The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

Welcome friends!

Well that was a right royal cock up as my friends in the UK might say or maybe might once have said.  If you recall a few posts ago I declared my intention  to change the URL and title of my little blog to add the word “secular” in front of the word “humanist” just to avoid anyone here in the USA getting confused about what we’re talking about as we’re prone to do with the slightest of provocations.  Result?  Well, apparently I didn’t set up the redirects correctly because it seems no one was able to find anything for a while there.  My most heartfelt apologies if you attempted to find one of your favorite posts only to get clobbered over the head with some weird error message.  My bad as the kids might say or might once have said.  Don’t know if I’m coming or going anymore.  Anyway I’ve put everything back where it was and as a sign of contrition I kept it at the new site as well for the benefit of anyone who actually managed to find it.  Guess I’ll just post on both locations for now.  I promise not to mess with it again unless and until I’m confident I can do it right so based on my less than formidable computer skills probably never.  The whole incident got me thinking of one of my favorite English aphorisms “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” which I’m sure must have come from somewhere and most likely has a counterpart in many other and possibly all other languages.  You know maybe the old URL and title weren’t perfect but good enough.  Of course if you’ve read my blog at all you know the way my brain works.  Once I started thinking along those lines it occurred to me that aphorism might also apply to some other things as well.  Let me explain.

You may recall the USA was recently having a good laugh at a Senate race in the deep deep southern and oppressively conservative state of Alabama, which old timers may remember as the site of a great deal of anger, agitation, and violence during the civil rights era of the 1960s and 70s.  It seems the top candidate for some time was some elderly, cowboy hat wearing, horse riding, quite possibly deranged redneck by the name of Roy Moore who as a district attorney was formerly in the habit of trolling shopping malls for teenaged girls to the extent he was apparently banned by at least one such institution... 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!  

Conservatism and the Power of Negative Thought

Welcome friends!

Every now and then I read one of the frequent articles that have been appearing in the mainstream press here in the USA recently that try to shed some light on the thoughts and attitudes of supporters of President Trump for the benefit of people like me who imagine they may have some idea of what traditional conservatives think but find the mindset of the particularly febrile and inconsistent subset of conservatives who support Mr. Trump quite a mystery.  One hears accounts of them saying all manner of curious things in interviews and focus groups and surveys including such notable utterances as they can’t think of anything President Trump could do that would make them not support him, the more people complain about him the more they support him, and if they had a choice between believing Jesus Christ or Donald Trump they would believe Donald Trump.  These kinds of rather puzzling statements don’t seem to represent an entirely rational or mature perspective on the world if taken at face value.  However, after thinking about it the requisite five minutes I think there may be one plausible explanation for this sort of behavior: these people are not concentrating so much on what they think would be helpful for others or themselves but on the other side of the coin so to speak: what they think will be annoying or damaging to others.  In the USA contemporary conservative ideology appears to be drawing largely on the perverse power of negative thinking.  As such the depressing and unrelenting negativity of current conservative ideology and rhetoric stands in stark contrast to the optimistic, pragmatic, and forward thinking philosophy of liberalism.  Perhaps it would be worthwhile to say a few words about that this week? ... 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!

Liberal Secular Humanism

Welcome friends!

If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know I think words and labels can be pretty tricky sometimes.  Take “conservatism” for example.  It’s the sort of thing people talk about all the time.  Everyone clearly has something in mind when they do but I very much doubt it’s always the same thing.  There are disparate strands of conservatism having precious little to do with one another in an intellectual sense beyond their shared antipathy to liberalism.  Indeed I’ve long distinguished what I see as the two main strands of conservatism here in the USA: economic conservatism and social / religious conservatism.  More recently I’ve added the “natural rights” political strain and of course now with the advent of Trumpism I suppose I should add the sort of nationalistic ethnocentric conservatism that was once pretty common in this country and many others but fell out of favor after the rise and fall of that angry murderous little guy with the funny mustache who stands as the eternal icon and champion of that particular form of conservative brain rot.  Well, I was having a hard time finding my own blog the other day and it got me thinking about the terms I’ve been using these past seven years to describe the perspective of my little blog for those looking for something suitable to read or bash as the case may be: liberal humanism.  Seems perfectly sensible to me but I’ve come to suspect this particular terminology may generate a certain amount of confusion.  Perhaps some clarification would not go amiss.  To make a long story short I’ve decided to tweak the name of my blog and my URL to something I hope may prove slightly easier to interpret.  Sorry for the inconvenience but it’s something I thought I really had to do.  Allow me to explain.

I originally chose to tag my blog with the “liberal humanism” label because I wanted to let people know I intended to take on what I described at the time as the two headed monster of American conservatism: economic conservatism and social / religious conservatism.  In other words I wanted to let people know I intended to write from the perspective of both a political and economic liberal as well as a secular humanist.  Going with “liberal humanist” seemed a logical and obvious choice.  However, as everyone knows appearances can sometimes be misleading.

One problem is that I’ve finally realized the humanism side of the expression doesn’t necessarily always equate to secular humanism.  Nope.  Turns out there are or were anyway people who called themselves “humanists” but in a religious context.  Seems a bit weird to me but what do I know?  That’s why people here in the USA tend to use what I’ve always considered the rather redundant phrase “secular humanism.”  Since I’m writing here in America primarily for my fellow Americans I suppose I should probably spell it all out in a way everyone understands so I’ve replaced the simple “humanism” with the more traditional “secular humanism.”

Another problem is it seems the phrase “liberal humanism” may not bring to mind the combination of what we in this country call liberalism and what we call secular humanism.  Indeed if one looks up the phrase “liberal humanism” as I did just now one ends up with two interpretations that don’t involve liberalism in the political or economic sense at all.  One interpretation equates to what we have just chosen to call “secular humanism” with the word “liberal” standing in for the word “secular.”  The other interpretation involves some sort of literary theory.  A bit awkward isn’t it?  I only talk about religious matters once in a blue moon so if anyone were to stop by hoping to find an extended discussion of secular humanist issues I suppose he or she might be a little put off with my frequent posts on economic and political and more general cultural matters.  The situation would be even worse for anyone hoping to find a discussion of literary theory because I’m afraid I don’t really know anything about that at all.

Even the term “liberalism” has some issues.  I’ve previously mentioned some history minded or perhaps just purposely obscure economic conservatives choose to label themselves “classical liberals” in a nod to how the word was used in the eighteenth century when liberalism was contrasted to mercantilism and royalism and so on with the “classical” bit serving to differentiate that rather quaint and archaic interpretation of the word from the interpretation that became common here in the USA during the twentieth century relating to the belief democratic government can and should be used to improve not only market results but other social ills as well, basically what people in other countries tend to think of as “democratic socialism” or something along those lines. (And for my foreign readers let me just mention once again that the phrase “democratic socialism” equates to “anti-democratic communism” in the eyes of many Americans particularly of the older variety so if one mentions the S word at all one isn’t exactly clarifying matters in an American context.  Bernie Sanders may be able to get away with it for one reason or another but it’s definitely not something to be taken lightly.)  I suppose I could clarify I’m talking about twentieth century liberalism to avoid any possible confusion with classical liberalism but that seems a bit facetious to me.  I think it’s probably fine to rely on the absence of the modifier to establish the now conventional type of liberalism I have in mind.

While researching these terms it occurred to me why finding a suitable expression for the particular perspective of this blog is so challenging.   When it comes to blogs one can find plenty of people talking about religion both pro and con including atheists and secular humanists.  One can also find plenty of people talking about economic and political matters from a liberal perspective.  But one doesn’t necessarily find many people concerned with talking about both in the same venue.  I suppose the two sets of issues strike many people as quite distinct but I suspect they have as much in common with one another as the economic and social / religious strands of conservatism have with one another and one often sees writers interested in talking about both of those themes at the same time so I can’t see why I shouldn’t be able to do the same.

The bottom line is I’ve decided everything would be a lot simpler and clearer if I just clarified I’m writing about both conventional political and economic liberalism as well as secular humanism by changing the title of my blog from The Modest Blog of A Liberal Humanist to The Modest Blog of a Liberal Secular Humanist and my URL from liberal-humanist.blogspot.com to liberalsecularhumanist.blogspot.com.  (Looks like alphabet soup but really it’s just liberal secular humanist jammed together.) But have no concerns my brothers and sisters.  I don’t intend to make any substantive changes to the format or content of my blog at all.  It’s still me and I’m still doing battle with the two, three, or possibly four headed monster of American conservatism.  I’m not going anywhere.

Addendum

I subsequently went back to my original URL and original title so forget everything I just said about that.  Well, not everything.  I still believe adding the word “secular” to the URL and title would have made things a lot clearer but I really had no idea of the sort of disruption and confusion changing a URL can cause particularly with respect to old posts.  So let’s just keep it liberal humanism at least until I figure out a more elegant and transparent way to change it but in your mind of course you can think of the more descriptive liberal secular humanism.  Why can’t things be simple?  I don’t know.  That’s life, I suppose.

Conservatives Proliferate in the USA

Welcome friends!

So many types of conservatives trying to do a number on the old USA these days it’s getting a little hard to keep track of who’s who.  Fortunately I ran across an article this week that discussed a little political typology prepared by the Pew Research Center based on some opinion surveys they conducted this past summer.  According to their interpretation of the results conservatives of one sort or another comprise 42 percent of the American electorate compared to 51 percent who lean more toward the liberal side of the aisle with an addition 8 percent classified as bystanders, which adds to 101 percent so I suppose must be a bit of rounding in there somewhere.  That bit isn’t exactly news.  I think we all figured out some time ago we weren’t really all on the same page.  No, the interesting bit for me was the way Pew divided conservatives into four separate groups based on distinctive and sometimes contradictory attitudes and beliefs.  If you’ve been reading my little blog at all you’ll know that trying to figure out the various types of conservatives and what they really think is something of a hobby of mine.  Indeed I’ve previously come up with three types of conservatism based on what appear to me to be different intellectual frameworks as opposed to shared attitudes or beliefs although I suppose they might equally represent simply different styles of talking: economic conservatism, political conservatism, and social conservatism.  This week I thought I’d take a quick look at the Pew classification scheme and compare it the scheme I’ve been using in my previous posts.  So let’s get to it... 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!

National Coming Out Day

Welcome friends!

Certainly plenty of big issues to write about this week such as the Clown President’s most recent attacks on one of the foundations of our democracy and traditional way of life: the free press.  Yes, he apparently threatened to revoke the “license” of media outlets that don’t kowtow to his Orange Eminence in the manner of Fox “News” and such dishonest faux journalists as Sean Hannity.  No one really knows what license the man had in mind but that’s beside the point.  He often babbles nonsensically about things he clearly knows nothing about.  The noteworthy bit is just his obvious hatred for the free press.  But as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before with conservative nut jobs in the WH, dominating Congress, heading up all the Executive Branch agencies, and increasingly infiltrating the judiciary I could write something like that every week.  On the other hand, since we still do have a free press in this country at least for now maybe I can take a week off now and then and let others cover the long sad decline and quite possibly eventual fall of our American way of life under the Republican / Russian Party.  With that thought in mind I thought I’d set aside the news of the day and look to something a bit more lighthearted this week.  In case you’re not up on this sort of the thing for the past twenty-nine years October 11 has apparently been considered by some National Coming Out Day in which gay people (aka queer people or to be perhaps overly precise and prosaic homosexuals) are meant to dramatically announce their sexual orientation to the world or some carefully selected bits of it anyway.  I’ve been reading a lively debate about whether this practice is still necessary or even advisable.  It got me thinking about sexual minorities again and then as fate would have it I bumped into an article that seemed relevant to the topic about a teacher in the UK who was banned from teaching after making some homophobic comments.  Could be a coincidence I suppose but I choose to think the magical guardian fairies of Rainbow Land are trying to tell me to say a few words in defense of sexual minorities this week so let me just do that.  I’ll get back to the Conservative Menace next time or maybe the time after that.  No need to rush.  It’s going to be with us for a while.

Let’s take the latter story first.  Seems a science teacher in the UK named Joshua Onduso was recently banned from practicing his profession by some official organization known as the National College for Teaching and Leadership Panel.  Apparently a student had asked him about gay people during class at his school (incidentally for five to nineteen year olds) and he had explained they “have a disease” and “have something wrong upstairs.”  Later in the day he clarified his position by rephrasing his remarks to say gay people are “sick in the head.”  When he was eventually confronted by the head teacher over his remarks he explained that his Christian beliefs meant he didn’t condone “what gay people do.”  Now I know he might have been referring to any number of things such as holding hands or dancing or frequenting antique stores or drinking tea from fancy cups but I suspect he had something a bit more sexual in mind.  He apparently never saw any problems at all with what he had told his class and was eventually helped to the exit.  This is the sort of story that would have every red blooded conservative here in the USA up in arms.  How dare the powers that be prevent this teacher from expressing his Christian beliefs!  Oh the outrage!  Political correctness run amok!  Freedom of speech and freedom of religion both trampled under foot!  As I’m sure my readers will have already surmised I’m entirely with the authorities on this one.  Let’s break it down shall we?

While it’s perfectly fine for Mr. Onduso to follow his religious beliefs and not condone what gay people do it’s not perfectly fine for him to make up fake facts in a science class.  No mainstream medical organization in any advanced country currently considers homosexuality a “disease” and mental health professionals in such countries stopped characterizing the phenomenon as a mental disorder many decades ago.  When the student asked about the phenomenon in his science class one can only presume he or she was interested in the current science relating to the issue not Mr. Onduso’s personal code of ethics or his religious beliefs.  Indeed, as a science teacher one might have expected Mr. Onduso to well understand the conceptual difference between the positive and normative, that is, fact and value, and possibly even use the occasion to explain the difference. There is no requirement at all for a science teacher delivering comments on homosexuality to “condone” it or to repudiate his religion’s ethical stance on it or anything of the sort.  The only requirement is that a science teacher be prepared to tell the students about the science of the phenomenon.  Of course it’s quite possible given his rather obvious biases he may have simply avoided the science and not known the answer.  However, if he didn’t know the answer that would have been his best answer.  I don’t know.  Go look it up.  It’s always preferable in an educational setting to just tell people one doesn’t know something than to make things up or provide disinformation.  Anyway, one can well imagine the serious emotional damage this halfwit might have done to a young gay student wondering what current science has to say about his or her mental or physical condition only to be incorrectly informed he or she has a physical disease or a mental disorder.  If on the other hand some of his students wanted to discuss the ethics of homosexuality then they should have been directed to an appropriate venue for that sort of discussion: a course in philosophy if they were interested in discussing it in a secular context, or the local seminary, church, mosque, temple, or what have you if they were of a more otherworldly temperament and wanted to discuss it in the context of mystical beings and ancient texts.  Free speech was certainly never in any real danger.  Rather there are proper contexts to talk about certain issues in certain ways and those contexts are especially important to observe and maintain in any institution that purports to involve education.

I know what you’re thinking.  Funny story but how does it relate to National Coming Out Day?  Well, the debate on this whole “coming out” issues seems to involve on the one hand the ostensible benefit to gay people of letting other people know they exist and are not unusually diseased or sick in the head and so on and on the other hand the potential personal cost to the person coming out and on a more general note the potentially unfortunate consequences of accepting the implicit assumption that one’s sexual orientation is anyone else’s business and that sexual minorities have a choice of either hiding themselves away in the proverbial closet or making an announcement to the world.  Seems like a tough one to me because I see merit in both sides of the debate.  I certainly remember the ugly and repressive olden days here in the USA during which one would never have willingly identified oneself as gay or even spoken up in defense of a gay person for fear of being branded gay oneself and mentally or emotionally or legally or even physically attacked so I can well understand the perceived need to avoid that trap.  However, I don’t think any gay person in that sort of imminent danger should come out to anyone even now and I mean particularly young people who are not financially and emotionally secure and also people whose heads are wrapped up in the unfortunate belief systems of certain religious or cultural groups (or who have parents and friends with heads wrapped up in that sort of thing).  As Mr. Onduso’s comments serve to remind us there is still a lot of ignorance and hatred directed at gay people most of it generated and nurtured by religious ideology.  If one is not in a position to adequately defend oneself against this sort of persecution the more sensible approach would seem to me to remain mute or deny, deny, deny but of course express oneself as best as one is able in one’s private life.  That’s how gay people survived in the bad old days wasn’t it?  But did nothing really improve until gay people stopped doing that sort of thing?  Or did the more general intellectual climate change in a way that made that sort of thing increasingly unnecessary?  I don’t know.  But anyway I think if there is a case to be made for gay people coming out I think the people in the best situation to do so are gay people with educated, open minded, secular friends and family who can reasonably be expected to be able to deal with the information in a reasonable way or strong secure mature people who are prepared to sever ties with the haters in their lives possibly forever.

But on the more general question of whether this sort of coming out is even necessary or advisable these days I just don’t know.  I wonder if we’ve moved past this point at least in the USA.  Everyone and certainly gay people would I’m sure prefer to live in a world in which one’s sexual orientation was like any other aspect of one’s personality.  We don’t have days on which we’re meant to proclaim if we are or would like to be married, have or would like to have children, are more physically attracted to blonds or brunettes, are partial to the missionary position or doggy style, or anything else of a relational or sexual nature.  If one wants to find out about such things for some reason such as perhaps one is looking for a suitable mate or to start a family then I suppose one can always ask someone about them.  Might be a bit rude or obnoxious to ask random people simply to assuage one’s curiosity.  Perhaps we’ve reached that stage for sexual orientation?  Perhaps gay people can just live their lives not in the proverbial closet but freely and openly and yet also not feel a need to announce their presence to all and sundry?  Perhaps we’ve reached a stage where young gay people can simply look for other young gay people if they want to form relationships with one another and if they’re unsure can simply ask one other people if they’d go for it?  Or will the stultifying and oppressive weight of religious conformity and hatred toward sexual minorities descend the moment gay people put away their rainbow flags and stop making announcements and marching and just in general making a fuss?  One would certainly hate to have to go through the whole thing again.  A year ago in the USA I would have leaned toward supposing political gestures were no longer necessary in this country.  Today I’m not so sure.

So what’s the answer?  Sorry.  No idea.  Sometimes I just talk.  I guess if you’re gay and you want to make a public gesture in support of equal rights for gay people and you’re in a position to handle any haters then knock yourself out.  If you’re gay and you or your partner have relationships with people whose minds have been twisted into knots by religion or other unfortunate belief systems and you want to maintain those relationships as long as possible then maybe no need to rush to come out to anyone.  Maybe just keep things on the down low. I can’t recommend a closet though.  Too stuffy and confining.  If people can’t be bothered to remain purposefully ignorant and meet you halfway and it’s either you or them then I suppose you should probably choose you.  It’s always nice to be nice to other people but living solely to uphold the values of other people and not speaking up for your own rarely works out well in the long run.  Other people come and go but you will always have you.  Best wishes to you all my brothers and sisters.  Happy Coming Out Day!

References

Thatcham teacher Joshua Onduso banned over homophobic comments.  October 11, 2017.  http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-berkshire-41581774.

Conservative Ideology and Socialism Two Ways

Welcome friends!

I must apologize for the breakdown in my scheduling the last few weeks.  It’s been a little crazy around here and I’m not just talking about President Trump and the Republican Party.  So let’s make up for lost time and dive right in shall we?  What caught my eye this week was an amusing online comment about wealthy American “socialists” who live in gated communities and high rises not caring that immigrants and “black” people are taking jobs from hapless “white” people.  Always fun to read these sorts of posts if one can get past the fractured syntax and inventive spelling because it’s a little window into how other people see the world and by other people I mean in this instance people one might not otherwise engage in conversation in everyday life.  Ah yes the beauty of the internet.  Bringing people together, right?  Of course I’m not entirely sure if I was connecting with a semi-literate American redneck or a professional Russian troll still learning the English language but anyway they seem to get along quite well these days so doesn’t really matter much to me.  I am on the other hand always interested in how conservatives use and understand others (such as Russian trolls for example) to use the term “socialism.” It occurred to me although all conservatives are trained from early childhood to despise “socialists” with a passion verging on clinical paranoia they quite often display certain socialistic tendencies themselves.  Ironic.  Anyway, I thought I’d say a few words about that this week.

When American conservatives excoriate  domestic “socialists” what they have in mind is what you and I might call liberal / progressive democrats who support social programs designed to help struggling people.  I’m sure we all understand the haughty Ayn Randian elitist conservatives who despise that sort of thing on the principle if struggling people are destined to die they should get on with it and reduce the surplus population.  That type of conservative has been common both here and abroad for a very long time most likely from at least the time of the ancient pharaohs.  I talk about those conservatives often enough but they’re not really the focus of this post.  No, there’s another species of conservative in the USA that is more of the economically struggling salt of the earth “populist” variety.  It’s a running joke of course the latter group of conservatives finds common cause with the former group because the former group clearly views the latter group as little more than a mildly amusing species of vermin they need to play with in the name of political expediency until they manage to sufficiently shrink and neutralize democratic government to render such distasteful interactions unnecessary.  It may seem superficially curious these struggling working class conservatives would have such a rabid hatred of the people who have their best interests at heart.  Some of these conservatives are convinced liberal “socialists” are only concerned about struggling immigrants and racial minorities and funneling resources to them in particular.  Humorous of course because although there may be a few programs specifically tailored to immigrants and racial minorities most of the programs under consideration are means tested programs available to all.  Others are convinced the reason some people are struggling is that liberal “socialists” are trying to help them and if we just got rid of the programs designed to deal with these social problems the problems themselves would evaporate.  Also rather comical because historically of course the social problems predate the programs designed to address them and there is no reason at all to suppose something has changed in the interim that would prevent them reappearing if we no longer attempt to address them.  But that’s the story fed to them by the traditional conservative elite that has never seen the need to deal with social problems or I suppose more accurately has always refused even to acknowledge social problems as such and that’s the story they’re going with.

The funny thing about recent developments of course is conservatives of the struggling salt of the earth variety have re-discovered their own version of socialism in the guise of former presidential advisor Mr. Bannon’s pet project “economic nationalism.” Many conservatives seem to be struggling to recognize this agenda for what it is.  So let’s just set the record straight.

The non-socialist traditional conservative elitist response to white working class Americans losing their jobs is a big shrug of the shoulders.  So what?  What happens to you or your family is none of our concern.  We’re not your nannies.  If you lose out in the modern competitive economy that’s your problem not ours.  If insufficient jobs are available on the free market then it’s right and fitting you not have a job.  You should just go someplace and die.  Did an immigrant take your job?  So what?  You competed and the immigrant was either willing to work for less or had some other advantage.  Did some sort of minority take your job?  So what?  No one is entitled to a job.  The non-socialist approach is open borders, free movement of labor, free markets both domestically and internationally, and whatever happens happens.

What one may call the traditional liberal brand of “socialism” is to have the same sort of free market for labor and goods and services traditional conservatives embrace but to acknowledge and attempt to address the rather obvious distributional issues associated with that approach by coming up with programs to help people who may be losing out or temporarily struggling.  We’re talking about help for people having trouble finding a job.  Help with education.  Help with housing or food if necessary.  The most drastic option is probably spending tax dollars to generate jobs that would otherwise not be forthcoming on the market.  As many people have pointed out these fixes aren’t the same as dumping money down a hole in the ground as many traditional conservatives might suggest.  When we find a way to get money to struggling people they spend it, consumer demand increases, and the economy inevitably grows.  People are a lot happier as well and that has to count for something.

The new / old “economic nationalism” implicitly acknowledges the drawbacks of the free market but instead of allowing it to function and trying to fix problems after they appear it attempts to manipulate the conditions surrounding the market to head off potential problems.  Examples of this approach would be laws to buy only products made in America (regardless of whether those products are the best or the cheapest) or to prevent companies relocating to other countries (despite the potential competitive advantages of doing so) or to prevent companies from automating or using labor saving technology (despite the potential cost savings).  Depending on the “society” this form of socialism is meant to address it might involve preventing people immigrating or I suppose even ensuring members of some ethnic or racial groups get certain jobs, etc.  As any traditional conservative or liberal will tell you these types of market restrictions and manipulations come at a cost.  One may be unable to get the cheapest or most qualified worker.  One may lose out relative to foreign competitors.  The problems are in the same category as those associated with other more common market manipulations like minimum wage laws and union contracts.  However, this rigging of the market approach is one way to keep everyone or at least some people in the game.  Nothing is free in this world including trying to help struggling people.  And to the extent we’re getting money to struggling people we may at least still get the consumer demand effect.  My point in this post is not to adjudicate which type of socialism works best or makes the most sense.  It’s simply to point out they’re both forms of what is essentially socialism.  They’re both predicated on the proposition we should care what happens to other people in our “society” however we choose to define it.  We should care if our neighbor has a job.  We should care if people can afford housing.  Other people matter.

Now if one is truly opposed to socialism that’s fine with me.  Everyone is free to hold his or her own opinion on the matter.  I tend to think what happens to other people in our society is important.  Other people should have jobs and a way to make a living.  We need to keep thinking and working until we have a system that does that.  But that’s just me.  If one supports one type of socialism over another that’s also fine with me.  As I just explained I’m not entirely sure what would work best myself.  But you know what I really can’t abide?  Someone who rants on and on about the evils of socialism from one side of his or her mouth all the while promoting a form of socialism out the other side.  We’re not going to get anywhere at that rate.  Can we at least agree to try to talk sensibly about these issues?

Conservative Values Voters and President Trump

Welcome friends!

I was just sitting around marveling again at the fanatical loyalty of President Trump’s conservative base.  I think I mentioned in my previous post a recent poll found just over sixty percent of the man’s supporters said they couldn’t think of anything he might do that would make them stop supporting him.  That figure goes up past seventy percent for his female groupies.  Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion of course but it does raise the question of why.  What is it about the man that inspires such blind and uncritical devotion?  I thought I might take a few moments to speculate on that issue this time out... 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!

Memorials to Lost Causes

Welcome friends!

Seems this week we were treated to the spectacle of a president of the USA springing to the defense of what I’m sure all good American recognize as the famous basket of deplorables Ms. Clinton tried to warn us about: the KKK, Neo-Nazis, Neo-Confederates, and other random racists, nativists, and xenophobes belonging to various other crazy fringe groups.  Apparently they descended upon a small liberal college town in the US state of Virginia to engage in their usual rabble rousing and intimidation but were met with local counter protestors prepared to stand their ground.  General mayhem rather predictably ensued climaxing in this case with the murder of a young lady by a Midwestern Neo-Nazi who drove his car into the counter protesters very much in the manner of some recent attacks by Islamic terrorists.  (However, one should not necessary assume any particular affinity with Islamic terrorists.  Turns out our own domestic conservative websites and media outlets have been running stories encouraging people to run over their political opponents in the street for some time now.)  The president’s rather unhinged performance was just the latest in a long list of rather embarrassing spectacles the likes of which I never thought I would see in my lifetime.  The shocking thing is we really have to expect more of the same at least for the foreseeable future.  According to a recent Monmouth University poll over sixty percent of the Americans who support Mr. Trump say they can’t think of anything he could do that would make them disapprove of him.  (That figure goes up to over seventy percent for his female supporters.)  They will support him blindly and robotically no matter what he may do.  Mr. Trump once boasted he could shoot someone on the streets of Manhattan and not lose any of his supporters and on that point at least it seems he was absolutely correct.  His conservative base has given him carte blanche to do whatever he likes in very much the same way the same sort of people gave Adolph Hitler carte blanched to do as he wished many years ago in Germany.  It’s all really rather horrifying and nothing at all like the America I thought I knew.  But of course knowledge is always good.  In order to fight conservatism we must see it for what it is.  Anyway, a flashpoint in the development of this new low, twisted, violent version of America the Republican Party is conjuring from the dark recesses of their imagination is the fate of some statues put up years ago by the racists and nativists of the day to honor the generals and statesmen of the failed Confederate States of America (CSA) and their attempt to preserve the abhorrent system of racism and slavery upon which the economy of the old agrarian American south relied upon for so long.  Most of the story of the statues is run of the mill conservatives versus liberals of the sort I’ve been talking about a lot recently.  Indeed, I wasn’t sure I had anything in particular to say about it this week but then I read something that got my mind working just a little bit.  It involved someone with an ancestor who had died fighting for the Confederacy.  He or she was concerned that removing statues and symbols glorifying the Confederacy equated to insulting his or her dead ancestor. It got me thinking it’s not an unusual sort of issue and not all that obvious either.  Perhaps something worthy of few moments discussion and contemplation?

Humanity being what it is we’ve had our share of wars and in each case or most cases anyway one side has won and one side has lost.  But of course the ancestors of those who fought for the losing cause don’t just evaporate from the face of the earth. They live on in the new system that has melded with or at least reconciled with the winning side.  One ends up with people one likes well enough, countrymen, whose ancestors fought for discredited systems that have long since disappeared.  We have the American Civil War, many European nations have the fascist states of WWII, other countries have their own various civil wars and traumas.  This situation brings up the awkward question of how to honor these people’s dead ancestors.  What makes the issue awkward of course is we have always multiple dimensions of potential approbation and disapprobation to contend with.  Someone may have fought for what we would now consider a rather disreputable system but may be considered honorable along some other dimension.  Perhaps they did their duty to their nation, or government, or king, or dictator, or what have you.  Perhaps they fought with unusual valor or humanity.   The point is simply these people may have exhibited some things we consider worthy of some degree of respect along with some other things we don’t.

To take it out of a war context let’s say some criminal, Joe Schmo, is robbing a house and has just slit the throats of the sleeping adult owners of the property but upon discovering he has inadvertently set the house on fire runs into a burning bedroom to save the baby sleeping in the crib.  Yes, he’s a conscientious sort of murderer who draws the line at offing babies.  It’s called a thought experiment.  Philosophy 101.  OK, so the guy risks his life to save the kid.  Is he a hero?  It’s not very hard to see the problem when we set things up like this is it?  We can’t say one way or the other without a little more specificity.  A hero with respect to what?  He’s certainly not a hero in some global sense defined and united by his personhood because he murdered innocent people in their sleep, which is not a particularly heroic sort of action in anyone’s book.  But on the other hand I suppose it was pretty heroic to run into a burning room to save the kid.  With respect to one action the guy was a scoundrel and with respect to the other a hero.  When we discuss this sort of thing in words and can spend all day long setting up the scenario it’s not difficult to sort it all out.

Things would get a bit more difficult if we decided to commemorate the man using some sort of statue or memorial.  Why?  Well, I suppose because it’s just hard to get very specific with those sorts of objects.  They tend to be interpreted as referring to the person in general rather than a particular person activity combination.  This is not to say it’s logically impossible to memorialize a person activity nexus in this sort of medium.  One could I suppose do a statue of Mr. Schmo running with a baby in his arms and maybe show the clothes with little burn holes or whatever.  One might in that case suppose the statue must be commemorating the role Mr. Schmo played in some dramatic event involving babies and burning clothing but there still seems to be some room for confusion.  One might reasonably assume based on this action that Mr. Schmo must have been a real stand up kind of guy and this baby scenario was the highlight of a life filled with heroism.  Might be a little annoying to the parents or offspring of the people he had murdered in their sleep wouldn’t you say?

Might be hard to clear up this potential confusion through the medium of a more elaborate statue.  I suppose we could depict Mr. Schmo running past a bed holding some murdered people and maybe holding a razor in one hand and the baby in the other or show a cop in hot pursuit but I think that might confuse the heck out of a casual observer.  I think for something this messed up we’d have to resort to some verbiage somewhere.  I suppose we could do a plaque explaining the statue is to memorialize the actions of Joe Schmo in saving the life of baby Cutie Pie on whatever date.  But I guess that wouldn’t get us all the way there would it?  One might still suppose Mr. Schmo was rather a better sort of person than he really was.  How about a plaque that lays out all the potentially relevant details adding to the previous statement a statement to the effect that although Mr. Schmo saved the baby he was later convicted of having murdered ninety-nine people in their sleep and was incarcerated for life for his crimes?  I guess that would pretty much do it right?

Now let’s take up the case of a memorial of someone who died fighting for the CSA.  On the one had, fighting for the Confederacy does not necessarily equate to slitting someone’s throat while sleeping but of course I suppose equally doing what one may have felt was one’s duty doesn’t exactly equate to running into a burning room to save a baby either.  The point is this person will combine some things we consider worthy of respect and some things perhaps less so.

If we’re talking about private memorials and gravestones and so on the issues isn’t really very important.  We have a general belief in this country one should at least try to be charitable to the dead including those who may have done some things we would find conventionally reprehensible or difficult to understand because they can’t speak up for themselves and also out of respect for their ancestors who many have done nothing wrong but may have mixed feelings.  So I don’t suppose too many people would mind even the most committed racist soldier having his or her gravestone and so on.  I suppose if we were talking about someone famous for outrages and atrocities that might not hold but in general I think that would be the case.

In addition we all know in this kind of conflict some people are rather more committed to the cause than some other people.  Some confederate soldiers may have been fighting in passionate support of racism and slavery but some others were probably fighting more for hearth and home and perhaps wouldn’t have cared too much about the big issues one way or the other or perhaps they even disapproved of those particular aspects of their system.  Again, we’re typically willing to give dead people the benefit of the doubt on this sort of thing as far as private monuments go.  In most cases we don’t really know why someone was fighting for a particular side and we don’t really want to know.

Finally, when we’re talking about a private memorial of this sort it’s hard to envision it as a public endorsement of a movement.  Local or national authorities didn’t come in and install it.  It’s not situated in front of a court house or some other public space.  Well, maybe a cemetery is a public space but if so it’s a public space for private memorials and markers.  Even a grave marker emblazoned with the stars and bars flag of the Confederacy would I think tend to not bring much to the mind of most people beyond that that person apparently died fighting for the Confederacy.

Now when we move on to public statues and monuments and so on we’re in a rather different sort of situation.  We usually slap statues of people in public places because we want to suggest there was something particularly laudable or inspirational about something that person did.  In many cases a famous personage will be famous for some feat or action and one supposes that must be what we’re talking about.  We have a statue of George Washington because he famously led the fledgling US army during the revolution that established our democratic nation.  Maybe he also did some other things that weren’t so great.  He may have owned slaves for example.  But one would have to be rather obtuse indeed to suppose we placed a statue of the man on the lawn because we’re impressed with his slave holdings.  Many wealthy early Americans owned slaves.  They don’t all have statues.  They aren’t all considered fathers of our nation.

It all seems a bit more complicated when we’re talking about a statue of a Confederate general or statesman.  These people are typically famous for their activities in service to the CSA.  That’s really their claim to fame.  That’s why people know them.  I suppose one could argue it’s not really their association to the CSA but really something more general.  Perhaps we have a statue of Jefferson Davis because he exemplified a hard working public servant.  (I don’t believe he really did but it doesn’t matter here.)  Perhaps we have a statue of Robert E. Lee because he was arguably a great military leader.  I suppose that might work but one must admit it’s a bit of a stretch.  I suppose as was the case for our fictional Mr. Schmo we could construct a sufficiently explanatory plaque that would probably clear up much of the ambiguity for those who took the time to read it.  We’re honoring General Bigbeard despite the fact he was fighting for the discredited cause of racism and slavery because of his unusual bravery or honor or kindness to civilians or whatever at the Battle of X.

However, when one sees statues of a long list of high level CSA generals and statesmen one can’t help but suspect there’s some intended connection to the Confederacy itself.  We’ve had a lot of generals and a lot of politicians.  It would be a little odd if a great number of those we chose to honor with public statues just happened to come from the CSA during the four years of the Civil War one hundred and fifty years ago.  And this is the sort of thing  I think we’d all like to be pretty clear about because the values of the CSA are inconsistent with those of the modern USA.  Wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong end of the stick on something like this.

Turns out many of these statues were erected not immediately in the aftermath of the Civil War but during a resurgence of racism and bigotry in the early years of the twentieth century.  It’s hard not to suppose any confusion about their purpose or significance was entirely intended.  Although ostensibly to honor notable dead people it seems rather likely the purpose was just as much or more to affirm the racist theories and policies of the CSA.  Whatever the source of this confusion it has led generations of American southerners to believe the USA or a large segment of the USA endorses the values of the CSA and that the Civil War is widely recognized as a famous tragedy in which the forces of good were put down by the force of overreaching federal aggression.  It’s past time we set this narrative to rest.  Let’s clear up this confusion.  We should commemorate the Confederate dead in cemeteries.  We should use our public statuary to commemorate those who lived inspiring lives without awkward moral ambiguity so they can inspire us all to greater things not leave us scratching our heads in confusion or stomping off in disgust.  Let’s look for figures that represent our common and shared values not divisive characters of unknown or questionable moral beliefs from an at least partially unwholesome culture and system that has long since passed from this world.  Let’s celebrate the USA, not the CSA.

References

Fox News, Daily Caller delete posts encouraging people to drive through protests.  Tom Kludt.  August 15, 2017.  CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/15/media/daily-caller-fox-news-video-car-crashing-liberal-protesters/index.html.

6 in 10 people who approve of Trump say they’ll never, ever, ever stop approving.  Ryan Struyk.  August 17, 2017.  CNN.  http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/17/politics/trump-approvers-never-stop-approving-poll/index.html.

The Real Story Behind All Those Confederate Statues.  Kevin Drum.  August 15, 2017.  Mother Jones.  http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/08/the-real-story-of-all-those-confederate-statues/.

Dishonest Don and the Moral and Intellectual Rot of Modern Conservatism

Welcome friends!  

I was just sitting around contemplating the rather remarkable level of dishonesty issuing forth from the White House on a daily basis as well as the complete absence of concern let alone outrage on the part of our current president’s conservative base and it occurred to me that beyond merely damaging the USA in the more obvious ways, economically, militarily, politically, socially, legally, diplomatically and so on contemporary American conservatism seems intent on destroying the very soul of the USA: our moral integrity and respect for the truth.

What got me started thinking about this issue this week in particular was an article I read about our president apparently making up a story relating to a recent speech he gave at the National Scout Jamboree, the annual meeting of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), in which he rather predictably annoyed quite a few people by telling the boys Washington DC is a “sewer,” attacking Hilary Clinton, attacking the media, and basically engaging in the usual sort of lowbrow rabble rousing he has used to such great effect when speaking to his adoring army of angry redneck supporters.  The story he apparently made up about the event for the benefit of the tarted up conservative rag Wall Street Journal was that he had received a call from the “head of the Boy Scouts” who told him “it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them.” ... 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!

Inequality, Fairness, and Poverty

Welcome friends!

Did you ever have one of those depressing moments when you realize a problem you noticed and delved into many years ago still exists in nearly identical form and no progress of any sort appears to have taken place in the intervening decades?  I had that sensation the other day while reading an article on economic inequality.  Apparently some researchers who study people’s attitude to wealth disparity discovered ideas of fairness or what we used to call social justice can play a role.  To quote a younger and slightly more uncouth version of myself, “No shit Sherlock!”  Sorry to get all juvenile and sarcastic but is this really as far as we’ve advanced in terms of the social discussion of distributional issues?  One’s ideas about fairness may play a role?  Someone had to write it up in a newspaper article?  It’s especially disheartening to me because as I’ve probably mentioned before I feel distributional issues are behind a good deal of what’s wrong with human societies today.  I don’t mean just in terms of the ethical issues and costs associated with inappropriate distributions but also in terms of the social conflict and instability our inability to come to grips with distributional issues generate.  How to explain the feeling I was having?  To put the phenomenon in a different context let’s imagine one was concerned with some basic health issue, let’s say long term behaviors that reduce the risk of heart attack, and one noticed an article in a newspaper that looked potentially relevant only to find on closer examination the article revealed merely that some doctors suspect having a beating heart might be important for one’s health.  Just give me a moment to calm down again.  Perhaps I’m being unreasonable.  Given our collective aversion to any serious discussion of distributional issues most likely because the haves of the world don’t really like the have nots of the world talking or thinking about such matters perhaps it’s not really all that remarkable each generation has to discover rudimentary features of the issue and write newspaper articles informing one another of their insights.  But I can play that game too.  In the grand tradition of reinventing the wheel let me take a few moments this week to say a few words about distributional issues, again, and how ideas about fairness may play a role, again.  Hey, anything worth saying once is worth saying a million times, right?

Let me first just quickly summarize the article so we all know what we’re talking about.  By way of introduction the authors mention what most literate people must surely already know: the resources of the world are currently distributed very unequally and more so every day.  Indeed, the top one percent of the world’s economic elite apparently now controls about fifty percent of the world’s wealth.  However, they note some researchers have recently suggested income (and I suspect they also meant wealth) disparity itself may not be the “main problem.”  No, the researchers in question apparently feel the “main problem” may be unfairness and in particular how unfairness relates to poverty.  Yes, it seems a team of researchers from Yale University recently published a journal article establishing that people tend to prefer unequal societies because they find legitimate reasons for some degree of inequality and they feel having everyone attain exactly the same outcome would not be entirely fair.  These researchers noted that in the present day USA as well as much of the rest of the world there is so much inequality some people just assume it must be unfair and have started talking about inequality in the abstract rather than sticking with the more central issue of fairness.  They argue this complicates the situation and note there are three separate but related ideas that typically feature in discussions of inequality: 1) equal opportunity, 2) fair distribution, and 3) equality of outcome.  To make any progress addressing “inequality” they argue we should first reach some agreement on what aspect of inequality we have in mind.  They go on to suggest people pay too much attention to the relative standing of the one percent and so on and suggest we instead focus on helping people who are unable to improve their situation because of a lack of fairness.  The article cites Harry Frankfurt, professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University, who argues in his book On Inequality that the moral obligation in question should involve eliminating “poverty” and striving to make sure everyone has “the means to live a good life” rather than achieving “equality.”

Got the picture?  Then let’s dive right in shall we?  The first point I would make is it seems eminently plausible to me many people think fairness is relevant to distributional issues.  This makes it all the more remarkable the textbook defense of the distributional system associated with the generally market based system by which we conduct our affairs in this country and many others doesn’t really mention fairness at all but instead involves the competing philosophical framework of utilitarianism.  According to utilitarianism something that generates greater utility is preferable to something that generates less utility, which in practice and under the conventional philosophical versions of utilitarianism amounts to the notion it’s nice when people are happy.  (I suppose using the idiosyncratic and just plain peculiar version of utility that appears in neoclassical economic theory one might say when some person is happy since we might be talking about one of those superconductors of utility allowed for in that system.  If you’re not getting what I’m driving at here you should take a glance at any of my previous posts on this topic filed most likely under utility or economic theory or something of that nature.  I’d go over it again here but I’m afraid this post is already destined to be overly long).  In the utilitarian framework there isn’t really any discussion of whether the people (or possibly the person in the case of economic theory) in question ought to be happy or deserve (or deserves in the one person case) to be happy or even why we should be concerned with people being happy.

So how does one square the fact that although most people think fairness is relevant to distributional issue the main theoretical context in which we tend to talk about distributional issues, the neoclassical demonstration of the ostensibly desirable outcomes associated with a free market, says nothing at all about it?  Well, that gets to something I’ve discussed before many times and that I’ve long associated with conservative rhetoric and ideology in general.  Basically my perception is many conservatives don’t discuss issues in what one might call a real or genuine way.  They use words and arguments and theories strategically or rhetorically.  If it gets them where they want to go they don’t worry too much about the actual meaning.  They spout off about economic theory and what it says about markets not because they necessarily agree with the philosophical framework used in economic theory to talk about markets but because it happens willy nilly to support what they support on some entirely different basis they are unable or unwilling to discuss.  I suspect that must be the main reason they continue to use the flawed and implausible version of utilitarianism in economic theory no matter how many times I or anyone else may demonstrate its rather obvious shortcomings.  It just doesn’t really matter to them.  They don’t take it that seriously or to put in the context of the discussion of how arch conservative President Trump’s supporters view their champion, they may take it seriously but not literally.  It’s more in the nature of useful rhetoric than a serious intellectual endeavor.

Along the same general lines I can’t help but detect a certain straw man element in the focus on “inequality” in some abstract and absolute sense rather than in terms of acceptable levels of inequality.  I doubt very much if anyone expressing concerns about inequality has ever argued a need for absolute equality.  I strongly suspect most people who talk about such matters are more concerned with the level of inequality and in particular the level of inequality justified by concerns relating to fairness.  It’s hard to avoid the implication that like those who talk about the glories of the free market in terms of economic theory without really buying into the moral philosophizing that informs that theory the authors in this case are setting up some sort of irrelevant dichotomy between absolute equality and fairness as a way to basically encourage people to stop talking about inequality and to think about fairness in some implausible way that doesn’t involve inequality in the sense of relative outcomes.

I’m picking up a bit of the same feeling from the passage in which the researchers note the three separate but related ideas that typically feature in discussions of inequality: 1) equal opportunity, 2) fair distribution, and 3) equality of outcome.  These issues seem to me entirely complementary and compatible.  One may feel one prerequisite for a fair distribution is equal opportunity.  Similarly one’s feeling about acceptable levels of inequality may hinge on one’s notion of fairness.  I don’t really see any reason we can’t take up these interrelated issues as a unit or anyway simultaneously.  Again, it’s almost as though the authors are trying to separate out issues of equality and get people talking and thinking about opportunity and fairness divorced from inequality but I’m just not sure I can take that objective very seriously.  If we have a very unequal sort of society where some kids have all the advantages wouldn’t that affect one’s feelings relating to equal opportunity?  If we’re discussing what we think is a fair distribution based on some consideration X wouldn’t we want to know something about the relative standing of those possessing or expressing X relative to those who do not?  If it’s fair such a person has let’s say twice the economic power of the other person does it necessarily follow it must be fair that person has one million times the market power of the other?  Again it’s hard to avoid the feeling the authors are trying to build a sort of wall around inequality or offer up a sort of indirect defense of inequality rather than sincerely trying to improve our understanding of the subject.

I might also mention I’ve never been a huge fan of discussions relating to distributional issues that focus on “poverty” and things like “the means to live a good life” as opposed to relative economic power.  I get relative economic power but “poverty” seems so subjective and arbitrary and anyway is just as relative as just looking directly at inequality in general.  Most likely we’re all doing pretty well relative to let’s say some Stone Age tribe eking out a subsistence living in a jungle somewhere.  Does that mean all distributional issues have been resolved?  Not to my mind.  And what is a good life anyway?  Sitting in a lawn chair with a glass of wine and a nice book?  Actually that does sound pretty good to me but I wonder what other people have in mind.  A big TV?  A computer?  A vacation?  A nice car?  Superior health care?  No I think we’re going down the wrong path when we stop thinking about inequality in relative terms and start thinking about “poverty” and “the means to a good life.”

Let me just end with some random thoughts of my own on the topic of inequality and fairness.  I’ve probably mentioned most of these before but what the heck.  First of all, I don’t see any reason one can’t combine the utilitarian insight it’s nice when people are happy with the insight people like fairness as well.  Setting aside the peculiar super conductor conceptualization of utility used in economic theory I don’t see much wrong with the notion it’s nice when as many people have as much utility as possible relative to their own maximum utility.  If one also accepts the notion of diminishing marginal utility and the notion one tends to address one’s most basic and important needs and wants first I believe that does generate a certain tendency toward egalitarianism and spreading the wealth around.  But I also don’t see much wrong with supposing we’re also willing to give up some of that social utility to address fairness.  I suppose if one wanted to get all philosophical about it one could relate one’s feelings about a system expressing fairness to one’s utility from living in such a system and try to work it all out in that way but that sounds a bit of a parlor game to me.  I don’t have any particular problem mixing philosophical systems.  For example, even with respect to neoclassical economic theory I think it’s fine as far as it goes but as I’ve explained before it just doesn’t really go very far and certainly not as far as many people would like to present it as going.  I don’t see anything wrong with supposing maximizing utility is good as far as it goes with the proviso fairness is also important.   (Incidentally aside from utility and fairness the other big philosophical approach to thinking about distributions one tends to hear a lot about involves various conceptions of rights so if one wishes one can just imagine we’re including that line of thinking as well.  I’m not doing that literally here because we’re talking about inequality and fairness but if one wants to bump it up in one’s mind so to speak and think about distributions in general I think some of these same points probably apply there as well.)

So what are the issues that might justify at least some level of inequality on the basis of fairness?  As a general point I would say given my individualistic outlook on such matters the relevant consideration for the issue of fairness is whether an individual is doing something that suggests he or she deserves higher compensation than someone doing something else.  Let’s look at some specific instances of this general idea.

I think right at the top of the heap must be a willingness to accept the market incentive structure.  One might like writing poetry on a breezy hill top but if no one really wants to pay one to do that but is willing to pay one to do something else he or she finds more personally useful like let’s say digging in the old salt mine I guess it makes sense the person who agrees to work in the old salt mine should make more than the person who insists on the breezy hill top.  Trying to get along with other people and so on should probably count for something.  The nicest way to get money from other people is to do something they’re willing to pay one to do.  Of course other values may be involved as well and in this context I think one is in real danger of putting one’s ethical cart before the horse.  Depending on the distribution of economic power the most highly paid activity on the market might be something like, I don’t know, installing golden toilets in the palaces of the hereditarily wealthy.  I mean, if they have all the money and that’s what they value then that will be what the market recommends one spends one’s time doing.  Indeed under the right conditions that might be the only activity called forth on the market.  However, taking a somewhat broader view I suppose one could make an argument a nice bit of poetry or something else like let’s say providing housing or health services or what have you for the poor or something like that might be more valuable to humanity in some ultimate way.  Of course, it’s quite possible the only way to pay someone to do things like that in a market system geared to gold toilet installation might be to tax those with money and subsidize the people doing those other things, which I suppose depending on one’s ethical frame of mind might seem a perfectly reasonable thing to do.  I suppose one could also directly alter the market incentive structure by changing the pattern of economic power if one could find some generally acceptable basis on which to do that.  In our example if a few poetry lovers and poor people had a bit of money that would also solve the ostensible problem.

It may be worthwhile to note this is where the perspectives of liberals and conservatives relating to the merits of democracies and market systems really begin to diverge.  To me as a liberal democracy must take precedence.  There is no legitimate distributional system until we set one up via democratic government and what makes it legitimate is we agree to support it.  If enough of us decide something isn’t working quite right it seems eminently reasonable to me we should be able to step in and redistribute resources in some way that makes a little more sense.  Tax a bit here.  Subsidize a bit there.  This sort of thing of course drives conservatives bonkers.  They see redistribution even resulting from democratic government as a great crime against the individual.  They believe once one sets up a distributional system it becomes sacrosanct and takes on a life of its own and the only legitimate political objective from that point on is to prevent democracy from altering it in any way.  Not surprisingly this view seems most attractive to those prospering under the current system and wanting to keep it that way but sometimes they manage to pull in people who feel they should be prospering under the current system but suspect other people have been interfering with it in some way that has prevented them from getting their due.  I personally think a more middle of the road approach is more attractive.  That is to say, I suppose it’s perfectly fine to say people who go along with what those with economic power want them to do should end up better off than those who do not but I wouldn’t want to go all crazy in that respect.

How much better would avoid the implication we’ve gone crazy in that respect?  Ah, well, that’s the tricky part isn’t it?  I wouldn’t expect someone trying to do something that isn’t called forth by the economic power expressed in the market to be justified in wanting to live like royalty.  I suppose a middling amount that leads to a more or less reasonable style of life?  Or I suppose rather less since they have the breezy hilltops.  Just throwing out ideas. It’s all relative. Some percentage of the average?  In a sense it depends on the other side of the coin.  How much better off should someone be who pays greater attention to market incentives?  Well, I don’t know.  I guess part of it might be what level of relative income can reasonably be expected to change what people decide to do.  Writing poetry on breezy hill sides sounds a lot more enticing to me than working at the old salt mine at least if one has some modicum of interest and ability with respect to poetry so I suppose without adequate relative compensation we might very well end up with an awful lot of questionable poetry and no one working at the old salt mine.  Doesn’t seem very reasonable.  We may arguably need a bit of poetry but we probably also need some salt.  So I don’t know.  Maybe some people don’t even like writing poetry on hill tops.  Double?  Triple?  Something like that?  Perhaps see what happens?  I would think the issues must be related in some way because of course if one expects the entire incentive system to crash if one alters relative compensation at all then one would might need to be very careful indeed with redistribution at least if one places some significance on the current distribution of economic power and hence the incentive patterns flowing from that distribution but on the other hand if one sees quite of a lot of flab in relative compensation in the sense everyone would end up doing pretty much the same things anyway then maybe it becomes more of an open question even if one were trying to maintain the significance of the current distribution.

I suppose another generally acceptable basis for at least some level of inequality must be one’s level of effort or let’s say willingness to work hard.  Now certainly in our system if two people have identical jobs and let’s say they do work of roughly comparable quality and one person is willing to put in more hours than another person it makes sense the person working more hours should end up better off.  I suppose relative effort while on the job holding hours equal follows a similar path as long as one is holding everything else equal but of course the problem there is in practice everything else is typically not equal, which raises the question of whether one thinks fairness in terms of effort has to do with effort relative to a person’s maximum effort or some sort of standard criterion like output.  For example, let’s say we’re looking at some sort of physical labor like I don’t know picking fruit.  If the aspiring Olympic athlete desultorily picks more fruit than frail and asthmatic grandma is it fair he is compensated more on the basis of effort?  Or would that involve some other consideration having to do with rightful compensation based on one’s contribution to the system?  I don’t know.  My general point is figuring out how hard work relates to inequality in realistic contexts gets pretty complicated pretty quickly because of differences in talents, abilities, and situations.  Some of the hardest working people I know work at some of the lowest paying jobs while some of the most casual workers I know work at some of the most high paying jobs.  Indeed some fat cats have sufficient money to invest they make quite a nice living expending no effort at all beyond the effort involved in hauling their fat behinds to the local wine bar every afternoon.  So yes I suppose I think differences in effort justify some level of inequality when it can be identified and the general level of inequality justified might be commensurate with the relative amount of effort in that case.  If someone works twice as long I suppose they should earn twice as much.  Do I suspect there are people out there putting in let’s say a million times more effort than other people?  No, not really.

I’m trying to think of some other things that would justify inequality on the grounds of fairness but I find I’m already starting to hit a bit of a wall here.  A good part of the reason is many of the things I suspect account for a good deal of the inequality we see in our system aren’t really based on any sort of commendable activity on the part of the people involved but are more along the lines of things that just happen to people.  Let’s go over a few of these.

A big one for me is inborn talents and abilities.  Let’s take intelligence as a prime example.  I hate to be the one to point it out but some people are just not very smart.  Unfortunately lots of fields require a bit of brains.  I think this has been changing over time.  At one point probably there may have been quite a lot of demand for relatively mindless labor.  However, now that many things are automated the emphasis is more on brain work.  So is it fair someone who was born a bit of a dummy be poor or suffer materially because of it?  What if he or she is a very hard worker and is willing to go along with market incentives or otherwise do what people want them to do to the extent of their abilities?  Again, I just don’t know.  Doesn’t seem particularly fair to me although I suppose if one switches to some other line of justification like output or contributions to the system then maybe it makes more sense.

How about environment and support provided by one’s birth family?  It’s no secret if one has the good sense to be born to wealthy and well connected parents one will end up with a much cushier life than otherwise.  Not only can they provide a nice environment to study and pay for the best education and keep one healthy and happy and so on but one would not feel compelled to make decisions based on helping them out or be in any particular rush to get a paycheck and one could probably afford to try some things with the expectation one should be able to recover from any missteps and one might reasonably expect some useful connections and introductions to be forthcoming that might smooth one’s way and indeed one might reasonably expect to be installed directly into a nice job at the family firm.  But of course one doesn’t really have any say with respect to one’s birth family.  One just pops out into the world one day and looks around and is either pleasantly surprised or a bit miffed.  Not sure I can see much inequality based on this consideration justified on the basis of fairness.

How about luck?  I think a big component of the inequality we really see in the world today is little more than being in the right place at the right time.  Honestly, many years ago when I actively studied such matters I found it rather interesting that even though the economic models meant to predict wages might include everything one might reasonably expect to be involved including the proverbial kitchen sink they could in fact only explain in a statistical sense a small portion of the observed differences in wages.  I always assumed that unexplained bit must just involve old fashioned luck.  Hard to think of what else it might be.  I’m not suggesting we banish luck but again I’m not sure I’d consider sufficiently related to fairness to justify much inequality on that account.

Maybe that’s enough talk for now.  To sum up I would suggest that as far as I can tell our current system has a good deal of both inequality and unfairness.  Not the worst system in the world of course.  I’m sure there are plenty of even more unequal and unfair systems out there.  But on the other hand I’m not ready to suggest we’ve hit the jackpot and have no room for further improvement just yet.  Even granting some level of inequality is justified due to considerations relating to fairness I don’t see the extreme levels of inequality we see here in the USA to be anywhere near the levels I would find likely to be justified by those considerations and indeed I see extreme inequality as presenting a significant and ever increasing impediment to fairness.  As such I don’t think we really need to get bogged down on parlor games involving what we really mean by inequality and so on.  We should probably just get to work.  Our system is out of kilter in the sense some people lay claim to more resources than can reasonably be justified on any ethical basis be it utilitarian or social justice.  Some undeserving people hoard billions of dollars.  Some deserving people suffer material want.  We could adjust the system to make it fairer and at the same time end up with a great many more happy people than we have now.  But do to do that we have to fight conservatives hell bent on defending the status quo levels of inequality both through fanciful anti-democratic rights based arguments of the sort that no matter how bad things get we have no ethical rationale or justification for changing anything because it’s all a matter of unchanging rights and also through purposeful attempts to obscure the issue and shut down the conversation including bogus appeals to the incomplete and let’s just say sham utilitarianism presented in economic theory and unnecessarily convoluted and unhelpful suggestions to first reach agreement on interrelated and complicated philosophical issues of questionable practical significance such as what one definition or aspect of inequality is most important.  Let’s try to keep it simple shall we? Fight conservatism.  Make the world a better place.

References

There’s a problem with the way we define equality.  Bryan Lufkin.  July 7, 2017.  BBC.  http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170706-theres-a-problem-with-the-way-we-define-inequality