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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
The idea of socialism is making a comeback, particularly among rising generations. Their interest is likely to prove transitory, however, if socialism ignores their yearning for individual autonomy. Why should "soloists" embrace socialism? In this highly original new book, William Edmundson argues that there are compelling reasons for even the most resolute of individualists to embrace socialism. Political equality is incompatible with private ownership of the means of production - which today incorporates not only the highway system, the currency, and the power grid but also platforms like Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Socialism is therefore essential to protect the basic liberal rights and freedoms that underpin our social contract. This pathbreaking defence of liberal democratic socialism will be essential reading not only for all on the left, but also for students and scholars of liberalism, libertarianism, and the social contract.
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Seitenzahl: 242
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Table of Contents
Cover
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Introduction: What Is This Thing Called “Socialism”?
Part One: Getting to Principles of Justice
1 The Social Contract
2 Why Economic Inequality?
3 How Much Economic Inequality?
4 How Much Political Equality?
Summary of Part One
Part Two: Getting Justice Done
5 Why Worry about “the Means of Production”?
6 Making Political Equality Real
7 The Productivity Club
8 Managing Public Assets
Conclusion: Summarizing the Soloist Case for Socialism
Afterword
References and Recommended Reading
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Dedication
Dedicated to the Ernies of the world
Socialism for Soloists
Spelling Out the Social Contract
William A. Edmundson
polity
Copyright Page
Copyright © William A. Edmundson 2021
The right of William A. Edmundson to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Polity Press
Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
101 Station Landing
Suite 300
Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4182-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4183-6 (pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Edmundson, William A. (William Atkins), 1948- author.
Title: Socialism for soloists : spelling out the social contract / William A. Edmundson.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA, USA : Polity Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Why sturdy individualists should support socialism, not capitalism”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020046519 (print) | LCCN 2020046520 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509541829 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509541836 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509541843 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Socialism. | Justice. | Equality.
Classification: LCC HX73 .E33 2021 (print) | LCC HX73 (ebook) | DDC 335--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020046519
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020046520
by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
Acknowledgments
The ideas presented here evolved from discussions with members of my Theories of Justice seminars at Georgia State University. I thank Leslie Wolf for enabling me to block off the time I needed to transform these ideas into book form.
Portions of Chapter 5 appeared as “What Are the Means of Production?” in The Journal of Political Philosophy 28(4), 2020, pp. 421–37
I owe a special debt of gratitude to my editor, George Owers, and to two anonymous referees for Polity Books.
Epigraph
The essential idea is that we want to account for social values, for the intrinsic good of institutional, community, and associative activities, by a conception of justice that in its theoretical basis is individualistic.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
Guess what, people? Politics is about what’s in it for me. Now, the socialist case is that what’s good for everybody is best for everybody, and I think that that’s a persuasive case. But there has to be an element of self-interest in it, too, to hook people who don’t already have your point of view.
Matt Christman, Chapo Trap House, Episode 426
Introduction: What Is This Thing Called “Socialism”?
This book is meant for readers who are curious about socialism but are not ready to buy into it. To make the best case for socialism, the book addresses itself to readers who are pretty sure that they don’t buy it.
This book is for soloists, that is, for people who are not drawn to the idea of leading their lives as if society were one big camping trip, where share-and-share-alike is the rule of the day. Soloists want to live their own lives, pursue their own dreams. Soloists are not solipsists: soloists realize that other people exist and have lives to live. Soloists are not loners any more than they are sociopaths. Soloists have loved ones and friends and associates: but they are not drawn to the idea of society itself as one big happy family. Family is small and intimate – society is huge and tends to be overwhelming.
Soloists are not egotists, either. They can enjoy competing and winning, but they don’t live merely in order to dominate other people. Soloists are not put off by the idea that society itself is a kind of competition, with winners and losers. But soloists do insist that competition be fair, and that the rules be reasonable. They also insist that if society is to be run on a competitive basis, that losing should not mean being destroyed, and that the winners can’t simply rig the rules so that no one else has a fair chance to win.
Some readers may already be drawn to socialism, or consider themselves to be socialists, and are impatient already. They may think that socialism begins with solidarity, whether with humanity as such or with fellow members of an oppressed social class. To these readers, pitching socialism to soloists is a misconceived, and probably doomed, endeavor. I recommend that these readers skip to the Afterword. Once having read the Afterword, they may wish to begin this book again, at the beginning.
So, what is socialism? In a socialist society, the means of production are public property. (What, precisely, the means of production consist of is addressed in Chapter 5.) Anybody who believes that society’s key productive assets should work to benefit everyone should at least be curious about socialism. Strictly speaking, a socialist is somebody who believes that only a socialist society can be just. A society is just if its basic institutions are such that each individual member can expect to get his or her due. (You don’t have to be a socialist to believe that.) A socialist is someone who denies that private ownership of the means of production is compatible, in the long run, with each of us getting what we are due.
Socialism should not be confused with (mere) progressivism. Progressives typically worry about extreme economic inequality and so they insist on taxing the wealthiest to subsidize the least-advantaged members of society. However, progressives typically do not insist on public ownership of the means of production. Their failure to do so is a big mistake, as I will show.
Socialism should not be confused with the welfare state. The welfare state serves to support those who cannot live decently upon the income they derive from their labor or the capital they own. Socialism is concerned with the specific problem of justice among producers. A welfare state can be tacked onto a capitalist society, in which the means of production are privately owned and the market solves the problem of giving each producer her due.
Socialists are strongly in favor of having a welfare state; but a welfare state does not amount to socialism. In fact, the first welfare state was instituted in Germany by Otto von Bismarck, who was no enemy of private ownership of the means of production. Experience shows that in capitalist countries the welfare state is constantly opposed by ideologies that demand privatization, austerity, and “personal responsibility.” The welfare state in social democracies is exposed to the same pressures. The welfare state is more secure in socialist societies, owing in part to the stronger sense of solidarity among citizens who share ownership of the means of production.
There is more to justice than public ownership of the means of production. Justice requires democracy – the rule of the many – rather than an autocracy or an oligopoly – the rule of one or the few. In a just society every adult has certain political rights, including the right to vote, the right to put questions on the voting agenda, and the right to run for public office. Justice requires democratic socialism. Saying so is no argument: that comes in the chapters ahead. But I want to be clear that the socialism advocated here is democratic socialism, not a socialist society run by one party, or by one class of society. I won’t keep repeating “democratic socialism,” because that is what I mean from here on out by the word “socialism.”
Justice requires that each person be recognized as having certain basic rights, such as the right to free speech, free exercise of religion, choice of occupation, bodily integrity, privacy, and so on. Respecting these basic rights means that laws cannot justly infringe them. What if the law is backed by the majority, and enacted democratically? The democratic socialism advocated in this book is liberal, meaning that these basic rights are immune from legal infringement, even if the majority wants them to be infringed. To spell it all out, the subject of the book is liberal democratic socialism. But, again, I will refer to it simply as socialism.
The thesis of the book is simply this: justice requires socialism. You, the reader, are entitled to ask why? What is the argument?
The argument is two-part. The first part is about justice, and it shows that – despite our differences – we can all agree to certain principles of justice. The central principles that emerge are these:
Principle of Political Equality: Citizens who are equally able and equally motivated should have an equal chance to influence political decisions, regardless of wealth and income.
Principle of Reciprocity: Economic inequality is allowed so long as it can be seen to benefit all representative social classes.
The argument for these principles is a development of the social contract tradition within political philosophy. It is important to distinguish three different roles a social contract story could play.
The first is as historical explanation. Political societies, or some of them, might have come into existence in virtue of a social compact. Some of their present characteristics might be understood in terms of how they arose. These characteristics could include normative ones, like legitimacy. We could term this the genealogical role.
The second role is as a recipe by which we might go about founding a political society. This could be useful to know even if no actual polity has ever arisen this way. The recipe could be written in a way that assures that the polity has legitimate authority over its members. The recipe could also tell us how to reconstitute a polity, so that it would acquire a legitimacy it theretofore had lacked. We could term this the prescriptive role.
The third role a social contract theory could play would be to formulate a critical standard by which, or a critical standpoint from which, to assess existing and possible institutions. We might have a better appreciation of the status quo if we could explain it in terms that show that it is just, or nearly so, or tending toward justice, with reference to principles that could or should command rational assent. We can term this the critical role.
If a social contract story plays its critical role well, it might reconcile us to the society we currently inhabit. It could do this even if the theory failed as a genealogical explanation of our society, and even if there were no real possibility of it serving as a prescription for getting actual, unanimous, agreement among all the many members of our society. The critical role might be convincingly performed even if no actual agreement ever occurred and were never realistically possible for any developed nation.
The social contract idea used here is meant to play the critical role, and to be consistent with the form in which it was reanimated in the latter half of the twentieth century by philosopher John Rawls. No prior acquaintance with Rawls is assumed. Readers who are already familiar with Rawls’s theory could proceed directly to Part Two.
The second part of the book applies the principles of justice derived in Part One to our present-day circumstances. The same method of argument used in Part One is followed, but with attention given to the fact that we live today with the consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Socialism emerges as the only type of regime that can be counted on to realize the two principles derived in Part One.
A short concluding section summarizes the argument. An Afterword addresses some questions that already committed socialists may have. Newly committed socialists might want to ask them, too.
Part OneGetting to Principles of Justice
1The Social Contract
Life in a society is like a game, in some ways. In other ways, not. Both games and social life itself involve rules. In both cases, the rules leave it up to each of us to make a wide range of choices for ourselves. At the same time, in both cases, the rules disallow certain kinds of choices. In both cases, rules help us to know what to expect and how to plan what to do. Rules have this advantage only if they are normally obeyed by all concerned.
Every rule that is normally followed within a group of people has at least this one virtue, that of predictability. Predictability may mean little to those of us soloists who value authenticity and free spontaneity. Yet even we who highly value spontaneity can appreciate rules that allow us to do as we please while confident that we may do so without interference from others.
There are differences between games and social life itself. Games depend on rules to make them what they are. Playing a game is more than simply being at play. Social life, by contrast, conceivably could exist in the absence of rules. True, it is not easy to imagine a society of people thriving in the utter absence of rules; and, true also, social rules of many sorts surround us in the actual conditions of modern life.
If we are suspicious of the contrast, we might say that human interaction is always and everywhere subject to at least one permissive rule: such as, you may do as you think necessary in order to survive. So, where there’s life, there is at least one rule in play. It is harder to picture a game that consists of a single permissive rule, such as, you may do as you think it fun to do. Following that rule merely means being at play.
Another difference is a difference in the stakes. Not all games are competitive, and among the many competitive games, the stakes are typically kept low. Losing a game does not cost one one’s life (notwithstanding the ball games of the Aztecs). Competition for the necessities of life can be different. In a world in which these necessities (food, drink, shelter, clothing, etc.) are scarce, losing out can mean starvation or death by thirst or exposure.
The major difference between games and society is this, though: we can choose which games to enter into, once we are adults. If we dislike poker we can play parcheesi, and if we don’t like either, or don’t like to play games, we can choose not to play at all. Social life and social rules are different. We are required to play by these rules, like it or not. We have no real choice. Even if we had the means, if we pulled up our tent-stakes and moved out of the country, we would only land ourselves amidst another society and its rules.
Here is a thought. Suppose we know that we will have to play a game, and that the stakes will be very high. The purpose of the game will be to produce and re-produce the conditions needed to do other things, pursue other goals, of whatever kind. Once the game is under way, each player will have two roles. One role will be to engage in production. The other role will be to do other things, perhaps to play other games, sports, or to pursue other leisure activities, to socialize, read, watch videos, meditate, whatever.
We don’t want to exaggerate the distinction between the two roles. Producing the things we do can be what we most want to do. Or it can be merely what we do to make a living. One thing, though, is hard to exaggerate: that is, the degree to which our freedom to pursue the ends we set for ourselves is dependent on the cooperation of everyone else, or at least on their not interfering. So also, it is hard to exaggerate the degree to which the things we do merely to make a living depend upon other people valuing what we do and make, and being ready to exchange things we want and need for the things we do and make.
So, to continue the thought: suppose we have no real choice but to play a high-stakes game, but at the same time we do have a say in making up the rules that will determine how the game will be played. What rules, if any, would we agree to?
This is a big question. We might approach it by first asking, what kind of rules would we be willing to consider? The answer to this question will depend on what we want the rules to accomplish. All rules – other than the permissive rule, “Anything goes” – are constraining. As soloists, we chafe at constraint and love liberty. Why would we ever submit to any constraining rules?
The obvious and familiar answer to that question is that if anything goes, no one will be secure. Everyone will then be less free. That is bad enough, and if people feel insecure, they will invest their time and energy in ways that are wasteful and unproductive. Rules against using force against others, and against defrauding others, are needed, at the very least. Otherwise, people will be too distrustful and too insecure to expend their energies and wits on things like cultivating crops and improving land, building roads and making tools as well as weapons.
At this point, many will insist that we distinguish between two kinds of rules. One kind of rule could be called natural rules, or laws of nature. God-given rules could be counted under this heading. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not bear false witness, and so forth. The other kind of rules are artificial rules, made up by people. The laws of nature just listed are constraining rules. If they are followed, there need be no insecurity. There could be agriculture, and artisanship, and manufacture, and trade, and prosperity. If only people would harken to the law of nature. Human-made laws would be unnecessary. Or, where they were necessary, they could be derived by applying some more general law of nature.
The natural law need not be thought of in terms of divine commands. They might simply belong to the natural order of the universe. Or, it could be that humans simply evolved in a way that disposes normal individuals to acknowledge and abide by certain natural rules, which we can refer to collectively as the natural law.
The idea of having a conscience meshes well with the idea of natural rules. God might implant these rules in our hearts. Reason might reveal them to our minds. Evolution might have selected groups that feature a heritable disposition to observe them. By whichever route they were bequeathed to us, why would they not be enough for the purpose of security and prosperity? And, as if by design, they would determine the standard of what is just. Justice is conformity with the rules of natural law.
The problem with this is that we seem fated to disagree in fundamental ways about the content of the natural law. Even where we think we are close to consensus about some of its content, we disagree about how that content applies. Think of the Old Testament commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Does this forbid killing in self-defense, or not? Does it forbid killing non-human animals, or not? Does it forbid killing fetuses, or not? People have very strongly held but mutually irreconcilable views about each of these questions.
Suppose we are among those who agree that killing in self-defense is not unjust. We all assent to the proposition that a person attacked by another is permitted to defend herself, even with deadly force, if deadly force is necessary to avoid a deadly attack. What if she is mistaken about the need to use force, should she be punished? Should she have to retreat before resorting to deadly force? Or may she stand her ground? Should she have to retreat from her home before resorting to deadly force? It is unlikely that we who agree that self-defensive force is sometimes justifiable will ever agree unanimously as to each of these subsidiary questions.
Set aside the issue whether there are any correct answers to these questions. There may be, there might not be. But if we cannot agree about what those answers are, the answers cannot well serve to promote our security and prosperity. If the only rules we live by are the law of nature, we are liable to be sucked into endless, irresolvable controversy unless we have a way of dealing with our deep disagreements about questions like this.
Some of us would be satisfied to leave it to God or destiny to deal with injustice. Leaving these matters unsettled is unsatisfactory insofar as planning and effort depend upon some degree of stability and security. Human life cannot prosper, it seems, without some earthly, temporal authority empowered to settle disruptive disputes and, in doing so, to interpret the rules of justice. Further than that, prosperity seems to require that some temporal authority have the power to introduce new rules when emergencies or changed circumstances demand them. This would entail having power to limit or even to extinguish older, established rules, when they had outlived their rationale.
A soloist will not readily concede her natural liberty to do as she pleases while leaving others equally free. A soloist, however, can see the advantage of having certain rules artificially laid down to regulate social interactions. Rules of the road, for example. There is no natural law that dictates that vehicular traffic should stay to the left side or to the right side of the road. It is not even obvious that there is a natural law requiring that traffic stay to one side or another – if vehicular traffic were kept as slow as pedestrian traffic, then this sort of stick-to-one-side rule would no more be needed than a rule mandating that pedestrians stay on one particular side of the sidewalk. But where vehicular traffic picks up speed, even the most determined soloist can see the huge advantage of having an artificial rule.
Not so fast … Artificial rules can bind a soloist only insofar as she, the individual, consents to them. Or so she maintains: that’s one of the things that makes her a soloist. She is not alone in believing this: in fact, the mainstream tradition in English-speaking countries holds that government can only be legitimated by the consent of the governed. Without the consent of the governed, there is no basic difference between a government and a protection racket. Ever since the divine-right-of-kings theory went out of fashion a few centuries ago, every modern nation-state at least claims to rule by and with the consent of the people.
This idea of government by consent has to be examined with care, lest it be misunderstood. No government claims to give each citizen a veto over laws she disagrees with. Government by consent does not mean, and has never meant, government by consensus as to each law and every application of a law. Consensus, that is, universal agreement, does have a place however.
The idea is that consensus – universal assent – is necessary at the highest level, but only at that level. As to lesser matters, the majority may decide. In other words, soloists (and all others) shall agree, unanimously, to a basic charter that outlines the conditions under which a majority decision will be decisive and binding upon all (including the minority who disagree with a subsidiary decision, law, or rule). This basic charter is what is meant by the phrase, “the social contract.”
For government by consent to be effective, the rules cannot be subject to veto, exception, or override at the whim of anyone who happens to feel they are misguided, or finds them inconvenient. On the other hand, for government by consent to mean anything, there has to be unanimous consent at some level. That level is the level at which there is a basic charter that accomplishes two things. First, there has to be an agreement as to the overall type of lawmaking process. Second, there has to be an agreement setting a limit to what matters are proper subjects of the lawmaking process – or an agreement not to set any limit.
Lawmaking processes can take a variety of forms. Unanimity is unnecessary to each detail (e.g., at-large versus single-member districts in a legislature); nevertheless, unanimity is needed as to certain key characteristics of government. Soloists think of themselves as free beings. Soloists recognize no authority but that of free reason itself. Soloists reject dictatorship as a legitimate lawmaking process. But why? Why would a soloist reject lawmaking by herself as dictator? The answer is simple. Soloists are not solipsists. Soloists recognize the existence of others, and their possession of the power freely to reason. Soloists recognize others as free equals.
Not as equals in every respect, of course. Others will differ in age, size, strength, looks, intelligence, tastes, experience, patience, sensitivity, ability to distinguish sounds and colors, and myriad other ways. The capacity possessed equally by all who accept the basic charter is the capacity to understand it and to be guided by it. Agreement to the charter cannot be binding except as to those who can understand it and can abide by it.
