The Beautiful Dream Part II

Welcome friends!

Last time out I suggested the determination of American economic conservatives to portray a rather overly simplistic and idealized mental construct they call “The Free Market” as a panacea for all of society’s ills may be related more to the world of dreams and fantasy than ethical or empirical theory.  In other words, I suggested those who would argue against this false and anti-social ideology on the basis of ethics, logic, or historical evidence may be barking up the wrong tree.  In some cases people live for their dreams and whether their dreams have any basis in reality or cohere in any rational or logical sense is really beside the point.  The narcotic effect of these sorts of life sustaining dreams has of course been noted before but more typically in the context of religious or spiritual beliefs as in Karl Marx’s famous description of religion as the opium of the masses.  However, I think a case can be made for essentially the same phenomenon playing out in terms of secular beliefs relating to economic issues.  I suggested it was likely not coincidental that here in the USA social conservatives attracted to religious modes of thinking tend to also be or at least make common cause with economic conservatives attracted to conservative economic ideology.  However, I didn’t really draw out what I consider the interesting ethical implications of this train of thought last week so I thought I’d do that now before I forget the whole thing entirely.

The ethical issue I wanted to take up this week is basically if one sees some junkies on the street corner and one is concerned for their welfare should one buy them some stuff or drag them struggling and screaming to rehab?  More to the point if one sees some people clinging to religion like drowning people clinging to a life raft should one bother explaining the rather obvious intellectual deficiencies and moral pitfalls of religious modes of thought or should one just light a bit of incense and sing a little song with them?  Even more to the point if one sees some poor economically struggling people working feverishly to shrink and minimize the influence of democratic government, outlaw unions, eliminate health and safety regulations, and do away with social safety net programs under the belief that doing so will usher in a golden age in which all their economic problems will be solved should one bother trying to explain why that is most likely not what will happen or should one just buy them a six pack and a funny cap and help them on their way?

It seems to me now the answer is not as obvious as I previously supposed.  Well, OK, I suppose the answer is still pretty obvious under some conditions.  If one is suffering oneself and unfortunately also educated enough to be immune to the mind numbing power of the conservatives’ pipe dream then of course I suppose one should speak up for oneself and try to talk sense to those in a similar situation.  Similarly if one isn’t really suffering oneself but notices signs of uncertainty or mental distress in the minds of those who are suffering then one might feel some urgency in helping them come quickly to their senses.  But I’m thinking about the case, all too common here in the USA because of the close relationship between liberalism, intelligence, and higher education, in which one is relatively well to do oneself but motivated in no small degree by one’s concern for economically struggling people who appear to be in the deep trance of conservative ideology.  That’s a tougher one right?  

One’s natural inclination may be to recoil at the sight of people essentially emasculating themselves (or whatever the equivalent would be for women) by endorsing the conservative mantra of shrinking and weakening the role of democratic government thus negating their own relatively equal voting power, of endorsing the fanciful conservative fairy stories that portray wealth as largely a function of individual merit and moral rectitude and poverty conversely as mostly a personal failing befalling only the morally compromised, and of supporting the elimination of government programs designed to address the inequities and imbalances and instabilities of real market systems.  One may want to avert one’s eyes at the spectacle of these unfortunate people putting their own livelihoods and modest homes at risk and allowing their children to succumb to the social pathologies that inevitably accompany poverty and neglect.  

But I think to be realistic one must balance these sentiments with the knowledge that in many cases these people are benumbed and ensnared in the beautiful dream of conservatives.  They feel no pain nor register material hardship of any sort.  Indeed they live on a dream that if only we give The Free Market full rein we will attain a care free society in which all good people do well, “activist” government will become unnecessary and fall away (that is, any government beyond simply endorsing property rights and possibly a few other functions), and we will need never again think about the difficult and contentious issues associated with economic distributions.  How happy life will be when we get to that promised land that never seems to quite arrive but is always just around the next bend.  Would one want to take this life sustaining dream from these people and replace it with the cold reality of empirical fact, the real variety of shifting market structures, the pros and cons of real market systems, the difficult trade-offs and complicated discussions that would really be required to reconcile conflicting notions of distributional fairness and ethically optimal results?  Many of these people simply don’t have the intellectual capacity or educational background to entertain such issues or deal with such a world.  Without their beautiful dream they may very well sink into the dark blue depths of reality never to emerge again.

Justice and fairness for the economically weak is always something worth fighting for but I think we all need to keep things in perspective.  Fight the good fight of course but have a bit of a laugh and a song in one’s heart along the way.  Think of the wealthy conservative elite not simply as unscrupulous villains intent on preying on the intellectually and economically weak to further engorge themselves but more charitably as possibly more akin to greedy pushers selling their overpriced poison to desperate strung out junkies on the street corner.  Heroes to some, villains to others, but in a better world unnecessary to all.

The Beautiful Dream of Economic Conservatives

Welcome friends!

I was just reading yet another article about how the poorer salt of the earth variety of conservatives here in the USA are still very enthusiastic about the performance of our ongoing national embarrassment President Trump.  They are absolutely convinced he is on the right track.  This phenomenon has long been interesting to me because these are the people who have been losing out over the past several decades of conservative / neoliberal free market economic ideology and policies and there is really no reason to suppose they will not continue to lose out exacerbated now by any number of additional burdens such as the shredding of the social safety net, trade wars, elimination of worker health and safety rules, elimination of Obamacare and with it some of these people’s only realistic hope for affordable health care, elimination of Wall Street oversight, growth slowing restriction of legal immigration, destruction of the environment, and many other important conservative objectives and priorities.  I’ve generally considered that because these people tend to not be the most educated or informed they are simply prone to being easily deluded by fast talking con artists such as, well, President Trump and other leading figures in the Republican Party and the conservative hot air industry.  However, I must admit it’s always seemed a bit of a mystery to me why they don’t seem to ever catch on even after decades of getting the short end of the stick.  One would think a rock would have caught on by now.  Recently I’ve been thinking I may be the looking at the issue the wrong way round.  Perhaps what is important to these people is not their material conditions but something belonging more to the world of etherial fantasy: keeping their conservative dreams alive.  Perhaps it simply doesn’t matter to them how they actually make out in this world as long as they can continue to dream the happy dream of conservative economic ideology.

What is the happy dream of conservative economic ideology?  I think you must have come across it somewhere.  It’s basically the notion that we can set up a market system that captures all relevant ethical considerations relating to the thorny issue of distribution such that we will never need to bother discussing them again.  The people who should do well will automatically do well.  The people who shouldn’t do well will automatically get exactly what they deserve.  Democratic government and voting and policy making and so on will become irrelevant at least as far as economic issues.  Presumably private charity will likewise become irrelevant unless one has a personal  interest in undermining the ethically correct market distribution.  We can all look after our own selfish interests with nary a thought for our fellow humans or indeed nary a thought relating to any economic issue at all and the invisible hand of the market will ensure it all comes out right in the end.

What’s not to like, right?  All our problems solved in one fell swoop.  We can all sit on our recliners drinking beer and watching fulminating conservative pundits excoriate their many enemies on the TV.  The problem of course with this particular pipe dream is that even a moment’s serious thought or attention to history will reveal it doesn’t really work.  It’s very difficult to set up a system that rewards that which we all agree on an ethical basis should be rewarded.  And once one loses that unanimity well it all becomes a matter of conflict between the haves and the have nots wouldn’t you say?  Not very magical nor necessarily all that happy.  And or course there are many well known conditions under which even perfectly competitive free markets can be shown to have problems even using the stripped down utility lite favored by the economics profession for its simplistic misleading baby social philosophy.  There are also many real world market structures other than the much discussed perfectly competitive market and without constant supervision or oversight there is no reason to suppose market structures will maintain constant over time.  In other words, the pipe dream of the economic conservative is not something most reasonable, educated, thinking people can take very seriously.

However, I think one has to consider the issue from the perspective of people who just aren’t very educated and who really really don’t like complications or discussions.  It’s quite possible that for such people thinking and talking seriously about such matters is more burdensome than maintaining their simplistic dreams come what may and allowing their actual material conditions to deteriorate.  In that sense I suppose one might say free market ideology is for many of these people a sort of secular religion that like all religions must be shielded from the cold light of reason, evidence, and critical discussion.  Indeed I’ve long commented on the fact that the same people tend to be attracted to both economic conservatism and social conservatism involving religion.  It also fits in with the clear preferences for many of these conservatives to not subject themselves to real news or real information that might potentially challenge their beliefs and values and instead hew closely to the biased unreliable fake news of the conservative infotainment industry.  As reported in the papers surveys show, many of these people consider a news source reliable and unbiased to the extent it protects and facilitates their dreams and not for any of the rather more prosaic considerations the rest of us tend to rely upon.  It also explains the anger and rudeness of many conservatives because of course if one is frustrated and trying to avoid serious discussion of an issue the best way to shut it down is to become angry and rude.

I find it an interesting idea because in my youth conservatives were typically portrayed as hard headed realists while liberals with their endless attempts to improve things were typically cast as starry eyed dreamers.  However, now that I’m older and have a seen a bit of the world I suspect that old saw had it exactly backwards.  Liberals with their willingness to confront evidence from the material world and take up the real world complications that make free market systems less than the panacea conservatives want them to be are the realists.  Economic conservatives at least of the salt of the earth variety are the starry eyed dreamers clinging confidently or perhaps desperately to the happy dream that would allow them to thrive without the hurly burly of debate and discussion or indeed education or even information of any sort.  Of course we must also recognize economic conservatives of another sort, the calculating schemers of the wealthy classes and their allies and cheerleaders and hangers on in the economics profession and conservative infotainment industry, who cynically use free market ideology as a rhetorical tool to amass more wealth for themselves with scant regard for the welfare of others.  Those elite economic conservatives are I suppose as much realists in their own way as liberals.  The difference is that liberals apply their realism to their sincere interest in the national welfare and honest intellectual exchange and discussion while elite economic conservatives apply their realism to making a buck for themselves any way possible and use words and arguments disingenuously and strategically in an attempt to keep other people in a sort of dream world with little or no sincere interest in the truth or national welfare. We should all resist the narcotic pipe dreams peddled by the economic conservative elite.  Fight for liberalism and the good of all humankind.