Economic x Social

[iustitia]

This topic is actually a fragment of a thought I had upon reading a comment from @Chris (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=128) debating @Alyosha (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=863). To paraphrase Chris, morality is not individual but social, that personal morality doesn't exist because morality spans society.

Leading off that, I've seen Chris defend the Nolan Chart over the usual left-right spectrum. This chart is two-dimensional, with an axis for economic issues and another for social issues. I know libertarians tend to be socially liberal and economically conservative though that's an oversimplification of libertarianism.

Regardless, I noticed that the origin of Chris and Alyosha's debate was over economics or property rights and taxes. I've always maintained that economic and social issues are distinctions without a difference. When you have high unemployment, crime and homelessness that's a social and an economic issue. When we talk about funding Planned Parenthood, that's social and economic. Even the leftist mantra of social justice invokes the notion that it's a moral or social responsibility to affect those economically troubled.

If a discussion about the environment is also a discussion of natural resources, which is also a discussion of property, which is also a discussion of ownership, which is also a discussion of taxes, which is also a discussion of morality, then how can we honestly segregate society and economy?

Isn't taxing a man to death immoral? Don't drug bans finance black markets? Basically, are not society and the economy inseparable?

[donttread]

I think there is macro-morality , the kind of stuff that allows a society to be OK with owning people and micro-morality which allows individuals to see the immorality in their societies ways and begin the process of change

[donttread]

I think there is macro-morality , the kind of stuff that allows a society to be OK with owning people and micro-morality which allows individuals to see the immorality in their societies ways and begin the process of change

Otherwise how would societal morality ever change?

[Green Arrow]

The economy affects society. But the context of "social" in this case refers to a specific area of policy that may involve the economy (because let's be honest, everything does), but isn't an "economic policy."

[Chris]

iustitia "economic and social issues are distinctions without a difference"

Exactly. The economy is a natural social institution that arises out of our interactions. It begins with division of labor, specialization and trade. Hey, you tend the garden while I go out and hunt, you're good at making spears, stay back and make them, we'll use them. It's really the beginning of society, the need to cooperate. That and family, because long pregnancy and caring for kids was important. And morality in how we act towards and interact with each other.


Also, the notion of individuals, as I'm coming to appreciate, while it had a long incubation, is really as modern as liberalism itself, a reaction against the slightly older notion of the state.

[Chris]

I think there is macro-morality , the kind of stuff that allows a society to be OK with owning people and micro-morality which allows individuals to see the immorality in their societies ways and begin the process of change

Sort of like macro- and micro-economics. Hmmm, never though of that.

The individual acts. That's micro. Society gives the action meaning. Society may even make most of what we perceive as our own choices in action. Take something simple, cutting in line, without really thinking and choosing most of us don't do that, and if we see someone cutting we react by condemning it. However we justify letting an elderly or handicapped person in line in front of us, again hardly thinking. That's social norms guiding us, what we learned probably unconsciously growing up.

[Chris]

I think there is macro-morality , the kind of stuff that allows a society to be OK with owning people and micro-morality which allows individuals to see the immorality in their societies ways and begin the process of change


Otherwise how would societal morality ever change?


Just read this and remembered your comments: How the Left Wages War on the Family (http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/26/how-the-left-wages-war-on-the-family)


...First came President Obama’s State of the Union address. Four times, at the start of the speech and at its conclusion, Obama repeated the phrase, “We are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times.” He said, “My fellow Americans, we, too, are a strong, tight-knit family. We, too, have made it through some hard times.”

Second came Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State address....

...So the president is trying to tell us that all America is not just an extended metaphorical family, but “a strong, tight-knit one.” And the governor of the Empire State is claiming that New York, too, is a family—not even one full of nasty divorces or bitter sibling rivalries, but one characterized by sharing “fairly for the good of all.”

The problem with both these claims is that, not to put too fine a point on it, they are total nonsense....

...But Americans aren’t family, and New Yorkers are not family, either, and anyone who claims they are is trying to confuse you. That confusion makes it easier for the politicians to take away the money that you’d actually prefer to keep and spend on your own family. The politicians tell you that the money is going to help out your “family” members. But what the politicians are actually doing is taking the money away from you and your real family and giving it away to other people who aren’t your family at all.

...The economist Friedrich Hayek saw this coming, as he did so much else. In his book The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, he warned, “If we were to apply the unmodified, uncurbed rules of the micro-cosmos (i.e., of the small band or troop, or of, say, our families) to the macro-cosmos (our wider civilisation), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often make us wish to do, we would destroy it.”

...

[Mister D]

@iustitia (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=926) "economic and social issues are distinctions without a difference"

Exactly. The economy is a natural social institution that arises out of our interactions. It begins with division of labor, specialization and trade. Hey, you tend the garden while I go out and hunt, you're good at making spears, stay back and make them, we'll use them. It's really the beginning of society, the need to cooperate. That and family, because long pregnancy and caring for kids was important. And morality in how we act towards and interact with each other.


Also, the notion of individuals, as I'm coming to appreciate, while it had a long incubation, is really as modern as liberalism itself, a reaction against the slightly older notion of the state.

Agreed. I'll add that collectivism was a reaction to liberal individualism.

[Chris]

OK, let's really shake things up. Just finished reading this, looks like an actual course, or seminar: Invitation to a Seminar—Liberalism and Conservatism (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/invitation-to-a-seminar-liberalism-and-conservatism/)


Over the course of the semester, we will be reading about and discussing six varieties of political belief: three liberal, and three conservative. They are:



LIBERAL
CONSERVATIVE


1. Classical Liberalism
4. Natural Rights Conservatism


2. Progressive Liberalism
5. Traditional Conservatism


3. Libertarianism
6. Radical Catholicism


...As a teaser, let me point out some of the more interesting relationships not only between liberals and conservatives, but internal to each tradition as well. Classical liberalism—with sources especially in the thought of John Locke—provoked a strong initial reaction not from “conservatives” necessarily, but instead generated a reaction by figures that gave inspiration to “progressive liberalism.” Thus, among Locke’s most vocal critics were “historicist” progressive thinkers like Rousseau and Marx. Similarly, in the United States, among the most vociferous critics of Lockean philosophy of the Founders were the American progressives, John Dewey and Herbert Croly. Thus, in modern times, one of the most visceral debates has been contestation within the tradition of liberalism itself. In a development rich with irony, the rise of progressive liberalism led to a reaction by a distinctively liberal form of conservatism: “Natural Rights Conservatism.” With the ascent of progressive liberalism in the mid- and latter-part of the 20th-century, the defense of the “classical liberal” tradition came be articulated most robustly by “natural rights conservatives” (influenced by the German emigre, Leo Strauss). Thus, what was originally “liberal” became “conservative.”

Looking at each row of my “schematic,” we can see interesting dynamics between the liberal and conservative positions. If the “classical liberal” (#1) and “natural rights conservatives” (#4) are deeply similar and substantially sympathetic to one another, we see a more complicated dynamic between “progressive liberals” (#2) and “traditional conservatives” (#5) They are, on the one hand, deep and eternal antagonists, with the progressives rejecting out of hand the claims of “custom” and “tradition,” while the traditionalists harbor deep suspicion toward a progressive belief in a future that is always better and brighter. Yet, they are at the same time deeply similar in their “historicism”: both hold the basic belief that humans are historically constituted creatures whose ontological horizons are shaped by the passage of time. Of course, progressives believe that the key to human happiness lies in the future, while traditionalists point to the wisdom imparted from the past. But their basic “historicism” proves to be deeply objectionable to the a-historicist principled liberalism of both the classical liberals and the natural rights conservatives. Thus (for example), not only do Natural Rights Conservatives disagree with Progressive Liberals (a la Glenn Beck, or his academic sources, Straussian critics of progressivism such as the recently-departed Harry Jaffa and his cadre of students associated with the Claremont school, such as Charles Kesler), but they harbor deep suspicions toward Traditional Conservatives. This helps to make sense of why Leo Strauss devoted a chapter on the “Crisis of Modern Natural Rights” of his landmark book Natural Right and History criticizing not only Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but Edmund Burke as well. This also helps to explain why the Straussians and Kirkeans don’t get along all too well, even while they both strenuously believe that Progressive Liberalism is a mutual nemesis.

Or, consider the relationship between Libertarianism (#3) and “Radical Catholicism” (#6) as I have dubbed it. They are profound, deep, and eternal antagonists. However, interestingly, they straddle both liberalism and conservatism (albeit in opposite ways). Libertarianism has affinities with “Natural Rights Conservatism” (itself as a species of liberalism), while Radical Catholicism shares some overlapping consensus with concerns of Progressivism (thus, Alasdair MacIntyre’s continued interest in Marxism, particularly the Marxist critique of liberalism). Both tend to be deeply discontent with the current configuration of contemporary political parties, and would prefer a re-alignment that would either draw together or expel libertarian elements of the respective Parties. Because they have been distinct minorities in American politics, however, they have had to be content with alliances with various other positions—holding their noses the entire time. That could be changing, however, as libertarians seem to be waxing in appeal while “Radical Catholics” contemplate a “Benedict Option.”

...


A lot to absorb.