Welcome friends!
Can we talk about socialism again? I read an article the other day about Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders and the huge public relations issue some media pundits presume must attend his description of himself as a “democratic socialist.” I’m sure this must all seem a bit comical to our foreign friends but the article was referring to the fact that here in the USA the word “socialist” is anathema to many people because it brings to mind a rather unattractive mix of communist authoritarianism and economic policy incompetence. Indeed, under the prevailing conservative mode of discourse the terms socialist, communist, fascist, and Nazi are considered pretty much interchangeable. Obviously not what people who describe themselves as democratic socialists have in mind. It’s always fun to talk through real issues but not nearly as much fun to talk through the sort of fake issues that arise when people talk past one another because they’re not using words the same way. I know I’ve discussed it before but maybe I should take another shot at bridging the gap. Who would have thought one little word could generate so much confusion?
Let’s take it from the top, shall we? Broadly speaking I think it’s fair to describe anyone who talks about what they think works best for society at large as a socialist in some fundamental sense because really I suppose that must be the defining feature of socialist thinking. What happens to your compatriots matters. Now it seems to me most people living here in the US are socialists in this most fundamental sense of the word. The alternative to socialism at this level is a rather extreme form of individualism suggesting people should not really concern themselves with other people. What’s important is what works for one personally. If everyone else drops dead that’s their business. It’s every man and woman for himself or herself. Well, I suppose there’s also a rather sycophantic variant one encounters from time to time suggesting what’s really important is not one’s own welfare but the welfare of some other particular person or group of people.
One may suppose the distinction between those who support socialism at this most basic level and those who oppose it must mirror quite closely the distinction between what we call in this country liberals and conservatives because liberals do typically express an interest in other people while many conservatives do like to talk about what benefits them personally or sometimes what benefits some other ostensibly very special people they particularly admire. But it’s not really that simple. Well, maybe it’s that simple on the liberal side but things can get a little messy on the conservative side. That’s because there are also plenty of conservatives who like to talk about what they think is best for society at large and are thus socialists at this fundamental level. This I believe is where the public discourse in the US gets a little convoluted. Although conservatives of all stripes are prone to rail against socialism I don’t think they’re really talking about the same thing. Half of them are on one page and half on another. Some conservatives are Ayn Randian it’s all about me (or possibly some other very special people) types who rail against the dangers of considering other people important at all. However, other conservatives believe everyone is important but are concerned to rail against particular ideas about what that belief entails. They’re talking about two different things. With respect to their relationship to liberals, one group of conservatives is disputing a fundamental objective in the area of social ethics while the other group is disputing the means to advance a social objective they share with liberals.
How this confusion started and manages to persist year after year and decade after decade is an interesting question. One possibility is that conservatives tend to be a little casual in their thinking. From what I can tell many conservatives just aren’t very concerned with details. They prefer or perhaps find it more useful to paint in broad strokes. If they find someone agrees with them they’re good to go; it doesn’t really matter if the agreement is paper thin or based on a misunderstanding. But I don’t think it’s just that. I think in this case conservatives are aided and abetted in their confusion by academic economists or a heck of a lot of them anyway. I’ve gone over this issue plenty of times but since it’s one of those things I find particularly annoying in American culture let me just go over it again.
The basic problem is that academic economists often present their policy prescriptions as though neoclassical microeconomic theory were a complete system of social ethics or anyway a suitable basis for a complete system of social ethics when it manifestly is not and never could be. In particular, economic theory or I suppose more specifically the component of economic theory known as welfare economics is often presented as a belonging to the fundamentally socialist tradition of investigating what economic arrangements work best for society at large; however, because it doesn’t really work it also functions rather well as a basic template for people who think we shouldn’t concern ourselves with such matters in the first place. It’s an intellectually sloppy mishmash of opposing themes and concerns that mirrors the schizophrenia of modern conservatism itself. For this sort of confusion to persist at the level we’re talking about, and we’re talking about people teaching at prestigious universities who are a hell of a lot smarter and more knowledgeable than we are (most likely), one infers something must be in play beyond a sincere interest in straightening things out. The confusion must be convenient for someone. One possibility I’ve thrown out before is that many economists are conservatives who perhaps share some ethical beliefs relating to economic outcomes but not being philosophers or possibly just not being interested in delving into such matters they either don’t know how to express their beliefs honestly and directly or deliberately choose not to do so for rhetorical reasons. Another possibility is self interest. One presumes at least some rich people don’t like other people talking about social ethics in ways that threaten their financial interests and are willing to pay someone to use whatever ancient rhetoric happens to be lying about to shut that conversation down.
Just to review and at the risk of beating a dead horse neoclassical microeconomic theory cannot serve as the foundation of a serious system of social ethics for two reasons. First and most importantly, it is based on a conception of utility that would be unpalatable as an ethical objective to most people if one could measure it and actually use it effectively for that purpose. That is to say, if so-called interpersonal utility comparisons were ever to become possible the ethical implication of maximizing that sort of utility would be that it is really disembodied utility, not people, that ultimately matters so for example if one person were found to be a superconductor of utility in the sense that fulfilling his or her desires produced such prodigious amounts of utility it dwarfed the amount produced by fulfilling the desires of all lesser mortals combined and that superconductor of utility wanted everyone else in the world to drop dead then the ostensibly ethical thing to do would be to get on with killing everyone else thus maximizing utility. I don’t think anyone would seriously support such a system of ethics. Second, if one is thought to be unable to measure the relevant sort of utility either for logical reasons based on how one chooses to define utility or for practical scientific reasons then one cannot really hope to address the thorny issue of what to do when the needs or desires of different people bump into one another, which is the entire point of discussing social ethics. The sleight of hand by which economists suggest getting to any market outcome is something we can all agree upon and we can handle distributional issues as a second step in some old way just doesn't really work. If one has distributional concerns not all market outcomes will do and anyone with a complete system of social ethics will have distributional concerns. It’s not the case that just getting to any market outcome gets one halfway home so to speak. It’s not the case that there’s an easy way to make things right at any given market outcome without diverging in any way from what many people feel comprise market institutions. Getting to an acceptable market outcome and addressing distributional concerns are part and parcel of the same issue. If we’re going to keep it real we need to discuss both.
One we get rid of the notion that microeconomic theory comprises or can support a complete system of social ethics we arrive at the sort of issues that separate liberals from that subgroup of conservatives who are fundamentally socialists at heart in the sense they’re concerned with social welfare. Those issues revolve around what political, legal, and economic institutions advance social justice and the welfare of society at large. In this latter discussion the term “socialism” often appears as a term to describe the belief that simply setting up market institutions may be insufficient to address all ethical concerns one may have about distributional issues and that we may have to get in there and do something to make it turn out better. The opposing “conservative” view is once we set up market institutions we should be good to go and the issues associated with resolving interpersonal conflicts of needs and desires we cannot address using the sort of utility discussed in economic theory turn out right for one reason or another. The debate involves both ethical issues (for example what ethical concerns we’re meant to address) and scientific issues (for example how particular real world markets match up to their theoretical counterparts).
The funny thing is we discuss these sorts of issues all the time. The only difference now is that Mr. Sanders has added the term “socialism” to the mix and as I mentioned previously that particular word is a bit of a red flag for many people. Perhaps I should take a moment to discuss how that word came to have such a negative connotation for many American conservatives. After the Great Depression created worldwide economic havoc conservatives of the time argued we should do nothing and let the market right itself. (Doing nothing has been a conservative thing for some time. It’s not a new invention.) Some of these conservatives were probably rich people who were doing well enough and really didn’t give a damn about other people but some of them were probably people who were concerned about other people but sincerely thought nothing was the best thing we could do under the circumstances. After a few years of rather large numbers of people going without jobs or incomes and poorer people beginning to starve and so on the political landscape rather understandably began to shift. The emerging consensus was that doing nothing wasn’t really cutting it. People were getting desperate. They wanted someone to at least try to do something. Being human and humans being social animals the natural and inevitable result was the notion society should get together and collectively address the problem one way or another. Of course what exactly to do was more of an open question. In Europe both Russia and Germany got what their supporters characterized as types of socialism but notably without the all important democracy part and fundamentally at odds with one another in various other ways such as economic policy. Here in the US the federal government started trying to fix things up a bit in the political response that most closely corresponded to the phrase democratic socialism all the while carefully avoiding the term socialism presumably because of the anti-democratic connotations of the foreign sort. And that’s how things have remained in this country ever since. It’s fine to talk about things from a democratic socialist perspective in the USA; we’re just not supposed to actually say the S word lest people get the wrong idea. But I guess things change. Perhaps young people can just think a bit more clearly than their befuddled and hot headed elders? I don’t know. Just throwing out possibilities.
Let’s wrap it up. I believe one can describe most people in the US as democratic socialists in the sense they support democracy and believe we should have a system that works for everyone and promotes social justice and fairness. There are a few conservatives who don’t like democracy or get upset when people evince a concern for other people: extreme conservatives, libertarians, neo-fascists, anarchists, and various other types of that ilk. But I doubt there are very many people like that. I don’t think we have significant social divisions at that level. We have somewhat greater potential for significant divisions when we get to the issue of whether our current system is the complete package in terms of social ethics but my sense is a lot of people believe we still have some work to do in that area so I don’t think that’s really it either. No, I think the really significant disagreement we have in this country at the moment is between those who think our current system has a few problems and we can resolve them by backtracking toward some ostensibly purer and more unencumbered market system along the lines of Victorian England or I suppose America circa the early years of the last century and those who agree that our current system has a few problems but think it’s because we’re so enamored of market arrangements or so fearful of potential government incompetence that we’ve been too timid to get in there and effectively regulate or supplement markets or market outcomes to make them correspond more closely to our social objectives. Oh hell, in even more practical terms one of our most basic issues must be how to get a bit more money flowing to the people who really need it and would spend it thus promoting economic growth: allowing the marketplace to work its magic and lift all boats or purposefully developing some policies that specifically address that issue. You know my opinion. I think purposeful policy is really the only way to go. We already tried Victorian England. It didn’t work. The marketplace doesn’t care whether you or anyone else survives or not. It might be very magical and all but it’s not necessarily the sort of magic that will pay the rent. You may get lucky or you may not. Many people may survive or only a select few may survive. In my opinion we can do a little better than that. Collective intelligence and purposeful activity is the human way. Of course we should be careful out there to be sure. An economy isn’t something you want to jump into and just do whatever comes to mind. On the other hand we can probably do a little better than setting up some market institutions and then doing nothing and hoping it all works out for the best. Markets are meant to serve our purposes; we’re not meant to serve markets. Call it democratic socialism or call it something else but let’s get on with it, shall we?
