Rehabilitating Herbert Spencer?

This is a curious but interesting sequence -- starting, approximately, with this post by Brian Tamanaha, "Racist Progressives, Meet Hard-Hearted Libertarians", which references, going back a further step, a couple of posts by libertarians asserting that the forebears of contemporary left-liberals or "progressives" were often bigoted and racist. Okay, says Tamanaha, but your forebears were often cold-hearted social Darwinists willing to let the poor starve in the streets, and he uses Herbert Spencer, apparently the originator of the phrase "survival of the fittest", as exhibit one -- e.g., taken from Spencer's Social Statics:

It seems hard that a labourer incapacitated by sickness from competing with his stronger fellows, should have to bear the resulting privations. It seems hard that widows and orphans should be left to struggle for life or death. Nevertheless, when regarded not separately, but in connection with the interests of universal humanity, these harsh fatalities are seen to be full of the highest beneficence—the same beneficence which brings to early graves the children of diseased parents, and singles out the low-spirited, the intemperate, and the debilitated as the victims of an epidemic.

As Tamanaha says, "That's cold".

Now, as a tu quoque argument this is maybe a bit silly, but it does go to the way in which older and uglier predecessors continue to affect or influence contemporary inheritors. Ilya Somin, in a response post on Volokh, "Of 'Racist Progressives' And 'Hard-Hearted Libertarians'" largely agrees with Tamanaha about Spencer's social Darwinism, but argues that

Few modern libertarians even cite Spencer or other social Darwinists at all. By contrast, modern liberals do often cite early 20th century progressives as inspirations for their ideology. And until recently, few of them paid much attention to the more unsavory aspects of early 20th century Progressivism (though I should add that some far left radical scholars, such as Gabriel Kolko, were much more critical).

The other noteworthy point that Somin makes is that bigotry against whatever minority group is out of favor at the moment becomes much more dangerous when backed by an interventionist state, and along these lines he quotes his colleague David Bernstein:

“[a]s a matter of American history, activist government was often used to oppress minority groups. As a matter of world history, the record of “activist government” with regard to minorities is even worse. And as a matter of political theory, it’s not at all clear why one would expect public policy in a democracy to necessarily be helpful to minority groups.”

And then Damon Root steps in with a defence of Spencer himself, in a post on Reason's blog, "Battle of the 'Embarrassing Grandparents': Racist Progressives vs. Herbert Spencer" (that Somin referenced in an update):

As for the much-abused phrase “survival of the fittest,” Tamanaha seems ignorant of what Spencer actually wrote. By fit, Spencer most certainly did not mean brute force. In Spencer’s view, human society had evolved from a "militant" state, which was characterized by violence and force, to an "industrial" one, characterized by trade and voluntary cooperation. Thus any increase in private charity and “the spontaneous sympathy of men for each other” count as prime examples of the “survival of the fittest” as articulated by Spencer.

 So, I have a couple of responses myself to this little teacup tempest. First, I'll admit I've never read Spencer and never thought to do so, but I think Root makes an interesting case for him -- enough that I'm inclined now to look him up. But I also think that the extended passage Tamanaha quoted is indeed "cold", as he says, and what's worse, wrong. It's wrong in the same way that the cruder versions of contemporary evolutionary psychology are wrong, in overlooking or dismissing culture as the primary system for environmental adaptation, as opposed to the biological organism -- and cultural adaptations that build upon  compassion or a desire to help the weak may well make for a stronger or "fitter" social structure within which we all can thrive. What Root says about Spencer above mitigates this criticism, but doesn't eliminate it.

The second point, though, is just to point out that the state is by no means the only way we have of acting together, being social, exercising compassion, or helping the weak. Indeed, the state, because of its inescapable connection with force, will always have a tendency to devolve into either tyrannies large or small, or wasteful, dehumanizing, dependency-inducing bureaucracies, or both. This too Spencer apparently saw, and partially integrated into his case. And here is where we can really use some of that willingness to think outside of accustomed limits that we saw in the parable of the traffic lights, to find more creative and human approaches to providing for human needs than the state.

Well, what about traffic lights?!

Any time you try to talk about reducing the intrusive role of the state in human affairs, that's the question that almost always comes up at some point, right? We need state regulation of behavior, as symbolized by traffic lights, or there'd be, you know, chaos! Anarchy! The end of civilization as we know it!

So take just five minutes and have a look at the video below (thanks to David Zetland, at Aquanomics):



Surprising, no?

Now, of course, not that much hinges on traffic lights per se one way or another -- but, as in the question in the post's title, they're a symbol, and so the video above operates as a kind of parable, with a meaning beyond its face value. I don't want to make too much of it, but I think there really is a sense that, as we've become accustomed to, and dependent upon, an increasingly dense mesh of rules and regulations, requirements and proscriptions, our sense of what's possible becomes shrunken, our imaginations stunted. As a parable, this just asks that we question those acquired reflexes again, allow for the possiblity of regained, or even new kinds of freedom. Which might  just make us not only more free, but also richer, and even safer. It's a thought.

Oh, and if you're interested in a little more context, here's Part 1: "Roads unfit for people".

Versions of the state

Brad DeLong has a "reaction essay" entitled ""Perhaps. And Sometimes.", to Scott's Seeing Like a State recap discussed in the previous post. What he's reacting to is Scott's contention that the state's interest in so-called "legibility" as a means of ensuring state control comes at a cost to local or vernacular knowledge, systems, and practices, and is therefore often oppressive. Using a classical example, DeLong makes a good point that the control such legibility enables may well be preferable to an alternative in which local lords and warlords become much more oppressive than the central government. But, just as Scott tried to overextend his argument re: standardization, so DeLong overextends his good point -- as he puts it in the terms Scott uses:

A state that makes civil society legible to itself cannot protect us from its own fits of ideological terror, or even clumsy thumb-fingeredness. A state to which civil society is illegible cannot help curb roving bandits or local notables. And neither type of state has proved terribly effective at constraining its own functionaries.

In some ways, the “night watchman” state — the state that enables civil society to develop and function without distortions imposed by roving bandits, local notables, and its own functionaries, but that also is content to simply sit back and watch civil society — is the most powerful and unlikely state of all.

Translating that into more common terminology, he's saying that there are only two likely versions of the state available to us -- either a non-intrusive but weak version (i.e., what's usually called a "failed" state today) or a strong but intrusive, and frequently oppressive, version. But this rather bleak set of binary alternatives is really just an illusion resulting from flattening all versions of the state into a 1-dimensional spectrum, from weak to strong. In reality there are many other dimensions -- states can range along an autocratic to democratic spectrum, for example, and there can be weak or strong versions at either end. They can also vary along a  constitutional to tyrannical dimension, and again display weak or strong, autocratic or democratic versions at either extreme. And once we see that there are more than two possible versions of the state, we can see our way out of the trade-off between freedom and safety that DeLong presents. We can see, for example, that a limited state is not the same as a weak state -- i.e., that there's no inherent reason a state needs to be oppressive itself in order to control and suppress local oppressors.

What DeLong seems really to be talking about is just the perennial tendency toward oppression by rulers everywhere, whatever the scope of their rule -- which is certainly both an old problem and a current one. But that's only to say that the work to achieve, defend, and extend human freedom is as perennial as the efforts to oppress it. In our day, that work takes the form of upholding a version of the state that does indeed, as DeLong indicates, enable civil society without at the same time disabling it through bureaucratic intrusions. It's called making progress.

Standardization: state vs. capitalist

James C. Scott, author of the well-received Seeing Like a State, has an interesting lead essay on Cato Unbound a while back, entitled "The Trouble with the View from Above", which largely recaps the argument of his book. Briefly, that argument is that states, in their efforts to improve what he calls "legibility", tend to introduce and enforce various forms of "standardization" to societies -- in names, measures, practices, and so on -- which, in ignoring or overriding local or "vernacular" knowledge and practices, can and often does result in considerable social damage. Legibility -- meaning being able to see what people are actually doing -- is important to states (or, more concretely, to state rulers) because without it they lack the means to control the society effectively -- especially, of course, to tax, but also to regulate, commandeer, and administer. So this is what he means by "seeing like a state".

Now, this argument in itself is an excellent one, and he develops it with an impressive and fascinating attention to detail and concrete example. The problem is that he tries to carry it too far -- into an argument dealing not just with state-enforced standardization but with standardization as such, and particularly with what he calls "large-scale capitalist" standardization. As he says at the end:

... large-scale capitalism is just as much an agency of homogenization, uniformity, grids, and heroic simplification as the state, with the difference that, for capitalists, simplification must pay. The profit motive compels a level of simplification and tunnel vision that, if anything, is more heroic that the early scientific forest of Germany. In this respect, the conclusions I draw from the failures of modern social engineering are as applicable to market-driven standardization as they are to bureaucratic homogeneity.

This, I think, is just mistaken -- in a number of ways, but in one important and interesting way in particular. To deal with some of the other ways first, it's a mistake to ignore the difference between the state and the capitalist firm in the purpose or use of standardization -- for the former, it's primarily for the purposes of control, with obvious potential for abuse; for the latter, primarily for efficiency, with just as obvious potential for benefit. It's also wrong in its focus on standardization as such as the problem rather than on state-enforcement, which latter really does override and often suppress vernacular practices rather than co-exist with them.Whereas standards that are used or even prevail not because they've been imposed but because their general efficiency or even "legibility" make them generally attractive, to individuals as well as to firms and states, and often in conjunction with other local systems and practices, are real improvements, and not just in the state's ability to collect taxes. And the routine academic disdain for the "profit motive" here seems merely simple-minded prejudice, especially since, as I'll get to, it may well be that motive that requires more rather than less attention be paid to local knowledge, preferences and the like.

Which leads me to the more interesting aspect of his error. He's right that large-scale capitalist enterprises generally foster standardization, and even impose it where they have property rights to do so, since this is really an aspect of their scale itself -- that is, the competitive advantage of their size lies precisely in the efficiencies that widespread standardization brings, allowing them to provide goods at a lower cost than smaller, more local rivals can. But cost is not the only economic variable, and in becoming dependent on standardization (among other problems of size or scale), this is also the source of their primary disadvantage. This is because, without being able to impose standardization in the way states can, such large-scale enterprises are vulnerable to other, typically smaller and more local or regional competitors that can make use of local knowledge, cater to more particular tastes, and/or accommodate vernacular practices -- that is, in other ways than raw cost, small is not just beautiful, it's typically more flexible, adaptable, and nimble. The economic landscape everywhere, in other words, is a fractal one, with a few large entities competing more or less stably at one end of the scale, innumerable small start-ups constantly appearing and disappearing at the other end, and all manner of enterprises of mixed sizes and durability in between, all existing in just those vernacular niches that the large-scale firms have had to neglect in order to achieve their standardization efficiencies.

And all of this is driven by the so-called "profit motive", which requires not just minimizing costs but also maximizing the quality of service and/or goods at the same time. Contrast that with the control motives of the state, and it becomes apparent why capitalist and statist standardization are radically different phenomena, with quite different consequences for society.

States, guns, and legitimacy

See Kevin D. Williamson, Exchequer vs. Economist, on the distinguishing feature of states as social institutions:

Socialist or otherwise, all states finally rest on force: You decline to participate in whatever is the Netherlands’ version of serving the community through the instrument of the state long enough, they send a guy to your house with a gun to seize your stuff or haul you off to jail; resist and there will be violence. That’s what states do, and it is not necessarily illegitimate.

The resort to violence is what makes the question of what kind of things it is legitimate for states to do an important moral concern. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to shove a gun in somebody’s face to stop him murdering, raping, or robbing. It seems to me entirely unreasonable to shove a gun in somebody’s face to extort from him money to fund a project to get monkeys high on cocaine. Those seem to me fairly reasonable distinctions. It is illegitimate for government to use force or the threat of force for projects that are not inherently public in character.

By itself, of course, this last isn't that good a criterion for state legitimacy, since people will always try to argue that their pet project is indeed "inherently public in character". But Williamson sharpens the criterion a little later:

... I would like to make it clear that I am not indulging in a figure of speech: I think it’s a pretty useful heuristic: If you’re not willing to have somebody hauled off at gunpoint over the project, then it’s probably not a legitimate concern of the state.

Which is at least an interesting rule of thumb, particularly as a reminder of the violence that lies at the basis of the state as such.

How do people respond to disasters?

You can sit and wait for the Government to send help, of course, which in any case can provide some opportunities for political demagoguery. Or you can do what you can to help yourself. And you don't need to be a survivalist to choose the latter course.

On this 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, check out the Gulf Coast Recovery Project at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, started in the immediate aftermath of the disaster:

In 2005, Mercatus launched a five-year project to follow the long-term redevelopment of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. By combining verbal interviews with people rebuilding the Gulf Coast and quantitative and qualitative data, the Gulf Coast Recovery Project seeks to better understand the array of complex issues facing communities recovering from disaster and the roles that the public, commercial, and non-profit sectors play in rebuilding communities affected by large scale catastrophes.

There is now a great wealth of information on the site -- working papers, talks, videos, forums, media files, etc. -- examining the question in the title of this post, and finding some interesting answers.

No charity for you, say German rich

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Negative Reaction to Charity Campaign: German Millionaires Criticize Gates' 'Giving Pledge'

SPIEGEL: But doesn't the money that is donated serve the common good?

Krämer: It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?

SPIEGEL: It is their money at the end of the day.

Krämer: In this case, 40 superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for. That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state. In the end the billionaires are indulging in hobbies that might be in the common good, but are very personal.

He's worried about tax write-offs, which of course are there for the express purpose of encouraging charity, but never mind. Very tempting to say something about an unhealthy historical affinity between German capitalists and the state, for which a  tacked-on modifier like "democratically" doesn't help much. But that would be stereotyping, and this is probably just this particular specimen, Krämer with an umlaut. The sad fact is that there's an unhealthy affinity between some capitalists and the state everywhere.

Thanks to Freakonomics

The objectives of policy analysis

From the always-interesting Megan McArdle comes another post, "The Limits of Policy Analysis", that has stimulated two different lines of reflection, or maybe two and a half. Here's the half, first:

The substance of the post itself just provides a couple of illustrations of the unintended consequences that follow upon policy changes that were supposed to have certain intended consequences. "Does this mean that we should never do anything?" she asks, rhetorically, but doesn't answer. I will though: it means that we should do things we have a right to do with our own lives, for our own ends, taking the bad or unintended consequences with the good, and learning from the experience as best we can. But it also means that we should, at the very least, be both humble and very cautious about doing things using the power of the state to control other people's lives in order to bring about particular outcomes we deem beneficial for them. "Doing things" on that level should be limited as far as possible to adjusting state structures away from bringing about or facilitating outcomes for individuals, and more toward facilitating individual and voluntary processes by which people can bring about their own outcomes. Doing such things on a state level will no doubt still have their own unintended consequences, but learning from, and improving upon, such mistakes will at least keep policy makers focused on their proper and possible goals, rather than upon designing and guiding the lives of others.

The recognition of unintended consequences, she writes, is "a good reminder to be humble about what we say about policy" -- but, more than being humble, it should be a good reminder to keep our focus on the right level: on structure rather than outcome.

The origins of contemporary liberalism: a debate

What's called "liberalism" today is quite distinct from what it once was, as the political voice of the emergent individual. Why? How did it change, and when? These are the questions underlying an important debate that Scott Johnson noted on Powerline a few days ago. Even beginning to answer them will help us understand the long period of political/cultural reaction in which we've been immersed, and make a start toward finding our way out of it.

The debate actually has earlier origins, but this latest instance of it starts from a book by William Voegeli, entitled Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State. The subsequent stages:

• A review by George Will, "The danger of a government with unlimited power" 
• A critique of Will by Michael Lind, "First Glenn Beck, now George Will". (As its title implies, Lind's critique was an extension of an earlier article in Salon, "Glenn Beck's partisan historians". Doesn't it seem surprising, by the way, how often the supposedly shallow, even crazy Beck is able to get in the headspace of his antagonists?)
• A response to Lind by Voegeli, the author of the book that started it: "Why Liberalism is Dangerous"

Not having read the book, I can't comment on that itself, but I can make a couple of observations about the debate above:

First, note that Lind's primary point is that, even though the conservatives might be right about Wilson-era progressivism, from FDR on they're wrong, because liberals/progressives reformed themselves. And on this, I think Voegeli's response is exactly right -- that they may have abandoned some discredited ideas (e.g. eugenics), and adjusted some of their rhetoric (words being cheap, it costs little to nod to the founders, or to the "living" Constitution, if that's politically expedient), but that there remains a strong thread of continuity from Wilson to FDR to Obama. The notion of the "liberal" changed, not in the thirties, with Roosevelt, but sometime in the early years of the last century, under the impact of pressure from its political left -- i.e., from socialism. Then as now, many of those who couldn't quite bring themselves to embrace the socialist doctrine as a whole, and even many who were explicitly opposed to it, were nonetheless strongly influenced by its implicit vision of a technocratic elite able to wield the immense power of the state to step in and "fix" things. In this vision, the fascination with the state tends to reduce the individual to a mere unit in what the older progressives liked to refer to as "the masses", what Zinn and others reified as "the people" (in a usage quite distinct from Lincoln's, for example), and what today is either dismissed as "consumers" or clumped into the various victim/victimizer groups of identity politics. Liberal concern over state power tends to resurface only when that power is not in their hands, but otherwise theirs is a kind of unprincipled pragmatism in the use of power to whatever ends they deem justified -- an aged document designed for a "society of farmers", as Lind takes from Roosevelt, becomes merely an obstacle, to be "re-interpreted" out of the way.

There are problems with the other side of the debate as well, though, and I'll try to get to those in the next post.