Danny Kruger makes a claim of jaw-dropping cretinism:
Equality was discredited with the fall of communism.
This is moronic on at least two levels. First, the USSR wasn't particularly egalitarian. Not only was there no equality of political freedom, but income inequality was probably comparable to the west's in the 1970s. Second, even if the USSR had been egalitarian, it's collapse was a rejection of several hypotheses (most obviously "centralism works") not a single one; has Kruger never heard of the Duhem-Quine problem?
No sensible egalitarian was troubled by the fall of the USSR.
So, why does a man as smart as Kruger say something so stupid? It's because he begins from a false premise - that the equality-liberty dichotomy is the the same as the state-individual or left-right splits:
In British politics, imagine this division as a single axis, running between two points. On the left stands equality, and on the right stands liberty. These two principles are the signatories to the social contract that has underpinned our democracy since 1688. They are simple principles to grasp, for each is the function of a single, identifiable agent: equality is the function of the state (the representative of all), and liberty is the function of the individual (one)...
Over the last century or so, the state has acquired further responsibilities beyond its role as guarantor of the rule of law, from the provision of public services to the more or less direct management of the economy. These new responsibilities have pitted equality against liberty in a battle that echoed through the 20th century, and still resounds today.
This ignores an important political position - that of we left-libertarians (as described here and here and critiqued here), who claim that liberty and equality are compatible to a greater extent than generally supposed.
To statists, we say: you can increase income equality by shrinking the state. Big government is an obstacle to equality. Cutting spending on (among other things) corporate welfare could pay for tax cuts or benefit rises for the poor.
To right libertarians, we say: if your opposition to state intervention is to be any more than hot air, you've got to meet the calls for income equality. Show, for example, that a citizens' basic income is superior to minimum wages. If you can take equality off the agenda - by addressing it through a simple basic income and tax system - you'll remove the (alleged) justification of many state interventions, that they are to "help the poor."
This position has been ignored - I think for discreditable reasons - by our ruling class. But this is no reason for intelligent people like Kruger to pretend it doesn't exist.
More: Tom Freeman has a different reply to Kruger.
Would you also reject "Political action purporting to be for the sake of Equality was discredited with the fall of communism"?
Posted by: dearieme | August 31, 2006 at 05:32 PM
Yes - but only if the sentence were preceded by the word "some."
Posted by: chris | August 31, 2006 at 05:41 PM
Can't argue with that, especially since I didn't define in whose eyes the discrediting happened.
Posted by: dearieme | August 31, 2006 at 06:17 PM
The state's primary function does not appear, to me, to be to create the conditions for the redistribution of income but to:
provide a healthy business climate
provide defence and other services
restrain monopolies
give succour to the incapable
Posted by: james higham | September 01, 2006 at 07:13 AM
James,
Close but not quite there:
1. "provide a healthy business climate"
Nope. The states role is to keep out of the way of doing anything that would obstruct a healthy business climate. It does not provide it. We must be clear that the state has no positive role and that it should be more worried about interfering.
2. "provide defence"
Yup
" and other services"
nope. Unless this is defined and circumscribed you will get the same crap we have today.
3. "restrain monopolies"
Fair enough
4. "give succour to the incapable"
Why? Why does this have to be done by the State? Why can it not, except in the most dramatic of circumstances, be handled at a really microscopically local level, where it is much more likely to be successful at identifying the truly needy? This is an invitation to the existing welfare state.
Chris,
"you've got to meet the calls for income equality"
Why? I'll give you equality of OPPORTUNITY but not of outcome. Equality of income denies the central tenet of economics - that incentives matter.
Remove the hope of personal gain resulting from personal sacrifice (be that through labour, frugality or the preparedness to take risks - financial or physical) and you remove, well, hope. Hope of making a better life for yourself and those whom you support.
This is also the central problem with the CBI which I have not seen adequately addressed:
Either the CBI is sufficient to support an individual who does not work (for whatever reason) or it does not. In the former case, I would suggest we would encounter a fairly serious problem with the undermining of the work ethic needed to keep the whole thing ticking over and sufficient tax revenue to pay for it all and in the second, you still have a problem with supporting those who genuinely cannot help themselves.
PG
Posted by: The Pedant-General | September 06, 2006 at 04:54 PM