Socialism Flashcards
(20 cards)
What are holism and methodological individualism, and why, according to Barry (1989), should socialists by holists?
- The most plausible statement of methodological individualism is that all satisfactory explanations of social phenomena must be capable, in principle, of being couched in terms of individuals’ actions.
- An explanation of a social phenomenon in terms of methodological holism would, in contrast, invoke something like ‘the functional needs of capital’, while resisting the suggestion that such a statement should be capable of being translated into one about the actions of individual capitalists.
Three reasons socialism should adopt methodological individualism:
- Methodological individualism is at the very least a plausible and attractive idea. If people are told that to be good socialists they have to subscribe to methodological holism, a lot of potential supporters will be gratuitously put off. They will conclude that there must be something wrong with a doctrine that rests on such questionable foundations.
- The explanatory and predictive record of the best-known theory embodying methodological holism, Marxism, has been thoroughly wretched: it has not come to terms with (let alone predicted) any of the major developments of the twentieth century. There may be many reasons for this, but I suggest that the habit of ascribing motive power to entities such as capital ought to be high up on the list.
- It forces us to ask hard questions about the operation of a socialist society’s institutions. If we propose that in future things ought to be organized in a certain way, methodological individualism bids us to press the question: how are individual men and women to be motivated to act in the manner that these institutions require? (doesn’t mean people are invariably motivated by self-interest).
What are solidarism and its individualist counterpart and why should these both be rejected?
The choice between individualism and solidarism is a false one and both should be rejected. Instead, it is argued that social obligations arise from specific conventions underpinned by general moral principles.
Solidarism is the conception of society where a society is defined by common institutions and mutual obligations of care.
Solidarism and the form of individualism that constitutes its antithesis share a common assumption: that either obligations arise naturally from actual relationships or they arise artificially as the result of the voluntary actions of morally independent individuals.
There is a general principle, common to every society, that one should play one’s part in a co-operative arrangement from which one benefits or stands to benefit. The variable part, which is provided by a convention, is the part that establishes what kinds of co-operative arrangements there are and what constitutes benefiting or standing to benefit.
The constitution of a social arrangement and the obligations among its members are both social constructs – doesn’t mean these obligations are arbitrary.
Both the legal and the social norms derive whatever moral force they have from the same source: the valuable results that follow from adherence to them.
How does Barry define socialism and why?
- Definition of socialism: socialism = social justice + collectivism
- By defining socialism as social justice plus collectivism, I thus depart in two ways from the idea that ‘socialism is about equality’: by substituting ‘social justice’ for ‘equality’ and by adding collectivism. Equality is an inaccurate representation of a distinctly socialist goal. If taken as fundamental equality - the equal claim to consideration of all human beings- it does not distinguish socialism from liberalism or indeed from most (non-racist) forms of modern conservatism. If taken as material equality, it is also inaccurate since very few socialists have ever been or are now in favour of complete material equality.
What are the principles of social justice, according to Barry?
Fundamental equality of human beings
- What follows from this is that all inequalities in rights and access to scarce resources have to be justified in terms that can be accepted by everyone, including those who stand to finish up with less than others in the way of rights and access. There are only two candidates with any plausibility: desert- those who deserve more should get more; and common advantage - if everyone stands to gain from some social arrangement that sets up or generates an inequality, we have at any rate a prima facie good reason for everyone to accept the inequality.
What is collectivism and why should socialists be collectivists, according to Barry?
What has united socialists historically is a belief in collectivism. If this was dropped from the definition of socialism there is no way of distinguishing socialists from adherents of social justice who favour dividing everything up so that each person gets his or her fair share and then leaving them to pursue their ends independently. ‘Socialism’ as a term, then, would no longer be distinguishable from the leftist branch of liberal individualism
Issue between collectivism and individualism: . The issue between them is the desirability of collective action to bring about ends that cannot be achieved by individual actions. Individualism in its classic form is the idea that the state should create a framework for individual action by prohibiting injury to others and enforcing contracts. The left liberal version that I mentioned stipulates that income should be redistributed through some general system of taxes and transfers. In other respects it follows the same line. Collectivism is simply the rejection of individualism in either its classical or its left liberal form. It is individualism as anti-collectivism that has flourished in the past ten years. Although it would not naturally be expressed by saying that there is no such thing as society, it does systematically downplay the significance of the aspirations that people have as members of a society and exalts those that they have as individuals.
Case for collectivism:
- The more that the members of a society are associated in common institutions the more likely they are to see themselves as being all in the same boat and to accept redistributive measures
- there are many things we want which can be achieved only by collective action.
What, according to Barry, is the issue with focusing on choice as always being good?
- Individualistic idea that it is better to have a choice than not to have one - this proposition is false
- We may all lose from our all having a choice, because we would prefer the outcome that occurs when we are all prevented from doing what we would choose when given the choice.
- Can be worse for the person concerned to have a choice: his or her bargaining position may be stronger if excessively disadvantageous options are ruled out.
- e.g., There is no way in which it can be shown a priori that parents or children will be more satisfied on average with such a system of so-called parental choice than with one in which each child is allocated to a school whose composition is similar to that of the others in the area.
What is the egalitarian principle that justice endorses? (Cohen, 2009)
The egalitarian principle that justice endorses, and that is a radical principle of equality of opportunity, which Cohen calls “socialist equality of opportunity.”
Equality of opportunity removes obstacles to opportunity from which some people suffer, and others don’t. Sometimes it reduces the opportunities of those who benefit from inequality of opportunity, so it is not only an equalising, but a redistributing, policy.
What are, according to Cohen, the three forms of equality of opportunity?
- Bourgeois equality of opportunity widens people’s opportunities by removing constraints on opportunity caused by rights assignments and by bigoted and other prejudicial social perceptions.
- Left-liberal equality of opportunity also sets itself against the constraining effect of social circumstances by which bourgeois equality of opportunity is undisturbed, the constraining effect, that is, of those circumstances of birth and upbringing that constrain not by assigning an inferior status to their victims, but by nevertheless causing them to labour and live under substantial disadvantage. When left-liberal equality of opportunity is fully achieved, people’s fates are determined by their native talent and their choices, and, therefore, not at all by their social backgrounds.
- Socialist equality of opportunity treats the inequality that arises out of native differences as a further source of injustice, beyond that imposed by unchosen social backgrounds, since native differences are equally unchosen. Socialist equality of opportunity seeks to correct for all unchosen disadvantages, disadvantages, that is, for which the agent cannot herself reasonably be held responsible, whether they be disadvantages that reflect social misfortune or disadvantages that reflect natural misfortune. When socialist equality of opportunity prevails, differences of outcome reflect nothing but difference of taste and choice, not differences in natural and social capacities and powers.
What forms of inequality is socialist equality of opportunity compatible with, according to Cohen (2009)
Variety of preference and choice across lifestyle options
Inequality of benefit, where the inequality reflects the genuine choices of parties who are initially equally placed and who may therefore reasonably be held responsible for the consequences of those choices.
- inequality due to regrettable choice
- inequality due to differences in option luck
What is the community principle and how does it restrain the operation of the egalitarian principle? (Cohen)
The requirement of community that is central here is that people care about, and, where necessary and possible, care for, one another, and, too, care that they care about one another.
The community principle constrains the operation of the egalitarian principle by forbidding certain inequalities that the egalitarian principle permits.
We cannot enjoy full community, you and I, if you make, and keep, say, ten times as much money as I do, because my life will then labour under challenges that you will never face, challenges that you could help me to cope with, but do not, because you keep your money.
Why, according to Cohen, are markets incompatible with socialism?
The motives that underlie market exchanges are different from what people’s motives would be under ‘genuine’ socialism.
In a market society the motive to productive activity is typically a “mixture of greed and fear”. This does not mean that no one in a market can have concerns wider than themselves, but that it is the motives of greed and fear which bring the market to prominence, and in a market, one’s opposite number marketeers are predominantly seen as possible sources of enrichment or threats to one’s success. Those in a market are only willing to serve to be served and give as little service as possible in exchange for getting as much as possible; they serve either to get something they desire, which is the greed motivation, or to ensure something they seek to avoid is avoided, which is the fear motivation.
A nonmarket cooperator, on the other hand, values the cooperation itself, seeing value in serving someone outside of it being a means to an end of being served themself5. There is a relationship of communal reciprocity in which people give because others need and want and expect comparable generosity from others.
What does Miller (2014) argue about market socialism?
Markets and Socialism are not incompatible.
For mainstream market socialists, the preferred form of economic organization was the labour-managed firm or workers’ cooperative.
Market socialism, in tandem with non-market institutions, could be communitarian enough and that forms of socialism that promised thicker forms of community might threaten freedom, understood as the opportunity for each person to develop and express their latent powers, not least in occupational choice.
It is not a defect of the market that it does not assign resources directly on the basis of need; a market economy that was not accompanied by non-market institutions that distributed (some of) the resources it creates on the basis of need would be unjust. But the market socialist model under discussion was clearly one in which the market sector was to be counterbalanced by an extensive welfare state.
In what way does Miller think that non-market socialism would be destructive to individualism?
The form of community which a non-market socialism would require may be destructive to individuality, as non-market methods of job allocation may have negative effects on individual freedom. This is because, in the absence of a labour market well-motivated people would choose to do the productive activity that seems to them to represent their greatest contribution to social welfare, and would not be under any pressure to reassess that choice over due to being sheltered from the disruptive effects of changing market conditions which would force them to reassess the role they are playing in production. This may lead people to become engulfed in a particular social role. Cohen concedes that a person may permissibly tale on a less socially useful job if the more useful job he could perform would come at a heavy cost to his self-realisation, however, even with this concession it is still the case that people have no reason to reassess that choice over time, and so may still become engulfed in that social role.
How does Miller challenge Cohen’s diagnosis of the market economy that people within it are characteristically motivated by greed and fear?
According to Miller, it is an exaggeration to claim that people in market settings are characteristically motivated by greed and fear; it is entirely possible for someone to be both happy to be getting paid, but also happy to provide their customers with a service. He also points out that that people offering goods and services in the market are not typically engaged in zero-sum competition and may be satisfied as long as they can maintain an adequate market share. Miller does, however, concede that peoples motivations in markets are primarily instrumental and so “less noble” than the motivation of someone aiming directly to meet another’s needs. However, given the other virtues of markets, such as them being an effective means of directing resources and labour to their most productive uses, it is acceptable that someone engage in a market due to instrumental motivations, whilst also being aware that she is participating in, and wanting to participate in, a practice which is beneficial to social welfare and confers advantages on society.
On what basis does Steiner argue that proffered grounds for Cohen’s rejection of market relations – that they are sustained by the base motives of greed and fear – are unsound and also unnecessary to explain the maximising behaviour induced by those relations?
Just because someone acts in a way to maximise their own returns, does not mean they are doing it out of greed, as they may be doing it as means to a selfless end, so to identify the motivation behind an action in a market, it is these ends which we need to look at
Steiner instead advocates for it being non-tuism that explains the motivations behind the behaviour of people in markets
Unlike ’greed’ this does not suggest that people purely desire to possess wealth for non-altruistic purposes, but that people are not interested in the interests of those with whom they strategically interact.
An example of how someone could act with non-tuism as their motivator but not greed is if they were trying to maximise their profits, but with the ultimate goal of donating all their money to a worthwhile cause. Steiner points out that in this situation, the result of replacing non-tuism with communal reciprocity would be a decline in profit, and thus a decline in the amount of money going to worthwhile causes, or for post-tax income equalisation. Therefore, justice, according to Steiner, can be advanced by markets.
That my life will labour under challenges may, indeed, be something that I can sensibly fear. But it seems implausible to believe that such fear would be augmented by the fact that you yourself will not have to face those challenges. And, in any case, that fear is, again, not something that can be readily attributed to the nature of market society.
How does Wright define socialism?
Wright defines socialism as an economic structure within which the means of production are socially owned and the allocation and use of resources for different social purposes is accomplished through the exercise of social power, where social power is rooted in the capacity to mobilise people for cooperative, voluntary collective actions of various sorts in civil society
- in contrast to conventional concepts of socialism, this definition does not preclude the possibility that markets could play a substantial role in coordinating the activities of socially owned and controlled enterprises
- the concept of socialism being proposed here is grounded in the distinction between state power and social power, state ownership and social ownership
What is an example of one of Wright’s ‘seven pathways to social empowerment’ and what relation do they have to socialism?
For example, ‘the social economy’ which constitutes an alternative way of directly organising economic activity that is distinct from capitalist market production or a cooperative market economy, which involves fully worker-owned cooperatives operating within markets along capitalist principles
All of these seven pathways have, at their core, the idea of extensive and robust economic democracy through creating conditions in which social power, organized through the active participation and empowerment of ordinary people in civil society, exerts direct and indirect democratic control over the economy. Taken individually, movement along one or another of these pathways might not pose much of a challenge to capitalism, but substantial movement along all of them taken together would constitute a fundamental transformation of capitalism’s class relations and the structures of power and privilege rooted in them. Capitalism might still remain a component in the hybrid configuration of power relations governing economic activity, but it would be a subordinated capitalism heavily constrained within limits set by the deepened democratization of both state and economy.
What was the key, groundbreaking idea of socialism according to Honneth?
Social freedom was the original, groundbreaking idea of nineteenth century socialists
Social freedom is the result of individuals not merely working together, but working for each other such that the aims of the members of a community not only overlap, but are intersubjectively intertwined
Social freedom is grounded in mutual recognition
According to him, early socialist writers and activists were normative thinkers who made two moral demands: first, for fully realizing the already widely accepted principles of the French Revolution – liberty, equality and fraternity – and, second, for bringing these principles into greater harmony with each other by resolving the ‘contradiction’, between the ways in which ‘liberty’ and ‘fraternity’, or solidarity, have been institutionalized in capitalist democracies.
For what reasons does Honneth critique early socialist theory?
- its reductive economic fundamentalism, whereby revolutionaries need to only change the mode of production in order to change everything.
- its anachronistic identification of the proletariat as the revolutionary subject of history, which makes socialism simply a theoretical reflection of a now-dead practical movement
- its misplaced confidence in the historic inevitability of socialism, assuming the necessity of this revolution for further growth. One flows from the other, informing what comes next.
How does Honneth think socialism can be ‘renewed’?
Offers two potential ‘paths of renewal’ - economic and political schemes
A renewed version of socialism would have to leave it up to experimentation whether the market, civil society or the democratic constitutional state represents the most appropriate steering principle when it comes to realising the social freedom in the economic sphere
Speaks of the need for a replacement or substitute for the older policies and ideas of socialists
Methodologically, he adopts the trial-and-error approach of the American pragmatist John Dewey, preferring experimental flexibility to the dialectical rigidity of Marx. Instead of ‘the hitherto dominant faith in the necessity of progress within socialism,’ Honneth recommends ‘a kind of historical experimentalism’
Honneth regards the marketplace as a norm-laden ‘sphere of social freedom’ in which subjects reciprocally recognize each other.
