Thursday, December 20, 2012

Merry Christmas 2012

Welcome friends!

Well, I see another Christmas season is upon us.  My my, how time does fly.  Always a great excuse to turn my attention once again to the problem of religion.  I took a quick scan of the papers to see what manner of religious lunacy we’ve had recently and the thing that caught my eye this year was televangelist Pat Robertson’s recent comments to the effect that Christians really need to come to terms with scientific knowledge about the age of the earth.  I found the story rather interesting because in some ways it gets to the heart of the whole problem of religion for me.  No, I’m not talking about the age of the earth.  Who the heck cares about that?  Well, actually, I do.  But not right now.  No, at the moment I’m talking about the relationship of the human brain to religion and just basically what it means to be human... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Socialism Is What Now?

Welcome friends!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

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