On 4/19/2013 11:36 AM, Jim Devine wrote: > It doesn't matter whether most people in this society are either > logically or empirically correct (i.e., agree with your opinions or > ethics). My point was and is that many people believe (wrongly or > rightly) that paying off one's debts has a moral backing. Similarly, I > believe that the concept of "biological races" does not apply to _homo > sapiens_ (and to use this concept to apply in this way can easily be > racist), but the vast majority of people seem to disagree with me. Just > because they're wrong does not mean that their belief is irrelevant to > our understanding of the social reality. > > I know that the positive/normative distinction is very hard to make, but > my point that people attach moral value to the idea of paying off debts > was a positive (empirically descriptive) one rather than a normative > (ethically prescriptive) one.
=================== Would it not be the role of a critical political economy to disabuse citizens of such a vox populi notion, especially if it is part and parcel of so-called bourgeois ideology? Few have qualms about dismantling vox populi beliefs regarding races; why should we have to put up with the notion that monetary debts are moral phenomena? I think part of this issue harkens back to Tom Walker's point about delusions. > > You seem to be saying that legitimacy is a _moral_ concept, not a > political one. _We_ (justly) dislike plutocracies or theocracies, so > morally speaking they aren't legitimate. ================ I explicitly asserted that legitimacy is a political concept. Any seeming is being performed by you, not me :-) > > But sociologically and politically speaking, "legitimacy" simply means > that people are willing to accept the _status quo_ (whatever it is) for > reasons beyond the fact that the plutocrats or the theocrats have the > coercive power of the state on their side. A regime can be "legitimate" > simply because people think "there is no alternative" (even though you > and I disagree with them). It's commonplace among political economists > that the capitalist system's stability and survival depends not only on > force but also its legitimacy in the minds of the populace. > > Max Weber famously defined the "state" as “a human community that > (successfully) claims the /monopoly of the legitimate use of physical > force/ within a given territory." Most sociologists who read this do not > interpret his use of the word "legitimate" as saying that he _morally > agreed_ with the state's monopoly on the use of coercion. He should have > been more careful in his use of language, however The word "legitimacy" > seems to be a tightly-wound bundle of normative and positive conceptions. =============== Thanks for the Sociology 101 diversion. > Is it usual for people of your academic discipline to use blanket > generalizations, asserting that _all_ people of some social category > (here, "economists") are bad in some way? Is it usual for you to forget > the distinction between pen-l economists (or rather political economists > of a radical or Marxian persuasion) who study more than one > social-"scientific" discipline and try to integrate them, on the one > hand, and the non-pen-l economists (who veer toward pure NC economics) > on the other? is it usual to ignore that some individual economists > differ from the crowd? That's the road to prejudice! ============== I made no blanket generalizations in my *facetious aside* regarding economists. That being said I don't see much moral theory in American Economic Review or Metroeconomica even as all kinds of moral and other normative assumptions lie in the pages. Clearly, R&R have some moral theory implied within their quantitative models and a bunch of moralists grabbed it and ran with it. Perhaps there is a greater possibility for opening up discussion about just what is wrong with the moral theory implicit in R&R's work - and others- as well as going after the monetary moralists trolling the corridors of the major political institutions of our era? As surely as the moralists will go looking for the next group of economists who tell them what they want to hear, they will go looking for the next William Bennett, Suze Orman or whoever to tell people how to think about debt. That's part of the reason I think Graeber and others are making a mistake, when it seems to me to be strategic to attack the erroneous web of belief that the massive debt burden that the human race has imposed on itself is grounded in some moral theory or other when it isn't. > If I remember correctly, he is saying that _others_ attach moral values > -- or moralistic emotions -- to issues of fiscal policy. It's a > positive, not a normative, statement. ==================== <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/opinion/krugman-cheating-our-children.html> Fiscal policy is, indeed, a moral issue, and we should be ashamed of what we’re doing to the next generation’s economic prospects. But our sin involves investing too little, not borrowing too much — and the deficit scolds, for all their claims to have our children’s interests at heart, are actually the bad guys in this story. > > Again if I remember correctly, he's saying that _others_ attach > moralistic emotions to fiscal policy, seeing "balance the budget" as a > slogan to paint on the flag used to lead a crusade (to screw the > "common" people), whereas _he_ sees himself as being pragmatic, knowing > that abstract moral principles may sound nice but can work out poorly in > practice. ======================== <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/opinion/Krugman-The-Urge-To-Purge.html> So what should we be doing? By all means, let’s restore the kind of effective financial regulation that, in the years before the Reagan revolution, helped deter excessive leverage. But that’s about preventing the next crisis. To deal with the crisis that’s already here, we need monetary and fiscal stimulus, to induce those who aren’t too deeply indebted to spend more while the debtors are cutting back. But that prescription is, of course, anathema to Mellonites, who wrongly see it as more of the same policies that got us into this trap. And that, in turn, tells you why liquidationism is such a destructive doctrine: by turning our problems into a morality play of sin and retribution, it helps condemn us to a deeper and longer slump. I know the ab0ve is rhetoric and all that, but perhaps the time has come for something different; an attack on the assumptions regarding debt and the liberal art of separation itself that sustains it that moves from the rarefied world of academia to Facebook etc. Just think of how quickly HAP spread. Below is just one small example of what I'm thinking of, given what Jerry Cohen called the "collective unfreedom" of debt; Ross is someone who wants to keep some of the kernel of micro but attempts to deal honestly with the implications of what has happened to moral theory over the last 30 or so years. One difference I have with the piece is I think we should be hectoring people about [un]freedom rather than moralizing; it's part of the reason I like the direction Ernesto Screpanti has taken in the past few years: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=962447 Moral Fictionalism, Preference Moralization and Anti-Conservatism: Why Metaethical Error Theory Doesn't Imply Policy Quietism Don Ross University of Cape Town - Faculty of Commerce - School of Economics; Center for Economic Analysis of Risk, Georgia State University January 2007 Abstract: The evolutionary explanation of human dispositions to prosocial behaviour and to moralization of such behaviour undermines the moral realist's belief in objective moral facts that hold independently of people's contingent desires. At the same time, advocacy of preferences for radical large-scale policy change is generally sure to be ineffective unless it is moralized. It may seem that this requires the economist who would advocate loud policies, but is also committed to a naturalistic account of human social and cognitive behaviour, to engage in wilful manipulation, morally hectoring people even when she knows that her doing so ought rationally to carry no persuasive force. Understanding the role of moralized preferences in the maintenance of the self, and in turn understanding the economic rationale of such self-maintenance, shows how and why preferences can be moralized by a believer in error theory without this implying hypocrisy or manipulation. E _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
