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Those are the sound of the crickets coming from the world of Naomi Klein (link to the worst book of the decade not provided) and friends as the real truth about the relationship between crises and political economy is now right in their faces, providing exactly the evidence against the"shock doctrine" that some of us pointed out right away: crises cause the state to grow and the free market to shrivel. Disaster Socialism is back in business.
On a related note, will folks on the Left attack the Paulson bailout plan for the naked violation of the rule of law that it is? From the proposal:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
This abrogation of the rule of law, after all, is precisely what the Left has correctly opposed about the Administration's conduct in the"war on terror," so why not continue the same opposition here? Anyone want to take a guess at the odds of that happening?
I have no particular problem with describing North Korea on your terms, though I don't know much about it. East Asia has a strong hierarchical tradition, through Confucianism, and once revolutionary fervour has died, as it definitely has there, I'd expect that attitude to resurface with a vengeance.
But revolutionary left wing hierarchies justify their hierarchy in the name of ending hierarchy.
(For a similart example of violating the principles you use to justify your superiority, remember, so-called 'conservatives' say they honor our founding fathers while pissing on just about every principle they held dear. North Korea is no different with regard to Marx.
Second, the whole left/right terminology is based on Western experience and thought. Easy translation to Asia is impossible. (Look what Rev. Moon has done with Christianity, and he was hardly the first. Look at the Tai-pings.)
I never suggested the illiberal left could pull it's hostility to all hierarchy off. In fact if you reread my blog you'll see I said the opposite.
I don't want to get into discussing so-called competitive free market capitalists here. Outside libertarians I have met very few who, when their advantages lay with government privilege, did not leap at the opportunity. And I think Ayn Rand's mythology of the noble capitalist has done enormous damage to the defense of liberty.
But that.s another discussion I do not have time or energy for right now. But you know where I stand, for what it is worth.
I do not like the left-right dichotomy much, but to the degree it retains any validity at all, I think it rests on attitudes towards hierarchy, and explains to my satisfaction why I really like some libertarians and am deeply repulsed by others who mouth the same ideology. For, if pushed, I'll describe myself s a left-Hayekian and have little use for the right wing types who strike me as psychologically and spiritually pathetic.
David Weatherall -
9/24/2008
That's an interesting way of looking at the problem. On your analysis I'd be slightly to the left then, as while I see no problem with hierarchies per se, I think that damage occurs when they move beyond the situations for which they are demonstrably useful in and become dogma or fixed institutions.
I think I can pick holes however when faced with such examples as North Korea, where everyone's favourite insane nuclear powered movie buff, Kim, is supposed to have a 'Mandate of Heaven' to lead his benighted nation once his dad died, a case that was made watertight by such things as the discovery of an albino sea cucumber. This seems to me to be a rigid religious monarchal hierarchy, however they also have collectivisation and common ownership. Under your suggested definitions of 'left' and 'right' we would therefore have to conclude that North Korea is a right wing communist state.
Even under less fantastic versions of communism, concepts like class warfare and dictatorship of the proletariat are clear forms of ideological hierarchy, even if it is in the name of abolishing hierarchy. A situation where everyone is equal as long as they say they agree with the dogma, those who do not are demoted. So from this argument we could conclude that communism is inherently hierarchical, even if it has only two levels, those who agree and those who don't.
Now on the other side, if you are a free market capitalist you presumably want corporations to be able to be competitive. A common corporate problem is that of market saturation leading to a need to expand into new markets while still retaining the business in the existing market. When this occurs, the person who should be leading a project one day is perhaps the person who should be producing another the next and if there is a rigid hierarchy, then this is extremely difficult.
Also for corporations to retain a competitive edge they need access to the advice of their brightest people, who often seem to be distributed almost at random within corporations with a rigid hierarchy. The more levels there are to the structure, the further away the mass of talent is from the people who make the decisions. So you could definitely argue that a lot of hierarchy is bad for business.
Gus diZerega -
9/24/2008
A while back I tried to do justice to this in two not very long blog posts. I think at the root it has to do with how we look at hierarchy. That fits when the terms first arose, and since.
The Left opposes hierarchy. The Right supports it. Liberals are torn both ways because liberalism values freedom and equality of legal status and those conditions breed inequality.
If anyone thinks Stalin and his ilk rebut me, please read the posts!
Could someone kindly explain to me what is meant by left and right these days and more fundamentally, why we even bother using the terminology any more.
It seems ridiculous that we are still trying to describe a wide variety of complex viewpoints on the basis of which particular sides of a building two sets of polarised power-hungry nutters decided that they were going to sit down in, in 1791.
For instance, on which side do we place dictators, dogmatists, ideologues, slaves, slavers, protectionists, traditionalists, empire builders, libertarians, lovers of minimal government, moralists, traders, travellers, revolutionaries and regime changers?
When I listen to the arguments of suited free-market capitalists and compare them to those of tattooed and pierced anarchists often they seem to be saying exactly the same thing, just with different terminology and methods.
I then experience something very similar when comparing the viewpoints of those on the traditionalist religious right with the views of soviet style dictatorial communists.
Basically, my point is that I think that trying to argue politics as though it is some sports event with two different teams in different coloured shirts is intellectually damaging to any serious discussion on the topic. I would level this charge at Naomi Klein as well as this current thread.
Also, as far as anyone other than perhaps economists being less vociferous about the current Federal economic response than they have been on the war on terror (or perhaps terra) I would suggest it is little to do with abstract ideologies and more to do with it being a much harder situation to get an emotional handle on, as well as being a recent event with many people simply not sure what they think about it yet.
Steven Horwitz -
9/22/2008
I'm glad to hear it Mark. In the places I'd looked, I hadn't seen much from the same left who was so rightly vociferous about the war on terror.
Gus diZerega -
9/22/2008
Steve-
I think your last sentence says it all. Free market and capitalism have morphed together in the minds of both left AND right.
I just saw on the Atlas Foundation's web site an ad for "Pagan Republicans" who want the government out of our personal lives and support fiscal responsibility. They even offered T-shirts for such folk and similar types who do not fit the totalitarian right's model of good citizens. (The designs on the shirts indicated they often knew nothing bout the people they sought to attract.)
To my knowledge there are no such Republicans in any position of significance, Pagan or otherwise.
(I do not know whether Atlas has anything to do with the ads - but they wonderfully symbolize the problem.)
If genuine free market supporters do not make the distinction between corporations and free markets, oligarchs and honest businesspeople, and do so often and loudly, why on earth should we expect those less knowledgeable of these distinctions to be any better?
Mark Brady -
9/22/2008
This is the second occasion you have alleged that the left has left so much unsaid about Federal responses to the current crisis. Previously you wrote something to this effect in reply to a post from David Beito on September 17. I’m really puzzled by your remarks. I have come across many on the left -- from committed Marxists to left-wing Democrats -- who have attacked the bailouts to date and the proposed monster bailout that our rulers are putting together as we speak. Writers on the left have opposed these measures, not least because they involve a huge theft from taxpayers to special interests and have disturbing implications for the rule of law.
Steven Horwitz -
9/22/2008
Come on Gus, you know I agree with you on the first half of this. I'm teaching American Economic History this semester and my students read Kolko for Pete's sake.
As for the second.... well I haven't heard anyone on the left yet say "gee, I guess Klein was wrong." And I haven't heard a cogent response from Klein and her crowd (nor do I think everyone on the left is covered by that phrase) to the Higgsian argument that crises have tended to produce Big Government (often at the behest of Big Business) rather than the free market reforms she claims it does.
Of course her own inability to distinguish "free markets" from "corporatism" might be the source of that problem.
Gus diZerega -
9/21/2008
If you modify Klein to saying that we have an oligarchy that uses the market when it is useful, tweaks the market when it is useful, and the government when it is useful, all with the intent of adding more millions to their accounts, cars to their fleets, homes to their inventory, and jets to their stables, she sounds right on.
Corporations in general have been the most successful advocates of centralization and government favors in the country, and they have been for years.
Given that most 'conservatives' and 'classical liberals' have allied themselves with that oligarchy for many years, Klein's misunderstanding is not surprising. The left vs right silliness is incredibly powerful in blinding many 'market advocates' to what is really happening.
Actually I HAVE seen lots of 'left' objections to the violation of the rule of law, Steve. Lots.
Whether they think government should do something different is quite a separate matter from your tarring them with a brush better used to paint Republicans and conservatives.
Steven Horwitz -
9/21/2008
Have you actually looked at how the relevant financial markets are structured? Calling what currently exists "deregulated" or a "free market" is really an abuse of both terms.
And the government's current response plan will *very much* make those markets less free than they already are. We're giving the Treasury a blank check to buy up mortgages and, more or less, nationalize a huge hunk of the mortgage industry. THAT is "seriously injuring" whatever bits of freedom the market had left.
Jonathan Dresner -
9/21/2008
Most of the criticism I've seen regarding the Paulson Plan has been from the left, and most of it is clearly critical of the attempt to "solve" the problem without serious regulatory systems.
In other words, I don't see how this proves Klein wrong: so far, we haven't seen any real shifts away from deregulation (a lot of noise and smoke, yes, but no progress) nor is the government's proposed response going to seriously injure the free markets, except for emboldening the already foolhardy.
