I know I said I was gonna take a few days off, well, I ended up taking 1, then I ended up being tempted to read a chapter of Widerquist/McCall's sequel book. And I felt a need to react while this stuff is somewhat free in my mind.
Much like the prehistoric myths of political philosophy, the prehistory of private property attempts to debunk common myths that define our existing society. This book primarily attempts to tackle three major myths:
1) The myth that inequality is "natural"
2) The myth that the free market guarantees freedom better than any other system
3) The myth that property rights as they exist in a modern capitalist economy are natural
Chapter 2 starts to focus on the first myth, the one that inequality is natural. It seems to focus on how inequality comes about. Expanding on what was already discussed in the previous book, there is very little to no inequality among non state societies. Inequalities arise when people stop being hunter gatherers and form societies such as chiefdoms. He talks about how in ancient polynesia, a chiefdom in the ares, Captain Cook came across people who believed that their leader descended from God or something and that all property belonged to him. They practiced a form of serfdom in their societies. Often times, inequality often is related to religion and divine right. That's how it's often justified. ironically in non state societies, it tends to do the opposite, the argument is that those who are sovereign are not of this world, and that all people are equal. But as they form societies they go all Carolus Rex with the divine right crap. Basically, inequality is normalized or legitimized by their culture's myths. Our culture isn't really any different. That's why I respect Widerquist and McCall for doing this. They seem to treat our own myths as equal to the myths of other societies that us westerners would make fun of, holding up the mirror to our own cultural biases. Which, given my worldview is literally born out of a rejection of Christianity and a desire to base my views on scientific humanism, I love. These books are very helpful in helping me organize my own worldview into something far more presentable.
Of course, to continue on from the previous train of thought, eventually divine right explanations fell out of favor and these ideas became more secularized. The hobbesian hypothesis is a secular attempt to justify the need for a state, and not just any state, but Hobbes seemed interested in justifying the hierarchical states ruled by an iron fist on his time. They've already debunked that crap with the last book, and I would reject any society prior to the modern era as superior to stateless societies based on that book. Which means that any justification of the state via the hobbesian hypothesis or its derivatives (including the lockean proviso), are in my opinion, done in an ex post facto way. Meaning we need to craft new justifications if we're gonna justify them at all.
While some like Hobbes, Locke, and even Marx seemed to see something natural about inequality, a major influence that I've come across, looking back at my former fundamentalist Christian worldview, seems to come from Edmond Burke. He seemed to argue that any social system is "too complex for any social reformer to understand" (p. 29) and that therefore, changing society is bad. Who are we to go against the wisdom of those who came before us?
This makes a lot of sense if you're a conservative who is, yourself ignorant of social systems and argues for the way things are because you see it as functioning and that any change can be disastrous, but I kind of outgrew that through my political science and sociology study. As a public policy type guy, I can honestly tell you that yes, we can make change happen. We can make societies better. And no, it won't all end in disaster. if anything past societies have a lot of problems, inequalities, and inefficiencies that are not justified well (hence this book) and we CAN change things for the better. A huge reason for undergoing my own project is to drag people out of that "plato's cave", into the light, and convince people that those views are quaint and ignorant.
The book also tends to look at how a lot of people in the 19th and 20th century used structural functionalism and eugenics to argue for inequalities. basically, they believed that people just had their place in society. Not everyone can be a "brain", some people are a "hand", suitable for physical labor but not intellectual tasks, and stuff like that, except it exploded into full on eugenics. Ironically, when I was a christian, people used to argue against the scientific worldview because of such "scientific racism."
Now, that said, I want to focus on my own theory on inequality.
My own theory of inequality
Is inequality natural?
I mean, in any complex society, inequalities are inevitably going to arise. People have different talents, some are going to reap the benefits more than others. You can argue that things are more equal in stateless societies, but they are also equal in poverty. And while we can argue that the poverty of stateless societies is "not that bad" and better than the poverty of many state societies which deny people the ability to forage for food in their preferred manner and social structure as states impose a property rights system that destroys peoples' abilities to do that, eh...it's still poverty. Modern society does materially make many people better off, arguably even most better off relative to stateless societies. It just doesnt make everyone better off as per the lockean proviso.
When you have a more complex society, you need a system in which you determine who gets what. We will look more into the origins of our society presumably as the rest of this book exists (I think that he's gonna come down hard on locke's "appropriation" hypothesis, as if people just found unclaimed land and took ot for themselves), but I do believe that some sort of property system is going to arise whenever something resembling modern society is going to come to be.
Is inequality functional for societies to function?
I would argue there is some structural functionist justification for the existence of inequality under a property rights system. For me, the big argument is the argument that it incentivizes people to work. Society is, in some ways, like an organism, I won't get into the racist and classist ideas that some people "deserve their place", but we need workers. We need doctors and nurses. We need garbage collectors. We need repairpeople. We need politicians. And given our system functions on markets, which are dictated by supply and demand, I see there being inequality simply from people taking jobs more or less in demand and contributing to society in such ways. Not all jobs are equal. And the pay isn't going to be equal. If we made all jobs pay equally, we would have little to no motivation to work hard. This is why, even with supporting UBI, I insist on keeping markets. The reason we can say that people will work even if we had a society in which the basics were taken care of is because there remains an incentive to make MORE money. If anything, with UBI we argue that the incentive increases over a welfare system with poverty traps, which reduces financial incentives associated with work.
How much inequality is justifiable in my opinion?
The amount needed to motivate people to do the essential work in our society. Some people value meritocracy for its own sake to the point of justifying extreme, disgusting inequalities that don't need to exist. Again, the economy exists for people, not the other way around. The economy should serve human ends, and people deserve a dignified standard of living regardless of their contribution.
Should we force people to work?
Only insofar as it's needed for society's core functioning. Work is unpleasant in my worldview, and should not be forced on people against their will if it's not necessary. The argument for forcing people to work is that someone needs to do the work in order for society to survive. Forcing everyone to contribute is just if the alternative is starvation. Of course, by this stage, I'm questioning the logic of even that. Hunter gatherers were "poor", but they often fulfilled their basic needs with relatively little labor. Ironically creating society seemed to create more work, with those at the top of the hierarchy creating systems forcing people to work. It's possible agrarian societies did need people to work in order to continue to exist, but honestly, if anything, this seems to be a point in favor of going back to stateless societies.
Still, MODERN societies seemed to have evolved quite a bit from those days. It seems obviously apparent, given our extreme wealth ($76k per person) that our economy is ridiculously productive. We automate jobs all the time. We throw people out of work all the time. We literally create more work for people to do all the time out of thin air because our society relies on work as the means of survival. Why don't we just work less and better distribute what we have in the face of this? We could have a solid bottom for everyone (A UBI with universal healthcare) and then people do the work needed for society from there. But it seems like over time we should work less, whereas modern society forces us to work more and more, with the work being extremely unpleasant and paying very little for many.
But it's not fair if I work and someone else doesn't, everyone should have to work
And this is just a good way to get a society in which people are forced to work. It's why we keep creating more and more work for people to do. Rather than us needing incentives to work because society won't survive if we don't, we have insane wealth, but we won't distribute it better simply because people think they're better off if we didn't give anything to layabouts.
But I worked for this and they didn't, why should they get anything?
Because we are imposing systemic violence on them to force them to work when the work isnt even necessary in a lot of cases. A lot of work is what I'd argue, "nice to have", but not necessary.
Anyway, I'd also argue based on my UBI math that around 70-80% of people would be better off if we gave everyone a UBI. Not only would those who don't work get it, but those who do work would also get it. And it would be an absolute floor against poverty.
We could go on and on, with my hypothetical conservative going on about increasingly detailed policy questions like inflation, the "new zero" hypothesis conservatives and even leftists often support, but honestly, I'm just going to say this. Most attitudes associated with the status quo go back to locke's theory of property as a natural right and his appropriation theory legitimizing it. But I don't really accept that theory either. I believe natural rights are BS and that our property system is a creation of people. It's not objective truth, it's just one moral system, and I'd argue it's a moral system with significant downsides, as I expect Widerquist and McCall to argue.
I want a society in which our actual natural rights, if you can call them that (what we have in the state of nature, freedom) is protected. I want to not subject people to unjust hierarchies that don't need to exist, and make us miserable in the process. If we dont need everyone working, we shouldnt force people to work. We should force people to work as little as possible. We should make the structure for finding work as voluntary as possible. I honestly do combine indepentarian ideas with real libertarian ones. Van Parijs had his book "Real freedom: what if anything can justify capitalism" and he argued that a structure of markets and capitalism IS superior to say, socialism, in ensuring peoples' freedom. Because extreme collectivism is stifling. Their idea of mandated equality removes work incentive, and then they have to literally force people to work. Van Parijs didn't argue that specifically, but that's my own observations on it. Clearly, I try to go in a different direction. One of maintaining freedom.
I know that widerquist is gonna try to debunk the idea that markets lead to more freedom, but i'm assuming he's going to do this in the context of laissez faire capitalism with no UBI. With UBI, I believe that capitalism can likely achieve true freedom, because it will respect peoples' natural freedom more than the forced hierarchy system does.
I mean, I hate to sound like an SJW, but i feel like a lot of people are complacent with the existing hierarchy, and more specifically their place in it, and they dont want change because it would mean they are no longer superior to someone else. LBJ kind of pointed out that seemed to be why a lot of whites were racist. And we even get the whole "equality feels like oppression" line from these people. And while when SJWs say it given their poor solutions it comes off as grating and obnoxious, I've come to realize in recent years its kinda true. Take COVID. We shut down the economy and a lot of middle class people became outraged that workers werent forced to serve them in the face of a deadly disease infecting the population. And when the economy reopened, they shamed workers screaming No OnE wAnTs To WoRk AnYmOrE11!!, when in reality, I believe peoples' freedom should be respected there. People shouldnt be forced to work crappy jobs they hate, especially when those jobs arent necessary for the functioning to society but merely "nice to have". Im fine with some luxuries remaining more rare or higher priced if it means liberating workers from the coercion to make them. But a lot of Americans think differently, they believe everyone should work, that people should be bullied and gaslit into working, and that it's perfectly fine to oppress people and take away their freedom to produce luxuries for them to enjoy. Its absurd.
Anyway, I think that's all I really want to say for now. I reacted to the chapter, and then I got to expand my own theory of inequality, which is a bit more moderate than where widerquist and mccall might take it, but I am listening to their arguments, and am being convinced by them somewhat. I mean, they are making a good argument for us being coerced into servitude and the need to create a society in which we retain the same freedom we had in the state of nature, combined with the advantages of our society. I know I already agree with widerquist's core theory of indepentarianism so maybe he's preaching to the choir here, but it is a good intellectual exercise nevertheless.
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