From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Tue Jan 25 2005 - 07:34:25 GMT
Dear Matt,
In reply to your 23 Jan 2005 23:11:00 -0800 post:
I meant to distinguish 24 Jan 2005 06:42:31 +0100 four and not five
organizing principles. 'Enforcement' is the same as 'force'. After
mentioning 'enforcement' as one of them I should have written:
'The full list of the organizing principles I distinguish is:' instead of
'The others I distinguish are:'
So four principles for organizing that everyone gets what he/she wants:
1) natural order (old being wiser than young, male being stronger than
female, some races supposedly being somehow better than others, the gods
supposedly having gifted some individuals more than others)
2) force (from brigands robbing travellers on pain of death to governments
demanding payment of taxes on pain of imprisonment)
3) dependence (poor labourers' dependence on land- or capital-owners to
provide them with essential means of production, consumers' dependence on
buying something they need, producers' dependence on outlets for their
product etc.)
4) convincement (that cooperating in a specific way under someone's
leadership is the best for everyone)
In Western societies the role of 'natural order' as organizing principle is
relatively limited and less recognized then elsewhere. Especially in family
life (household economics) it is still dominant (parents deciding for
children what they have to do and males and females having a more or less
strict role division -somewhat dependent on cultural background-). Outside
that sphere it also retains some relevance: males in their 50'ties and
60'ties are apparently considered more fit for managerial positions than
others. In other cultures, e.g. China, the normal age for those in power is
even higher.
I meant to write that enforcement is the defining principle of government
intervention. You won't need more explanation for that I guess.
I already mentioned the (limited) role of age and gender in recruitment for
government positions, however.
In my 24 Jan 2005 06:42:31 +0100 post I already mentioned the role of convin
cement in public economics: parties convincing the electorate that their
candidate is the best for a public job, governors/rulers/administrators
explaining their intentions and decisions in the media etc..
Dependence on government services (as diverse as provision of identity
papers, production/guaranteeing of the goodies/figures that go for 'money'
and building of roads in public areas) also plays a role. Someone wanting to
be elected for a public job sometimes 'buys' it by promising jobs, roads,
schools and other things his/her constituency needs. Provision of government
jobs can also be a way in which politicians 'buy' or sustain power.
The dependence principle has its natural habitat in what we usually call the
'market economy'. Of course dependence is always to some extent mutual. If
mutual dependence is equal, dependence ceases to be an organizing factor,
however. In markets with lots of small consumers and small producers and no
big intermediaries (or associations representing consumers or producers)
turn-over is liable to what Dutch economists call 'pig (breeding) cycles':
high prices induce more farmers to breed pigs, which lowers prices with a
delay due to the needed investments, which disencourages further
investments, which makes supply lower than demand, which raises prices again
and so on. Here the government often steps in to guarantee prices in order
to limit the capital destruction in the phase of the cycle when
overproduction would cause bankruptcies. An alternative way of preventing
such cycles is organization of producers and/or consumers in voluntary
associations that can bargain over fair prices. Producers and consumers have
to be convinced to join the association (and pay contributions) of course.
Even in the 'market economy' the convincement principle has become very
important in the course of the last century. Producers increasingly need
advertising and free publicity for the good qualities of their produce.
Within companies (of on the 'labour market' if you want) convincing
employers that you are the right person for a job and convincing employees
that a certain job is not worth more than a certain salary have taken the
place of dependence on undifferentiated labour and having to accept any wage
that 'the market' dictates. High tech industries much depend for their
succes on convincing society at large that the technologies they invent are
the best and should be the standard. Brand status (often associated with the
star status of sponsored sport stars or celeb status of entertainment stars
hires for commercials) works as a way of 'brainwashing' (convincing with
improper means) consumers into believing that certain firms always produce
the best products.
'The market' is a very incomplete and misleading metaphor for (even Western)
economies (even the American one). It would be even if government would
cease to 'extort' taxes. The predominant use of the 'market' metaphor for
anything economic can itself be seen as a result of 'brainwashing'...
Returning to your original question (whether socio-economic systems should
be free of government intervention): I see no reason why enforcing ways of
organizing what people want if most people want them organized that way
should be bad. It can produce much needed order and cooperation (and thus
more collective wealth) on scales where the dependence principle alone (or
combined with the convincement principle) fails to organize things. Its
legitimacy depends on the democratic quality of government of course, i.e.
on the balancing of enforcment with convincement.
This is enough for now, I hope. You also asked exemplification of:
'[These organizing principles alias ways to make others work for you] can
also be understood as BOTH ways to create more collective wealth and
survival chances for a society as a whole AND ways to create a social elite
that gets more than it needs. The balance between these two effects
determines whether it also creates an underclass that gets les than it
needs.'
Maybe you can name one or more examples where you see an elite and an
underclass, which I can then try to explain in this way?
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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