by Andrew
"[W]e cannot help him."
"Then he will stand alone."
"At the end, Captain, we all stand alone."
Delenn and Captain Elizabeth Lochley, Babylon 5
How do we determine what we should believe? Part of the reason debates about politics get so heated is that we are often debating the what rather than the how. When we discuss how to fight Islamic terrorism, at least we can all generally agree on a good end state: no more aircraft hitting buildings, exploding over the ocean, etc. When we discuss an issue like the minimum wage, however, we not only debate questions of the best way to address poverty, but issues like freedom and security. Since it is difficult to offer an objective answer for what the proper degree of individual freedom is appropriate, debate can get rather heated as opposing premises are brought to bear. But how do we come to those premises in the first place?
I'll start with what I consider the baseline: the individual. We are all unique, six billion-plus different people with different experiences, different desires, different goals and different dreams. While there are many ways we can categorize ourselves, the more precise the category, the more exceptions we will be able to find. This is why I frequently tilt at windmills when people offer comments like 'Republicans think this;' I'm sure some of them do, but the probability that they all don't think that approaches 1.0. And when it comes down to questions of the good, we all have our own unique slant on it that makes conceptions like the common good problematic. Therefore, when considering the questions of right and wrong, I believe it is appropriate to focus on individuals rather than groups.
Having said that, I do not believe that morality is therefore a question of individuals. Assuming the importance of the individual, we can still develop a generalized moral code. We can begin with reciprocity: no individual should be permitted to do anything to another without that person's permission. That is a good general rule, although in the specific there will be exceptions. Still, it seems reasonable to argue that no individual should be permitted to harm another, or to take anything from another without that person's permission.
This brings us into the territory of rights. I am of the opinion that rights are negative constructions; I can have a right not to be attacked, for example, but not a right to a big screen plasma TV. I tend to conceive of rights by starting with a theoretical construct: rights are what would happen in the absence of outside interference. So, for example, we have a right to the things we build, because in the absence of outside interference, we would be able to control those things we create. (Intellectual property is a more complex subject I'll leave to another time.)
But, of course, we don't live in a world free of outside interference. So, while I consider that theoretical construct a good place to determine what rights people have, it's wholly impractical when trying to defend those rights. For that, we have to have government. I realize that goes against the anarcho-capitalists who are certain that we could have a successful society without government, but in the absence of any actually extant society where that has worked, I cannot sign onto such a thesis. When humanity comes together, we form agreements to make sure we can live together reasonably peaceably. We do this for the best of reasons: when we live together peaceably, we all do better. While I am not using this as an argument in favor of letting the poor take life as it comes, the fact is that the average poor person in the United States is better off in most ways than the nobility just two centuries ago. Again, I'm not trying to spark an argument about relative well-being, I note that only to point out that our society has been remarkably successful in raising individual standards of living. The question of whether or not further fine tuning is necessary is not one I'm attempting to address right now. To return to my thesis, some individuals will always attempt to get things by taking them from other people. To prevent that, and to avoid rule by the strong, we institute governments.
We create government to protect our rights. Without government, we all have to protect our own rights, something that is practically impossible, Sam Colt notwithstanding. So we hand government the right to initiate force, a right that no individual holds save in self-defense. Government can therefore step in to either stop people from violating other's rights, or to remove those who violate others' rights from society, imposing lesser punishments for lesser offenses. By placing this responsibility in the hands of an ostensibly neutral third party, we attempt to create an arbiter capable of treating offenses evenhandedly. As human beings are neither perfect nor perfectible, these efforts will never be wholly successful, but that's why we have expressions like 'close enough for government work.'
Government also provides the necessary underpinnings of capitalism. The evidence suggests capitalism has done more to raise people out of poverty than any other economic system. This is therefore an additional good reason to create government. Just as government can provide a relatively neutral third party to arbitrate rights violations, government can provide that service to protect people who enter into agreements with one another. Capitalism does not work very well without a high degree of trust, so the ability to know that if one of your suppliers fails to live up to his word you have legal recourse helps to protect that level of trust. Societies where contracts can be broken without penalty pay a stiff price when it comes to economic development.
This all works together to establish a floor, as it were, for societies. The combination of established rights and a third party capable of protecting those rights as well as fostering commerce and cooperation between people by protecting them against betrayal gives people a basic start towards determining the course of their lives. Because I firmly believe that each individual has the right to determine the good for themselves (as long as it does not violate another person's rights, I should note), these conditions are vital to a moral society.
This still does not address the question of inequality, however. Even were we to assume that everyone started from precisely the same beginnings, had access to the same resources, and had precisely the same abilities, random chance would ensure uneven outcomes. Because we cannot ensure any of those prerequisites, those outcomes can go even further out of balance. Because fairness, however it is defined, is almost an intrinsic part of human consciousness, such outcomes are viewed as undesirable, and people will decide to do something about them. There is evidence that reducing inequality is also a societal good, as high degrees of inequality can lead to unrest even when everyone is doing better. (My apologies, I cannot find where I saw this, but someone recently pointed to a study of late 19th century America where the economy was going great guns, but unrest was still high, apparently due to significant inequalities.) So there may be some value in keeping inequality within certain bounds to maximize everyone's chances to pursue their own version of the good.
Some people even argue that, if the individual is the basis for society, we ought to make sure that each individual starts on a level playing field. The trouble with this is twofold: one, we cannot actually place everyone on a level playing field. No two people are exactly the same; some are smarter, some are better-looking (a far more important attribute for success), some are more articulate, some are more athletic, and so on. Attempts to place disparate people on a level playing field are doomed to failure. The second problem we run into is that placing people on a level playing field requires us to get those resources from somewhere. For all intents and purposes, we must lower some in order to raise others to an equivalent level. So we have a conflict; people have a right to what they earn, but we want to maximize people's opportunities to pursue their own desires.
This is where 'pure' libertarians have an advantage, I suppose. By drawing a sharp line and saying the government just doesn't have the right to take from one person to aid another, they don't have to enter the gray area of where to draw the line between protecting people's rights and providing some degree of equality of opportunity. But, moral qualms aside, that's simply not practical; people aren't going to stand for poor people dropping dead outside hospitals because they can't afford treatment, as was noted in our earlier forays into health care. So I've got to find a way to draw that line. The question is, is there a principled way to do so? (Which I suppose begs the question, does there need to be?)
If the ultimate arbiter of the good is the individual, then the goal of society ought to be to provide the conditions best suited to giving people the chance to pursue their goals. Many people (most, perhaps) will fail in that pursuit, but I am more interested in opportunity. Without some degree of struggle, it is difficult for me to see any real meaning in life, for if you can have whatever you want, there is no progress, no heroism, no challenge. If life has any meaning at all beyond what we give it, I believe it is in the struggle to achieve things thought impossible, to go beyond what people believe can be done. On the other hand, save in limited circumstances, when that struggle involves actually trying to survive then things have gone too far in the wrong direction; humanity's struggles should involve causes a bit more grand than mere survival.
But I am also leery of government in general, both because government is inherently inefficient and because government power is so easily abused. Because government power presents the facade of gentility, people are far more eager to utilize it than they would be to personally threaten violence in order to achieve a desired result. Yes, I realize that the government rarely has to resort to violence in order to achieve its objectives, but that is largely because we are all well aware that government can wield violence on a far greater scale than individuals, and few are willing to give their lives to stand up to what they perceive as government abuses. But the fact the iron fist rarely lashes out does not change the fact, as George Washington observed, that "Government is force, and you cannot refine it." In democratic countries, this force is further imbued with a patina of legitimacy provided by the democratic process. There is an unfortunate belief among too many people that, if 50.1% of the people vote for something, it is ok to do that. That belief tends to provide a haven for bad government policy. Look no further than current attempts by many Republicans to justify programs like the NSA monitoring program by pointing to evidence that the majority support such actions to fight terrorism. Even if that is the case, I do not believe I will find a great deal of disagreement here that a program that monitors American citizens ought to have significant oversight and the blessing of the Congress, rather than simply be emplaced via executive fiat.
Which brings us to federalism. I am of the opinion that the drafters of the Constitution were very wise in creating a sharply limited federal government. Not because I have any great attachment to 'state's rights' per se, but because I am a firm believer in keeping decision-making at the lowest possible level. As our recent history can attest, the United States is deeply divided on a number of questions of governance. I am not certain if these differences are necessarily any deeper than those which have divided Americans since we first decided to band together (although I feel safe in averring they are not so deep as those that led to the American Civil War, for which we may all be grateful), the combination of those differences and the shift of power from the states to the federal government have combined to raise the pitch of the fighting. If more decisions were shifted to the state level (or even lower, when possible), at least people would have the option of voting with their feet if they disagree with the final result. When decisions are made at the federal level, this ability is reduced. People can still leave the United States, but those costs are much higher than those required to simply move to another state. (Something not always easy even now.) Keeping decisions at lower levels increases people's ability to respond to those decisions when they disagree, a feature I consider quite valuable because it maximizes people's ability to pursue their own goals.
Still, this does not resolve the basic problem of the tension between those conflicting goals. Even if all decisions are pushed to the state level or lower, some people will be on the losing end of each decision. Is there no way to determine where the right balance is?
I just don't think there is. I can defend basic rights as near-absolutes, and I can decry excessive use of government power, but determining precisely where the line should be drawn is something I'm not willing to do. Don't get me wrong; I am quite willing to express where I would prefer the line be drawn, but I am not so confident in my ability to determine right and wrong to declare that my position is definitive. I see a hard line with a need to have government that provides police and criminal and civil court services. I see that human society simply isn't going to function with that level of minimalist government. But I cannot define just where is too far with certainty. I am of the opinion that a federal government that spends one dollar in five is too much, but I have no way of proving that.
"Austin, I'm your father."
"Really?"
"No, not really. I can't back that up."
Mike Myers, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
And on that note, I'll end this, as it's doubtless already too long and twice as confusing as it needed to be. Nonetheless, perhaps there's enough sense in there to at least give readers some idea of where I'm coming from. No doubt there will be more to follow.
For the record, the unexamined life may not be worth living, but it can save you a lot of headaches. It's hard to believe I'm actually trained to take in a batch of disparate information and make good decisions based on that data, isn't it?
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