A broader point here that "government" and "market" in this context are shortcuts or monikers rather than signifiers of empirically existing institutions. In real life, there are no "markets" - just different institutions entering different types of transactions. Those transactions are governed different formal and informal understandings, agreements, and rules. If we collectively call theses transactions "the market" and the rules "governing these transactions "government" - it is obvious that both represent two sides of the same coin. All transactions in human history have always been governed by some sort of social rules and sanctions, and the norms and sanctions are meaningless in the absence of transactions to which they pertain. The only meaningful distinction - and discussion - in this context is about what kind of transactions, what kind of rules and sanctions, and under what conditions.
In other words, it is empirically nonsensical to renounce "government" as it is equally nonsensical to renounce "markets." The only meaningful discussion is how different transactions are or ought to be regulated and and sanctioned, and under what circumstances.
The anti-government diatribes of political conservatives are a classical example of what Harry Frankfurt calls "bullshit" - they are oblivious to empirical reality (i.e. they can be true or false, but it does not matter) and their only function is to convey a certain impression about the speakers themselves. In other words, the literal meaning of these diatribes is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is emotions these diatribes evoke in the audience.
By the same token anti-market diatribes are equally "bullshit" - aimed to evoke certain emotions in the audience rather than to convey an empirically meaningful message. If liberals tend to refrain from them, it is perhaps because they tend to be less likely than conservatives to unabashedly bullshit their audiences (which may also be their weakness.)
The proper response to the anti-government diatribes of the right is not debating their theology and even positing anti-theology (i.e. critique of the market) but unmasking the "men behind the curtain" i.e. attacks on the messengers not the message (e.g. by publicly ridiculing them, as Michael Moore has been doing, or by refusing to engage in their flame wars, as Obama does.) Because if there was only one instance in which the phrase "the medium is the message" were true it would be this one. It is all about evoking certain emotions about the speakers, the content of the message does not matter.
Wojtek
On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 8:25 PM, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 3 May 2010, SA wrote:
>
> http://theactivist.org/blog/the-ideology-problem
>>
>
> We seem to be dealing with a very peculiar situation. Why does Schwarz
>> (and this question should be applied not just to him but to liberals
>> generally) so diligently avoid formulating the frontal and unabashed
>> critique of the market that is the only viable point on which he seems able
>> to rationalize his differences with the Right? It's true (obviously) that
>> liberals are very far from being out to abolish markets. Their actions bear
>> this out every day. But why, in principle, should that stop them from
>> orienting their ideological discourse around a critique of markets? Let's
>> look at it this way: Republican discourse is clearly - flamboyantly -
>> oriented around a critique of "government"; their rhetoric is studded with
>> charges that government is wasteful, government is inefficient, government
>> encroaches on freedom and government stifles prosperity. Yet no Republican
>> has ever feared being mistaken for an anarchist. Republicans don't feel the
>> need to interrupt their rants to assure their listeners that they still
>> believe in police departments and fire stations. Why can't liberals
>>
>
> I think you've already answered your own question. Liberals can't use the
> critique of markets the way conservatives use the critique of government
> because they don't believe that. They don't keep interrupting their
> critique of markets with praise of markets (only) because they are afraid of
> being branded as socialists. They toss it in because they really believe
> it. They really believe -- just as much as conservatives do -- that markets
> are fundamentally great. Liberals see everything that distinguishes them
> from conservatives -- e.g., wanting more regulation, and wanting to set up
> programs to cover "market failures," i.e., what markets won't do -- as ways
> of fine tuning markets and making them better. But at bottom, their goal is
> a set of perfectly tuned markets, just as it is for conservatives. They're
> not against them, they're for improving them. And they want everyone to
> know that.
>
> I think what you've done here is draw a line between liberals and the left.
> What makes liberals liberals is precisely that they do believe this.
>
> And what makes the left the left is embracing solutions that replace the
> market with something better -- and being proud of it.
>
> I think you may also have hit on an important part of why modern liberalism
> is so inherently mushy. This conception of markets and their frameworks,
> while truer, is also more complex and less clear than Markets Period. It
> gives you by nature a different complex solution in every case, rather than
> one simple solution -- and slogan -- for all time. And it debouches
> immediately by nature into an infinity of wonky details, since for liberals
> the whole brilliance of their solution lies in how brilliantly it's fine
> tuned.
>
> Michael
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