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Pundit's Fallacy
Will picks up on the philosophy gap issue and then goes and says a bunch of stuff I think is wrong. Will wonders about "the malaise of American statist liberalism" and then, employing the Pundit's Fallacy, attributes said malaise to those attributes of American statist liberalism he dislikes. I'm going to outsource this to Ramesh Ponnuru's hard to find thanks to technical glitches post on this from this morning. Simply put, American statist liberalism is on its strongest political grounds precisely when it's doing the things Will finds most objectionable on policy terms -- engaging in a knee-jerk defense of existing social welfare programs.
UPDATE: Ah. Will says in comments that's not what he meant, he merely attributes the philosophical incoherence to the above. Nowadays, I took it for granted that "malaise of . . . liberalism" simply had to refer to the fact that Republicans keep winning elections.
February 22, 2005 | Permalink
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Since Matt accused me of committing the pundit's fallacy(and although I claimed in his comments that I didn't, I sort of did,) I got to wondering what makes it a fallacy, exactly. The pundit's fallacy putatively occurs when a pundit... [Read More]
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Comments
Statist liberalism sure seems to be doing fine engaging in a knee-jerk defense of Social Security. Bush seems to be having a few problems on that front.
Posted by: Haggai | Feb 22, 2005 5:17:26 PM
Why does a Hayek fan think defense of existing institutions, which actually work, is inherently less intellectually valid than dreaming up new institutions?
Especially when Will makes arguments that entail:
*Insurance is impossible.
*Risk aversion is irrational.
*Promises-to-pay aren't financial assets.
*It is a good idea to lie to people about how social programs work so that the American people can be socially engineered into a mass investor class.
Posted by: Gareth | Feb 22, 2005 5:20:36 PM
Is it just me, or has Wilkinson become much more of a hack since he left grad school for Cato?
Posted by: Phil | Feb 22, 2005 5:30:13 PM
Matt, You're mixing up the strategy/philosophy issue here. You're saying, as a matter of strategy, The American Society for the Preservation of Historic Welfare Programs works fairly well. I wasn't saying, "If only the left would adopt my politics, they would have strategic success." I was saying, if only the left would adopt my politics, they'd have a coherent philosophy. Whether this philosophy can offer a framework for successful political is an open question, since no one has ever tried it.
It may be the case that American liberalism is strategically strongest in its reactionary, conservationist mode. But I took Tomasky's point to be that this isn't strong enough, because, despite all the feverish strategizing on the left, ya'll keep getting your ass handed to you by folks whose strategy is guided by a clearer, more coherent (even if deeply flawed) philosophy.
Posted by: Will Wilkinson | Feb 22, 2005 5:31:03 PM
Phil, It's you!
Posted by: Will Wilkinson | Feb 22, 2005 5:31:37 PM
Gareth, If such are my entailments, then I thus contradict myself.
* Insurance is possible.
* Risk-aversion can be rational.
* A promise to pay can be an asset as long as it isn't a promise to pay yourself, in which case I'm a bona fide bgooglezillionaire.
You may now use these contradictions to validly derive any proposition you like from my arguments, such as, "There is life on Neptune" or "Jen will always love Brad," etc.
I think we must have some disagreement over the meaning of "actually works."
Posted by: Will Wilkinson | Feb 22, 2005 5:42:15 PM
Is it me, or has the phrase "statist liberalism" become as pathetically cliche as the phrase "red america."
Posted by: fnook | Feb 22, 2005 5:44:55 PM
Fnook, It's you!
(I could do this all day!)
Posted by: Will Wilkinson | Feb 22, 2005 5:50:46 PM
You see the phrase "statist liberalism" used a lot? Do you spend all of your time reading Virginia Postrel?
I would like to see that phrase used much more, at least if it could be opposed to "anti-statist conservatism." I take it that would be anarchy standing athwart the train of history yelling "halt!" Even better, I'd like to see it opposed by "anti-statist illiberalism" which I imagine as the form of anarchy which minimizes freedom. I'm not really sure what "form of anarchy" means. Maybe I should read more Proudhon.
Posted by: washerdreyer | Feb 22, 2005 5:55:04 PM
RE: Update: Matt, Isn't Tomasky's point that losing elections and lacking philosophical coherence are related? The "malaise of liberalism" pertains to strategy via philosophy.
Posted by: Will Wilkinson | Feb 22, 2005 5:59:06 PM
Will may be a punk, but he's smart, and he makes me laugh.
Posted by: cmas | Feb 22, 2005 6:02:46 PM
Matt, any response to Will's original question?
I find the Tomasky article through Matt, who I would love to hear attempt to articulate a philosophy. I know what Matt is for, but I can never really make out why. I know Matt is some kind of utilitarian. That's silly, but, well, utilitarians will always be among us, so what can you do? What I clamor for is the story of how Yglesian liberalism maximizes net utility? Come on Matt! Your people need you!
Posted by: Peter | Feb 22, 2005 6:05:11 PM
I'd love to hear Will tell us why utilitarianism as a political philosophy is silly. It's certainly on better grounds, silliness-wise, than "I've got a moral right to a tax cut."
Posted by: cmas | Feb 22, 2005 6:23:14 PM
washerdreyer, the proper counter-epithet is "Hooverite."
Posted by: praktike | Feb 22, 2005 6:25:11 PM
cmas, It's silly because there are many incommensurable kinds of value, and because it doesn't provide public principles that reasonable people can't reasonably reject.
Posted by: Will Wilkinson | Feb 22, 2005 6:35:00 PM
praktike,
Hoover was a one of the greatest humanitarians of American history, a great Iowan, and the able Secretary of Commerce for two of America's greatest presidents, Harding and Coolidge.
Unfortunately, as President, he was unnerved by the crash and implemented a tragic tax & spend economic policy. As Wikipedia helpfully tells us:
During the 1932 elections, Franklin Delano Roosevelt blasted the Republican incumbent for spending and taxing too much, increasing national debt, raising tariffs and blocking trade, as well as placing millions on the dole of the government. He attacked Herbert Hoover for "reckless and extravagant" spending, of thinking "that we ought to center control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible," and of leading "the greatest spending administration in peacetime in all of history." Roosevelt's running mate, John Nance Garner, accused the Republican of "leading the country down the path of socialism".
Oy, too much government for FDR! If only Hoover had remained a Hooverite, I would be proud to be one!
Posted by: Will Wilkinson | Feb 22, 2005 6:41:36 PM
"Matt, You're mixing up the strategy/philosophy issue here. . . . I wasn't saying, "If only the left would adopt my politics, they would have strategic success." I was saying, if only the left would adopt my politics, they'd have a coherent philosophy."
Nice try, Will. You were very clearly attributing the American liberalism's political misfortune's to its alleged lack of intellectual coherence: "[T]he intellectual vacuity of the left allows the conservative juggernaut to pick up speed unimpeded." The fact that defending state programs such as SS--even in the absence of a coherent framework for doing so--is politically popular does, in fact, contradict your argument.
Posted by: AF | Feb 22, 2005 6:58:50 PM
Will, do you have public principles that (a) reasonable people can't reject and (b) are of use in deciding matters of present public controversy? If so, lay them down.
Posted by: Gareth | Feb 22, 2005 7:07:32 PM
"If only Hoover had remained a Hooverite, I would be proud to be one!"
Ha, ha.
Posted by: praktike | Feb 22, 2005 7:16:42 PM
The Right's advantage is that its coalition is more homogenous. This is a function of all the white married Christians out there.
The Right obviously does have philosophical contradictions. But they don't matter too much because the kind of person who likes the Right's economic policies overlaps so well with the kind of person who likes its foreign and cultural policies.
Will is a more consistent thinker than those folks, but I don't see him leading any mass political movement.
The Democrats' natural constituencies are those who have some problem with the Republican base. But these problems come in many varieties.
It's easy to come up with left-of-centre political philosophies (heck, there are whole faculties of people doing nothing else). It's harder to get the kind of person who wants reparations for slavery to see eye-to-eye with the kind of person who wants to keep out Canadian timber. And neither is really going to have much in common with our generous host.
(In Canada, this same problem is felt most by the right. Quebec nationalists and Anglo conservatives have ocasionally united to overthrow the Liberals, but their coalition is so heterogenous that it is hard to keep together.)
Posted by: Gareth | Feb 22, 2005 7:18:28 PM
The Right's advantage is that its coalition is more homogenous.
No way..
Social conservatives are as happy as pig's in shit right now. Fiscal conservatives are beginning to understand that the elected ones have absolutely no intention of actually reducing the size of government, just giving them some market-friendly sort of face (and the honest among them will realize if not admit at a greater cost to the budget than just having people straight on the dole). Their whole ideology is going nowhere and maybe backwards when their party holds all the strings of power. Something has to give, they can only keep putting that Ted Kennedy dummy up and knocking it down for so long before they just give up.
Posted by: Ed Marshall | Feb 22, 2005 7:24:50 PM
Will Wilkinson, a promise to pay yourself is an asset, however it is offset by a corresponding liability.
Posted by: James B. Shearer | Feb 22, 2005 7:26:11 PM
These analogies are stupid.
The U.S. government isn't some guy with a checkbook and thinking of it that way leads absolutely nowhere.
Posted by: Ed Marshall | Feb 22, 2005 7:30:29 PM
"cmas, It's silly because there are many incommensurable kinds of value, and because it doesn't provide public principles that reasonable people can't reasonably reject."
Fortunately we live in a democracy, the full totality of reasonable people don't have to accept public principles - only the majority of them. Whether utilitarianism is "right" is besides the point; whether it can work effectively is the issue. It not only can, but it does.
Posted by: cmas | Feb 22, 2005 7:42:31 PM
This is a huge topic, and one that is close to my heart. My own background is in philosophy, and I have taught it for about 20 years now.
In my view, the contemporary establishment left - the policy wonks, administrators, lawyers, journalists, academics, strategists and bureacrats who appear to be the dominant powers in the Democratic party - are on the whole an intellectually and spiritually impoverished lot. I know that's a harsh and very sweeping judgment, and I'm sure we all personally know many, many individual exceptions. Some of them leave comments here on Matt's blog. But I do think it is true at the general level, at the present time.
That isn't to say they are not very intelligent and clever - even thoughtful - people, but many seem to suffer from a debilitating shallowness. They are like agile, fast-moving skiffs, that are always eventually outmaneuvered and overpowered by neoconservative dreadnoughts, which lie deeper in the water, have a more elevated and commanding view of the field of battle, and more heft. As someone who has been involved in education my whole adult life, I feel a share of the collective burden for this growing imbecility on the left.
Here are some non-very-systematic suggestions about the possible causes of the problem:
* Personally, I think much has to do with the ascendency of "voices" over theory in liberal intellectual life, and the rise of an anti-rational, anti-scientific and incoherent lit-crit approach to understanding the world. The result is an addled and degenerate intellectual style. Although you might be able to score an immediate-term hit on Crossfire with the sort of dilletantism and sophistry this style cultivates, leftists of this stamp are inept in arguments with serious people, due to a combination of logical incapacity, and a dull grasp of history, theory and fundamental human realities.
* An undue emphasis, in those fields of higher education aimed toward preparation for professional life, on technocratic refinement and extensions of existing approaches. This comes at the expense of history, philosophy, science and deep engagement through close reading and critical analysis with a few great minds, and promotes instead a superficial, impulsive and reactive engagement with an abundance of mediocre minds.
* A noisy, information-saturated social environment, which results in certain intellectual deficits: difficulty in sustained Socratic self-examination, in mastering difficult, systematic intellectual achievements, and in achieving states of profound contemplation. Our contemprary culture instead fosters a contrary tendency toward a jittery, distracted, triviality-crammed, impulsive and reactive intellectual life.
* An instititutional dependency on entrenched bureaucracies and established power centers. This leads to a sort of automatism. Prisoners of the established liberal order, having only a dim conception of overall longterm (I mean really LONGterm) goals, feel a perpetual conflict between aimlessly hanging on to established liberal security blankets, or succumbing to the seductions of less routinized right-wing ideological innovations.
* The casualies of modern capitalism - an economic system which pushes people into a dependent, concupiscent consumerist posture in which they race from pleasure to pleasure, and fatalistically accept that all large social change is inherently unpredictable, and driven by the distributed, desire-driven inventiveness of the pimping market. In this view of the world, the role of politics is just pragmatic problem-solving: responding in an ad hoc way to the frictions and difficulties that emerge as the inherently insane and undirected capitalist leviathan rampages through history, fueled by the energy of the short-term satisfaction of impulsive desires and immediately pressing needs. This is dramatically in contrast to much of the liberalism of the early 20th century, which emphasized the capacity of human beings to entertain long-term historical alternatives, and choose their own destiny.
Many on the establishment left today actually strike me as the ultimate conservatives, people who have a comfortable standard of living, face no grave threats to their way of life, and concern themselves only with making extremely modest improvements at the margin to a system of life which is basically OK.
On the other hand, much of the "progressive" left - a label I sometimes apply to myself because it is a struggle to find a better one that means anything to anyone - as opposed to the establishment left, is indeed more passionate and outraged about broad and deep social problems, but is currently theory-impaired and vision-bereft. It is thus left with only a frustrated sense of anger and resentment, justifiably convinced that the other guys are very, very wrong, but without their own vision of what is right - a vision that goes beyond an emotional resistance to some recent right-wing assault. With no clear conception of progress, perhaps a better label for them would be "digressives" or "passive-aggressives", rather than "progressives".
Posted by: Dan Kervick | Feb 22, 2005 7:52:06 PM
Experts on FDR will have to testify whether he had a coherent philosophy of government. I am not convinced, but I know very little about it. Dude did win elections, though. Ditto Ike. And who was more coherent in '64?
What I meant to write, though, is that when MY buys his vacation house he should call it "Pundit's Fallacy."
Posted by: Delicious Pundit | Feb 22, 2005 7:58:01 PM
Couldn't we all just get along?
Couldn't we just agree that liberalism is shallow, thoughtless, and very weak at making a case for the point of view it simply takes for granted, since it is what we were born into;
-- whereas conservativism is dominated by mentally ill people who think that World War IV would be sort of fun, that the Confederacy got a bum rap, that the government should be driven into bankruptcy as soon as possible, and that Armageddon is a wonderful thing that will happen soon -- but only if we diligently pray for it?
And also, of course, can't we agree that all rational people are hiding in bed with the covers over their heads, fully aware that that isn't going to help, but preferring to be found in that position?
(Will, I think it's you. And also, to a considerable degree, Matt).
Posted by: John Emerson | Feb 22, 2005 8:27:03 PM
James,
If IBM issues a $10 million bond at par then it would have a $10 million dollar asset (cash) offset by a $10 million dollar liability (short and long-term debt).
If IBM spends this $10 million on a new factory then it's short term assets (cash) would decrease by $10 million, while a fixed asset (PP&E) would increase by $10 million. Everything still balances.
But IBM cannot spend $10 million on a new factory then place an IOU to itself in it's cash account to make it look like it has $20 million in total assets. FASB would have a fit over this specially because this IOU has no real value. Shareholders couldn't ask for it to be paid out as a dividend nor could IBM use it as collateral for another loan because it is meaningless just like Will said.
This is exactly what the govt is doing though. It spends the excess money it collects from SS on aircraft carriers or whatever, and then issues itself an IOU in the form of special issue treasury bonds to the SS trust fund. Where is the money going to come from when they need to call on those bonds? That's the million dollar question, but it has to be either higher taxes, issuing more debt, or printing a ton of money. Take your pick.
Posted by: Peter | Feb 22, 2005 8:37:19 PM
For those who think the Trust Fund doesn't exist, I have a simple
question: why aren't you proposing an immediate *cut* in payroll
taxes to bring SS revenue down to match current benefit payments ?
Posted by: Richard Cownie | Feb 22, 2005 8:47:44 PM
Peter,
Or they could sell the aircraft carrier... (joke)
Posted by: john brothers | Feb 22, 2005 8:50:03 PM
Peter, stockholders care about net assets not total assets. IBM giving itself an IOU does not increase net assets if correctly accounted for as a matching asset and liability.
As for choices, you left out the choice of spending less on other things. There is plenty of current spending which I think is less important then paying social security.
Posted by: James B. Shearer | Feb 22, 2005 9:14:20 PM
***”For those who think the Trust Fund doesn't exist, I have a simple
question: why aren't you proposing an immediate *cut* in payroll
taxes to bring SS revenue down to match current benefit payments ?”****
The level of payroll taxes is a political decision and has nothing to do with the existence of the trust fund. In fact, the level of benefits paid, and how they are paid be it payroll taxes, income taxes or public debt will all be political decisions going forward. The SS trust fund is merely an accounting marker and is irrelevant except for political discussions.
Posted by: Robert Brown | Feb 22, 2005 9:36:19 PM
Who needs "philosophical coherence" in politics anyway? Well, monomaniacs like libertarians and the divers totalitarians do. But liberals don't, and neither do muddling-through conservatives, as opposed to radical reforming Big Idea right-wingers -- and liberals willing to give up the fetish of "philosophical coherence" can be leftward muddling-through conservatives, at ease with e.g. cash relief to the needy, church-state separation, consumer and environmental protections, public schools, judicial review, in a word, America. We can know, as Oakeshott said of the conservative, that we could lose something we love. Better to weave that through our politics than try to derive it from axioms with consistency and completeness proofs. Instead of founding a totalizing ideology on a Big Idea, we should stand our prudence on whatever supports us. It is a mistake to ask which of the legs of a four-legged table holds it up.
Posted by: Dabodius | Feb 22, 2005 10:04:52 PM
James, I agree that ultimately shareholders want an increase in net assets (i.e. shareholders' equity). But it's misleading to imply that shareholders would be indifferent if companies filled up their balance sheets with assets and liabilities that have no significance... even if they do offset. These statements are supposed to reflect the true financial position of the firm and IOUs to yourself don't meet that standard.
Posted by: Peter | Feb 22, 2005 10:08:07 PM
The level of payroll taxes is a political decision and has nothing to do with the existence of the trust fund.
The justification for that political decision is the existence of the trust fund, so while you are correct that it is a "political decision" (as are, by definition, all government policies), you are flat wrong that it has nothing to do with the existence of the trust fund.
At any rate, if the trust fund exists there can be no problem with the solvency of Social Security, because Social Security as a a thing subject to fiscal analysis is the Social Security Trust Fund.
If there is no Trust Fund, the problem is with overall government finances, and any solution ought to address government finances holistically, and any attempt to limit the changes to Social Security must be defended on the basis that SS is the most appropriate place to make any changes.
If, instead, the Trust Fund exists, and if it can be shown there is reasonable cause for concern for its solvency, then it makes sense to address the problem with reforms in Social Security since that is where the problem lies.
Posted by: cmdicely | Feb 22, 2005 10:13:15 PM
****“If there is no Trust Fund, the problem is with overall government finances, and any solution ought to address government finances holistically, and any attempt to limit the changes to Social Security must be defended on the basis that SS is the most appropriate place to make any changes”****
I maintain that the funding problems with SS will (and should) be addressed holistically regardless of the existence of the trust fund. Suppose there is demand for using the governments finances for a more generous drug program or a government run health care system. Should SS benefits or their method of funding be off the table just because there happens to be trust fund? I don’t think so.
Posted by: Robert Brown | Feb 22, 2005 10:38:59 PM
Re Dan Kervick
Nice railing I was delighted to see today, along with Francis Wheen and the "Bullshit" emeritus, as welcome signs the cusp is coming, the antigen response is building, tho, the rant on capitalism is, I think, one of the signs of the lack of serious grasp of the big picture that is available out there.
Also a pleasure to see someone more wound up, it reads like, than myself over the complete failure of the Knowledge Industry caste, espcially those who consider themselves an elite, which is only an e, lite.
Razor
Posted by: Razor | Feb 22, 2005 11:21:33 PM
Will- are you going for a Scanlonian test?
Posted by: Tim Waligore | Feb 23, 2005 1:58:15 AM
I'm agreeing with Cmdicely and once more, repeating; To consider SS as a separate entity, different from the government may be on some level a fiction, but this idea is the only origin of the notion of a "crisis". If SS is simply a part of the US government, like the Pentagon, then it makes no sense to talk about a "Social Security financial crisis". We don't talk about a "Pentagon financial crisis" right now, don't we? It's because we don't expect the Pentagon to be a self supporting, independent entity. Now, if you expect SS to be self supportive and independent, then obviously the notes in the Trust Fund are real (unless you mean that SS is independent only when it needs money, but when it has a lot of money, it automatically becomes a part of the government).
Posted by: Carlos | Feb 23, 2005 9:53:44 AM
Social security is kept separate from the rest of government since that is the only way the public will accept the heavy payroll tax on poor people. Even though it is separate, I think it was always understood that general revenue would be available if a big reduction in benefits was required due to political pressure from retirees.
When the SS “crisis” in the early 1980s arrived, the legislature raised payroll taxes instead of using general revenue at that time and gave SS explicit access to general revenue via the trust fund. This created two “crisis” points: 1) the point at which general revenue will begin to be tapped by SS and 2) the point when the trust fund is exhausted.
I don’t think these two points are relevant except as talking points since I think that legislatures will use general revenue or not regardless of the state of the trust fund (yes, the trust fund makes it easier to argue that SS has a right to general revenue).
The real problem is the steadily increasing cost of SS (regardless of the funding source) and the decisions that have to be made about how much of the governments cash flow we want to devote to it vs. other demands. I think the state of the trust fund should be ignored for those debates.
Posted by: Robert Brown | Feb 23, 2005 11:11:16 AM
Malaise? Whip Incoherence Now!
"are hiding in bed with the covers over their heads, fully aware that that isn't going to help"
It isn't? Even with the flashlight and old Penthouse?
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Posted by: GuTeK FiUtEk | Mar 10, 2006 5:16:45 AM
