Inanimate objects are not referred to as 'beings' — Wayfarer

Once again :grin:, I’ll butt in to correct you on this. They have been referred to as beings in philosophy since the Ancient Greeks.

By the way, in my post above I think I failed to address a few of your points. Sorry about that. I’ll save it for the next round.

Yikes! I’m going to have to do some work here. Great post. :up:

First, capitalism.

As for myself, though, I can’t find any other succinct label for a meritocratic economy other than that of “capitalism” – all the technicalities and history to this term aside. What I mean by this is that those who put in more effort into and have better skills at X become economically compensated for engaging in X more than those who do little if anything, lack knowhow, or both when engaging in X. — javra

In capitalism, many important relationships between people reduce—by way of contracts between employers and employees or between buyers and sellers, etc.—to the cash nexus, the complex of social connections whose entire raison d'etre is money. In a society in which money rules and in which work is usually done for a company operating in a market to make profits, in theory the person who can help to produce the biggest profits with skill and hard work has the highest market value—because their working ability, not only what they might produce, is a market commodity—and is compensated accordingly. This is what I see as the truth of your meritocratic definition of capitalism.

And it’s an important truth, because it shows that capitalism is not, as some people claim, as old as civilization itself. Before capitalism, social relations were based on traditions and obligations that had nothing to do with money, and the people at the top had other things to think about, like winning wars, getting in to heaven, or producing an heir (and if they did make money, they didn't actually make it but just took it). A clan chief was obliged to protect his clan members and they owed him loyalty and service; a vassal was obliged to fight for his king to justify holding on to his fief, and also to protect his peasants, who in turn owed him part of their produce; and so on across many variations and times up to the modern period. Capitalism swept most of this away. The result in connection to merit was, ideally, that at last people could be rewarded for their effort and ability, not for their existing attachments of family, class, guild, religion, tradition, obligation, and so on.

But I think there is untruth in it too. The untruth is not that you failed to account for the fact that this theoretical ideal of meritocracy has not been fully realized—following the passage quoted above you went on to describe exactly that. Rather, the untruth from my point of view is that you equate the theoretical ideal of meritocracy with the theoretical ideal of capitalism itself, obscuring the reality of the social relations that were ushered in by capitalism, the reality that sweeping away the stratifications of the old society did not result in an unstratified society, and more particularly, did not result in a society in which stratification was based only on merit, as you imply (at least in theory).

In your picture, to say that meritocracy has not been fully realized is also to say that capitalism has not been fully realized. I think this is an unbalanced and restricted view: if we take a wider view of capitalism, we might see that in fact, the structures and tendencies of capitalism are not always conducive to meritocracy, because they produce a kind of stratification that prevents it (concentration of wealth and opportunity, etc). So what makes your definition importantly untrue is that it is precisely capitalism that prevents the realization of meritocracy. If you equate them, you fail to see this. I know this simplifies your view but I'm outlining the problems I see in gross terms partly for my own clarification.

However, that's just a part of my critique. I think there are deeper problems with meritocracy too, but I'll come to that later.

Anyway, what I mean by "capitalism" can probably be seen in what I've written, but I'll try to summarize, and this should make it even clearer why I don't agree with your definition. A capitalist society is one in which most useful things are commodities, sold in markets by or on behalf of those who privately own the technology, raw materials, buildings, money, land, and the best part of each worker's day, required to produce them. Historically this required the separation of workers from their own tools and products and the forcible seizure and enclosure of common land by private concerns, and this state of affairs must be maintained for the system to work. Capitalism is based on dispossession and the preservation of dispossession, and that's despite the increasing abundance of consumer goods available to almost everyone.

So I think meritocracy is, at least in theory, a part of what capitalism is or could be, but it's not the whole story.

What follows? Rather than just a matter of, as you suggest later, stratification resulting from meritocracy—which for you is just to say, resulting from capitalism—under my view of capitalism, it's the other way around as well: capitalism is based on stratification, and this means that meritocracy, which I agreed is enabled to some degree by capitalism, is also based on stratification. Thus, meritocracy is both produced by and produces stratification.

At least, this is often what has happened in reality. Some kind of system of award for merit could also conceivably work in a rationally planned economy, not only under capitalism. But I'll come to that.

Now, on to meritocracy itself. Economics is really not my strong point, but we'll see how it goes.

I’m mentioning this because I so far find that an egalitarian society needs to be meritocratic (economically as well as politically) if it’s not to succumb to vices that undermine its long-term preservation. And this in turn would then result in certain societal hierarchies, fluid though they'd be. An authority (not to be confused with “authoritarianism” or authoritarian interests) in some discipline is then to ideally be trusted, respected, and economically compensated more than a trainee in the same field, for example – this, again, ideally based on due merit – with the further ideal that such an authority in a field works in good faith to best optimize the flourishing of those who are not as experienced in the given field.

Yes, this would, I believe, require a much more elevated moral compass of all citizens/members of an egalitarian society. But my main point to this is that an egalitarian society, to be successful in sustaining itself, can only result in a meritocratic specialization / stratification / hierarchy of roles (in large enough societies, each with its own due degree of economic compensation that in part roughly correlates the individual’s degree of societal responsibility toward other(s)) ... a hierarchy which, again, would be dynamic rather than static in nature. — javra

This is really interesting, thanks.

I can think of two basic responses. Right now I’m endorsing both, even though they contradict.

1. Meritocracy is good in principle, but:

• Capitalist society fails to realize it
• Not only that, but capitalism and meritocracy are contradictory

2. Meritocracy is bad in principle


1. Meritocracy is good in principle, but

You admit that meritocracy has not been fully realized:

As a theoretical ideal this may seem straightforward enough, but it would require societal movements toward a cessation of nepotism (be it racial, of economic class etc.); equal educational opportunities for all children, regardless of their parents’ background, to allow those who put in the greatest effort and hold the greatest knowhow to flourish … the list can go on. — javra

Since you agree with my first sub-point here, I don't need to argue for it, although it does occur to me that it would be worth going in to more detail to expose and emphasize the scale of the problem; as you no doubt know, it has been extensively studied over the past years and decades. Another time, maybe.

My important point is that capitalism and meritocracy are contradictory, where contradictory means something like essentially in conflict.

To put my cards on the table: meritocracy is to an important degree a myth, an idea that justifies the current reality by describing it falsely. Widespread upward mobility, which meritocracy depends on, is possible in capitalism not primarily thanks to the market, but rather to policies that curtail or ameliorate the inequality, the concentration of wealth and opportunity that the market produces. For instance, in the British post-war consensus—when governments of both the right and the left maintained a mixed economy, a large welfare state, strong unions, and free education—upward mobility was possible to some extent. It has been visible in the changing memberships of governments, in business, in the arts, and in education, how important this was in allowing working class people to succeed professionally, and how much it has now collapsed. It began to change under Thatcher, despite her explicit and no doubt sincere belief that she was actually advancing the cause of meritocracy ("pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and all that).

The mythic nature of meritocracy is most obvious in the United States, where the myth is strongest (the American Dream), but where social mobility is among the lowest in the developed countries.

The reason for the contradiction is that under capitalism, wealth and opportunity become concentrated and inequality widens, even alongside a general alleviation of poverty—and this is obviously self-reinforcing. And I'd argue that this is a structural feature of capitalism, and not simply an unfortunate epiphenomenon. I don't think we can just group this all together under the label of "nepotism" and imagine that it can be done away with while at the same time leaving the workings of capitalism alone. The market is not a socially neutral mechanism to reward the most able.

If that's not a full-enough argument to prove the inherent contradictions and tendencies of capitalism, it's because I'm trying to avoid economics as much as possible. I can pathetically hand-wave by saying that several economists have made the same points, not all of them Marxians.


2. Meritocracy is bad in principle

Meritocracy is bad in two senses. One is that it works as a myth, so that the very idea of meritocracy hides the truth (this is like Marx’s attitude to the idea of egalitarianism). But the other sense is more profound: a society stratified by income and status on the basis of skill and work might not be such a good thing after all.

This is potentially the most interesting part of this post, but I'm out on a limb. In the most general terms, while I do believe that it's important for individuals to gain recognition as authorities in their fields, I simply don't believe that general social stratification along the dimensions of income and status necessarily follows from this, or that it should follow. This is a moral point of view but also a pragmatic one: social stratification leads to inequalities of not only income but also opportunity, thus it tends to negate the equality of opportunity that meritocracy ideally depends on. This can even be seen in the history of modern non-capitalist countries such as the USSR. Aside from the obvious non-meritocratic features of these economies and administrations, those who did manage to work their way up tended to form their own privileged dynasties. If it is true that meritocracy leads to stratification, as you admit, and if it is true that this will happen in both capitalist and non-captalist societies, and if it is true that meritocracy in its stratifying tendency undermines itself by negating the level playing-field, then meritocracy begins to look bad to its core. Meritocracy not only contradicts capitalism, but contradicts itself.

Even more fundamentally, I don't think I believe that people ought to be differentially awarded in the way you've described.

Stalinist countries adopted the following slogan as a purported step on the way to communism:

From each according to his ability, to each according to his work

Meritocracy seems partly to fit with this. But although I'm being utopian here, I want to go further and endorse Marx's slogan:

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

(where "needs" can be interpreted widely)

In other words, even for a society of equal opportunity, where ideal meritocracy might work, I want to ask: why should those who are naturally more able or inclined to produce useful things gain any privilege at all? That they should gain effective positions and the concomitant authority: that I can see; but I can't see why they should gain better, richer lives, or even higher social status, unless perhaps the production of life's necessities is generally precarious and we need incentives (this is why communism is sometimes said to depend on a post-scarcity economy).

Even more fundamentally again—and this is where I go beyond even Marx's utopian slogan—I think the problem here is that the very notions of productivity, usefulness, and ability are also in a way mythical, and do violence to human dignity. But I won't go on down that route, just yet.

(BTW: Coming from a communist Stalinist background – I immigrated to the US from Romania as a preadolescent – the backlash against communism as ideology from many of those I’m close to stems, not only from the Stalinist, totalitarian surveillance-state mechanisms and the like, but also form the everyday experience that many who were lazy and inept benefited greatly on account of nepotism while those who worked hard and had much to offer where often not treated very well … especially if the latter were not members of the communist party. I should also add, I’m personally all for community-ism – which is how I rephrase my current understanding of the communist ideal when it comes it being theory on paper. Though, again, I don’t have much of any expertise in firsthand readings.) — javra

This is very agreeable. I should emphasize, in case it's not obvious, that I have no fondness or nostalgia for those regimes and think that even the initial efforts to create them were wrongheaded.

"He took that position for specific political reasons and I don’t feel the need to follow him in that, but it does contain the insight that rights are not enough in a world where material reality doesn’t allow for the full flourishing of every individual."
— Jamal

I'm in agreement with this. — javra

Like I say, maybe we're not so far apart on this after all.

@universeness ucarr is now at 562 posts, indicating that your imagination cooked up the whole thing.

Did you read my note to ucarr about his 'number of posts' variable seemingly stuck on 561? — universeness

Yes. If after a week it’s still keeping me awake at night, I’ll look into it.

Although, not to quibble … — Pantagruel

That’s ok, I started it.

So, which branch of philosophy serves as an example of philosophy that clarifies … what exactly? What philosophy is, maybe?

Anyway don’t worry, I have no intention of pursuing this further, unless your next reply is so provocative that I can’t resist.

I don’t know what you’re talking about but I felt it was polite to respond to being tagged, especially as money seems to be involved :grin:

More charitably, I suppose it can be interpreted to mean “which of these is the most philosophical?” Or “the most typical of philosophy”.

I don't consider exemplification to be a vague concept. Wouldn't you agree that the premise of exemplification is to illustrate and clarify? — Pantagruel

I don’t think so. To exemplify is to be an example of, and to best exemplify is to be the best example of. So, applied to these branches of philosophy, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. All of them are examples of philosophy, and which is best raises the question “in what way?”

Because “exemplifies” and even “best exemplifies” are a bit vague, won’t this just devolve to picking favourites, or answering as to which is most important?

I voted Social-Ethical, but my real answer is “all of the above”, that Social-Ethical philosophy depends on or feeds off all the others.

Thanks for that perspective on conservatism.

All the same, if the "humane" form of conservatism you address does intend to progress toward somewhere, isn’t it incrementally progressing toward an more egalitarian society (contra progression toward the authoritarianism of a fascist state, for example)? — javra

From the point of view of conservatism, I think it’s primarily negative. That is, it’s about taking the edge off hierarchy, preventing the flagrant abuses, rather than a positive effort towards a different kind of society. Thus, it’s not really about progress in the general sense. Many conservatives like to give to charity.

But because conservatism is pragmatic and diverse, they’ll have many different positions on this. One might be that so long as the change is organic and gradual rather than deliberatively applied all at once on the basis of grand principles, whatever progress happens might be okay. But again, they would reject an imagined perfect goal for these changes.

NOTE: In what I’ve just written, I’m not really taking into account the newer, more strident kinds of conservatism associated lately with the US or with Thatcherism (some conservatives doubt that Thatcherism was a form of conservatism at all).

Maybe a root issue here is what is meant by “egalitarianism”. Does the term intend something along the lines of an equality of fundamental rights for every citizen (e.g., a CEO gets ticketed just as a janitor will for a parking violation despite the stratification of economic class between the two … to not bring into the conversation more complex issues, such as healthcare) or does it imply the absolute equality of all people in all ways? — javra

Good question. Liberal egalitarianism refers to the former. For me, that’s not good enough, but not because I want the latter. My utopian egalitarianism is about the equal possibility for every individual to flourish, to actualize their potential in whatever they choose to do, free of economic, bureaucratic, and authoritarian compulsion or hindrance. (“Whatever they choose to do” has limits, needless to say).

Marx would have said that egalitarianism just is the false belief that a capitalist society can be the kind of society I just sketched, hence he rejected egalitarianism along with all talk of rights and justice. He took that position for specific political reasons and I don’t feel the need to follow him in that, but it does contain the insight that rights are not enough in a world where material reality doesn’t allow for the full flourishing of every individual.

:cool:

I can see that but I don’t really like that way of putting it. A refusal to play the game can be substantial, in that you’re questioning the starting point. I’d guess that most developments in philosophy have been of that form.

I like to think it’s more than boredom or pragmatism that makes me question the veil of perception.

Indeed. However, I’m currently finding it difficult to stitch all these ideas together.

I just read something and thought it was vaguely relevant.

Ever since puberty, when it is customary to get excited about such ques­tions, I have never again really understood the so-called problem of rela­tivism. My experience was that whoever gave himself over in earnest to the discipline of a particular subject learned to distinguish very precisely be­tween true and false, and that in contrast to such experience the assertion of general insecurity as to what is known had something abstract and un­convincing about it. Let it be that confronted with the ideal of the absolute, everything human stands under the shadow of the conditional and temporary - what happens when the boundary is reached at which thought must recognize that it is not identical to being, not only allows the most convincing insights, but forces them. — Adorno

I’m thinking that indirect realism, though popularly often expressed in modern scientific language, is a hangover from theology and speculative metaphysics. Compared with the view of God, “everything human stands under the shadow of the conditional and temporary,”—in this case, everything we experience is removed from the world and uncertain.

Ditch the ideal of the absolute, and experience is no longer a barrier, but just the way we interact with the rest of the world.

It also makes me think of Wittgenstein:

215. Here we see that the idea of 'agreement with reality' does not have any clear application. — Wittgenstein, On Certainty

Even the nice guys in philosophy have been full of themselves. Kant believed he’d sorted everything out once and for all.

Ok, well maybe somebody here can help answer the question anyway.

"if suppose origin of argument is god and suppose causal order the same logical order, In that case, we have to deny the possibility from the universe." — Ali Hosein

Hi Ali and welcome. It would be good if you could edit your post to include a more accurate English version of the quotation, because the quotation you have here, which I’m guessing is a translation of a translation, is not very clear.

Human nature is both egalitarian and stratifying, i.e. we do have tendencies tor greed, social status seeking etc etc... but at the same time we also have a moral impulse that wants to tear down those who seek to elevate themselves above others at the cost of the group.

Egalitarian projects fail, because of scale and specialisation that becomes needed in larger groups. The moral impulse, social control, works better in smaller groups where nobody is inherently all that much elevated above others. But when you get larger groups, more specialisation and more power concentrated in certain required roles, it's harder for these moral impulses to keep those that seek elevation down.

Scale is the issue, not human nature (or at least not directly). — ChatteringMonkey

Useful post, thanks.

It’s well-known that urban settlements and the division of labour led to increasing stratification. The socialist response is that once, however, the basic necessities of life are abundant—the development of the productive forces has reached a certain level—we can abandon the stratification. I agree with that, and also think that we reached that point some time ago, but clearly it’s not an easy task.

I agree. I’d go further and point out that Stalin was a committed Marxist and not just an opportunist monster as Trotskyists like to imagine.

But that’s all boring, and it doesn’t invalidate Marx’s critique.

If human beings have lived in stable egalitarian groups for long periods, that is, if egalitarianism (loosely defined, as in the OP) is significant in the history or prehistory of humans, then it’s wrong to say that egalitarianism is against human nature, or else it’s wrong to say that our natural inegalitarian instincts cannot be overcome.

So as I see it, @frank has to argue either that the kind of society that has been most common in the human past, namely hunter-gatherers, is or was not egalitarian, because of human nature; or that although those societies were egalitarian, they went against our nature, and given agriculture and industry, our inegalitarian nature is now impossible to overcome.

Anthropologists differ on how egalitarian humans are and on how egalitarian hunter-gatherers were, but it’s safe to say that we can withstand a great variety of societies, and I don’t see any reason to think that egalitarianism is doomed. In the end, that’s temperamental—but also political.

Fair.

I think there's still a good chance we can get there peacefully as we're not denied political expression — Benkei

Yes, and without the remotest prospect of a movement for the overthrow of capitalism, I think it follows that liberal democracy must be defended, and also constantly criticized from within.

I don’t know if anyone here is arguing that we shouldn’t read Marx. I wish people knew more Marx than the relatively unimportant manifesto.

So it will simply be more likely that I will sit next to a plumber at a Michelin-star than now — Benkei

Unless the plumber has taken your table after slaughtering you along with all the other lickspittles of the bourgeoisie.

(I hope it doesn’t happen, just to be clear)

Fair enough. I don’t find it so easy to dismiss the horrors of the Reign of Terror in France, the Red Terror in revolutionary Russia, the famines in the Soviet Union, or the Great Terror of the 1930s, all of which were expressly justified by the elimination of counter-revolution or the elimination of class distinctions.

Attempts at creating a classless society have so far resulted in monstrous regimes that were in many ways worse than what they replaced. Those who believe, as I do and against the OP, that a classless, egalitarian society is possible, probably have to face up to this.

The context is important, but doesn’t really alter the fact that he spoke favourably of non-democratic (and violent) means to achieve a classless society.

What did Marx do other than be a committed democrat during his lifetime? — Benkei

I’m vaguely ashamed of myself for criticizing you, as I’m usually on your side against liberal apologists for capitalism like @ssu, however, things are a bit more complicated. (I also said I wasn’t going to carry on down this route in this discussion, but here I am again, arguing about Marxism.)

First, ssu mentioned Marxism, the tradition that grew out of Marx and developed the theories. One such development, as ssu has mentioned, was Marxism-Leninism, which can fairly be said to promote one party rule.

Second, Marx himself spoke in favour of “revolutionary terror” and of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

On the other hand, the dictatorship of the proletariat doesn’t necessarily entail one-party rule: anti-Stalinist Marxists point to the unfulfilled promise of workplace and soviet (council) democracy as a way to actualize it.

One party rule might not change the basic system of government, but reality with a one party system does have major differences to a multiparty system. — ssu

Of course. It’s just weird to use “Marxism” to refer to a system of government, because it’s primarily an analysis and critique of capitalism. It implies that Marxism is necessarily against democracy.

But this discussion is much wider and more interesting than the issue of what is or isn’t Marxist, so I won’t continue to debate it here.

That’s fair. On the other hand, what might be called “his economic work” is intimately bound up with his political philosophy, encompassing alienation, ideology, class struggle, and a dialectical understanding of progress. There’s a reason we call his economic work “political economy” and not “economics”.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: elbow patches.

It's both. I think the mistake that @ssu makes is in implying that it is also a system of government.

In other words, good never ubiquitously prevails because there is bad in the world. Therefore, we should shun a striving for that which is good; instead favoring either the bad or a magical type of eternally unchanging, self-sustained, homeostasis between good and bad that never progresses in either direction.

Am I missing something significant in this interpretation of the issue? — javra

Yes. That's exactly what I was saying — frank

Although the OP expresses the central thought of conservatism, conservatism actually offers an alternative that’s a bit more hopeful than a “homeostasis between good and bad that never progresses in either direction,” namely gradual, organic change produced communally.*

Of course, this change would merely avoid the most egregious evils of inequality and oppression, and never result in the banishment of social hierarchy. To the humane, optimistic conservative, hierarchy and inequality don’t have to be bad—they’re natural and we should do our best to live with them.

This is why the welfare state was an important conservative policy until quite recently. The Emperor Ashoka said “all men are my children”, and later on, Bismarck created the first modern welfare state.

*communally: for a conservative, communally produced change doesn’t necessarily imply democracy; it’s still often those at the top who are making the decisions and doing the leading, in the context of a harmonious hierarchy in which everyone knows his or her place.

Horkheimer’s Eclipse of Reason — Jamal

It was good. More pedestrian than Dialectic of Enlightenment, and while it’s much clearer, it’s perhaps less persuasive. The critique of pragmatism is good, and I’m already primed to agree with it, though I haven’t actually read much of the American pragmatists so I’m not sure how fair the criticism is. On the whole it doesn’t go into things in much depth and really just gives a kind of overview of the concerns and the approach of the Frankfurt School.

In the chapter on the individual, Horkheimer contrasts the period of the liberal entrepreneur with the technocratic administered capitalism of big business. It’s hard not to read into his words a nostalgia for the old-fashioned business practices of his father, who had a very successful textile business.

But he concludes that chapter with this:

The real individuals of our time are the martyrs who have gone through infernos of suffering and degradation in their resistance to conquest and oppression, not the inflated personalities of popular culture, the conventional dignitaries. These unsung heroes consciously exposed their existence as individuals to the terroristic annihilation that others undergo unconsciously through the social process. The anonymous martyrs of the concentration camps are the symbols of the humanity that is striving to be born. The task of philosophy is to translate what they have done into language that will be heard, even though their finite voices have been silenced by tyranny.

Next, because I started this and might as well do it properly:

The Origin of Negative Dialectics by Susan Buck-Morss
Lectures on Negative Dialectics by Theodor Adorno

And maybe some of Adorno’s other lectures, such as those on the Critique of Pure Reason (which will be a re-read) and on Philosophy and Sociology.

If that goes well I’d like to read Negative Dialectics itself, although there doesn’t seem to be a well-regarded translation.

For me, both the deliberate forcing of new ways of speaking and writing, and also the attempts to protect the language—which means to prevent change—are equally suspect.

Well, I wasn’t saying anything about the attempts to de-gender language. I probably agree with you on that. But I don’t think you can just appeal to conventional rules to defend conventional rules. What if changes were proposed that were based on a thorough understanding of the language—would you then think the changes were acceptable?

Lexical and grammatical structures are based on logic and they were established with the aim of "writing well" and put some norms in the vocabulary — javi2541997

I disagree. They are structures of human speech, not imposed rules of writing. The former precedes the latter.

It's like the people who want to destroy the statues of the false heroes of the past. Those statues are the monuments to human stupidity, greed, and gullibility. We need to keep those statues around to remind us what to watch out for today, and tomorrow — Pantagruel

Do you think the removal of the Stalin statues all across the USSR in the 1960s was wrong?

Statues are made to celebrate people, their actions and their ideology, and they don’t function as neutral historical documents even many years later. When they’re not worth celebrating any more, pull them down.

It seems to me that what you mean by “subjective” is just “private”. The original question seems to be about whether or not you can share or convey an experience, making it a question of public and private.

I didn't think Smith was a problem -- he didn't bother me — BC

Note that the majority of his posts and discussions were deleted, so most people never saw them.