SOCIALISM AS A SET OF PRINCIPLES
We’re not talking about a social engineering system but a set of social ideals…
by NATHAN J. ROBINSON
Nearly half of millennials describe themselves as sympathetic to “socialism” and not terribly fond of “capitalism.” Yet if you asked each of them to explain the mechanics of how a socialist economy would function, I doubt many would have especially detailed answers. Jacobin magazine’s ABCs of Socialism consists of answers to skeptical questions about socialism (e.g. “Don’t the rich deserve their money?” “Is socialism pacifist?” “Will socialism be boring?”) but notably “How will socialism actually work?” is not among them. With twelve million Democratic primary voters having cast ballots for a self-described “socialist,” isn’t it concerning that nobody has explained in detail how socialism will “work”? Embracing a new economic system without having a blueprint seems like it could only ever lead to something like Venezuela’s collapse.
I think this criticism seems very powerful, and comes from an understandable instinct. But it has a mistaken view of what socialism actually means to the people who use the label. In the 21st century, for many of its adherents socialism is not describing a particular set of economic rules and government policies, some clearly-defined “system” that must be implemented according to a plan. Instead, it describes a set of principles that we want the economic and political system to conform to. Bringing the world into harmony with these principles will require experimentation, but that lack of rigidity is an asset. Because 20th century “socialist” states attempted vast social engineering projects, there is a tendency to think of “a socialist economy” in engineering terms. Capitalism is an engine, with its parts all working together to produce an effect. Socialists come along and say that the engine should be designed entirely differently, with a totally different set of rules in order to produce better effects. If this is what we’re talking about when we’re talking about “capitalism versus socialism,” then it’s completely right to ask for an explanation of how the proposed alternative works. We’d be very suspicious of someone who said they had reinvented the combustion engine but refused to tell us how the alternative would work and insisted that before trying it we destroy all of our combustion engines.
But this is a poor way of thinking about what is being advocated by socialists. Books are a better analogy. We have, in our hands, a badly-written manuscript and are trying to edit it into a well-written manuscript. But there’s no blueprint for the well-written manuscript. We create it through a process. Delete a passage here, insert one there, move this around, move that around. And in doing this, we follow a set of principles: we want it to flow well, we want the reader not to get confused, we want all our sentences to be forceful and precise. Those principles aren’t handed down from on high, and there are lots of different ways we could write the book that would produce something satisfactory. But asking at the beginning of the process “Well, what will the finished product look like?” makes no sense. If we could present a blueprint for the finished book, we wouldn’t need a blueprint because we would already have finished the book.
Socialism can be conceived of similarly: socialists are trying to make society better, so that its operations meet a particular set of ideal criteria. Here, I want to quote Leszek Kołakowski, the Polish scholar of Marxism, who was a vicious opponent of communist governments but drew an important distinction between socialism as a system and an ideal:
[It would be] a pity if the collapse of communist socialism resulted in the demise of the socialist tradition as a whole and the triumph of Social Darwinism as the dominant ideology….Fraternity under compulsion is the most malignant idea devised in modern times… This is no reason, however, to scrap the idea of human fraternity. If it is not something that can be effectively achieved by means of social engineering, it is useful as a statement of goals. The socialist idea is dead as a project for an ‘alternative society.’ But as a statement of solidarity with the underdog and the oppressed, as a motivation to oppose Social Darwinism, as a light that keeps before our eyes something higher than competition and greed—for all these reasons, socialism—the ideal, not the system—still has its uses.
By his last years, Kołakowski was bitterly disenchanted by the left to an extreme I find off-putting. But even he offered high praise for the great socialists of early 20th century Europe, and the ideals they embodied. They “wanted not only equal, universal and obligatory education, a social health service, progressive taxation and religious tolerance, but also secular education, the abolition of national and racial discrimination, the equality of women, freedom of the press and of assembly, the legal regulation of labour conditions, and a social security system. They fought against militarism and chauvinism [and] embodied what was best in European political life.”
Here we begin to see what socialist principles actually involve. How can they best be summarized? Kołakowski suggests it’s “fraternity,” but that seems too limited and too squishy. It does start there, though: with a feeling of connectedness and compassion for other human beings. “We are here to help each other through this thing, whatever it is,” as Kurt Vonnegut said. Many socialists begin with that feeling of “solidarity” with people whose lives are needlessly hard and painful, and a sense that we are all in this together.
Socialism also has a firm idea of the kinds of deprivation that this “fellow-feeling” leads us to care about. Everyone should be meaningfully free to have the most fulfilling life possible. “Meaningfully” free means that they need to be able to have that life in reality rather than just in theory: if every child who can afford it can take a trip to Disney World, but some children cannot afford it, then not everyone is free to go to Disney World and it would be cruel and false to tell a poor child that they were free to go if they wanted to. We can debate the ingredients of a fulfilling life, but for libertarian socialists like myself they include a high degree of personal autonomy and the ability to shape your own destiny.
This is what leads socialists toward the idea about “collective ownership of the means of production,” which is often cited as the core tenet of socialism. The reason socialists talk about “ownership” so much is that “ownership” refers to decision-making power. If I own a book, it means I am the one who gets to decide what happens to it. I can write in it, sell it, or throw it away. The instinct that “people should be able to shape their own destinies” leads socialists to endorse what I think is the core meaning of “democracy,” namely the idea that people should have decision-making power over those things that affect them. If we think people’s choices should be valued, then they should be included in decision-making that affects them.
Hence all this business about the “means of production.” The workers in an auto plant are strongly affected by the decision as to whether or not it should close and move production elsewhere. Yet because they do not “own” it (i.e. have any decision-making power), the choice will be made without the participation of those it will impact most. This violates the core principle of democracy. The whole reason socialists are critical of the concentration of private property in few hands is that it constitutes a concentration of socially consequential decision-making power. Say I have been renting my apartment for 30 years. I have made it my home, I have loved it and improved it. Yet I don’t have decision-making power over what happens to it, because I am not the owner. The building can be sold and I can be evicted, without having any right to participate in the decision. It’s not that I am necessarily entitled to get my way. But democracy does entitle me to have a share in the decision-making proportional to my stake in the outcome. Free market capitalism ensures no such participation; the ones who decide what happens are the ones who own the most resources.
This is also why authoritarian “socialist” regimes don’t deserve the name. The whole purpose here is to increase people’s control over their circumstances. If you’re simply vesting that control in a government, and people have no say in that government, then there’s nothing socialistic about what is going on, unless the term is meaningless. Collective ownership means collective decision-making power. Without democratic decision-making, then there’s no collective ownership. There’s just government ownership, and governments themselves only conform to the principles of socialism to the extent they are democratic. In fact, “democratic socialism” should be a redundancy, because socialism should consist of the application of democracy to all aspects of life.
There are plenty of different ideas for how to make the world more democratic, to ensure that people’s lives aren’t being controlled by mysterious private or state forces that they have no control over. Socialists have a variety of proposals for economic democracy, such as the Universal Basic Income, worker cooperatives, and mandating profit-sharing. But the democratic principle isn’t just about economics. It’s also what turns socialists into feminists and anti-racists. Sexism and racism are outside forces that are acting on people against their will, making their lives more difficult on account of demographic characteristics that they cannot choose. The principle “everyone should have the most fulfilling possible life” means that women shouldn’t be harassed at work, transgender teens shouldn’t be bullied, and people of color shouldn’t face unique structural disadvantages.
One may think that by identifying ideas like “giving everyone a maximally fulfilling life” as core principles, I am draining socialism of meaning. After all, who doesn’t want people to have fulfilling lives? If socialism just means “things should be good,” everyone is a socialist. But that’s part of the point: socialism tries to apply values that are essentially universal. What differentiates the socialist and the non-socialist is the “apply” part. Everyone talks about democracy and freedom and fulfillment, but socialists are concerned to figure out what those things would really entail, and ensure that they are meaningful components of everybody’s lives, rather than only existing for some. The United States is “democratic,” and people are “free.” But when the public’s views don’t affect the government’s policies, and when people can’t get vacation time to go and take advantage of their freedom, these concepts are not being fully realized. Socialist principles may sound like platitudes, but when taken seriously they have radical implications: they mean a world without war, crime, prisons, and vast wealth inequality. A socialist world would be very different from our current one.
The principles themselves, though, don’t contain any definitive prescription for how to get there. My comparison with the “edit and rewrite” process may imply that I am advocating “piecemeal reforms” or “baby steps.” But that’s not what I mean by experimentation. Experimentation doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be bold. It just means constantly checking to make sure you’re upholding the principles. Preferring principles to systems doesn’t mean you can never be a revolutionary, it means making sure your revolution is actually advancing your principles rather than “breaking a lot of eggs but never getting an omelet.” Nor does it mean that “socialist” today means “social democrat,” i.e. capitalism with a welfare state. It could mean that, if that were the best we could hope for. But genuine socialism is idealistic: the perfect application of its principles would only occur in a utopia, which means the work will never fully be done.
The millennial embrace of socialism, then, does not mean that millennials are trying to implement some complicated new economic system that they do not understand. It means that they measure any economic system by the degree to which it is humane and democratic, and they are angered by the degree to which our current one fails people. It means that they reject selfishness and believe in solidarity. And it means that they are determined to help each other build something better, whatever that may be.
HOW NEOLIBERALISM WORMS ITS WAY INTO YOUR BRAIN
There is no other word for the bipartisan convergence around certain economic dogmas…
by NATHAN J. ROBINSON
I detest the word “neoliberalism.” I mean, it really makes me cringe. I generally impose a strict rule that writers are not allowed to use it. (Though we do offer a coupon for one free use, and as the editor I cannot be prevented from printing as many coupons as I like.) I have a few reasons for disliking the term: It’s imprecise, it’s misleading, and it is unintelligible to the majority of literate adults. And yet I’m torn, because I also think that it captures a very real tendency. I worry that overusing shaggy theoretical terminology can both alienate readers and result in vague or meaningless writing. But the underlying phenomenon that “neoliberalism” describes has occurred, and I agree with the perspective laid out by Mike Konzcal, who says:
I find that the term neoliberalism generally confuses more than it enlightens. I prefer when people just refer directly to what they are criticizing, be it the expansion of the marketplace into our everyday lives or the Democrats’ turn away from the New Deal. … [Yet] there’s a good reason the term has become popular.
Let me explain why I think “neoliberalism” is an important term, albeit one that should rarely be used by magazine writers who would like people to actually read their articles. It captures the tendency of people who are nominally “on the left” to make arguments based on conservative premises. For example: Republicans argue that their tax cut will increase GDP, reduce the deficit, and reduce taxes for the middle class. Democrats reply that the tax cut will not increase GDP, will not reduce the deficit, and will not reduce the middle-class’ tax burden. Both parties are arguing around a shared premise: The goal is to cut taxes for the middle class, reduce the deficit, and grow GDP. But traditional liberalism, before the “neo” variety emerged, would have made its case on the basis of some quite different premises. Instead of arguing that Democrats are actually the party that will reduce the middle class’ taxes, it would make the case that taxes are important, because it’s only through taxes that we can improve schools, infrastructure, healthcare, and poverty relief. Instead of participating in the race to cut taxes and the deficit, Old Liberalism is based on a set of moral ideas about what we owe to one another.
Now, one reason I dislike the “neoliberalism” framework is that I’m not sure how much this nostalgic conception of the Great Liberalism Of Times Past should be romanticized. But it’s obvious that there’s a great deal of difference between New Deal/Great Society rhetoric and “Actually We’re The Real Job Creators/Tax-Cutters/GDP Growers.” And it’s also true that over the last decades, certain pro-market ideological premises have wormed their way into the mind of ordinary liberals to the point that debates occur within a very narrow economic framework.
Let me give you a very clear example. Libertarian economist Bryan Caplan has a new book out called The Case Against Education. It argues that the public school system is a waste of time and money and should be destroyed. Caplan says that students are right to wonder “when they will ever use” the things they are being taught. They won’t, he says, because they’re not being taught any skills they will actually need in the job market. Instead, education functions mostly as “signaling”: A degree shows an employer that you are the type of person who works hard and is responsible, not that you have actually learned particular things that you need. Credentials, Caplan says, are mostly meaningless. He argues that we should drastically cut public school funding, make education more like job training, get rid of history, music, and the arts, and “deregulate and destigmatize child labor.” Essentially, Caplan believes that education should be little more than skills training for jobs, and it’s failing at that.
Now here’s where “neoliberalism” comes in. Caplan’s argument is obviously based on right-wing economic premises: Markets should sort everything out, the highest good is to create value for your employers, etc. But let’s look at a “liberal” response. In theWashington Monthly, Kevin Carey has a biting critique of Caplan’s book, which he says is based on a “childish” philosophy. Carey says that education is, in fact, useful for more than signaling:
Caplan is not wrong about the existence of signaling and its kissing cousin, credentialism, which describes the tendency of job categories to accrue more degree requirements, sometimes unnecessarily, over time. But these are banal and unchallenged ideas in the economics profession. … In his 2001 Nobel lecture, [Michael] Spence warned that people who use job markets to illustrate signaling run the risk of concluding, wrongly, that education doesn’t contribute to productivity. This wrongheaded argument is the essence of The Case Against Education… Eric Hanushek, a conservative economist and well-known skeptic of public school funding, has documented a strong relationship between average scores on international tests and the growth rates of national economies. Put simply, well-educated nations become prosperous nations, and no country has become well educated without large, sustained investments in public education.
Carey mounts a strong defense of public education against Caplan’s attack. But look at how he does it. Caplan has argued that education doesn’t actually make students more productive or give them skills useful for thriving in the economy. Carey replies that while this is partly true, education does actually increase productivity, as we can see when we look across nations. Everyone in the discussion, however, is operating on the implicit premise that the measure of whether education is successful is “productivity.” And because of that, no matter how strong the liberal argument is, no matter how stingingly critical it may be of libertarianism or privatization, it has already ceded the main point. We all agree that education is about maximizing students’ value to the economy, we just disagree about the degree to which public education successfully does that, and whether the solution is to fix the system or get rid of it. The debate becomes one of empirics rather than values.
Carey doesn’t make a case for an alternative “liberal” notion of education, and doesn’t question the values underlying the “banal and unchallenged ideas in the economics profession.” But unless liberalism is to be something more than “a difference of opinion over the correct way to maximize productivity,” it’s important to defend a wholly different set of principles. Otherwise, what if it turns out that providing art and music classes is a drag on productivity? What if teaching students history turns out to make them worse workers, because they begin to see a resemblance between their bosses and the robber barons? What if the study of philosophy makes laborers less compliant and docile? If we argue that music is actually economically useful, then we’ll have no defense of music if it turns out not to be useful. Instead, we need to argue that whether music is economically useful has nothing to do with whether students deserve to be exposed to it.
Here’s a clear illustration. Donald Trump heavily pushes the idea that school should be job training, to the point of saying that “community colleges” should be redefined as vocational schools because he doesn’t know what “community” is. (You can blame Trump’s ignorance, but this is partially because the right has spent decades insisting that “society” and “community” are meaningless terms and the world consists solely of individuals, and the left has not had good explanations in response.) A UCLA education professor, Mike Rose, critiques Trump and Betsy DeVos for defining vocational education “in functional and economistic terms — as preparation for the world of work[,] reduced to narrow job training.” Sounds right! But then here’s what Rose says about why vocational education must be more than training:
Intellectual suppleness will have to be as key an element of a future Career and Technical Education as the content knowledge of a field. The best CTE already helps students develop an inquiring, problem-solving cast of mind. But to make developing such a cast of mind standard practice will require, I think, a continual refining of CTE and an excavation of the beliefs about work and intelligence that led to the separation of the academic and the vocational course of study in the first place. [In addition to basic skills], students will need to learn the conceptual base of those tools and techniques and how to reason with them, for future work is predicted to be increasingly fluid and mutable. A standard production process or routine of service could change dramatically. Would employees be able to understand the principles involved in the process or routine and adapt past skills to the new workplace? … To borrow a phrase from labor journalist William Serrin, we need “to give workers back their heads” and assume and encourage the intellectual engagement of students in the world of work. That engagement would include education in history and sociology, economics and political science. What are the forces shaping the economy? How did we get to this place, and are there lessons to be learned from exploring that history? Are there any pressure points for individual or collective action? What resources are out there, what options do I have, how do I determine their benefits and liabilities?
Rose argues that workers should be given an education in history and sociology. Why? Because it will make them better workers. The future economy will require more adaptable minds with better critical reasoning skills, and wider courses of study will help prepare students for that future economy. Yet the argument is still: Education shouldn’t just be job training, it should also incorporate the liberal arts, because the liberal arts are also helpful on the job. Our defense of a liberal education remains instrumental. Of course, often when liberals make these arguments, they defend them by saying that instrumental arguments are more successful than moral ones. You’re not going to get anywhere arguing that workers deserve history courses, you have to say that they need them. But I’ve always been skeptical of that defense for a few reasons. First, if it turns out that learning history won’t actually produce better tech workers, your whole argument collapses. Second, it’s dishonest, and people can usually detect dishonesty. Third, it takes us yet another step further toward the universal acceptance of the conclusion that economic values are the only values there are. (Also, let’s be real: No business is going to be fooled into thinking it’s a good idea to teach their workers how to use “collective action” to exert pressure.)
I gave a similar example recently of the difference between the way a neoliberal framework looks at things versus the way a leftist does. Goldman Sachs produced a report suggesting to biotech companies that curing diseases might not actually be profitable, because people stop being customers once they are cured and no more money can be extracted from them. The liberal response to this would be an empirical argument: “Here’s why it is actually profitable to cure diseases.” The leftist response would be: “We need to have a value system that goes beyond profit maximization.”
Neoliberalism, then, is the best existing term we have to capture the almost universal convergence around a particular set of values. We don’t have debates over whether the point of teaching is to enrich the student’s mind or prepare the student for employment, we have debates over how to prepare students for employment. Economic values become the water we swim in, and we don’t even notice them worming their way into our brains. The word is valuable insofar as it draws our attention to the ideological frameworks within which debates occur, and where the outer boundaries of those debates lie. The fact that everyone seems to agree that the purpose of education is “job skills,” rather than say, “the flourishing of the human mind,” shows the triumph of a certain new kind of liberalism, for which I can only think of one word.
that's because the president is a sensitive little *****.
I’d smash a beehive before i smash any huckabee descendant
Not my type.
