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>>First, that it does insofar as capitalism is based, structurally and psychologically, on the transformation of humans into commodified labour to be sold on th

>>First, that it does insofar as capitalism is based, structurally and psychologically, on the transformation of humans into commodified labour to be sold on the market. Second, that the welfare state is an attempt to try and offset the human cost - deprivation, precarity, unemployment, exploitation - of the marketisation of social relations. I'm saying that people are always going to be mired in materialist competition with those on the losing end seeing relative deprivation. That is a property of the world, not of capitalism. I didn't even mention the inflammatory slavery-associated characterization of people choosing to sell services as "the transformation of humans into commodified labour to be sold on the market." Welfare doesn't eliminate deprivation, it just changes the avenues through which deprivation emerges. >>(1) 'Competitive impulses are not capitalist'. I never mentioned a 'competitive impulse'. Yes you did, here: >>That statement would only hold if capitalist market relations were a universal feature of every facet of human life, and if humans were driven only and voraciously by self-interest. The self-interest drive is what I'm referring to by "competitive impulse". It contrasts with the communal impulse of working for the common good. That will not go away by virtue of eliminating laws that provide people with security of property and contract liberty (aka "capitalist" laws). >>(2) 'There is no evidence or indication that competitive impulses change as a result of changing or eliminating laws that provide people security of property and contract liberty'. You are reifying human psychology. Humans do not possess fixed and determinate 'impulses', apart from for simple objects like food, shelter, water, and sex. Humans are distinguished from other animals by their capacity for non-genetic learning Humans absolutely do possess innate impulses. Humans share 96% of their DNA of chimpanzees, 90% of cats, and 85% of mice. We are not fundamentally that different from other animals, and numerous studies demonstrate the massive influence that innate traits play on our behaviour. For example, numerous studies have shown that the Big Five personality traits have an approximately 50% hereditary factor. And the other 50% are cultural traits that are not going to be wiped away by some radical social engineering project , since they are passed on through micro-interactions and social dynamics far beyond the reach of the state. You are far more likely to cause havoc in any attempt to socially re-engineer mankind than you are to do any good. Social interventions are generally much more likely to have negative unintended consequences than produce desirable results, because existent social dynamics often exist for good reasons that are not obvious to a superficial analysis like the kind produced by simplistic ideologies. Cultural traits and dynamics emerged over long periods of time through a process of iteration, and it is folly to recklessly try to re-engineer them based on a crude ideological assumption about the world. >>This is very vague. 'To the extent to which they do try to maximize their own material interests' leaves unstated how and to what extent humans maximise their material interests. That's not relevant to my point, and it's not something I can answer anyway, because I, like you, have no way of knowing. My point is that there's no indication that human impulses would be changed by changing economic laws. They are far more deeply ingrained than you give them credit for. To assume otherwise is a reckless form of optimism about any coherent plan to re-engineer a large population's impulses, in order to rationalise very radical social engineering project that could and likely would cause terrible suffering. >>I take it to be patently obvious that X in scenario 1 is moved by material self-interest to a greater extent that is X in scenario 2. For in the first scenario it is a question of survival, whereas in the second case she has the time, ability and security to significantly give herself to extra-economic activities - culture, politics, morality and religion, society and family. That's overly simplistic. You don't raise wages by increasing the minimum wage. If it were that simple, we could make everyone wealthy with absurdly high price floors on labour. Price floors harm the economy for reasons economists have exhaustively detailed. You will also pay a price in per capita GDP from taxing and redistributing income. If reducing income inequality were as simple as redistributing income, reducing poverty would be trivial: just tax and redistribute 100% of income. A higher income country with less redistribution can provide a higher quality of life to the very poor than a lower income country with high levels of redistribution. That's why reducing poverty over longer time frames is not as simple as redistributing income. The effect of redistribution on income growth has to be factored in. The empirical data suggests that the best way to raise per capita GDP is with free markets not interfered with by disruptive government interventions like price floors (minimum wage) and income redistribution programs. And how long do you think your welfare programs are going to work for the poor? Highly productive people will find ways to escape the clutches of your redistribution program. A social system in which the producers are coerced to giving up a massive share of what they produce is not sustainable. You run the real risk of training your hypothetical woman to become dependent on the government, have children as a simple mother on the assumption that she will receive child benefits, and then see the economy implode, the government cut back services, and she and her children be left without the means to take care of themselves. As for contract liberty being a euphemism, you wouldn't be saying that if the state imprisoned you for entering into a contract with another consenting adult.

Emma_Goldman 8y ago
>'Welfare doesn't eliminate deprivation, it just changes the avenues through which deprivation emerges.' Deprivation is the lack of material things. People without universal healthcare or benefits systems in unpropitious circumstances will have neither healthcare nor shelter and food. Ergo, welfare alleviates deprivation. That follows logically. It is also the incontrovertible historical picture. I have heard many arguments against the welfare system, but I have never heard anyone argue that providing people with life-saving medicine or food to eat makes them materially worse off. I don't know by what ideological self-contraption you have been able to convince yourself of that. >'I'm saying that people are always going to be mired in materialist competition with those on the losing end seeing relative deprivation. That is a property of the world, not of capitalism... Humans absolutely do possess innate impulses. Humans share 96% of their DNA of chimpanzees, 90% of cats, and 85% of mice. We are not fundamentally that different from other animals, and numerous studies demonstrate the massive influence that innate traits play on our behaviour.' Once again, this is under-specified. I am arguing that one of the roles of the welfare state is to create the basis for humans to give themselves to non-economic activities: to culture, community, politics, ethics, and so on. That is compatible with the fact that humans are to some extent competitive. You seem to be saying that humans are sufficiently competitive that this would only displace their competitiveness into new domains. But you have shown nothing of the sort. You claim that we have innate impulses. I wouldn't use the word impulses, but I agree that there is such a thing as human nature. You say that we share most of our DNA with chimpanzees, cats and mice. That's true enough. But then you leap from these two platitudinous claims to the idea that human nature is both fixed and determinate. I see no reason whatsoever to believe that. Take two of the strongest genetic determinists that I know of. Steven Pinker argues in the The Better Angels of Our Nature that our psychology is made up of a number of dispositions and that human history consists of our changing our environment such as to change the balance and strength of those dispositions. In other words, our psychology is majorly conditioned by our social conditions. Robert Plomin, the world's leading genetic determinist, argues - and his claims are far stronger that most geneticists - that even physical traits like height, weight and eyesight are only partially (30-70%) accounted for by genes. In other words, neither of them claim anything like what you seem to be arguing: that we have fixed dispositions (not dispositions which change in balance and strength) which strictly determine (not tendentially shape) human behaviour. I happen to disagree strongly with both Pinker and Plomin for the reason I gave previously. Humans are radically different from other animals because non-genetic learning - culture, norms, social practices, meaning - accounts for more of our behaviour than our genes do. Hence why human change occurs in historical time and not, like other animals, in evolutionary time. >'That's overly simplistic'. You are changing the question. We are talking about whether humans are always and at all times moved by self-interest in the same way and to the same degree. In my scenario they are clearly not. I note that you do not disagree with that judgement, i.e. you implicitly concede that in that hypothetical those two people are moved by self-interest in different ways. Instead, you claim that that scenario is impossible. I would engage with your reasoning but it's a red herring - it is nothing but misdirection from the relevant question. >'As for contract liberty being a euphemism, you wouldn't be saying that if the state imprisoned you for entering into a contract with another consenting adult.' This is rhetoric. It is both possible to think that 'contract liberty' is a euphemism that conceals the fact that many contracting parties do so from structurally asymmetrical positions, and to think that arbitrary imprisonment is wrong. What you are saying depends on the theory of negative liberty first propounded by Thomas Hobbes, where liberty is the absence of physical interference. I take that to be manifestly wrong. We don't want to be interfered with, because we want to be able to do things. But negative liberty only secures us the former, not the latter. For example, it does me no good if the police permit me to use the train to see my family if I don't have the money to pay for the train to see my family, if I am starving to death, or if I need to work all hours of the day to keep a roof over my head.

Emma_Goldman 8y ago

>'Welfare doesn't eliminate deprivation, it just changes the avenues through which deprivation emerges.' Deprivation is the lack of material things. People without universal healthcare or benefits systems in unpropitious circumstances will have neither healthcare nor shelter and food. Ergo, welfare alleviates deprivation. That follows logically. It is also the incontrovertible historical picture. I have heard many arguments against the welfare system, but I have never heard anyone argue that providing people with life-saving medicine or food to eat makes them materially worse off. I don't know by what ideological self-contraption you have been able to convince yourself of that. >'I'm saying that people are always going to be mired in materialist competition with those on the losing end seeing relative deprivation. That is a property of the world, not of capitalism... Humans absolutely do possess innate impulses. Humans share 96% of their DNA of chimpanzees, 90% of cats, and 85% of mice. We are not fundamentally that different from other animals, and numerous studies demonstrate the massive influence that innate traits play on our behaviour.' Once again, this is under-specified. I am arguing that one of the roles of the welfare state is to create the basis for humans to give themselves to non-economic activities: to culture, community, politics, ethics, and so on. That is compatible with the fact that humans are to some extent competitive. You seem to be saying that humans are sufficiently competitive that this would only displace their competitiveness into new domains. But you have shown nothing of the sort. You claim that we have innate impulses. I wouldn't use the word impulses, but I agree that there is such a thing as human nature. You say that we share most of our DNA with chimpanzees, cats and mice. That's true enough. But then you leap from these two platitudinous claims to the idea that human nature is both fixed and determinate. I see no reason whatsoever to believe that. Take two of the strongest genetic determinists that I know of. Steven Pinker argues in the The Better Angels of Our Nature that our psychology is made up of a number of dispositions and that human history consists of our changing our environment such as to change the balance and strength of those dispositions. In other words, our psychology is majorly conditioned by our social conditions. Robert Plomin, the world's leading genetic determinist, argues - and his claims are far stronger that most geneticists - that even physical traits like height, weight and eyesight are only partially (30-70%) accounted for by genes. In other words, neither of them claim anything like what you seem to be arguing: that we have fixed dispositions (not dispositions which change in balance and strength) which strictly determine (not tendentially shape) human behaviour. I happen to disagree strongly with both Pinker and Plomin for the reason I gave previously. Humans are radically different from other animals because non-genetic learning - culture, norms, social practices, meaning - accounts for more of our behaviour than our genes do. Hence why human change occurs in historical time and not, like other animals, in evolutionary time. >'That's overly simplistic'. You are changing the question. We are talking about whether humans are always and at all times moved by self-interest in the same way and to the same degree. In my scenario they are clearly not. I note that you do not disagree with that judgement, i.e. you implicitly concede that in that hypothetical those two people are moved by self-interest in different ways. Instead, you claim that that scenario is impossible. I would engage with your reasoning but it's a red herring - it is nothing but misdirection from the relevant question. >'As for contract liberty being a euphemism, you wouldn't be saying that if the state imprisoned you for entering into a contract with another consenting adult.' This is rhetoric. It is both possible to think that 'contract liberty' is a euphemism that conceals the fact that many contracting parties do so from structurally asymmetrical positions, and to think that arbitrary imprisonment is wrong. What you are saying depends on the theory of negative liberty first propounded by Thomas Hobbes, where liberty is the absence of physical interference. I take that to be manifestly wrong. We don't want to be interfered with, because we want to be able to do things. But negative liberty only secures us the former, not the latter. For example, it does me no good if the police permit me to use the train to see my family if I don't have the money to pay for the train to see my family, if I am starving to death, or if I need to work all hours of the day to keep a roof over my head.