The general problem with these plans is that they lack generality over time and space. They fail the test of universality. The following will be my random walk through some of the problems with rationalist institutional construction and the subsequent problems of central planning.

Social planning is vulnerable to real-world changes

Most people would recognize that a particular building design or architecture can become obsolete. Many would laugh if there were an actual plan to actually construct Campanella’s City of the Sun or Fourier’s phalanxes in the present day. Their reasoning would be obvious: those things were designed in an entirely different time, under different circumstances. This is not to say that those authors and many like them put forth their ideas as timeless and never requiring change (some occasionally have had the delusion of technological growth simply stopping at one point), but a large degree of universality is frequently attached to more abstract kinds of social planning.

Some examples of central design are much more concrete than others, but central planning when it involves a particular kind of physical engineering is not the only instance in which central design encounters severe problems. It can also include institutional design. For a long time, it was thought to be sound business strategy to always have a middle-man for many kinds of transactions. With changes in technology, the middle-man has frequently been cut out, and with good reason: he’s no longer needed. Yet what would happen if, in my ideal construction of a society, there were always a middle man between wholesale and retail? What if I claimed that this middle man led to the greatest well-being of my society’s members? Economics would most certainly stand against me.

Institutions are not universal

Despite that, all kinds of social manifestos, utopias, and even national constitutions establish permanent institutions as a feature of the society. It can be a ruling council of Thirteen, a Guardian class, or a president, a 480-member congress, and a 11-member judiciary. They make the mistake of integrating information available at the current time and creating a set of concrete institutions that are to be held as universal, but are not in fact universal. This is symptomatic of a general problem with leftist thought, which is that it is often too concrete-bound in its approach to society. Those contingent concretes – such as the current distribution of income and power in society – are then used as premises from which “universal principles” are derived, like: there’s always the class of the rich and the class of the poor, and the former always oppress the latter. The problem is that those supposedly universal principles only apply in narrowly contingent cases, which makes them not universal (not even considering whether the derivation of those principles is valid). They ignore changing circumstances and technology (never mind all the other fallacies, like the total fabrication of principles of justice, ignorance of actual factors that cause poverty, etc.)

The general empirical principle underlying this is that no mind or group of minds can ever gather, process, and coordinate all of the information necessary to perfectly govern complex human conduct. Even without any normative principles relating to individual autonomy, the idea of governance – especially economic governance – by few over the many is riddled with problems, in theory and as it has been demonstrated in practice. Every economic agent has a delicately unique and complex set of circumstances and preferences, and has direct access to his own set. Supposing that someone trying to make economic decisions for this person was acting totally altruistically (another very generous premise, again as demonstrated in practice), he would require a means of translating that agent’s changing circumstances and preferences (closely related to subjective experiences of pain, pleasure, etc.) into usable information which he then must process to prescribe a course of action which must be then executed correctly. Multiply this process over thousands or millions of people, and there is quite a huge problem. It is wishful thinking already that one person can make decisions for another effectively (people already have enough problems making decisions for themselves), so it must be even more wishful to think that some people can do it for many others, even suspending for a moment the selfish interests of those decision makers.

Only the free market (which is run by, precisely, nobody) is capable of coordinating the largely diffuse information spread among economic agents into forming an optimum output. This is not just an optimum regarding maximal manufacturing output for the lowest possible cost, a common straw man constructed against the free market to paint it as a cutthroat institution of total efficiency. That notion is just a Platonic hangover – as if goods are produced for the goods’ sake – which ignores why those goods are created in the first place: to enhance an individual’s well-being. The free market forms an optimum output with respect to the amount of resources available, and, more importantly, to the totality of the individual preferences of all market participants.

Weaknesses in central planning

Very closely related to the information problem of central planning is pricing or, more broadly, valuation of goods, services, or virtually everything whose control and consumption can be transferred from one individual to another. Valuation by demand is self-defining: what someone is willing to pay for something is what it’s worth. No Platonism necessary, no intrinsicism, just pure empirical fact. In a centrally planned system that prohibits free association, value must be decided; otherwise, there is no meaningful way of allocating produced goods among the members of society. Again, suspending the selfish interests of the appraisers, this leads to bizarre information problems and to the humorous possibility of the “value” contributed by producers exceeding the amount of goods and services available in an economy, resulting in people deserving more than is possible to provide.

Another problem with central planning is, in brief, the actual presence of human beings. Markets can’t be avoided; the free market is all about incentives. Proof in practice of markets is the responsiveness to incentives embedded in human nature, no matter what system prevails. Black markets develop in response to government prohibitions; defying the law becomes a business, where risks are taken but large profits are reaped. In totalitarian systems (especially those with distributive wealth patterns, like in communism) individuals use their positions as or connections with bureaucrats and politicians in order to gain a bigger share of the pie. Even in our purportedly “free” economy in which the government intervenes to harness the “dangers” of the free market, interest groups spend billions of dollars yearly lobbying federal, state, and local governments getting laws passed in their favor to the detriment of others and electing politicians and bureaucrats who use the force of the law to increase business profits.

(Incidentally, the few errant cases in which people’s preferences are static and minimized do not undermine this universality of the human condition, for the reason that incentives can be structured to shun accumulation of material possessions or other conventional measures of well-being. Some tribes have a social value of personal prestige over wealth, and thus individual members will often spend all of their wealth on extravagant feasts for the tribe or on constructing large memorial edifices.)

Up to this point I’ve freely switched back and forth between central institutional design and central planning. Though there is a distinction between the two, they ultimately suffer from the same problems. First, even in a static environment, central design and planning simply lack the coordination of information necessary to achieve anything close to efficiency. Gathering the information is either next to impossible or is so costly to achieve that it defeats the purpose of establishing any institutions in the first place. Then, not only must the institution measure up to the circumstances of the time, it must be resilient and adaptable to the rapidly changing and non-ergodic world. The environment changes. Technology changes. People change. If the institution itself entails an active form of intervention (such as value arbitration, as in Marxism), the central planners constantly face the problem of incomplete and changing information.

Any societal plans that establish hard-and-fixed institutions and that rely on constant governance are prone to disaster, especially when abuse of power is considered. Up to this point, I’ve neglected to address that fact, which is the most important of all: much of the preceding discussion generously takes for granted that those involved in the central planning have no interest but doing their job the best they can. For the most part, that means that I’ve ignored an even more fundamental flaw in central planning. Yet even with that, it still had problems, didn’t it?

The post The Fragility of Socialist Utopias: Some Problems of Central Planning and Rationalist Design appeared first on Rare Essays.

Let’s take a look at some of the philosophy of anti-laissez-faire, particularly in its heyday: just before the first World War. There is little doubt the explosive growth of America’s economy was the result of the great human effort, the application of knowledge to production to create technology and capital, and the vast land and natural resources at its disposal. The framework of classical liberal (in full form, laissez-faire) economics pioneered by Great Britain gave great incentive for this process. A century of liberalism arose from thousands of years before of dysfunctional human civilization, growing the population and standard of living of human beings far larger than ever before in any century.

However, following the Civil War and the Second Industrial Revolution, class divisions had grown and fresh voices bemoaned the supposedly unjust distribution of wealth in society, calling into question the validity of the free market. Though lacking true ideological conformity, changes in attitude toward laissez-faire capitalism[1] since the Founding have been generally defined by any or all of three major shifts: most importantly, the replacement of liberal political rights with economic entitlements; closely connected, a new emphasis on collective instead of individual good; and in effect, the belief in the use of government as a valuable tool for bettering those collectives.

Of course, some important qualifications must be made. Firstly, not all objections made to the state of the nation under capitalism in the late 19^th– and early 20^th– centuries were necessarily at odds with traditional liberal principles. Truly consistent advocates of laissez-faire capitalism such as William Graham Sumner believed that government obstruction of trade unions and other forms of collective bargaining[2], for example, interfered with the individual’s right to freedom of association and self-determination. Broadly speaking, the political environment that permitted wealth to buy power in government was an essential threat to traditional liberty. Furthermore, it would be disingenuous to attempt to collectivize the entire spectrum of objections to liberal society, as they can be vastly different in their moral values, justifications for their principles, and the nature and practical execution of their policies.[3] Overall, the following breakdown is only a brief approximation of the characteristics of those opposed to laissez-faire economics, with a select few of several possible examples.

The Rise of “Economic Freedom” As a Standard of Living

The issues of most profound significance to any attitude toward economic and legal systems are the moral concepts that underlie them. Almost universally, opponents of capitalism believed that wrong-doing necessarily occurred from its implementation, whether in its means or in its ends. Previously, most of an individual’s rights in America were defined by a Lockean theory of natural law. Freedom of contract (and a right to a fulfillment of those contracts) permitted one the ability to freely associate with others economically. However, great disparities in wealth concentration led critics of capitalism to denounce the status quo, which was allegedly caused by the consistent legal enactment of these principles. Factions such as the Populist movement, the Progressive movement, and the Socialist Party of America formed in the antebellum period as a response.[4] The introduction of a new kind of right pervaded these new alternatives to laissez-faire capitalism: the economic freedom.

Karl Marx’s famous maxim, “from each according to his ability, and to each according to his need,” was one widely accepted economic substitute for property rights. Looking Backward (1888), a novel by Edward Bellamy, details a futuristic society that has supplanted competition with economic rights and duties in line with Marx’s axiom. “The reward of any service depended not upon its difficulty, danger or hardship, for throughout the world it seems that the most perilous, severe, and repulsive labor was done by the worst paid classes…,” states Dr. Leete, a knowledgeable member of the society.[5] Indeed, this was not the case in 1887; the natural system of economic rewards resulting from liberal rights is, first and foremost, based on the mutual exchange of desired values, i.e. supply and demand. “Wage slavery” became a popular phrase to describe status of the common laborer. In The Living Wage (1906), John A. Ryan argues that the “American standard of living” is a “natural and absolute right” of citizenship. Though he argued it as a dictum of Christian values, many other leftists embraced a similar belief, and an ends-oriented theory of economic freedom gained popularity. No longer would individual autonomy provided by rights determine one’s economic freedom, but the level of wages would.[6]

Collectivism vs. Individualism

Logically entailed by the change in moral principles was an insistence that the good of the collective trumps the good of the individual. Since the notion of the fairness of market-defined wages was fully rejected, the market was replaced by newly-found social and moral considerations. Henry Demarest Lloyd, one of the foremost antagonists of Social Darwinism, placed great emphasis on collective governance and production. “Our liberties and our wealth are from the people and by the people,” he contends, “and both must be for the people.” His use of “the people” is not merely political euphemism, but imperative: “wealth, like government, is the product of the co-operation of all, and, like government, must be the property of all its creators.”[7]

Historically, a principal element of collectivization derived from stressing the importance of labor, in contrast to the capital-focused Industrial Revolutions of the 1800s. In 1914, Congress announced via the Clayton Act, “The labor of a human being is not a commodity.”[8] There is no better example of American labor-class activism than the writings of Socialist Party figurehead Eugene V. Debs. In Revolutionary Unionism (1905), Debs argues for the unity of the working class and, in Marxist form, condemns the purported separation of the worker from the rightful fruits of his labor. He repudiates the validity and effectiveness of craft unions- usually selective organizations of skilled workers- underscoring that “infinitely greater than [their] loyalty to their craft is their loyalty to the working class as a whole.”[9] He fiercely criticizes the structure that denies the struggling laborer his desires, but fervently protects “the product of [the worker’s] labor, the property of the capitalist.” Then, when the dissatisfied become agitated and unrest begins, the government arrives to silence the menace: “If you… have made more steel than your master can sell, and you are locked out and get hungry, and the soldiers are called out, it is to protect the steel and shoot you who made the steel…”[10] Debs’ arguments reflected common sentiments of outrage toward a society in which a vast majority of people, though they were a necessary part of production, toiled heavily and possessed little while a tiny group reaped gigantic rewards.

A different form of collectivism, nationalism- in the spirit of the times- also was a popular source of ideological opposition to the free market. Similar opinions had already a large presence during the Founding in the form of the Federalist Party and Alexander Hamilton, who argued for state intervention as a means of furthering the nation’s economic goals. Bellamy’s Looking Backward, which cued a short-lived but large nationalist movement, extolled the replacement of self-interest with a higher cause: “Now that industry of whatever sort is no longer self service, but service of the nation, patriotism, passion for humanity, impel the worker as in your day they did the soldier,” says Dr. Leete. Another thinker, Herbert Croly, believed nationalism belonged hand-in-hand with democracy, stating “the first duty of a good democrat would be that of rendering to his country loyal patriotic service.”

The Role of the State in the Capitalist Economy

Government would be the primary tool in executing these policies, with force as the only way to guarantee Americans their social and economic rights. As German sociologist Max Weber explained, “The rise of modern freedom presupposed unique constellations which will never repeat themselves.” These “unique constellations” likely refer to the vast expanses of land and resources in North America, among other contingent facts, which gave rise to the harmony provided by decentralization. Otherwise, freedom must be centrally planned to be had beyond its occurrence through plain luck. Bellamy comments that Americans in the nineteenth century possessed a “galling personal dependence upon others as to the very means of life.”[11] The founder of the American Economic Association, leader of an organization created to battle laissez-faire economics, wrote “we regard the state as an educational and ethical agency whose positive assistance is one of the indispensable conditions of human progress.”[12]

Woodrow Wilson, in fulfillment of many of Herbert Croly’s ideas, advocated a “New Freedom.” In The Meaning of Democracy (1912), he claims that while laissez-faire Jeffersonian ideals furnished “a government of free citizens and of equal opportunity,” the contemporary physical characteristics of the nation were suited to it; families each lived in separate households, employers were closer to their employees, and so forth (arguments very much similar to Weber’s “unique constellations”). Using Glasgow as an example, Wilson draws a metaphorical parallel between the Scottish city’s common hallways in residential buildings being defined as public streets and the “corridors” of large corporations being regulated as part of the public domain. In this, he claims he is fighting against “monopolistic control,” and in turn “fighting for the liberty of every man in America, and fighting for the liberty of American industry.” [13]  Not coincidentally, the Wilson administration heralded the introduction of the discretionary federal income tax through the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913.

Is true capitalism dead?

Clearly, attitudes toward laissez-faire capitalism have turned significantly against it since the Founding. This is not to suggest that there was unanimity over the issue during America’s formative years, but major policy battles accompanied by successful movements have led to aggregate changes in economic viewpoints. The prominent influences of the postbellum period, such as the Progressives, have nearly eradicated belief in the functionality and morality of absolute laissez-faire­ governance. Likewise, the public institutions established in the wake of those movements have furthermore ingrained the permanent, expanded role of government in the national consciousness (euphemistically speaking). Even “right-wing” politicians who profess the values of capitalism take their cues from business interests in exchange for financial and political support. Few candidates can plausibly survive electorally on a genuine non-interventionist policy platform. For America, the unabridged free market is dead.

[1] To clarify, any mention of “capitalism” alone still is referring to unlimited, absolute laissez-faire capitalism with the proper host of necessary political rights. Likewise, “liberal” refers to the host of values associated with it.

[2] This is, obviously, supposing that these trade unions are behaving by legitimate and economic means. In the “Forgotten Man,” Sumner attacks unions which restrict the free flow of labor, by limiting the pool of tradesmen in order to artificially raise wages.

[3] Some thinkers were nationalistic, like Bellamy; others were religious, like Ryan; and so forth.

[4] For space considerations, this analysis will not go past the Wilson administration.

[5] Edward Bellamy. “Looking Backwards.” In American Political Thought, ed. Kenneth Dolbeare and Michael S. Cummings, 293 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004).

[6] Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom, 144 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004.)

[7] Henry Demarest Lloyd. “Revolution: The Evolution of Socialism.” In APT, 304-305.

[8] Foner, 144.

[9] Debs, “Revolutionary Unionism.” In APT, 359.

[10] Eugene V. Debs, “Revolutionary Unionism.” In APT, 355.

[11] Foner, 129.

[12] Foner, 130.

[13] Wilson, Woodrow. “The Meaning of Democracy.” In APT, 393-395.

The post Anti-laissez-faire Ideas since the Founding: 1870-1918 appeared first on Rare Essays.

Rousseau’s distinction between law and decree

The pure-democracy interpretation of Rousseau is likely false after a careful reading of Rousseau. While he may be biased in preference toward a “city-state direct democracy” orientation, that says nothing about his political theory.[1] The proper implication of his position toward representation is that while sovereignty can not be expressed through representatives, not all cases of the existence of “representatives” (in the broad sense of the word) entail a loss of sovereignty. At the center of this more refined interpretation are the specific meanings of the words he uses, marked by the strict difference between law and decree, Sovereign and government, and legislative and executive:

“When, for instance, the people of Athens nominated or displaced its rulers, decreed honors to one, and imposed penalties on another, and, by multitude of particular decrees, exercised all the functions of government indiscriminately, it had in such cases no longer a general will in the strict sense; it was acting no longer as Sovereign, but as magistrate.”[2]

In other words, the Sovereign is to law[3] as the magistrate is to decree. When Rousseau states “very few nations have any laws,”[4] he is not suggesting that few nations have rules and statutes, but that few have a core set of fundamental laws of governance in direct accordance with the general will. Because the general will does not deal in particular objects, laws do not either, and the government’s duties lie in decrees. The Sovereign is the entity that sets the laws, but does not set policy: that is the role of government.[5] Thus, it is not in conflict with Rousseau’s position to elect representatives of the people who determine necessary decrees, such as a formal treaty with another nation or a mandate for the construction of a bridge. In fact, this implies that Rousseau would possibly approve of a constitutional democracy similar to the one in the United States: the Constitution, which was approved via an act of the people’s sovereignty (the Constitutional Conventions), is the body of laws; and the executive, legislative, and judicial branches are tasked with representing the people in the construction of decrees.[6]

Given this account, Rousseau is certainly correct in asserting that sovereignty is not something that can (or should) be “given” to a representative, just as he argues that one cannot (or should not) sell himself into slavery. However, even this revision is in conflict with reality- not in its words, but in its implications. What Rousseau intends to suggest by his argument is that sovereignty, in the construction of laws via the general will, can not be represented. On the contrary, it is indeed possible for a man to exercise sovereignty via a representative, not only at the level of decrees, but also of laws.

The law-decree dichotomy can only take us so far, as it sets simply a difference in statements marked by the semantics of the sentences which they embody. This is because one who decrees must always do it in accordance with laws. Thus, when a decree states “1000 gold pieces shall be levied for the construction of a bridge on the river,” it holds implicitly in it the principles that taxation and expenditure for the construction of such projects are legitimate, in addition to the contingent facts of the bridge’s form or location. Though The Social Contract is not intended to carry any specific prescriptions for laws except those necessary for the general will (individual freedom in nature and Sovereignty), Rousseau acknowledges the existence of objective truths: “what is well and in conformity with order is so by the nature of things and independently of human conventions.”[7] This emphasizes rational thought as being at the forefront in the discovery and exposition of laws and decrees, and sets the critical basis for the remainder of this discussion.

The role of representatives as implicit law-makers

There is a common misconception that “principles” (i.e., laws in terms of this discussion) are a shortened, codified set of statements that are then “applied” to specific situations; however, embodied in a complete expression of these principles are the nuances that apply to particulars. The statement, “one should not kill another,” is not a principle in itself, but merely a brief, sentence-long summary of the principles related to the death of a man at the hands of another. A judge may inquire into a specific case and discover that man A killed man B, but only after B attacked him in an alleyway. He then concludes in the verdict that man A was behaving in self-defense, and thus acted lawfully. Suppose, however, we had more facts about the case: A had fought with B, defeating him and holding him at his mercy, but had killed B anyway. The verdict changes to man A having behaved legitimately in self-defense, but unlawfully in killing his incapacitated enemy in cold blood. Each additional particular fact present in the case, if when added alters or justifies further the verdict, is thus essentially a part of the principles; we could then revise our initial statement to read “one should not kill another, except in self-defense, which is defined as an imminent threat to one’s life.”

Therefore, the purpose of the judge is to ascertain the relevant particulars of a (new) situation and apply them against the principles; yet, in doing this, he is refining and adding to the existing set of laws. It is practically impossible for any body of people, no matter how large or how small, to prescribe the entirety of the set of all relevant lawful principles, any time from the outset to the demise of a society. Furthermore, it is logically impossible for absolutely no form of judgment to be required in observing factual data, ascertaining its characteristics, and matching its correspondence with the abstract law. To one degree or another, all deputies and representatives hired for the purpose of the executive branch of government (as Rousseau defines it) are law-makers in that they must behave lawfully in their positions but do not have prescriptions in totality for the numerous situations their duties encounter. Better said, it is frequently the case that a function of a government results in an exercise of the power of the Sovereign, in some positions more than others (a judge more than a janitor). As such, it is inevitable that the people will elect representatives or deputies who will not only function as executors of law, but as legislators of law. Represented sovereignty is the result, which—by Rousseau’s definitions—makes all men everywhere either slaves if they associate and create government, or subject to pure force in nature if they do not.[8]

Can society use representatives and maintain its sovereignty?

Is the above fact just an unpleasant reality? The necessity that compels a free people to appoint a military commander, a skilled diplomat, or a judicial bench is an understanding of the unequal distribution of talents (a fact which Rousseau acknowledges). The general will can be such that rationally-behaving people, recognizing their limitations, submit the more complex parts of necessary judgments to representatives. It is not only rational, but also well within their rights. If there were an issue of law too complicated for one man to understand and it were beyond him to ever achieve the necessary level of understanding (perhaps because he was too busy working to feed himself), what would be his proper action? Should he cast his vote by chance, or entrust his judgment to another, or neither? The first and last options are clearly irrational, leaving only the second in question, and it is indeed a rational choice. While the man may not understand the issue at hand, he understands that there is a question, that it has a rational and right answer, and that there are others whom he has observed produce the right answer on several occasions and whom he is willing to trust. He is simply integrating the best information he has to make the decision that he expects to generate the most accurate answer, and he is entirely justified and free in doing so.

Granted, if many people possessed understanding of little and did not even understand the notion of sovereignty itself, it would be extremely unlikely for a legitimate state to spring into existence if a state could ever be legitimate. Nonetheless, to suggest that someone who is of weaker rational faculty lacks the fact (or even the right) of sovereignty is absurd. So long as this person understands his own right to freedom (in nature) and his sovereignty, he does not forfeit these rights if he fails to comprehend the answers to necessary higher questions and willingly defers to another. If an educated elite fails to comprehend a higher question, does he then lose his sovereignty? And what if one smarter than him does so as well? The answer is no, because to be sovereign does not mean to possess a complete, correct, and self-determined opinion on all issues, but to possess an independent will which can freely associate and decide on how one should be governed. That Rousseau would have disputed my conclusion is a matter of historical argument; in the end, however, the implications of his statement that a “represented sovereign” is not free must be made clear.

[1]Marini, Frank. Midwest Journal of Political Science, Vol. 11, No. 4. (Nov., 1967), pp. 451-470.

[2] Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. (New York: Dover Publications). p. 20

[3] From this point on, I will use the word “law” in the same sense that Rousseau uses it.

[4] Rousseau, p. 65

[5] Rousseau, p. 37-38

[6] In reality, the U.S. government does a lot of law-making of its own by morphing the meaning of the Constitution when it is convenient, in order to pass previously impassable decrees.

[7] Rousseau, p. 23

[8] Ironically, this conclusion could force Rousseau’s position to accept a direct participation model of democracy, which I just argued was not position taken in The Social Contract.

The post Rousseau on Represented Sovereignty in Democracy appeared first on Rare Essays.

“Democracy” is a very messy word. It is frequently invoked in a political context as the object or ideological source of an action, generally for the reason that in the self-described “modern” world, democracy is the unquestioned political ideal. If what is meant by it is “popular sovereignty,” meaning that individuals must consent to being ruled in a particular fashion, then there is no problem with that proposition. Unfortunately, political concepts must be expressed in language, so it is no surprise that “democracy” suffers from constant use with different definitions, the result often being misunderstanding and abusive equivocation. A proclaimed enemy of democracy is not always evil, as much as an advocate of democracy is not always good. To resolve this problem, the next logical step is to figure out what democracy means, both substantively and morally.

Should we be asking, “how can we best achieve democracy?” or “how can we best use democracy?” A thorough clarification of the word is required prior to any further discussion. Simply defining democracy as “rule by the people” is woefully deficient: it says nothing about what, exactly, the people are ruling. There are two principal questions to ask of government, and thus two senses in which “democracy” can be used: what kinds of decisions must a government make, and how are those decisions to be made? Some definitions of democracy primarily refer to the former, holding that democracy is rule by the people over all things; some only describe the latter, imagining democracy as a process by which some conception of the good is achieved; and others describe a mix of both. To simplify discussion greatly, “democracy” will be treated as a factual set of procedural conditions, namely equal voting rights and majoritarian or pluralistic rule of any kind; reference to democracy as an intrinsic good will be labeled “normative democracy.”

With that in mind, the place of democracy in the world can be considered. In itself, democracy can not be good because there is no valid justification for such a claim. Similarly, government in general is merely a means to an end: the assurance of individual rights.[1] Democracy is one possible instrument by which the good government can be achieved, that has demonstrated itself to be effective in part; in no way, however, it is a necessary or sufficient condition for that achievement.

First, we must examine what holding democracy as an end in itself entails. If democracy is defined as a process or structure that meets certain conditions, then the essential claim is that no matter what the outcome of that process is, it is good so long as the process was conducted fairly (i.e. in accordance with democracy, which is intrinsically good). The first possible case of doing so, which is holding that there is a universal and timeless good in the procedural form of democracy, is the philosophical equivalent of believing that the consumption of cheese is a universal and timeless good. How a good of this kind can possibly be justified or metaethically described fundamentally boils down to some form of mysticism, an extremely uninteresting field of study (if studying is even the appropriate activity).[2]

The second case of intrinsically valuable democracy is one that supervenes on assumptions about the nature of humans and reality that lead to their respective moral conclusions. Primarily, the belief in the existence of a collective entity justifies believing that such an entity can possess properties like “preference” and “goodness.” Individuals are then beholden to this collective entity. Under this view, the repeated applications of democratic processes are the means by which individuals communicate their preferences, which are then aggregated into the collective preference, whose satisfaction constitutes the good. Under this conception, political activity is not just a means to an end, but an end in itself, because it realizes the intrinsic principles essential to society.

Some thinkers have taken the normative democratic approach. A “direct democracy” interpretation of Rousseau can be construed as holding democracy as an end in itself. He states, “… whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free…”[3] In other words, to be free is to abide by the general will. Part of following the general will comes in society finding it, through the ideal means of doing so: the full participation of the sovereign.[4] Rousseau’s belief in the importance of this democratic process being untainted by a voter’s “particular will” (self-interest) is reinforced by his belief that economic, social, and political classes must be eliminated in order to prevent conflicts of interest that inhibit the proper discovery of the general will. The society must also take measures such as censorship and the establishment of a civil religion in order to “socialize” its people, leading them to identify closely with their society, and thus the general will.

More generally speaking, how democracy attains its authoritativeness may explain its moral attractiveness. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville explains how circumstances in America had led to the majority becoming “not only preponderant, but irresistible”:

The moral authority of the majority is partly based upon the notion, that there is more intelligence and wisdom in a number of men united than in a single individual, and that the number of legislators is more important than their quality. The theory of equality is thus applied to the intellects of men… Like all other powers… the authority of the many requires the sanction of time in order to appear legitimate.[5]

This argument for majoritarian rule is inherently informational, referring to the positive productive relationship between majorities and correct conclusions about the good. It assumes intellectual equivalence, a concept then extended by quantitative aggregation into conclusive superiority in numbers. Going further, Tocqueville cites another intuitive facet of democracy: “the moral power of the majority is founded upon yet another principle, which is, that the interests of the many are to be preferred to those of the few.”[6] In the same regard as the second, it assumes a substantive equality of interests which can be aggregated.

One possible function of democracy could be to find some proper course of collective action which takes into account equally the preferences of every voter, aggregating them into one “social preference.” The case for democracy seems to be made simply enough. However, this approach encounters problems predicating on the intuitive characteristics of democracy as described by Tocqueville. One on hand, the assumption of equality in intelligence is clearly flawed, and experience clearly shows that majorities are not always correct in matters of fact, even through time (e.g., the insistent disbelief of many Americans in evolution). On the other hand, the belief that the interests of the majority are more valuable is a concept with very narrow truth that has been extrapolated to encompass all things; the flaw, once again, lies in a broad assumption of “equality of interests.”

Except for the cases where the good of democracy is self-defining, there is nothing about democracy that guarantees the fulfillment of any conception of the good, much less that of individual rights. In the observant words of E.B. White, “democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.” Indeed, there is no logical necessity linking “fair” democratic processes with “good” outcomes. One need only imagine a dictator ordering that all members of a certain ethnic group be killed, and then imagine a democratic assembly doing the same. On average, majoritarian rule may perform better, because power is decentralized across many individuals with diverse interests, but there is little to stop factions from forming to the detriment of the minority.

In contrast to de Tocqueville’s account, Cass Sunstein would argue against time-endorsed majorities as bearing moral authority. His book, Why Societies Need Dissent, discusses the pitfalls caused by conformity in all settings, as well as why it happens: “for each of us, conformity is often a sensible course of action… one reason we conform is that we often lack much information of our own, and the decisions of others provide the best information we can get.”[7] The initial presence of a vigorous and significant group of persons advocating a certain position may begin a self-perpetuating cycle of conformity. Thus, the long-standing opinions of the group are likely not to be based on any intellectual merit, but simply by social pressures.

Furthermore, the idea of “one man, one vote” (i.e. equality of interests) can not be reasonably separated from the arena of issues upon which that vote has an effect. It is the abstraction of certain qualities from an individual that gives him the right of participation in the democratic process. However, these qualities relate specifically to what rights the individual forfeits upon choosing to enter civil society. A man, for example, will forfeit his right to use unlimited violence at his own discretion, and subject it to the democratic process. The belief in total majoritarian rule would imply that minorities would have consented to control by the democratic process over all things, such as property. No individual, such as a very talented and innovative person, would consent to rule by society over the totality of his holdings (this being a complete losing proposition for him). Moreover, no force or right of nature could require him to comply with the majoritarian wishes of humanity. Therefore, the idea that the interests of each other individual with regard to his property are equal, summed together, and held against him righteously is pure fiction.[8]

Democracy does not inevitably achieve the ends of individual rights. It may happen to be that in an anarchic state of nature, a group of persons in proximity choose to never initiate violence. Likewise, it is possible that a dictator may opt to respect individual rights.

Finding the correct political system does not depend on some predetermined plan or construction, but in experience. The key to fulfilling the protection of individual liberty lies not necessarily in “democracy” of a particular sort, but in some of its abstract components. For one, individuals must have some kind of input of their beliefs and preferences into how they will be governed in order for that governance to be effective. The manifestation of this input, however, can vary widely depending on the circumstances. Beyond the discovery of the foundational principles of governance is their implementation. The reality we live in is one of scarce resources, and our nature is one of fallibility. Choices about how to enforce laws is subject to judgments of what possible actions best realize those principles. In a small, walled city-state, a convention of all citizens at some central location can be an effective way of translating each person’s individual preferences into a city-wide policy. In a massive country like the United States, this is impossible, yet at the same time decisions involving the entire country must still be made- even if this entails a lack of direct democratic participation.

In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill reflects this sentiment. Though Mill is a utilitarian- and thus considers the individual rights compromisable in the rare situation where doing so leads to the greatest happiness- he holds a similar line of thought: social institutions exist to fulfill the good (in his case, the greatest happiness principle), and thus they need to be adapted to the context in which they operate.[9] Democracy as some predetermined or fixed form of institution is unlikely to maximally attain individual rights; it is variations on it and intermixing its processes with institutional structures to check abuses of its power that achieve good government.

One hypothetical situation gives insight into the true role of democracy. Suppose there were a “machine of goodness” built by a reputable and objective scientist, into which some conception of the good and information about contemporary circumstances (such as the amount of available resources, what kinds of problems are common, etc.) were programmed. The output of the machine would be the ideal arrangement of those resources to fulfill that good. Would anyone choose democracy as a choice process over that machine? When there is a negative conception of the good as is the case with individual rights, the function of democracy is to assure that rights are best respected by allowing the input of many individuals in the context of resource scarcity and limited information. Its theoretical purpose, however, is not to be an excuse for individuals to manifest their subjective preferences in government. Democracy as an end in itself is, at its best, a stolen concept.

[1] I do not intend to set out and prove individual rights, but at least use them as imperatives by which government must operate.

[2] A detailed explanation of why intrinsic values as the ones mentioned are nonsense can be found in “The Subjectivity of Values” in J.L. Mackie’s book, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong.

[3] Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On the Social Contract: Book I. http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon_01.htm (Accessed April 23, 2007)

[4] Of course, Rousseau could be interpreted otherwise, as perhaps holding the general will as the conception of the good which does not necessarily have to be found via democracy.

[5] Tocqueville, p. 112

[6] Ib. at 112-113

[7] Sunstein, p. 5

[8] This is a quick and dirty assessment of why majority rule over everything makes no sense when combined with individual sovereignty.

[9] Mill, p. 262

The post Is Democracy an End in Itself? appeared first on Rare Essays.

Book I: the origin of political authority and the social contract

In Book I, Rousseau begins his exploration of politics by pondering the source of the legitimacy of political authority. He rejects that its source is found in nature, because such a position implies the inherent natural superiority of the rulers over the ruled, though the superiority that may exist is only sustained by force. In turn, he argues that force is not the basis for legitimacy either: the idea that “might makes right” is nonsensical because it can not imply that the less strong “ought” to follow the stronger, since who is stronger is always determined by who triumphs. There would be no political authority since those who can do, will do. Instead, legitimate political authority is based on a kind of “social contract” created between society’s members. Unlike the argument of Grotius, which proposed a kind of covenant between king and people based on “a right to slavery,” one’s freedom can never be surrendered in a fair exchange. Furthermore once freedom is surrendered, then all rights are forfeited which eliminate any demand for something in return.

Why should such a contract ever be necessary? In short, there comes a point in the state of nature at which society must be formed in order for mankind to survive. The social contract’s purpose is to resolve the problem of how to bind people to each other without infringing upon their freedom, and it does this by requiring the unconditional surrender of the individual’s freedom to the whole community. The important implications of this definition are that the contract will impose the same conditions for all, creating no interest for one person making the conditions difficult for others; there will be no rights that remain that stand in opposition to the state, because the contract is formed unconditionally; and finally, because each person enters the contract on equal terms, no person loses their natural freedom. The ultimate reduction of the social contract can be described thus: “Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”[1] The new entity, the whole, that is formed as a result of this contract comes to be known as the “Republic” or “body politic,” or, depending on the context, the State, the Sovereign, or the Power. Those who formed the contract come to be collectively known as the people; when sharing in the sovereign power, citizens; and in being under the laws of the state, subjects. The contrast between nature and civil society is important here: though in joining the contract we lose the physical freedom to act upon our personal appetites, we gain liberty via the limitations of reason and the general will being placed upon our behaviors.

Book II: Rousseau’s view on law

In book II, Rousseau’s conception of the state begins with the idea that society functions in correspondence to the interests that people hold in common. Hence, the ultimate end of any state is “the common good.” Acting on the general will expressed by the Sovereign is the only way to achieve this common good. Incidentally, the general will can never coincide with a particular will.

The expression of the general will ultimately takes the shape of law. Law must be made by the people as a whole (i.e. made by the sovereign) and applicable to the whole. But how can the people, especially a large number of them, jointly create a set of laws? Rousseau proposes the lawgiver: an intelligent and selfless individual who will create laws in an unbiased fashion, who lies outside the authority of the Sovereign. However, Rousseau himself admits that “Gods would be needed to give men laws.” Furthermore, what will compel people to follow the laws? Besides textbook coercion, such as the death penalty for those who break the law and thus break the social contract, Rousseau suggests that an appeal to the supernatural origins of laws (much as Moses claimed that the Ten Commandments were given by God) is one way of convincing men to follow them.

The end of Book II consists of Rousseau’s exploration of the kinds of circumstances under which law is most effectively made, specifically in reference to the people for whom the law is to be made, and the nature of those laws. For example, he explains that states are ideally small-to-medium-sized: small enough to be effectively manageable, but large enough so as not to be overrun by neighboring states. The creation and implementation of laws must be timed perfectly, as a people may not yet be ready to be guided, or may have become prejudiced and resistant to the positive changes brought about by good laws. Also, the state in which laws are being established must be in a condition of at least relative peace and plenty, because of the temporary vulnerability and instability caused by a period of laws being implemented.

The goal of any system of law is reducible to two ends: liberty and equality. Here (chapter 11), equality is understood to mean not the complete absence of differences in wealth, but the absence of such differences that would damage the balance of citizens in the state: “but that power shall never be great enough for violence, and shall always be exercised by virtue of rank and law; and that, in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself.” Overall, the general criteria for how laws ought to be made depend on circumstances that differ from people to people and place to place.

Book III: Rousseau’s view on government

At the beginning of Book III, Rousseau explains the executive powers of government in terms of will and strength:

Every free action is produced by the concurrence of two causes; one moral, i.e., the will which determines the act; the other physical, i.e., the power which executes it… The body politic has the same motive powers; here too force and will are distinguished, will under the name of legislative power and force under that of executive power.[2]

The government is, importantly, to be distinguished from the Sovereign; in fact, confusion of the two is dangerous. The government deals with particulars (decrees) while the sovereign deals with the general (laws). Somewhat similar to the contract in Hobbes, the government itself is not a party to the social contract; somewhat different from Hobbes, this is because the government is an intermediary body that is created by the general will and can be freely disbanded by the general will.

As to possible forms of government, there are three primary kinds: democracy, when all or almost all the citizens are magistrates; aristocracy, where less than half are magistrates; and monarchy, where few or one are magistrates. However, there is not one universally superior form of government. In the previous chapter, Rousseau notes that the larger the population of a state, the fewer magistrates there should be. Hence, large states are best suited to monarchy, medium to aristocracy, and small to democracy. Though he personally preferred democracy, Rousseau expresses ambivalence toward democracy as well as monarchy. While he explains his concerns about monarchy’s dangerous efficiency and potential for corruption, he also claims, “there has never been a true democracy, and there never will be.” Only small states with simple and unambitious citizens could remain stable under democratic rule. Overall, though simpler forms of government are preferable to Rousseau, he suggests that mixing forms of government may dissipate the powers of the government relative to the Sovereign.

The Sovereign can maintain itself by meeting in periodic assemblies. Though an impractical demand on the face of it, ancient cities such as Rome managed to do it to some degree. The assemblies are critical because within them, all citizens are as powerful as the magistrates. Because of this, the government may take actions to dissuade such assemblies, which over time may erode the freedom and authority of the Sovereign. At this juncture, Rousseau makes sure to point out that sovereignty can not be represented: “…The moment a people allows itself to be represented, it is no longer free: it no longer exists.”

As part of a set of entailments of the general will, the latter half of Book IV expresses some specific ideas Rousseau has about the state. In some cases, dictatorship is necessary to avert the collapse the state, though the dictator does not represent the people or the laws; the dictator only acts in accordance with the general will so long as the avoiding the collapse of the state is in it. The establishment of a censor’s office is also put forward, as the vanguard of public opinion. Because public opinion is connected to public morality and virtue, and those are connected to law, the censor’s office upholds the laws by influencing public opinion.  Finally, Rousseau recommends that people be free to pursue religion as they please so long as it does not conflict with public interest, but also recommends that they be required to adhere to a civil religion with essential qualities: belief in the existence of a just god, belief in the afterlife, faith in the sanctity of the social contract and its laws, and emphasis on tolerance to reduce civil strife.

The post Summary and Critique of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract appeared first on Rare Essays.

According to Aristotle in his prior publication, Nicomachean Ethics, happiness in lifestyle far surpasses the simple explanation of a contented emotion, but however, rely much more on success and fulfillment in the political world, thus necessitating involvement governmental affairs to the happiness of every free man.  In modern society, most would consider happiness as coming from physical pleasure or honor, but as Aristotle insists, this is only due to an imperfect view of the good life.  Predominantly, the concept of Greek happiness, which a flourishing life entails, is a much more public matter than how it is viewed by twentieth century philosophers.  In ancient times more so than now, a Greek individual’s identity was extremely closely linked to the city-state to which he belonged to; thus, happiness was closely connected to the success and fulfillment achieved during public service.  Moreover, happiness was not viewed as an emotion in the private sector, but more importantly a reflection of a person’s position within a city-state.  Additionally, Nicomachean Ethics discusses the belief that because everything in nature exists for a specific purpose, the end goal of human existence (the specific purpose of human life) is happiness.  Aristotle acknowledges a contrast between the means of attainment and the ends, ultimately happiness, of attainment.  He states that men pursue happiness and rational activity for the sake of enjoyment, where as they will seek out wealth and health simply because they feel these acquisitions will bring them happiness.  He will go on later to define this determination by stating, “…there are three groups – external good [wealth, reputation] , goods of the body [health, sensual pleasure], and goods of the soul [wisdom, virtue] – surely no one would raise a dispute and say that not all of them need be possessed by those who are blessedly happy.” (191).  However, Aristotle places more importance upon the goods of the soul, since they are the ends themselves and the former types of good are the means at which acquiring the latter. Following up on this idea, Politics examines how to best secure these ends of happiness for the citizens of a city-state, which predominantly involved political activity, beginning with the construction of a community. 

To begin the quest for obtaining a flourishing life, one first established a community in which to become actively involved, known in ancient Greek terminology as a poleis or city-state.  The interests of the city-state and its citizens were one and the same, both to attain happiness in affairs, and therefore, conflict between individual liberties and the laws of the city did not often occur.  As Aristotle expresses in his opening statements, “every community is established for the sake of some good (for everyone performs every action for the sake of what he takes to be good).” (1), and as our author views it, one cannot lead a happy life without community engagement, as an individual will not fully realize the nature of their political being separated from the city-state.  In asserting that man fails to fulfill his ultimate purpose when he disconnects from the state, Aristotle argues that life has no value outside the walls of a city-state.

The formation of a community is a natural phenomenon based on the principles of rational speech, reproduction, education, and religion.  Once human beings were able to develop a language, they had a strong desire to interact with one another, and thus social groups and later political entities were founded.  These assertions are echoed by Aristotle in saying, “Those who cannot exist without each other necessarily form a couple as [1] female and male do for the sake of procreation, [2] as a natural ruler and what is naturally ruled for the sake of survival.” (2).  An organized system of reproduction to best ensure the success of offspring needed to be devised in this ancient Greek society, as Aristotle constructs, determining that women should not be married until they are eighteen years of age and men should not be wed to these women until they have reached their thirty-sixth birthday.  In modern times, a marriage license is required to surpass the problems that ancient Greek citizens had to enact laws to overcome, such as the marriage between cousins and a proper age to marry.  Education, and even determining what subjects should be taught, also needed to be a collective endeavor.  He believed that the city’s educational system will largely forecast the character of its future citizens and therefore asserts that it is preferable to enroll children in public education over private tutoring.  A fundamental aspect of the state governments of the United States is just the topic, and overall, to every society, education is determined to be a very crucial political concern.  Men also need leisurely activities, such as sports and music, to live to the fullest, and thus, for the sake of a flourishing life, it is ideal for humans to live in groups with common interests.  As Aristotle puts it, “For it is by seeking happiness in different ways and by different means that individual groups of people create different ways of life and different constitutions.” (204).  In the creation of a city-state, Aristotle comments that all citizens should know each other and that the population should be “surveyable”, to reinforce the common aims of the community.  Standardized religious practices and the public construction of temples in the worship of Gods were also public domain, as it would be nearly impossible for every citizen to have access to the proper altars and temples without publicly funded religious sites.  In all these social aspects of life, reproduction, leisure activities, education, and religion, a functioning government must be held responsible and therefore, a community was formed to distribute money and duties across its populace.

Before an individual can become active in a political life, and thus achieve the all-important definition of happiness as described by the Greeks, one first must determine who should be given access to the government in terms of a social hierarchy.  When deciding who should take part in political affairs, the author clearly separates the people who are necessary to the city, including slaves, and those who are essential members of the city.  Aristotle is not concerned with giving every individual the access to the operations of the government because he does not consider their input to be valuable, rationale for excluding slaves.  Slaves, he insists, are like property, and therefore, cannot comprise a city.  He cites a fundamental difference in slaves and freemen in governmental affairs in saying, “For ruling and being ruled are not only necessary, they are also beneficial, and some things are distinguished right from birth, some suited to rule and others to being ruled.” (7).   Only freeborn citizens have the capacity to become leaders because only they would have the time to pursue education and leisure activities, and thus be well rounded and knowledgeable for government involvement.  Our political theorist also makes distinctions along the lines of origin and age in stating, “Nor is a citizen a citizen through residing in a place, for resident aliens and slaves share the dwelling place of him…like minors who are too young to be enrolled in the citizen list or old people who have been excused from their civic duties, they must be said to be citizens of a sort, but not unqualified citizens.” (65).  Similar are the requirements in the United States to either naturalized if not born in this country and to eighteen years of age to participate in elections.  By setting parameters for which individuals can participate in politics, Aristotle attempts to preserve what he believes a qualified social ranking of free men.

Aristotle concludes that the goal of the community as a whole is to achieve as much unity as feasibly possible, and thereby, protecting the interests of all citizens; however, Aristotle maintains that different people must make different contributions, fulfill different roles, and fit into distinct social classes to ensure that the city-state will be self-sufficient.  Class division is important in maintaining a proper social order, but there seems to be a place for each free class in government participation, whether it be through leadership or simply voicing an opinion.  Certain of this principle, he states, “A city-state is excellent, however, because the citizens who participate in the constitution are excellent; and in our city-state all the citizens participate in the constitution.” (213).  Aristotle suggests that the middle class is most vested in the success of a political entity in stressing that it is the least susceptible to factionalism, self-interest, and hatred of other classes.  Both the rich and the poor, on the other hand, are more likely to conceive of justice and equality selfishly.  He declares that a population of farmers would make for the best democracy, as they must work hard and are well spread apart, preventing the group as a whole from spending too much time involved with governmental affairs.  Alternatively, he proposes that the population least conducive to democracy would be made up of mechanics, shopkeepers, and laborers because they are crowded within the inner city, and therefore could take an active role in politics leading to mob rule and violent overthrows.  By involving all classes in the political system, Aristotle nearly achieves the prospect of a flourishing life, centered upon happiness in political participation, for every group of natural-born free men.

Once the standards of citizenship have been determined, it is next necessary to determine how a government should be operated and maintained in order to maximize the number of individuals who can become involved.  Aristotle suggests that a governing body must include all citizens and govern in the common interest, and that the laws be well constituted and directed toward the general good.  Contrasting many political philosophers of his day, our author insists that a collective populace is wiser than an individual expert and an overall better judge as to whether people are being well-governed.  In descriptions of each practical type of government, Aristotle concludes, “For tyranny is rule by one person for the benefit of the monarch, oligarchy is for the benefit of the rich, and democracy is for the benefit of the poor.  But none is for their common profit.” (78).  In an oligarchy, influential and high standing offices should be reserved for the wealthy, yet the poor should still be able to hold infer employment in the functioning of the government.  Additionally, wealthy officers are obligated, in this system, to perform significant public service in order to hold office, thus deemed worthy of leadership by the poor.  Civic government consists of three main elements: the deliberative, the executive, and the judicial.  The deliberative elements involve public matters such as foreign policy, enacting laws, judicial cases in which a severe penalty is involved, and the appointment of public officials.  The executive branch of Aristotle’s government holds public order and takes responsibility for governing and issuing commands.  Finally, the judicial element passes rulings on matters of private and public interest.  Aristotle recommends that the ruling party always be wary of lawlessness, never try to deceive the masses, treat everybody well and fairly, especially those outside the constitution, cultivate a state of emergency so that people will not attempt a revolt, prevent in-fighting between nobles, ensure that property qualification for office remains proportionate to the wealth of the city, be careful not to confer great promotions or significant withdrawals of honor too suddenly, be wary of a class that is on the rise, and give power to the opposing class or the middle class, prevent public office from becoming a source of profit, and offer special consideration to the rich in a democracy and to the poor in an oligarchy.  In all aspects of the prescribed varieties of government that Aristotle examines, the focus and motive remain the same: to create a political entity that will best suit individual citizens for a flourishing life.

In relating the ideas posed by Aristotle to the modern definitions of government in the United States, many political issues and dilemmas come to mind that obstruct such a flourishing life.  As Aristotle suggested, “Nowadays, however, because of the profits to be had from public funds and office, people want to be in office continuously, as if they were sick and would be cured by being in office.” (77).  This has become increasingly so in the maturation of our nation as well, while congressmen and presidents fight to stay in office for as many terms as possible to ensure the push of their political agenda, often influenced by interested groups and top campaign contributors.  Another problematic situation that the U.S. government has encountered since the birth of our nation is the decrease in individual participation in government.  In ancient times, all citizens were required to contribute in some way to the government.  Assemblies of citizens made decisions in governmental bodies that were similar to the law courts and city councils that few Americans take part in today.  In ancient Greece, these lawmaking assemblies would rotate membership to ensure that every citizen could serve a term, however, the only institution which mirrors this rotation in modern day is jury duty.  Without required participation in the government, many individuals in society wish to seek no part in it, and therefore, do not fulfill their civic duty or live in the criteria of happiness Aristotle maintains is essential. 

Aristotle advocates a lifestyle involving political activism as a means of achieving a happy and flourishing life, by first detailing the necessity of establishing a community, defining a social hierarchy, and instituting a governing body in which every free man should take part.  In arguing the need for politics in an individual’s well-being, he pronounces, “Some people think that ruling over one’s neighbors like a master involves one of the greatest injustices, and that rule of a statesman, though it involves no injustice, does involve impediment to one’s own well-being.  Others think almost the opposite, they say that an active political life is the only one for a man, since the actions expressing each of the virtues are no more available to private individuals than to those engaged in communal affairs and politics (194).  Political bodies make education, leisure, organized religion, and marriage possible, many of which compromised ancient issues reflected in modern dilemmas.  Without politics, possible chaos and obviously a decreased level of interaction and social harmony would occur; therefore, it is in the best interest of the community and of the individual, to partake in government. 

The post Aristotle on the Flourishing Life in Politics and Nichomachean Ethics appeared first on Rare Essays.

Hobbes on the State of Nature

Firstly, Hobbes’s moral philosophy is specifically egoistic. While many of his statements point to his being a psychological egoist, much of what he says implies that he is, in fact, an ethical egoist: he believes that we ought to do what is in our individual self-interest. Namely, he suggests that humans are frequently short-sighted in their decisions, self-deceptive about their motives (e.g. altruism), and otherwise unreliable in rationally determining actions in their interests. Generally speaking, while we always act in our self-interest, we do not always act in a way that fulfills it best (though we ought to).[1]

According to Hobbes, the state of nature is defined by the absence of authority (except that of a mother over her child). All men are more or less equal. Though some may be stronger or smarter than others, each man is always susceptible to being killed by others, whether by deception, by others in unison, etc.[2] Because men are egoistic and will do whatever is in their interest, this pits mankind in a perpetual state of war of “all against all.”

He argues that peaceful cooperation is impossible without the power of an umbrella of absolute authority, for three general reasons: first, we will compete violently for subsistence or other material desires; second, we will live fearfully and challenge others in order to ensure our personal safety; and finally, we will seek reputation, by violence primarily, to ward others off from challenging us.[3] With no guarantor of security, “the wickedness of bad men also compels good men to have recourse, for their own protection, to the virtues of war, which are violence and fraud,”[4] ensuring the constant perpetuation of war.

In the state of nature, man has “a right to all things,” which is an implicit basis for the rest of Hobbes’s argument for the moral rightness of an absolute sovereign. He derives this right from the understanding that all humans seek self-preservation and are not only entitled to it, but to be the judges of what it entails. Given that, Hobbes states, “…this also is consequent: that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place [in the state of nature].”[5]

Hobbes’ concept of the Sovereign

From these suppositions and observations about human nature, Hobbes invariably concludes the requirement of an absolute sovereign. In accordance with egoism, we ought to avoid the state of nature because doing so is prudently avoiding violent death. In turn, the only thing that can allow humans to avoid the state of nature is an unlimited sovereign. Hobbes’s first “law of nature” states, “every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it, and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war.”[6] Hobbes’s second law states:

“That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things, and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.” [7]

These two laws are the bridges Hobbes builds to close the gap between the state of nature and civil society. Because man should endeavor peace, and because the antithesis of peace is man exercising his right to all things (i.e. war in the state of nature), man must sacrifice this right for others to do the same. This specifically includes the right of judgment, which is then transferred to the sovereign. The result is a government with absolute power, as the only rightful judge of any dispute. If the government’s power is not absolute, then a state of war persists because the government does not possess all the means to stop it.

Critique of Hobbes’ Sovereign

Hobbes’s explanation for the formation of civil society is troublesome, at best. The covenant (or contract) that Hobbes suggests for the empowerment of an absolute unlimited has numerous difficulties in being both plausible and consistent. When the sovereign fails to protect life, the duty of obedience lapses, but that leaves unanswered the question of what one’s obligations are during civil war. Hobbes tries to remedy this problem by placing emphasis on promise-keeping as having moral value, yet a civil war (the breakdown of government’s control) represents a lapse into the state of nature, in which there are no obligations, and a paradox in Hobbes’ thought arises. The only consistent solution is for the people to obey whoever possesses the supreme force. Also, the covenant meets difficulties when applied to those born into existing governments, to which Hobbes objects that those who did not explicitly consent to the covenant are at least responsible for it implicitly, because it is in their self-interest to do so. However, this is really an objection of prudence and can be disputed by any amount of evidence to the contrary. Overall, the contract produced by Hobbes is hardly genuine.

Furthermore, Hobbes’s account of human nature and rights leaves much to be desired. From positing a hypothetical state of nature, he semi-sensibly concludes that in such a state, each individual has a “right to all things.” However, he incorrectly uses this single hypothetical state as the moral barometer with which he judges everything else. In other words, he fails to acknowledge any human-based moral truths that are broader than the “right to all” found in his hypothetical state of nature. Internally, this may pose no problem for the traditional mechanistic, psychological egoist Hobbes: there is no use for morality if the world is determined, and rights are determined by what one can and can not do; liberty, as he says, is freedom of motion. Thus, the right of man would be to assure his freedom of motion by any means possible, which (when unregulated) results in the destructive state of nature, and so forth.

However, for a reading of Hobbes that allows for moral error, it is precisely because the state of nature is so chaotic, dangerous, and unpredictable that humans cannot be expected to choose the “high road” while their primary concern, their own preservation, is in direct danger. The upshot is that the “high road”[8] exists, and there is no reason why it can not be taken under different circumstances. Though he provides a very compelling scientific-deductive argument for the state of nature as it results from human inclinations (to be selfish, aggressive, vainglorious, etc.), Hobbes too rapidly concludes that egoistic behavior always results in a dangerous state of nature. Egoists behaving rationally can recognize that, for example, the breaking of a contract may be a plausible enterprise now, but it results in the inability to construct contracts later because of a reputation effect. They can recognize that force is not a value- it can only be used to confiscate values which can only be made by production (a rational process) – and that a world of force is a hungry and poor one, with little incentive to change. They may, as in Locke, recognize rationally that committing an act of force to rule another essentially subjects them to a forfeiture of their own rights. Many present and past societies such as those in the United States have shown that the combination of minimal government and egoistic individuals, forming what would be according to Hobbes a state of nature, have coexisted peacefully and produced much “commodious living.” Therefore, the greatest good for the egoist individual does not invariably reside in consent to absolute governance, as Hobbes would insist.

The post Locke vs. Hobbes on the Social Contract, Nature, and Civil Society appeared first on Rare Essays.

Changes in attitude toward laissez-faire capitalism historically have been generally defined by any or all of three major shifts: most importantly, the replacement of liberal political rights with economic entitlements; closely connected, a new emphasis on collective instead of individual good; and in effect, the belief in the use of organized coercion (government) as a valuable tool for bettering those collectives. Two contemporary thinkers, John Rawls and Robert Nozick, brought the debate about the role of government in a wealthy liberal democracy (such as ours) back to the philosophical forefront, asking the essential question: if they should at all, for what reasons should government be able to interfere with the market, beyond protecting its citizens from violence and fraud?[1] On one side, Rawls’ Theory of Justice attempts to justify a broader scope of government powers by appealing to a Kant-esque “original position,” in which agents must decide on principles of justice irrespective of what their physical position will actually be in the world. On the other, Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia sets out to construct a consistent account of the ideal libertarian state, and in the process reject Rawls’ arguments.[2] There is strong evidence- both in Nozick’s writings and elsewhere- that the position delineated in A Theory of Justice is a flawed justification for the liberal welfare state.

Rawls on Government

Though the focus of this paper is on government’s role as a redistributor of wealth, a holistic understanding of Rawls’ account of government is essential to understanding his position on redistribution. His primary concern in exploring social justice is what rights and duties members of a society must have in its institutions, and in turn how the benefits (and burdens) of social cooperation should be distributed. He argues from two principles of justice: the equality principle and the difference principle. The former prescribes that each individual must possess the same level of liberty as each other individual, and the latter prescribes that social and economic inequalities should be rectified for the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. These are ordered by priority; the institutions of the first can not be surpassed by “greater social and economic advantages.” Rawls defines these two principles are part of a larger, more general conception of social values:  “all social values – liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect – are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to everyone’s advantage.” One essential implication in this statement is that institutionally, the course of action we should take (as constrained by the equality principle) is an empirical question. If general property rights, freedom of association, and other facets of laissez-faire capitalism most frequently lead to material inequality compared to centrally planned production, yet produce a level of output that makes everyone better off, then they ought to be instituted.

Rawls’ idea of justice through the original position

He arrives at his principles of justice by creating a thought experiment, the “original position,” from which he derives his notion of “justice as fairness.” Before doing so, he establishes two primary premises. The first is a constraint of social unity; the freedom and equality of citizens must be respected. The second pertains to the fact that there always exists a plurality of conceptions of the good; these include one’s fundamental beliefs, values, projects, personal loyalties, and so forth. Because of these underlying necessities, Rawls holds a contractualist position in order to create a theory of justice which does not depend on any of those conceptions, but one with which free and equal citizens could be expected to reasonably agree. The establishment of a contract (a consensual agreement) would be the only way of respecting the autonomy of individuals totally, while at the same time providing a framework for universal governance. For a simple example, a comprehensive moral doctrine such as utilitarianism (“always act in such a way that leads to the greatest happiness”) would not, in Rawls’ view, be used as a starting point from which societal institutions would be designed, because one can always reasonably disagree with such a doctrine. Instead, the principles of justice would be determined by the hypothetical rational agreement in what Rawls argues to be the fair conditions of the original position (hence “justice as fairness”).

The original position has several necessary characteristics to achieve Rawls’ conclusions about justice. Firstly, he defines the participants, positing rational agents, who, in the negotiation, seek the guarantee of rights and resources to pursue their individual conceptions of the good, reflect on them and change them, and apply them. These assumptions are responsible for traditional liberal institutions (rights) of “freedom of conscience”: freedom of speech, press, religion, etc. Likewise, they are partially explanatory of common, universally accessible public resources: free primary schooling, public libraries, universities, etc. Secondly, he delineates the critical constraints: the finality of the contract, and most importantly, the “veil of ignorance.” Those participating in the original position have no knowledge of what their natural endowment, their place in society, or their conception of the good will be, but they will have general knowledge of how the world works and expect moderate scarcity of resources. The purpose of the veil of ignorance is to prevent these self-interested agents from supporting principles of justice that are biased in favor of their characteristics, instead forcing them to adopt universalizable principles. They will not know who they will be when they enter society (rich or poor, utilitarian or Kantian, etc.), and thus any preferential policy which they advocate in the original position is equally likely (from their perspective) to be to their benefit as their detriment.

Rawls on Wealth Redistribution

This leads to Rawls’ position on wealth redistribution. Its primary cause extends from the condition of utility maximization in the context of a lack of information about the distribution of outcomes. In effect, Rawls is appealing to the choices rational economic actors ought to make in the face of uncertainty. Imagine the following example of choice relating to uncertain outcomes. Someone must choose between two different coin-flip games: in one, the heads payoff is $5000, and the tails payoff is $0; in the other, the heads payoff is $2000, and the tails payoff is $1000. The coin is being flipped by a well-known trickster, who is reputable for his pleasure in biasing coins to every possible distribution. The player is aware of this, and thus does not know the probability that either heads or tails will occur on the coin, entailing a situation of total uncertainty. By Rawls’ (and standard game theoretic) reasoning, the player’s rational choice would be to choose the $2000-or-$1000 coin, in effect maximizing the outcome of the worst-case scenario. This coin is known as the maximin option, the uncertain game with the best worst outcome. In distributive justice, the maximin option would be the one in which the least advantaged, whoever it may be, will be guaranteed a certain payoff by society, whether it is in food, shelter, employment, healthcare, or education, at the expense of a higher payoff for others.

Rawls’ position is thus unique, in that he constructs it from no particular conception of the good except that of respecting individual autonomy at the inception of political principles. Unlike most advocates of distributive justice, he does not conclude his principles from some objective conception of the good, but only from a rational contractarian decision by agents to properly define the rules of social cooperation.

The post Rawls vs. Nozick: Rawls’ Theory of Justice and Some Objections appeared first on Rare Essays.