You appear to have chosen the defence of the poor, underprivileged, immigrants, Unions and are, mildly put, very sceptical of government.
I don't know where you got the idea that I'm skeptical of government. I'm skeptical of the idea that the elected officials of a representative democracy are the only legitimate representation of government, which is the idea that Valentin has repeatedly cast himself as a proponent of.
Constructive criticism of government can lead to change. You sound as if you wanted things to be changed but I cannot gather into which direction you want to see them changed and how.
Then I'll give a few examples, in no particular order:
If you want to get somewhere and sense that they lie, you must first prove it. [...] No. If you estimate that other people's lies will make of him a liar, too, without any evidence to prove the assumption, the burden of proof is still yours.
That's all very nice and proper and works fine when lies are relatively uncommon. But when you're dealing with pathological liars - like the Cato Institute, or the Project for a New American Century - you cannot dissect all their lies one by one. That'd turn into a battle of attrition that you cannot hope to win, because it takes only two minutes to write a bald-faced lie, but it takes half an hour to debunk it.
Similarly, one cannot evaluate individually every Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, or every newsie on the Washington Times. That takes far more time than is warranted. Once an organisation - be it a think tank, a political party or an ideology - has endorsed a sufficient number of outright, provable lies, that entire organisation becomes suspect.
Is that guilt by association? Perhaps it is, but that does not stop us from concluding that people who associate with neo-nazis are probably racists, that people who associate with biker gangs are probably criminals or that people who associate with creationists are probably fundagelicals. Why should it stop us from concluding that people who associate with neo-liberals are probably neo-liberal? Exceptions do exist, of course, but I find it unwise in the extreme to elect someone to high office on the assumption that he is the exception to the rule.
What practical measures do you suggest to improve the status/power of labour unions? [...] It is utopian to expect non-Unionists who are busy in their own activism to give you the plan ...
[...]
It is utopian to expect non-Unionists who are busy in their own activism to give you the plan ...
I'm not sure I explained my point properly: There are many and more ways for unions to react to union-busting. The French anarcho-syndicalists of the 19th century practically wrote the book on that. The point is that all of those defences are well beyond what Valentin argues is legitimate union activism. So I asked whether he has a suggestion for how the unions could defend themselves while remaining within the constraints that he wants to impose on their activity.
Physically handicapped people and poor people should be able to learn the language of their host country.
I think that depends on the nature of the physical handicap - lacking a leg shouldn't pose a material hindrance. Blindness or deafness, OTOH, might make it a little difficult. Not necessarily insurmountably so, but certainly sufficiently to be taken into account.
Poverty often correlates to lack of education - so any measure that discriminates against people of low education also predominantly targets poor people. I don't know whether poverty has a negative impact on learning above and beyond the correlation to low starting education, but if it does it should also be considered.
OTOH, when you speak out in favour of no control of immigration, you thereby favour a concept of no state, no nation.
State and nation are two quite different things. But that's a digression that we can save for another time.
I do not speak out against restrictions on immigration in general. I speak out against certain unreasonable restrictions on immigration and certain unreasonable humiliations that immigrants are subjected to.
For instance, it is not reasonable to deny immigration to someone who is married to a citizen, because a married couple has the right to live together. (And the excuse that they can live together elsewhere does not hold - if all countries had that practise, they couldn't, so that excuse clearly cannot be elevated to a general principle.)
Everyone would simply always go there where life's best at a given moment.
That quite neglects the considerable financial and personal cost of moving around profligately. In fact, precisely such personal and financial costs mean that mass migrations only occur when conditions in the emigration country are sufficiently horrible and conditions in the immigration country are thought to be sufficiently good. If mass migrations are held to be A Bad Thing - and such a case can certainly be made - it is a simple matter to prevent them: Simply stop pillaging those countries that people emigrate from en masse.
As an aside, casting the question of immigration as a question of "would you invite in the entire world?" is a red herring: If the entire world decided to invite themselves, there'd be damn all we could do to stop them.
You are so much against government that I wonder what you'd ideally expect from it, or whether you simply don't want any government at all?
I'm not against government, any more than I'm against hammers. Government is a tool to implement policy. What I am against is the implementation of unjust policies.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
You say,
I'm skeptical of the idea that the elected officials of a representative democracy are the only legitimate representation of government
all of those defences are well beyond what Valentin argues is legitimate union activism. So I asked whether he has a suggestion for how the unions could defend themselves while remaining within the constraints that he wants to impose on their activity.
I think the problem here is that you are the activist in the debate and revolt against the pragmatism that Valentin describes and which is based on his observation. Valentin, who we can presume is no worker, observes and experiences the work of unions when he cannot use train/metro/tram... -
Valentin is probably no decision maker in favour of or against worker's unions. So, addressing your criticism to him has little effect. Further, Valentin may very well present a view that is shared by many others because reality has it that the masses in Western societies are NOT workers.
When you look back at the French revolution, you had a huge base of people who shared their suffering. The situation today is fundamentally different. The proportion of people living in a dire situation is not big enough to bring about the change you would hope to see. Besides, many of those who long for change and improvement of their living standard find comfort in front of their TV screens or with all kinds of technological gadgets.
You are the one who wants change; you must figure out how you can get there. You have good ideas, and I don't blame you for being idealistic, but debunking Valentin's observations simply won't help your cause.
BTW, your argument against language proficiency as a requirement for immigration could be turned around: If you have people who will master the language and have a certain level of education, they will be an asset to unions by being able to express themselves in the local language.
I find it unwise in the extreme to elect someone to high office on the assumption that he is the exception to the rule.
Okay, if it was unwise to elect e.g. Sarkozy, who are you going to blame for it? He was elected democratically. Maybe the majority fell victim to manipulation, or they all lost their senses, ... - But still, is there anywhere anything better than democracy?
I believe that democracies today do have a truth problem, and this should be addressed and manipulation be controlled but that's a different story.
Government is a tool to implement policy. What I am against is the implementation of unjust policies.
Sure...
You had mentioned that government policies amounted to stealing train driver's benefits...
You will find support among train divers - no doubt about that.
This raises the question of what is just and what is unjust to begin with... - I agree that foreigners marrying French nationals should have French citizenship, too. I can see the injustice, but in the case of train driver's hardship - oh well...
We are heading towards (are in a) recession. This for once is not just media hype but reality. This isn't the best of times for anyone anyway. There is a lot of material injustice, and everything looks as if things were going to get worse.
The answers will continue to be pragmatic, like an avalanche that will carry away everything on its way down. Why would the middle class who struggle, too and receive less for their money, have compassion for train driver's benefits?
If anything, a realistic concern that ALL should share IMO - would be the functioning of our democracy, the dismantling of lies and misinformation so that the public would be able to choose representatives* for their interests wisely and be governed in all our best interests. I wonder whether this is possible at all with our TV sets turned on and internet's virtual realities ...
* who would have to be found first, too ;)
I think the problem here is that you are the activist in the debate and revolt against the pragmatism that Valentin describes
No, I dispute that it's entirely a matter of pragmatism. There's a longer discussion to be had here around the issue of "pragmatism to what end?" Pragmatism, in my dictionary, is the principle that the perfect should not obstruct the good, that one should take what progress one can get and not stubbornly insist on getting everything at once. But that does not obviate the need to define "good" and "progress."
Those are not apolitical decisions. Now, there's a variety of ways to arrive at political conclusions, but let's broadly call it "principles" - guidelines for how to act. Everybody has those. You don't steal, not because you're afraid of getting caught (there are many instances in which that risk is minimal to none), but because stealing is wrong in principle.
We can quibble about the term "ideology" - for myself, I view ideology as an overarching narrative that lends coherence, consistency and justification to one's principles. Valentin has a different operational definition, so I've avoided the semantic discussion until now. But when dealing with "pragmatism" it is necessary to explore the principles and priorities that this pragmatism is supposed to promote.
If a politician or activist holds to a principle that all cute puppies should be skinned alive on national television, we do not applaud his pragmatism when he compromises so that only one cute puppy is skinned alive, and he settles for broadcasting it on a local TV station. Yet it is undoubtedly a pragmatic approach: He realised that he could not obtain his goal, so he compromised and ended up endorsing a position that fell short of his ultimate objective, while still preserving the more important parts of his principles.
So when Valentin argues that he does not have an ideology - something I am in no position to dispute, neither under my own definition nor under what I think is his definition - he does not void the question of "where do your principles come from and how do you justify them?" "It's the pragmatic approach" is not an answer to that question, because it instantly provokes the response "pragmatic approach to what, exactly?" And then we're back at the issue of principles and their justification.
"I trust my gut" or "I go by Conventional Wisdom" are both more or less unideological answers to that question - not very good answers, IMO, but relatively unideological. "I hold this principle because it is true," would be a dogmatic answer. Again, it's an answer, but I don't think it's a very good one. "I arrive at principle X because it follows from principle Y for which I cannot find an alternative that does not conflict with principles Z, L and M, all of which are deeply embedded in [the justifying narrative of the ideology]," would be an ideological answer, at least under my definition of ideology.
When you look back at the French revolution, you had a huge base of people who shared their suffering. The situation today is fundamentally different. The proportion of people living in a dire situation is not big enough to bring about the change you would hope to see.
That's a classic Marxist argument that certain preconditions must exist for revolutionary change. But first of all, I am not a proponent of revolutionary change - I advocate some small changes, and I advocate some big changes, but as long as things are moving in the right direction, I am not particularly in favour of forcing the pace.
(Second, and as an aside, I'd guess that many of the classical Marxist revolutionary preconditions will show up within my lifetime if neoliberalism remains the dominant ideology.)
Unions are not, despite their importance, the be-all-end-all of civil society. But that aside, I am not opposed to language requirements. I'm opposed to one-size-fits-all language requirements that don't take the abilities and preconditions of the immigrants in council. Because that is a harsher requirement than what we impose on our own citizens.
I might counter that question with another: "Are elections really the only (or the highest) legitimate expression of democracy?" I don't think they are. There are various other structures - independent courts, tenured civil service, civil society institutions (universities, NGOs, labour unions, etc.) that all have roles to play in democracy and all have a certain degree of institutional legitimacy.
You had mentioned that government policies amounted to stealing train driver's benefits... You will find support among train divers - no doubt about that.
But that's not a matter of debate, that's a matter of fact. The government entered into an agreement to provide those future benefits in exchange for present services. Reneging on them amounts to little more than an ex post facto law. That's true, by the way, for all pay-as-you-go systems: Promises were made to provide benefits in the future to those paying others' benefits today. Those are promises that you cannot simply renege on.
Why would the middle class who struggle, too and receive less for their money, have compassion for train driver's benefits?
Because pensions are counter-cyclical spending - so cutting them worsens the downturn.
Because paying the benefits will not materially reduce the prosperity of the middle class (quite the contrary, actually, as per point one), but reneging on them would be a violation of the social contract. Not only does it set a bad precedent, it also creates unrest which hurts the economy at a time where it's already in pain.
Because reneging on benefits for train drivers sets an undesirable precedent that can then be employed vis-a-vis health care, general pensions, unemployment insurance, and so on and so forth and etc. Good, old-fashioned class solidarity, in other words.
Because the middle class can shift the burden of paying those pensions (inasmuch as it is a burden at all; see above) onto the rich who are the ones who benefited from the boom-and-bust cycle now producing a recession. More good, old-fashioned class solidarity.
"Are elections really the only (or the highest) legitimate expression of democracy?" I don't think they are. There are various other structures - independent courts, tenured civil service, civil society institutions (universities, NGOs, labour unions, etc.) that all have roles to play in democracy and all have a certain degree of institutional legitimacy.
I agree though there is a difference between NGOs, Universities and labour unions. NGOs and universities provide services, or in the case of NGOs they will fund themselves, through donations, etc. They serve a larger interest, not purely themselves. You can of course tell me that labour unions also serve a larger purpose... , but they mostly just serve themselves. When individual worker's rights are defended against harassment for example, they do society at large a service. But to keep society from functioning through blocking transport - is in no way constructive.
It smacks of revolution. You either abide by the rules - no matter what the rulers themselves do. They don't set the example. The law does; it is the law that's binding. And it is through enforcing law that workers should fight for their rights. Now, if democratic structures don't work anymore and you suffer because you want justice and don't get it, because you want truth and there's no one to fight for it within the governing bodies that are in charge of just this..., then what you really want IS revolution.
You don't trust government, based on experience. You have huge idealism with regards to social inequalities. You don't want no government but change, i.e. change governing representatives are opposed to.
That's why I consider that the implementation of your ideals within the structures of THIS democracy is not very realistic.
It's idealistic.
ValentinD's idealism on the contrary is based on the concept of rational Reason, his good faith in politicians who would have rational Reason as their baseline. He sees constructive pragmatism (?) on the winning side and does not have a problem with it. - This position is 100 % opposed to yours, and it will be impossible to find consensus or compromise...
BTW1 - I'm going to reflect on the train drivers a little more...
BTW2 - How would YOU control immigration?
When individual worker's rights are defended against harassment for example, they do society at large a service. But to keep society from functioning through blocking transport - is in no way constructive.
I would say that this depends on the political justification for blocking transportation. If it is done for frivolous reasons (if, for instance, the train drivers strike because they don't like the colour of the new trains) it would clearly be objectionable. But if it is done for grave reasons (for instance, if the government plans to start colonial war)... not so much.
I think it goes beyond the scope of the present exchange to lay down hard and fast rules for the circumstances under which striking for political reasons is appropriate. All I want to point out is that there is a legitimate political discussion as to the merits of blocking crucial infrastructure, and that this discussion must be had in each individual instance before issuing condemnations.
As an aside, ways exist to insulate the strategic infrastructure against strikes. I described one of them here. It does not completely prevent strikes - I think that'd be impossible - but it largely does prevent frivolous strikes.
I object to the term "revolution" because it has overtones of violence and because it seems to me to imply the imposition of a radically different constitution.
I don't condone violent revolutions in any but the most extreme cases - for a combination of ideological and pragmatic reasons. And I think that most Western European constitutions are reasonably serviceable as they are - oh, there are certainly things I'd like to see changed here and there, but nothing quite dramatic enough to justify calling it revolutionary.
What I call for is a cultural and political change, more than an institutional one. An evolutionary change, if you will, as opposed to a revolutionary one.
That's not to say that strikes - general strikes in particular - do not have some of the characteristics of revolutions. They do - a fact which has inspired some syndicalists who do desire a revolutionary change to the way society is structured to propose general strikes as a means to achieve such change without bloodshed, terror, purges and all the assorted nastiness that usually accompanies violent revolutions.
ValentinD's idealism on the contrary is based on the concept of rational Reason, his good faith in politicians who would have rational Reason as their baseline.
I think that's a very astute observation, and one that I didn't quite realise myself before you pointed it out.
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W.r.t. immigration, I would "control" it by removing the push factors from the countries of origin. If we are concerned that too many Turks immigrate to Western Europe (bearing in mind that "too many" is not a terribly precise number...), the obvious preventive is to promote the wealth and welfare of the Turkish people in Turkey.
If there were only minor differences in the standard of living in rural Turkey and metropolitan France, the Turks who emigrate to France would do so for predominantly personal reasons - a preference for French culture, a desire to live under the French form of government, or because they like the climate better (whether the temperature climate or the political climate). And presumably, there would be a similar migration in the opposite direction, of people who wanted to live in Turkey.
I am not convinced that migration founded upon such reasons is a problem that needs to be controlled - we do not, for instance, speak of the problem of immigrants from the US, nor did we speak of the problem of defectors from the USSR and its client states settling in The West(TM). The potentially problematic immigrants are those who want to come to Europe solely to gain a higher standard of living, but have no desire to actually take constructive part in European culture (for suitable values of "constructive part" and "European culture" - these are not well defined entities, so they should be used with care and taken with a largish grain of salt).
This mechanism of "control" would also tie in nicely with a geopolitical strategy based on soft power and partnerships between equals, an approach that I and others have advocated elsewhere on ET.
Of course there would be a transitional period between adopting this policy and the time when standards of living were equalised. For that period, I'd suggest looking at the rules from the 70s - they were perfectly serviceable then, and while I expect that some anachronisms will have to be retouched, I don't see why they can't be pressed into service for a couple of decades until poverty-driven migration tapers off.
[Refugees are a somewhat different discussion for a variety of reasons, but the rule about improving the standard of living in the country of origin holds even truer here, since in many, if not most, cases The West(TM) has either neglected to support a peaceful resolution to the conflict or actively precipitated conflict or repressive forms of government. Or, to put it more bluntly, if you don't like Somali refugees coming to Europe, stop sending guns and ammunition to Somalia.]
the political justification for blocking transportation
Jake,
I have thought some more about the train drivers (not finished). I still believe that strikes that stifle public transportation would not be the right and a justified way to go.
I have thought of Germans who lie on rails to hinder the transport of nuclear waste. They do so because they feel that everyone is concerned. They act out of pure idealism, not because they want to maintain their social standing or to keep benefits.
When Greenpeace interferes with industrial deep-sea fishing, blocking boats, they do so out of idealism.
When individuals take risks, sabotage rail tracks - in order to prevent life-threatening deportations, they act out of idealism.
These are examples that would justify the blocking of normal life.
Train drivers don't face any life/death situation. Their idealism is limited to their own personal interests. To defend their interests, they can take legal action if they can make their case, providing proof that cutting benefits would be illegal, a breech of contract, etc.
So, the train driver's idealism is first of all concerned with their own self-interest, and second, they don't address those who are in charge for cutting their benefits, i.e. the government. What they do instead is, they blackmail the government by blocking innocent employees, workers, students.
The more I think of it, the more it strikes me as being outrageous.
This mechanism of "control" would also tie in nicely with a geopolitical strategy based on soft power and partnerships between equals... I don't see why they can't be pressed into service for a couple of decades until poverty-driven migration tapers off.
I don't see why they can't be pressed into service for a couple of decades until poverty-driven migration tapers off.
You are full of idealism. The only problem is - that you are not in power (are you not?). The implementation of your wide-ranging idealistic plans is about as far-fetched as Valentin's trust in the well-intended, humanistic, philanthropic and altruistic, rational-Reason-minded and empowered politician. ;)
By that line of reasoning, no purely pay-related strike in the strategic infrastructure would be justified. Do you think so? If so, I note that this is the opposite objection of Valentin's who complained that the train drivers went on strike for reasons that he thought were too idealistic.
I would give the same counter to both objections: It is possible to create a class of tenured civil servants (similar to the Danish tjenestemænd) for whom striking is illegal, and use them to staff the strategic infrastructure. Precisely because striking is illegal for them, they are paid better, they have complete job security and fairly generous pensions.
This was rejected.
So who's at fault here? The train drivers who exercise their natural right to withhold their labour - a right that all other non-tenured labour has in a democratic system - or the politicians who refuse to pay what it costs to staff the strategic infrastructure with tenured civil servants who don't go on strike?
A case can certainly be made that the politicians are holding the rest of society hostage: On the other hand, they refuse to grant their civil servants tenure and pay them an appropriate compensation for not using a generally accepted bargaining tool - a bargaining tool whose use is entirely uncontroversial in the rest of society. On the other hand, they expect the train drivers to refrain from using this generally accepted bargaining position, because it would harm third parties who are not actively involved in the conflict.
It's not obvious that the train drivers are the ones holding society hostage to their bargaining positions. The case can certainly be made that they're just calling the politicians' bluff.
Milton Friedman used to say something along the lines of "our task is to keep the ideas alive."
Granted, I don't have the high-powered support that Uncle Miltie did, but that does not mean keeping the ideas alive is for nought.
the problem here is that you are the activist in the debate and revolt against the pragmatism that Valentin describes and which is based on his observation... He sees constructive pragmatism (?) on the winning side and does not have a problem with it. - This position is 100 % opposed to yours, and it will be impossible to find consensus or compromise.
Spot on! This is the problem I had with Jake the whole time. I could hardly reply to his posts, because to me it looked like fiery ideologic activism. I'm not passing judgement, just telling how it looked from here.
Lines like these: are unions at fault for actually fighting the war that the fatcats started instead of rolling over and playing dead or stealing train drivers' pensions or dismantling of civilised society by people who want to throw us back to the 19th century
to me are ideology, sloganeering (no offense, Jake, I just say how it looks for me), and I can't bring myself to even comment on it, which, to Jake or DoDo, looks like I would be eluding the subject.
And Jake's discourse (which I don't judge) is filled with this kind of stuff. For instance, he says Bush stole elections. Officially speaking, I agree; but still he was voted by a huge part of the population, almost 50%. Or Greenspan, who enjoyed the same prestige under the Clinton administration. Or the idea that elected officials would not be the only legitimate representation of government. This to me is either absurd, or coming from a revolutionary. Elected officials are not the only instance of democracy, but they are the only legitimate government, that's why we put them there! To me, this looks like coming from a wildly idealistic spirit, which I can understand, but with whom I can hardly debate pragmatism, because he looks too much into his own "thing" to be open to anything else. To me it looks like a continuously defensive-aggressive position, which is not my "scene" at all - I know I could never convince someone who has honest, strong convictions - and I'm not even interested in convincing, since rational pragmatism is not an ideology, but a methodology. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
you cannot dissect all their lies one by one. That'd turn into a battle of attrition that you cannot hope to win, because it takes only two minutes to write a bald-faced lie, but it takes half an hour to debunk it.
This (replacing lies with strong convictions) is a bit how I felt too during my three or four debates with Jake. I felt I would have had to go in the finest details on a huge range of topics, practically covering all the societal issues today. It was far easier to say "unions must act political" and then asl for details from myself; I could simply not go into all that detail, and it was not the point, anyway. Talking pragmatism and technocracy to me does not imply explaining why social neolibs or socialists are not pragmatic. These are ideologies attested as such - QED.
Also Jake used the puppy skinning metaphor and ended saying...
we do not applaud his pragmatism when he compromises so that only one cute puppy is skinned alive
I pointed this before to Nomad: compromise is not the same thing as rational pragmatism. It's not just compromise (which can sometimes be a solution) or just pragmatism/real-politik. It's also rational, it's also humanistic. I wonder how much liberals and humanists today have in common with the original ones.
Finally: I agree with Jake's definition of ideology. As to... Pragmatism to what end? : A better life for all involved. As simple as that. Not the communist society, not the freemarket, globalised society, not any other pre-described society. A humble, yet an "enlighened" purpose. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I felt I would have had to go in the finest details on a huge range of topics, practically covering all the societal issues today. It was far easier to say "unions must act political" and then asl for details from myself; I could simply not go into all that detail, and it was not the point, anyway.
Well, if you're going to discuss politics, you have to be prepared to discuss policy - preferably in some detail.
That doesn't mean that you have to provide detailed argument against every off-hand example tossed out, but it means that you should be willing to go into detail on at least one to three points. If you want to assert that this or that politician (nevermind the whole political culture of all of Western Civilisation(TM)) adheres to this or that conviction, surely it's not unreasonable to expect you to take an example or two and go into some detail to demonstrate how you think they support your contention?
I pointed this before to Nomad: compromise is not the same thing as rational pragmatism. It's not just compromise (which can sometimes be a solution) or just pragmatism/real-politik. It's also rational, it's also humanistic.
But humanism is an ideology, at least in its original incarnation and under my definition of ideology, which you say you agree with.
A better life for all involved.
Who are "all involved" and what is "a better life?" For most values of "all involved" and "a better life" the above sentence represents an unachievable objective. So the question becomes one of tradeoffs. Which measure of "a better life for all involved" is more important, median income or aggregate income? Are they both red herrings, because "a better life" has nothing to do with income? Is the Brazilian rainforest more important for "a better life for all involved" than access to cheap beef for consumers?
I have my own preferred answers to those questions, and many of those answers are unashamedly ideological. But at least I'm not hubristic enough to pretend that those answers offer "a better life for all involved" - usually, my preferred answer would deprive a billionaire somewhere of some of his money. You might object that this does not materially degrade his prospects of a better life - and I would agree - but I'm willing to bet you a beer that he doesn't see things that way...
Or maybe the old humanism was actually much less an ideology in the sense we confer this word today, and quite pragmatic in itself.
(just count how many times you pointed to places of imprecision in the definition of humanism that you give; feeling those places with something is what tursn it into a true ideology; without them, it's a rational way of organizing society)
(it reminds me of those adorers of the God Reason, and also of that statement, that God is Reason, and Reason was God.... our humanists were catholics in disguise - oh the horror!) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
feeling those places with something is what tursn it into a true ideology; without them, it's a rational way of organizing society)
No, leaving them out renders the sentences unintelligible.
"Progress" is simply not well-defined unless one specifies the end towards which the progress is aimed. Similarly, "equality" is not well-defined unless one specifies what measure should be equalised (income? Rights? (Which rights?) Safety? Freedom from material want?), and among whom it should be equalised (Europeans? Christians? White people? All of humanity?). "Society" isn't well-defined unless one specifies who belongs in it. Is "society" the society of land-owners? Of gentlemen? Of nobles? Of all citizens? Of all residents? Of all humans?
Of course, those questions would all lead to a political debate that doesn't well suit the claim of unavoidable progress towards reasonableness as a historical inevitability, which is quite central to the narrative. So those questions are usually swept under the carpet. But just because they aren't answered explicitly does not mean that they aren't answered at all.
A framework is all that is needed, when you filled in with something precise, you think you provide a ideal to the society, when in reality you limit their choice. Original humanism and liberalism was much more rational and acceptable than living in a continuous and more and more intense polarisation and cat fight. Your argument that I read somewhere, that the "others" (the class enemy, the fatcats etc) are already doing that, is fallacious. Expose their flaw, don't make the same mistake. Turn the other cheek and work relentlessly in the proper way, which is not more sloganeering in the other sense. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
On the contrary, leaving them out allows the society to freely choose its way.
Leaving them out permits the listener to substitute whatever he feels is the appropriate definitions. To a sincere believer in the doctrines of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, imposing Shari'a in France would be Progress, because it would bring the world-wide Caliphate a step closer. To the CEO of Halliburton, the Iraq war was Progress, because it made him a couple of billion $ richer.
I.o.w., society does not have a set of preferences w.r.t. the direction of progress. Only individual people can provide those definitions. But when they do - or rather, when their definitions differ from the ones you've provided for yourself - you label them ideologues and accuse them of dogmatic obstinacy.
You tell people what you think is good, raise the thing at faith level, and declare that everybody disagreeing is a neocon, neolib, propagandist, anti-unions.
Bah, humbug. Nowhere have I called you a neocon or neolib propagandist.
I have called you anti-union, with, I think, considerable justification, because you repeatedly convey an overly simplistic view of the labour market which places blame on unions for problems that are actually caused by employers, or for which blame is at least equally shared by employers and unions. And refuse to even take council of the objections raised against that view. If you wish to interpret this as a knee-jerk ideological reaction, that is, of course, your prerogative. I'll leave it to others to judge whether you're right.
Turn the other cheek and work relentlessly in the proper way, which is not more sloganeering in the other sense.
That's been tried. It's been tried with creationists. It's been tried with HIV/AIDS deniers. It's been tried with neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers. It's been tried with perpetual-motion frauds. It's been tried with homeopaths and crystal healers. And it's been tried with Friedmanites. It didn't work.
Reason and logic and pragmatism work well and fine when you operate in a climate of general good faith and mutual trust. But the thing is, I don't trust the right wing, and I don't for a second believe that they're arguing in good faith. So when debating a professional wingnut, it's for the benefit of the audience, just like debating a professional creationist.
And if you believe that reasoned argument, detailed expositions of policies and proof of how those policies further the common good of the vast majority of society is more convincing to the body politic than sloganeering and propaganda... then you really have very little business accusing others of Utopianism.
The society can at some point arrive at conclusions too. Like, women are discriminated. (good one). All women are discriminated anywhere they're not in equal numbers with men (absurd ones).
I never placed blame on unions as such. I protested against abuse of the right to withdraw labour. When it transgresses their right to labour, especially more so when it's for an unworthy cause, even worse when it's a tiny minority abusing their strategic position (air traffic controllers), some people can get very very annoyed and vote for someone who promises minimum service.
On the last part, I could agree with you, the problem is that it seems by and large the public is getting fed up with excessive activism from all sides.
My question was quite simple actually: faced with such polarisation, would the society not tend to counter-react by particularly picking leaders and movements which profess moderation, balance, reason, pragmatism ? That was the whole idea of the first blog, not to challenge your ideological position.
The second blog (which no one noticed, but then is that even surprising, I wonder) went further and analysed those situations, where technocrats, experts, bureaucrats tend to impose by claiming themselves from pragmatism.
It was an almost academical reflection (in all humbleness). It became flaming and polarising because of guys like you who claim to recognise the conspiration behind the text and pass to action against the enemy. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
You'll have to come up with better examples of doctrines abusing the humanist/liberal framework.
What's wrong with them?
If obviously off-the-wall insanity like six-day-creation can pass muster in public debate, then what hope do we have of combating superficially plausible-sounding nonsense like the Laffer Curve?
But "society" does not magically arrive at those conclusions ex nihilo. They become socially accepted because they are propagated by individuals and groups within the society.
So if you insist that "society" is the only entity to legitimately impute meaning into the narrative that you claim to be operating according to, then you are essentially saying that you defend the Conventional Wisdom and the status quo.
Which is a perfectly acceptable position. But it's not unideological.
I never placed blame on unions as such. I protested against abuse of the right to withdraw labour. When it transgresses their right to labour,
Emphasis mine.
That is placing blame on the unions. Because the fair and balanced description of the situation is that their employers are abusing their right to lead and distribute the work by hiring people to fill critical positions who are not paid not to strike. That's a case of irresponsible cost cutting, just as surely as not providing emergency brakes or fire extinguishers for the trains. So in this case, employers are entirely to blame for the mess, and expecting the unions to help clean it up is a lot like expecting the taxpayers to foot the bill for bailing out Wall Street.
If an employer decided to hire employees who could quit (and be fired) with a day's notice, we would not blame the employees for quitting, even if it disrupted service - we'd blame the employer for being short-sighted by hiring workers on a contract that allowed them to quit. So blaming the workers for striking when they're employed under a contract that permits them to strike seems entirely out to lunch. The workers aren't responsible for being employed under that contract - in a capitalist economy, it's the employer's prerogative to lead and distribute the work.
I did actually read it, and I substantially agree with your criticisms of technocracy and the illusion of meritocracy. I just reacted to the underlying assumption that technocracy is established because people want to run things in an unideological fashion - far more often, as is presently the case, technocracies are established and enshrined in order to lock a specific ideological position deep into the institutional framework of society.
You can also choose to emphasize the "can" in the conventional wisdom. Instead you add "only". Vicious, vicious debater.
Not placing any blame. Mere constatation that rights sometimes oppose one another. I then said one can choose to ignore it, for a better cause than hanging on to corporative privileges, or if it wasn't just a handful extremists (sometimes even out of union support) blocking the whole airport or railway or television. Otherwise I broadly agreed with no-strike more-pay strategical areas idea. You just keep speaking from an union/worker viewpoint (ideological), picking favourite categories, as if employers would be a necessary evil at best - while I am neutral.
Not because people want to run things unideologically, but that some people or categories promote technical expertise as unideological, impartial and as such the best - obviously not true. It remains that not all economical technocrats are neolibs - many are quite to the left, for that matter. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
You can also choose to emphasize the "can" in the conventional wisdom. Instead you add "only".
Because when anybody other than "society" does it, you call it ideology and denounce it as hopeless utopianism.
You just keep speaking from an union/worker viewpoint (ideological), picking favourite categories, as if employers would be a necessary evil at best - while I am neutral.
No, I'm just telling you what the definition of capitalism says: In a capitalist society, it is the employer's prerogative to lead and distribute the work - and to ensure that staffing is adequate for the task at hand is an obvious corollary to this. And if the employer in question can't find enough qualified work... well then he's just shit outta luck, but that's not the employees' problem. No political school of thought that I'm aware of - left, right or centre - disputes this. Comes with the whole "private ownership of the means of production" thing, which I gather is rather central to capitalist economic models. It's in any PoliSci textbook you might care to name.
Fortunately you are right that not all economic technocrats are neolibs. There are still holdovers from saner times. But far too many have drunk the Reaganomics kool-aid.
Who says that definition ? Prerogative ?... Conferred by...? This all sounds so ideological, I feel itching at almost each word of yours. Political schools of thought - a rational pragmatist's anathema ! "Capitalism" could rather be seen as the natural state of things, rather than an ideology in itself. PoliSci schools remind me of certain economy books indoctrinating students with freemarket doctrines. Yuk. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
It works exceedingly well for science, because in science cheaters are usually caught sooner or later, and then they're run out of town on a rail, covered in tar and feathers and branded with a big, fat sign in the middle of their face saying "liar."
In politics... not so much.
And while capitalism could indeed be seen as the "natural" state of things, so could feudalism, clientism, oligarchy, corporatism, serfdom, tribalism and a host of other more or less undesirable ways of running society. Capitalism is no less artificial than social democracy - if you want a truly "natural" state of affairs, look at tribalism and feudalism; they seem to be the state societies move towards when their citizenry stops paying attention.
Who says that the definition of capitalism is that the employer leads and distributes the work? Well, originally this particular formulation of capitalist principles was taken from an early Danish employers' union manifesto - more specifically from their demands for concessions from the Danish labour movement, in return for ending a major lockout. It was subsequently written into the September Agreement, which you might call the constitution of the Danish labour market.
It's right up there with private property when it comes to defining capitalism.
You're the first person I have ever met who disagrees that the definition of capitalism is private control of the means of production - or at least that capitalism means universal private property rights, to which private control of the means of production is an obvious corollary.
Of course, you can make up your own definition of capitalism if you want, but if you want to substitute some idiosyncratic definition of capitalism, then you have to at least tell us what that definition is.
And I wonder what the "natural state of things" even means. It sounds like more "wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know what I mean" speak. What is "natural" about capitalism - under your definition, or the dictionary definition, I don't care which? Why has a system that's "the natural state of things" only existed for two hundred years or so, tops? And why does "the natural state of things" seem to regress towards feudalism when left unattended (a problem that already Adam Smith was aware of when he wrote of the necessity of trust-busting)?
Then you bring people in for work. Becoming an employer changes things, because people are not machines, personal and social problems are posed, which is why there are work laws and statutes to regulate the thing and protect employees.
Still pondering, without relating to any highminded philosophical book, for the moment. Dude :) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Well for one, private property is the normal state of things. Always existed, only in danger when no rule of law, or by abuse.
No. You'll have to argue that a bit more than simply stating it. Indeed, one of the first large States, Egypt, had everything owned by the Pharao. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
"Always" is a very long time. And I would point out that in most cultures, the notion of individual private property does not actually exist, because the individual is wholly subsumed in the clan or family.
Additionally, very often in European history, peasants didn't actually own most of their stuff - they rented it from their local nobles.
That's not so much "means of production" but private property you bought with your money. Period.
You can shout that there is no difference between capital goods (means of production) and consumer goods until you go blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that the rest of the world makes that distinction.
Land has, throughout most of European history, either been owned communally or held in fief from one's feudal sovereign. Agricultural implements have been variously privately and communally owned, but certainly weren't usually bought and sold on open markets the way they are under full-fledged capitalist systems. With a few notable exceptions (such as the Freemasons), even the proto-capitalist craftsmen in the cities worked in guilds, which communally owned the means of production, and did so essentially since the dissolution of the Roman empire and the start of the Middle Ages.
(None of which, of course, means that these constructs were in any way egalitarian or remotely similar to what most Marxists would understand when they say "communal ownership" of the means of production. They just weren't capitalist in any sense of the term that my dictionary recognises.)
Employing people to produce goods for third parties is a relatively recent invention - it used to be that most work was done either for oneself (as, e.g., with subsistence farming, an activity that used to take up more than 90 % of all economic activity in pre-capitalist societies) or on commission. This only really changed once industrialisation made mass output of cheap, standardised goods practical.
Well, very often the feudal nobility didn't own their stuff: it was granted by the king, at least in principle?
Things were much more nuanced even then, and often peasants had property of their land and house.
That's only true for the freeholders, which were not the majority in most countries (and in some countries, such as Denmark, for instance, didn't even exist for several centuries).
This blog was about the bad sides of pragmatism - technocracy, bureaucracy, shutting down the debate with a pretention of expertise, opposing rights so that to not confer any. You turned it into a ideologically polarised fight. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I could not care less about sloganeering of any kind.
... says the guy who talks about "promoting a better life for all" and who pronounces that "ideology is dead, so what now?"
Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.
You can blast at neocons, or Sarkozy, or catholics all you want, I don't feel personally touched, it is but the lack of fairness and truthfulness that annoys me.
I challenge you to find somewhere I said something untrue.
Fairness, OTOH, is to some extent a matter of perspective, so it is possible that you find some of my assumptions or conclusions unfair. Which is to my sorrow, but does not change their merit.
This blog was about the bad sides of pragmatism - technocracy, bureaucracy, shutting down the debate with a pretention of expertise, opposing rights so that to not confer any. You turned it into a ideologically polarised fight.
It was ideologically polarised from the word go. By claiming the death of ideology, you lent a shroud of normalcy, legitimacy and even historical inevitability to the current political climate - a climate that is very much dominated by ideological dogmatism, as I explained in considerable detail. I fail to see how disputing the assumptions fundamentally underpinning your diary constitutes an irrelevant threadjack. But maybe that's just me.
As for the fight part... well, we could go back through the comments and see who started what and who called whom names. But frankly, that would probably be an exercise in futility. At any rate, I don't think any of the participants has reason to be particularly ashamed of his or her conduct.
Untrue stuff? Your whole point of view was heavily biased. Like when you deny any place for argumentation in neocon propaganda, I reply that many americans were still convinced of some of the more logical bits in it, since they re-elected Bush, and you reply the elections were stolen, choosing to ignore the fact that plus or minus several thousand votes, about 50% actually voted for him. You're propagandizing against a supposed propagandist, which is why I'm telling you you're wasting your time. I don't believe in any hard right, neocon or neolib theories, I have certain rightwing values (like the moral value of effort) and leftwing one (like fighting inequalities as a genuine societal goal), and some more. But my stance is not ideological. You probably think anyone must have an ideology, like you have one. The world is polarized, the good and the bad, the fatcats and the oppressed, and any attempt to say differently is a support for the actual state of affairs. If you're trying to prove the inherent relativity in any such position, that's what I call an exercise in futility. We can abstractize stuff to no end, my original points, where I presented several views of certain topics and the polarisation ("extremisation") of debate that usually follows, remain unchallenged - just like the examples I gave on pragmatic Sarkozy.
Had you paid more attention, I did not argue in support of the present situation, but about a change of approach, for nuancing and de-polarising stuff in order to keep in touch with reality. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Pronouncing ideology dead, can that e ideologic ? :)
It can, as in the case of Fukuyama. But that's beside the point, because I was using it as an example of sloganeering - which it indisputably is - not of ideology.
I reply that many americans were still convinced of some of the more logical bits in it, since they re-elected Bush, and you reply the elections were stolen, choosing to ignore the fact that plus or minus several thousand votes, about 50% actually voted for him.
There are several ways to steal an election, of which actual ballot stuffing is only the crudest one. Massive media dominance also counts as a way to manipulate elections - at least when Vladimir Putin does it...
And as an aside, it's closer to 25 % given the turnout.
Had you paid more attention, I did not argue in support of the present situation, but about a change of approach, for nuancing and de-polarising stuff in order to keep in touch with reality.
Depolarising the situation requires a good-faith effort from both sides. The Left has - broadly speaking - shown its good faith by moving towards the centre. The Right has - broadly speaking - responded by moving farther to the right. You're barking up the wrong tree here - we've scratched their backs, it's their turn to scratch our backs now.
And precisely in what way, if I may, would "pronouncing ideology dead" be even remotely similar to "sloganeering" ? (let alone I challenge you to point me wherever such a declaration would be made at all).
Been there, done that, gave the reference to Fukuyama. What more do you want? A detailed dissection of The end of History complete with an analysis of all the misleading sloganeering in it (of which the death of ideology is but one among several)?
"beside the point, because I was using it as an example of sloganeering"
So (unless I misread your english) I rightly ignored it. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
My bad.
