Paul Marks reminds us that the motivation to do good does not ensure good is actually done
Today I read the obituary of John Rawls (who died on Sunday) in the Daily Telegraph. Dr Rawls was a brave soldier, a loving husband and a good father to four children – he was also kind and polite to all who encountered him.
However, Dr Rawls was also the author of “A Theory of Justice” (1971) the main modern justification for the ever increasing burden of the welfare state.
According to Dr Rawls no one had any right to increase their income or wealth unless they could prove that by so doing they improved the economic life of the “least favoured”. Just not harming the least favoured would not do – as inequality harmed the “self esteem” of the poor.
Interestingly I also read in today’s Daily Telegraph a little example of how Rawlsian type thinking works out in practice. In the Spanish region of Valencia the government is working in a public-private partnership to improve the lot of the least favoured. Private developers produce a plan for the creation of urban zones (flats, shops, places of business and so on) in sparsely populated coastal areas, the government judges the plan and then levies a tax on land owners in the area to provide such things as roads and drainage.
What a wonderful thing – from either a Rawlsian or a utilitarian point of view.
However, the plan means that retired people who have bought properties by the coast have to pay the government lots of money (or have their property taken away) for roads and drainage (and so on) that do not benefit them.
Why do I think that Rawls (kind and decent man that he was) would have been disgusted by this sort of thing?
before you say “but that is the corruption of the idea” – maybe so, but that is statism in practice.
Paul Marks
Corruption, hell. That idea is fundamentally evil to begin with.
I’m afraid that this:
is just the standard libertarian misreading of Rawls. Rawls believed that – conditional on the protection of the basic liberties – the basic institutions of society should be organised such that as a consequence of their normal operation the expectations of the least advantaged would be maximised (hey, don’t you libertarians believe that condition is satisfied by free markets?). He did not believe that individuals could only have salary increased if they could show how these would benefit the poorest. Someone who clearly understood Rawls on this point was Hayek. (See also Sam Brittan’s various writings on the subject.)
I interpret Rawls to mean what he wrote – if did not and there was some special mystical meaning in the book then I am sorry. When Rawls writes about the “social product” (that may be “distributed” in various ways) I do not agree with him. To me (being an evil libertarian) there is no “social product” and civil rulers have nothing to “distribute” (oh dear, I do sound like M.J. Oakeshott – no doubt he “misread” these modern “liberals” also).
As for Hayek – sure, in “Law, Legislation and Liberty” he says nice things about Rawls – but Hayek does not cite “A Theory of Justice” (he cites, if my memory serves, something from the 1950s – and this thing turns out to be rather vague).
Rawls holds that it is not an example of “envy” to feel bad about other people getting a lot better off (when one is left behind) – but only because Dr Rawls redefines the word envy (look it up if you do not believe me).
And then we have the “Theory of Just Savings” – (about one hundred pages of this rubbish). It is only acceptable to save in order to maintain (not advance) material living standards.
Two problems (among many) – first, one can not tell in advance how much money one will need to save in order to maintain living standards (investment is uncertain), second – if people have never been allowed to divert sums to investment in order to improve (not just maintain) living standards then mankind would never have left the mudhut stage.
Dr Rawls replied to such points (and the point that if the “least favoured” are the people we should give our money to, this means we should hand it out to people in the third world – rather than the south side of Chicago) by saying that his theory was NOT a universal one (which is what it seemed to be in 1971) – but was a theory about a particular nation (“society”) at a particular time. The old lefty Brian Barry never forgave Rawls for “selling out” in this way.
Antony Flew went through Rawls page by page many times – and I am afraid you are just wrong. Hell, I went through every page of “A Theory of Justice” back in the early 1980’s – I had to, my tutor at University got to the bit where “behind the veil of ignorance” we are told that people have no conception of the good.
“Then they are not human beings and I am not interested in them” said Dr M. K-S and tossed the book to me (it hurt). “You read the bloody thing” (he said), “tell me enough so I can write about it”.
As for Samual Britton – I could never stand the man. He always seemed to me the typical “fair weather friend”, someone who would talk endlessly about free markets and as soon as there was trouble would be among the first to turn traitor. If I remember correctly he ended up being a Euro (just like Leon Britton).
“Sam” was keen to seem nice and be on friendly terms with collectivists. Do you remember Robert Nozick’s introduction to “Anarchy, State and Utopia” – where he first says how good “A Theory of Justice” is (Nozick provides no evidence for this) and then goes on about how “intolerant” libertarians are?
Observing the history of the development of government over the last hundred years and the state of the schools, universities and media should inspire RAGE not “tolerance”.
I find this talk of “rage”, “traitors” and “fair-weather friends” rather wearing. Attack Rawls by all means, but not a straw man of your own devising. I’d suggest his essay “The Basic Structure as Subject” in his Political Liberalism which is partly directed at what he takes to be libertarian (and other) misunderstandings of his views.
Well if Chris had bothered to actually read my post he would have seen that I do NOT use the words “rage”, “traitor” or “fair-weather friends” in relation to Dr Rawls (I make it quite clear who and what I am writing about when I use those words).
As for “straw man” – I do not see what Chris is talking about here.
I oppose what Dr Rawls wrote. Actually (again if only Chris had read my post) he would see that have read “Political Liberalism” – i.e. I note that Rawls issued a response to critics.
Dr Rawls (contrary to what Chris says) never retreated from the position that people should only be allowed to earn more money if by allowing them to do so the “least favoured” would benefit (just not harming the poor was not enough for Dr Rawls).
Talking about “misreadings”, “institutions”, “laws of society” (or whatever) is just playing silly games.
I did send an e.mail to Chis asking whether he had read any of Antony Flew’s examinations of Dr Rawls – sadly Chris did not bother to reply.
The point you are stubbornly refusing to grasp is that the difference principle applies to the basic structure of society. It therefore assigns differential rewards impersonally to various jobs with the aim of those inequalities maximally benefitting the least advantaged. But no test of benefit to the least advantaged is applied to individual actions within that structure. So, for example, suppose that we attach a rate of pay equal to three times the median to the post of brain surgeon, in order to elicit more activity from existing surgeons and to attract more into the profession, such an inequality is indeed justified by the effect of having enough brain surgeons on the expectations of the least advantaged. But it doesn’t follow from that structural feature that individual brain surgeons can only earn more money if their doing so is to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. The rate might be set in place with that objective in mind, but my individual action in responding to that incentive and working an extra few hours is not subject to any such test. It is therefore, false to assert that Rawls believed that “people should only be allowed to earn more money if by allowing them to do so the “least favoured” would benefit.”
I might add that on the “lexical interpretation” of the difference principle, what you assert is even more straightforwardly false, since on that interpretation the expectations of the most favoured would be maximized subject to the prior constraint of the maximization of the expectations of the least favoured. So on that interpretation, suppose the maximum payoff the least advantaged could get in any state of the world meeting the first principle of justice is 10 widgets, but to produce that 10-widget payoff we only need to assign a payoff to brain surgeons of 20 widgets. Rawls would nevertheless (since the payoff to the least advantaged is ex hypoethesi already as high as it can be) allow a further increase to the brain surgeons (i.e he wouldn’t insist on the pareto-inferior distribution).
Hey, I realise that you aren’t going to like what Rawls *does* say. But isn’t it better to attack that than a less plausible view?
Hey Chris why did you not reply to my e.mails (or at least tell me you had replied here)?
Am I suposed to be telepathic? I only found that you had replied here by chance.
O.K. We are talking about the “basic structure of society”.
Let us take a really good brain surgeon. Now this man (by the name of “Dr X”) can cure people no one else can.
Now Dr X charges a million pounds an operation – he does not care about the rule about only earning three times the median or working “a few extra hours”.
No Dr X works LESS hours than other surgeons and charges a million pounds per operation.
It just so happens that only a few rich playboys use Dr X’s services (Dr X specialises in repairing the damage they do to their brians by abusing certain drugs).
Now one can pretend that Dr X’s activites “benefit the least favoured” (by saying one of the playboys might throw some money at a begger) – but really they do not benefit anyone apart from the playboys and Dr X.
Now what price Dr X. sells his services (to his degenerate customers) is nothing to do with you (or Dr Rawls).
It is nothing to do with “us” “attaching” any rate of pay to anything.
Actually Chris, real brain surgeons (not just Dr X) do not wait about for “us” to “attach” them an income “three times the median”. Some of them do what they do because they love the job – some do what they do because of the money (and directly or INDIRECTLY it is their CUSTOMERS who are the source of that money and they determine how much they will pay), and some surgeons do what they do partly out of the love of it and partly because of the money.
Actually this IS a matter of the “basic stucture of society” – but here the word society does not mean some sort of collective entity, it means the web of interactions between human beings.
Your charge of incivility is unfounded. I did indeed reply by email at 19.24pm on 1 December, telling you that I had posted a response in the Samizdata comments section.
I apologise for my false assumption – that if I did not receive an e.mail none was sent.
I withdraw any implied claim that you have been uncivil – and apologise for the implication.