Moreover, the issue raised here sort of changes the subject. I had opined that moderate material inequality was not objectionable as long as everyone had enough. I gave two reasons for this; (1) people who make a greater contribution deserve more because it is right, and (2) differential reward provides some incentives that would be socially useful to encourage people to make a greater contribution.
The issue of human nature is irrelevant to 91). It bears on (2) if you think that (2) is false, that there is no incentive effect, or that society can be arranged just as well without one. Although may people have said extragavant and silly things here, no one has actually yet said, I believe, that material rewards do not motivate.
What people have said is rather the second, that moral incentives and the desire for self-fulfullment are all the incentive we ever would need. Now, this I think contradicts what we know about human nature. People cooperate, they do respond to non-material incentives like praise and disapproval, and they seek self-fulfillment and self respect. So far so good. No one disputes these things.
But they also shirk, let other carry the load, and free-ride, especially when theiy have no stake in the outcome because others will carry the load. That is human nature too. It is rational to behave this way. You needn't posit 100% self-interested behavior, but in all known environments almost everyone has some self interest. If so, these behaviors will happen. They will happen under socialism too. And they would be magnified under an equal income system that totally disconnected reward from contribution. So we need to alter the incentive structure to counteract that.
My idea was that as long as there is a robust and even cushy floor, a moderate degree of inequality -- say a 1:5 ratio of income, though how much would be necessary to get the incentive effect we desire is a matter for experiment -- is not objectionable.
Please note that this proposal is beyond the wildest dreams of political possibility in the foreseeable future. It marks me as wild-eyed lunatic leftist in the eyes of thew orld. Here, however, I am advocate of Nazi slave camp measures, it seems -- Carl was quoting the slogan over the entrance gate at Auschwitz to characterize Luke's and my (I think) shared view here. Bill B. says that I advocate slavery.
I mention this to underline my point that normal people (like our purported audience) have reason to think that folks on the left have been smoking something. John T dismissively says suggests that my own ideas about this are those of an aberrant minority, lots of people agree with you all. I dunno, maybe he should talk to some of his students. Mine thought that I was a wacko leftist because of the views (fascistic and authoritarian, according to some) I press here. I think that if wea re going to get anywhere we have to recognize who has the burden of proof. Unless of course we want a little self-agreement society that is quite irrelevant.
Anyway, human nature. It would probably be best not to use the term at all. It has the same effect on everyone, right and left, as a cattle prod. It stops all thought and provokes reflexive screams.
So what I would like to hear, leaving human anture aside, is two things: (1) why it is morally wrong to have moderate inequality that reflects people's different contributions, if we assume that people are in fact responsible for their actions and their behavior is not wholly determined by forces outside themselves, and (2) why the free rider problem won't occur under an equal income system, given that it is rational to free ride.
The only point taht I have heward that addresses my concerns is John T's idea that inequality of any sort is bad because it provides a basis for inequalities of power, which are bad because they corrupt democracy. This is wrong but at least on point. It is wrong because (1) John himself does not avoid material inequalities, recognizing that needs, however determined, differ and he believes in reward according to need as well want, and yet he does not think those inequalities are bad,
and (2) it ignores the difference in kind and degree of inequalities. Moderate material inequalities provide small if any basis for objectionable inequalities of power. In a socialist society, with or without legal markets (all societies will generate exchange relationships), it is not inequalities of wealth that threaten democracy but inequalities of direct access to political power -- control over the Party, if one has a Party, or over the Plan or the government. John doesn't see that the material inequalities that matter in class society are based not on differential income but differential ownership of productive assets.
However, his wrong-headed point is the only spark of light in this whole grim discussion. It's sad -- and I despair of the level of contact with reality on the left.
jks
--- Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> wrote:
>
> CB: Well, actually,no there is _not_ a human
> _nature_ problem here. Those
> who have claimed there is were the one's wishfully
> thinking and using poor
> "research" methods. With the advent of more cogent
> and scientific methods of
> discerning human nature, we can say that humans'
> biological inclinations not
> only pose no barrier to building society based on
> cooperation and communism,
> but that human natural inclinations ,when compared
> with other species (
> other "natures"), are very much fit for cooperation.
> It is the unnatural
> traditions,customs and ideas, such as the idea of
> the "naturalness" of
> superior classes, that post the barrier to a
> cooperative society. The change
> we need is not so much in our nature as in nurture.
> The way to remove
> selfishness is not through wishing but through
> social revolution.
>
> As far as success at cooperation and communistically
> organized society,
> most of human existence has been as communists,
> which is quite a record of
> success, in the economic sense. This is demonstrated
> by science and real
> evidence; it refutes the Western philosophers' pipe
> dreams of a predominatly
> selfish human nature.
>
> ___________________________________
>
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>
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