Dear Sam and others interested in Determinism versus Free Will
and/or leftist criticism of Marxism,
I promised 25/9 23:00 +0200 to come back to your 24/9
9:57 +0100 request to expand my perspective and to your question
whether I argue from a Marxist perspective.
First about your reaction of 26/9 10:23 +0100 on my tease that
you are a "hireling minister", someone getting paid for
interpreting God's will for others. For me the dividing line is
not primarily between Protestants ("Reformed/individualist based
understanding") and Catholics ("Catholic/tradition based
understanding"), but between Quakers and other Christians. For
Quakers religious authority is based in individual religious
EXPERIENCE moderated to an extent by collective religious
experience of worshipping communities. (I wrote more about this
to John B. 24/6 23:07 +0200.) for other Christians religious
authority is based only indirectly in religious experience,
because either tradition (Catholics) or the bible (Protestants)
are put in between. The appeal of a MoQ to me is partly its
similarity with Quakerism in the central role it gives
experience.
Time and dialogue lessen(ed) this contrast also and Quakers also
value and valued tradition and bible, but this is not the time
and place to go deeper in that.
Although I agree that Protestantism "provided the theological and
moral framework for industrial capitalism", in the sense that
they rose simultaneously, I do not agree with Max Weber that this
framework (or any set of SOM-values) "produced"
(read: "caused") industrial capitalism. (In my reading of history
mercantile capitalism, as in 16th century Holland, was the
beginning of capitalism. Industrial capitalism, starting in 18th
century England, was a logical continuation and ripening of that
pattern. Hence "simultaneously".)
I am just as unfamiliar with the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and
Narindar Singh as I am with the books of Jared Diamond and David
Landes you mentioned. I did most of my reading on economics when
I studied it between 1978 and 1986 and -like Pirsig on philosophy
(Lila ch. 26)- I preferred to put the horse before the cart
instead of vice versa: I tried to do most of my own thinking
before reading a lot of books.
I was influenced quite a bit by an American neo-Marxist
sociologist writing about the history of capitalism, however,
Immanuel Wallerstein. For my history classes at secondary school
I wrote a 44 pages paper about "The rise of capitalism" based
primarily on his ideas (even though I also quoted extensively
from non-Marxist historians).
Economic and social history stayed a main interest during my
studies and was the subject to which I devoted more time than to
other subjects. I kept using Wallersteins concept of "world
systems" (historically: "world empires", political entities
trying to conquer the whole of the known civilized world, and
"world economies", economic systems comprising the whole known
civilized world without political or cultural unification being
anywhere within reach). I did adopt his "materialist" criticism
of "idealist" explanations of historic phenomena (i.e. Calvinism
causing industrial capitalism). I never bought materialist
historical determinism, however, nor the idea that "socialism" (a
socialist world system) would be the necessary sequel to
"capitalism" (the capitalist world economy we're part of
according to Wallerstein).
During my studies I wrote papers like:
- "Commercializing of agricultural production and the economic
position of women" (explaining that economic position from the
historic development of the world economy)
- "Work ethic and underdevelopment" (arguing that
underdevelopment causes a certain -low-quality- work ethic
instead of the other way around)
- "International economic relations and underdevelopment"
(developing an alternative model of international economic
relations that makes it plausible that economic development in
the rich part of the world is an important cause of
underdevelopment in the Third World)
- "Wallerstein's world system approach" (evaluating critics of
Wallerstein)
- "Evaluation of Dutch development co-operation policy" (very
critical)
- "Why not China?" (explaining historically why capitalism didn't
rise in China)
- "Active non-violence in the Netherlands on behalf of the Third
World" (thesis)
One of the chapters of my thesis started with a dilemma of the
Third World movement (the movement campaigning for a smaller gap
between rich and poor in the world) that is thoroughly bound up
with the Free Will versus Determinism question:
The first horn of the dilemma assumes harmony between rich and
poor, appeals to moral outrage about the lack of opportunities
for the poor to improve their standard of living and ... gets
stuck because most people primarily act out of self-interest
rather than moral convictions. Most people's thinking is, if not
determined, at least heavily influenced by their material
interests.
The second horn of the dilemma assumes conflict between rich and
poor, organizes struggle and ... gets stuck either because poor
doesn't let itself be organized to fight rich or, if the struggle
succeeds, because it results at best in a system that makes other
people rich and keeps most of the poor still poor. Building
countervailing power of poor against rich and fighting to rob the
rich of their wealth usually creates more problems than it
solves. Usually it drains the sources of that wealth and creates
more poor than it elevates to become rich.
In order to solve the dilemma, I followed the development of the
theory of ideology from Marxism to critical semiology:
The theory of ideology starts with a little problem of classical
Marxism ... exploited people do not honor Marx' prediction that
they automatically start a revolution once they realize that they
are exploited.
(In the countries where capitalism was most developed, attempts
at revolution were easily bought off. In semi-capitalist or
pre-capitalist countries like Russia and China Marxist theory had
to be slightly adapted by Lenin and Mao to fit reality: according
to them a vanguard of those who knew better than the exploited
themselves had to be formed to coax them to revolt. Of course
these communist parties after coming to power, having
betrayed determinism, quickly reverted to the authoritarian and
totalitarian government practices of their imperial
predecessors.)
Strange enough (for a Marxist) the thinking of exploited people
is NOT determined by their material interests.
Marxists call such false thinking, which does not fit the
interests of the persons concerned, "ideology".
This problem was not seriously tackled for a long time, possibly
because "the concept 'free-thinker' was completely absent within"
Marxism...? Only in the seventies of the last century did Louis
Althusser make a stir in a small (Marxist) circle by abandoning
the Marxist dogma of determination of higher by lower levels, of
ideology by material circumstances.
According to psychologist Lacan the human psyche splits in
consciousness and subconsciousness because thinking requires
language and language presupposes consciously acting subjects.
According to Althusser the distortion of experience by language
extents to the creation of ideology: using language compels
people to experience themselves as "I", as a whole, to formulate
plans and motives for
action, and to expel their being influenced by material
circumstances from their consciousness. "Free will" and
"individual autonomy" are only language constructs, only
ideology, according to Althusser, but they are stubbornly
defended by humans, even to the extent of denying their real
material interests...
"Ideology" is as old as language and not a monopoly of capitalist
societies. The dominant "ideology" of a society however reflects
its balance of power and the "ideology" in a capitalist society
predominantly legitimizes the capitalist status quo and keeps the
laboring class from revolting.
A follower of Althusser being concerned about the gap between
rich and poor in the world would still assume conflict between
rich and poor, would still organize struggle and would still
(according to me, being not even a neo-Marxist) get stuck because
the struggle would be counterproductive. The struggle would not
be a struggle for control of material circumstances, of the
structure of society, however. Althusser advocated rather
struggle between "ideologies": a struggle for control of the
institutions (somewhere in the middle between material
circumstances and people's thinking) that are used by the ruling
classes to manipulate the thinking of the exploited classes. For
him the institutions that would have to be attacked first were
not (as for Marx) privately owned production facilities or even
the State that supports private ownership with the Law, but the
nuclear family, trade unions, welfare work, education and mass
media.
A part of the radical left even took such ideas to the extreme of
all but denying the possibility of social change: the System,
consisting of both the State (Law + police) and such institutions
manipulates everyone to accept the status quo.
A way out came from critical semiology.
Semiology started as as extension of general linguistics to all
cultural phenomena (not just language). According to writers
like
Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes all such phenomena have
"meaning". "Meanings" (both denotations and connotations) depend
on context and structure and can be objectively "deciphered".
Semiology was criticized by ... critical semiologists like Julia
Kristeva and Eliseo Veron for its neglect of the socio-historic
dimension of "meaning", for artificially separating "culture" and
(historically grown) "society". For them "meaning" is given (and
determined) by the "reader", or rather by the context in which
the "reader" experiences the cultural or social phenomenon that
is "given meaning" and by the structure (pattern!) he sees in it.
Although critical semiology denies the responsibility of the
"sender" for the "meaning" of a phenomenon for the "reader" (and
therefore the possibility of manipulating the thinking of
exploited classes by ruling classes!), a "reader" is not free to
give phenomena any "meaning". Society functions because of a
"grammar", a system of relations between the meaning of phenomena
and the social context in which they are "received", "ideology"
in another meaning. It was this type of "ideology" (as used by
critical semiologists) which I had in mind when I wrote 25/9
23:00 +0200: "An intellectual pattern of values does not consist
of one system of ideas (developed by either a privileged or an
underprivileged group of people) but it consists of all the
systems of ideas developed in that (part of) society, the pattern
being their correlation with social roles and positions."
So critical semiology helped me to finally kill the demon of
determinism without reverting to the opposite fallacy of
idealistic voluntarism (or so I thought). In the words of Elisio
Veron (in journal "Krisis" nr. 2, 1980): "Let's imagine for a
moment a hypothetical society in which just one set of productive
rules explains all production of meaning... This would be the
model of a society that is dominated by one single grammar. Such
a society would be eternally unchangeable and would use its
historical time to peacefully reproduce, staying ever identical
to itself. It is very doubtful whether such a society has ever
existed anywhere; it is doubtful moreover whether whichever
'primitive' society has any similarity at all with this model.
Anyhow it is certain that nothing is more unlike this model that
our industrial, capitalist society. Still a certain leftist
thinking tries for some time now to accomplish the impossible
task of explaining to us that we live in such a society." Any
phenomenon (any "'text" in the broad sense in which semiologists
use the concept) can be "read" in a lot of different ways. The
"reader" has the freedom to choose between different ideologies
(grammars) when giving meaning to a phenomenon. It is choice, not
struggle that is needed. As long as the Third World movement only
appeals to moral outrage about the lack of opportunities for the
poor to improve their standard of living, it doesn't offer a real
choice, an alternative "grammar".
It has always seemed to me that Christian concepts like
"conversion" and "rebirth" refer to such a choice. The strength
of Christian church has always been to build alternative open
communities (with an alternative "grammar") under persecution or
at least in minority situations. Such open societies offer
"converts" a real choice. Once Christians (or a particular brand
of Christians) start to dominate a society, they become far less
effective as educators in love than before. (I am reading a novel
about the 4th century A.D., when the Roman emperor Constantine
made Christianity the official religion...) While "turning the
other cheek" and "loving your enemy" was a (collective if not
individual) way of survival for a community that recruited
primarily among slaves and other powerless and low-status members
of society, they are considered quite impractical or even
impracticable in a community with the elite of a society among
its members.
This posting would become too long if I continued to tell you how
I applied this insight in the rest of my thesis to a kind of
strategy to overcome poverty, or rather wealth, because the
wealthy are more of a problem than the poor if you want a smaller
gap between rich and poor in the world. (You know: the camel and
the eye of the needle...) I would love to have the time (and the
stimulus of my social environment) to rewrite my thesis using the
MoQ as a basis. It makes killing the demon of determinism so much
easier. When I wrote my thesis I had not yet read ZAMM and Lila
wasn't even published then. (Wittgenstein might have been helpful
too, if I understand your posting correctly, if I had known his
ideas back then: it might have made unneccesary a lot of my
struggling with definitions of "ideology".)
As for the universality of "valuing wealth": I hope to come back
to that in my next posting addressed to Rog (and to his reaction
to my tease that America's wealth might just as well be explained
by greed as by valuing freedom and creativity). For the record,
my alternative explanation of wealth ("Couldn't BOTH wealth AND
overvaluing wealth (so not devoting your energy to other causes
once you have enough of it) AND those values be a result of that
flocking together rather than those values being the root of the
wealth?") was meant as a tease and not as a serious thesis. The
alternative would be just as oversimplified an explanation as
Rog's original explanation and countering an idealistic
voluntarist explanation with a materialistic determinist one
would be inconsistent with the approach to Determinism versus
Free Will as developed above.
You ask for a good introduction to development economics. As I am
not a development economist that is payed by the development aid
industry, I am not going to guide you to mainstream development
economics. (One of my character traits is a distrust of any
mainstream thinking.) I think the best introduction to genuine
development economics is ... history from the viewpoint of the
losers. The U.S.A., having first beaten and then idolized its
native peoples, has produced a lot of good books in this
category. The first that comes to mind is "Bury my heart at
wounded knee" by Dee Brown (1970). The next step is then to
identify creative and constructive alternatives for dependence on
globalization that (by its very nature) bypasses some and
broadens the gap between rich and poor while producing more
material luxuries then humanity needs and mother earth's
ecosystems can support. A stimulating book in this category is
"Short Circuit, Strengthening Local Economics for Security in an
Unstable World" by Richard Douthwaite (1996).
Reproduction and concentration of capital is in my view only one
of four "mechanisms" explaining inequal distribution of wealth
and wrongly described as a "mechanism". But I hope to come back
to this in my posting to Rog or in yet another posting (because
for that I need to summarize another chapter of my thesis). They
are connected to the four tiers in social development which I 4/7
23:34 +0200 promised Glen D. to elaborate on in a later posting.
That is a promise that still stands too. I hope he is still
around.
With friendly greetings,
Wim Nusselder
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