Monday, January 15, 2007
"We don't have choice if people are just left to their own devices"
Posted by Harold Henderson on 01.15.07 at 07:23 AM
Martha Nussbaum, a University of Chicago political philosopher, finds few opportunities to think carefully in public in this country because "the media are so sensationalistic and so anti-intellectual.... The New York Times op-ed page is very dumbed down, and I no longer even bother trying to get something published there, because they don't like anything that has a complicated argument."
But thanks to the Internet, even Americans can read what she thinks in a long interview in Eurozine, where, among other things, she contrasts liberalism and libertarianism.
"It's a hallmark of liberalism that ideas of choice and freedom are really very, very important. Of course I think one has to stress that we don't have choice if people are just left to their own devices. The state has to act positively to create the conditions for choice. I think the libertarian position is actually quite incoherent.
"If you go out into the rural areas of Bihar in India, then you see what 'negative liberty' [a libertarian ideal] comes to. Total chaos, where nothing is being done, where there are no roads, no clean water supply, no electricity, and therefore where no one can do anything, no one has anything. I am sure my colleague Richard Epstein will agree, up to a point, that a state that's going to create liberty has got to act, has at least got to protect property rights and contracts and have a police force and a fire department. But then why draw the line at that? Why not also say that the State has to create public education, has to create the systems of social welfare that makes it possible for people to access health care, unemployment benefits, and so on? So I don't see any principled way of dividing those different spheres of state action.
"I have no objection to saying that the State could sometimes delegate part of its function to the private sphere when it judges that that's sufficient, but I do want to say that the State is the one that bears the final responsibility. The State is a system for the allocation of human basic entitlements. Its job is to promote justice and wellbeing for human beings; if it's simply delegated to private industry and that doesn't work, then the State hasn't done its job."
One short corollary: the people in charge of privatizing welfare or education or hurricane relief have to actually care that those jobs are done right, so that they won't hesitate to unprivatize them as needed.
(Hat tip to Butterflies & Wheels.)
Comments (10)
Showing 1-10 of 10
"Why not also say that "the State has to create public education..?" Because the State is really bad at that. You have a better chance of going to prison than going to graduate school as a male Chicago Public School student. The State has proven itself over and over again to be incompetent at any number of ventures, yet, bizarrely, there are still people out there clamoring for more State interference. Case in point, at one time the El was private, clean, and safe, until Harold Ickes decided to appropriate it from his natural enemy Sam Insull. Has Nussbaum ever taken the El and measured just how well run of an operation it is? How about a short hop over to (90% empty, but still expanding) McCormick Place? Or the vacant public beaches on the South Side (while private beaches in Socialist France flourish)? Has she ever even been to Chicago and noticed how well government works? Why would anyone in Chicago think for one moment that Government has much of anything to do with "promoting justice"? How would they do that? Via the Hired Truck Program? JBP
like
dislike
Some of your examples are dated or simply incorrect (McCormick Place is a helluva long way from "90% vacant", and most South Side beaches are actually quite busy nowadays and getting moreso). However it's trivial to come up with accurate examples and your basic point is sound. As is, of course, Nussbaum's point about libertarian dogma which is basically adolescent. Unfortunately Nussbaum speaks for many when she shamelessly deploys the cheap rhetorical trick of arguing against a straw man: hardly anyone actually argues for anything like pure libertarianism and roughly no one elected to any position of authority in this country qualifies. To continue asserting that the "only principled" position is overt statism just as arrogant, narrow-minded and childish as is the Ayn Rand worldview. Nussbaum's writing is an excellent example of the intellectual degeneration of progressivism in the West: liberals are the new conservatives.
I personally took a count on a very hot Saturday this past summer 2006. There were 12 people south of Oak Street Beach and north of Indiana. You could have indiscriminately beached a U-Boat and not hit anyone. I think 90% vacancy is a bit low for McCormick place. I would guess somewhere around 95% but I was being generous. The numbers are sort of available in the McPier annual report, which shows a continuing decline in utilization over the last 3 years. Do a bit of arithmetic...24 hours a day, 7 days a week, what percent of the floor space of McCormick place is rented? JBP
Guys, guys ... even in this short quoted passage Nussbaum makes it clear that she has no principled objection to private provision of public services. If private minibuses or privately managed beaches or charter schools get the job done, she's cool with that. Her point is that someone has to make sure they do get the job done, and that someone is responsible to all of us, whether elected or appointed. John, I'm curious -- last time I checked, New Trier was just as much a public school as Fenger. How do you account for the difference, since both are public schools?
Agreed. But it doesn't follow from, "Some public schools are mismanaged" that "The State has proven itself over and over again to be incompetent at any number of ventures." Some state ventures are run incompetently and some are not; and I have little doubt that many would be better run if the state contracted them out in a competitive environment and monitored the contractors to make sure they did right. Nussbaum's point stands: for there to be real freedom, there has to be a decent education available to all, and the *responsibility* for making that happen lies with our representative government. (That responsibility might be exercised by universal public schooling, or a voucher program, for instance; the specific mechanism isn't the point.) More generally, failure doesn't relocate responsibility. The president is still responsible for the conduct of foreign wars, even if the current one is grossly incompetent.
Why contract it out? Why not get out authoritarian constructs like the Illinois Healthcare Facilities Planning Board, SERS, or Licensed Moving Companies altogether? A reduction of State powers is not an absolution of responsibility. Does anyone actually think that as currently organized the State is guaranteeing a decent education to the 50%+ that drop out of our inner city schools? Perhaps by *reducing* State power, the citizens of Illinois could get better public services, than by increasing the Authoritarian State. Given the repeated failures by the state, perhaps it is time to relocate responsibility back to the private sector for any number of State ventures. JBP
Okay fair point, a closer re-read of Nussbaum's comments reveals that I was misunderstanding her. If the point is that "the *responsibility* for making that happen lies with our representative government" then certainly I agree. [In a similar spirit I am firmly on Teddy Roosevelt's side of the question of whether corporations have inalienable rights -- they don't.] [I also will assert that Nussbaum's position is not what today's progressives routinely assert to be the only principled one. Having been raised in Hyde Park with liberals as my personal heroes, and now living in Oak Park by deliberate choice, and as a happy careerist in a sector that by a cautious estimate votes 80% Democratic, I am quite certain that I am not arguing against a straw man on this. Wish I was.]
Indeed not, Paul. I observed that at yesterday's annual symposium that the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability held. R. Eden Martin from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club repeatedly made the case that putting more money into a monopoly (public schools as currently constituted) was unlikely to get good results unless the incentive structure was changed. Questioner after questioner failed to grasp his point (as opposed to merely disagreeing with it).
....Ms. Nussbaum's asserted 'libertarian' position that she disagrees with is actually anarcho-capitalism, not libertarianism. Milton Friedman is a libertarian, Bihar is not a libertarian example. Libertarianism != lack of publicly funded services. It equals a very limited scope: roads, police, and other items that the market can't effectively provide. Bit late, but there ya go.
