13. Right is right, Left is wrong 3

This installment continues on regarding the primary issue dividing the contemporary political Right and Left, the proper function of government. Up to this point what has been covered is the standard view of the Right with some reasons for it and an objection to it, and the standard and then modified view of the Left, with some reasons for the latter.

Now the Right can respond in the following way:

(A) On one hand, there is the issue of the necessity of government controls for carrying out desired goals.

The Right says that function of government is to provide a framework for interaction among people, a “level playing field”, to facilitate the processes where people follow their plans and attend to their needs. A fundamental reason for this view (and against that of the Left) is that any role more extensive than this is going to require governmental controls both over the economy and over individual behavior to a degree that is unacceptable. At first, the way that the view of the Left was presented was to cast it as requiring that government provide for needs, and yes, that sure means all needs of everyone. The problem raised with charging government with that responsibility is the extent and degree of control required. The response of the Left to that problem is to re-state its view, saying that the only thing needed from government is assurance of a minimum, and that this limited scope can avoid the problems of necessary extensive controls.

This means, though, that the issue of governmental controls is not over and done with, its just a matter of how much control is required for government to perform this limited function. In other words, there is just a different issue at this point, whether the re-stated function of government, only providing for an assured minimum, can actually avoid the problems it is intended to avoid.

There are a number of reasons why this limited-scope function cannot avoid the problem of extensive controls, and thus, that the program of the Left still cannot be acceptable.

(1) Consider first the issue most commonly raised in objection to the idea of government providing an assured minimum: That it creates major problems by undermining personal motivation.

There are some books and other written works out there that are just fun to read. Their “fun value” comes from the fact that they have flourish and exuberance for their subject. One prime example of this would be the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, where there are repeated emphatic proclamations of how the King of Britain hath evilly done this and hath vilely done that. Another good example of rousing literature is actually Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto; that’s a work that has flair for its subject matter. One example of this is when Marx considers some objections to his doctrine that government should own all the property used in making things. One objection he notes is this: “Well, that means that people will have no motivation to do their work, or for anything at all for that matter, since they won’t be able to gain any property by their work.” Marx’s response to this objection is classic; he says basically: “Well, Hell!, the vast majority of people out there have never owned and will never own productive property anyway, and anyone with any sense can see this, so if there is any question about motivation being undermined, people would have given up and dried up and blown away a long time ago!” (Now of course what Marx was talking about was only a specific kind of property, assets and processes used in production; he was not saying anything about basic personal property, like a car for example, so he’s not saying that most people never have property like that.)

Nevertheless, regardless of Marx’s dashing responses to this and other objections, its still true that motivational undermining is the most common objection raised in this context. When government is counted on to assure a minimum standard of living, there are a number of possible ways this could be accused of undermining motivation. One way is that this assurance creates a situation where there is little incentive for being responsible. Another is that it makes it so that there is little incentive for being productive. Another is that it changes incentives in such a way as to encourage absurd risks; that it becomes rational for people to gamble with whatever they have to work with, no matter the odds or expected returns.

There are clear examples of how this latter problem can occur even on a large, institutional scale, the most obvious being what happened with what was known as the FSLIC. This was a government program that was the equivalent of the FDIC, which guarantees deposits at commercial banks; it just did the same at savings and loans. With the FSLIC guarantee for deposits at savings and loans, those institutions naturally discovered that they could make bets on pretty much anything, as there were few restrictions over what they could invest in. So they made wild investments, lots of which turned out bad, but that didn’t matter, as the deposits that were used to make such bets were government guaranteed. (Needless to say, the FSLIC is dead and gone, along with all of the institutions it was backing that were making wild investments.)

However, in the end there can’t be too much weight put on this undermining of motivation as an objection to any program of the Left, and the reason for this is that there are too many ways around the problem. In other words, it may not be easy to deal with motivational problems, but it actually can be done. The real problem, however, is that when motivational problems are corrected, other problems pop up in other places, other problems that strike at the real heart of the issue at hand, namely, the necessity of extensive controls.

But first, consider how motivational undermining can be addressed.

(a) Concerning the problem of people being non-responsible: Ultimately this is actually not a problem at all for the program of the Left, and the reason is that, by hypothesis, in a circumstance where government has a responsibility for an assured minimum, people are not truly responsible for their own needs anyway. In this situation it is presupposed that government is responsible. Thus, if we find that people do not have a feeling of responsibility, this is not an undermining problem after all. In this scenario, people not having a feeling of responsibility is just a factual characteristic of the system. Furthermore, in this scenario its actually a plus if people feel that it is not themselves but government that is responsible for their needs, as this reinforces the idea of what government is supposed to be doing, that this is the mission that government has to fulfill.

(b) Concerning the problem of people being un-productive: Admittedly this is a problem of motivation, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be overcome without traditional economic incentives. There are always other incentives available. If people feel that an assured economic minimum makes it that there’s not a whole lot of reason to produce much, there are always other incentives to be found to produce. People can be encouraged and motivated and incentivized to be productive for the sake of the community, the nation, the world, the planet, the future, or some other worthy goal.

There is a general principle to be found here: If human behavior causes problems, one obvious solution is to change that behavior to a pattern that does not. And there are always other incentives out there to offer in order to change behavior. In this case, a lack of motivation to produce for the general economic good, is just a behavior that has to be swapped out. It is just in the end a matter of having controls over behavior to an extent that behavior can be changed.

(For classic yet controversial works on this subject see: B. F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, 1971, and Walden Two, 1948.)

(c) Concerning the problem of people acting unduly risky: This can be addressed also, it just requires doing things to counteract the problem risky behavior. As an example, the fact that unduly risky behavior can be counteracted can be illustrated by using the institutional example used above: The FDIC imposes significant controls over what banks can lend on and what risks they can expose themselves to. These controls are supposed to keep a firm lid on the degree of risk to the depositors’ funds. By strictly controlling the use of deposits, the FDIC can feel that they are safe in guaranteeing them. The same kind of practice can be applied to the individual; there is only the necessity for some controls over personal economic resources. If people are using too much of their income for lottery tickets, for example, that just requires that there be control over that use, by some appropriate limitations. It will have to be that people just cannot be allowed to risk any more than some percentage of their resources.

This review above demonstrates that the problem of the undermining of personal motivation can be addressed. However, at the same time, it is obvious that this also demonstrates that curing the problem of motivation automatically re-generates what the Right thinks is a fundamental, unavoidable problem for the Left, that their program requires extensive and intrusive controls over individual behavior. In other words, though undermining personal motivation and incentive does not have to be a separate problem, to solve it requires extensive controls over behavior. But then we can say in summary that this demonstrates that an assurance of a minimum of needs coverage does not actually avoid the necessity of having extensive governmental controls over people’s basic behaviors. And so the Left’s re-statement of the function of government to a limited-scope does not actually do what it is supposed to do.

(2) For a second problem with government being charged with providing an assured minimum, there is an objection in principle to that program, and that is this: Assuring a minimum sounds easy to do, but that’s only under the presumption that its only needed by a few people. But that has to be mistaken, since everyone actually needs it; everyone needs to have the assurance of a minimum.

If government is assure a minimum of needs coverage, that sure sounds like its attention is to be focused on people who are at or below what is considered a minimum level. But government’s attention and plans and actions can’t just stop there. There has to be a provision for people at other levels, and as a matter of fact for everyone at every level. And this is so if for no other reason than that no matter where people are on the scale of wealth or income, there is a probability that they can fall below a minimum needs level. As everyone admits, bad things can happen, and they can happen to anyone, and so anyone can find themselves in need of an assured minimum.

So in other words, government’s function of assuring a minimum means assuring a minimum not just for some, but for all. But this has major consequences: Government must be ready and able to carry this out; it must plan for providing a minimum for all and must have the resources to provide for a minimum for all. The big problem is that all this requires extensive control of an economy; that is the only way that government can be prepared to cover a minimum for everyone.

For example, consider the case of providing a minimum of housing: Government must have the ability to provide minimum housing needs not just for those who may be below the minimum at the moment, but also to provide a minimum for everyone. Anyone could find their house gone in a storm, as storms don’t discriminate on the basis of wealth. So government has to have control of enough housing for all, but this is pretty much all of the housing that there is. So the only way to do this is to have control of all housing.

This illustrates why a government must have extensive controls over an economy under these conditions. And so again, the limited-scope function of government proposed to avoid necessary extensive controls does not actually do so.

(3) For a third problem with government providing an assured minimum, there is an objection in practice to the mechanism proposed in the program of the Left to make it sound easy that a government can do this.

This was the mechanism: We map out where people are on the scale of income or wealth, determine the minimum level of needs on that scale, and boost people up to that minimum line by economic redistribution, of income and/or wealth, from those above that line.

A fundamental objection to this mechanism is this: Boosting by income and/or wealth does not assure minimum needs coverage, and this is not just because those resources could be lost through bad behavior (as in section (1) above), but also because wealth and income do not automatically translate into goods needed. Here is an example of that: Suppose that we redistribute income from persons A, B, and C to D; suppose also that there are adequate controls over the behavior of D so that D does not waste those funds but reserves them for needs. Even so, this redistribution to D does not assure that D’s minimum needs are met because having income does not mean having housing, for example; there has to be housing in existence. In this example, there has to be physical housing present and ready for use, and the boosting of income alone doesn’t create it.

Essentially this means that government can’t just merely be in the business of redistributing income and/or wealth in order to assure minimum needs, it has to be in the business of housing in order to assure minimum housing needs. So also it has to be in the business of farming in order to assure minimum food needs; so also it has to be in the business of energy to assure minimum energy needs, and so on in every category of need. But of course to be in the business of every need, government must have extensive controls over an economy, and thus comes again the necessity of such controls.

To summarize the above points (1), (2), (3), even with government attempting to have a limited role by providing for needs through only a minimum assurance, the problems of control cannot be avoided; government must still have intrusive controls over behavior and extensive controls over economies.

(B) Now on the other hand, the last installment had some positive reasons in favor of the limited-function view of the Left, and these reasons centered around the rationality of economic redistribution strategies.

(1) The first strategy is that of economic insurance.

In summary, the point was made that economic insurance is a good idea and that government-supplied assurance of minimum needs coverage is the best way to get that.

The obvious response to that point is this: Of course it is rational to have economic insurance. Now, if it is rational to follow any strategy, it is also rational to follow the best means for carrying it out, and it is not rational to follow a means that is ineffective. But the end result of this is that we just need to find the best way to get economic insurance, and this is a matter of efficiency rather than principle. So the point of the Left hinges on the claim that some government-supplied program will be the best means for economic insurance. Therein lies a big problem, in that it is highly unlikely that any government program would be the most effective means for this goal, let alone this assurance of a minimum function. Now of course this is a practical matter that can’t be worked out merely in theory. But if all that is needed is some efficient means for economic insurance, that’s all that is needed, and such a goal can be accomplished merely by privately-offered insurance, which is much more likely to be the most efficient. If anything, there is a burden entirely on the Left to show that their program would be the most efficient means of such insurance.

(2) The second strategy is that of rational fairness.

In summary, the basic idea is that the just society, the society that we should have, is one which is fair. The nature of the just society is determined by what we would choose from a blind position, a position where we did not know what our particular advantages were, as choosing from such a blind position is the best way to express fairness. (Again, an over-simplification of Rawls, A Theory of Justice). Furthermore, what we would choose from a blind position is a society where the least well-off person was as well-off as possible. This in the end is to say that we would choose a society where there was economic redistribution enough for an assurance (hopefully) of minimum needs coverage (at least, if not more).

Now there are two fundamental objections that can be made to this.

(a) In this strategy, it is claimed that justice requires that we follow what we would choose from a position where we were blind to our own personal characteristics.

This sounds nice, and is supposed to, as it exemplifies a basic notion of fairness. But a problem here is that there are plenty of other views about the just society that sound just as nice but which are expressly excluded by this means of choice. For example: Suppose someone thought that justice at least includes the idea that our choices and actions respect the Rights of others, that these are bounded and limited by others’ Rights. But that’s a detail of a position that looks much different from a fair, blind position; what we would choose from the latter does not necessarily have any respect for Rights at all. So the point here is that rational fairness doesn’t have a lock on all plausible views about justice. In other words, it is very much open to question that justice requires choosing from this blind, fair scenario.

(b) Now suppose it is a given that we should choose from a blind position. In this strategy, in a position of not knowing what our particular advantages are, it is said that we would choose a scenario where the least well-off was as well-off as possible (which before was called a maximin outcome; maximizing the minimum economic position), and we would do this because this person could be us.

The problem here is that there are good reasons why this choice is not the rational one in the blind position, that we would actually not make such a choice under these conditions. And this problem hinges on the following: If you don’t know where you will land in an eventual societal structure, it is certainly a risk-averse choice to maximize the minimum, but that’s all it is, the risk-averse choice, not the rational one, and this is so for at least two reasons.

(i) The maximin outcome, if chosen for its maximin value alone, could very well occur in a stagnant society, which would actually be fairly bad. In other words, in a maximin outcome, there is no assurance of opportunity. It is entirely possible that the maximum minimum is found in an ossified society, one where the minimum economic position is stagnant, at which point your needs are met but also where you cannot possibly change your position in any way; or even worse, where you are forced to remain in your position.

In terms of being rational, you would be more likely to choose an opportunity scenario rather than a straight maximin one. In an opportunity-allowing outcome, no matter where you may land, you have a chance to do better. So you would choose the following option: You don’t know where you will land in an eventual economic structure, but wherever that is, you would prefer the opportunity to do better than where that is. (Certainly, there is room here for much more detail to be worked out on the degree of the economic opportunity the rational person may require; in other words, how to factor in the effects of opportunity, maybe by the probability of social mobility.)

(ii) In the same sense that a maximin outcome does not assure opportunity, it also does not assure procedural equality. In other words, there is nothing in the maximin outcome that makes it that you would be treated in the same way as other people by the basic societal ground rules around that outcome. Granted that you were at a maximin economic position compared to all the other economic outcomes that could have happened to you in other possible societal outcomes, that says nothing about you being equal to anyone else. But procedural equality with others will certainly affect whether you prefer that society to others. For example, its entirely possible that an outcome just a little bit economically worse than the maximin one will have far more procedural equality in its favor, and that it is this that you would prefer instead.

Ironically, this actually means that there is good reason to think that, in a blind position, you would actually choose what the political Right is pushing for, where the playing field is level, even if people had material wealth differences. In a level-playing field scenario, though others may have a material advantage over you, at least they don’t have a procedural advantage over you.