Ian says:> A great post. thanks.
> Below is our real problem. [our only one?] How would we fare with such a disputant? Ian quotes:> "In recent years, protectionism has also manifested itself in a somewhat different guise by challenging the moral roots of capitalism and globalization. At the risk of oversimplification, I would separate the differing parties in that debate into three groups. First, there are those who believe that relatively unfettered capitalism is the only economic organization consistent with individual and political freedom. In a second group are those who accept capitalism as the only practical means to achieve higher standards of living but who are disturbed by the seeming incivility of many market practices and outcomes. In very broad brush terms, the prevalence with which one encounters allegations of incivility defines an important difference in economic views that distinguishes the United States from continental Europe -- two peoples having deeply similar roots in political freedom and democracy.< I think that this describes a real-world political schism, while there's a lot of truth to the description of the third group, but AG's description hides a premise, i.e., that "protectionism" is at the root of the challenge to "the moral roots of capitalism and globalization." He also doesn't explain what he means by "freedom." On the first issue, both a high-theory and a more-empirical approach are needed. On the second, it's more of a philosophical issue. AG seems to define "freedom" in a purely negative way (following I. Berlin's definition of different types of freedom). He doesn't deal with the non-freedom that arises from the freedom of capital, e.g., the way in which the reserve army of unemployed workers that helps preserve the capitalists' freedom to profit and accumulate wealth violates the freedom of the workers themselves (by limiting the choices of the unemployed and those who fear being laid off or fired). [I use the word "freedom" as refering to an abundance of choices (ignoring the unfreedom involved in how our "preferences" are determined), something that can be promoted by government and restricted by the "private" sector sometimes.] > A more pronounced distinction separates both of these groups from a third group, which views societal organization based on the profit motive and corporate culture as fundamentally immoral. > This group questions in particular whether the distribution of wealth that results from greater economic interactions among countries is, in some sense, "fair." Here terms such as exploitation," "subversion of democratic choice," and other value-charged notions dominate the debate.< AG here gets into scientism, assuming that he's value free and his opponents are value-charged. But he's the one who put forth the values of "individual and political freedom" and "civility." BTW, I think that the phrase "subversion of democratic choice" is much more obvious in its meaning than "freedom," so the folks he's lambasting are at least up front about what they're pushing for. >These terms too often substitute for a rigorous discussion of the difficult tradeoffs we confront in advancing the economic welfare of our nations. Such an antipathy to "corporate culture" has sent tens of thousands into the streets to protest what they see as "exploitive capitalism" in its most visible form -- the increased globalization of our economies.< the idea that the world can be seen totally in terms of "difficult tradeoffs" and the like is a central part of the broadly-defined liberal political philosophy. A Marxian philosophy suggests that there are fundamental conflicts that cannot be described as "tradeoffs." This should be complemented with empirical/concrete research about the actual nature of the trade-offs that exist -- and an effort to make sure that the "trading off" decisions are made democratically rather than by dictatorial elites such as that led by AG. >Though presumably driven by a desire to foster a better global society, most protestors hold misperceptions about how markets work and how to interpret market outcomes. To be sure, those outcomes can sometimes appear perverse to the casual observer. In today's marketplace, for example, baseball players earn much more than tenured professors. [horrors!] But that discrepancy expresses the market fact that more people are willing to pay to see a ball game than to attend a college lecture. I may not personally hold the same relative valuation of those activities as others, but that is what free markets are about. They reflect and give weight to the values of the whole of society, not just those of any one segment. [Alan Greenspan]< this business of "free markets" is standard crap. It ignores not only the institutional differences between the two markets (such as the non-pecuniary benefits that profs. receive) but also, more fundamentally, the structure of power and privilege in which such "free markets" operate. To see the latter, we need more than simple empiricism, though that helps a lot. I hope that the above commentary suggests the validity of my approach: both a theoretical and an empirical approach are needed (along with actual political action). It's true that different people can do different parts of this, but separating them in a hard-and-fast way is a version of divide-and-rule. JD
