So, yeah, I'm trying to clear my backlog of stuff I want to read that might be of interest in my own book, and being the Karl Widerquist fanboy that I am, I decided to read his other books discussing political philosophy, the prehistory of private property, etc.
This led me to the book "Prehistoric myths in modern political philosophy", in which Widrquist and his partner, Grant McCall, try to question the hobbesian hypothesis and the lockean proviso. The hobbesian hypothesis is basically that everyone consents to government implicitly, because it is better for people to live under government than to not, because life is nasty, brutish, and short. The lockean proviso is the idea that the state is justified because it benefits every single person subject to it more than living in a stateless society.
As you guys know, I tend to accept the hobbesian hypothesis to some degree. I've outlined this in my worldview, believing that society will be in a state of war and we might ultimately be subject to a state anyway, if we do not build a state based on democratic principles, if only for defensive purposes (basically, if we dont form a state, others will and will subjugate us to it on far less just terms). So I kind of expect my views to be challenged here. The lockean proviso seems a bit more questionable. I think it's difficult to argue every single person benefits from a state over a state of nature. Even if states provide positive benefits to many, the poorest and worst off are potentially going to be worse off. People subjected to state violence directly like those who die to police violence, the death penalty, or state actions of the past like the holocaust, the holodomor, or the results of our own westward expansion in our own country (remember the trail of tears) clearly do not benefit from the state's existence. So I'm already implicitly in favor of widerquist's idea that the lockean proviso isn't fulfilled, because it cant be fulfilled.
In some ways, I respect widerquist for writing this book. He clearly is challenging some mainstream assumptions that all too often go unchallenged and just taken for granted. He cites that a lot of these assumptions are rooted in European racism and colonialism, and that we tend to denigrate those who argue we are better off without a state as "savages". I mean, sure. Our history is one of authoritarian expansionism that has worked out very badly for anyone not sympathetic to our point of view. ANd by this point, every habitable place on our planet has largely been taken over by governments. Heck, thats why I accept the state as a given. The statists won. Their philosophy of expansionism and ability to accomplish their goals and project power have obsoleted any other possible system at this time. I'm basically in the camp of "if you cant beat them, join them". You need a state because if you dont have one, a state will come in with its superior organization and technology and subject you to it. With the exception of tribes located in remote regions of the world (and in the case of sentinel island, tribes that commit violent resistance toward all acts of civilization attempting to contact them), everyone is subject to a state. ANd most tribes that are left alone are left alone because we CHOSE to leave them alone. So in some ways, the state is necessary.
These views go all the way back to my conservative days, when I supported limited government and had the christian worldview that shows staunch skepticism toward humans with any power at all. The state was necessary if only for security purposes. My original ideal of the state was one that provided police and military, and nothing more. People were otherwise left alone. Of course, this assumed property as a system too. I did accept natural rights to it. Which are also based on the lockean proviso that Widerquist wants to challenge. And this kind of thinking is still a major existential foe to my own kind of thinking, and why I chose to undertake reading Widerquist's books on prehistory. Our entire society is founded on enlightenment ideas like locke's theory of natural rights and private property. People approach this stuff as natural. This is "just how things are" and you're an immoral savage if you disagree with it.
My own views are closer to hobbes than locke here. I recognize that natural rights are a legal fiction. All rights are legal fictions. This comes from my existing humanist worldview in which morality is, in and of itself, a legal fiction.
Still, I would not really say that might makes right or that just because a state provides security, that we should be forced to obey it. I still have a libertarian lean of disliking state intervention, and believe interventions need to be justified. I recognize stuff like democracy, checks and balances, separation of powers, etc. are all intended to make the state subject to the people, rather than have the people just subject to a tyrannical state. I think for the social contract to have any value, the state must be a servant of the people. This includes majority rule, but also minority rights. This includes constitutional rights limiting state actions in certain domains, recognizing that there are some fields of human existence that the state is best off leaving alone. It involves the state largely adhering to the harm principle, in which states only act in order to prevent harm to others or otherwise preserving their well being or freedom in fields outside of economics.
In economics, I do see the state as having a larger role in participating in social justice and economic development, recognizing that doing so expands well being, prevents harm, preserves freedom, and is generally a superior state of affairs to the state doing nothing. And I would say I'm already influenced by theories like Widerquist's "Justice as Pursuit of Accord", which is itself influenced by Rawls' "veil of ignorance". Essentially society should be designed in a way to give the worst off person a the best quality of life as possible. And I generally believe in minimizing obligations to participate in the existing social project, for any and all reasons. Widerquist seems to focus a lot on just vs unjust objections, I believe for freedom to exist, all objections are just, because trying to differentiate assumes some justice behind the idea that people should be subjected to the social project by default. In a human centered system, no, it's the other way around. The state serves us. While I can justify paying taxes to the state (based on just "JPA" or "veil of ignorance" based principles) for the purposes of expanding social projects that otherwise expand freedom and well being, I can't so easily justify forcing people to contribute time and labor to them. For me, the coercion to work is more unjust than taxes are. In traditional right libertarian (what Widerquist calls "propertarian") ideology, property is just, work is natural, and taxes are evil. Asking people to contribute income based on overall earnings (or alternatively consumption) is not a violation of freedom to me, but merely a correction of the property system's problems that are already in place because of the state. In some ways, taxation is the cost of living in a civilized society, and if property is a social convention, than it can be modified justly by taxation toward ends that increase the well being and freedom of all in society. This is why I support universal safety nets over conditional aid based on fulfilling obligations and being deserving. My own system tries to fulfill the lockean proviso in the sense that yes, it is geared toward creating a bottom where everyone is significantly better off than in the state of nature, as well as better off within the existing property rights system. And it values FREEDOM. Conditional aid has holes, plays favorites, and is often authoritarian in its thinking, trying to force people into participation in the social project.
Anyway, I know, I'm kind of going off on a tangent. I ended up reading the first 2.5 chapters and decided before I go further, I wanted to at least address the main premise as well as ramble about my own ideas and worldview. I do plan on reacting to specific chapters in this book as I read them if I have anything interesting to say. I plan on grappling with this and his other book on this subject a lot, and in the process, making my own worldview stronger (I can already sense some weaknesses as I write this, particularly the link from libertarianism to my more interventionist economic views).
ANd yeah even though I said first 2 chapters, I mightve addressed some chapter 3 stuff as well as I read part of it but before I go further, I didn't want to lose whatever I was thinking about.
EDIT: Oh yeah one thing I wanted to get to related to chapter 2 directly is the idea of philosophy generally just assuming things a priori but that these things are not necessarily true and go unchallenged. I notice this a lot. This is why, when debating theists for so long, I would always be critical of philosophy. Sadly, a lot of philosophy is like this. people just come out with these assumptions, and then use logic to reach far reaching conclusions when the model is far from complete, not validated, or flat out wrong.
Like, philosophy just provides models. Those models have to be validated by observation to be true in a lot of cases. So props to Widerquist and McCall for trying to use social science like sociology and anthropology to argue their views. I don't think it will make a huge difference with my own take on the hobbesian hypothesis (keep in mind I dont believe that all people or even many people would act violently justify the existence of the state, all you need are a handful of jerks and a bunch of mindless followers and we got a situation on our hands), but I'm willing to hear him out nevertheless.
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