Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 1 19:15:54 EST 1998
Article: 11488 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Tea Party Time, PJB
Date: 1 Mar 1998 19:13:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <888787343snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> Simply not a case of no representation without taxation as stated.
>> Which other country has paid more than the U.S.?
>Other countries (including this one) have paid 100 per cent of their
>assessed subscription regularly. The US has not.
My understanding is that the U.S. is assessed and pays much more than
any other country, and that the nonpayments relate to part of the
peacekeeping assessment and are a minor fraction of total assessments.
I have no idea what the complaints and arguments as to the unpaid
portion are. My guess is that the UN as you suggest would be wholly
within its rights expelling the U.S. Still, my comment was simply that
"no representation without taxation" is the wrong slogan in a case
where a member is paying far more than any other member of the General
Assembly or Security Council for representation on those bodies and I
think that stands. Some other slogan might be a good one, just not
that one.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 1 19:15:55 EST 1998
Article: 11489 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Polanyi's Great Transformation
Date: 1 Mar 1998 19:14:39 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <888787982snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>If I am encouraged, I could provide some juicy quotations.
Juicy quotes are always welcome.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk@panix.com Tue Mar 3 07:51:27 1998
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From: Jim Kalb
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To: jk@panix.com
Subject: Re: Re: The morality of the welfare state
> Now, this isn't "enforced charity"; it is insurance against
> eventualities which may (in the case of education and pensions,
> which WILL) affect all of us.
The distinctions from ordinary insurance are the redistributive
effect (the transfer of wealth from rich to poor) and the "moral
risk" (the likelihood that the coverage will affect conduct in such
a way as to make claims more likely). If such distinctions weren't
important then private welfare state coverage would be as readily
available as automobile insurance. It is the first distinction that
makes "enforced charity" seem appropriate to many; the second I
think threatens the long-term practicality of a comprehensive and
humane welfare state.
> They had taken it upon themselves to suspend my benefit (without
> informing me) ... interest of 22% p.a. ... you should be able to
> meet all bills out of the paltry benefits ... there will be a 100%
> marginal tax rate, because my dole will be stopped.
Unpleasant, but not surprising. The natural relation between welfare
state and client is one of suspicion, resentment and bad faith.
Clients have no bargaining power and less reason than many for
gratitude toward the world; state agencies no good way of telling
whether what clients say is true or not; it is difficult for the
interests of the two to be anything but adverse since the usual
question is simply whether A gets the money or B keeps it. The natural
consequence is loss of moral community between the two sides. The
state imposes arbitrary and oppressive rules while enough clients game
the system and go for what they can get to make any alternative seem
unrealistic to administrators.
> I really do have difficulty in understanding why Americans have
> such difficulty with provision that Europeans take for granted.
We will see what happens in Europe as the cost of the welfare state
continues to climb. In spite of all the talk and cutbacks the cost of
government continues to grow. I expect unpleasantness. It seems to me
it would have been better not to have set up the system in the first
place.
Status: RO
From jk@panix.com Tue Mar 3 19:28:57 1998
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Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 19:28:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Kalb
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To: jk@panix.com
Subject: Re: Re: The morality of the welfare state
On March 03, 1998 at 18:47:04 Jim Kalb wrote:
In Reply to: The morality of the welfare state posted by on February
25, 1998 at 15:29:55:
> In practice, the situation in Britain is that people who are
> relatively well off get more out of the system.
I expect so, but the redistributive effect remains. A man with an
income of 1,000,000 pays 600,000 into the system and gets 20,000 out,
one with 10,000 pays 3,000 in and gets 8,000 out.
> I'm not sure about ["moral risk"].
If you disagree that what gets funded most often affects what people
do I won't argue with you.
> Quite simply, the aim of private sector businesses is to make a
> profit, and in the case of insurance this means avoiding bad
> risks.
Yes and no. We are all bad risks for whole life insurance because
what you're insuring against invariably happens. Nonetheless, in the
absence of moral risk and antidiscrimination rules (which in effect
require redistribution from good to bad risks) it is possible in that
and most other cases to evaluate bad risks and price and write
insurance accordingly.
> I don't quite know what Jim means by "unpleasantness".
Gross public and private dishonesty and cynicism, resentment and
hatred among social groups, the failure of systems upon which millions
rely for support, the impossibility of self-government due to relative
political unimportance of the public interest. Something like what's
happened in the former Soviet Union. You will think that an absurd
notion; things can't go bad so radically. To me though it seems that
when the stuff of politics becomes a competitive pursuit of private
interest at the direct expense of other participants in which people's
basic material well-being is at stake the result is likely eventually
to be some mixture of chaos, poverty, tyranny and civil war. Free
government is necessarily limited government, and I think that's been
lost sight of.
Status: RO
From jk Tue Mar 3 20:07:12 1998
Subject: Re: Vindication of Natural Society
To: j-s
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 20:07:12 -0500 (EST)
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> > The corresponding argument as to religious institutions would be
> > that we need them for securing the greatest good available to us in
> > religious matters.
>
> Yes.
>
> > I don't see why that good would not include the greatest religious
> > truth available to us in the form in which we are capable of
> > attaining it.
>
> I have no idea what you mean by this sentence.
The greatest good includes truth. The truth about God is not fully
available to us and much of what is can not be stated in clear
propositional form. "Religious institutions are necessary" might mean
among other things that they are necessary to give us as much truth as
we can attain in its most perspicuous and useable form.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Mar 6 20:53:01 EST 1998
Article: 11504 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 6 Mar 1998 15:12:53 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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*tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
> >comparing libertarianism and welfare state liberalism, if those are
> >indeed the choices presented for overall social organization.
> Well, the two choices if one elects to have a closed mind. There are
> always more than two options.
Actually, I don't think either has anything like the effects intended,
but it does make a difference which is chosen as a guiding ideal. As
such each seems somewhat plausible today, and I'm not sure what is more
so. Perhaps you have suggestions. You should remember though that
circumstances constrict choice, and some variations don't much matter.
You should also remember I suppose that one can't compare every
conceivable possibility simultaneously, especially unnamed possibilities
not argued for.
> even in the welfare liberal model there is the possiblity to have
> something other than a "universal rational hedonistic system" (not
> every WL is a Rawlsian).
On reflection you may agree with Htiuqsa Mot, antipodean economist, who
says "Free market liberalism as an ideology objectifies and reduces
entities to commodities ... " Dr. Mot knows of course that there are
ideological libertarians who claim their system is the only one that
treats human freedom and dignity as absolutes and refuses to place a
valuation on them less or other than that placed upon them by their
possessors. Since human beings are entities, and commodities have no
freedom or dignity, I take it he disagrees with those libertarians, and
believes that a method of organizing economics and social life like say
"free market liberalism" has objective consequences on the moral
understandings of those inhabiting the society that cannot be trumped by
the subjective intentions of the method's proponents. He may have a
similar attitude toward "welfare liberalism," but I will step aside and
let you argue the matter with him as you shave tomorrow morning.
> First of all, in terms of establishing international protection for
> social welfare agreements, there is a problem of enforcing such
> concessions
The intent I think is to base enforcement on withdrawal of trade
concessions. We won't trade with you unless your economy includes
protections similar to ours. The standards would be set by the most
prosperous countries and trade groupings and enforced on weaker
partners. Support for enforcement would come from employers and
workers, neither of whom would want to be undercut, from politicians,
government officials, lawyers and so on, who prefer an order of things
in which government controls as much as possible, from journalists and
media people, whose importance is increased as more things are decided
politically, from scholars and experts, who prefer decisions to be made
through formal bureaucratic processes that demand formal knowledge
inputs, etc., etc., etc.
> Secondly, to place welfare concerns in a global context, there is the
> problem of avoiding bias* in providing assistance. Even assuming
> that one is able to get past national identities, there is still some
> question as to whether the funds will go towards some areas of the
> world which need the aid more than others.
Free flows of capital and labor and internationalization of regulation,
legal systems and private management can be expected to lead to radical
reduction in disparities of economic development. So the system could
develop without large cross-border aid transfers.
> Thirdly, you raise the issue of mass immigration. This suffers from the
> basic notion that one ought to be able to give up hearth, home and
> livelihood for the sake of assistance (a truly dangerous idea).
Fine, but we already have mass immigration and I don't think it's going
to go away. Not unless there are radical changes inconsistent with free
global markets, and the question I thought was whether a philosophically
liberal global market society would tend toward libertarianism or
liberal welfare statism. As to the extent and effects of immigration,
not everyone will move someplace else, but there will be enough movement
(in combination with other things) radically to reduce local cultural
particularities and considerably to reduce disparities in living
standards.
> Fourthly, there is the underlying presumption here that every part of
> the world would buy into it. There is another tension present as
> witnessed in the Muslim states that defies such expansionist notions.
We were talking about the probable shape of a liberal global market
society. I don't see why the Muslims would buy into such a society and
then reject welfare state aspects.
> Fifth, and I'll stop here for the moment, education is not a notion
> that local societies give up easily.
Rearing of children isn't something parents give up easily, but they
have done so. Kids today are mostly brought up by TV, pop entertainers
and professionals. Here in America we have an education establishment
that believes in fitting children for the global multicultural
economics-centered society of the future. Is your view that we have
that here because of something special about America?
> >welfare in a country of continental size with hundreds of millions
> >of multicultural inhabitants and more arriving all the time?
> in that particular country there is also a certain common identity.
The point is that the common identity is becoming less and less
substantial and therefore less and less a basis for mutual loyalty and
concern. Especially when those supposedly sharing it can make claims
for special treatment based on difference in identity.
> I suspect when you posted the above that you were falling into the
> old identity politics trap...
Which is ...
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 7 04:47:08 EST 1998
Article: 11507 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 7 Mar 1998 04:45:23 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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>the gap in income between the affluent nations and the impoverished
>nations has been steadily growing.
Really? I suppose that might be true almost by definition, as long as
there are successful countries (those of Western Europe for example)
that continue to be successful and grossly unsuccessful countries (for
example Haiti or most of subSaharan Africa) that continue to be grossly
unsuccessful. Then the gap between the richest countries, who are
getting somewhat more rich, and the poorest countries, who are going
nowhere, would in fact grow. Similarly, improvements in medicine tend
to increase the gap in life expectancy between the generally healthy,
whose life expectancy grows somewhat, and the sickest people, who by
definition have a life expectancy of zero.
Still, it seems more to the point to look at the world as a whole.
More people live in Asia than anywhere else. East Asian economies may
be having problems just now, but they're not going to wipe out the
growth that has averaged 7 percent per year in real terms since the
mid-1970s, accelerating to 9 percent per year in the 1990s. In China
(lots of people live there) per capita income rose 270 percent
1980-1997. Even Vietnam grew at 8 percent and Cambodia and Lao PDR at 6
percent per year in the first half of the 1990s.
South Asian economies (that includes Pakistan and India) have had an
average annual growth rate of 5.3 percent for the past decade. That's
faster than previously -- the acceleration has coincided with economic
reforms that have brought them more into the NWO. We can all agree the
NWO has problems but I don't think the problems include reduction of
overall output or even average output per capita at least not in most
low-wage countries. After all, if you move software maintenance from
Indiana to India that means more money in Bangelore.
Even in Latin American, GDP growth in the typical country this decade
has ranged between 3 percent and 4 percent per year. A fascist
neoliberal place like Chile does much better than that, at least from
the standpoint of overall output.
So the picture of steadily rising income gaps among countries doesn't
seem to be correct.
>One finds the same trend of a widening gap in income between affluent
>persons and impoverished persons within nations.
That trend does exist, but it's not the same trend. If you have a
absolutely unified world economy the richest people in the world and
the poorest people in the world will be scattered around everywhere.
That means there will be little gap in income among states but huge
gaps within states.
>You appear to be objecting to the infusion of ethnic identity into the
>rigid homogeneity of a mass culture that has been dominated in the
>past by WASPs
I'm not sure how the appearance arises.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 7 15:16:02 EST 1998
Article: 11508 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 7 Mar 1998 11:11:05 -0500
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It seems this discussion has returned to the NWO, as all discussions do
these days, so I thought I'd post the following:
What are the weaknesses of the NWO/Global Society/Universal Rational
Economic Order? Some that come to mind include:
1. Cultural/religious resistance. The Muslim world is often
instanced. I doubt that such resistance will be effective over the
next couple of generations. Modern electronic communications is
invasive, travel and other forms of exchange are much easier than in
the past, and there seem to be few cultural formations and no large
ones able to repel such things long term. On the other hand, any
cultural formation that does succeed in repelling them and maintaining
its integrity will likely grow and thrive. In the long run I think it
likely that such formations will take over the world.
2. Lack of moral unity necessary to motivate self-sacrifice by
citizens. Result - rule by those with guns, perhaps a combination of
the Praetorian Guard, international mafias, local warlords, fanatical
religious sects, what have you. Such people don't care all that much
about universal order or rational economic efficiency, but if they stay
in power they may start feeling their responsibilities a little, so on
this line of thought the NWO may indeed end up looking like postmodern
feudalism.
3. Conflict between rich and poor. I don't think this is a special
problem for the NWO since there are always rich and poor, since I think
the NWO will tend toward some sort of welfare state, enough to buy off
the poor anyway if they pose a threat, and since class warfare becomes
less likely as a social order becomes larger and more complex.
4. Crisis of the welfare state. Costs go up, satisfaction and social
order goes down. Eventually oppressive controls are imposed, and costs
*still* go up. Or so experience and theory suggest. If it's true that
liberalism starts classical and ends statist, and that welfare state
liberalism breaks the connection between conduct and consequence to a
degree that can't be sustained, then Global Culture could end in
something like the situation in the former Soviet Union -- gross public
and private dishonesty and cynicism, resentment and hatred among social
groups, the failure of systems upon which millions rely for support,
collapse of effective government due to the political unimportance of
the public interest and self-seeking among the political class.
5. Racial problems. The accepted dogma is that if environment and
opportunities are the same then the Japanese and Bantu will do equally
well economically. If that dogma proves impossible to demonstrate in
practice, and (let's say) the Bantu turn out to be enduringly more
productive and prosperous than the Japanese no matter how
well-established global education, World Culture, sensitivity training,
universal whatnot become, so that in the worldwide mix of populations
there tends always and everywhere to be far more rich Bantu and far
more poor Japanese, there could be problems. Liberal individualism
would become much less plausible, class conflicts would become ethnic
and national as well, and it's hard to think of a way to fix the
problem within a uniform universal order centered on economics.
Recognition of the intractability of this problem may underlie the
accepted view that there is something obscene about the possibility of
racial differences in ability and temperament.
6. Maybe a system of serfdom could deal with the foregoing problems.
The Soviet experience was not favorable though.
Thoughts?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk@panix.com Sun Mar 8 18:42:25 1998
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From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199803082342.SAA02752@panix.com>
To: jk@panix.com
Subject: Re: Professional Ethics and Conflicts of Interest
On March 08, 1998 at 18:03:02 Jim Kalb wrote:
In Reply to: Professional Ethics and Conflicts of Interest posted by
on March 07, 1998 at 17:59:00:
> I think it an outrageous conflict of interest, and highly
> unprofessional behavior, for a clergyman from outside of the
> Episcopal denomination to use this facility either to sow
> discontent or to attempt to recruit.
As a layman I am grateful for comments on ECUSA and other churches
from anyone with an opinion and a basis for it. If it is a clergyman
so much the better. If it is a clergyman who is affiliated with a
church that split from ECUSA better yet -- he likely has had personal
and professional reason to think seriously about issues regarding the
place of ECUSA in Christ's Church. I presume it is to the latter that
we all owe our primary loyalty, professional or otherwise.
I'm not sure what conflict of interest you see. If things are a mess,
and people get together to discuss matters, and someone shows up and
says "it won't get better so why not do what I did and join another
church" he might be wrong but the proposal seems legitimate and
relevant. Especially from the standpoint of the person making it.
I'm also not sure where the unprofessionalism is in failing to say in
every post "I'm not ECUSA." It's a continuing discussion and the
priests that have participated haven't kept their current affiliations
secret - far from it. "Professionalism" can mean a lot of things
though. One possible meaning is class solidarity among those who make
their living out of religion that leads them mutually to recognize the
property interest each has in his own sheep. We in the laity naturally
have no special concern for that.
Status: RO
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Mar 9 05:42:27 EST 1998
Article: 11519 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 9 Mar 1998 05:40:50 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <3503DAD8.12572F1B@xs4all.nl> vtnet writes:
>the kind of (apparently Ricardian) laissez-faire economic that you
>seem to espouse
Where? I'd rather have laissez-faire accepted as a guiding social
ideal than welfare-state liberalism. That doesn't mean I espouse it.
To prefer A to B is not to espouse A.
The reason mostly has to do with what happens when each approach fails,
as each does. The failure of laissez-faire economics is much more
likely to aid institutions necessary for a tolerable way of life (e.g.,
non-state and non-market institutions like the family) than the failure
of welfare-state liberalism, because its legal and administrative
system decides less and therefore inhibits other institutions less.
The welfare state dominates things more comprehensively, so when it
fails there's much less to fall back on. Also, it seems easier to
introduce inconsistencies into a laissez-faire system that mitigate its
worst effects than in the case of a welfare-state system.
>In the much more complex human industrial society, the access to
>preparation (education) and chances (capital and social connections
>and hence positions) are so unequally distributed under conditions of
>laissez-faire, that conditions would become ever more disparate, and
>this is precisely what may be observed in real society.
Your point seems to be that welfare-state liberalism is more
meritocratic than laissez-faire. I don't agree. In a pure
laissez-faire economic system employers are free to look and pay for
the talent that helps them produce most efficiently and profitably and
education is a worthwhile investment for those with the talent to
profit from it. In a welfare-state liberal system there's less
incentive for matching talents with the needs of the system. In
addition, the tendency of the system to equalize rewards as much as
possible extends to position as well as money so you get things like
"affirmative action" that systematically favor the less efficient.
Part of the issue is the extent to which expensive preparation is
necessary to productiveness, and how it gets paid for. My guess is
that most people with economically valuable talents in a laissez-faire
system in a modern complex economy would find a way to exercise those
talents effectively. To some extent student loans (institutional,
family or whatever) would be the answer, to some extent
profit-motivated elimination of artificial formal requirements for
positions, to some extent the multiform adaptability of most human
talents -- someone who would be good at some job that requires a huge
amount of expensive training would most likely also be good at some
other economically important job that requires much less training or
calls for experience rather than formal training.
>"The state is the march of God through the world." -- Hegel
"War is the health of the State." -- Randolph Bourne
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Mar 9 19:45:45 EST 1998
Article: 11525 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 9 Mar 1998 19:36:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <889486117snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>> Similarly, improvements in medicine tend to increase the gap in life
>> expectancy between the generally healthy, whose life expectancy
>> grows somewhat, and the sickest people, who by definition have a
>> life expectancy of zero.
>The above seems doubtful. Many people with congenital conditions which
>had in the past a zero or near-zero life-expectation (spina bifida.
>hole-in-the-heart, cystic fibrosis) have had their life expectations
>increased by more than the average proportion.
And poor countries have become rich countries, Taiwan and Korea for
example.
My point was that the gap between the statistical classes of those who
are generally healthy and those who are sickest grows with improvements
in medicine. The life expectancy of the latter class is
*by definition* zero. The new treatments simply mean that those e.g.
with spinal bifida are no longer among the sickest.
>> If you have a absolutely unified world economy the richest people in
>> the world and the poorest people in the world will be scattered
>> around everywhere. That means there will be little gap in income
>> among states but huge gaps within states.
>That's right, but isn't it even more alarming than gross income gaps
>between countries?
Sure. I don't favor a completely unified world economy. I have
nothing against tariffs, immigration restrictions, and other limits on
cross-border flows. Those seem to me basic structural provisions that
can be made that don't require extensive state administration or
responsibility for particular outcomes.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 10 07:03:13 EST 1998
Article: 11528 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 10 Mar 1998 07:00:13 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <3504EE2E.3EF7DFE1@xs4all.nl> vtnet writes:
> as I understand it, 'espouse' means "to take up and support as a
> cause".
And also and primarily "to marry." To me it suggests a more thorough
commitment than limited and critical support of X in contrast to Y.
That may be my own idiosyncrasy though.
> It seems to me that that what you describe here are more the failures
> associated with social-democracy than with liberalism.
American usage doesn't distinguish social democracy from advanced
liberalism. The understanding I think is that liberalism over time
becomes more concerned with equality, more concerned with positive (e.g.
welfare) rights, and more statist, and therefore eventually
indistinguishable from social democracy. The liberal goal throughout is
a society in which people have equal dignity and an equal right to do
whatever it is they happen to feel like doing (the two are thought
equivalent), but the understanding of how that goal should be achieved
changes as issues of economic deprivation and oppression through
extralegal social hierarchies come more to the fore.
> it must be said that in a highly integrated industrial society the
> cooperative surplus is so great and the influence of the state so
> invasive, that it is no more than a romantic notion that anybody could
> be really free from its influences -- even in the sphere of private
> life.
I agree that in any society the influence of the form of state is
pervasive. Man is after all a social animal, and how physical
compulsion is organized is one of the basic principles of a social
order.
The concern with state intrusiveness is I think more particular, a
concern with the degree to which the state decides and administers
particular outcomes. One bad consequence of the state's doing so is
that reducing the effective agency of actors other than the state
reduces the knowledge reflected in the sum total of the actions that
constitute social life. Another is that action becomes sluggish and
careless if it's decided too comprehensively by persons other than the
actor. Another is that if the state decides everything there won't be
any social authorities outside the state capable of limiting it.
To the extent the state merely acts by prohibiting things, for example
those things that injure the operation of institutions that are not part
of the state (as theft injures the operation of the institution of
property), that kind of intrusiveness is avoided.
> those factors that you assume to be in operation in a laissez-faire
> economy, but have abundantly failed over and over again over the last 2
> centuries.
You present this as a fact, but I don't see it as such. A standard
objection to the unlimited free market is that vulgar people with no
education or culture get rich. It doesn't create a caste system.
> the 'Peter principle', the 'Red Queen principle'
I don't see why these principles tend to favor state intervention. They
may show things don't run perfectly of themselves, but that does not in
itself mean that a superior system can be organized.
> and to modern bargaining theory that predicts that rational bargainers
> will do best if they aim not to share the gains of their cooperation
> evenly, but to share the utility of that gain evenly
How does that apply when there is a huge choice of bargaining partners?
Those who sell me food could I suppose attempt to equalize the utility
of the transaction, so that the profits they make would correspond to
what it's worth to me not to starve, but that's not what happens. It
seems to me that the gain whose utility would be shared equally would
be the gain attributable to a particular matching of partners that
would be lost in other available but less advantageous matchings. In
most commercial transactions that gain wouldn't amount to much. If I
tried to hire the best artist in the world to paint my portrait it
might mean I'd have to pay a lot, but that's an unusual situation.
> Many talents can be brought out only (made operational) after many
> years of expensive training without any certainty of rewards ... No
> profit seeking company is going to take the kind of risk that
> involves the training of experimental scientists of which only a
> small fraction will turn out to be commercially productive. And since
> it is precisely these kinds of innovative people that are the most
> valuable to a nation, lots of talent will be lost without state
> interference
My point was of course the following:
> > My guess is that most people with economically valuable talents in
> > a laissez-faire system in a modern complex economy would find a way
> > to exercise those talents effectively.
The concern in your previous post was extensive lack of economic
opportunity for the gifted, which I still don't see as a problem. If a
man can't become a particle physicist because schooling is too expensive
he can still make money. Now your concern is that a strict laissez-
faire system won't invest enough in basic research to maximize output.
That may be so.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Mar 11 08:35:51 EST 1998
Article: 11536 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 11 Mar 1998 07:53:01 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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> a random sample of 50 nations out of 111 nations for which complete
> data are available. This correlation coefficient = +0.19, which
> means that there is a slight tendency for the affluent nations to
> have greater growth in per capita GNP than the less developed
> nations. This correlation falls short of statistical significance,
> however.
> Generally, South Central Asia, the Orient ... experienced significant
> per capita growth in GNP, while South America, Central America, the
> Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, E. Europe, and Russia performed
> poorly.
> Overall, this evidence provides weak support for my hypothesis that
> the rich nations are becoming richer, while the poor nations are
> becoming poorer, although the data is rather messy.
Such industry! One nonetheless finds fault. A problem with this
approach is that it gives China and India the same weight as Belize and
Gabon. Another is interpretation. The "steadily" and other language
in the previous post suggested a growing gap to be understood by
reference to features of the overall world economic order. The
experience of the Orient and particular countries elsewhere suggests
that is not so, that how a country does economically has more to do
with particular local situations.
> you favor laissez faire capitalism at the national level (no welfare,
> no affirmative action, less government regulation, etc.), but are
> against laissez faire capitalism at the international level
> (immigration restrictions, trade barriers). This can't be readily
> explained using consistent economic principles, although it can be
> explained as an attempt to maintain the hegemony of white male
> socioeconomic power in the United States from alien intrusions within
> the national borders and outside the national borders. I suspect
> that your position on these issues is quite consistent with the
> position of many members of the far right who are racist and sexist
> -- thus, this apparent alignment of opinion casts a cloud of doubt
> regarding your underlying motives.
Immigration restrictions and trade barriers don't require extensive
government administration of social and economic life, unlike the other
examples of government action cited. Rather, they help promote
political self-government by encouraging the coherence of domestic
society -- you can't have responsible government in a society in which
the people are too loosely connected to be capable of the common action
required to hold their governors responsible. Good fences also
encourage extragovernmental institutions to keep their major
participants, contacts and interests within the boundaries of the
particular state, and therefore to have interests that are essentially
intertwined with the well-being of their own society. That also seems
to me a good thing. One could go on.
As to motives, I agree they are an issue. My own view is that someone
who bases all his political views on "consistent economic principles"
evidently can't understand human motives because he lacks some of the
essential ones himself, and so is incompetent to comment on public
affairs. I don't fully understand the references to "male" and
"sexist," since I don't see why immigration from Mexico is such a boon
to feminism. Be that it as it may, a.r.c. is racist, sexist and
homophobic (see the FAQ), not to mention quite hospitable to the far
right, so most who post here won't treat vulgar antiracism and the like
as arguments. For my own views on such subjects, see:
http://www.panix.com/~jk/inclus.html (Anti-Inclusiveness FAQ)
http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/pinc/july97/kalb-rights.html (Essay on
"Freedom, Discrimination and Culture")
http://www.panix.com/~jk/antifeminism.html (Antifeminist Page)
http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/pinc/feb98/kalb-pc.html (Essay on "PC and
the Crisis of Liberalism")
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Mar 11 10:51:29 EST 1998
Article: 11537 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 11 Mar 1998 10:47:00 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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vtnet writes:
> I think that in terminology a distinction should be made between a
> system that strives for equal income (social democracy) and a system
> that strives for equal opportunity at the individual level
> (liberalism).
In American terms that's roughly the liberal/neoconservative
distinction, or what passes in the establishment press for the
liberal/conservative distinction. The defining issue is "affirmative
action."
To me it seems most useful to understand liberalism as a historical
movement in which fundamental principles work out their implications,
rather than as a particular body of doctrine. The liberals of course
object to the distinction you mention because they say equal results are
the most reliable indicator that opportunity has really been equal.
They have somewhat of a point, I think, especially if the concern is
ultimate justice to individuals who after all didn't choose their family
background, inherited abilities, early influences, what have you.
> But if the state sets static parameters (which could apply equally
> well to positive as to negative legislation), then the problem
> recedes. (Good) entrepreneurs have never done anything else but
> proficiently act according to the situation at hand, and however is
> the author of the parameters of that situation should be of little
> interest to them -- as long as the situation is sufficiently stable.
> For example, in the field of welfare this means that if it would be
> replaced by negative taxes, the problem would in this respect be
> solved.
I agree that simple and stable is much better than complicated and
discretionary. A problem though is that it's hard for a democratic
state to avoid fiddling and fine-tuning its parameters, especially ones
that immediately affect a great many people. Politicians after all are
entrepreneurs too, who prosper by dramatizing existing problems and
offering new products or variations on old.
To discuss your example, assume that the negative income tax were
constitutionally established as the sole welfare program, with maybe a
few authorized exceptions to deal with special situations. My concerns
would be:
1. The presumption behind a negative income tax seems to be that if
Tom, Dick and Harry are poor then the government is responsible for the
problems each has individually. That's why money goes to each
individually based solely on his low income. Once that presumption is
admitted it seems to me very difficult regardless of constitutional
intent to keep it from being applied to the problems Dick and Harry
still have after they receive their negative tax payment, which
presumably would not be enough to live on decently. Theoretical
concerns about the importance of stability would not I think have the
force required actually to ensure stability. Exceptions would stretch,
the negative tax would get as complicated and changeable as the positive
tax, and welfare programs that allow more administrative discretion
would be called something else, as in America Federal education and
national highway programs have been constitutionally justified as
"national defense" and civil rights laws as "regulation of interstate
commerce."
2. The fundamental relation between government and society would
change. The theory now is (at least one can so claim) that income
belongs to those who earn it, and taxes are a charge to pay for
particular government activities carried on for the common good. The
addition of a negative income tax makes that theory much harder to
maintain, harder than in the case of a program more specifically
designed to help the poor that is more tailored to particular
circumstances and so would likely permit more administrative
discretion. A negative income tax would make it appear that government
has the general function of determining who gets what and how much, and
as a result the view that government precedes society would gain a
decisive advantage over the contrary view. One consequence would be
greater difficulty in enforcing the constitutional limitations whereby
society as a whole limits government.
I suppose the substance of the foregoing is that I doubt that a
democratic country with a welfare system would ever establish the system
in the form of a negative income tax with a few minor exceptions and
keep it that way. A negative tax is either a welfare program, in which
case the urge to tailor, target and supplement it will be irresistible,
or a provision that determines who owns what, in which case the real
message is that the government owns everything and can give it to
whoever it pleases. In both cases the assurance of stability is lost.
> In practice the influence of the state in private (including business)
> affairs can recede only to the extent that the citizenry is prepared to
> cooperate voluntarily.
Sure. Another reason a certain degree of cultural cohesiveness is
necessary for self-government. Hence immigration controls (I think
strict controls on immigration *can* be stable and they require very
little government regulation of social life).
> And if the equalizing influence of the state recedes to far, that these
> (potentially antagonistic) sources of power will increase in importance
> and will compete with each other under the conditions of nature.
Do "conditions of nature" include suppression of force and fraud and
enforcement of contracts?
> But the Red Queen principle does indeed suggest that if trees depend
> only on the on the amount of light that they can get, they will (like
> favored fraternities under the conditions of lawful laissez fair) grow
> ever taller until even the slightest wind will destroy the entire
> forest.
So too much economic stability is dangerous, because the systems
composing society lose their ability to cope with a variety of events.
That's another reason economic intervention by democratic governments
causes problems. One of its main goals is security, another word for
stability.
> The wealth of bankers as a group is generally greater than the wealth
> of mathematicians as a group. Therefore the utility of $100 is
> greater to the average mathematician than to the average banker, and
> the baseline dependent model predicts that as a consequence the
> banker as member of the group of bankers could charge more the
> mathematician as a member of the group of mathematicians
And the food owned by the food industry is far greater than the food
owned by me apart from the food industry (which is virtually
nonexistent - a few tomatoes a year). So what the food industry offers
me has vastly more utility to me than what I offer them does to them.
Why then don't I end up the property of United Fruit like everyone
else?
> You are presumably not familiar with the psychological makeup of a
> typical particle theorist. :-) There is often a negative relation
> between social- and theoretical endowments.
The investment bankers who design new products are referred to as
"rocket scientists," and I've known some of the more successful ones to
be described by Jewish lawyers as "like Hitler on a bad day, only
worse." Quantitative talents and imagination can be sold, and those who
have them can pick up particular knowledge very quickly.
> The one iron rule of organizations is that first rate people prefer to
> associate with other first rate people since that would advance the
> chances of his team
So even if education is nonegalitarian first raters will be on the
lookout for their fellows as long as there is free competition among
teams.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Mar 13 11:12:38 EST 1998
Article: 11544 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 13 Mar 1998 10:08:26 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 122
Message-ID: <6ebi5a$26e@panix.com>
References: <34f63805.5276330@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6d8pmf$ol8@panix.com> <34fe39dd.15907803@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6dplc5$90i@panix.com> <3500CE98.776CB1ED@net66.com> <6dr4vj$333@panix.com> <889486117snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <350659DE.A6B66484@xs4all.nl>
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vtnet writes:
> Then these liberals have never contemplated that ... equal income (as
> an objective of policy) implies (in practical terms) that there
> cannot be equal opportunity, since enforcement of equal income
> implies an 'aristocracy' that enforces it -- and that uses it as a
> popular justification for its existence.
Certainly enforcement of equality requires inequality between enforcers
and enforced. I'm not sure what that has to to with equal opportunity,
though. There could be a meritocratic slave state run on military
lines.
You're right though that advanced liberals refuse to contemplate the
obvious ways their ideology leads to government by a narrow and
irresponsible elite. One way of fuzzing the issue is to emphasize the
elite's egalitarian aspects. The high proportion of those who are
marginal from a middle-American standpoint (Jews, blacks and Hispanics
with legal problems, reputed lesbians, the occasional dwarf) in
Clinton's cabinet means his administration "looks like America" and
can't be elitist.
>From the advanced liberal perspective the Clinton cabinet would I
suppose be an example of equalizing opportunity, since marginal types
get opportunities that up to now have gone to more mainstream types.
>From a meritocratic standpoint it is certainly no such thing.
> it is by now likely that many socially undesirable behaviors such as
> substance addictions and types of criminal behavior and pauperism are
> for a considerable part (inherited) afflictions that make up part of
> the frame of constitutional frame of individuals that cannot be
> changed and therefore create 'natural' paupers.
If inherited factors were dominant, criminal and other antisocial
behavior would vary much less among societies and over time than it
does.
> governments have a tendency to drive dissidents or expandable [sic -
> expendable?] populations into poverty and then declare them morally
> unfit ... that these kinds of instruments should in general not be
> available to any government to use against the people under their
> control, and negative taxes would be a way to deny them.
But "dissidents" include the irresponsible, antisocial and self-
destructive. Why should it be impossible for someone to reduce himself
to poverty by acting badly? Is it unjust for people to reap what they
sow? Also, if more people act badly because the general social
organization relieves them of the direct consequences of their conduct
then eventually the government will supplement the welfare system or
negative income tax with additional direct regulation of conduct.
It seems to me the balance between social control -- man is after all a
social animal who becomes himself through participation in society --
and freedom is best struck by making wealth and poverty something that
government does not administer. I've given my reasons for thinking a
negative income tax will not take that administrative function away from
government.
> No assistance at all will destabilize the state by gangsterism,
> political extremism and ever growing income differentials between the
> social classes
On this point I disagree. I think there would be more gangsterism
among members of a welfare class -- social bonds are looser, because
people don't have to rely on family and friends as much, foresight and
self-discipline are less at a premium, and the system encourages people
to find hidden and therefore often illegal sources of income.
Political extremism I think is more likely to be the outcome of the
crisis a welfare system reaches as costs go up while benefits go down
-- those who depend on the system feel their livelihood threatened,
while those who pay become less and less accommodating. We've already
discussed and disagreed on income differentials.
Part of the background to all this of course is what amount of
government assistance is needed to prevent gross suffering on a large
scale, to what degree such assistance leads in the long run to more
suffering than it prevents, and, in view of those things and the
difficulty of attaining anything close to perfection, what
constitutional understanding of the role of government is most
advantageous. You seem to believe that no government assistance means
people starving in the streets and that it's possible to have a
negative income tax but no general government responsibility for the
welfare of each individual. I'm quite doubtful on both points.
> By the positive tax regime the same considerations are in force,
> since here too taxing involves the distribution of wealth
Not in its essence, since each tax is justified to support a specific
government function other than redistribution as such. The
understanding that basic social institutions including property precede
government can be maintained.
> you can't have international free trade without the free movement of
> persons, since then capital and factories would move to locations
> where wages were low and regulations wanting. Furthermore, in the
> case of the US, there are now to many Latino's to distinguish between
> the legal and illegal workers in the service sector.
I don't see why free trade depends on free movement. Capital and
factories would move to profitable locations, so if the Dutch wanted to
have jobs they would have to lower their wages, repeal regulations, or
become very, very effective workers. I don't see why those choices
would be made better by telling them they can move to the Philippines
and get jobs there. In any case, it seems to me free trade could be
limited without extensive government administration of economic life.
As to distinguishing legal and illegal immigrants, I agree it's a
problem. I don't see a way around it other than employee identification
requirements.
> A legal system may attempt to mimic in its arbitrage the outcome of
> conflicts and relations between parties as under the conditions of
> nature which brings the advantage to the parties that they don't
> actually have to do battle and risk injury.
A legal system can also establish rules, for example a secure system of
property, that lead to better results for almost everyone than the
state-of-nature rule of giving the strongest whatever he wants.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Mar 13 21:52:07 EST 1998
Article: 11550 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 13 Mar 1998 21:37:36 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 88
Message-ID: <6ecqhg$7pe@panix.com>
References: <6ebi5a$26e@panix.com> <889826501snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Status: RO
rafael cardenas writes:
> > > you can't have international free trade without the free movement
> > > of persons
> >
> > I don't see why free trade depends on free movement. ... In any
> > case, it seems to me free trade could be limited without extensive
> > government administration of economic life.
>
> It's fascinating how we have arrived at a set of rules governing
> movement which is the exact reverse of the natural. It is natural for
> humans to move ... The movement of capital, independent of that of
> goods or people, is an entirely artificial phenomenon which depends
> on particular technology, institutions, and power structures.
Don't understand the claim as to naturalness. There are natural
difficulties and limitations moving physical objects in space, including
our own bodies, but none moving social relationships such as
availability of credits and ownership claims to assets.
Also, I'm not sure who the "we" is. I don't recall Maarten stating a
preference for free trade or the opposite. In general he seems to try
to be analytical, an approach I think much better in dealing with
serious matters than spinning out fantasies based on resentment, fear
and hatred.
For my own part, I've several times stated a general preference for
controls over cross-border movements including movements of goods. As
my language quoted above shows I think there's quite a bit of freedom
which movements are controlled or forbidden. I've never said anything
about capital transfers because once we leave the world of physical
movements and enter that of bookkeeping entries it seems to me new
considerations arise that I don't understand well and probably make
things harder to control.
> And in handling movement, we give far more rights to the frivolous
> tourist than to the refugee from deadly oppression. By doing so, of
> course, we perpetuate both the oppression and the desire of its
> victims to escape hither.
The natural reason for worrying more about admitting refugees than
tourists is that the involvement of the latter with the admitting
society is far more superficial. If admitted as they often are refugees
of course get far more rights than tourists.
> The globalists, far from wanting people to move freely, want to
> restrict and control their movements, the better to increase the
> bargaining power of capital.
I see no reason to think this is true and every reason to think the
contrary. If what capital wants is the key I don't see why capital
wouldn't want labor to be able to move to Ashtabula if that is where
capital wants to do something. Labor is not made more efficient by
binding it to the soil. I simply don't see the advantage. However
that may be, in America all globalists I can think of want immigration
to be as free as possible. In the _New York Times_, a globalist paper,
"political extremist" as applied to Europe seems simply to mean someone
who opposes immigration.
> We see from Jim's paragraph above that the Dutch have no right to a
> subsistence in their own country
I deleted the paragraph already and don't propose to go to the trouble
of retrieving it. There's too little to discuss -- it neither said nor
suggested anything about subsistence rights except to the extent the
hypothetical situation it discussed, in which there is free trade and
jobs are not guaranteed, would also be one in which there are no such
rights. Showing such an implication would require considerations
external to the paragraph, though.
> Before 1914, you could travel from one end of Europe to the other
> without a passport.
That is usually considered a liberal aspect of the pre-1914 order. I'm
not sure why you think neoliberalism requires a different result.
What's your view on immigration? That the U.K. should have an
comprehensive welfare system, and anyone who wishes or can show he's
bad off where he is by U.K. standards should be able to move there and
take advantage of it? That foreigners should be free to move there but
become metics with few social protections? That they should all be
kept out? That those who look like they'll benefit existing U.K.
residents should be let in? That there should be a comprehensive world
welfare system?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 14 09:40:49 EST 1998
Article: 11551 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 14 Mar 1998 09:37:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 145
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Status: RO
vtnet writes:
> > There could be a meritocratic slave state run on military lines.
> If all members in a society are to take part in such a meritocracy,
> then the pressures of blood and the quest for comfort would soon
> corrupt the military structure -- as indeed it often did.
True enough, but that seems a difficulty with any meritocratic
structure. I suppose the Mamluks and Janissaries and for that matter
the Catholic hierarchy mitigated the problem somewhat by recruiting the
ruling class externally.
> Equal opportunity then is attains best to meritocracy, for, while
> allowing for the certain amount of institutional corruption, if
> offers the best chances for all to get to positions according to
> ability.
"Equal opportunity" can mean a variety of things, and any situation can
be made to seem a gross denial of equal opportunity. It might mean
anything from a laissez-faire system with some state scholarships for
specially talented poor children to a fully bureaucratized system, in
which everything that happens is supervised by the state to ensure
procedural purity.
I take it your proposal is for government action to make opportunity
somewhat more equal, for example by providing a free or low-cost
educational system that confers degrees etc. in accordance with
objective criteria applied equally to individuals. I agree some such
thing could help sort out people, abilities and needs in accordance with
economic criteria for maximizing production. I suppose how I feel about
it depends on how it fits into the overall constitution of the state,
and the degree to which it forces out other things, for example the
ability of families to provide a superior education for their children
or the survival of educational and other institutions not run on
strictly economic motives.
> If one is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty, than I need
> only observe that a government is in an excellent position to make
> someone look guilty if this is convenient.
Another reason it's not good for government to have general direct
responsibility for individual well-being.
> And of course people should be allowed to reap what they saw (a
> condition that equal opportunity allows for) -- but not what they did
> not saw in the first place or stole; and it is obviously that someone
> who lives from the abundance of an inherited portfolio didn't saw
> anything.
There are always laws intended to prevent people from profiting by
theft. I've recently discussed on a.r.c. the issue of inherited wealth
- basically my comment was that people who have it aren't numerous, and
if they abuse it they lose it and so are held responsible for what they
do. Also, someone decided to give it to them and people should be
allowed to give things away if they want to. So in itself it doesn't
much bother me. I might have added that it seems to me a good thing, as
part of the mix that makes the world, for there to be some prominent
people who became prominent without fighting their way to the top.
In any case, the alternative to letting there be inherited wealth would
be to illegalize _inter vivos_ transfers and confiscate everything at
death, which among other effects would greatly strengthen the view that
the state owns everything and thus precedes society, which is a view I
don't much like.
> And if it is accepted that the profits from criminal activities can
> be seized, why should other socially destructive activities, such as
> some forms of currency speculation for example, then be rewarded?
If the activities are destructive and can be identified clearly enough
to make it practical to illegalize them, I suppose they should be made
illegal. If not I don't see how it's practical to keep people from
profiting from them. The form of the question, which identifies
permitting people to profit with rewarding, suggests a general
administration of society by some all-powerful agent who decides what's
good and who gets what in all cases. That's not a realistic point of
view.
> This romantic friends and family thing is very nice, but the more
> likely outcome is that people are ever more dependent on the private
> structures, and these include ruthless employers, leaders of
> criminals gangs, loan-sharks and the like.
Most people I know who get in trouble *do* turn to family and friends.
That's true of the poor people I've lived among as of others. Nothing
romantic about it at all. If you read novels, memoirs and such it
appears that in the past, when the world was poorer and social welfare
provisions scantier, such personal connections were even more important
than now, among urban as well as rural people.
There are always of course ruthless Xs and criminal Ys. To my mind the
question is how other reliable forms of association arise not based
simply on immediate self-interest, threats and the like. It seems that
those other forms of association require common moral understandings
having to do with obligations of particular individuals to each other.
To judge by postwar European statistics regarding crime, family
structure, etc. it appears that the welfare state injures such
understandings.
> 'laissez fair' at the national , about which it is true that we must
> remain at odds (I feel because you refuse to concede or even commend
> on some theoretical and practical observations)
What are the key observations I've failed to comment on or been most
unreasonable on?
On laissez faire, my general view is that it's a better ideal than the
administered society. It seems to me a lot of the objections to it are
misplaced, others could be dealt with by special provisions while
keeping a basically non-administered system, others don't point to
anything worse than what you'd get otherwise as a practical matter. I'm
not wedded to it and wouldn't favor applying it strictly. I'm quite
conscious of the political difficulty of limiting a modern democratic
government, though, so I'd probably be willing to put up with less
government than I'd consider ideal if I thought that were a
constitutionally more workable system.
> But my understanding is that the nation precedes basic social
> institutions including property, for how else could a state (and its
> government) lay claim on the monopoly to power?
Basic social institutions constitute the nation. The government is at
most one such institution, and not the most basic of them. It has a
monopoly of power for the preservation and well-being of the nation.
The purpose of its power would be impossible to define if it were free
to redefine the nation, to dissolve the people and form a new one with
new institutions because it has lost confidence in the existing people
(which is what the American government is doing).
What I object to most strenuously is the view that government
constitutes or takes precedence over or can legitimately do as it
chooses with all the other institutions that constitute the nation.
> Furthermore, I don't see the difference of paying for expensive
> penitentiaries or for paying the funds directly to people so as to
> avoid that they turn criminal in the first place.
Look at postwar European crime statistics and the cost of the postwar
European welfare state and decide whether paying people money keeps them
away from crime.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 14 09:40:50 EST 1998
Article: 11552 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 14 Mar 1998 09:39:23 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <6ee4qr$gve@panix.com>
References: <34f63805.5276330@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6d8pmf$ol8@panix.com> <34fe39dd.15907803@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6dplc5$90i@panix.com> <3500CE98.776CB1ED@net66.com> <6dr4vj$333@panix.com> <3505F887.15D26507@net66.com> <35073630.7F76ECD6@net66.com>
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Status: RO
John Hilty writes:
> It's cheaper for the global capitalist to pay a Mexican laborer $1
> per day in Mexico rather than to pay him $6 per hour in the United
> States for the same task, therefore we have harsh restrictions on
> Mexican immigration.
So why not let them in if they want to come in and put the work where
the combination of costs is lowest? It might be cheapest to put it in
Mexico at $1 a day, or it might be cheapest to have it done in the U.S.
by Mexican immigrants at $1 an hour or by native workers competing with
Mexican immigrants at $2 an hour. Do you think *all* the Mexicans would
move to the U.S., and if they did that wages here would be $6 an hour?
There's a whole world out there, billions of people, who'll work for $1
a day, and lots more born every day. If you're a totally profit-
oriented U.S. company completely unconcerned with how the people
already here feel about things it seems to me you'll say "If I let the
world move here then U.S. wages will plummet, but the effect on wages
in Bangla Desh will be practically zero. I win both ways, so I'll go
for it!"
> On the other hand, Microsoft and other computer companies in Silicon
> Valley have been pressuring the Federal government to ease
> immigration restrictions on high-tech computer professionals so that
> they can fill job vacancies without paying higher salaries to attract
> local talent in United States.
So why don't they keep all the engineers out and have all or at least
most of the programming work done in India on the cheap, on the lines
you suggest above? Telecommuting is supposed to be a big deal in the
computer biz. Why not go for it?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 14 17:16:01 EST 1998
Article: 11555 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Back from Chaos? Or Forward *to* it?
Date: 14 Mar 1998 17:15:12 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <6eevhg$f6k@panix.com>
References: <3509E086.789A@msmisp.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Status: RO
In <3509E086.789A@msmisp.com> cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>Mr. Wilson is asking us to not jettison the "faith" that we ought to
>promote truth and increase knowledge and to purge falsehood posing as
>knowledge.
I haven't read the article yet, but it seems to me the problem is not
only the value but the possibility of knowledge. Science can not be
fully formalized. It depends on judgement, on evaluation of evidence
and theories as to which men differ and demonstrative proof is
unavailable. It seems to follow that it doesn't give us knowledge
unless our evaluations constitute knowledge, which moderns tend to
deny. So to my mind, the natural consequence of claiming that good is
merely subjective rather than part of what constitutes the universe
isn't a world in which everything happens in accordance with a
combination of natural necessity and chance but a Samuel Beckett world
in which nothing connects with anything and knowledge and even language
become impossible.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Wed Mar 11 08:33:12 1998
Subject: Re: Concentration Camps
To: r
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 08:33:12 -0500 (EST)
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> Kant's method was to deny that a human mind can know what reality is
> and therefor reason is impossible.
His assertion is that human reason participates in constructing the
world we experience. That reason therefore applies to that world.
> > they [the facts of the world we experience] are the same for all of
> > us,
>
> He did not. This is why there could be Jewish morality and Aryan
> morality
He is a cosmopolitan. He believes the system of reason developed in
the _Critique of Pure Reason_ and the rational morality developed in
his moral works are valid for human minds as such. He says the latter
at least is valid for all rational minds, so even humanity is not a
requirement let alone racial affiliation. Where does he suggest
anything like the contrary?
> > we can rely on them to stay as they are and not change just because
> > someone starts thinking about them differently). His views might
> > have been wrong, but whether he was right is a different question
> > from what he believed.
>
> I don't understand this comment.
Your point seems to be that his "reality" has an essential subjective
element, therefore it's not the same for everyone. My response is that
he believes the "subjective" elements (e.g., time, space, causality)
while not attributes of things in themselves are attributes of things
as all human beings experience them. He believes that the subjective
experience of all human beings is the same in the basic respects with
which he is concerned, for example that there are no human beings who
experience the world atemporally. Therefore the subjective aspects of
Kant's "reality" give rise to no basis for distinguishing the Jewish
world from the Aryan world or Jewish morality from Aryan morality. For
Kant all human beings live in a common physical and moral world.
Again, where does he suggest otherwise?
> Kant would agree with the statement, "just because it's true for you
> doesn't mean it's true for me."
My interpretation of Kant is to the contrary. That seems altogether
clear to me. Does he anywhere make any statement like that?
Jim
From jk Fri Mar 13 11:08:26 1998
Subject: Burke's Reflections
To: j-s
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 11:08:26 -0500 (EST)
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I finished Burke's _Reflections_.
Certainly there's a something of the skeptical 18th c. statesman and
man of the world about his outlook, but not I think as to the most
fundamental things. For him law and religion are not only useful but
just and true. He says "atheism is against, not only our reason, but
our instincts ... " (the order could be reversed), and he speaks of
"the science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human intellect, which
with all its defects, redundancies, and errors is the collected reason
of ages, combining the principles of original justice with the infinite
variety of human concerns ... "
To be a skeptic in a strong sense, it seems to me, a man must think
that his individual reason enables him to judge the most fundamental
matters better than the world judges them, so that he can determine
that claims that law is just and religion true, upon which social life
depends, are dispensable and unreliable. Burke is not that
individualistic.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Sun Mar 15 13:28:49 1998
Subject: Re: Warning: Irony Alert
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 13:28:49 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <171701bd4f6f$7ca82380$5df463ce@seth-williamson> from "Seth Williamson" at Mar 14, 98 12:32:15 pm
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Seth writes:
> The spectacle of Bp. Spong worriedly rehearsing the membership
> decline in the mainline churches is surrealistic, especially coming
> as it does after the excerpt quoted in the first graf below. But God
> forbid that we should think any thoughts that challenge "our present
> perception of reality."
The other address of his I've read made it quite clear that his
religion is historical materialism. The whole point of Christianity
today is construction of the NWO along advanced welfare state lines.
So the place for the church to be is at the center of power, lobbying.
He said he wanted his parishes to give 50% of their income to the
diocese so it could be used for that kind of purpose rather than (as he
said) maintenance of local institutions. He had lots of abuse for
those who don't see things his way. It appears though for some reason
that people aren't rushing to sign up.
Another inspiring Anglican item, from The Church Times, London, 13
March 1998:
DON'T JOIN RCS, BLAIR WARNED
by Glyn Paflin
THE PRIME MINISTER should not become a Roman Catholic, the Bishop of
Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, has written. Downing Street denies
that Mr Blair is about to take the step.
In an article which appeared in The Times on Monday, the Bishop argued
that "there still remain serious reasons why a committed Anglican such
as the Prime Minister should not become a Roman Catholic."
Bishop Nazir-Ali said in his article that New Labour's commitment to
greater democracy would sit "very oddly with membership of a Church in
which government by counsel and consent remains very undeveloped."
Mr Blair, he said, would miss the Anglican "style of open government
and the full discussion of issues with representatives of the clergy
and laity"; and linked to this was the problem of papal authority.
"Can a modern, democratic leader really declare that he orders his
spiritual life within such a dogmatic framework?"
Though the Vatican's social teaching was "widely acceptable", the same
could not be said of its teaching on personal and family morality; and
its approach was symbolised by the refusal to ordain women. "Can the
leader of a party committed to equality for women really belong to a
Church which denies them this equality in a central aspect of its
life?"
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Sat Mar 21 07:55:08 1998
Subject: Re: Warning: Irony Alert
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 07:55:08 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Mar 15, 98 06:50:00 pm
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Francesca says:
> > Bishop Nazir-Ali said in his article that New Labour's
> > commitment to greater democracy would sit "very oddly with
> > membership of a Church in which government by counsel and
> > consent remains very undeveloped."
>
> Bishop Nazir-Ali is clearly a good theocrat - he thinks church state
> & should be run along identical lines.
He's hard to classify. He wants the church to comply with the
constitution of the state, so I would have said he's a Caesaropapist or
something of the sort.
His religion seems to be the progressive reorganization of human life
on egalitarian and hedonistic lines. So far as the state concretely
realizes his religion it becomes a divine absolute and in fact hard to
distinguish from God. I say that because his outlook is so resolutely
anti-transcendental and politics so fundamental to his religion. I
suppose that those who favor divine kings count as theocrats. On the
other hand individual subjectivity is also divine, even more so. So
I'm not sure where he ends up.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 21 15:34:56 EST 1998
Article: 11587 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 21 Mar 1998 15:26:10 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 63
Message-ID: <6f17p2$712@panix.com>
References: <34f63805.5276330@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6d8pmf$ol8@panix.com> <34fe39dd.15907803@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6dplc5$90i@panix.com> <3500CE98.776CB1ED@net66.com> <6dr4vj$333@panix.com> <889486117snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <350659DE.A6B66484@xs4all.nl> <6ebi5a$26e@panix.com> <350c64d7.3304393@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <350EFE8C.CB6CF942@xs4all.nl> <3511e189.889950@news.srv.ualberta.ca>
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rafael cardenas writes:
> You can't move the credits and claims without a) insuring that the
> legal structures of different societies are sufficiently similar to
> enforce them and b) having the technology to move them rapidly. Both
> measures are artificial.
Don't see why. I could sell you certain rights or benefits I have
under the laws, customs, despotic decrees, whatever of North Korea.
Even if the assignment of rights is invalid under rules in force in
North Korea we could still agree under the laws of New York that I
would do everything I can to pass on to you the benefit of those
rights; if I breached the agreement you would have a New York
contractual claim against me. As to technology, we could do it all by
oral agreement or if you're worried about my rectitude or memory we
could memorialize the agreement by making marks on a clay tablet.
> > I've never said anything about capital transfers because once we
> > leave the world of physical movements and enter that of bookkeeping
> > entries it seems to me new considerations arise that I don't
> > understand well and probably make things harder to control.
> If they can control, say, pornography on the Net, they can control
> monetary transfers to a large extent. And some economists allege that
> it may be feasible to reduce capital transfers via the Tobin tax
> without an elaborate structure of interference.
Can they control pornography? In any event, all I've done is not
comment because of lack of understanding.
> [tourists] have a huge economic and cultural impact on the admitting
> society.
Less impact I would think than *becoming* the admitting society as in
the case of immigrants.
> Hilty has elaborated the reason at which I hinted in my previous
> post.
When I read Hilty's posts I invariably miss whatever it is that makes
them seem cogent to himself and apparently some others. That I suppose
is a factor that limits my ability to contribute to discussions in
which he is involved.
> conditions in different countries, in terms of security of persons
> and of basic economic prosperity, should not be so discrepant as to
> encourage mass flight or migration. ... The principal cause of long-
> distance refugeeism is Western support for tyrannies in other
> people's countries.
The first sentence quoted seems to call for a rather well-integrated
NWO. The second seems to suggest that an order of things in which
there is no tyranny or major differences in wealth among countries
would arise spontaneously in the absence of Western malfeasance.
Altogether, a remarkable tribute to the principle of laissez faire.
As in the case of many of your comments, I don't see why anyone would
believe what you believe, to the extent that I doubt my capacity to add
anything useful.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 21 15:34:56 EST 1998
Article: 11588 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 21 Mar 1998 15:28:07 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <6f17sn$75v@panix.com>
References: <34f63805.5276330@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6d8pmf$ol8@panix.com> <34fe39dd.15907803@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6dplc5$90i@panix.com> <3500CE98.776CB1ED@net66.com> <6dr4vj$333@panix.com> <889486117snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <350659DE.A6B66484@xs4all.nl> <6ebi5a$26e@panix.com> <350c64d7.3304393@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <350EFE8C.CB6CF942@xs4all.nl> <3511e189.889950@news.srv.ualberta.ca>
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Status: RO
vtnet writes:
> in inner cities under a laissez fair regime one can see the 'class
> struggle' in operation in its most depraved forms. As I understand,
> in Moscow it is today not uncommon the deploy even assassins to get
> rid of (especially elderly) tenants.
If there's a laissez faire regime in Moscow why don't landlords simply
evict tenants when their leases run out? Did they voluntarily enter
into lifetime apartment leases? I've never heard of an unregulated
real estate market working that way. In the ones I know of terms of
years or month-to-month tenancies are the rule, and for residential
property the term is most often a short one, usually a single year.
And if it were a long-term lease, 50 years say, killing the tenant
wouldn't do any good since the leasehold interest would normally become
part of his estate and pass to his heirs.
> But what I suggested was that from the rest of his argument it
> follows that he [i.e., me, jk] equates "stability" (effectively the
> stability in legal titles) to "economic stability" -- just as he
> elsewhere equates 'moral' to 'legal'.
I have no idea where I make either equation.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 21 15:34:57 EST 1998
Article: 11589 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 21 Mar 1998 15:29:35 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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*tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
> to speak from a purely theoretical (quasi-Rawlsian) perspective, it
> is not inconceivable that a gathering of equal individuals, each of
> equal force, could enforce the equal behaviours of those individuals
> who didn't want to follow the herd.
In the same sense I suppose that it's conceivable that each could labor
spontaneously wholly for the good of all, or perhaps _ad maiorem gloriam
Dei_. As a practical matter though, in a complex and populous society
government is a specialty, and the specialists are not politically equal
to other people.
> >You're right though that advanced liberals refuse to contemplate the
> >obvious ways their ideology leads to government by a narrow and
> >irresponsible elite.
> I must disagree that it is just the 'advanced liberals', if in fact
> such entities exist in this post-Enlightenment era.
By "advanced liberalism" I simply meant contemporary left-liberalism, as
opposed to Rafael's neoliberalism. It does exist. For an establishment
version read the _New York Times_. For the academic version look at say
John Rawls' _Political Liberalism_ and then see who he thanks for
comments and read them too. I didn't say anything about non-liberal
theories in this connection.
> I must also admit amazement as to how both sides of the political
> spectrum, especially in the United States, persist in accusing the
> other side as being elitist (and usually alleging that they are
> supporting an irresponsible elite, of course).
In a society of any size and complexity there are always ruling elites.
Liberalism thoroughly dominates public moral and political discussion
today, and it makes "elite" a curse word, because the principle of
liberalism is that the arbitrary desire and will of each becomes the
ultimate standard of value, while the legitimacy of elites requires that
what some want be taken more seriously than what others want. If you
want to be heard and credited in the public discussion you have to speak
the language of liberalism, and so treat "elitism" as a curse word.
> The obvious explanation for this phenomenon is that both sides produce
> their own irresponsible elites (see for example Reagan's Iran Contra
> affair or the Watergate incident).
Change the examples -- cliques are not elites. Elites are not thrown
out of office every time the incumbent loses an election.
> we cannot forget that neoconservative administrations have used the
> same tools
Sure.
> It seems that you are falling into the PIC trap (i.e., poverty, crime
> and irresponsibility). In truth, many people head into the less
> legitimate careers because they are perceived to be the only careers
> that are available to them. To wit, those careers and their
> associated behaviours are what allow them to feed themselves (and
> families), satisfy their wants, and be able to contribute to society.
Why would anyone believe this apart from wanting to believe it? Your
view seems to be that people become criminals when they settle down and
start worrying about the future and feeling responsible for themselves
and their families. Not so. 60 or 90 years ago it was much harder to
get money legitimately than it is now, and much less government support.
There was also much less property crime.
> Considering that capital has gone on strike in the 1990s, and the
> ties between its holders have become somewhat weak due to the
> perception of the need to compete on a global scale, they run the
> risk of strengthening the ties between the lower classes (that
> personally I find quite worrisome).
Why's that bad?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 21 15:34:58 EST 1998
Article: 11590 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 21 Mar 1998 15:31:13 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Status: RO
*tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
> The difference is that if one allows for parasitism in corporations,
> it is generally approved of...
Who approves of it? People don't worry about it as much as in the case
of government because it comes out of the pockets of the shareholders,
who are assumed competent to deal with the situation, and if it gets too
bad the corporation will most likely go broke and the problem will
disappear. When it's the government the public stands in the position
of the shareholders, and so is responsible for doing something about
the situation, and bankrupcy and dissolution is much less likely and
less acceptable as a solution.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 21 20:43:07 EST 1998
Article: 11591 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 21 Mar 1998 20:37:43 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Status: RO
vtnet writes:
> The view that mr Kalb puts forward is closely related to German
> 'Volks-Nationalismus' -- literally 'peoples nationalism'. The idea in
> general is that within a nation people struggle to overcome each
> others, but are yet held together by a common ancestry that lead them
> to unite more or less spontaneously in the face of national danger.
I don't understand the "within a nation people struggle to overcome each
others." That happens always and everywhere, so it's hard to see it as
the key to a political view unless it's thought to be the dominant
feature of social life, which is certainly not my view.
Within a nation and without, life is no doubt a mixture of conflict and
cooperation. What makes a nation though is primarily depth and
multiplicity of cooperation, facilitated by common history, common
moral understandings, networks of personal loyalties, concrete
institutions that grow up over time among particular people, etc. Such
things won't be found in a world without borders, except I suppose in
the case of unassimilated Gypsies, Jews and others whose traditions are
those of minority peoples without a specific geographical affiliation.
So my preference for borders is a preference for complex and profound
cooperation. Such cooperation can not be forced, but must grow of
itself in circumstances that permit it to exist. That excludes
extensive government administration of social life. It also can't
exist without the possibility and frequently the actuality of conflict
and failure, any more than friendship can exist where friendliness is
universal and compulsory. The two great dangers to which it is exposed
today are the all-dominating bureaucracy and the all-penetrating
universal market, and the political, social and moral task for our time
is to find effective ways of containing both.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 21 20:43:09 EST 1998
Article: 11592 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Memoir on pauperism
Date: 21 Mar 1998 20:39:30 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Status: RO
vtnet writes:
> Neither do I believe that the 'word of God' must necessarily be a
> political issue, as God is best understood as the source of morality
> and not as a source of actual processes.)
Some interesting issues here. First, it seems to me that God as source
of morality becomes a political issue when there are basic moral
conflicts. Such conflicts do in fact exist chronically and from time
to time become severe enough to disrupt ordinary political life. I
don't see how saying God does not do particular things makes them less
likely.
Second, I wonder whether a deistic God, known only through the order
including moral order of the cosmos, can be known at all. To view God
as the source of moral order seems the same as identifying morality
with His righteous will. It's hard though to make sense of a will that
never gives rise to a particular act, so hard that I'm not sure the
conception can be of any use to us.
The impersonal divine principles that I can think of, for example the
Tao, don't have much to do with morality. The stoic God may be an
exception, to the extent stoicism makes sense. Stoicism was replaced
by Christianity. I'm not sure the reverse evolution is possible.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 22 07:01:48 EST 1998
Article: 11594 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Orestes Brownson
Date: 22 Mar 1998 06:58:37 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Lawrence Roemer writes in his book, "Brownson on Democracy and the
Trend Toward Socialism":
>"The human appetite in question is described as a desire for unlimited
>power; a tendency toward superiority for its own sake; a mass
>rebellion against restrictions as such. People make themselves God;
>everything and everyone including God must bow to their omnipotent
>will.
Brownson's old associate Emerson is interesting on this, mostly as an
exemplification of the point. He insists on his self-existence and
self-sufficiency: "That which shows God in me, fortifies me. That which
shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a wen. There is no longer a
necessary reason for my being. Already the long shadows of untimely
oblivion creep over me, and I shall decease forever." (from his Harvard
Divinity School Address)
On the opposite side the New Humanists Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer
More and their talk of the "inner check" are valuable. Both are
extraordinary critics, I don't think the American Right has produced
anyone of remotely comparable stature since the Second World War.
>Brownson wrote in 1851 that the independent tenure by which judges
>originally held office will soon be destroyed in all states.
This of course did not happen, and judges have recently played a larger
role in our national life than ever. What's happened is that popular
rule has been found insufficient for implementing Emerson's principle
of the divinity of the private individual, because the people tend more
than the elites to retain traditional loyalties and ways of thinking
inconsistent with that principle ("sexism," "racism," "homophobia,"
what have you). In addition, of course, a variety of circumstances
have led to rule by increasingly cohesive national ruling elites
sufficiently dominant to pass off revolutionary changes that serve
their interests as exemplifications of American idealism and national
and popular interest.
>A population cannot produce its own constitution or unifying factor,
>but given such a structure men may modify it, just as they may use
>their power to eat or to commit suicide.
>"According to our democratic theories, a written document resulting
>from our action constitutes us an existing nation; our consent renders
>its rule rightful.
The relationship between these two sentences is the basic problem of
American politics. It's not clear what it means to say "you can't just
conjure up a social order, you have to go with what you've got" in a
social order based on *propositions*, of all things, and those the
propositions that all men -- meaning in the long run all desires and
impulses -- are equal, and that a social order can and must be
constructed for a specific purpose, the implementation of that
equality. The only solution I can think of is to say that American
public discussion has grossly misunderstood and misrepresented the
basic principles of our social life.
>When and if the supreme court decides that the nation is bound only by
>its own will, the nation is absolute. Then the license to do what it
>pleases is labeled liberty. An individual is then deprived of even
>the moral right to complain, because it cannot be right for him to
>resist right. This is in principle the total subjection of the person
>to the community.
This is a statement, years in advance of the fact, of the relation
between the school prayer cases and PC.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 22 22:16:30 EST 1998
Article: 11606 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 22 Mar 1998 22:16:22 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 46
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
> > the all-dominating bureaucracy and the all-penetrating universal
> > market
> I had thought from some of your recent posts that you regarded only
> the former as a problem, and containing the latter as either
> undesirable or, if desirable, impossible; conclusions which I had
> found hard to reconcile with other aspects of conservative views that
> you have from time to time expressed.
I thought I made it altogether clear that I regard the latter as a
problem. Otherwise, what sense would it make to impose barriers to
cross-border movements and transactions?
The difficulty of course is to restrict the market without increasing
the discretionary power of government over economic and social life,
which I think would make bureaucratic rule inevitable (bureaucracy is
simply the means for exercise of discretionary control over complicated
situations).
The best approach I can come up with is to enable extragovernmental
institutions based on something other than economic rationality to
become authoritative. Measures would include strict limits on
immigration, to permit a specific generally accepted national culture
to exist; tariffs, to encourage commercial relations within the
cultural community and therefore their integration with non-economic
common interests and understandings; abolition of equal opportunity
laws, so that common non-economic loyalties and moral and cultural
understandings can play a legitimate role in economic life; and
abolition of social services, so that in the practical affairs of life
people will rely more on themselves and on concrete connections and
common understandings with specific other persons and less on an
abstract bureaucratic order.
It's worth adding that in 1998 the point of denunciations of the market
is almost invariably to demand bureaucratic rule. In addition, truth
and clarity have a certain value. So to my mind it's worthwhile to
debunk bad arguments against the market. In dealing with the market or
anything it is helpful to understand what its good and bad points
actually are. That means arguments should be evaluated critically and
bad ones rejected.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 22 22:18:12 EST 1998
Article: 11607 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 22 Mar 1998 22:18:05 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <6f4k9d$6ad@panix.com>
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NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
> life leases have existed under a variety of economic systems that did
> not have central regulation of the 'real estate market'. In the
> Moscow case, landlords have presumably acquired the apartment as a
> result of the privatization of State, municipal, or some other kind
> of communal housing; in such cases it is common, and entirely
> natural, to protect the rights of sitting tenants
So it seems less a problem of laissez faire as such than the survival of
old forms from the prior regime.
> (Moreover in a market where rentals are stable or falling, long
> leases can be to the landlord's advantage
Long leases give no advantage to murder, though.
> Harassment of sitting tenants in controlled or ex-controlled
> tenancies (now rare) has been an intermittent feature of urban
> housing in England since the war, although I can't recall any recent
> cases of murder.
We have it in New York City as well, including what appear to be recent
cases of murder. Controlled tenancies and laissez faire are not
however the same thing.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 22 22:19:24 EST 1998
Article: 11608 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 22 Mar 1998 22:19:13 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <6f4kbh$6di@panix.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
vtnet writes:
> it seems obvious that for those without access to capital it can only
> be destructive competition as they need to gather capital before
> being able to engage in constructive competition -- i.e. 'to make
> investments'.
What's obvious about it? If A who performs a service that doesn't
require much capital competes with B by improving his skills or trying
harder to give customers what they want it's not clear to me why the
competition is destructive.
> Here again you differentiate between ' conflict' and 'cooperation'
> rather then between constructive and destructive competition, which,
> I think, makes the model useless.
What's wrong with talking about cooperation? It happens, and is
important.
> Well, vertical redistribution within a state does not imply a large
> bureaucracy.
We've discussed this. It implies the state has discretionary control
over who gets what. If that principle is accepted I think a large
bureaucracy is inevitable.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 24 17:05:32 EST 1998
Article: 11623 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 24 Mar 1998 16:59:21 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 242
Message-ID: <6f9abp$j01@panix.com>
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NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rafael cardenas writes:
> Last week an old lady, a member of the congregation of our local
> church, normally active and fiercely independent, was mugged, pulled,
> and knocked down onto the concrete path
The issue is not whether principles of social organization enable one
to give a step-by-step account of how particular problems would be
resolved -- organizing the whole society on military lines is the only
way to do that perfectly, but in practice the approach doesn't work as
planned. The issue is what principles are consistent with the ways
people develop productive and rewarding ways of living. So what I can
offer is less a blueprint for how the woman's situation should be dealt
with than considerations leading one to think that such situations
would in general be avoided or dealt with in a tolerable manner. Some
of course wouldn't, but then intolerable things also happen in welfare
states.
For example -- the postwar European welfare state has gone hand-in-hand
with an enormous and apparently unprecedented growth in crime. In
England (there seems to be nothing special about England) indictable
offenses went from under 1000 per 100,000 population in 1955 to 1750 in
1961, 3400 in 1971, 5600 in 1981 and 10,000 in 1991. In contrast,
between 1857 and 1901 the rate had declined from 400 to 250. (The
figures are from G. Himmelfarb, "A De-moralized Society," in the Fall
1994 _The Public Interest -- she gives further sources for them.)
It seems to me the two are connected; state responsibility for
individual well-being weakens responsibility for oneself and to those
to whom one is closely connected, and such things are normally what
keep a man on the straight and narrow. To my mind then the woman's
story is first and foremost a story of something bad that happens in
advanced welfare states. It helps me rather than you.
> The social services were not alerted (an incompetent bureaucracy, as
> opposed to the supposedly constantly interfering one, provides a good
> proxy for the abolition of social services).
Incompetent meddlers do exist. And a supposed safeguard that fails
does not have the same effect as one nobody thought was there.
You've noted that providing an ostensible remedy by law for suffering
does not in fact end suffering. You may also have noted that as the
size and responsibilities of the state bureaucracy increase it becomes
more difficult to see they are carried out effectively. In the UK the
state took 36% and in Holland 47% of 1991 GDP (nothing special about
that year, it's just the most recent one for which numbers are at
hand); that degree of state control didn't prevent the situation you
describe or the housing problems (evictions by riot police and homeless
living in cardboard boxes) to which Maarten has alluded.
> She has no siblings or living relatives closer than second or third
> cousins (with whom she has never had contact); her local friends have
> predeceased her; the neighbours are Muslim Kurdish immigrants who
> would not understand her condition and on whom she would be naturally
> loath to rely.(and before that the house was empty, and thus she was
> potentially even more isolated). My wife has been looking after her
> but cannot go on doing so indefinitely. Nor could she afford to pay
> for help indefinitely from her small pension, even if she could
> contact an commercial organization that could arrange to provide it.
> Certainly her church membership has prevented her from starving to
> death in the circumstances, but it's unlikely that the rest of the
> mainly elderly, sick, and rather fractious congregation can provide
> much assistance.
I'm not sure why Muslim Kurds would have a hard time understanding a
dislocated shoulder. However that may be, immigration and consequent
multiculturalism do as you suggest make mutual aid less likely. So of
course does the welfare state itself -- mutual aid arrangements arise
in hundreds of ways if people feel it is normal to rely on them and
consequently grow up expecting to have to support them and respond to
appeals for help in appropriate situations. Churches are a good
example. The woman's church is as one would expect in a society in
which people believe that the all-provident state should take the place
of both Providence and reliance on particular persons. In such a
society members expect less of churches, churches expect less of their
members, for many parishioners obstinacy becomes the only reason to
attend, and the situation becomes as you describe.
> Voluntary charitable organizations can't cope with the load of such
> cases.
If all government social services were abolished at once and how people
live didn't change at all that's no doubt so. So what? The point is
that the modern welfare state corresponds to a fundamental change in
the moral constitution of society. Abandonment of the welfare state
would be so as well. Such changes have an enormous effect on conduct.
Nor is the abolition of all government services, famine relief for
example, a necessity, so long as they are fragmentary enough that there
is no expectation that they can be relied on in cases of acute need.
> To rectify that situation without social services you would have to
> change the entire local (and national) economy back to an agrarian
> one with nucleated villages, or at least a heavy-industrial one with
> stable small-town communities, and probably return to high birth
> rates (and presumably high death rates) in order to ensure that the
> old usually have living relatives.
You seem to think mutual aid arrangements don't arise in mobile
big-city settings. I don't see why. Gypsies have them and they aren't
tied together by physical setting. Ditto for trading peoples like
Jews, Armenians and Overseas Chinese. Many have thought that country
pursuits are individualistic, each man working his own land, while city
life promotes combination.
I do agree that in a society with drastically reduced social programs
people would tend to have more children, mostly because they would be
more oriented toward tying themselves into networks of mutually
responsible people. For similar reasons I would expect a reversal in
the current trend toward delayed marriage, batchelorhood, divorce,
people living alone, small households, etc. So there would be fewer
old people like the injured woman without living relatives and other
close connections. Increased birthrate seems OK, by the way, since
there is I think something wrong about a society in which the birthrate
is less than replacement.
> Only one politician in recent years has attempted to put such changes
> into effect rapidly: Pol Pot.
And only one politician in recent years has based his success on
improving the lot of the working man and opposition to bolshevik
tyranny or Pol Pot or whatever: Adolph Hitler. (See, I can do it too.)
> Oh, and by the way--in this area the abolition of equal-opportunity
> laws would, at least to start with, help to increase the pool of
> muggers.
I know nothing of your area, and your accounts make it sound very
unlike any place I do know about. Where I am though I see no reason to
think anything of the sort would happen.
I would expect immediate effects of abolition to include increased
consciousness of the necessity for mutual assistance and for a clean
record, not things that promote street crime. It's generally illegal
in the United States to take a criminal record into account in
considering job applicants because of the disproportionately adverse
impact on blacks, and it would be helpful if that changed because it is
helpful for people to know that what they do matters. Also, it would
be helpful right away if employers could be more confident in hiring
people they weren't sure about, poorly educated and inexperienced young
black men for example, because they were allowed to evaluate them in
their own way and fire them if they don't work out, without the trouble
of building a record to support the firing that will stand up in court.
Slightly farther down the road, employers would be more willing to
locate where there are blacks to be hired if they don't have to worry
about explaining away differences in results to equal opportunity
officials determined to see only employer discrimination as the
explanation of lesser black success.
It's worth noting that enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was
followed by a dramatic increase in crime, and the implementation of
"affirmative action" was followed by a decline in black labor force
participation and an end to the long-term decline in black poverty. So
it's not so clear the equal opportunity laws are socially beneficial.
I don't think the changes are entirely coincidental, although it is of
course difficult to separate the effects of various aspects of the
social and moral revolution that culminated in the '60s. If hiring say
a black person puts you in a vulnerable legal situation people will
find ways to avoid it, at least for the diciest blacks who are most
likely to become muggers. In addition, the tendency of equal
opportunity legislation is the same as that of advanced welfare
programs, to reduce dependence on durable connections to particular
individuals and groups with whom one shares basic understandings, and
to increase dependence on bureaucracies and abstract legal rights. It
seems to me both tend to increase crime, including mugging.
I'm not sure, by the way, why the abolition of gender as a principle of
social organization, surely a fundamental goal of equal-opportunity
legislation, would reduce mugging. I would have thought it would
increase the pool of unattached young men with no fathers and contempt
for a feminized world of work. Such men tend much more than others
toward violence and criminality.
> Perhaps you could explain in what order you would put your programme
> into effect gradually, in such a way as to prevent large-scale lethal
> transitional consequences.
I don't view the chance that my views will be implemented too rapidly
as a serious risk. After all, they've been losing badly for a great
many years with no real signs of change. Also, it takes a long time to
turn things around unless you use the methods of Pol Pot and I have no
interest in doing so even in the inconceivable event it were in my
power. I'm not sure why the risk worries you -- I should probably be
flattered though by your overestimation of whatever it is you take me
to represent.
I suppose one way things can change catastrophically fast is by the
crisis and collapse of the old system, as in the communist East, where
they found that changing fish soup back into an aquarium was a lot
harder than changing an aquarium into fish soup had been. In the
absence of radical reform I would expect Western welfare states to end
up the same way, so once again I think you've given a reason for
supporting my views, which favor starting the reform process now.
As for program, I mostly propose standard mean-spirited reactionary
bigoted obstructionist etc. measures, only in a more extremist spirit,
that is, with more of a sense of ultimate purpose. Some examples:
1. No expansion of the welfare state. Cut back on aspects that seem
most eligible for cutbacks. If nothing else, don't make things worse.
2. In particular, find ways of chipping away at social security, even
though it's the untouchable "third rail" of American politics. Defer
retirement age, make payments fully taxable, make it partly or fully
voluntary. Most such changes would involve a great deal of lead time
because of the political power of social security recipients.
3. Drastic restrictions on immigration. That could be done immediately
without anything Pol Potish.
4. Less commitment to world trade, world economic regulation, human
rights treaties ("rights of the child" or whatever), exporting
democracy, foreign military intervention, and other aspects of the NWO.
I have no particular package of reforms here.
5. Abolition of "affirmative action," followed by steady weakening of
equal opportunity legislation (e.g., make more small employers exempt,
demand more proof, weaken remedies, multiply exceptions).
6. Reduce federal support for education as much as possible, then
support by the states, with corresponding reductions in central control.
The theory should be that education is first the responsibility of
parents, then of localities, churches, particular institutions or
whatever, not of professionals manufacturing units of production and
consumption for the NWO.
7. Reactionary reform of constitutional law. Put it back the way it
was. The general result would be limitation of the functions of the
federal government and enhancement of the independence and police power
of states and localities.
All the foregoing require discussion and education. What sort of
society are we aiming at? What political and moral understandings are
needed for such a society to exist? What institutional arrangements?
Actual reforms depend on agreement on those questions and on
practicalities. Public discussion in America is altogether in the
hands of liberals, though, so the necessary issues have hardly even
been raised. That has to change.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Mar 25 05:37:12 EST 1998
Article: 11624 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 24 Mar 1998 19:28:26 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <6f9j3a$6fb@panix.com>
References: <34f63805.5276330@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6d8pmf$ol8@panix.com> <34fe39dd.15907803@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6dplc5$90i@panix.com> <3500CE98.776CB1ED@net66.com> <6dr4vj$333@panix.com> <3505F887.15D26507@net66.com> <350DE00A.F0A7D3A5@xs4all.nl> <350EB6D7.CB8DA397@net66.com> <350F7746.41C7595B@xs4all.nl> <35104AD6.29DD3FD8@net66.com> <35110D99.EC603602@xs4all.nl> <3514A1E3.DF9F7F58@net66.com> <3515A9C2.DAD0686@xs4all.nl>
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vtnet writes:
> > If A who performs a service that doesn't require much capital
> > competes with B by improving his skills or trying harder to give
> > customers what they want it's not clear to me why the competition
> > is destructive.
>
> You represent a modern economy as a medieval community of
> shopkeepers. The fact is that many (potential) individual skills are
> not directly marketable and can become valuable only within larger
> organizational settings which require capital.
So the possessor of the skills markets them to his employer and to
other prospective employers. It seems to me competition with others
can still lead him to improve his skills and so need not be destructive
even though the guy doesn't have capital. In fact, it seems to me that
sort of thing happens all the time. Don't employers try to get people
who'll do a good job for them? Are they all simply fools who don't
know what's going on?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Mar 25 05:37:12 EST 1998
Article: 11633 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 25 Mar 1998 05:36:33 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 16
Message-ID: <6famnh$khf@panix.com>
References: <34f63805.5276330@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6d8pmf$ol8@panix.com> <34fe39dd.15907803@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6dplc5$90i@panix.com> <3500CE98.776CB1ED@net66.com> <6dr4vj$333@panix.com> <3505F887.15D26507@net66.com> <350DE00A.F0A7D3A5@xs4all.nl> <350EB6D7.CB8DA397@net66.com> <350EBA39.6F562B26@dolphin.upenn.edu> <35104ADD.FF75E501@net66.com> <35103E37.427CD99@dolphin.upenn.edu> <351547B9.62760517@net66.com> <35159950.CB3CB6A@dolphin.upenn.edu> <3516EE68.174218F1@net66.com> <351A23FD.70FE@bellsouth.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <351A23FD.70FE@bellsouth.net> John Fiegel writes:
>your own apparent belief in a strong validity for mathematical
>modeling in the social sciences makes Kalb's mystification readily
>comprehensible. As I recall, Mr. Kalb is in general agreement with
>those who find such modeling dangerous and absurd.
Actually, I don't object to mathematical modeling as such. It can be
suggestive and with respect to a few things informative. As to most
things though what it gives us is not knowledge or even evidence but
simply a way of articulating the strict consequences of extremely
simple assumptions.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From alt.revolution.counter Wed Mar 25 21:12:07 1998
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
~From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
~Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
~Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
~Date: 25 Mar 1998 19:28:35 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
~Lines: 84
Message-ID: <6fc7fj$ep4@panix.com>
~References: <6f1q17$rmu@panix.com> <890604573snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6f4k66$66u@panix.com> <890691947snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6f9abp$j01@panix.com> <351949DB.4BFE4BEB@xs4all.nl>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
vtnet writes:
> > In England (there seems to be nothing special about England)
> > indictable offenses went from under 1000 per 100,000 population in
> > 1955 to 1750 in 1961, 3400 in 1971, 5600 in 1981 and 10,000 in
> > 1991. In contrast, between 1857 and 1901 the rate had declined
> > from 400 to 250.
> England is not representative for Europe ... pockets of poverty
> always persisted while calls distinctions always remained prominent.
It appears from Heidenson and Farrell, eds., _Crime in Europe_
(Routledge, 1991), that crime rates increased 6 to 7-fold in most
Western European countries between 1955 and 1990. The rise in England
was at the high end of the range, but as I recall (I don't have the
book with me) Sweden was up there too.
Special local features may of course account for the moderate
differences among countries. The 40-fold rise from 1901 to 1991 and
steady 10-fold rise from 1955 seem hard to account for in that manner
though.
> Secondly, the crime waves in Britain were to a considerable extent of
> an demographic nature
If you look at the numbers in England and other countries they don't
look like something caused by special circumstances of that sort, more
like the consequence of a fundamental change in the moral constitution
of Western European society. My claim, really, is that the change is a
very bad thing and not just because of crime rates, that the
development of the welfare state is an essential part of the change,
and that doing something about it requires doing something really
radical about the welfare state, in particular rejecting the basic
principle that government is responsible for the well-being of
individuals and should see that each has the means for a materially
decent life. I won't repeat my arguments for that claim here.
> in the period after 1980 the conservatives turned back the welfare
> state vigorously and in was in this period that crime turned nasty:
> there was an explosion of violent crime while organized crime
> mushroomed as well. In the words of one commentator: "Thatchers
> children are coming out to play."
In '60 taxes ate 32.2% of UK GDP; in '80 43%; in '90 39.9%. Between
'85 and '90 real per capita GDP went up 14% (I don't have the '80
figures). If the apparent increase in real per capita state
expenditures during the '80s was not enough to keep things from getting
nasty something is wrong. After all, the proportion of GDP the
government takes can't keep rising forever, as purchased social peace
and full maintenance of social services seem to require.
Actually, though, I'm reluctant without a great deal more to attribute
violent crime to Thatcher's policies. Like Reagan she's been the
target of a great deal of bigoted and mendacious abuse from people who
should know and act far better. In general, I would expect an
extraordinarily large long-term increase in crime to lead eventually to
an even more dramatic increase in horrible crime, since fundamental
changes usually have their most striking consequences at the margins.
> A more appropriate way to evaluate the increased spending by the
> state is by relating it the general tendency toward integration.
By integration do you mean greater social unity bureaucratically
administered? I think that's a good way to look at it, I just think
that sort of thing leads to crime because it tends to abolish
individual responsibility and personal loyalty and to weaken small
social groups such as the family. It also leads to lots of other bad
things, by the way.
> I liked the 10-point program of Marx much better And of course, they
> have almost all been carried out and caused western nations to
> prosper.
Abolition of inheritance and of property in land? Confiscation of
emigrants' property? State monopoly of credit, communications and
transport? Extension of public ownership of means of production?
Industrial armies and equal liability to labor? Abolition of
town/country distinction?
Seems to me most have been neglected with no loss to the world.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From alt.revolution.counter Wed Mar 25 21:12:07 1998
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
~From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
~Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
~Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
~Date: 25 Mar 1998 21:07:43 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
~Lines: 107
Message-ID: <6fcd9f$nm8@panix.com>
~References: <6f1q17$rmu@panix.com> <890604573snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6f4k66$66u@panix.com> <890691947snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6f9abp$j01@panix.com> <890868604snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <890868604snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>Radzinowicz showed twenty years ago that the increase in crime was
>world-wide and was not related to any particular type of society
Do you happen to know where the study can be found? Also, do you know
of other literature on the issue?
>> people believe that the all-provident state should take the place of
>> both Providence and reliance on particular persons.
>Some people might suppose that church attendance is more related to
>religious belief than to the function of the church as a mutual aid
>society. Poland had the highest church attendance when the state
>claimed to be all-provident; since that stopped, church attendance has
>sharply declined.
Church membership and committment can be considered from both
perspectives. My intent was to suggest that the welfare state
undermines churches in both respects. Morally serious commitments to
particular groups of people play a far less important role because
their practical consequence are far slighter. That change extends to
religious as well as family life. In addition, the welfare state
intends to make human life more of a self-contained system not
dependent on anything which we do not control. Since we are social
animals that social understanding has an effect on our understanding of
the world and therefore religious faith.
Poland strikes me as somewhat a special case. The system was imposed
from outside and the people didn't want or believe in it. The church
became both a symbol of national resistance and an expression of an
order of things beyond and superior to all social powers.
>It would take decades for the reduced social programs, working in that
>way, to produce the networks you refer to: but the effects of the
>reduction on individuals would be immediate.
Mutual aid networks already exist to some degree. Reductions would be
piecemeal, would usually affect marginal cases most, and would
presumably be accompanied by a changing social orientation leading
people to take immediate personal obligations more seriously than they
do now. Some would unquestionably lose things they really need, some
would suffer, some bystanders would be unfairly drawn into situations
for which they really shouldn't be responsible. If I thought the
outlook for the welfare state was better than I think it is, and if I
thought it were possible and desirable for the government to eliminate
all individual misfortunes, I would take those objections very
seriously.
>Of course if the economy was run in such a way as to promote full
>employment, affirmative-action legislation would be unecessary and
>employers would still be able to sack individual employees who didn't
>fit. It's perhaps not accidental that the rise of anti-discrimination
>legislation has over-lapped with the abandonment of the commitment to
>macroeconomic full employment.
Not in the United States; the two were of a piece. The Johnson
Administration thought it could do everything because they were so
smart and everyone else had always been so dumb and backward. In any
event, I don't see a necessary connection. Full employment or not,
employers can be black, white or interested only in green, and any
employer has good reason to try to get the employees who'll do most for
him on the best terms.
>Ideas influence policies and voters.
Usually rather slowly.
>The situation in Russia has not merely been a 'collapse' of the old
>system, but a Utopian attempt by a minority to introduce a new,
>ideologically-inspired one. It has striking parallels to the
>developments after the Bolshevik revolution: the lesson is not so much
>that one kind of Utopianism is preferable to another as that any such
>very rapid change is catastrophic.
I know too little about the specific situation in Russia and how it
compares with that in other Eastern countries and in China to discuss
the matter intelligently or suggest anything about who should have
done what when or where.
I agree that sudden change is usually quite dangerous. I still have no
idea why you think that's relevant to the present discussion except
possibly as an argument for reform now instead of sudden revolution
later. It's extremely difficult to cut social welfare expenditures.
With all the screaming about Reagan between 1980 and 1989 federal
social welfare expenditures were reduced only from 11.4% to 10.9% and
public income maintenance payments from 10.1% to 9.6% of GDP.
>The dismantlement of welfare provision in Russia has been accompanied
>by about double the number of premature deaths achieved by Pol Pot
Research recently published in _The Lancet_ blames the rise
principally on heart disease, respiratory and circulatory problems
caused by the huge quantities of pure alcohol an average Russian
consumes in a year and by drink related accidents, violence and
suicide.
So there are big problems, but not it seems directly as a result of
changes in welfare provision. It's notable that the estimated 1996
life expectancies are 56.51 years for men and 70.31 years for women.
Both figures are bad, but the most important single problem seems to be
that Russian men are killing themselves.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Mar 26 06:29:41 EST 1998
Article: 11647 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Orestes Brownson.
Date: 26 Mar 1998 06:28:11 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 61
Message-ID: <6fde4b$3sk@panix.com>
References: <199803221202.HAA06875@panix.com> <3519BA94.39D7@msmisp.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
> Such pride is tragic...and it is tragic that it takes a death of a
> civilization to prove it to such men. Let Emerson say that when he
> is faced with a carjacker pointing a gun in his face.
I've often wondered what his views would be if he were living now
instead of the 19th century. On the one side you have his habit of
taking every possible position on every possible subject, on the other
you have his eduring faith in "the infinity of the private man."
> Judges are elected here in Ohio. We now have a judge in the county
> south of us who has declared our state's method of funding schools
> "unconstitutional." He is simply legislating from the bench. It is
> like listening to a Post Modernist propound the 'meaning' of a text.
I doubt that judicial legislation would have gotten as far as it has if
judges generally were elected instead of appointed. When judges are
appointed they represent different people and different views than
elected legislators, and so are more likely to feel called on to make
the law something other than what elected officials have made it.
> I am close to thinking that the nation does not exist any more.
Multiculturalism means it's been officially declared nonexistent, except
as a legal structure and associated compulsory ideology. Since American
nationality depends so much on the American regime it's difficult to
think of an adequate rejoinder.
> A friend of mine sends me the following quote from James Dale
> Davidsion and Lord William Rees-Mogg's "Sovereign Individual," c
> 1997,
An interesting quote. It seems to me though that their
cognitive/entrepreneurial superclass depends on formal global systems
of economic cooperation that will be severely undermined by other
things they foresee, for example the gravitation of business relations
toward reliance upon 'circles of trust' due to ease of stealing. Also,
what happens to the children of the cognitive elite? Do they just get
cast aside because most of them won't quite come up to the cognitive
mark, or will their parents who control everything somehow arrange for
their children to run the show too? It's very difficult to combine
feudal and meritocratic principles, as Davidson and Rees-Mogg suggest.
> it is the eventual destiny of modern political systems which throw out
> Divine Wisdom and make man the measure of all things. When there is no
> reason a man ought to do one thing as opposed to another, there is no
> reason the strong should not pillage the weak, and there is no
> "government" to stop them, when all government is in on the take.
It's cyclical, I suppose. If life is pillage and plunder then the view
that man is the measure vanishes and the ground becomes ready for a new
civilization. I don't think the cognitive/entrepreneurial superclass
will be able to escape from that because as suggested they too are born
of woman and must rely on something other than themselves if only their
business associates.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From jk Sat Mar 21 08:27:41 1998
Subject: Re: Back from Chaos? Or Forward *to* it?
To: cj
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 08:27:41 -0500 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 1749
Status: RO
> if he jettisons the means by which Western Culture has determined
> "the good", then, he needs a total state by which to promote his own
> notion of "the good". Trouble is, he has many competitors, and he
> doesn't see he's trashed the very moral foundations by which one can
> evaluate between "goods" offered up as the ultimate purpose "of" the
> state.
All this is true. My inclination is to attack it by pointing out how
deep the problem goes -- if you don't accept an understanding of the
good that can't be fully rationalized you can't have knowledge,
language, etc. In the long run, and the long run is upon us in the
form of postmodernism, liberalism can't even be asserted.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Sun Mar 22 07:49:46 1998
Subject: Re: Back from Chaos? Or Forward *to* it?
To: cj
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 07:49:46 -0500 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Status: RO
Just read Paul Elmer More for the first time, in Byron Lambert's
selection that came out in the early '70s. Really excellent. The only
criticism I'd make of him like Babbitt is that he seems inclined too
much to dispense with faith and loyalty in favor of critical
rationality. Still, what's excellent about him is how much he's able
to *do* with critical rationality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Tue Mar 24 10:29:58 1998
Subject: Re: Revolt of the Masses link
To: ps
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 10:29:58 -0500 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Status: RO
> I'm curious: what's the reaction been in the States to the recent
> French elections and the deals that the NF has made with some of the
> Liberal leaders in regions? It has them apoplectic here, which is
> just where Megret wants them!
Don't really know -- didn't pay any attention to the news while I was
away, and they failed to deliver the NY Times (my usual source)
yesterday. Today they had a long page 2 article that took the general
view "this is something weird going on in France where they're always
having uproars about one thing or another." The NYT is of course
unreservedly confident in the triumph of the NWO no matter what local
irrationalities may pop up from time to time. The article was nothing
like the hysterically vituperative Daily Telegraph piece, the only
other thing I've seen.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Tue Mar 24 21:24:02 1998
Subject: Re: The Strange Dr. Hilty
To: jc
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 21:24:02 -0500 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
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Status: RO
> BTW, your seven step program to a better America were excellent. But
> they were also a bit heart-breaking: there's no heart for them in
> either of the major political parties. Ah, well.
Thanks. Hope springs eternal - at least we can get the ideas out
there. Analytically speaking the likely exit seems to be crisis and
collapse though.
> The New York Times gave it a generally good review, but complained:
> "Maybe it's that a really nice family is less interesting than a
> really vicious one." In other words, the NYT had trouble with the
> play because it didn't pander to our preference for dysfunction; I
> found this refreshing.
Simone Weil said all imaginative literature is immoral because imagined
good is boring and imagined evil fascinating, the opposite of how
things are in real life. She made an exception for a few things, the
_Iliad_, _King Lear_, Racine's _Phedre_.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Mar 27 06:35:05 EST 1998
Article: 11651 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 26 Mar 1998 22:26:37 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
Message-ID: <6ff69d$18c@panix.com>
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In <890957843snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>surely the suburbanization of the countryside -- preceded by its
>electrification, sewerisation, motorization and so on -- is precisely
>the sort of abolition that Marx & Engels were thinking about?
Socialized agribusiness, I should think. From the Manifesto of the
Communist Party:
8 ... Establishment of industrial armies, especially for
agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries ...
The idea has actually been tried out, although not in Western
countries, but with rather unhappy results.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Mar 27 06:35:06 EST 1998
Article: 11654 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 27 Mar 1998 06:34:03 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <6fg2rb$5e6@panix.com>
References: <6f1q17$rmu@panix.com> <890604573snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6f4k66$66u@panix.com> <890691947snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6f9abp$j01@panix.com> <890868604snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6fcd9f$nm8@panix.com> <890957136snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <890957136snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>In the early 16th century Spanish observers were genuinely puzzled
>about why the Tainos of Hispaniola were killing themselves -- falling
>mysteriously sick, refusing to eat, throwing themselves off cliffs,
>heaven knows what.
Alcoholism among the American Indians had been the analogy that
occurred to me. If the analogy holds then a question as to Russia
would be what led to similarly complete destruction of Russian culture
as a functioning system.
My general view of course, and the basis of my objection to the welfare
state and so on, is that attempts comprehensively to reorder society on
rational functional lines have such effects. I interpret your point to
be that if civil society has been destroyed by socialism, so that all
has become dependent on the state, then any sudden change including
sudden reduction in the role of government takes on the character of
another such attempt. Whatever happens is something the state is doing
to the people because the people have become unable to function apart
>from the state.
The example of Russia certainly seems to give that point weight. I
still don't see the applicability to the United States, where statism
has not gone remotely as far and change of remotely similar speed seems
inconceivable.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Mar 27 07:52:39 EST 1998
Article: 11657 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 27 Mar 1998 07:51:17 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 54
Message-ID: <6fg7c5$9tr@panix.com>
References: <6f17p2$712@panix.com> <890689680snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <890689680snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>A situation in which international capital transfers are limited to
>such devices is that envisaged by chapter 7 of Ricardo's _Principles_,
>in which he points out that they are awkward and rare.
No doubt. And immigration by natural means only was so inconceivably
slow that races could arise and diverge, so it must have been awkward
and rare too.
>The tourists are far more numerous than the immigrants.
At this moment there are far more immigrants than tourists in the
United States and in England, and the average immigrant has much
greater influence on the local society than the average tourist.
>> > conditions in different countries, in terms of security of persons
>> > and of basic economic prosperity, should not be so discrepant as
>> > to encourage mass flight or migration.
>> The first sentence quoted seems to call for a rather well-integrated
>> NWO.
>Not if the NWO increases the discrepancies (as some argue).
I didn't mean that all possible NWOs will get you your goal, only that
some NWO or other seems necessary to that end.
>> The second seems to suggest that an order of things in which there
>> is no tyranny or major differences in wealth among countries would
>> arise spontaneously in the absence of Western malfeasance.
>No: i said 'security of persons' and 'basic economic prosperity'.
"Security of persons" is a more comprehensive demand than non-tyranny.
As to the other phrase, the differentiation you make strikes me as
somewhat arbitrary.
>The survival of the tyrannies depends very heavily on (often heavily
>subsidized) Western arms sales to them, and often on
>'counter-insurgency' training etc. by Western instructors.
The survival of a particular tyranny may be aided by such things but
not usually tyranny as such. Arms sufficient to hold down the people
need not be particularly hi-tech, those who become tyrants generally
know their business reasonably well without foreign trainers, and
unless there is a local tradition of free government successful
insurgencies are usually just groups of men more adept than the
existing tyrant at the use of force to get their way.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 29 17:10:52 EST 1998
Article: 11689 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 29 Mar 1998 17:10:40 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <6fmgt0$r4b@panix.com>
References: <351949DB.4BFE4BEB@xs4all.nl> <6fc7fj$ep4@panix.com> <891121001snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
John Fiegel writes:
> > Jim Kalb and others who think similarly will never admit to
> > themselves that it was marketplace capitalism, and not government,
> > which destroyed the traditional cultures upon which these "concrete
> > connections and common understanding" were based.
> While your hazy use of words makes agreeing and disagreeng with you
> seem problematic, there is more than a small germ of truth here.
A couple of comments:
1. I agree that the combination of modern technology, especially
modern transportation and communications, and strict economic liberalism
is inconsistent with traditional life that like that of Europe is
geographically based and with a strong principle of public life within
territorial sovereignties.
2. The issue is what to do about it. It seems difficult to abolish
modern technology. I have suggested some ways in which strict economic
liberalism should be abandoned and would be happy to hear about others.
Unfortunately, the most common proposal from opponents of marketplace
capitalism is its supplementation or replacement with bureaucratic
systems that tend to destroy all active and ordering principles in
society other than the state. That would make things worse, and has
already done so.
> > The social services of government emerged as a response to the
> > social devastation that was caused by marketplace capitalism,
> > particularly during the industrial stage of its development.
The postwar welfare state "emerged as a response to the social
devastation that was caused by marketplace capitalism, particularly
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 29 17:12:09 EST 1998
Article: 11690 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 29 Mar 1998 17:11:58 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
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References: <890689680snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6fg7c5$9tr@panix.com> <891121315snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
raf391@bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
> > At this moment there are far more immigrants than tourists in the
> > United States and in England, and the average immigrant has much
> > greater influence on the local society than the average tourist.
>
> Can you quote figures for that claim with respect to England?
None that are at all rigorous.
My understanding is that the UK now gets about 100,000 immigrants a
year, and that British society is now about 6% non-white, which would be
over 3,000,000 people. So the thought was that there must be well over
1,000,000 immigrants living in Britain, and that on any particular day
in March there are probably many fewer than 1,000,000 tourists there.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 29 17:19:49 EST 1998
Article: 11692 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 29 Mar 1998 17:19:38 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 52
Message-ID: <6fmhdq$rh4@panix.com>
References: <351949DB.4BFE4BEB@xs4all.nl> <6fc7fj$ep4@panix.com> <891121001snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
> Failure to pay television licence fees was a non-existent crime in
> the 19th century; so were motoring offences; so was breaking into a
> motor- car.
And not many are strung up for horse theft these days. But how much can
this sort of thing have to do with the 10-fold increase in indictable
offenses over the past 40 years or so?
> Improved private transport has made an enormous difference to the
> distribution and frequency of crime ... A major cause of increased
> burglary, of course, may be the rise of the two-income, and therefore
> two-absentee, households (both because parents are out when their
> children go burgling, and the victims are out when the children
> burgle them). That may result from some 'liberal' changes but not
> from the welfare state as such.
And burglar alarms, closed-circuit TVs, and other technological
improvements in crime control no doubt have affected the net figures as
well. No doubt the increasing tendency for the rich to live far from
the poor has done so too.
I agree of course that welfare is not the sole explanation of the
increase in crime. As I suggested in my previous posts, what seems to
have occurred is a basic change in the moral constitution of society.
The current place of public welfare programs at the heart of accepted
public morality and what is considered the social contract is I think
an essential part of that change. There are of course other
components, for example the strong antidiscrimination principle.
> Are the figures you report official crime rates (I think they must
> be) or the results of victim surveys (which are normally higher)?
Home Office statistics.
> Even those offences which would always have been criminal (theft and
> burglary, for example) may be recorded far more often nowadays,
> because more people have insurance policies ... Victim surveys
> suggest that the actual rate of crime is appreciably higher than
> official figures, and always has been, but that the gap has narrowed
> sharply.
My own experience living in both high-crime and low-crime areas suggests
the contrary, that when there isn't much crime a robbery is shocking and
people report it, but when there is it's just part of daily life and
people pick up and carry on without contacting the police.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Mar 30 06:07:47 EST 1998
Article: 11695 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 30 Mar 1998 06:07:36 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <6fnudo$j92@panix.com>
References: <351949DB.4BFE4BEB@xs4all.nl> <6fc7fj$ep4@panix.com> <891121001snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6fmgt0$r4b@panix.com> <3520480C.274E@bellsouth.net>
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John Fiegel writes:
> Indeed, the question is what to do about it. My practical answer is:
> nothing. I can think of nothing that will both work and has a chance
> of being implemented.
Things can always be better or worse, and it's hard to design and
implement social goals in any event. The problem seems to be the
establishment of conditions in which something other than rational
hedonistic universalism can survive. Restrictions on physical
movements across national boundaries and reduction of state
administration of social life are clearcut measures that seem likely to
help that are capable of attracting political support from a variety of
sources.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Mar 30 11:35:13 EST 1998
Article: 11699 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 30 Mar 1998 08:05:35 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <6fo5av$pfn@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <351F7FBA.E26C975@xs4all.nl> vtnet writes:
>The words "left" and "right" originally depicted the positions of the
>'progressive' and 'conservative' wings in the national assembly around
>the time around the French revolution, and are therefore properly
>speaking not connected with any particular agenda but rather relate to
>the status quo -- whatever that my be.
To the extent that events have a discernible fundamental tendency,
toward a universal rational hedonistic system of thought and social
life for example, then the words "left" and "right" retain their
meaning, the former referring to things that favor the tendency and the
latter to those that somehow oppose it. As it says in the Conservatism
FAQ:
What do all these things called "conservatism" have in common?
Each rejects, through an appeal to something traditionally valued,
the liberal tendency to treat individual impulse and desire as the
final authorities. Differences in the preferred point of
reference give rise to different forms of conservatism. Those who
appeal to the independent and responsible individual become
libertarian conservatives, while those who appeal to a traditional
culture or to God become traditionalist or religious
conservatives. Depending on circumstances, the alliance among
different forms of conservatism may be closer or more tenuous. In
America today libertarian, traditionalist and religious
conservatives generally find common ground in favoring federalism
and constitutional limited government and opposing the managerial
welfare state.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Mar 30 21:18:16 EST 1998
Article: 11710 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 30 Mar 1998 21:17:41 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <6fpjo5$nqn@panix.com>
References: <351949DB.4BFE4BEB@xs4all.nl> <6fc7fj$ep4@panix.com> <891121001snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6fmgt0$r4b@panix.com> <3520480C.274E@bellsouth.net> <6fnudo$j92@panix.com> <3521675E.398B@bellsouth.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <3521675E.398B@bellsouth.net> John Fiegel writes:
>Yes, there is better and worse, but I think at this time better and
>worse is best sought at the level of the family, that is the autonomy
>of the family must be protected as a last haven for free persons.
Which means limitations on state administration of social life.
>Measures such as the restriction of immigration (and I speak only of
>the US) have the character of giving blood preasure medicine to a
>patient who has no intention of changing the way of life which is the
>cause of his illness. It treats a symptom rather than the disease.
>And the blood preasure medicine has its side effects which in turn
>must be treated. And on and on and on.
Don't quite see why immigration couldn't be restricted without
malignantly pyramiding consequences. To the extent your point is that
no government measure or combination of measures can be the salvation
of the world without other changes and developments I agree. So what?
>As for the reduction of state administration of social life, the state
>will be more than happy to administer that as well.
No doubt. The key therefore is to keep things simple. Just say no.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 31 19:30:23 EST 1998
Article: 11716 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 31 Mar 1998 19:25:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <6fs1hn$1br@panix.com>
References: <35217204.7C7C@msmisp.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <35217204.7C7C@msmisp.com> cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>> There are non-utilitarian liberals, of course.
>Could you introduce me?
Most liberal thinkers today aren't utilitarians; they don't make
maximizing utility, pleasure or whatever the moral criterion. For one
thing, utility has no necessary connection with rights or equality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 31 19:30:24 EST 1998
Article: 11717 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A novel attack on liberalism
Date: 31 Mar 1998 19:29:34 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 15
Message-ID: <6fs1pe$1h4@panix.com>
References: <6fo5av$pfn@panix.com> <3520D7BB.2DF52FF3@xs4all.nl> <3522E75A.7D17@bellsouth.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <3522E75A.7D17@bellsouth.net> John Fiegel writes:
>Shouldn't defenders of the status quo, in such an alignment, be the
>center? rather than the left or the right?
Again, what's necessary to make sense of "left" and "right," and for
that matter "progresssive" and "reactionary," is the notion that social
and political development has a long-term tendency. If you accept that
view then to defend the status quo is to oppose that tendency and
therefore to be a rightist.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Truth is such a flyaway, such a sly-boots, so untranslatable and
unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light."
-- Emerson
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.