Essays discuss censorship, American intellectual life, urban civilization, politics, socialism, economic theory, diploma
526 93 46MB
English Pages 340 Year 1983
Table of contents :
1. In the beginning ... --
2. The culture of democratic capitalism --
3. The political philosophy of neoconservatism --
4. The political economy of neoconservatism --
5. Neoconservatism and foreign policy --
6. Religion and the Jews.
Reflections of
a
Neoconservative Looking Back, Looking Ahead
IRVING
KRI
;.iir.st
theory
tru
radical economists point
economic analysis of
the
id
and an equally powerful
is
that political philosophy
and
icademic disciplines, in
th.
become transformed
into p
.
alue-free," sci-
ences, while theology has practically ceased to be a respectable form
of intellectual activity. So the
young economist with moral
having nowhere to go, turns upon
devour
Above
all,
what radical econ key human motive
he basic idea that
self-interest, the
human
economics,
in
—not necessarily
nature
to
an inexpungible
is
be admired, but always to
be respected and ultimately to be channeled into constructive (or harmless) activity.
Once you deny
economics into moral and
and Lux
Maslow, needs
is
to
substance.
its
aspect of
passions,
and proceeds
itself
i
politic al
this premise,
philosophy.
it is
The
tactic
used by Lutz
derived from the psychological theories ot the late
who
—not
posited
subjective
hierarchy
universal
a
wants,
but
objective
Abraham human
natural
of
needs
at least
easy to dissolve
—and
perceived
human development as a progressive process of "self-actualization," whereby human beings become mature and most "human" as they subordinate their particular satisfaction produces a self -regarding
—
selfish
wants
community
of
to
deeper "needs" whose
autonomous
— but
no longer
persons.
—
Maslow's distinction between wants and needs a distinction which no mere economist is in a position to make frees economics from the tyranny of the consumer and gives it refuge under the benign sovereignty of the philosopher king, now transmuted into a "humanis-
—
tic
economist." As Lutz and Lux put Humanistic economics standing
is
a scientific
it
framework
for the theoretical under-
of, as well as the design of appropriate institutional arrangements pertaining
the processes of production, distribution, and consumption that will enable optimal satisfaction of the hierarchy of human needs. (Emphasis
to,
added.)
191
The Political Economy of Neoconservatism The Maslovian
distinction
between wants and needs
more
is little
than a secularized and pseudoscientific version of the ancient distinction
between our "higher" and "lower" selves
—
a distinction that
is at
the
core of both classical philosophy and the Judeo-Christian moral tradition
It
is
a distinction that
Adam
Smith, author of The Theory of Moral
would never have dreamed of repudiating. Nor would RicarMalthus, Mill, Jevons, Walras, or Keynes. What they would have
Sentiments,
do,
said (and did say)
is
that such a distinction
is
outside the scope of eco-
nomics, which deals only with the "wants" of our "lower selves."
assumption of those economists was that
it
was
The
utterly Utopian to think
that these lower parts of ourselves could ever be successfully repressed,
and that the virtue of
or completely transcended, or utterly nullified, free
commercial transactions between consenting adults was that
willv nilly directed our self-interested impulses
limited)
common As
condition >."
it
toward a simple (but
good: the general improvement of humanity's material the preservation and cultivation of our "higher
for
economics leaves that
to
philosophy and
religion.
The vision of radical economics today is that of a democratic equallt.iruin community in which individual self-interest would be rendered I negligible force through education, peer-group pressure, community festivals and a constant flow of elevating rhetoric. It is a romantic
Utopian
vision
in
its
its
modern academic
dress That
nomics profession profession,
is
substance,
articulation
lar-rationalist in
itself,
it
It
though in truth,
is,
scrupulously
secu-
Utopian socialism in
should find expression within the eco-
instead of inciting a mass exodus from that
but one more testimonial to the intellectual confusion of
our age
So economics today does seem
The dominant
scientistic
something
like
an impasse.
to drift ever further
away from
to be at
model tends
economic policy are ever more ambiguous and baffling. But the three main schools of thought that have arisen through dissociation from this excessively rationalistic model are
economic
reality, so that inferences for
themselves infused with varieties of rationalism that lead to their
own
kinds of impasses. Their criticisms of the status quo in economic theory are often well-taken, but the alternatives they propose are unconvincing.
There
doubt
is
not the slightest reason to think
—and
many
reasons to
— that post-Keynesians, fiddling with their cybernetic model, can
do any better than Keynesians with
their
Newtonian-mechanical
model. The neo-Austrians end up insisting that the best of
all
possible
worlds would be one populated by rationalist-utilitarian individuals
whose pursuit
of self-interest (as defined
192
by the individuals themselves)
Ra:
would be
left
undisturbed hv ItatC
cal (or libertarian)
world
And
ist-utopian vision. their
own
It is
is
judgment
01
their
whatever
the radical economist! have,
mM
has vanished along with a fair
church
an anauhi
| construct
rationalist-utop U
have so transcended self
01
that
world
I
in
.is
counterpart
which individuals
interested inclinations that
its
of 1 rational
economics
that COflUIIOfl to
three ot these
til
ways
ot
the impassioned hope (1) that economic theory can give us
absolute understanding of realitv than
economic
reality
it-
detestable incarnation, the marketplace
thought a
more
possiblv tan, and/or (2) that
it
can give us more bv v\j\
oi
human
"fulfillment" and
happiness than U possibly can
And
yet economic theory lives on, surviving
or suprareasonable
demands
that bedrock of truths about the
prehensively enunciated in The Wealth (1)
all
the unreasonable
made on it It survives because of human condition that were first com-
that are
The overwhelming majority
of
of Nations
Among these truths are:
men and women
are naturally
and
incorrigibly interested in improving their material conditions; (2) efforts to repress this natural desire lead only ities; (3)
when
this natural desire
if
!
giver
t
and impoverished pol-
»uffi< ient
iatitude so that
com-
mercial transactions are not discouraged, economic growth does take place; (4) as a result of such growth,
everyone does eventually indeed
however unequally in extent or time; (5) such economic growth results in a huge expansion of the property-owning improve
his condition,
—
middle classes
a necessary
(though not
sufficient) condition for a lib-
which individual rights are respected This is not all we need to know, but it is what we do know, and it is surely not asking too much of economic theory that in its passion for sophisticated methodology it not leave this knowledge behind. eral society in
1980
193
14 Some
Personal Reflections
on Economic Well-Being
and Income Distribution
I
-T
veying various studies of trends St.itts
is
my
understanding, from sur-
income distribution
in the
United
over the past three decades, that economists have found very nificanf
a slight
change
to
have taken
place.
a slight
by the
decrease in the proportion received by the very rich.
goes on in between
ysis can tease
lit—
There does seem to have been
increase in the proportion of national income received
very poor,
What
in
is
such
a
complex muddle that economic anal-
few unquestionable inferences from the
data.
Moreover,
the very methodology of studying income distribution has, over these
decades, in the
become ever more
controversial. Just
concept of "income" becomes
mental "entitlement" program
is
housing, medicine, or whatever). that in order to take account of
less clear
what
launched (whether
And
it
is
to
every time a it
be included
new govern-
involves food,
has become ever more apparent
normal age
differentials in earnings, of
changing demographies, and of economic mobility (both up and down), the distribution of "lifetime earnings"
194
would give us
a far
more
valid
Some
Reflections on
Economic Well- Being and Income Distribution
at a moment in time The trouble up with any accepted procedure for measuring any such distribution of lifetime earnings, and there are even some grounds for thinking they never will. Does it matter? What, precisely, is the point of all of these studies
report than
is
any cross-sectional survey
that economists
have not
CMM
and of the interminable controversies they generate?
When
one
raises this issue
they tend to feel that, in some to
have
among economists, one discovers that way or other, income inequalities ought
stability or instability, or
historical
we vaguely call astonishing how little by
even that sense of well-being
And
yet
it
is
of any such relationships economic and social research has
up with. Increases and decreases ally
and
stability or instability, social
"happiness" or "contentment."
way
such as the rate of
a significant relation to other larger issues
economic growth, economic
in
income
come
inequalities, as convention-
measured, appear to be indifferently compatible with social turbu-
lence as with social stability, with economic decline as with economic
growth, with political order as with individual and social pathologies tion, crime) as
alcoholism, drug addic-
with a decrease. Inequality, one gets the impression,
an important issue for today's social scientists
importance escapes
all
further,
any
the concept of economic well-being believe.
is
in
not so unambiguous as
in (actual or potential)
buy). But this brute statistical fact it is
that ultimately determine the
is
(i.e.,
pur-
the goods that
always "processed"
the ideas and attitudes in these minds
meaning we give
to
any brute
statistical
Fortunately for the science of economics, those ideas and attitudes
are not utterly disparate, incoherent, say,
in-
economic well-being can
chasing power over the material goods of this world
through people's minds, and
income
plagued by the fact that
is
itself
An improvement
be quite rigorously defined as an increase
fact.
is
the fact that such
effort to relate
equality even to strictly economic well-being
some economists
despite
empirical verification.
To complicate matters even
money can
with an increase in
political chaos,
(e.g., suicide,
and inconstant.
One
can therefore
with some confidence, that most people, most of the time, and most
anywhere, wish
when
to see their purchasing
that occurs.
Having
said that,
power increase and
are pleased
however, one must also go on to
say that particular circumstances can modify or even overwhelm any
purely
statistical
measure of economic well-being. Both poverty and
af-
fluence can have ambiguities that escape the strictly economic perspective. It is an observable fact that not all people who are statistically poor everywhere equally miserable or have an equal sense of being "badly off." The past and the future always shape our sense of the pres-
are
195
The Political Economy of Neoconservatism much,
ent So
depends on the hopes one may have for one's
therefore,
one may have
children, the faith
dimly,
felt.
—
human terms costs Anyone who has seen Fiddler on costs in
its
may
"fair-
derive from
dehumanize, and relative affluence
traditions Poverty does not always
can have
and
in the ultimate benignity
ness" of Providence, on the assurance and solace one
that are actually, the
Roof
often
if
and contrasted the
portrayed there with the lives of Jews in Long Island's Great
lives
today will appreciate the immense
difficulties
Neck
involved in disentangling
economic well-being from other kinds of well-being. Similarly,
on the
street
where
nese family, recent immigrants,
I
lived until recently there
who
was a ChiThe par-
ran a basement laundry.
two tiny rooms at the back of what this family did to our official
ents and their five children shared the
the tiny store, and
I
poverty
Still,
statistics
shudder
to think
those parents expressed great confidence that
—
would "get ahead" and, in fact, all five ended up as college graduates Ought not one to incorporate that prospect in any estimate of the family's economic well-being? In contrast, on that same street there were several welfare families whose incomes, in cash and kind and their children
es, may well have been larger than that of our Chinese family, who were in various stages of a dependency-induced corruption,
but
with
little
family stability and with the children involved in drugs and
Would an
delinquency
increase in their welfare receipts really have im-
proved their economic well-being?
how would
moralization,
Or,
at
had merely accelerated
If it
their de-
economic well-being?
that relate to
the other extreme, take the case of a statistically affluent sub-
urban child
who
has every advantage, as
we
say, but
who comes
perience those advantages as bars in a "gilded cage," to use
to ex-
Max
Weber's prescient phrase. He perceives the improbability of his surpassing his successful father in either economic or professional terms. finds family
and community
tracting bore.
comes
a
we
after?
empty
a
pseudobohemian, or
—
off
a drifter, living
handouts and odd
to ascribe to the statistics of his
When
He
of meaning, and school a dis-
So he "drops out" of the world he was born into and be-
"bohemian,"
placidly, perhaps miserably
are
life
jobs.
—perhaps
What meaning
economic well-being, before and
affluence can demoralize as vigorously as poverty, can
we
take the statistics on economic well-being with the solemnity that econ-
omists are naturally inclined to do?
And, of course, if
we
try
somehow
this
matter becomes infinitely more complicated
to incorporate the idea of
the idea of economic well-being, as so
economic equality into
many economists
think proper.
Here, ordinary people seem to have an intuitive respect for existential
complexities that economists often seem to lack.
196
The
intensity with
Some
Reflect:
which economist* work V which they measure Kno ulation. is matched so
J the lubtlety with
American
of the average is
of the pop
lies
—
the utter lack oJ
!
Inl
perh*pf, thil
I |
because those finding-
seems
to give rise to an
Mich
e»
.merits
soon unravel into micros the average person interested in
it
is
think
far less into
in quite a
is
it
bcCAUM
inequality
i
01
is
d
scientist.
Why? One
reason,
would
I
k
ientisl links the
issue of inequality to the issue
the average person. affluent, the
It is
certain
usly than doet I
more
\
"poverty line," as popular lv |
ward. Today, for example, no one would sence of private, indoor
would have found not
the fact that the ab-
toilet facility
indparents
shocking
at all
ire
sign of poverty.
the other hand, the average pe;
;ua economist,
prohibited from doing. People
minimally adequate food, not as
shelter,
wh
as poor,
under 10 percent.
A
lute" definition of poverty
who
qualify as poor
might
arbitrary
is
as
Bw
terms of relative income
retort that
can
is
it
will
— well
a definition
question to which
>ely linked to a t
the degree that poverty
permanent condition,
small
:hve answer.
pow
«•
perception of opportunity
To
is
any such "abso-
compared with this
'.
This popular perception
of poverty
but
in the
overty in this way, then the
social scientist
economics can never hope
they are
one
if
percentage of the American people
in
rived to be
and
problematically poor, regardless
income distribution. And
On
Vitinguish between
needs and wants in ways that u is
move up
will also
is
out
nut viewed as a necessarily
em And
l
popular
move
unity to
the average Ameri-
strongly of the opinion that, leaving the physically handicapped
iliy is no reason which one would include the elder anyone in the lowest quintile of tht distribution to interpret pportunities tor bettering one's his condition as permanent condition" will and do e*ist It may be recalled that Adam Smith had
(in
for
earlier
suggested that the modu*
economic well
mobility
—would of
society.
— and
the
a certainty
The reason
for this
be is
Sfl
eventual less
market economy
is
distribution
income
unequal than
in
of
such that as
any other kind of
that the talents requisite for sue
such an economy are so mundane, and the role of sheer luck
197
is
so great,
The Political Economy of Neoconservatism economic mobility should be
that
and eventual economic
greater,
whole tend trast,
to accept this thesis as a fact of
think
in-
Americans on the
equalities less significant, than in noncapitalist orders.
Social scientists, in con-
life.
important either to prove or disprove this thesis by re-
it
search.
carefully say "social scientists" because sociologists are perhaps
I
even more prominent
in this
endeavor than economists.
It is
they
who
more technical literature on the question of "social mobility/' of which income mobility is the major component It is an open question whether this literature provides more enlightenment than obfuscation. We do know, without benefit of research, that if economic growth tends to create new and better-paying have created
a sizable library
of ever
and occupations and professions
jobi
(as
it
does), then the statistics will
obviously reveal considerable upward social and economic mobility (as
But what sociologists appear to be worried most about
they do)
whether everyone benefits to be especially
top decile
concerned as to whether those
manage
to
bile
who
statistical
are already in the
procedures of sociolo-
a rigorously egalitarian definition
which the children of upper-class parents
mobility, one in
downwardly
The
in there.
one begins with
ich that ..il
hang
is
from these changes, and they do seem
equally
mobile, while their places are taken by the upwardly
are
mo-
— a world turned upside-down indeed! — and then measures the ac-
tuality in the light of this "ideal "
such surd,
somehow
It is
is
who have
sociologists, too, is
supposed
own economic well-being are equality Now, there certainly it
why
is
such
a thing as a sense of relative depri-
more intimately
related to the idea of justice
tacitly
society
over the chief executive
assume is
have been innumerable
among workers
the United States over pay differentials
("equal pay for equal work!"), yet a strike
people's views of their
inextricably intertwined with the idea of
turns out to have only a limited connection with the larger
idea of equality and to be
in
inherently ab-
is
popularized the concept of "relative
to explain
or fairness ("to each his due"). Thus, there strikes
has never been
fact that there
lost sight of.
deprivation," which
vation, but
The
or that the very idea of such a society
a society,
— as
practically
I
do not
officer's
all
seem
very high salary. to
being
recall a case of there
do
— that
If
more
a
sociologists
egalitarian
(and will be perceived to be) a more just society, that
is
an
assumption which derives from ideology, not from history or contemporary experience.
And much
the
same
is
the intensity with which
true,
I
would
say, for the
way
—economists study income
begins blandly with the premise that absolute equality
198
in
which
—and
inequalities. is
One
the ideal state
Some
Reflect:.
and then one measures there
merely
lequality
measurement!
all
odd
o
ethical
lemains true that there
h | thing as business ethus and that business activity does
this
is
is
bankruptcy
what businessmen often seem expand its
inevitably inviting government to
220
to
therefore morally
nic
Man
code of prohibitions An:
men have come nomic" and
to thin^
judgfl
activity, to be
ri
.
lhat moral
b)
religious tradit:
perh •
Sn
new
not a
is
\
••
affair
i
all,
-like sexual b been among the most oODim
And around
life a
huge
bmincaa
or peculiar!
ihvayi
that exper;«
library of moral
ill
world's religions That businessnv
•
the
this tradi
:ndable,
most
part, itself qui*'
pernxial "ti
,
learning
.men wr
Still
n from
this deprivatio:
ail
the
subjects of moral d
The value and bnpofl their subtlety
duct
and
cific
and complexity
vital
•
ippl
t
ish joke
will
nostalgia of merely hearing them.
seems to be content
we have no
humor
ker jokes, luftmentsh
old folkways are disappearing and Yid ing a dead language.
is
they involve the
ial
jo)
clear that a
it is
provide results from the
int