The Noise Of American Probosci

"In Denver, Colo., Leland Robinson, a gay, black tea-party activist and entrepreneur who criticized teachers’ unions at a capitol rally, was told by white labor supporters to "get behind that fence where you belong.”"

Michelle Malkin cites many more such examples (some worse) of recent gratuitous and obscene incivility from the Left in Wisconsin. Far more disgusting however, is their parasitic principle of demanding - and in public - that the State mine other people for the extraction, liquidation and transfer of value to them. The same criticism can of course be made of many incorporated entities also.

"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else."

- Frederic Bastiat.

Against Chang Yeh-shen 張葉森

Chang Yeh-shen 張葉森, in a piece published in the editorials page of the Taipei Times today, concludes that:

"Taiwan’s situation today is not much better than that of the Arabic countries in the throes of the Jasmine Revolution. We must use our votes to oust Ma to save Taiwan and rebuild the country, perhaps through a 'lily revolution'".

Nonsense on two counts: first, voting in an election does not constitute a "revolution" - even as rhetoric, that is just stupid hyperbole; second, the assertion that Taiwan is comparable to Libya, Tunisia or Egypt is monstrously out of proportion - as a weekly reading of Michael J. Totten would hammer home.

In my (current*) view, Taiwanese reform ought to begin outside the purview of the electoral mechanism by a strategic mixture of tactics: principled challenges to egregious State powers (e.g. land "expropriation") with the aim that such be repudiated; calls for a program of legislative repeal beginning with those laws which most restrict freedom in the areas of labour, health and education; initiatives to allow greater public involvement with and direct support for the military, thus diluting the mediating function of whichever (possibly infiltrated and compromised) Party happens to be in Government. Those are merely brief examples - the question of how best to undertake and direct a strategy of depoliticizing reform demands far more thought and criticism than can be mustered in a single, brief blog post.

*Liable to change on further reflection and criticism; I have written on this before, and will likely continue to do so from time to time. I have yet to see anyone else write imaginatively on political reform in Taiwan outside of re-electing the lame and largely irrelevant DPP.

Chinese Unrest (動蕩 在 中國)

"Apparently attempting to make a statement without falling foul of China’s security forces, participants were urged not to take any overt action, but encouraged to merely show up for the 2pm “strolling” protests. “We invite every participant to stroll, watch, or even just pretend to pass by. As long as you are present, the authoritarian government will be shaking with fear,” it said."

Yes. I wish these brave people in China every success; as I have said before elsewhere not only do they act for their own freedom, but in doing so, they represent the only real hope for the security of Taiwanese people from PRC coercion. By comparison, the internecine politics of the 民進黨 (DPP) in Taiwan are at best only marginally relevant to any future prospect of a free and secure Taiwan. In this connexion, only three things really matter: the bravery and canniness of Chinese dissidents and the wider Chinese population; the internecine politics of both the CCP (中國共產黨) and the PLA (中国人民解放军) in which the pro-political modernizers must do their utmost to constrain the suppressive tendencies of the more overtly fascist elements; and finally, the willingness of the U.S. Government to not only pursue a more assertive strategy of military containment, but to seriously and openly confront Beijing on moral principles (which latter prospect right now seems so faint as to be practically absent).

It is vitally important however that good people on both sides of the Strait envisage how a post-CCP China could look, and in particular, to recognize the primary importance of depoliticizing Chinese society over any populist clamour for elections on everything. As I have said before, the most important feature of a Liberal democracy is its' Liberalism - i.e. the repudiation, restriction and devolution of political power.

Against Chi Ta-wei (紀大偉) 2

Sirs,

Unrecognized irony has been in plentiful supply in your editorial pages of late. The title of Chi Ta-wei's (紀大偉) short editorial in Monday's edition - "The Bell Is Tolling For Inclusive Ideologies" - was just such an example. Far from being "inclusive", policies of multiculturalism have encouraged disintegration, distrust and consequently social exclusion throughout Western Europe.

The definition Chi Ta-wei offers, that multiculturalism is...

"...support for the idea that, within a community people can be open about their different identities, including gender, sexual preference and ethnic identity, instead of hiding and having no chance to participate in society or express themselves..."

... omits to mention the one real, substantive issue here, one which ought to be obvious.The spread of religion, particularly Islam and its fanatical and explicitly anti-liberal, anti-women, anti-homosexual variants, is precisely why European political leaders are now considering former policies in support of multiculturalism to have been a mistake. Should anybody be ignorant enough to need convincing on this point, they could do worse than to consider why Theo Van Gogh was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam in 2004, or why it is that Ayaan Hirsi Ali left the Netherlands, purportedly one of the most tolerant societies in Western Europe, to live in the United States. That Chi Ta-wei chose to deliberately denigrate the seriousness of this most politically salient aspect of multiculturalism is disgraceful.

Chi Ta-wei wrote that British Prime Minister David Cameron wants...

"to force Muslims to drop those values in their own culture that differ from the values of mainstream Britain..."

... and that this mainstream culture is "right-wing in nature". In response to this I am not, in fact, sorry at all to pose the following questions:

• Is it "right wing" to demand that you do not threaten - in public - to actually behead those who refuse to submit to the political demands of an openly fascist variant of Islam?
• Is it "right wing" to demand that you do not lobby for the imposition of openly fascist Islamic Sharia Law in the UK? And let us be clear: laws which would see homosexual people punished, and barbarically so, for what they are? Laws which could see women accused of adultery whipped in public?
• Is it "right wing" to demand that you do not mutilate the genitalia of your baby girl for the sake of the writings of your 7th-Century cult?

I submit that Chi Ta-wei's editorial is an illustrative example of that part of the political Left which either does not understand the enormous intellectual and political debt it owes to Liberalism, or is knowingly trying to undermine what remains of it. As the Marxist scholar Norm Geras recently told a conference at the University of Newcastle in England:

"I am sorry to say that to be a member of the Marxist left today is to be part of something, a body of opinion, a political current, that is accursed."

Yours freely,
Michael Fagan.

(Sent: Thursday 22nd February 2011. Unpublished by the Taipei Times)

Liberalism, Not "Multiculturalism"

Further to my brief letter below against the editorial piece by Chi Ta-wei (紀大偉), an assistant cretin at National Chengchi University, some additional remarks on multiculturalism are in order.

Chi Ta-wei spoke of multiculturalism in ridiculous teletubby terms of "support" for "different identities, including gender, sexual preference and ethnic identity..."

He neglected to mention the nature and source of that "support": the implicit threat of coercive violence operative in State action. Multiculturalism is dependent upon State support for housing, healthcare, education and other State monopolized "social services" and on the various laws mandating the attempt to achieve some statistical measure of "equality of opportunity" in order to garner political support. Such "equality of opportunity laws" extend into State legislation governing hiring and firing preferences in nominally private enterprises, with patronizing and shameful "positive discrimination" imperatives being perhaps the best known example.

Multiculturalism, as espoused by cretins like Chi Ta-wei, cannot be satisfied on the basis of voluntary forms of support - of one human being freely volunteering to "support" or help another - for that sort of action is fully compatible with Liberalism (of which "Libertarianism" is simply the more coherent and consistent variant) and a comparatively depoliticized society. No, what cretins like Chi Ta-wei and their accursed "comrades" demand is the further and further politicization of social relations among people and an ever increasing scope for State power - a demand they often mendaciously cover up beneath light-reflecting cloaks such as "social responsibility"*.

Consider that couplet he uses above: "ethnic identity". In what ridiculously cartoon-like shallowness can a person's mere ethnicity ever be claimed as the basis of his or her identity? Is not the very coupling of those terms like that inherently racist - taking as it does, the physical features of a person's appearance common to some group as a distinguishing modifier for that person's entire identity? I say it is - and that Leftist assistant cretins like Chi Ta-wei ought to be called on this as the superficial, anti-intellectual, amoral, patronizing racists that they are. This is consequential to the collectivist, rather than individualist, nature of their ethical premises - the imperative to identify individuals as members of some collective or another - or to not identify them at all, except perhaps as in some incomprehending sense of "other" (or alternatively, "right-wing").

That people like Chi Ta-wei can be taken seriously as "intellectuals" by being given posts at putatively prestigious Universities merely evinces the weakness of moral leadership, and intellectual rigour at such institutions in addition to the crippling faults of a Statist political economy - one which supports and even celebrates such institutions and their humanities and social science departments, and which does so in deliberate ignorance of the fact that they are little more than intellectually poisoned youth hostels for which many young people must get into debt to attend.

And yes I would say that to the face of the Chancellor of National Chengchi University - without any hesitation whatsoever and with perfect pitch, clarity and articulation.


*C.f. the deliberate ignorance of aspect in this statement on conservatives by George Lakoff, linked to by Ben Goren because he has it in mind to use the word "interesting":

"They don't think government should help its citizens. That is, they don't think citizens should help each other."

Bullshit.

Against Chi Ta-wei (紀大偉)

Sirs,

Unrecognized irony has been in plentiful supply in your editorial pages of late. The title of Chi Ta-wei's (紀大偉) short editorial in Monday's edition - "The Bell Is Tolling For Inclusive Ideologies" - was just such an example. Far from being "inclusive", policies of multiculturalism have encouraged disintegration, distrust and consequently social exclusion throughout Western Europe.

The definition Chi Ta-wei offers, that multiculturalism is...

"...support for the idea that, within a community people can be open about their different identities, including gender, sexual preference and ethnic identity, instead of hiding and having no chance to participate in society or express themselves..."

... omits to mention the one real, substantive issue here, one which ought to be obvious.The spread of religion, particularly Islam and its fanatical and explicitly anti-liberal, anti-women, anti-homosexual variants, is precisely why European political leaders are now considering former policies in support of multiculturalism to have been a mistake. Should anybody be ignorant enough to need convincing on this point, they could do worse than to consider why Theo Van Gogh was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam in 2004, or why it is that Ayaan Hirsi Ali left the Netherlands, purportedly one of the most tolerant societies in Western Europe, to live in the United States. That Chi Ta-wei chose to deliberately denigrate the seriousness of this most politically salient aspect of multiculturalism is disgraceful.

Chi Ta-wei wrote that British Prime Minister David Cameron wants...

"to force Muslims to drop those values in their own culture that differ from the values of mainstream Britain..."

... and that this mainstream culture is "right-wing in nature". In response to this I am not, in fact, sorry at all to pose the following questions:

• Is it "right wing" to demand that you do not threaten - in public - to actually behead those who refuse to submit to the political demands of an openly fascist variant of Islam?
• Is it "right wing" to demand that you do not lobby for the imposition of openly fascist Islamic Sharia Law in the UK? And let us be clear: laws which would see homosexual people punished, and barbarically so, for what they are? Laws which could see women accused of adultery whipped in public?
• Is it "right wing" to demand that you do not mutilate the genitalia of your baby girl for the sake of the insane mumblings of your 7th-Century dark ages cult?

I submit that Chi Ta-wei's editorial is an illustrative example of that part of the political Left which either does not understand the enormous intellectual and political debt it owes to Liberalism, or is knowingly trying to undermine what remains of it. As the Marxist scholar Norm Geras recently told a conference at the University of Newcastle in England:

"I am sorry to say that to be a member of the Marxist left today is to be part of something, a body of opinion, a political current, that is accursed."

Yours freely,
Michael Fagan.

(Sent: Tuesday 22nd February 2011. Unpublished by the Taipei Times)

The Meagre

"The Meagre does not comprehend,
The faults his fists cannot pretend,
Excuse his trespass into shame,
With "rights" gratuitous defamed:
About his dignity defiled,
And which he has not wit to hide,
The Meagre stomps and email sends,
To beg disgrace to make amends."

My adaptation (just for a laugh while I was out walking the dog earlier) - of W.H. Auden's 1968 poem "The Ogre".

On Dildoes, Cunticulatedly Fired

"...as to the “tyranny of freedom" would you prefer the tyranny of tyranny?... Hugh Hefner or Vladimir Lenin is a very simple choice for me."

A glorious comment from Nick M.

Of Passing By

"O Zarathustra... here you have nothing to seek and everything to lose."

I have never entered into the dirty water of political discussion with other bloggers in Taiwan without warning myself as to exactly how dirty my shoes might get. The only soap I need is the observation that certain other bloggers do not want, and indeed cannot stand, rational criticism of their own prejudgements:

"...the fantasist Libertarians, imagine that the whole world would just work better if business was left alone and prices were free of interference by the State. But what has trying to reach that goal reaped since 1945."

Forget about March, Ben: I have already given you ample reason to have known that such historical assertions as that and others were wrong - and outrageously so - before you wrote them. You get no more dignity handouts from me ever again, you indolent child.

Marxist Vector

Over the weekend I may write up in more detail a defence of my claim that the current President of the U.S. is a Marxist. The important point, however, is not that the President is a Marxist in the sense of mere analytical premises and emphasis whilst remaining wedded to basically bog-standard social democratic policies (as is true of people like Hitchens), but that he is a Marxist in the sense of radically collectivist policies - policies which are inherently anti-liberal and which are intended to further politicize control over economic production. I do not base this argument on the claims of the right-wing press - I am not so incapable of thought as to have to rely on them. Nevertheless, until I have that post written up, I recommend for anyone interested in this accusation the viewing of all five segments of the journalist and anthropologist Stanley Kurtz's interview with National Review's Peter Robinson. An important element throughout all of this is Kurtz's accusation that the President has so far consistently tried to pretend he is something that he isn't. Here's Stanley Kurtz at 0.57 in segment five of that interview:

"Obama has not advocated any ideology openly - he has cast many of his most ambitious plans as just 'pragmatic fixes' to the economy. I don't think that's true, and if you don't understand that there is an ideology laying behind this, you're not going to be able to really evaluate these reforms Obama is laying out."

Order, Not Chaos

J.Michael Cole wrote one of his unsigned editorials in the Taipei Times yesterday (Tuesday 15th February) entitled: "Egypt Is A False Analogy For Taiwan". The idea strikes me as curiously weird; curious in that I wonder who he had in mind in writing it, and weird as in the points he raises are obvious. My curiosity peaked right at the beginning:

"Following weeks of demonstrations in Egypt that ultimately forced former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down on Friday, some commentators have suggested that events in North Africa could serve as a catalyst for discontent with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九)."

"Some commenters"? I've left my request for enlightenment over at his place; it may or may not get answered. The weirdness hit me on the second paragraph:

"For one, the situations in Egypt and Taiwan are very different. Taiwan does not have a radicalized and easily mobilized political opposition such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which has a long tradition of opposing despotic rule."

First, I don't recall seeing anybody suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood was the dominant demographic in the protests at Tahiri square, so for Cole to focus on them as a point of comparison is... strange. Second, to describe the Muslim Brotherhood as having a "long tradition of opposing despotic rule" is not different in kind from describing the Taliban as "staunch anti-Soviets"; this groups agitates for, among other possible things, the imposition of Sharia Law on the Egyptian people, and so if they cannot be persuaded otherwise then they are to be despised at the very least, not praised.

As to the assertion Cole attacks, that events in Egypt could inspire similar protests in Taiwan, I would be extremely worried if enough people got it into their head to do just that, for deposing a government in that manner is a desperate tactic of last resort and is extremely dangerous - and for additional reasons to those that Cole goes on to list.

No. I argue for the rational deconstruction of the State and the depoliticization of society, not the desperate but courageous headlong charge into potential chaos we have seen in Egypt.

On Rights

Further to comments on this post I have decided to write a brief post on rights. I say "brief" because I claim no special knowledge or expertise or competence here (in fact, I know of many people who may have cogent objections to aspects of what follows). I do not say "human rights" for two reasons; the first is that the UN declaration on human rights is self-contradictory and incoherent (1) and is nothing more than a politicized instrument; the second is that I do not think the modifier "human" ought to be necessary - rights pertain to individual persons (they cannot pertain to animals [2], or to groups of people such as races, or as represented by States [3]).

Defined as the political sanction to exercise authority over the essential aspects of one's own life in a social context, this conception of rights is entirely "negative", i.e. it implies the proscription of certain kinds of act, e.g. aggression, but it does not imply prescriptions for action, e.g. charity (4). Although the recognition or repudiation of such rights occurs in a political context and is thus variable, the ethical premises and principles which they reflect cannot be, since they are derived from ontological claims as to the nature of human beings in general. Consequently, though the political recognition and popular understanding of these rights in fact differs across time and space, the injustice of acts in violation of these rights is invariable.

The ethical premises which this conception of rights reflects, rest upon the identification of the ontological priority of the individual human being, and particularly, of the embodied nature of his mind and of his free-will in acting. An alternative conception of rights, for example, of the "positive" rights (i.e. prescriptions for action) so often advocated by many on both the Left and the Right, presupposes radically different ethical premises deriving in turn from an ontology in which any given individual human being is merely one aspect of a greater collective entity, or hive, comprised of many such individuals. Thus, political conflict between these two competing conceptions of rights - "negative" and "positive" - where it is not the result of error or simple irrationalism, is actually a conflict between two incompatible ontological claims as to the nature of human beings; either a person is a person "in her own right", so to speak, or she is a member cell of a larger hive-like entity, which may be variously identified as the "Nation", the "Race", the "State", the "Party", the "Movement" etc.

The definition of a right offered above arises from the premise of individual self-ownership, but should this premise be rejected (for example in favour of some form of collectivism or irrationalism [5]), then it can also be derived from an ironic reaction to the Humean "is-ought" problem. Hume's famous problem asserts that neither a prescriptive nor any proscriptive statement (an "ought") can be logically derived from a purely factual statement alone (an "is"), without the subtle addition (usually implicit) of a prescriptive statement to the factual one (such as in Ayn Rand's [otherwise persuasive] derivation of her "objective" standard of survival and flourishing). The Humean "is-ought" problem is often taken as proof of the ultimate subjectivity of all ethical statements. Yet there is an ironic way up and out of the Humean "is-ought gap", for the very conclusion the problem invites us to draw, i.e. that "no oughts ought ever to be derived from an is" is self-refuting - unless this conclusion is conceived as a "meta-ought", or the only possible ought that nature itself teaches - a negative, proscriptive ought. On this basis we can stipulate to the objectivity - the ironic objectivity - of a negative, proscriptive conception of rights.

This conception of rights, defined above as the political sanction to exercise authority over the essential aspects of one's own life in a social context, may be specified in several ways: a right to life (proscribing acts of murder, assault etc); a right of private property (proscribing acts of theft, trespass, fraud, arson etc); a right of free speech (proscribing universal infractions against such freedom), and so on. These "negative" rights are actually delineations of aspect to which the broader definition is to be applied and they are generally exhausted by the non-aggression principle (which principle proscribes the initiation of force against others but not the retaliatory use of force). It is important to bear in mind how these rights may interrelate given that, as per the ironic twist to the Humean problem, they imply proscriptions of certain acts, and not prescriptions - or to put it differently, they are "freedoms from..." rather than "freedoms to...". Thus the actions of the delinquent who maliciously calls out "fire!" in a crowded theatre are not sanctioned by the right of free speech, since this right is not a "freedom to..." but rather a proscription on universal infractions against freedom of speech (e.g. "hate speech" laws). The delinquent's behaviour may be justly prohibited or punished on the basis of the right to life (since his act endangers the lives of others) and on the right to private property (since the owner is thereby free from restrictions on how he may govern the use of his own property - so long as his claim to property is valid [i.e. not fraudulent]).

Of all of these applicable aspects of the broader right to exercise authority over one's own life in a social context, the right of private property is typically disputed by the Left (whilst often insincerely or incompetently defended by the Right), and disputed by Marxists in particular. Typically, a distinction is drawn by such groups between personal property (e.g. clothing, food etc) and a property over the means of production with the former being excused but the latter disputed. However, this distinction is specious not only because it overlooks the fact that knowledge, skills, other personal qualities and objects of personal property may also serve as means of production (thus collapsing the distinction [6]), but also because, in either case, the right of private property may be justified on the following two claims.

The first of these claims is distinctly Lockean, in that private property is an extension of the premise of self-ownership to external objects via the application (Locke's word was "mix") of one's labour, either in fashioning the object, or in acquiring it through trade. On this claim, violations of private property are thus indirect violations of the self and ought therefore to be proscribed by political sanction.

The second of these claims is consequentialist, in that private property rights - clearly delineated private property rights - are necessary to allow the economic calculation necessary for the coordination of both consumption and production under the division of labour (i.e. the calculation in which any item over which one exercises property is considered not merely in terms of its' personal value, but in terms of its' possible exchange value - its' value to another person). This second claim applies equally to "personal" or consumption goods and to the means of production, or capital goods, and, in addition to the instrument of money or money substitutes, is necessary to the establishment of prices. Where the right of private property over capital goods is infracted, then there will be attendant price distortions in the capital markets, which may impede accurate economic calculation and lead to malinvestment and consequent unemployment and other social problems (7). Similarly, where there are infractions against the ethical source of private property - self-ownership (for example in State regulations over the contractual terms immigrants may be hired on) - then there will be similar price distortions in the labour market which may also lead to unemployment and various other social problems.

I end this brief essay on the summary note that I conceive of rights as "negative" in character rather than "positive", for reasons having to do with Isaiah Berlin's distinction between "negative" liberty and "positive" liberty. Negative liberty ("freedom from...") is easily defined with reference to the non-aggression principle and does not demand infractions against positive liberty ("freedom to..."). Positive liberty is defined in some sense as "opportunity", but this definition is vague and easily corruptible into a broader notion of power. Moreover, not only does positive liberty presuppose negative liberty (e.g. I cannot be "free to" drive to Kenting if the State has confiscated my motorcycle), but political demands centering on claims for positive liberty tend to undermine negative liberty (e.g. the clamour for increases in "public spending" by the State often means either more borrowing, inflation, or higher taxes - all of which transgress other people's negative liberty). Political demands for the State to advance the positive liberties of this or that group are therefore, if taken too far, self-defeating and unsustainable in a society predicated on market relations - which is the only kind of society which may realize the necessary conditions for human freedom.


Notes:

(1) As just one example, Article 12 contradicts Article 19. There are many more such problems but I could be here all day with that stupid document.

(2) Neither animals or plants can have rights because they exist in ecological relation to one another. It is nonsensical to speak of a mouse's "right" not to be eaten by a falcon for example. However, this is not to deny an ethical aspect to human treatment of animals, it simply means that this aspect cannot be conceived in terms of "rights" and corresponding obligations.

(3) Collectives cannot have "rights" on an individualist ontology. To speak of "rights" for ethnic minorities, for example, is inherently racist and patronizing since it overlooks these people's nature as individual human beings and identifies them according to surface characteristics or cultural membership. Aboriginal peoples would best be able to defend their traditional way of life by a determined insistence upon their right to private property. The use of the phrase "State's rights" in the U.S. is unfortunate, but refers not to the sense of "rights" discussed here, but to the political mechanism of nullification.

(4) That is not to say a broader individualist ethics, beyond just rights, can dispense with concepts such as charity; it cannot.

(5) Yet since there can be no rational argument for adopting Irrationalist premises (as distinct from a rationally instrumental irrationalism), Irrationalism is self-refuting.

(6) Contemporary Marxist critics may object that their dispute over the means of production is so circumscribed as to omit property whose private ownership does not threaten the rights of others (e.g via externalities). This objection may be conceded, but since a libertarian insistence upon a fuller instantiation of negative rights would significantly diminish this threat, the onus lies with the Marxists to demonstrate how the State, or some other arrangement, would reduce such threats without violating rights elsewhere.

(7) Such calculation errors can also occur as the result of the price-distorting effects of subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare often misconstrued by Marxists as the surreptitious purpose of private property (but which actually depend upon other infractions of private property, e.g. taxation) in which case, the true target of their objection is not the market, or the right of private property - but the State.

On Revolutions In The Middle East

Like just about everybody else I've been trying to keep an eye on events in Tunis, Cairo, Algiers and elsewhere over the past week or so, and to scurry back and read up on things I missed out - primarily via U.S. sources like the excellent Michael J Totten and the recent articles of Raymond Ibrahim and Victor Davis Hanson, but also at places like Slate (Fred Kaplan and Christopher Hitchens) and National Review (Charles Krauthammer), but also, more latterly, through the Egyptian blogger "Sandmonkey" (now that he has been released and reinstated on the web). This morning, on my way to the park, I bought a copy of the Taipei Times and read Harvard Professor Dani Rodrik's editorial piece from PS. I also bought a copy of Taiwan's "Apple Daily" this morning with its' front page story about the resignation of Mubarak featuring a map of Africa highlighting the location of both Egypt and of Cairo on the assumption, no doubt justified in many cases, of reader ignorance.

I write this post just to pull together a few semi-thoughts and observations...

First thing's first - congratulations to the Egyptian protestors, like Sandmonkey and his ilk, who not only stood firm in their demand that Mubarak resign immediately, but who, over the 18 days between beginning their protests on January 25th to Mubarak's resignation on February 12th, have withstood both open and disguised attacks from the police force, attacks from criminal thugs released from jail by the Mubarak government and other hired mobs from the ranks of the unemployed. I think it's fair to assume from this that someone in the military was thinking ahead, hence why such tactics were employed by the Mubarak government since they couldn't count on the military leadership to violently crush the protests. Yet the bravery, determination and solidarity of the protestors must not be obscured by that point - the removal of the Egyptian government could not have happened without them and precisely these qualities.

A second aspect of recent events in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt which is interesting is the apparent irrelevance of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, the Mubarak government was made to look foolish by its' early claim that these protests were instigated by foreigners rather than Egyptians themselves. The irrelevance of the U.S. government to the success of this revolution however is surely made salient by the fact that the Egyptian military were not willing to crush the protestors. Although political point scoring in the U.S. is irrelevant in this context, I think it's fair to say that the current administration's "policy" toward the Mubarak government after seeing it confronted by the protestors demonstrated a distinct lack of principled clarity.

What I think demands attention most however, is the causes of the Egyptian revolution, and of the wider unrest in Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and elsewhere. I channeled Hitchens' remarks in an earlier post to the effect that the proximate cause of the protests was the shaming of the Egyptian people by the Mubarak regime in not even bothering to hide the fact that they rigged the elections last year. In reading Dani Rodrik's piece in the TT this morning I was struck by this remark, which the TT editors chose as the subheading for the piece:

"Protesters in Tunis and Cairo were not demonstrating about lack of economic opportunity or poor social services, they were rallying against a political regime that they felt was insular, arbitrary and corrupt, and that did not allow them adequate voice."

What planet is this guy living on? Yes there may have been some recent short term aggregate improvements to the economy, but aggregate improvements mean nothing if you haven't got a job and can't find work; not only has inflation been running between an estimated 12% and 18% for the past year or so, but there is an extremely serious problem of youth unemployment in Egypt, to say nothing of the demographic, environmental and agricultural problems they have with everyone living so close to the Nile. And in Tunisia, not only did President Ben Ali himself personally announce that he would order a cut in prices for milk, bread and sugar to appease the widespread demands of people suffering economically, but a man named Mohamed Bouazizi actually went so far as to set himself on fire to protest the outrageous confiscation of his means of livelihood by some State apparatchik. For Rodrik to come out and say that the protests in Cairo and Tunis have nothing to do with the lack of economic opportunity is demonstrably false and something he should publicly retract.

As to where the Egyptian people go from here, I am in broad but qualified agreement with Michael J Totten's insistence that they need Liberalism (or what I would prefer to call depoliticization), not merely "free and fair elections" as the Left so stress in their more naive and accursed scribblings:

"Mature liberal democracies have checks and balances, the separation of powers, equal rights for minorities, restrictions on the power and reach of the victors, and guarantees that those who lose will not be persecuted."

I agree with the gist of what Totten says there, that, rather than the electoral mechanism so favoured by socialists for the engineering of their corrupted notions of positive liberty, it is actually the restriction of political power that is all important because of the protection this implies for negative liberty. Consequently, it would be a mistake for the new council being set up to focus primarily on elections and the establishment of political parties - it is far more important to focus on restricting political power by institutional design so that no single group gets to impose its will over all the others. And obviously it would be a terrible mistake to allow this "Muslim Brotherhood" group anywhere near political power since they would, among many other things, be tempted - and perhaps irresistibly so - to cancel any future elections.

In regard to the "Jasmine Revolution" in Tunisia and the similar protests in Algeria, Yemen and Jordan as well as the democratic movement in Iran which was violently put down last year - I hope for the best. I will have more to say on this general topic of Middle Eastern protests and revolutions at a later point, but in the meantime there are two decent posts up at Counting Cats, and here's my comment to Rodrik himself (taking its lead from that of another commenter who beat me to the punch):

"For you, a professional academic, to get such important and easily checked facts wrong Mr Rodrik, is a disgrace - and if you cannot be bothered to do such elementary fact checking, then you have no rightful business having your articles published in the world's press."

In my reading I've been stuck listening to another George Russell piece on youtube - it sounds very appropriate:

On Marxism Today

Norm Geras, self-described Marxist, in his essay "What Does It Mean To Be A Marxist?":

"At the risk of startling you, or some of you, but not just for that effect – rather in order to register my own conviction that here is a way of being a Marxist that no longer recommends itself – I am sorry to say that to be a member of the Marxist left today is to be part of something, a body of opinion, a political current, that is accursed."

What Geras is complaining about is the intellectual and moral depravity, so frequently characteristic of those on the Marxist Left. To wit:

"...this is a Marxist left that can make no further appeal to historical 'innocence'. It already knows the consequences of undemocratic organization, the absence of liberal safeguards, the elevation of the great leader; and of turning a blind eye to all this so as, supposedly, not to give comfort to enemies on the political right. It should know better, but it doesn't."

Moreover, Geras is keen to dispel the predictably lame objection that it is only a small section of the Left, and not at all increasingly mainstream:

"I anticipate, as one possible response to all this, that these ideas and activities may be features of a small fragment, the 'far left', but that it is too quickly generalizing on my part to treat them as any more widespread than that, or as typifying the Marxist left in general. I am familiar with this response and I don't accept it. To put it briefly and bluntly, I read. I read what goes on in the opinion pages of the national press, and so far from these tropes being confined to the far left, the SWP and its like, they extend even beyond what I have referred to as the more amorphous Marxist left, into broadly 'progressive' circles that would not willingly own to the name Marxist."

I say he is understating his case there for the benefit of polite company.

Whenever drawn on the topic of U.S. government policy vis-a-vis Taiwan, I unhesitatingly preface what I go on to say with the recognition that the current occupants of the White House are Marxists. This description is apparently to some, "inflammatory". Perhaps Geras himself would reject association with them. Yet, judging the current depraved condition of the Marxist Left, and judging the actions, inactions and associations of the current occupants of the White House (principally the President and the Secretary of State), I say that "Marxist" is a precise description (or perhaps "vulgar" Marxist).

And it isn't just me: here's the first of journalist and anthropologist Stanley Kurtz' five-part interview with Peter Robinson, in which Kurtz insists that his intention in researching the President's history was to downplay any associations with the "far left" and yet that was precisely what he found - in spades.

Geras' essay via Donald Sensing, via John Venlet.

And I got a laugh out of what Tam K had to say on Obama's phone chat with the Saudis:

"So Barry supposedly had a frosty phone call with King Abdullah over his unhandling of our unpolicy on the situation in Egypt. Dissed! Over the phone! All that bowing and scraping for nothing."

On Education

Martin McPhillips on public education:

"They run a place where kids can be left for eight hours (or more, with the ever-burgeoning “after school” activities). Everything else, meaning the instruction, is available elsewhere, especially via the internet. “What about ‘socialization’?” It’s not socialization, it’s institutionalization, and it is the platform for the development of immature peer group cultures that help the Bosom State extend a cultivated infantile adolescence into perfunctory adulthood."

That is one reason why I wrote the Ha Joon Chang responses, why I wrote something like twenty email replies on broadly the same subject to the student who sent me the Chang paper, why I have posted so many attempts to engage Ben Goren in debate recently and why I repeatedly argued against Turton last summer until he banned me. It's usually a thankless chore because it necessarily "gets people's backs up", but I will never have anyone forced to attend to what I write or to agree with me.

Email Out

What follows is another email reply out to that student at Tainan's Cheng Kung University who emailed me some responses to my Ha Joon Chang posts. His comments and questions appear in italics, mine in regular typeface.

"I find you focusing on the trees and not the forest."

That's 'cos the critters live in trees, not in forests.

"But, Chang seems to be trying to illustrate another example of the changing concept of "state intervention". He's not debating exactly how the slaves were freed, or why. He's trying to show his point on the changing (or dialectical, if you want) meaning of "state intervention".

Two points: first, his "changing concept" of state intervention is invalid - it would be both more honest and more accurate for him to claim changes in popular acceptance of state intervention; otherwise it's a bit like having a changing concept of armed robbery, changing according to whether the person being robbed is popular or unpopular at any given time. The concept itself does not change, simply because the object or context to which it is applied may change. Second point: to allow Chang to stipulate to a "changing concept" of state intervention cedes to him a rhetorical device for shutting down debate, i.e. certain state interventions are no longer interventions and to contest them as such is illegitimate. Look again at his words: he says that opposition to slavery can be done on grounds of economic efficiency. Why do you think he says that?

"...he's pointing out that over-time--through progress, certain "interventions" become ingrained conceptually, culturally, humanly, societally--and are no longer perceived by the population as interventions--like, child labor laws in Western Europe or the U.S.--they are self-evident truths, so to speak..."

I realize what he is arguing, and I am rejecting his anti-conceptual way of framing it as "state interventions" which are not "state interventions". An honest person would speak of changes in the popular acceptance of state interventions - draw your own conclusions about Chang's honesty, I have already drawn mine.

"...they are self-evident truths, so to speak..."

I understand, but that "self-evident" bit arises only because of the lack of rational criticism, which must not be shut down.

"You're playing the linguistical-category game and missing the big picture."

Excuse me, but I would hope on reflection, you'd admit that it is Chang playing linguistic games with his "state interventions" that are not "state interventions" nonsense - and not me. I am acutely aware of the big picture Chang is playing to and for you to accuse me otherwise and of playing linguistic games - in the full knowledge of what Chang said - is disgraceful.

"Child labor laws are no longer applicable--because we have progressed past needing child-labor, and we understand putting a child to work damages his education--and his future, not to mention society."

Look - when you say "putting a child to work damages his..." you are abstracting child labour from the context of any particular case, but it is precisely that context which can make all the difference. For instance, if a child is born into such wretched circumstances wherein he is faced by the choice of labour or starvation, then it is fucking outrageous for you to insist that such labour be outlawed in case it damages his education. Now that doesn't mean that nobody should do anything about such cases of child poverty - it just means that an offer of help through labour should not be taken away from that child just because you think it isn't good enough. And it is not linguistic gamesmanship to highlight your use of the verb "putting" there and note the implication of coercion. For in cases where children are being coerced into labour, then the problem is not the labour per se, but the act of coercion.

"Therefore, child-labor laws are not the same-type, or the same level of intervention as taxes, social programs, or even government controls. Over time, as a society becomes more advanced, child-labor laws are deemed "non-interventionist", because they are no longer needed--again, they become self-evident - a commonly held belief."

Child labour laws are most certainly of the same type as taxes and other government controls - they are infractions of negative liberty standing on the threat of force. They differ from social programs in that such are attempts to engineer positive liberty (opportunities) for some on the basis of prior infractions of other people's negative liberty: robbing from Peter to give to Paul. This notion of a "level" of intervention is, at best, misleading; what you seem to be referring to are levels of popular acceptability of a given intervention, so for instance everyone gets pissed about paying property taxes, but nobody complains that they can't hire 8 year olds to mop the floors. But this is a mere reiteration of the criticism I already made above.

"This assumption is called democracy..."

I know very well what it is - and can say so more precisely: the electoral mechanism. Just because people do vote themselves the stolen products of other people's labour and property, doesn't mean they ought to do that.

"I like his environmental example. I'm interested in your idea, here: "I believe that pollution, like other externality issues, would be best dealt with, not through government regulation, but primarily by strengthening the integrity of the overall legal architecture to the principles of individualist ethics, such as private property; in particular such a reform program would most certainly require repeal of a substantial number of laws, regulations and abolishing of regulatory agencies." Care to expand on specifics?"

Perhaps, but not until I am convinced you have at least understood the basics (as distinct from assent to) - otherwise I'd be wasting my time. And if that sounds patronizing, then just remember that you accused me (!) of playing linguistic games in the face of Chang's ridiculous and unnecessary Orwellianism.

"You seem to harp on the fact that Chang asserts that "intervention is not intervention if enough people agree". In fact, he does kind of say this--and I would agree with him, because a society should determine its own actions. Societies must be run democratically. The majority rules."

Instant dismissal: these are mere assertions of oughts, without a speck of argument. Don't you think I at least deserve a fucking argument before the bastard goons come along to cart off what little shit I have?

"I understand the meaning of terms create concepts, concepts that describe and/or determine reality, and they are very important."

No you don't understand - concepts cannot determine reality, they are mental integrations of aspects of reality. Reality can only be changed through your deliberate use of concepts to guide your actions. Ayn Rand's theory of concepts is her decisive contribution to philosophy, and is the single most important thing to understand about her philosophy - and you got it wrong.

"...your key refutation against his main assertion(s)?"

Read all three parts through slowly and attend with care to the meaning of every single word. I've done my bit: the rest is up to you.

The Subject In Two Aspects

"Stratusphunk", by the late George Russell:



And a charming little piece by The Delmonts (Chris Rea's band) in honour of Russell:

Against Ha Joon Chang - Part 3

Prefacing Remarks

This is the third in a brief series of blog posts in response to a paper I was sent by a student here in Tainan at Cheng Kung University (one of the "top" Universities in Taiwan). The paper was written by a Korean academic called Ha Joon Chang a decade ago for the UN's "Research Institute for Social Development". The paper is called "Breaking the Mould: An Institutionalist Political Economy Alternative to the Neoliberal Theory of the Market and the State". In the first and second of these blog posts I sketched out my disagreements with Chang's claims (presented in the third section of his paper) as to what he regards as weaknesses in a Liberal or "neoliberal" method of understanding political economy. In this post, I respond to Chang's methodological prescriptions for thinking about political economy, which he lays out in the fourth section of his paper.


Response To Chang's Prescriptions For Analysis Of Political Economy (Section 4.1)

In this first section of his prescriptions, Chang makes a list of both formal and informal, State and (nominally at least) non-State institutions variously involved with market exchanges and insists that any analysis of political economy must attend to them in addition to simple market exchanges themselves. For the sake of brevity however, I merely present Chang's own summary rather than the list itself. Yet first, I ask readers to reflect first on the question of what an analysis of political economy is for? Chang:

"In addition to property rights and the legal infrastructure that help their exercise and modification, which the neoliberals focus on, we also need to consider all the other formal and informal institutions that define who can hold what kinds of property and participate in what kinds of exchange, what the legitimate objects of exchange are, what the acceptable conducts in the exchange process are, on what terms different types of agent may participate in which markets, and so on. In other words, neoliberal markets are institutionally very under-specified, and we need a fuller institutional specification of markets if we are to understand them properly." (4.1p16)

Chang's use of the term "properly" there was no doubt intended to connote the virtue of accuracy, and I agree that these connexions between legal infrastructure and other informal institutions may be valid enough connexions to draw in composing empirical answers to particular questions of political economy, but Chang's apparent insistence on their necessity to any or all questions of political economy deserves stricture: this is nothing more than a presumption as to what questions may be asked, by whom and to what purposes. The point is germane since different people - with various ethics and motivations - may ask different questions of any such analysis and Chang's assertion that his institutional analysis is "proper" elides this crucial fact. Moreover, Chang's presumption that analysis of political economy must always be multi-institutional in respect of all questions serves also to dismiss from the naive reader's consideration the use of the a-priori, praxeological form of analysis which, in complement to empirical forms of analysis, may render a more powerful critique of political economy - but one sympathetic to a Liberal rather than a Statist point of view. The reader may recall that this a-priori, praxeological form of analysis was vulgarly misrepresented by Chang as an historical "primacy assumption" with his sardonic remark that "in the beginning there were markets" (I exposed this misrepresentation earlier in part two under my response to his section 3.3).

As to what Chang attempts to make of his insistence on the necessity of all these institutions for analysis:

"Emphasizing the institutional nature of the market in the way discussed above also requires that we bring politics explicitly into the analysis of the market (and not just into the analysis of the state) and stop pretending that markets need to be, and can be, de-politicized. Markets are in the end political constructs in the sense that they are defined by a range of formal and informal institutions that embody certain rights and obligations, whose legitimacy (and therefore whose contestability) is ultimately determined in the realm of politics. Consequently, IPE adopts a political economy approach not only in analysis of the state, but also in analysis of the market." (4.1p16)

Aside from his insistence on the necessity of these other institutions to analysis of market exchanges, with which I have already stated my qualified agreement above, there seem to be three distinct claims made in such proximity to one another as to be easily recalled from memory in conflated form by the naive or insufficiently critical reader. First, Chang's claim that Liberal critics merely pretend that markets need to be depoliticized just isn't true - but more than that, it presumes an insincerity on the part of its' proponents. In immediate addition to that claim, Chang asserts that Liberal critics also pretend that market exchanges can be depoliticized, i.e. he accuses them of arguing for the depoliticization of markets despite knowing, he says, that markets cannot be depoliticized (perhaps if Chang were to give up pretending to have read the Austrian-Liberal tradition he so criticizes, such gratuitous insults would not be so free-flowing from his pen in the future). The third claim infused across the latter half of that paragraph is that the "legitimacy" and "contestability", either of the range of institutions involved with market exchanges or the "rights" and "obligations" Chang says these institutions embody, is politically determined. Whatever the syntactic ambiguity to Chang's penultimate sentence there, I reject this claim on both counts.

With regard to institutions, although it may be true that their existence has been politically determined, their legitimacy turns entirely on whether they are supported by the sanction of consent from those over whose market exchanges they govern. This sanction may not be presumed. In respect of State institutions and of those "non-State" institutions whose essential functions and powers are subordinate to State oversight, this sanction of consent may very often be absent or even flatly denied. In the first place, express consent to the existence and constitutional form of any State from those born under the territorial jurisdiction it claims (such consent being commonly referred to as "the social contract") is merely presumed since those subject to it are typically never asked for their consent, except perhaps in the case of immigrants seeking citizenship. In addition, the assumption of express consent for those legislative measures passed by democratically elected governments hangs by the single, slender thread of "representation"; at the last Congressional elections in the United States (November 2010) for example, the unusually high voter turnout was estimated to be around 42% of registered voters, which represents approximately 90 million people - only about a third of the population, whilst the recent Tea Party demonstrations offer a striking example not merely of the absence of consent, but even the outright rejection of entire areas of legislation (e.g. the healthcare bill) as well as affiliated institutions and agencies to which the market is subject (e.g. the AMA). Since the legitimacy of the State, its' laws, and the institutions it supports turns upon consent and such consent may often be either weak, absent or expressly denied, the claim that legitimacy is politically determined is misleading. It would be more accurate to say that legitimacy is presumed by politicists on both the Left and the Right.

Whilst the claim for the political determination of institutional legitimacy is weak, the claim that "rights" and "obligations" are also politically "determined" hinges upon the sense in which this term "determined" is meant. Certainly, rights and obligations may be either recognized or repudiated and the political nature of this simple fact is obvious. In another sense, however, the claim is false. For prior to their political recognition or repudiation, any set of rights and obligations must be conceived and argued for - and this act of conception is subordinate to what ethical premises and principles are held - and to what degree they are understood. Thus, the assertion that rights and obligations are politically determined is undermined by the fact that it overlooks the critical prerequisite of their derivation from ethical premises.


Response To Chang's Prescriptions For Analysis Of Political Economy (Section 4.2)

In section 4.2, the second section of his prescriptive analysis, Chang proceeds to state that his "institutionalist" form of analysis differs from the Liberal form, not only in terms of the range and complexity of institutions it attempts to take into account, but also in terms of the range and complexity of human motivations it recognizes. This contrast Chang seeks to make between his "institutionalist" account of human motivation and the Liberal account turns on another misrepresentation of the Liberal point of view. Chang puts it thus:

"The neoliberal analysis of the state starts by questioning the public nature of the motivations of the agents that make up the state, such as politicians and state bureaucrats. The theory of human motivation and behaviour underlying this analysis, and for that matter neoliberalism as a whole, asserts that self-seeking is the only genuine human motivation, except perhaps vis-a- vis family members..." (4.2p16)

The problem with this description is that it seems to presuppose an extremely narrow concept of "self-seeking", one which I certainly would not use to account for all human motivations. Such a narrow concept of "self-seeking" or "selfishness" would indeed exclude "altruistic" behaviours, whereas a broader conception of selfishness would not. Again however, this is another misrepresentation by Chang, either because he has not taken the time to understand the Liberal position he criticizes, or because he merely projects his own narrow concept of self-seeking, or because he is deliberately seeking to undermine the Liberal position (or, of course, all three). A broader conception of "self-seeking", as applied either in a Liberal critique of the State or, in Austrian analysis of economic exchanges, resides in the fact that values are selected by individuals in choosing to act; since values are expressed in action (e.g. market choices), and since it is always individuals who act (even when part of a group), it is thus individuals who are the source of values. From this, all actions and their motivations can be categorized as "self-seeking". This broader conception of "self-seeking" is a-priori and cannot be refuted with empirical examples - its' necessity for thinking about political economy, and hence why it cannot be discarded is a point which I shall briefly return to. I insist however, that it not be conflated with an ethics of "self-seeking" as in the writings of Ayn Rand since this would involve the addition of a prescriptive standard (e.g."prospering") by which individuals may select from among values (1).

Having dismissed the concept of self-seeking by misrepresentation, Chang then relies on it in order to claim a reciprocal influence of institutions upon the individual:

"IPE does not see these motivations as given but as being fundamentally shaped by the institutions surrounding the individuals. This is because institutions embody certain values (worldviews, moral codes, social norms, or whatever one may choose to call them), and, by operating under these institutions, individuals inevitably internalize some of these values and thereby have their selves changed." (4.2p17)

"...and thereby have their selves changed." Except in those cases when they do not; for instance, in view of his several misrepresentations of the Liberal position, I am tempted to assert that Chang himself is an incarnate refutation of his own assertion here, given that he has always been employed at Universities publicly committed to the academic virtues. Nevertheless his point may of course be admitted: that people's motivations for acting may be influenced by the institutions they work within. Yet this seemingly trivial admission must not be allowed to obscure the fulcrum of individual human agency on which membership of institutions initially depends and through which all motivational influences flow - even "altruistic" or "public-spirited" motivations pertain, quite simply, to values selected by individuals.

The practical upshot to Chang of institutional influences upon human motivation is the recognition that social engineering tactics need not be limited to mere behavioural incentives based on a narrow concept of self-interest:

"Indeed, I would go a step further and argue that some of the neoliberal recommendations that are intended to improve the behavioural standards of public personages may be downright counter-productive, if they undermine the non-selfish motivations that had previously motivated the public personages in question that is, if they cause what Ellerman (1999) calls the atrophy of intrinsic motivation. Therefore, increased monitoring of public figures may make them behave in a more moral way in areas where monitoring is easier (e.g., diligently documenting their expenses for business trips). However, it may make them less motivated to behave in a moral way and take initiatives in areas where monitoring is difficult (e.g., taking intellectual initiatives without material compensation). This is because it will make them feel that they are not trusted as moral agents, and therefore that they are under no obligation to behave morally unless they are forced to do so." (4.2p17-18)

I quite agree with Chang that the use of narrowly conceived self-interest based incentives in State or State-supported institutions may in certain cases be counterproductive. At root, however, Chang overlooks a more basic problem behind this which is that the consequences for "public servants" (and similarly for State supported "capitalists") of inflicting bad service upon the choiceless consumers are not immediate (e.g. loss of revenue and respect), but rather, are perfidiously mediated by the State; "public servants" and State supported "capitalists" are often some of the most powerful rent-seeking groups from which, via promises of favourable treatment, a democratic government may draw its political support. Thus the difficulty of improving bad behaviour or poor service on the part of such people turns on the extent to which the interests of the State or of the governing party (or of individuals therein) coincide with the interests of consumers in improving such bad behaviour. I would submit that the simple and honest answer to this problem is to remove the mediation of the State via privatization of "public services", legislative repeal and other measures of rational deconstruction.


Response To Chang's Prescriptions For Analysis Of Political Economy (Section 4.3)

In this third section of his prescriptive claims for analysis of political economy, Chang prescribes an apparently non-committal view of politics:

"...IPE argues that we need to see politics as a process through which people with different, and equally legitimate, views on the contestability of the existing rights-obligations structure vie with each other, rather than as a process in which interest groups try to change the natural order of free markets according to their own sectional interests." (4.3p19)

Yet perhaps the reader may recall my earlier invitation to consider the question: what is an analysis of political economy for? The understanding sought by any such analysis is sought in order to be used as a basis for action to achieve some aim; analysis of political economy itself takes place within a political context. For Chang therefore to posit that different and, especially, conflicting political aims are "equally legitimate" is either naive, or in my view far more probably, a deliberate elision of his own motives as a Marxist in prescribing particular premises for analysis of political economy whilst proscribing others he terms "neoliberal". In summarizing, Chang proceeds to make additional claims:

"...the neoliberal claim that politics inevitably corrupts the market is problematic... because the neoliberal notion of the uncorrupted market is based on a particular set of political beliefs that cannot claim superiority over other sets of political beliefs. Moreover, the neoliberals fail to see politics as an institutionally structured process in the deepest sense. They see institutions as constraining political actions but fail to see that institutions also affect people's motivations and perceptions." (4.3p20)

The first of these claims, the imperative relativism of political beliefs, is self-refuting and is surely nothing more than a fast ploy by Chang to gain credit from his readers at almost no intellectual cost. The second claim, that liberals see politically supported institutions as constraints and not as constitutive of markets, is a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the Liberal point of view - it is not that the constitutive aspect of political institutions is ignored, but rather that this aspect is objected to on political grounds (see my response to Chang's section 4.1 above).


Summary Of Responses

In my first blog post in response to Chang's paper I made three distinct arguments: first, that his attempt to blur the definitions of free market and state intervention are consequent to an unexamined dependence on the "positive" concept of liberty; second, that his further denial that some state interventions are in fact, state interventions is consequent to collectivist premises from which no conceptually coherent concept of justice can be derived and from which basic categories such as coercion are absent; third, that his disguised presumption of the inherently predatory nature of market relationships is conceptually incoherent and that the efficacy of legislative redress is, in the particular case of slavery, segregation and racism in the U.S., empirically false. That first blog post came to a close with reiterations of the first and second arguments as against other examples of Chang's.

In my second blog post I made several arguments: first, I reiterated the first two arguments from the preceeding blog post in rejection of Chang's analysis of "market failure"; second, I exposed Chang's misrepresentation of what he terms the market "primacy assumption" in Liberal analyses of political economy - Chang presented this as a set of historical claims rather than an argument for the use of a-priori concepts and categories in analysis; third, I argued against the extremely narrow concept of "self-seeking" or "selfishness" which Chang attributes to the Liberal position. That second blog post concluded with some reiterations of the earlier arguments from the first blog post together with the harshly worded observation that several instances of Chang's arguments are polemical (and poorly so) rather than academic.

In this, my third post, I first drew attention to the way in which Chang attempts to draw his reader's attention away from the political context of his own prescriptions and proscriptions for analysis; I then noted his direct accusations of insincerity, which, are both false and clumsy attempts at reader manipulation; third, I argued strongly against his double claim that the legitimacy of both institutions and rights and obligations is politically determined; fourth, I reiterated and perhaps clarified somewhat my own insistence upon a broader conception of "self-seeking" with some critical remarks as to its' significance both for analysis and critique of political economy.


(1) On the derivation of just such a prescriptive standard from facts of human nature, I consider it good to be first mindful of the outrageous nature of the question. There are answers to it, and one in particular I favour myself, but, to my taste, the question is best not approached without the appropriate sense of height and distance - which is not easy to put into writing.

Little Frustrations

In general, I don't like Chinese New Year. There are several reasons for this: there's no work to do (I like and need my work), there is far too much traffic on the roads, there are far too many strangers around who freak my dog out (people who live and work in Taipei who come back to see their families here in the South - it might be just me, but some of these people seem to become more Chinese the longer they spend up north), most of the pubs are closed most of the time, and there are too many infantiles shooting off fireworks in broad daylight. On a day with the most beautiful sunshine we've had all winter. At the beach. After it took me 20 mins longer to get there because of the insane traffic. And I had thought to go running and swimming with my dog.

Goddamn it.

Comment To Ben Goren

What follows is my latest, as yet unpublished, two-part comment to Ben Goren on his anti-Top Gear post. I assume he's been busy and that it will be published later, but I think it stands up reasonably well as a response on an entry-level political debate - reasonably well enough to be reproduced here. Ben's remarks appear in italics, mine in regular typeface...

* * *

"...since the Football club had helpfully put in both the rule [on ejecting fans from their stadium for shouting racist abuse - ed] and means to enforce it they have in practice accorded me the right to not have to hear..."

Not so; you conflate 'expectation' with 'right' because, I surmise, you don't have a clear understanding of what 'rights' are: the basic necessities of a free and decent society, not subordinate rules like this. The only right in play here is the right to private property pertaining to the football club; since the stadium is their property, they may rightly establish whatever rules they like - yes including any insane ones you might imagine (for which their supporters and other people would punish them by refusing to attend or by ostracism or other civil measures).

"...the right to not be offended which in practice is likely to put untenable pressures on a society through the suspicion and fear it could generate."

Yes - correct, but not the primary reason why such a right would be invalid.

".. anything involving morality is difficult.."

Some things may be difficult, but to say 'anything' is false - or it is only true for instinctively evil people, the easily confused and those without a firm conceptual grasp of the relevant principles, their derivation from which premises, and the situations to which they do and do not apply.

"Keeo [sic] the license fee. Make the BBC reach a higher standard. Don't have to go all Orwelian but cracking down on racist stereotyping and sexism is a good first step."

How about this? "Keep thieves on the street. Make them reach a higher standard in how they spend their stolen goods. Don't have to go all Orwellian but cracking down on say cheap booze and drugs would be a good first step." Where's the difference in principle Ben? The BBC's license fee is a transparent instance of coercion, and ought never to have been instituted in the first place. The best way to raise standards at the BBC is to abolish the license fee and expose the BBC to the mechanisms of market competition.

"A friend today told me he didn't believe in free speech because he didn't believe people should be free to stand in a crowded theater and shout 'fire!'."

Then I'm sorry Ben, but your friend is a moral and intellectual teletubby, for he/she clearly thinks 'rights' are akin to political bon bons dished out by the State-God. They are not. Here: 'rights' are the moral sanctions for you to exercise full authority over your own life in a social context that includes other people - which necessarily entails commensurate responsibilities to the rights of other people. In the case of the theatre, the act of shouting out "fire" (assuming there isn't actually a fire) is not granted by the right to free speech, since shouting out "fire" is likely to cause other people to be killed or injured in a stampede - which contradicts the right to life. This is merely an example of the principle that authority over your own life entails responsibility to others.

"...so we have laws that establish rights in the person that clearly delineate what actions contravene those rights."

Will you stop doing that? Rewriting what I said to include concepts I did not mention - in this case "laws". "Rights" are distinct from laws - in the same way that 'justice' is distinct from law, since there may be both just and unjust laws.

"So, since the law has gradually evolved according to social mores, norms and values such as 'free', 'just' and 'decent' they are themselves the outcome of a general discussion about what is commonly held to be offensive: abuse of the person."

Yes in a narrow sense but no in the broader and more important sense. Yes: certainly laws have changed over time - to call this an "evolution" may be more accurate in respect of the old British common law tradition, but the recent growth of statutory laws did not 'evolve', for many such laws were derived from political fiat (in an arrogant, paternalistic and misguided attempt to "improve" the morals of the population), not common cultural acceptance. No: as I have just indicated above, my point about why child abuse is wrong pertains to the nature of justice, not the nature of laws; child abuse is not illegal in Afghanistan for instance, but does that make child abuse 'just' so long as it occurs in Afghanistan? Of course not - it just means the people in Afghanistan are savages.

Laws may be just or unjust - and their 'justice' is not to be measured in the degree to which they reflect prevailing social mores, since the fact that these things change (and often through political and religious manipulation) would render the concept of justice itself arbitrary and meaningless [actually, no - the correct term there would not be "meaningless" but redundant since "justice" would be no more than the application of social mores - ed]. No - the justice of laws is to be ascertained in comparison to how they reflect a Universalist ethics which must be derived, if not from objective facts, then from basic prescriptive premises that can be applied universally. See my post on Martin Luther King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" for related remarks on this point.

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On Egypt

"One of Francis Fukuyama's better observations, drawing on his study of Hegel and Nietzsche, was that history shows people just as prepared to fight for honor and recognition as they are for less abstract concepts like food or territory... It's possible that people will overlook outright brutality sooner than they will forgive undisguised contempt."

The fact that I am quite ignorant of modern Egyptian history (though not completely ignorant) combined with the fact that I haven't been paying sufficient attention to recent events in Egypt to truthfully answer Lenin's infamous "Who, Whom?" question, means that I haven't got anything interesting to say about what is happening right now.

Christopher Hitchens, however, does have things to say:

"The best of the Egyptian "civil society" dissidents, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, produced the extraordinary effect that he did by... claim[ing] the right to conduct independent surveys of the voters and to publish the results. One can hardly imagine a milder form of resistance, yet, because of the overweening stupidity and crudity of the authorities, it had consequences of an almost seismic kind. Show trials of mild-mannered opinion pollsters and think-tank scholars; dark accusations of secret foreign funding for the practice of political sociology: The whole lumbering apparatus of the Egyptian state conspired to make itself appear humorless and thuggish and to convince its people that they were being held as serfs by fools. Again, the sense of insult ran very deep, and Mubarak's bullies were too dense to understand their own mistake."

And against the likes of this slimy bastard, the immediate implications of Hitchens' closing point ought to be pressed:

"...the supposed attractions of authoritarian "stability" are in fact illusory, since nothing is more volatile and unsafe than dictatorship, which lacks any self-critical method for learning from its mistakes."

Federal Court: Obama Healthcare Bill Unconstitutional

"...an American Federal court found Obamacare... unconsititutional and, therefore, void. Not just part of the Act - but as the Obama Administration had repeatedly, and quite correctly, declared that the Act was “unseverable” (i.e. interdependent - not made up of stand alone provisions), the whole Act. No doubt the government will appeal to the Supreme Court - but it is a major story. And yet the British media are basically ignoring it... a defeat for Comade Barack will only be reported if it is unavoidable (like the election defeats in November last year), not if it can be ignored and the constant diet of “there is no God and His name is Obama” can continue."

That was Paul Marks on Tuesday, over at Counting Cats, drawing attention to the likely deliberate inattentiveness to this major story of those British media lickspittles to the current U.S. President. I note here that the Taipei Times at least had the decency to carry that Bloomberg piece yesterday, from which, this is my choice quote:

"The White House called Vinson’s ruling “a plain case of judicial overreaching.” That echoed language the judge had used to describe the law as an example of Congress overstepping its authority."

Yes: clash of basic principles - those of individualism, to which Hamilton and the Federalists had to appeal in their struggle to get the Constitution ratified, and those of collectivism, for the pursuance of which that Constitution has been misused in bad faith from the very beginning.

Email Out

Further responses to the student at Cheng Kung University at whose instigation I have already written two pieces on the economist Ha Joon Chang with a third in the works (though I'm starting to drag my feet on it a bit). What follows is me in regular type, him in italics:

"The state is not trying to control individual actions."

Yes it is - to state otherwise is exactly... false. Is not the act of taxation itself a prime example of the State "controlling individual action"? What of prohibitions? Are they not instances of the State "controlling" my individual action by removing certain market choices from my grasp? What of immigration regulations? Are they not instances of the State forcing me and my employer to comply with their demands?

"Taxes are used to create a better society..."

Says who? "Better" according to whose standards? On whose authority?

(Be careful: that's the collectivist premise animating you there, which does not sit well with your earlier response to me that it is not ethically acceptable for the State to rob from some to give to others - but which is the very thing required for creating this "better society")

"The main problem with free-market theory is this--those who adhere to this philosophy envision some kind of clean slate, as if some type of society can be formed from nothing..."

Not at all - that's simply how you struggle to envision how a free-market supporter must think, which just goes to show that you haven't been paying sufficient attention to the ideas and arguments of free-market people. Now you have paid some attention to me - yet when and where have I ever envisioned to you "some kind of clean slate"? If you read my blog, in fact, you'll find quite the opposite; I am quite insistent upon starting from where we are right now.

"Human societies are one of the most complex things on earth."

Which is why Thomas Sowell is right to stress the importance of the distribution of consequential knowledge as against the possibility of effective State planning (whether big or small).

"In a mixed economy, more people are able to get educated, more people have access to health care, and people (capitalist types) can still create and earn."

What - than in a true free market economy? Those are mere assertions, not arguments, and unless you can argue for them - give reasons and evidence as to why they must be true - then they can be instantly dismissed. You'll notice that I give arguments, or at least, reasons to support my assertions.

To help you out there - just one of the problems with that set of assertions you give there is the underlying conflation of inequality of income distribution with poverty; with the former usually thought to be the cause of the latter, yet the two are not the same. This conflation of the two occurs as an instance of the pernicious "fixed sum of wealth fallacy", which you could educate yourself about if you chose to.