existant) car and drive to a cheaper grocery. It should not be legal to charge an individual thousands more for a procedure because that person isn't a large corporation who can negotiate a deep discount in health insurance. It should not be legal for a city to build a freeway through a low-income neighborhood (thus permanantly ruining property values) because the rich are able to "persuade" the city to build it in some other neighborhood, but the poor are not.

Institutional evil exists. And something needs to be done about it.

posted by wink @ 31 08 2003 02:48 AM PST

Now is the fact that the poor pay more for groceries/health care/water/energy *unfair*, or *unfortunate* (as per beefeater's excellent example)? From your perspective, grocers and health-care providers are extracting 'excessive' profits off low-income citizens.

But if there exists such fat margins in selling goods and services to low-income neighborhoods, why aren't stores being open by opportunistic businesses to compete to sell these overpriced wares? Are grocers who sell in wealthy zip codes suckers for keeping their businesses open in low-margin areas?

Reality check. It costs more to run a business in a low-income neighborhood. Security and insurance (in response to higher rates of theft/shoplifting/vandalism in such areas) are reflected in the prices. Is that unfortunate, or evil?

"It should not be legal to charge an individual thousands more for a procedure because that person isn't a large corporation who can negotiate a deep discount in health insurance."

So bulk discounts should be outlawed? From that perspective, Costco is an illegal organization that unjustly benefits rich people who can afford to buy spaghetti 50 servings at a time. Why should the poor guy who buys his Spaghetti-Os one can at a time not get the same price break? The fact that it costs the storekeeper more money to sell 50 cans of Spaghetti-Os one at a time (paying a clerk to man the cashier, etc.), compared to Costco's expenses in selling one pallet to one customer is immaterial! The poor guy pays more per can of his Spaghetti-Os than the rich guy who got it through Costco. Why, we ought to outlaw that kind of unfair bulk discount!

Presumptuously TELLING others the 'correct' retail price they should charge for their goods & services? THAT'S evil. It's an evil called socialism that is directly responsible for the death and starvation of millions in the last 100 years.

I agree the institutional evil of socialism does exist. And I welcome everything being done to dismantle it.

posted by pjammer @ 31 08 2003 12:44 PM PST

pjammer - good points all around. I respectfully withdraw my proposed solution. (it's amazing how bad ideas can seem really good at 2:30 AM.)

In defense of my bad idea, I will say this: I was not trying to promote socialism. I was trying to find some way around it. The previous posts had been focused on re-distribution of wealth (which most people would recognize as socialism). I was trying to find some other solution. Furthermore, I was not recommending that the Government should be "TELLING others the 'correct' retail price they should charge for their goods & services". Rather I was saying that the Government should prevent there from being differential pricing that favors the rich. Still not a good idea (and hence my withdrawal of my support for this solution), but far better than what you are accusing me of.

(oh, and as for your question of "why aren't stores being open[ed] by opportunistic businesses to compete to sell these overpriced wares?", I would point out that markets are not perfect. In a perfect market, any consumer could buy from any seller and any seller could open a storefront anywhere. Unfortunately, the poor have limited transportation and there are limited storefront properties. Combine that with the realities of organized crime (another flaw in the market system) which can force competitors out of business and the result is local monopolies which can charge higher prices without fear of being undercut by competition. The realities of an imperfect market system form the foundation on which an institutional evil can be built.)

At any rate, my main point still remains. beefeater questioned the existence of "institutionalized mechanisms [which] ensure that [the poor] stay impoverished". And he asked for examples of them if they do indeed exist. I have provided examples. Whether intentional or not, whether unfair or merely unfortunate, they do exist. They are institutional because they deal with basic necessities and thus are unaviodable. And charging the poor more than the rich for their basic necessities (whether with or without malice) is without a doubt a mechanism which ensures that the poor stay impoverished.

Who is to blame for this and what the solutions are are open questions. But the existence of the problem seems to me to be beyond doubt.

posted by wink @ 31 08 2003 03:21 PM PST

Understood. I agree it is unfortunate that an honest resident of a low-income neighborhood who doesn't have a car is effectively stuck paying inflated prices, caused by the vandals and shoplifters who share his zip code.

Is this an example of 'institutional evil?'

Does Mister Kim, the owner of a grocery store in the middle of a ghetto, have secret meetings with Safeway and other Capitalist Conspirators and set prices to 'keep those dirty poor scum in their place?' I agree that the economic situations of low-income people have self-reinforcing dynamics that perpetuate their conditions, but I disgree with the notion that the circumstance is the result of some malicious Capitalist Conspiracy motivated by a desire to "keep the poor people poor."

The inflated prices of goods and services offered to poor people offset the risks and costs associated with serving the market. It is unfortunate, but I am uncertain how any sort of law could change the market realities of low-income consumers. But consider: the premium pricing mechanism ensures a steady flow of these goods and services to their direction.

By way of comparison: at what price premium would you be motivated to open a grocery store in, say, Haiti? The average person there is in far more dire circumstance than the worst slums of the US, but there exists no incentive to provide clean food, clothing or medicine to them.

Looking for someone to *blame* for the unfortunate economics faced by low-income americans is a fool's errand. It's just an economic reality, much the way car insurance for 16-year-olds will always be more expensive than comprable 26-year-old drivers.

posted by pjammer @ 31 08 2003 07:24 PM PST

WINK: I ought to have been more explicit in my earlier post. My point was that free market merely gives expression to the principle of non-interference. (I think it is entirely unreasonable to claim that a grocer, by opening a store where there had been none, "forces" anything on his neighbors, except perhaps the noise of trucks unloading during the night.) I accept arguendo that non-interference is an "institutionalized mechanism", and that it makes escaping poverty more difficult than, say, an arrangement where you're allowed to steal from the nearest store. But this is unfortunate, not unjust. The unjust, evil thing is to circumvent or undermine non-interference, for this or any other reason. Like Pjammer said.

ENJELANI: You're in your best element of course: Throw a quick comment, sit back, and watch the fireworks explode ;..)

posted by beefeater @ 31 08 2003 09:14 PM PST

pjammer - "Is this an example of 'institutional evil'?" Yup. And of course Mr. Kim doesn't have secret meetings with other Capitalist Conspirators. To call something an "institutional evil" is by definition to say that there is no malice and no plan by any particular person (hence "institutional" as opposed to "personal"). The system or the rules are oppressing people quite apart from any individual or group of people. If everyone follows the rules, then one group of people gets hurt. That's institutional evil. Evil doesn't need a face to be evil.

I'm not looking to assign blame. To call something institutional evil is to implicitly say that no one is to blame.

When women are paid less than men for the same work because that is the market value for a woman's time and effort, that's institutional evil. No one in particular is being evil. No one in particular has any ill intent. The market forces don't need anyone to be evil for them...they can be evil all by themselves.

So how does it come about? You "disgree with the notion that the circumstance is the result of some malicious Capitalist Conspiracy motivated by a desire to "keep the poor people poor."" Agreed. When the people who were making the rules made the rules, they were almost certainly not thinking about how to screw the other guy. The line of thinking was almost certainly something along the lines of:

Guy 1: Hey. You know...doing thinks this way kinda works out for me.
Guy 2: You know...it kinda works out for me too. In fact, it might work for everyone.
Guy 1: Let's make it a rule.

It becomes a rule, and it works out for almost everyone. But it turns out to oppress a few. Take the original SAT for example. The testmakers tried really hard to make the best possible test that they could. They weren't trying to screw over inner city minorities by skewing the questions with a white upperclass bias. But they did. No one had any ill intent. But the test was flawed. The end result of using the test was the oppression of inner city minority youths. Institutional evil.

The good news is that institutional evil can be recognized and done away with by fixing the rules. In the case of the SATs, they rewrote the questions. They are now a lot better (not perfect, but marks for effort).

So what is the institutional evil in our example with the groceries? What is the flawed rule? As I said before, I think it has something to do with the fact that we don't have a perfect market. The poor can't buy from the cheaper markets because they can't get to them. Thus they are forced to buy from the local monopoly. The monopoly is not trying to screw them over--they're just trying to cover costs. But the fact remains that there are cheaper prices out there that they simply do not have access to.

Institutional mechanisms which ensure that the poor stay impoverished?
Self-reinforcing dynamics that perpetuate their conditions?

Yup. That's exactly what they are. But I refuse to think that nothing can be done about them. I refuse to say "That's just the way things are." and give up. And I especially refuse to think that the status quo is GOOD.

This may be the current economic reality, but it doesn't need to remain that way.

posted by wink @ 31 08 2003 10:52 PM PST

beefeater - you do my argument injustice. "...it makes escaping poverty more difficult than, say, an arrangement where you're allowed to steal from the nearest store." I'm not asking for some system where the poor are allowed to steal. I'm asking for a system where the poor can buy goods and services for the same price as the rich can.

Also, I did not claim that "a grocer, by opening a store where there had been none, "forces" anything on his neighbors". Rather I claim that a grocer by virtue of being the only grocer within walking distance forces his prices on all of his neighbors who can't afford transportation. This is called a local monopoly and it is a flaw in the market system.

Most importantly, I'm not claiming that non-interference is the institutionalized mechanism. I'm claiming that differential pricing supported by flawed market forces (like local monoplies) are the institutionalized mechanisms. I would think that you would agree with me on this point seeing as this differential pricing violates the principle of non-interference (the local monoply forces the captive consumers to unwillingly pay higher prices for necessities) and thus is by your own definition both unfortunate and unjust.

posted by wink @ 31 08 2003 11:58 PM PST

Uhhh... *blink* *blink*

There are lots of big words being used 'n stuff.

My head hurts.

posted by syndromes @ 01 09 2003 11:55 AM PST

WINK: I disagree. Local monopoly makes the market inefficient, in that goods are not priced at the marginal cost. But it does not make the market unjust. This is because even local monopoly doesn't constitute interference, in any meaningful sense of the word. If a grocer who owns the only store in town is thought to violate non-interference by charging high prices, then he would be violating it even more by closing down, or by choosing not to open in the first place. This line of reasoning stands the concept of non-interference on its head: It would have us conclude that every person everywhere in the world is in violation by not running a grocery store.

posted by beefeater @ 01 09 2003 09:02 PM PST

Once again, it's the Liberals vs. the Libertarians, brought to you by enjelani.com. We just need a communist and a republican and we'd have a genuine think tank. :)

If socialism turns people into robots, libertarianism turns people into cats. You know, no eye contact, no responsibilities other than to yourself, everyone else existing as a source of fascination rather than the flesh and blood 'others' that they really are. Try to get a cat to play with a ball of yarn and he may get into it, but more often than not he'll just watch it roll by. "Listen, nice effort, but could you screw off please? I'm trying to take a nap."

I've never understood the laissez-faire (or, given some of the posts here, "lazy/fair") approach to societal difficulties that libertarianism appears to espouse. Correct me if I've got it all wrong, but it strikes me as denial, a cop-out. If there's a social problem, the libertarian response is to shrug and say "boy, that sucks" and move on. If the almighty market hasn't figured it out, who am I to do anything? This certainly doesn't involve any evolution in social thought, since there's no flexibility allowed in such thinking. And as Steven J. Gould said, flexibility is the heart of evolution. Liberal thought, on the other hand, attempts to do stuff, which often scares people. If it has a fault, it is that sometimes people or groups try too hard, which really, really scares some people. But for me personally, I'd rather be active than passive. I'm interested in solutions, not faith.

In this sense, libertarianism to me seems like any form of radical Christianity — God (aka "the marketplace") is perfect and if you're not succeeding, it's because you don't pray hard enough. Liberalism, on the other hand, is like an agnostic scientist — he's willing to believe in God, but he wants to look into it some more and test some theories before he throws in his unquestioning faith. While a libertarian will see the market as perfect, I, as a liberal, see the evidence all around me and make the logical conclusion that it is flawed. It needs intervention. It needs (shock!) government intervention.

Which brings us back on topic...

I said it before, but I'll repeat it... I believe that a slight raise in the minimum wage and a progressive form of taxation will provide the ability and the incentive for impoverished individuals to choose (because it is about choice) to rise out of their current conditions. As things are right now, the mechanisms of society make it excruciatingly difficult to do it. There are exceptions of course, proud Americans indeed. But I don't see any "evil" in upgrading "excruciatingly difficult" to merely "hard" (or, put another way, from "unfair" to merely "unfortunate"). A minimum wage increase to respectable, honorable levels, and a tax restructuring will do this.

Before I duck out: I find it disturbing (but not surprising in this paranoid age) that liberal thought is equated with socialism. Let's remember our high school civics class: Socialism means "socially owned" or institutionalized parity, which I don't think anyone really believes in here (certainly not me). The things Wink described in his original "Solution?" post do not constitute socialism. Just as the minimum wage and progressive taxation do not constitute socialism. These initiatives are what they are: liberal capitalism, an ever-so slight tilting of the scale. Hardly the end of civilization we know it, definitely not evil (quite the contrary), and it sure as hell isn't going to kill anyone.

posted by jim @ 01 09 2003 09:19 PM PST

beefeater - you are getting closer to what I'm talking about, but you aren't there yet. What you describe is a total monopoly. I'm talking about a local monoply. Let me paint the picture for you:

In a city are two people, Richie Rich (who is rich), and John D'oh (who is not), and two groceries, SuperMarket and LocalGrocer. Supermarket charges lower prices and is located within driving distance of Richie, but not within walking distance of John who has no car. LocalGrocer is within walking distance of John and charges considerably higher prices than SuperMarket.

Richie can choose to go to either market. He chooses SuperMarket because of its lower prices. John has no choice. He must go to LocalGrocer and pay the higher prices.

This is a local monoply.

It is unjust because lower prices exist in the system, but John does not have access to those lower prices. In a perfect market he would, but we do not live in a perfect market.

This should fall under your definition of "interference" because John is forced to pay the higher prices even though lower prices exist and John wants to pay those lower prices.

(If this doesn't fall under your definition of violating non-interference, then you'll need to give me a better definition. I'm using the definition you gave above of "whatever you do, you can't force unwilling bystanders to pay for it". John is in this case both unwilling, and he is forced to pay.)

The injustice does not lie at the feet of LocalGrocer, nor at the feet of others who do not open other groceries. It lies at the feet of an imperfect market system which selectively allows some people access to lower prices while preventing others from those same lower prices.

(As a bit of digression, in the total monopoly case, non-interference is indeed being violated. That is why there are extra regulations on monopolies in the United States. IANAL, but if I understand correctly Monopolies themselves are not illegal, but they are required to provide Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) pricing to their customers. This "fixes" (or at least minimizes) the interference which is the monopoly. This would not apply in the local monoply case as there is a "simpler" fix: allow John access to SuperMarket, thus restoring competition and eliminating the local monopoly altogether. Arrainging that has been so far an intractable social dilemma. But I have not given up hope yet.

You say: "This line of reasoning stands the concept of non-interference on its head: It would have us conclude that every person everywhere in the world is in violation by not running a grocery store." No, it would have us conclude that the market is in violation and that the market either needs to restore competition or that it needs to minimize the effects of the interference through things like RAND pricing.)

Digression aside, you seem to have a perception that interference needs to be done by a person. I insist that it can be done by rules. Like imperfect market mechanisms. In these cases, nobody is interfering and nobody is at fault, but there is interference, it is unjust, and something needs to be done about

posted by wink @ 01 09 2003 10:34 PM PST

jim - thanks for defending me from the charges of Socialism. I appreciate it. And I like your analogy about Radical Christianity and Libertarianism. And the bit about the "Almighty Market".

Trying to stay on-topic with jim for a minute here...

enjelani (remember her? the one who wrote the original post way up at the top of this page?) says: "[T]he loopholes in socialism breed complacency, the blind spots in capitalism breed oppression -- how to design a system with the right set of incentives and deterrents?" I have no idea, but it is a worthy project. Capitalism is far better than socailism, but it is still deeply flawed when applied in the real world. (though both systems work out swimmingly in perfect worlds.)

Our comments so far have focused mostly on how to deal with the oppression which is bred by the blind spots in capitalism (or whether the oppression even exists). But none of us have tried to help you "construct a society whose foundation is not profit or compassion, but fairness."

Jim's suggestion of higher minimun wage and a slightly less flat progressive tax are the most reasonable sounding solutions so far, but can a far better one be found by jettesoning capitalism altogether and instituting a society based on fairness? I would hope so but I'm having trouble envisioning what it would look like and how it would operate. Anyone have any good ideas?

posted by wink @ 01 09 2003 10:54 PM PST

looks like I'm late to the party.

Oh, well.

posted by m. mellow @ 02 09 2003 12:17 AM PST

What 'slight raise' to the minimum wage do you think is the 'correct' wage-level? And if you really believe that we can bring $$$ to the poor and downtrodden by fiat, why stop at a 'slight raise' ... let's just set the minimum wage at fifty bucks an hour and then EVERYONE will be able to live a six-figure lifestyle!

Libertarianism is founded on respectful non-interference. Who are you to go in and boss others around telling them what's what and what prices a stranger should charge in his store? The liberal busybody charges in, and declares whatever offends his sensibilities to be 'social injustices' that must be rectified (always using OTHER people's money, natch).

Market realities are what they are. To call bulk discounts and other business realities 'institutional evils' is a corruption of language - we may as well call eating a 'biological evil' if we're going to play it fast and loose with semantics. Evil requires intent.

Socialism's misguided intentions of 'correcting' market realities is an evil that creates its own brand of misery. Minimum wage laws price those who are

[1] willing to work and
[2] unable to produce more that US$6/hour of value

out of the job market. The ones who MOST need the work are squeezed out because some 'compassionate' liberal decided that $5/hour jobs offend their delicate sensibilities and outlawed their existence.

This is a good deal for the liberal, since he gets to pat himself on the back for taking the initiative to get such 'compassionate' laws passed on behalf of the downtrodden. As for the guy willing to work for $5/hour that is now unemployed? He's just SOL.

Differential pricing reflect the different costs associated with serving different markets. Wink - is Costco an illegal organization since it benefits rich buyers of bulk foods? Are you just willfully refusing to acknowledge the costs associated in servicing low-income markets and the fact that it costs more to sell items in smaller denominations than in bulk? There is genuine oppression in this world and labeling business realities with the same name cheapens the term.

The libertarians I know volunteer for worthy causes and are generous individuals. They also insist that generosity ought to be of one's on volition, that 'compassion' and 'charity' done through centralized authority (like confiscatory taxes and hare-brained income-redistribution schemes) is little more than a shakedown operation by government thugs.

I remember reading about an interview in India where a man on the street was asked "why do you want to move to America?" to which he replied "I want to live in a country where even the poor people are fat!"

We should remember how good we have it - even the bottom decile of Americans lead a lifestyle envied by 95% of the planet.

posted by pjammer @ 02 09 2003 11:08 AM PST

So much for staying on topic...

pjammer - "Evil requires intent." Evil requires intent??!? You yourself called socialism an institutional evil and most people would reconize that socialism has the best of intentions. Nobody who ever proposed socialism ever did so with the intent to oppress. Socialism is institutional evil not becuase of intent, but because it fails to take into account the realities of human nature.

[digressing somewhat to respond to pjammer's points]

I do not think that Costco is illegal. I do not think that bulk pricing is bad. I don't even object to differential pricing. What I object to is that the differential pricing is selective and systematic. Only some have access to the cheaper prices. If whites were offered cheaper prices than blacks for the same goods or services, would you not consider that "institutional evil" or "genuine oppresion" (even if there were perfectly good market reasons for it)? If so, then why not when you substitute "rich" and "poor" for "white" and "black"? (and if not, then why not?)

(And also let me make it explicit that bulk pricing is not the reason that the poor pay more for groceries. The price of a single item costs more in the local grocery than the cost of the identical item in the supermarket. So I am not "willfully refusing to acknowledge...the fact that it costs more to sell items in smaller denominations than in bulk.")

And for the record, I never called bulk pricing an institutional evil. You are more correct in saying that I consider certain "business realities" to be institutional evils. You cannot dismiss evil by just saying that it is "reality" and therefore it is OK. Otherwise nothing that has ever happened in reality is evil and only imaginary things could be evil.

[I'll let jim defend himself on minimum wage and progressive taxation.]

[drifting towards my main point]

Cheap pricing is good, but it needs to be offered to everyone. I can already hear you saying that Costco doesn't prevent poor people from shopping there, and you are right. But a Costco that is 12 miles away may as well be on the moon for someone who doesn't have a car. Is this Costco's fault? No. And I never said that is was. Do I thinkg Costco should be punished? No. Do I think that new laws or regulations need to be pasased? Not necessarily. Have I suggested that taxes would somehow fix this problem? No.

[main point]

The poor do not have access to the cheaper prices. And they should. In a perfect market they would. How do we move towards a more perfect market? (You do want to move in that direction right? You don't think that we should try to maintain the flaws in our market system, do you?)

I am not trying to assign blame here. I'm not suggesting that anyone be punished. I know I am repeating myself here, but it seems to not be sinking in. What I am saying is that the system is screwed up. Capitalism as it is currently implimented in the United States is not achieveing its own goals. One of Capitalism's major objectives is to reward hard/good/smart/[insert positive adjective here] work. Capitalism is supposed to foster a meritocracy. In as much as two people get paid different amounts for the same work or get charged different amounts for the same goods and services, then Captitalism is failing to produce that meritocracy. It is flawed. In as much as that difference in pay or difference in cost is based on race/gender/wealth/sexual orientation/religion/etc., then the flawed Capitalism is producing oppression. Oppression, whether intentional or not is evil and something needs to be done about it.

"We should remember how good we have it". I do. Every day. But I won't fool my self into thinking that life as it stands is perfect either. Should MLK just have sat back and done nothing remembering how good he had it compared to the slaves? Or should he have said that life is better now, but it could still be a Hell of a lot better than this?

posted by wink @ 02 09 2003 02:05 PM PST

[I'll let jim defend himself on minimum wage and progressive taxation.]

Heh... well, it's tough to sift through the hyperbolic rhetoric to see what I'm supposed to defend.

Maybe later. I and my "delicate sensibilities" have to run off to class now. :)

posted by jim @ 02 09 2003 02:59 PM PST

Oh boy, does this remind me of my student days... :)

JIM: I like your cat analogy a great deal. "I'll play with you when we both want to play; when one of us doesn't, the other has no business imposing himself" -- how very libertarian :) To complete the metaphor, may I now compare liberals to dogs. Dogs are pack animals. It wouldn't occur to a group of dogs to divide the territory and leave each other alone. No, they would come together, fight bloody for dominance, and then all submit to the alpha-male. Ask a dog about his dreams, and he'll describe a doggy paradise where everyone's life is regulated from morning till night for the greater good of the pack. That's what he is used to.

I sometimes wonder if the humanity's inner cat can ever win against the inner dog: The cat's "live and let live" posture puts him at a disadvantage. Still, the cat has impressive successes to his credit. We have adopted the fascinated-detached, none-of-my-business feline attitude with regard to other people's religion. We're learning to do the same with regard to other people's sexuality. Those of us (probably the vast majority) who think every abortion is a tragedy, have learned to say "boy, that sucks" and vote to keep the clinics open. Undoubtedly pro-lifers see this as a cop-out. If you disapprove of abortion, they say, why wouldn't you do something to stop it? Because I don't permit myself to interfere in other people's private decisions, I tell them. They blink, incomprehendingly. Pro-lifers, like liberals, are at the doggy end of the spectrum.

I am not moved by assurances that you only seek limited reform. What is immoral, is also immoral in small doses. An "ever-so-slight tilting of the scale", like an ever-so-slight restriction of speech or abortion rights, may not make much immediate difference, but it is still destructive as a matter of principle and precedent. Rather than "upgrade unfair to unfortunate", it turns unfortunate into unjust. I do not use the word "downgrade" because the distinction is not a matter of degree.


WINK: My idea of justice does not require that John be offered groceries at the lowest existing price, or at any price at all, any more than it requires that John be given a chance to date the prettiest existing girl. It only requires that if there is a willing seller, or a willing girl, no third party obstructs the transaction. "Third party" refers (thank you for clearing the matter up) only to persons or groups of persons. A federal law forbidding obese people over 300 lbs to leave their beds would violate non-interference; Newton's law of gravity, which has exactly the same effect, does not.

Why is my definition of justice so limited? Because a broader definition would impose onerous additional duties on other people. It is one thing to ask Mary not to throw obstacles in Fred's path, and quite another to demand that she pave Fred's way. (This is not to say that Mary shouldn't help Fred out, only that it would violate non-interference to impose this on Mary as an obligation.) For instance, in your own example it would seem that if there exists a grocery store anywhere in the world, then someone is positively obligated to open another store next to John: for, if no one does, a grocery store becomes an amenity that "exists in the system but John does not have access to". Although you blame John's misfortune on the abstract "system", the remedy -- whether by taxation or price controls -- can only come at the expense of actual persons.

Price gouging, whether under local or total monopoly, does not fall under my definition of non-interference for two reasons. First, the "you" in "whatever you do, you can't force unwilling bystanders to pay for it" must represent a person; the formula cannot be recast in passive voice. Second, "force" means "eliminate alternatives", not "fail to provide alternatives": that is to say, "no free lunch" is not equivalent to "forced labor". I would note in passing that a good definition of non-interference is not easy to construct; political philosophers have struggled with it.

posted by beefeater @ 03 09 2003 03:51 AM PST

Beefeater writes: What is immoral, is also immoral in small doses.

Now here's an interesting one. :) It may be the crux of this whole debate. It's also probably a new debate entirely.

We live in a society in which nothing is absolute and everything is a compromise. Freedom of speech is not complete; expletives are bleeped out on network TV, there are laws against libel and yelling fire in a crowded theater. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Ultimately I'm most interested in how a sustainable society is built -- what kind of socioeconomic structure doesn't eventually collapse upon itself? One may argue that the minimum wage law is unjust in principle, but make a big enough gap between the rich and poor and you're going to get riots. Conversely, erase the wage gaps completely and you have, essentially, a prison farm. Neither is going to work in the long run. So what will?

I need to defend the idea of liberalism here...as Jim said earlier, liberalism does not equal socialism. Liberalism, at its best, seeks to make life bearable for everyone who participates in the system. It does not seek to make everyone exactly equal...no fun in that :) But if we buy into Rousseau's notion of the social contract, that people theoretically consent to participate in a given system, then we need to build one that people would choose.

Here's what I've got so far, subject to revision. I picture a society in which the essentials (in the 21-century sense) are government-provided: basic health care, a common defense, public goods such as infrastructure and water and so on. There is a public school system (which is voluntary? I'm still working out this part) where any child can get a decent education in the fundamentals -- literacy, arithmetic, civics, an introduction to science and the humanties, maybe a few personal finance principles. There are living wage law for adults, which ensure that if you work 40 hours a week, you're able to pay rent on the bare minimum of housing and eat two meals a day. And that's it.

Beyond that it is up to the individual: whether to work a second job to save up money for a deposit on a better apartment, or to take night classes in hopes of getting more skilled work. There will be private schools that are better funded and staffed than public schools; there will be hospitals with cutting-edge cancer treatments that the poor cannot afford. This is the "unfortunate" side of disparity, but it is not "unfair" -- not if there's always a way up the ladder for those who want to climb it.

Naturally I haven't begun to tackle thorny social issues like abortion (Beefeater, does non-interference stand by and let another human being be killed, if that's what one believes is happening in abortion?), or how to cope with discrimination, especially the subconscious kind. That's a blog for another day...as is a response to Pjammer's remark about how good we have it here in comparison to, say, Sierra Leone. No doubt. There's a lot about the world that needs fixing. But we live here, our votes and actions count most here, so I would argue that this is where we begin.

posted by enjelani @ 03 09 2003 12:32 PM PST

Another thought, which I couldn't cleverly work into the previous comment :) ... Perhaps libertarianism wants to treat us all like adults, giving us a system that assumes we are all rational, self-reliant, honorable human beings. On the other side of the spectrum, communism wants to treat us all like children, incapable of taking care of ourselves, greedy and ignorant and prone to temper tantrums. The truth is somewhere in between. We're capable of being both, and we deserve to be treated as such. So: how?

posted by enjelani @ 03 09 2003 12:41 PM PST

One of the most intriguing proposals of an America where basic needs are provided for (per enjelani's vision) is Philip Greenspun's Welfare Reform idea:

What does a person need to survive? Food and shelter. What if we just gave food and shelter to any American citizen who asked? You show up at a McDonald's, say "I'm hungry" and the government will give them $2 to feed you. Not every restaurant would be willing to feed you for their $2 government reimbursement, but probably quite a few would be. When you got tired and found yourself without a roof over your head, you'd find the nearest Motel 6 and ask for a "government room". The Feds would reimburse the motel $15 for putting you up.

Not everyone wants to eat $2 meals and sleep in a motel room. If you want to have a house, drive a Lexus, and eat French food, you'll still have to work. But nobody would be forced to live on the streets and eat out of Dumpsters because he couldn't prove to a social worker that he needed help.

It *sounds* like a dramatically more effective system than our current welfare system - I am uncertain what sorts of problems might arise, but it answers a lot of the systematic problems associated with the bureaucratic horror that currently administers aid to the poor.

posted by pjammer @ 03 09 2003 12:52 PM PST

I'm with Enji. "The truth is somewhere in between."

And *that's* the reality, kids.

You can be fundamentalist anything — Libertarian, Capitalist, Socialist, Christian, Secularist (yes, even Secularist) — and if you impose any of those worldviews you'll eventually exceed some parameter of healthy operation because the world is not simple enough to be captured in a single model.

Lacking a sufficiently complex model, we have debates like these and try to tack our way upstream. Great writing, all. I'm really enjoying it. :)

posted by Zach @ 03 09 2003 01:48 PM PST

beefeater - jeez...what does it take to convince you that systematic oppression actually exists? First you ask for examples of "institutionalized mechanisms in place to ensure that [the poor] stay impoverished". I provide them. Then you say that those institutionalized mechanisms are merely unfortunate, but not unjust (i.e. interference). I then show that local monoplies prevent willing sellers from selling to willing buyers, thus constituting interference. But now you require that the interference come from a "person or group of persons".

(As a by-the-way, when you say that local monopolies don't constitute interference for 2 reasons, your second reason of "force" means "eliminate alternatives", not "fail to provide alternatives" doesn't fly. Local monoplies (as opposed to total monopolies) are by definition the elimination of alternatives which already exist. I am not, as you assume, requiring that others open new groceries [after all, one already exists right next to John], but that there be access to the alternatives that already exist. Thus my example fails only on your first requirement that "'you'...must represent a person".)

While I'm willing to grant that Laws of Nature (as per your Law of Gravity example) cannot constitute interference, I am unwilling to say that human-made rules and structures cannot constitute interference. Socialism constitutes interference. Slavery constitutes interference. In the same way (I would argue), certain market flaws, like local monopolies, constitute interference.

If the example of John and Richie were isolated examples, then I might be willing to pass it off as unfortunate. But the problem is systemic. 90% (rough figure) of poor people don't have access to lower prices and 100% (exact figure) of rich people do. The rules were not designed to act this way. Therefore they are flawed.

(Ever since my foolish presentation of a seriously flawed solution, I have studiously avoided suggesting remedies and have focused on establishing the existence of the problem. Your "the cure is worse than the disease" type of rejoinder is premature and irrelevant to the question of the inherent justice or injustice of our current system.)

So let me re-iterate my main point: Capitalism is supposed to foster a meritocracy. In as much as two people get paid different amounts for the same work or get charged different amounts for the same goods and services, then Captitalism is flawed. (This by itself is not oppression.) In as much as that difference in pay or difference in cost is based on race/gender/wealth/sexual orientation/religion/etc., then the flawed Capitalism is producing oppression. Intentional or not, perpetrated by individuals, groups or structures, it is still oppression.

In other words: the institutionalized mechanisms in place to ensure that the poor stay impoverished constitute oppression.

posted by wink @ 03 09 2003 02:40 PM PST

I'm really intruiged by both enji's vision and the Philip Greenspun--Welfare Reform idea that pjammer brings to our attention. I don't see any obvious flaws except that it might possibly cost too much. But then again, it might not.

Philip Greenspun idea should especially work if the government provided food and shelter were of sufficiently low quality that you wouldn't use it frivolously are thus would be willing to work to get better stuff, but not so bad that you wouldn't use it when you're in a tight spot.

As with pjammer, I have no idea what problems might arise from this. I'm sure some will. We humans are clever enough to find ways to abuse almost any system. But it looks like it has potential. How can we go about experimenting with this?

posted by wink @ 03 09 2003 02:55 PM PST

Zach - "You can be fundamentalist anything". Can you be a fundamentalist moderate? ;)

I guess you could if you insisted that "The truth is somewhere in between" in every case. ;)

But that's neither here nor there.

posted by wink @ 03 09 2003 02:59 PM PST

ENJELANI:

The ban on yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is a minute restriction of expression. The banning of a white supremacist newsletter that only a dozen people read anyway can also be described as a minute restriction. Yet most people will agree that the second case is more pernicious, that it "goes to the heart of the 1st Amendment" in a way the first case doesn't. I'm not sure how best to draw a formal distinction (does it lie in the purpose of the ban? or in the type of precedent being set? I'll have to think about this), and I know there are plenty of borderline cases. But I submit that the liberal program of income tax, minimum wage, and price controls to benefit the poor is not a borderline case. It does not differ from socialism either in motivation or in methods; it differs only in degree. It is immoral even in small doses.

Libertarian thought is not based on Rousseau's social contract: It is based instead on the non-interference principle (a.k.a. Kant's Principle of Ends). In the former view, Richie Rich must make John D'oh's life "bearable", so that John (theoretically) consents to the contract and does not burglarize Richie's house. To a libertarian, Richie has no such obligation: He may protect himself and his property in any appropriate manner, including calling the police. Now it may be that Richie will find it more convenient to pay John off; if so, a libertarian society might outwardly resemble a Rousseauan one. However, the underlying principles will remain radically different.

I think it is useful to consider the problem in two parts: First, fundamentally, what would the ideal-moral-just society be like? And second, pragmatically, where do we choose to depart from the ideal, for what purpose, and can the purpose be accomplished in some other way? I don't think one can deal with the second question before there is agreement on the first.

While I concede that people sometimes behave like children, I object to being treated like one. To treat someone like a child is to treat him as less than equal; it presupposes that there is an adult in the system who can tell a tantrum from a legitimate grievance. Who would you propose for the role of the adult?

PJAMMER:

Plenty of problems arise with Greenspun's proposal. The first few that come to mind: (1) It is still unjust: The term "government reimbursement" obscures but does not change the fact that a group of persons (the electoral majority) are forcing an unwilling person (taxpayer Richie Rich) to pay for someone else's food and shelter. (2) No sooner is some basic standard universally guaranteed, it blends into the background (like the fact that everyone already receives emergency medical care, no questions asked), and the redistribution battle heats up again. (3) The handout quickly grows to be seen as a "fundamental right", which seriously confuses people's notions of rights and justice.

WINK:

Market principles tend to foster meritocracy, but they are not "designed" to that end: They are not designed at all. Market merely restates the non-interference principle: exchange can occur only when two parties agree to an exchange. This is hardly comparable to arbitrary human-made rule systems like slavery, socialism, or the hypothetical Obese Citizen Immobilization Act from my earlier illustration.

Although a grocery already exists next to John in your example, it seems to me that if it did not, your reasoning would require that one be opened immediately. For, firstly, if John is entitled to the same prices as everyone else, why is he not entitled to the same convenience? And secondly, if you do not find it unjust for John's grocery store to close down, how can it be unjust for it to stay open and charge high prices? Surely John is no worse off in the latter case than he is in the former.

It was indeed premature of me to speculate on the remedy. Perhaps you have in mind some Pareto improvement that does not involve taxation and price controls, and does not come at the expense of actual persons. I'd like to hear it.

posted by beefeater @ 04 09 2003 12:25 AM PST

beefeater - "[Markets] are not designed at all...[Market principles are] hardly comparable to arbitrary human-made rule systems like slavery, socialism, or the hypothetical Obese Citizen Immobilization Act from my earlier illustration. Wow! Where to begin on this one? Well at least you seem to concede that human made structures in addition to people and groups of people can cause interference.

I have noticed that you switched to using the phrase "Market Principles" rather than using "Capitalism" as I had. Are you equating the two?

If you are equating the two, then I simply need to show that Capitalism (US style) is as human-made and designed as Socialism. That shouldn't be terribly hard.

If you aren't, then why did you twist my statement? You still need to defend Capitalism. The argument so far has been about whether or not our current system (i.e. Capitalism as it is currently implemented in the US) fosters institutional evil. If you think that our current system is not unjust, then you need to be defending our current system, i.e. Capitalism (US style), not the idealized "Market Principles" (or in my words, the "Perfect Market" which I have been appealing to all along). Defending "Market Principles" doesn't get you anywhere. At this point, failing to defend Capitalism as natural, non-human-made, and undesigned is to cede the argument to me unless you recant some of your previous statements.

Pick your poison.

posted by wink @ 04 09 2003 11:32 PM PST

WINK: I'll take the poison any time: I've trained myself to be immune to it. (Remember The Princess Bride?) :-)

All right, let's begin with definition of the terms. By market principles I mean a set of very basic notions: Exchange occurs only between willing parties; exchange between willing parties is not obstructed by a third party; property rights are respected; and the like. These, I contend, are not some arbitrary human-made rules: They are the embodiment of non-interference.

Perfect market is an economics term for a (hypothetical) situation where not only market principles hold, but in addition, (1) transaction costs are negligible; (2) participants are fully informed; and (3) the number of producers and consumers is large enough so that no single actor can influence the price. I shall refer to these as efficiency conditions. One attribute of a perfect market is Pareto efficiency (no party can be made better off without making someone else worse off). Another attribute is that all consumers buy goods at the same price, and all producers sell at the same price, equal to the social marginal cost of production. When these desirable features are lacking, the reason can always be traced back either to a violation of efficiency conditions, or to a violation of market principles themselves (say, abridgement of property rights). The former case is referred to as market failure; the latter is also sometimes called "market failure", although many economists would say that no market exists there to begin with. Your grocery example falls squarely within the first category: It is a market failure caused by high transaction costs (one needs a car to shop effectively).

I do not equate "capitalism as currently practiced in the US" either with "market principles" or with "perfect market". What I am defending is market principles. My central point on this thread is that market principles, grounded as they are in non-interference, have the kind of moral weight that efficiency conditions don't have. Inefficiency in unfortunate, but interference is unjust. (I also tried to explain why my idea of justice is limited to non-interference, though perhaps that is a matter for another debate.)

Now, your argument so far has revolved around a differential pricing situation that does not violate market principles (it only violates efficiency), whereas every fix for it I can think of does violate market principles. I conclude from this -- and I'd love to be proven wrong -- that you regard market principles, and non-interference upon which they rest, as dispensable, or even objectionable. If you had instead focused your criticism of "capitalism as currently practiced" on a case where problems arise from a violation of market principles (say, John is unemployed because minimum wage laws priced his job out of existence), I'd be with you all the way.

posted by beefeater @ 05 09 2003 11:34 PM PST

I'm still trying to figure out how libertarianism benefits a society. I understand that it benefits certain individuals. But those who do benefit aren't exclusively those who have worked hard and succeeded. Some did indeed work hard. Some gained through inheritance. Some benefited from working at, say, a tech company that exploded. Some simply got lucky. In reality, the free market occasionally rewards those innovative people with purpose and dedication to excellence but also rewards many of those who have benefited passively from circumstance. Conversely, there are many bright minds who have taken chances and worked their asses off only to end up penniless, purely through bad luck.

Clearly the philosophy that the market is perfect and needs no interference is a myth since it does not only reward those excellent, hard-working folks in society. There is a perfect market worth noting, though, one that exists in complete non-interference — Somalia. You can buy and sell anything there, and there are no restrictions on how the market operates. What you have as a result is lawlessness and chaos — not exactly a model of justice.

So it's not really about non-interference, but selective interference. Some laws are needed, some programs are needed, and some intervention is needed. My question is, where in a libertarian's mind is interference forgivable and/or necessary? For example, I believe both beefeater and pjammer supported the war against Iraq. How does this obvious effort to interfere with others, ostensibly for the betterment of society, remain consistent with a notion of non-interference?

I would imagine the answer has something to do with preserving one's own way of life. But then aren't you making a judgment call? You're deciding that efforts to improve society, backed by government expense, will lead to an improved way of life for more people in America. How would this be different, aside from the non-violent aspect, from a minimum wage increase to provide an improvement in a way of life to those who have little of life to enjoy? Is it because they contribute less? If it's only for the privileged and the active to decide, why not send all the libertarians to Iraq to fight? They espouse liberty, so why not go and liberate? Why send only, ironically enough, those who are from lower-income families? This is yet another of the many examples of the working class sacrificing to help the upper class maintain its wealth. The hypocricy is palpable.

I have a lot of other questions for libertarians, because I've come across this illuminating tome called Wealth And Democracy, which exposes this systematic, mechanized state of privation that exists regardless of whether or not there is intent behind it...

Why do statistics show that wages in America have slipped below those of Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway even though the average American works from 300 to 560 hours more per year than those nations? What is the solution to the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs? What about the losses of lower paying jobs to workers overseas?

Where is the justice in the top one-fifth of American households with the highest incomes now earning half of all the income in the United States? Where is the justice in the direct correlation between lowered incomes and rising mortality rates revealed in a 1998 Harvard study based on 282 metropolitan areas in this country? Where is the justice in the United States leading the world in income disparity between the rich and the poor?

Why did the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which offered a 28 percent tax break to the richest Americans, pave the way for one of the biggest recessions in recent history? Why, with Bush's huge tax cut to the wealthiest Americans this summer, were 93,000 jobs lost in August?

The answer to these last two probably has something to do with the fact that trickle-down economics doesn't work. It relies on a fallacy — that the wealthiest of Americans, with just a little more money will act benevolently for the benefit of all. It's a system wherein the government writes a blank check to people who have more disposable income than they know what to do with and asks them to be good people, to create jobs out of it rather than stick it in a bank account.

I think this here is the crux of it. Libertarianism involves a leap of faith that the upper and upper-middle classes will be good people. It relies on arguments of pure passivity, that people should volunteer, that people should donate to just causes, when in fact volunteerism is down because people are working harder than ever. Spend your money on your personal beliefs, a libertarian might say, knowing that it’s the progressives exclusively, the middle-class liberals, who actually bear the weight and fund social change. It's the great con job of the modern age. Those who have money are masters of hoarding. They've made a science out of self-preservation. What's the incentive among those who actually have the money toward helping the common wheel? There is none.

posted by jim @ 06 09 2003 12:07 AM PST

Two points may be productive here:

(1) Whatever fundamentalist political/economic philosophy you wish to name will require exceptions to function; I will be delighted to be proven wrong here, for such a proof would constitute a general solution to all of our problems! Exceptions have been cited, but I'm asking you to move up a level and recognize that there will always be exceptions no matter what.

There is only one general characteristic that I can see as important - that the system be self organizing. This is implied by pure "Free Market", but the inverse mapping isn't necessarily true - and that is a crucial point because there can exist many other variously optimized systems that retain the advantages of self organization and local optimization, without the instabilities of a free for all economic brawl. Things like minimum wages, taxes, various laws and regulations, etc., represent tweaks to the system - hopefully with a beneficial outcome.

As far as the minimum wage example, if you can show a slight increase in the minimum wage to be productive on some useful metric such as raising a large number of people above some poverty line while avoiding small business collapse, maybe that is a fine optimization. The belief that an individual somehow creates a fixed dollar amount of "value" per hour is a completely nonsensical fiction - the reality is that wages are an extremely distributed negotiation among a large number of players. Fixing into law a specific minimum simply introduces a boundary condition in that very large negotiation. While we're at it, the cost contribution of low skill jobs (that would qualify for minimum wage) to over all costing in the economy is very slight - you won't have rampant inflation. That too is complete fiction. Think about it - who keeps most of the margin on the sale of products produced by minimum wage earners? It's not the minimum wage earners!!! DUH.

(2) What are the goals of the system? Beefeater alluded to this earlier, but didn't seem to recognize that this point is absolutely central to any architectural discussion of an economic system.

Elaborating slightly - it isn't a fundamental requirement that The System embody the characteristic of non-interference; in fact, the degree of interference is something of a personal aesthetic, isn't it? Some people like their private space and don't like The Man bothering them; some people are comforted by greater involvement... Either way it boils down to individual aesthetics and morality, not fundamental human truths. Which brings up another issue: it is important to consider how human aesthetics and morality scale. Would you look a dying sibling in the eyes and (assuming you love them and you don't wish to dance on their grave) tell them that it is really too bad that THEY can't afford the medical treatment that will save their life, and you won't pay for it because it isn't in your financial best interest. So, Bummer... Okay, scale it up to society looking people (under whatever random situation) in the eyes and telling them to piss off because we don't want to waste our resources on them - we'd rather concentrate our own wealth.

SO, What SHOULD the guiding principles? Is providing a mechanism to concentrate wealth and power in the already wealthy more important than providing enough wealth to enough people that the general quality of life is higher for everyone? Or something else? It seems mighty pointless to get caught in the minutia before really understanding
what the goals are.

I submit that some of the most important human advances that provide our current platform for existence derive from principles entirely orthogonal to any economic system. This post is getting long, so I'll stop at two examples that come to mind - (i) Jonas Salk didn't have to basically GIVE his polio vaccine work to the public. He gave away the modern equivalent of an IPO drug of the decade. (ii) The legions of scientists and health care professionals who snuffed out Small Pox on the planet (save for a very few awkward instances in freezers here and there). They were not acting in anything resembling financial self optimization... and yet, is there any dispute as to the value to human kind for either of these activities?

If your goals for The System exclude activities (sometimes expensive activities) and principles that operate outside the realm of pure individual economic advancement then I urge you to reconsider your very narrow, uninformed stance. I also urge you to consider how much money you would have right now if you had died of Polio when you were 7.

It's late. I hope this makes sense. If not, then figure it out yourself! - you bleeding heart liberal, you. :-)

posted by bill @ 06 09 2003 03:50 AM PST

I'm afraid we are going in circles -- not a surprise, on a thread 82KB long at the last count. I'll try my best not to repeat what has already been said.

JIM: (1) Desert has nothing to do with it. John D'oh is a highly deserving citizen who works on his golf game as hard as Tiger Woods. Does this give you the right to confiscate Tiger's money and give it to John?

(2) I don't see how anyone can describe Somalia as a "perfect market that exists in complete non-interference". Somalia is not a market at all because property rights are violated by war lords.

(3) Gross inequality may be an attribute of an unjust society, but it may also occur in a society that is perfectly just. We've already been over that one.

(4) Any economist will tell you -- although few politicians would admit -- that no tax structure can prevent business cycles, and that any tax reform influences the economy only in the long run -- decades rather than years -- assuming the reform survives that long. To expect, or to promise, any kind of effect in August from a tax cut signed on May 28 is entirely unreasonable.

BILL: (1) No doubt there are exceptions to every rule, but it does not seem productive to discuss exceptions before there is agreement on the rule itself.

(2) The notion that an individual creates a fixed amount of value per hour can hardly be dismissed as "absurd": The entire economic theory is based on it. What is absurd is "fixing into law a specific minimum supply". Supply cannot be legislated: It must be either produced or stolen.

(3) To say that "degree of interference is something of a personal aesthetic" is like saying that rape is a personal aesthetic. Perhaps some people like to be raped; let them be raped. But those who prefer to be left alone are entitled to be so -- whether or not occasional rapes appear "productive on some useful metric". It is a fundamental truth.

posted by beefeater @ 06 09 2003 05:27 PM PST

John D'oh can't even make enough disposable income to buy golf clubs. How the hell's he supposed to practice, let alone compete? Your example only highlights my point. And if a tax break for the rich takes a decade or two to see results, why is Bush offering it as a solution to the current state of job losses?

But we're getting into minutae. You avoided addressing my two main issues: Since non-interference is really about selective interference (i.e. my Iraq example), why not interfere in a way that provides assistance to those who are strugging? The second question: What do we do when the ones who are in the best position to help society aren't doing so?

I get the sense that libertarianism is simply about increased wealth to the priviledged class provided at least in part by a modern, non-violent form of slavery. I'm yet to be convinced otherwise. And I'm sorry if I can't agree that it constitutes a perfect market.

posted by jim @ 06 09 2003 07:37 PM PST

Sorry, Jim. Here goes:

(5) Non-interference is about non-interference. I supported the Iraq war because I believe it was fought in self-defense. (Now you may argue that it was not in fact self-defense, and a crooked President had fooled me into thinking it was -- but that's a separate discussion entirely.)

(6) When someone isn't helping society, we do nothing. There is no duty to help your neighbor, only a duty not to harm your neighbor. Besides, my idea of "helping society" is quite possibly the exact opposite of yours. Surely you wouldn't want me to force you to do the things that I consider praiseworthy.

posted by beefeater @ 06 09 2003 09:26 PM PST

Beefeater, you missed both of my main points entirely. I'm not going to repeat myself, but I'd like to add a few things...

I don't dispute that the economic theory you learn in undergrad teaches the notion of work product, value creation, blah, blah, blah. But economic theory (like theories of physics and engineering in general) relies on models and specific nomenclature so that the subject may be studied. In embracing any conceptual/abstract model of a complex system, certain things tend to get accepted as basic truths in the context of that model, sometimes neglecting the underpinnings - and that's cool, but you have to recognize what your assumptions are and what you accept as a basic truth ... and you seem happy to accept the belief that you can precisely measure an individual's work product value per hour.

SO, say you work in a noodle shop and get paid $6.00/hour for your work. One day you get tired of watching your boss drive around in her Beemer 540i - so you ask her for a raise. She's a bit of a tight wad but agrees to pay you $6.75/hour. Are you now creating 75.000000 more cents per hour of fundamental work product? No, that's silly. You conducted a negotiation, thus increasing your salary. Your boss, the owner of that noodle shop, may be sad because now she has to share some of her profit with you and if she can't pass it along to her customers by raising the price of a few dishes by 5 cents then you are indeed NOT creating any more value for her at all. She needs to negotiate with her customers - probably in complete silence by simply upping the menu prices. Or it may cost her too much to change all menus so she leaves it alone. In the case of large employers, the negotiation is quite a bit more complex - and resembles the basic supply/demand model. Collective bargaining is different still. But salaries are all just the product of negotiation. Salaries are NOT an inherent, measurable characteristic of the work product - although you can easily see how they contribute to your expense structure, but that is a different animal than fundamental value.

Beefeater, you seem to contradict yourself on the issue of interference/non-interference policy. On the one hand you accept that certain exceptions to your doctrine of non-interference are somehow acceptable and will be there. On the other hand you say that any interference is tantamount to rape. So are certain forms of rape okay? Indeed necessary? That doesn't seem right at all. I don't get what you're trying to say.

But regardless, you missed my point - I was suggesting that one might consider The System's primary goals before trying to optimize any details. And further, that those goals do in fact grow out of individual human inclinations. I reject your claim that you need to pick a system first, and then decide on the details - you need to determine the goals of The System first.

posted by bill @ 07 09 2003 02:04 AM PST

BILL: Surely you are not proposing that a quantity can be dismissed as "not fundamental" simply because single measurements of it suffer from poor signal-to-noise ratio. And in any case, the law in question seeks to change the aggregate wage of all workers in all shops over the long term. The aggregate is far less subject to bargaining noise than individual data points.

I do not at all disagree that one must "determine the goals of The System first": it was my point all along. Non-interference is The Goal. Once this is accepted, I think we'll find it straightforward to negotiate minor exceptions like (to pick up Enjelani's earlier example) the one about yelling fire in a crowded theater. As with free speech, there may also be a few exceptions of more serious nature that are harder to deal with. Hopefully we can avoid those that fatally undermine the rule, such as sanctioning rape in the name of social good. But -- you are quite right -- the principle must be agreed on first.

(It is somewhat difficult to show why The Goal must be to leave people alone -- as opposed to, say, prevent them from making dumb mistakes (legal paternalism); or encourage them to live righteous lives (legal moralism); or grow per capita GNP (utilitarianism); or distribute benefits equally (communism); or compensate some people at the expense of others for misfortunes they did not deserve; or improve the welfare of the worst-off regardless of desert; or force researchers to give away their vaccines. How do you explain to an ancient Greek that slavery is wrong? He'll cite a host of "useful metrics" that suggest otherwise. But I suppose that, too, is a subject for another thread.)

posted by beefeater @ 07 09 2003 10:27 PM PST

Oh look, somehow this post has accidentally drifted back onto the topic of the original post. For be it from me to take us back off topic. So I will simply link to my off-topic responses to beefeater instead of producing them here.

[response to beefeater's claim that non-interference/market principles are "natural" and are not "human-made"]

[response to beefeater's claim that local monopolies merely constitute "market failure"]

[other examples for beefeater to consider]

(I, of course, invite beefeater to reply. Everyone else is also free to stop on over.)

OK. Main topic. What is the Goal of the System. beefeater has made it abundantly clear that he thinks that it should be non-interference. Most other commenters have objected to this particular goal. The objections have largely been of the "That goal is unjust (or leads to injustice)" variety. Unfortunately, justice is a term that does not have a widely agreed upon meaning. beefeater clearly defines justice as non-interference (thus non-intereference is never unjust by its very definition). Most of the others here have a definition that involves the poor not getting screwed when they've done nothing to deserve it. beefeater's definition benefits from not having to define what "deserves" means because deserving has nothing to do with anything.

So I'm going to try to avoid stating "justice" as my Goal, simply because it is too ambiguous. (And I'm going to assume that everyone will simply define their Goal as justice in the same way that beefeater did. After all, who isn't for justice?) Enji, in her original post (remember that?), suggested fairness as the Goal of The System. Still vague and ambiguous, but getting better. I (tentatively) suggest Meritocracy.

Something along the lines of: good work gets rewarded, lack of work gets you nowhere, and bad work gets punished. (where good work is defined as actions that contribute to society--usually through the means of creating goods [as in products] or providing services.)

This seems to get at the fairness issue that most people seem to be trying to state. Can anyone else do a better job of articulating what fairness or justice should look like?

What guiding principle/goal should The System use?

posted by wink @ 08 09 2003 02:32 AM PST

Will pop in briefly here ...

Wink asked: "Can you be a fundamentalist moderate?"

Heheh. Not sure if that is a contradiction in terms or not, to be honest. If "moderate" isn't an -ism but a modifier of an -ism then no, you can't be. If "moderate" itself refers to some model/dogma/worldview, then yeah, I suppose you can be. Uh ... the truth is probably that it's a little of both. =p

Also: Wanted to mention that the participants of our market include future generations, in that they must absorb some costs of today's economic activity. Superfund sites come to mind. Any number of other instances of environmental rape would suffice. The next generation obviously can't be well-informed active participants of today's economy. So the ideal perfect market is clearly an impossibility.

Also: For similar reasons, absolute non-interference is impossible. Increasingly so as technology advances and the world gets smaller. Suppose you have a car. You can't drive your car without interfering in the lives of everyone in your town, at least. The smog, the noise, the danger to pedestrians, the support of an essentially unsustainable growth pattern in suburban areas ... these are all costs associated with car use. Then there are the costs of creating the car in terms of manufacturing waste, the cost of disposing of the car in terms of toxic runoff, land use, etc. I won't go into the farther-flung but clearly related costs such as wars fought for oil and the human life lost in such pursuits.

But somone probably lived in the neighborhood where that car was produced. Someone's water may be poisoned by the chemicals in the car's paint as it leeches away. You might say it is only unfortunate, from an economic standpoint, that someone lives in those neighborhoods and must pay those external costs associated with product manufacture. But I don't see the difference between telling those people — and there will always be someone living in those neighborhoods — telling those people that they must pay these extra costs and telling the grocery store owner that he has to pay higher wages. These costs must go somewhere. The only difference is in who is being asked to pay.

posted by Zach @ 08 09 2003 06:27 AM PST

WINK: That was an excellent summary of the thread so far. Right on. I also posted brief comments on your new threads about human-made rules (where I conceded the point), and about local monopolies and regressive taxation (where I didn't).

On meritocracy: Mary is a talented young writer who worked hard to produce a novel that became a best-seller. But when Mary comes to collect her pay, she is told she'll be getting only half the expected amount. Why? Because it has just been determined that there is another writer, Bob, living in Montana, who worked just as hard and produced a novel just as good that doesn't sell worth diddly. Since Bob's own book doesn't sell, his merit will be rewarded with Mary's money. And, Mary learns, there is another person in Colorado whose plight is similar to Bob's. His work ethic is now being evaluated by a committee; pending the outcome, Mary's earnings may be diverted to the Coloradan as well.

Now, if the above scenario doesn't bother you, I have no further questions. At least I can't think of any right this minute. But if it does, I'd like to know how you propose to reward Bob for his good work. If your plan doesn't come directly or indirectly at Mary's expense (i.e., if the plan is non-interfering), I won't necessarily object to it.

ZACH: The market tends to take care of future generations better than one might expect. People who will live in my house in year 2070 are not yet born, but their preferences are very much on my mind: I want my house to be worth something when I sell it in 2069. Apart from that, future generations must, I'm afraid, remain un-represented: No person of this generation can appoint himself to speak on their behalf.

Absolute non-interference is impossible, just like absolute freedom of speech is impossible. This doesn't make the concept meaningless. (I think we've covered that already.)

posted by beefeater @ 09 09 2003 01:24 PM PST

beefeater - you deliberately chose an art example, didn't you? ;) Let us focus instead on commodities, where one product is not distinguishable in any important way from another. Your example contains a requirement that both novels are "just as good", a situation that requires quite a bit of mindbending just to understand how we would come to that agreement. In the case of commodities, it is not a stretch to imagine that two products (say...reams of paper) could be "just as good" as one another.

Now suppose we have in place a nifty computer thingy which calculates both the supply (by simply counting how much the producers have produced) and demand (i.e. how much society values it) for paper at any given moment and charges the consumer appropriately, sending that money to the appropriate producer. (Hey look, I've re-invented the stock market!)

Are there problems with this arraingement? Certainly. It will take a lot to go from this basic outline to implementation and there are practical issues a plenty. But whatever flaws it does suffer, it doesn't suffer from "rewarding Bill at Mary's expense". (At least, not as far as I can tell.)

(Please keep in mind that my "Meritocracy" system does not in any way involve the work-ethic of the worker or how much time the worker has spent producing product. It is only meant to reward goods and services based on their value to society.)

This is pretty close to a market economy with some institutionalized mechanisms to prevent certain kinds of volatility and market flaws. As I pointed out before, it is similar to the stock market. Of course, scaling a stock market-like system to include the entire economy will run into difficulties, but its an idea anyway.

What do you think? Unethical? Or merely Impractical?

At any rate...two can play at your game. Here is why I'm not fond of non-interference as the ultimate arbiter of justice:

On Non-Interference: Adolph is a shop owner. He has a sign up saying "Management reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason." Adolph, being the racist that he is, decides that he will refuse service to all Jews. Non-Interference demands that we cannot compell him to sell to any given person or group of people if he doesn't want to. So he can continue this practice without violating Non-Interference.

Now Adolph gets more ambitious. He manages to get some radio and TV airtime and calls for all shop owners everywhere to do the same as he does. For reasons that are unclear, every shop owner everywhere does exactly that. All shop owners are doing this voluntarily--there is no coersion involved. Now no Jews anywhere can buy goods or services. Non-Interference demands that no one can compell the shop owners to sell to Jews. Presuming for the sake of this argument that Jews do not constitue a large enough minority to form their own seperate self-sustaining economy before they all starve to death (and presuming that the Jews are all obedient to the Non-Interference principle and thus do not riot, revolt, or steal), Adolph and company will have managed to commit non-violent genocide without ever violating Non-Interference.

Does this scenario bother you? Is it unjust? Or merely unfortunate? If it is unjust, then why? As far as I can tell it doesn't violate interference, which for you is the definition of justice.

Scenarios such as this seem to be an inherent problem of having Non-Interference as sole arbiter of justice.

posted by wink @ 09 09 2003 03:01 PM PST

WINK: The stock market proposal: Merely impractical. I can't comment on "institutional mechanisms to prevent certain kinds of volatility", because I don't think you describe any. But the rest is just an technological improvement aimed at reducing transaction costs. As transaction costs go down, some (not all) market failures also fade. Nothing whatsoever wrong with that.

The Adolph matter: It's a tough one. Of course if Adolph is the only person who thinks Jews shouldn't receive service in shops, let him. But what if everybody feels that way?

I would argue that no system can handle this contingency gracefully. The majority, if such is their desire, can always pass laws to ban all Jews from entering shops. Who's to stop them? A dictator named Moshe? But then, Moshe might have sick ideas of his own, like not letting Palestinians ride buses or what not.

If anything, non-interference gives Jews in your story a fighting chance. First, non-interference requires that at least those shopkeepers still willing to serve Jews be allowed to do so. Second, at least if the Jews can operate their own economy, they survive. Third, at least they are allowed to leave the country. Without non-interference, even these minimal guarantees are gone; genocide is even easier to accomplish.

posted by beefeater @ 09 09 2003 05:55 PM PST

beefeater - "I would argue that no system can handle this contingency gracefully." That's not the real problem with non-interference in my mind. It's not merely a matter of handling with grace. The real problem to me is that it refuses to admit that this kind of genocide is even unjust. It would merely be unfortuante.

A system based on fairness of merit would at least recognize the Adolph situation as unjust, and it may even be able to prevent it.

posted by wink @ 10 09 2003 11:39 AM PST

Ooops. I meant to add the following line to the end of my first paragraph above:

"That's why I think that it is a mistake to equate non-interference with justice."

and the word between "fairness" and "merit" in the second paragraph is supposed to be "or", not "of".

posted by wink @ 10 09 2003 11:43 AM PST

WINK: Your point is well taken; thank you for bringing it up.

I am drawing distinction between "unfortunate" and "unjust" for the purposes of a general statement about The System: The goal of The System is to avoid injustice; The System must never sanction what is unjust in order to correct what is unfortunate (even what is a little unjust to correct what is very unfortunate).

When I classify the plight of Jews in your story as unfortunate, and bossing shopkeepers around as unjust, I am only saying that The System should never be designed to remedy the former by means of the latter. And I'm quite convinced that it shouldn't -- if anything, even more so in view of this example and the true historical events that inspired it. The System based on non-interference works best even for (in fact, especially for) a minority who cannot out-vote their persecutors.

posted by beefeater @ 11 09 2003 12:37 AM PST

sorry for interfering :)

i was just wondering: assuming there is such a thing as an objective Right and Wrong, and in the present case, the Jews are in the Right and shopkeepers are in the wrong, we as the bystander retain two choices.

firstly, we can stand back observe an injustice and not take any remedial action. but my conscience does not allow that, therefore i need a second option, namely to take an action to correct the injustice (whatever that may be).

and that can only be done through inteference. and as history has shown, it was only through inteference that Adolph was eventually put in his place. and it was a costly price to pay too.

posted by bk @ 11 09 2003 09:14 AM PST

BK: In true history, unlike Wink's example, Adolf violated non-interference first, by enacting antisemitic legislation (and even before that, by persecuting political opponents). Intervention becomes legitimate at that point. If Germans believed in libertarian principles in 1933, they would have stopped Adolph then and there.

posted by beefeater @ 12 09 2003 12:17 AM PST

Must... reach... 50.... comments......

*pushes as hard as he can*

posted by syndromes @ 13 09 2003 12:17 AM PST

Done! 50 it is. :-)

posted by Bill @ 14 09 2003 09:29 AM PST