Posted on 08/11/2004 11:35:46 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Did you know that John Edwards is the son of mill worker?
Did you? Edwards's toothy display of hopeful vacuities at the Democratic National Convention moved socialist economist Max Sawicky to lament yet "another paean to the self-made man." The American Prospect's Matthew Yglesias pushed the anti-bootstrapping point even harder, trumpeting on his blog "the insight that
equality of opportunity and the cult of the self-made man is an utter fraud both empirically and morally. Meritocracy is an appalling ideal. Being born with the inclination and ability to become financially successful is no more morally praiseworthy than being born with the inclination and ability to inherit a large fortune. It's chance all the way down either way."
While mainstream Democrats revel in tales of upward mobility and promote the idea that diligent hard work produces just deserts (such as their own glittering, McDuckian piles), left-leaning intellectuals, like Yglesias and the Center for American Progress' Matthew Miller, regularly deny that one can deserve anything by effort. Working gives you no special claim to what you've got, because you didn't work hard to become the kind of person who works hard. Your genes or parents made you that way. You got lucky, and you don't really deserve what you got by luck.
This argument has an illustrious provenance. In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls, perhaps the most important political philosopher of the 20th Century, argued that
"one of the fixed points of our considered judgments that no one deserves his place in the distribution of natural endowments, any more than one deserves one's initial starting place in society. The assertion that a man deserves the superior character that enables him to make the effort to cultivate his abilities is equally problematic; for his character depends in large part upon fortunate family and social circumstances for which he can claim no credit. The notion of desert seems not to apply to these cases."
And it goes on: we also do not deserve the rewards we have "earned" through the application of the abilities (which we do not deserve) that we cultivated with our good character (which we do not deserve). It's important to understand the role this argument plays in Rawls's defense of the redistributive welfare state. Rawls argues that an acceptable theory of justice must cohere with our "considered judgments," which are basically the conclusions of moral common sense filtered through a process of unbiased reflection and deliberation. If these judgments -- that no one deserves her natural abilities, her disposition to cultivate them, or the fruits of her discipline and effort -- are indeed fixed points of moral common sense, then any theory of justice that argues that people are morally entitled to what they've achieved in virtue of hard work must be wrong.
Rawls' conception of desert leaves us with a picture of society where all the rewards have been spread around essentially by chance. Some folks are conceived under the lucky star of Pitt-like looks, Hawkingesque IQs, Gatesian trust-funds and Brazeltonian baby care. But most poor souls were born under uglier, stupider, meaner stars. Those of us who won the genetic and social lottery will naturally try to rationalize our great good luck. We will turn up our calloused palms and tell of the blood and sweat on our every red cent. Yet from the "perspective of the universe," in which self-serving appeals disappear into the vastness of impartiality, the distribution of rewards in our lotto-world appears entirely arbitrary. If a bag of money falls into your lap, that doesn't mean it's really yours.
At this point, the redistributionist tends to argue that since no one has legitimate moral title to his holdings, there can be no objection to taking from the wealthy and giving to the less fortunate in order to "correct" fortune's caprices. Now, one must admit that this is a powerful argument. So powerful, in fact, that it's rather like advocating the destruction of all life on earth in order to prevent another terrorist attack. The luck argument, if it's any good, scorches the dialectical earth, undercutting the possibility of justifying political power, the mechanisms of government redistribution, or, well, anything.
Material inequality is one kind of inequality among many. Political inequality is more troubling by far, for political power is the power to push people around. Coercion is wrong on its face, and so the existence of political inequality requires a specially strong and compelling justification. However, if the luck argument cuts against moral entitlement to material holdings, it cuts equally against any moral entitlement to political power.
The justification for political power is generally sought in the "consent" of the people through free, fair and open elections. Yet the fact that someone has gained power by a democratic ballot can be no more or less relevant than the fact that Warren Buffet gained his billions through a series of fair, voluntary transactions. John Edwards (who, by the way, is a mill worker's son) didn't deserve his luxuriant tresses and blinding grin. Reagan didn't deserve movie-star name recognition. Bushes don't deserve to be Bushes. Kennedys don't deserve to be Kennedys. Kerry's war medals? Please.
If the luck argument is any good, then democratic choice and the resulting distribution of coercive political power is also, as Yglesias says, "chance all the way down." And if luck negates the moral right to keep and dispose of one's stuff, it also negates the right to take and dispose of others' stuff.
Like Rawls, Yglesias goes on to defend the instrumental value of allowing a degree of material inequality:
"There are reasons to structure incentives so as to encourage a certain amount of hard work so as to increase overall prosperity, but this is a question of pragmatics not desert, and only worth doing if overall prosperity is being managed so as to cause widespread prosperity."
Remember Rawls's claim that it is our "considered judgment" that the consequences of our natural endowments are not deserved, because our natural endowments are not themselves deserved? I let it slide, for the sake of argument. But let's back up a second. Imagine the following case:
"Alvin and Buster are hired to clear a field. Alvin does 70% of the work and Buster does the remainder. When they are paid, Buster proposes to split it down the middle. Alvin argues that he deserves more than half, because he did well more than half the work. Buster dissents, arguing that Alvin is not responsible for the fact that he happens to be the harder worker, and thus does not deserve to benefit unequally from his good luck."
Who is right?
Alvin, obviously. Buster, I'm sure almost all of you will agree, is telling a weird, bullsh!t tale. Our intuition about this case is that Buster has fleeced Alvin if he just walks off with half the money. Contra Rawls, our considered judgment, reflected in almost all our everyday interactions, is that people generally deserve rewards roughly proportional to the value of their contributions. The fact that our personal qualities and dispositions are the outcome of chains of cause and effect stretching back to the immaculate conception of the universe -- chains we could not have personally caused -- just doesn't enter into our thoughts about who deserves what. And, really, why would it? Rawls' seems in this case to have been uncharacteristically confused about the content of moral common sense.
When you think about it, it would be pretty surprising if the link between effective effort and desert wasn't etched deeply into our moral psyche and reflected in our daily judgments and choices for precisely the pragmatic reasons Yglesias cites. The argument that people are motivated by the prospect of keeping what they have gained by hard work, and that even the worst off can do better in a society that allows relatively large degree of inequality, can be easily converted into a compelling story of the evolutionary origins of our judgments about fairness and desert. A population of proto-humans inclined to distribute the fruits of social cooperation according to the value of each proto-person's contribution to the joint enterprise, and to regard this as fair, would likely crowd out competing groups with more egalitarian intuitions about fair distribution. The argument that there is instrumental, pragmatic value in "structuring incentives" as if people deserve what they have worked to achieve is awkwardly close in form to the argument that a conception of desert and fairness linking work to reward is precisely the conception we would expect actual people to have -- the conception we would expect to see reflected in the judgments of moral common sense.
So, it turns out that our considered judgments about what it takes to deserve are rather contrary to Rawls' sense of the matter. And even if it is chance all the way down, this fact fails to provide any justifying foundation for coercive redistribution, for it also undermines any possibility of justifying the inequalities implicit in coercive political power.
As it happens, it's not chance all the way down. I just poked the tip of my nose. I did it on purpose, I was in control, and I'm responsible. You got up this morning and went to work. You did it on purpose, you were in control, you were responsible -- even if the event of your getting up and going to work was written in the stars at the commencement of time. If you actually work at work, in accordance with your terms of employment, then you deserve your paycheck. If you have the best record of performance and show the greatest potential, then you deserve the promotion. There are self-made men responsible for their own success. If paeans to them give us hope, and move us to throw more effort into realizing our dreams, then let the paeans ring forth. Let the sons of mill workers and goat herders thrill and inspire us.
Many people, through no fault of their own, got a raw deal and need a lot more from us than exhortations to greater effort. One thing they don't need is to be told that people who have done well have done so through no fault (or credit) of their own, that working to make a fortune is no more praiseworthy than inheriting one, and that it's really all just chance all the way down. If meritocracy is an appalling ideal, then the idea that nobody is really responsible for anything is… what?
The crux of Rawls' argument, IIRC, is that if we were setting up a system ex nihilo (in the original position) before we knew our place in society, our family, character or intelligence ('behind the veil of ignorance'), the only system we would all agree to would be one of fundamental equality that did not advantange anyone on the basis of wealth, family, character or intelligence.
I happen to think Rawls' point is fundamentally wrong, that even one who realized he might find himself less advantaged in real life, if setting up a system in the original position behind the veil of ignorance, might well agree to a system that advantaged talent, character or hard work. The difference is that Rawls posits no possibility of any transcendent morality that would reward individual behaviour -- that is he is fundamentally a collectivist and anti-Lockean. That is the popular approach in academic philosophy in the modern era, but I think fundamentally wrong. I participated in an interesting graduate philosophy seminar on Rawls and Nozick back in the '70s when both books were pretty new. I wanted to like Rawls less than I did and Nozick more than I did.
You're right, but I'll go further. Very few mediocre people would even realize that they'd be at a disadvantage in such a system, because most people--and especially the mediocre--think themselves smarter and more talented than they really are, indeed smarter and more talented than most other people.
Nihilism, of course. That's also the ultimate problem with Sarte's existentialism, in which everyone is responsible for everything, which renders the concept of responsibilty meaningless and therefore the notion of holding anyone responsible (if other than a political convenience) is absurd.
Welcome to modern philosophy.
To hold that viewpoint requires a very extreme form of determinism--that one is compelled by one's genome and upbringing to be successful. The successful literally cannot do otherwise, just as the slothful have no choice. I wonder whether the exponents of that viewpoint actually hold it consistently: they would have no justification for taking anyone to court, e.g. for not living up to the terms of a contract--the other party couldn't do otherwise!
That's one idea on how to organize society. It leads to the rule of the apparatchiks and, ultimately, falls apart because the talented object.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his ability.
It may not be just but it works. The most talented people end up doing the work for which they are best-suited...which is a pretty good start.
And what's just?
There's nothing wonderful about the untalented, the stupid, the ugly, the poor, the unfortunate. Simply put, there are huge numbers of such people and their wishes and welfare can be discounted only at great risk to a society. Our ideas of justice spring from that realization.
Very silly, I know, but it does irritate me that democrats would concentrate on re-distributing wealth and nothing else.
Stupid. Ugly. Mean. Democrat.
Yep, it all fits...
What is his standing now amongst academic philosophers? I know his Theory of Justice was all the rage when it was first published, but I hear much less of Rawls nowadays.
'Rats aren't interested in justice. They're interested in power.
It's not that the Democrats want to redistribute wealth that bothers me, it's whose wealth they want to redistribute.
It always seems that when liberals find a problem that needs to be solved, and needs money to solve it, their consciences can be assuaged only by making other people pay the needed money.
At university, I remember arguing with earnest young women who saw all this poverty and need for education and the like in the ghettos or in appalachia -- and who proposed raising taxes to pay for solving the problems. My response, which unhinged them, was well, if you see a problem, go solve it. If teachers are needed in the ghetto, get your credential and go teach in the ghetto. Or contribute your own money to charities that work with the poor in just the way you think it should be done. Oh, no. There were always dozens of reason why they couldn't do that, but the problem was so important that the government should fix it by putting its hands into other people's pockets to pay someone to work in the ghetto. It reminds me of the notion of substitutes in the civil war draft: only instead of the individual paying a substitute, they want the government to extract the cost of the substitute from everyone (not them) and then to pay the substitute. Bah!
I'm long out of academia, but as far as I know, he's still widely read (saw the book in the Columbia bookstore for a course last fall). At the least he's still the starting position for modern treatments of liberalism as political philosophy.
I hope you don't really believe that.:)
Everyone's interested in power...and in wealth. Nor is the quest for justice a strictly partisan affair.
The contrary, however, in mostly true. Partisans, no matter their persuasion, are mostly interested in power and have little concern for justice. The Biblical injunction about beams and motes is made for them.
Of course I believe it. It's an empirical fact. 'Rats are partisans without a cause, by which I mean legitimate cause.
Tell me, for instance, why . . . Specifically, why? . . . in Heaven's name, you think the stupid , the ignorant and the lazy must be given a substantial cut of the proceeds of my hard labor . . . Not generalities, mind you . . . But specifically, what historical precedent illustrates that that is a prerequisite for a peaceful society? Note I only ask for an illustration, proof being impossible.
There is none. There is not even a valid illustration, much less proof. In reality -- what "it" (the theft of hard-earned rewards) REALLY is -- is a prerequisite for disaster. And for this I am prepared to offer a probabilistic "proof," which I'm sure you cannot in support of your position.
And in fact, there is no overarching liberal "cause" at all, except for the cause of satisfying the liberals' own unquenchable lust to ascend to absolute power. As Madame Mao -- one of your most beloved icons once said -- "Although sex is engaging in the first rounds, what sustains interest in the long run is power."
But, I'm sorry to say, you'll get there only over my dead body, LL. And most conservatives think the same way. I know that saddens you and Tom Daschle, but it's a fact.
And you're wrong also (naturally!), about "everyone" being interested in power and wealth. I'm not, for one (Hahahahahaha . . . . How's that, liberalLarry, the first person you encounter after making such a ridiculous claim, disproves it?). I am ONLY interested in being left alone as long as I break no laws -- particularly by leftist scum who want to steal what little I do have for their own corrupt use, and who want to deny me my God-given right to defend myself and my family.
No hard "feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings," though.
Cheers!
'Yer friend, LibWhacker. :)
P.S. It's best not to refer to Scripture unless you believe in it.
ping
Concern for the rights and welfare of the weak is an old, old concept dating back to pre-history. One finds the idea in most religions and most societies. There's always someone who dispenses "justice".
Why do you think that is?
Obviously, if everyone felt as you do - that the weak are "stupid,ignorant, and lazy" - there would be no charity and no attempt to provide them with opportunity or respite from their misery.
As for historical precedents that this concern is a prerequisite for a peaceful society, the record is mixed since peace is a rare occurance. One cannot even demonstrate that democracies are stronger than tyrannies. They weren't in the ancient world. None-the-less, it seems likely that people with some dignity and power, with a stake, are more likely to support their society than those with none.
what "it" (the theft of hard-earned rewards) REALLY is
This, and much else you say, is nothing but propaganda. All possessions are hard-earned and hard kept. Even those which were stolen from others. Your diatribe reminds me of the difference between privateering and piracy. The former is "legal" and engaged in by "men of substance" while the latter is "illegal" and the work of "marginal characters". Both, of course, are forms of armed robbery.
And in fact, there is no overarching liberal "cause" at all
I benefit from all sorts of public works - paid for to a large extent by taxes; public education, innoculations and other public health measures, municipal water and power, an extensive road system. So do you, but your rigid ideology prevents you from seeing it. Where one draws the line is a legimate point of debate. But to dogmatically characterize all wealth transfers, all public works, as evil is stupid.
As Madame Mao -- one of your most beloved icons once said -- "Although sex is engaging in the first rounds, what sustains interest in the long run is power."
Get an education...and get some manners. Madame Mao is not one of my most beloved icons. I know hardly anything about her. But her observation about power is universal.
I'm not, for one
You're posting to a political site and claiming you have no interest in power? See a shrink.
No hard "feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings," though
Try thinking for yourself rather than repeating foolish stereotypes. You'll find it's much harder to do.
It's best not to refer to Scripture unless you believe in it
What arrogance! What ignorance!
The observation about beams and motes has been made by most peoples in most times. I just like the Biblical phrasing. Nor is there any reason why I shouldn't take wisdom where I find it. There are lots of good reasons for being selective about what one takes from any source - including the Bible.
As for historical precedents that thisWell, at least you admit that much. Note that it means there is no compelling reason for doing it.concernthievery is a prerequisite for a peaceful society, the record is mixed . . .
Here's what you said:
. . . there are huge numbers of such people and their wishes and welfare can be discounted only at great risk to a society. Our ideas of justice spring from that realization.But you can't offer any data to back it up. Yet 'rats insist on the right to take food out of the mouths of a huge number of working class American families. Try showing compassion them for once.
All possessions are hard-earned and hard kept.Jesus, the crap you say with a straight face.
I benefit from all sorts of public works - paid for to a large extent by taxes; public education, innoculations and other public health measures, municipal water and power . . .That's not what I'm talking about and you know it. Can you 'rats ever be honest?
You're posting to a political site and claiming you have no interest in power? See a shrink.Just like a 'rat . . . Here I'm interested in preventing thieves from taking what is mine and you characterize it as a power grab. Conservatives as a whole don't steal from anybody and don't want to steal from anybody. Socialists live to steal so they can buy votes with the spoils. Big difference.
Regarding the ad hominem education crap . . . Mine's perhaps as good as yours, maybe better.
The Romans thought bread and circuses were a good idea. Nobody since has disputed that. Perhaps you'd like to try?
Dispute it if you can.
That's not what I'm talking about and you know it
No I don't. Why don't you tell me?
Here I'm interested in preventing thieves from taking what is mine and you characterize it as a power grab
For the purposes of this discussion power can be defined either as the ability to do what you wish or to get others to do what you wish. Politics is certainly about the latter and often about the former.
Conservatives as a whole don't steal from anybody and don't want to steal from anybody
It's all in how one defines these things...and the reality is always different than the theory. Neither conservatives nor liberals condone what is commonly defined as theft. And when they do condone theft they give it another name and legalize it; taxes, tax breaks, socialization, privatisation, etc. etc. etc. Clean hands are hard to find.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.