29. Remember that social arrangements can only be expected to
combat natural scarcity more or less efficiently,
not entirely eliminate it:
Material
goods that humans desire have, and probably always will be, scarce, and at no
point was this more true than in the primitive state of nature. Mankind’s
primitive condition did not at all resemble the mythological Garden of Eden, a
land of bliss and plenty; rather, it was a time of all-encompassing poverty and
danger. Besides a relatively greater abundance of raw land which could not
possibly be used effectively without capital accumulation and a division of labor
and exchange economy, the state of nature, when compared to any state of
civilization, was scarcer in the vast majority of material goods that humans
desired. The potential of death by starvation, disease, animal attacks, or
inter-human violence was significant, and what would today be considered utter
material destitution was the norm for those that were strong enough to even
survive to adulthood.
This, then,
was the starting point of man’s material condition, a situation that could only
be ameliorated through peaceful division of labour, production, exchange,
capital accumulation, and technological innovation, in other words, through
civilization. This is a slow process though, even with the social arrangements
most conducive to the advancement of these pillars of material progress. To
expect that the most productive social arrangement, assuming it were ever
discovered and put into practice, would be able to entirely overcome material
scarcity is a utopian fantasy. Most people will always desire things that are
higher quality, available in higher quantities for lower prices, or that are
more efficient with regards to the use of time (for time is a scarce commodity
too). To criticize social arrangements for no other reason than because they
have not overcome material scarcity entirely, without providing proper
reasoning for why an alternative set of social arrangements would be able to
overcome material scarcity faster, is entirely unhelpful and misleading.
A common
example of this fallacy can be found in certain criticisms of the Industrial
Revolution. The criticizer will complain about how unsatisfactory the living conditions
of some members of the working population were, and then allege that it was
industrialism that caused their plight. Now, it is certainly true that from the
standpoint of the standards of living prevalent in the present, the living
condition of an average industrial worker was indeed quite bad. But this fact,
by itself, is not a sufficient reason to criticize the industrial economy or
capitalism in general. Three crucial questions must first be asked and answered:
1. How did the living standards of the average industrial worker in that period
compare with the living standards of the average lower class person in the
period before the Industrial Revolution? 2. Was the population of the society
in question higher during the industrial period than it was in the period
before the Industrial Revolution? 3. Could an alternative set of social
arrangements have been conceived that would have improved material standards of
living faster than the arrangements of the industrial period?
With regards to the first question, it
is fairly clear that the lower classes of the pre-industrial period were by no
means better off than their industrial counterparts. The rigid guild system and
the lack of an extensive factory economy largely relegated the lower classes to
beggary, charity, dangerous odd jobs, subsistence agriculture, sometimes as
serfs, the military, banditry, prostitution, or employment in the
proto-industrial unskilled labour jobs. The Industrial Revolution was
characterized by the increasing importance of industries of mass production
which employed many unskilled or semi-skilled workers in a factory setting.
Mass production means production for the
masses, there would be no point to it if the industry’s consumers were
solely wealthy, upper class people as they largely had been for many industries
in the Middle Ages. The masses, in this case, were the factory workers
themselves and others in similar conditions, thus to argue that an economy
characterized more by mass production for the needs of the masses resulted in
lower living standards for those same masses is paradoxical, and indeed,
incorrect.
With regards to the second question,
population is an important variable when comparing living standards across
eras. Philosophically, it is debatable whether a smaller population with a
higher standard of living is better than a larger population with a lower
standard of living, but in either case, the fact that more people are being
sustained in the world in one period than in another is not something to be
ignored. The Industrial Revolution period in Britain witnessed a great
population boom. Even if it could be shown that by some standard, the average
material living standard per capita had slightly gone down in the early
industrial period; one must still consider the fact that more people were able
to enjoy such a standard of living at all, rather than being either dead or
unborn.
Finally, and most importantly, with
regards to the third question, the authors of the criticism being discussed
were typically either novelists or socialists. Novelists generally did not take
the time to study economics and the other relevant social sciences before
making their critiques, and as a result, typically did not suggest plans for
alternative social arrangements that they reasonably could have argued would
have alleviated some of the material scarcity they were writing about more
effectively than the social arrangements that had been in place. Socialists did
propose such alternative arrangements, but their reasoning was riddled with
holes and consequently, the supposed theory of why socialism was superior to
capitalism for relieving material scarcity was faulty and, unsurprisingly to
free-market economic theorists, socialist experiments in the 20th
century resulted in destitution and terror for socialist subjects and
thus proved a failure empirically as well. That being said, it is highly likely
that some of the social arrangements of the early 19th century could
have been modified somewhat to positive effect. However, though it would have
been nice if the average industrial worker of the early 19th century
could have enjoyed the living standards of the average worker in 21st
century North America, there was no possible social arrangement that could have
made it so. Many decades of capital accumulation, learning, increasing
specialization, and technological innovation would have been necessary
regardless, even if unsatisfactory social arrangements such as world warring
and socialist policies would not have intervened as they did in actual history.
Combating material scarcity takes time, longer or shorter depending on what
social arrangements are adopted, but no conceivable social arrangements could
completely abolish scarcity and result in a utopian land of absolute
plenty.
Thus, the existence of some material
scarcity in a society is not, in and of itself, a valid criticism of existing
social arrangements. To be such, it must be shown that alternate social
arrangements would help alleviate that particular scarcity faster without
higher costs elsewhere in the economy or in the long-run.
30. One does not have to be a political partisan to think
about political issues:
One of the
biggest mistakes of many politically-involved people is that they feel the need
to support wholeheartedly a particular political party and its stance on social
issues rather than assessing those social issues independently and coming to
their own conclusions. These partisans consider themselves politically
well-informed because they follow all the machinations of day-to-day politics,
cheering on ‘their’ party and disparaging the ‘enemy’ party/parties.
There are
two reasons why this phenomenon is a barrier to careful thinking about
social/political issues. Firstly, political parties tend to be coalitions of
various interest groups, and thus often hold contradictory views on issues that
should probably be resolved either one way or the other. For instance, take the
Republicans in the United States. Though by no means a great champion of
free-market ideas, the party does tend to make economic freedom a slightly
higher priority than the Democrats do. At the same time though, they are
fanatically opposed to things such as gay marriage. Economic freedom means
allowing individuals to advance their personal, economic aspirations as they
see fit, so why is it beneficial do deny homosexuals the freedom to marry if
they so choose? The answer is because free-market sympathizers (I wouldn’t go
so far as to say supporters…) and Christian social conservatives are both
represented by the same political party, even though their doctrines are in many
respects antithetical.
As another
example, take the Conservative Party of Canada. They are at once a proponent of
liberalizing the wheat market in the Prairies by abolishing the Canada Wheat
Board’s monopoly and a proponent of maintaining extensive supply-management
policies for Ontario dairy farmers. There is no sound logic behind these
contradictory positions, just that the wheat farmer interest group and the
dairy farmer interest group happened to want different things for themselves.
Finally, take the ‘moderate’ leftist parties
in most western democracies. They seem to believe that certain industries such
as the healthcare, education, and non-car transportation industries must
absolutely be socialized while other industries that are no less important,
such as the food or clothing industries can be left alone. They do not talk
much about the food and clothing industries, but judging from their anti-market
rhetoric that they use to justify their plans to socialize some industries and
intervene heavily in others, it would appear that they should see the relative
freedom of the food and clothing industries as an absolute disaster that must
be rectified with more intervention as soon as possible. When one asks why
certain industries must be socialized and others left free, one does not
receive a clear answer. I suspect that the answer lies in the machinations of
political interest groups rather than in the mind of some theoretician that
thought these issues out carefully before-hand. Likewise, how these parties can both
support the activities of exclusive, monopolistic labour unions while bemoaning
high unemployment and income inequality is another mystery. The same goes for
their tirades against the banking and financial industries, accompanied by
their policies of facilitating credit expansion inflation that benefits
precisely these industries at the expense of the average money holder.
All this is
to say that political parties do not tend to hold intellectually consistent
positions on all social issues. Thus, if one is trying to find a ready-made
package of social issue stances from the political parties, it is highly
unlikely that they will be intellectually coherent when you or a disputant analyzes
each issue individually.
The second
reason is that most politically-involved people end up spending their time
following political events and
evaluating political people (politicians),
rather than thinking about political ideas.
One might know everything there is to know about the attempts of US
politicians to avoid ‘the fiscal cliff’ or how ‘competent’ Angela Merkel seems
to be, but this knowledge does not, per
se, advance your understanding of
social issues and their possible solutions. Before you despair because a
particular political event happened or criticize a certain politician for doing
this or that, it would be a good idea to actually formulate your own opinions
on particular policies based on well-reasoned theories, relevant empirical evidence,
and your own well-considered valuations.
Conclusion
I have composed this list of tips to show you
that positions on social questions are not immune to the scrutiny of reason and
proper methodology. ‘Everything’ does not ‘go’, nor are ‘all opinions equally
valid’. If you ever hope to convince anyone to come around to your way of
thinking, you will have to examine social policies scientifically and then
explain your subjective valuations of the ends that a scientific analysis indicates
that policy will advance. Logic must prevail in the social sciences if
civilization is to be saved from the ravages of ill-thought-out policies, and
for this reason I implore you to take these tips to heart.
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