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Rawls on Capitalism
Chris Bertram and Tyler Cowen both comment on some new John Rawls correspondence that's surfaced and includes this rather strident anti-capitalist statement:
The large open market including all of Europe is aim of the large banks and the capitalist business class whose main goal is simply larger profit. The idea of economic growth, with no specific end in sight, fits this class perfectly. If they speak about distribution, it is most always in terms of trickle down. The long-term result of this — which we already have in the United States — is a civil society awash in a meaningless consumerism of some kind. I can’t believe that is what you want.I disagree with Tyler that this should impact one way or another our understanding of Rawls' famous ideas about distributive justice. The correspondence in question took place decades after he outlined his principles of justice and considerations about "meaningless consumerism" don't play any role in that argument. It's also clear if you compare A Theory of Justice to Justice as Fairness that Rawls' thinking on the propriety of capitalism changed somewhat over time, which is hardly unusual.So you see that I am not happy about globalization as the banks and business class are pushing it. I accept Mill’s idea of the stationary state as described by him in Bk. IV, Ch. 6 of his Principles of Political Economy (1848). (I am adding a footnote in §15 to say this, in case the reader hadn’t noticed it). I am under no illusion that its time will ever come – certainly not soon – but it is possible, and hence it has a place in what I call the idea of realistic utopia.
The "stationary state" issue is even clearer, I think. Rawls says he believes this in Theory but I think he would agree that the discussion of that point is more of a gesture in the direction of an argument than a fully-formed argument as such. Later in life, he did work on various question and never really presented full-fledged arguments on the stationary state issue or the broader issue of justice between generations in which the stationary state topic is embedded. I think the best thing to say is that what the implications of Theory's core argument are for this is left as a somewhat open question by the book and that there's no reason to think the book's author has privileged access to the correct answer.
To me, the most immediate worry about a "stationary state" is that the cessation of economic growth in the rich economies of North America, Western Europe, and the Pacific Rim would seem to have dire implications for economic growth in poor countries. Growth in the rich world is not a sufficient condition for growth in the poor world, but given the current structure of the international economy it is a necessary one. Philosophically speaking, I think that if you could dramatically enrich the poor world by ceasing economic growth in the rich world there may be a strong case to be made for doing so. Empirically, I don't think that option is actually available, though I'd be open to arguments that I'm mistaken.
Now suppose the whole world like like Denmark write large -- prosperous, but not quite as prosperous as the United States, but much more equal in terms of the distribution of wealth. Would it be a good idea for the global economy to stop growing? I'm not sure. I'm not sure that under those circumstances further growth would be obligatory, but it's certainly not obvious to me what the upside of ceasing growth would be. I don't think trying to combat a culture of consumerism is a good reason; indeed, that sounds suspiciously like trying to foist an eccentric conception of the good life on a population where many people like consumerism just fine and those who don't are welcome to disengage from it.
March 18, 2006 | Permalink
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Matt Yglesias notes a letter between John Rawls and Philippe Van Parijs (a basic income advocate for whom I have tremendous respect). I don't pretend to be an expert on Rawl's political philosophy, though I have a rough conception of [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 18, 2006 9:37:08 PM
Comments
The question is can the global economy grow forever? Is growth unlimited or is there some threshold beyond which we'll see an economic collapse? Many in the professional environmental societies claim that increases in human goods and services require corresponding decreases in wildlife and natural resources. This conflict is explained in the ecological theory of competitive exclusion.
If we decide that growth is not unlimited, but limited by the availability of resources, we must at some point reach a "steady state" or "stationary state" economy which requires the efficient use and conservation of those resources for sustainability, not growth.
Here is an intesting look at the debate going on at the American Fisheries Society about whether they should take a position on economic growht.
http://www.fisheries.org/html/fisheries/F3011/F3011p37-40Mead.pdf
Posted by: Just Karl | Mar 18, 2006 1:05:33 PM
"I don't think trying to combat a culture of consumerism is a good reason"
Hypothesize that a culture of consumerism is directy connected to oil dependency and war in the Middle East and you might have an argument.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Mar 18, 2006 1:41:55 PM
Matthew, I think the mistake here is thinking that global inequality could be addressed without challenging American consumerism. The American culture of consumerism as it exists today is both a reflection of an unjust economic system, and an impediment to challenging global inequality.
Consumerism works by fetishizing commodities. Use value becomes exchange value. The actual circumstances of the commoodity's production - whether it was made in an exploitative sweatshop, a unionized factory, or a craftsperson's home - are effaced. Compare how little we know about how the clothes on our backs came to be made, to how much we would have known in a preindustrial society, where it's likely that your or a family member sewed every stich on you.
Likewise, the social and environmental consequences of the commodity's production disappear, as a locally produced product enters a global market unconcerned with "externalities."
One of the most effective modes of challenging capitalism, then, is to challenge this system of meanings - to remind purchasers where their products come from. To embarass Kathy Lee Gifford and Michael Jordan with their sweatshops.
That's culture jamming, as described by Naomi Klein in No Logo. I think it's the most promising progressive political strategy for this era. Certainly, it's hip enough that all the corporate advertisers are doing their best to ape it with "viral marketing" campaigns.
To turn from the present to the future . . . Ultimately, if we managed to create a truly egalitarian Earth, consumerism as we know it today just couldn't exist. Consumerism exists to perpetuate inequality. It's this complicity in injustice which makes consumerism such a hollow pursuit. We're all hungry ghosts, to use a resonant Buddhist term. That's karma, baby.
So, on a truly equal Earth, we'd invariably have a much richer culture than life in the US in today's crabbed, tense, bitter Bush era. We'd all be buying organic, sweatshop-free products produced by proud, unexploited workers. We wouldn't have to avert our eyes from homeless people while walking down urban streets. Everyone would have adequate access to food, medicine, and shelter.
We would have room in our jobs for flexibility and growth - along the lines of Google, which asks each employee to spend one day a week on a creative project. We'd have work weeks of 35 hours or less, with flexibile hours for parents. We'd have 8 weeks of vacation, and opportunities for sabbaticals.
In that future world, who's going to waste their lives preoccupied with buying the most toys? And if anybody does, wouldn't we just pity them?
Posted by: Ted Friedman | Mar 18, 2006 2:26:08 PM
Ted-
Sorry in advance for not spending time to speculatively fill out your enthymemes, but do you think you could you say briefly and more clearly, if you can, what it means that "consumerism exists to perpetuate inequality"? I'm sure you're right, because it sounds like the kind of thing that is liable to be true, but, simple as I am, I don't actually understand what it means, even in the context of your comment as a whole. Thanks in advance.
Posted by: spacetoast | Mar 18, 2006 4:46:00 PM
Ted,
You need to distinguish "inequality" from "desperate poverty." Obviously, capitalism is inconsistent with economic equality. On the other hand, it is the only system yet invented to eliminate pre-industrial-style poverty and inherited status inequality. Marx grasped this.
Accumulating more stuff is probably the least destructive form of status competition consistent with human nature.
Posted by: Pithlord | Mar 18, 2006 5:50:27 PM
Pithlord answered spacetoast, at least according to my understanding of Ted and the issues.
"Accumulating more stuff is probably the least destructive form of status competition consistent with human nature."
One could imagine others, for instance the form competition takes in academia. The old and new
Olympics granted status relatively non-destructively.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Mar 18, 2006 6:36:44 PM
bob,
Have you ever worked in academia?
Posted by: Pithlord | Mar 18, 2006 6:52:45 PM
WHOA DUDE I DONT GET IT!!!1!
Posted by: spacetoast | Mar 18, 2006 6:56:06 PM
Sorry if I came off like some kind of Marxist snob in my first post. That wasn't my intention. As it turns out, after making that post, I spent all day at the mall buying crap.
There's nothing wrong in itself with accumulating stuff, especially if you actually use and enjoy it. I assume I'd continue to accumulate stuff - especially books and comics - in any future, more just and equal society.
But "consumerism" is more than just buying stuff - it's a whole way of thinking about stuff. And it's a system of thought - an ideology - built around alienation, fetishization, and denial.
Consumerism blinds us to the consequences of our actions - our complicity in global exploitation. You go to the Gap and buy a t-shirt, without giving a second thought to the conditions of that shirt's production. You notice a pair of jeans have dropped in price, and don't wonder if that's the result of increased competition driving sweatshop workers' wages even lower.
Or you do think about these things, then conclude there's nothing you can do about it anyway, and go on with your purchase. That's what I do, at least, most of the time. We're all complicit in this, we Americans. And it burdens all of our souls with bad karma.
Instead of thinking about exploited workers and ravaged landscapes, what do we think about when we shop? The images of the products created by advertisers. Fantasies of youth, sex, money, power. In this way, the products are fetishized - given new meanings totally unrelated to the circumstances of the products' production. These new meanings occlude actual history of the product - the conditions of its production. I buy a shirt, and never stop to think about whose hands touched the fabric before mine. Instead, I think about the logo on the chest, or whether the colors are passe. That's how consumerism blinds American consumers to global injustice.
That's what makes culture jamming such an exciting concept. It strips away the bogus meanings produced by advertisers, and reveals the true history of the product. Thanks to activists, when many people see that Nike swoosh - a "brand identity" worth billions of dollars - they think not just of Michael Jordan, but also of exploited sweatshop workers.
Is consumerism the worst thing in the world? No, it's just an ugly side effect of the underlying problem: global poverty and exploitation. But it is important to challenge, because consumerism, and the lies it tells, helps prop up the exploitative system of global capitalism today. If large numbers of American consumers were convinced to tune out the advertisers and value craftsmanship and sustainability over hype, the economic and political consequences would be enormous. It should become hip to wear fair trade products. American Apparel is already having great success with this approach. (I'm not so sure about the Adbusters "Black Dot" sneaker.)
To turn to the hypthesized future egalitarian global society - the kind suggested by Matt in his initial post . . . If we lived in such a world, there would be no shame in buying. We'd know we were exchanging our dollars for products made by people happy in their work and fairly rewarded. People might still try to keep up with the Joneses - that's hardly specific to capitalist societies. That's just conspicuous consumption. But the kind of hollow consumerism that Rawls was originally describing - that hungry ghost feeling - isn't just caused by wanting to accumulate stuff. It's caused by not wanting to know where the stuff came from. In a healthy egalitarian culture, that denial would be replaced by curiosity, knowledge, and a sense of satisfaction. Instead of diabetically binging on mass produced junk food, Americans would be appreciating the terroir of locally produced ingredients. Instead of being hungry ghosts, we'd be thinking locally and acting globally.
I guess I may be to the left of most of the crowd here, although I always have trouble pinning Matt down. He seems more open to socialism per se than most liberals, but more of a foreign policy liberal realist than a Chomskyite. In the blogosphere as a whole, many more seem to go the other way - fire-breathing on foreign policy issues, but not nearly as radical on economic topics. That seems to be the Air America formula, at least.
For academics like me, of course, it's easy to go radical across the board, since you figure nobody's paying attention anyway . . .
Posted by: Ted Friedman | Mar 18, 2006 11:41:07 PM
I haven't read a single link or comment but it seems to me that mindless consumerism is well worth criticizing. Any policy idea that gets the law and econ types all hot and bothered and offended is a good idea.
Posted by: fnook | Mar 19, 2006 12:33:48 AM
It seems to me that Rawls point (following Mill) about the steady state is not that a zero-growth economy is obligatory, but rather permissible. While Rawls never develops this at length, he does sketch an argument (in Political Liberalism, I think) involving a kind of intergenerational original-position- that is, we should reason about what we owe to future generations by asking what we would choose if we did not know (and could not reason probabilistically about?) which generation we represent. It seems to me that our descendants (where 'we' are citizens of developed countries) would have rather little to complain about if they were to turn out not to be a whole hell of a lot richer than we are. Note also that this argument is only made for domestic societies in ideal theory, and hence is much too incomplete to generate a policy proposal- its conclusions might still be defeated by considerations of, for instance, global justice coupled with economic facts.
The comment regarding consumerism makes sense, I think, in light of this kind of argument. It seems to me that the feature of consumerism Rawls is referring to is not its intrinsic incompatibility with the good life (it could hardly be anything so 'metaphysical', could it?), but rather the simple fact that a prerequisite for unbounded growth is a perception that, despite current abundance, more would nonetheless be better. Rawls's point here could be taken non-paternalistically if seen in this light- he is simply pointing out that there is nothing 'necessary', morally or otherwise, about continued growth or a desire for it- rather, this hinges on a fact about our social institutions and their effect on our attitudes which is open to change and hence subject to consideration and criticism from the perspective of justice. Thus, the steady state 'has a place in the idea of a realistic utopia'.
Posted by: SeanD | Mar 19, 2006 9:13:47 AM
ever heard of an armchair ethicist? rawls is one, the archetype.
Posted by: haili | Mar 19, 2006 5:26:49 PM
"Accumulating more stuff is probably the least destructive form of status competition consistent with human nature."
Not if that stuff is made of stuff you get by stripmining and clearcutting and generating nuclear waste and putting more CO2 into the atmosphere and working teenagers who owe their souls to the company store 12+ hours a day behind barbwire. And to step beyond liberalism and consider virtue, what is cultivated in the status competitors besides a canine sevility to the sellers, a porcine gluttony for their wares, and a baboonish covetousness towards their fellow consumers? If those are potentials in "human nature," must they be realized by rewards and teasing? Yes, consumer captalism is exactly "an eccentric conception of the good life" -- which has been foisted on us.
If an economy offers us long lives in health and comfort with both work that benefits the community and leisure for arts and studies, with hope for sustainable improvements over time (e.g. by doing more with less), what need is there for growth except an increasing population? ( And what need for increasing population?)
Capitalist growth is the moving motorcycle it's hard to get off without falling down hard, but it's headed too fast for bad destinations. So while in the short term we think about shifting its gears and steering, in the long we need to think about walking where we need to go.
Posted by: Dabodius | Mar 19, 2006 5:58:45 PM
Dabious,
Well, people don't really compete for "more" stuff, but for "better" stuff. So, as long as you price enviornmental degradation properly (a big if, I grant you), you could have economic growth and diminishing use of resources.
Ideally people wouldn't compete for status at all. But I no longer think that capitalism makes them do it. After all, there is nothing about market liberalism that prevents people from turning off the TV, and giving all you hath to the poor. People don't do that because of human nature.
Posted by: Pithlord | Mar 20, 2006 4:25:53 PM
I see about three and a half alternatives here.
1) Continual growth
2) Technological stagnation
3a) Hours-per-worker employment reduction
3b) Employment-to-population-ratio employment reduction
1) Is what Rawls is opposing. I don't see why continual growth is somehow connected to hollowness or materialism or environmental catastrophe, though these things certainly could accompiany growth. They could also accompiany economic decline or economic stasis.
2) Seems like a rather bad thing to me. Why would we do this to ourselves? We have scientists and engineers who want to find better ways of doing things. Why should we stop them?
3a) Seems like a nice idea. Doctors have super-diagnostic software and efficient, non-invasive tests to diagnose patients, so they only work 30 hours a week instead of 80. That'd be nice. Manufacturing is further automated. That'd be nice. How to make sure our employment goes on path 3a) rather than 3b), though?
3b) seems like possibly the worst possibility -- maybe even worse than 2): rising unemployment. This is always the presumed threat of productivity-increasing technology -- that people will be thrown out of work, tout court. Historically, we've forstalled this by 1): continual growth. However, if we forsake continual growth, could the fears of the original Luddites come true, but irrevocably and on a national scale? Not if we either gave up on technological change or found some way of reducing hours worked, but otherwise, it seems like it's possible.
Posted by: Julian Elson | Mar 22, 2006 12:53:04 PM
