Thursday, May 25, 2006

The True Nature of Socialism

It won't surprise many of my readers to learn that I'm a Socialist(albeit a pragmatic one who is a registered Democrat and believes working within the contxt of the left/labor wing of the Democratic Party...). So I thought I would elucidate what Socialism means to me.

The Nation recently ran a piece by a DSA member, Ron Aronson, on why we need to talk about Socialism. It's an excellent piece which you need to read NOW. It's also worth reading the mail that the piece generated in last week's issue. It brings up lots of relevant questions about the dichotomy between liberalism and actual radicalism, which largely takes the form of Socialism on the American Left, and worldwide.

I wrote a letter in response to the piece and the mail it generated, some of which is VERY ill-informed about Socialism. Wake up, people! The Soviet Union died over 10 years ago! They betrayed Marx! There are TONS of DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS out here who never supported the Soviet Union! We believe in the Swedish/German model. Get a clue and read your history. And with that, here's my letter to the editor:

Socialism and democracy are far from mutually exclusive. In fact, the two go hand in hand. Just take a look at Sweden and the other Scandanavian states, or Germany. All are arguably democratic socialist countries, and they all are vibrant democracies. In fact, they are more democratic, in many ways, than the U.S. itself. Some of the readers seem to associate socialism only with dictatorial regimes. But communism and socialism are actually quite different ideologies. Democratic socialists such as myself believe that the Stalinists and Trotskyists of the Soviet Union betrayed Marx's legacy by forever making the public associate authoritarianism with Socialism.

In fact, Marx never called for authoritarianism, and there are numerous examples of regimes that have implemented some form of socialism in a democratic context. I urge interested readers to join the Demoratic Socialist of America or our youth sections, YDS, to learn about the ideology and meet other like-minded individuals. Join such luminaries as Cornell West, Barbara Ehrenreich, Gloria Steinem, and Christian Parenti in fighting for liberty, equality, and solidarity. More information can be obtained at www.dsausa.org or www.ydsusa.org.

In solidarity,
Ben Kreider
Former coordinating committee member, Young Democratic Socialists of America
Former co-leader, Bowdoin College Young Democratic Socialists

18 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a problem of theory versus practice. Sure, democracy and socialism can coexist, but the former has to be strongly institutionalized before the latter can flourish within that context. When socialism emerges before democracy, it's prone to end up engendering Stalinistic practices.

10:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

To expand on that thought - this has been the problem in Latin America, that democracy hasn't emerged as a functional means of distributing wealth and power, it is highly under-institutionalized both within legal frameworks and cultural landscapes, and doesn't effectively support and constrain radical (or change-minded) governments in a way that promotes "democratic socialism."

10:31 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

I agree completely-you need democracy first. This is why Germany and Sweden have become model social democracies(and are the closest things to democratic socialist societies on the planet, I would say...). The best examples of pure democratic socialism would be certain trade unions and self-managed worker's cooperatives.

But yeah, Marx himself though Socialism would flourish best in a society like that of Germany, where there was a highly developed proletariat in an industrialized state. This is why Socialism has failed and become totalitarian in places like Russia and Latin America: there was no industrial base and democracy before Socialism arrived.

11:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your definition of democracy is the key. So long as you have an election at some point you can shoehorn nearly any regime into "democracy." The real problem arises when you have to figure out how far your democracy can invade individual rights to appease the majority will.

In the purest form of democracy your life would suck, since a majority of people don't agree with you on a lot of things. This gives you two options: (1) expand all rights, social and economic, or (2) start cherry-picking rights that you think are normatively superior. However, to make a valid argument of why "the right to a living wage" is more important than "the right to pay lower taxes" you can't just talk about "justice" or "fairness" like Aronson does; that just begs the question.

Give me a good reason why the world will be a better place if my economic rights are subverted to subsidize the lazy, idiot masses while my right to purchase sick, barely-legal S&M porn should be protected. That's the true essence of a democracy: convincing others.

-Fred

4:34 PM  
Blogger Ben said...

Leave it to Fred to over-intellectualize an already over-intellectual post(just kidding, companero)!

Socialism does not necessarily imply subsidizing the lazy. Your understanding of Socialism is different than mine, and you are envisioning a totalitarian regime.

Would it help if you envisioned social democracy? Because it's virtually the same thing as Democratic Socialism. It essentially means a strong welfare state, strong unions, and democratic control of the economy. While this would lead to SOME central planning, it is not a planned, centralized command economies such as China under Mao or Russia under Stalin, et. al. There is still plenty of individual freedom. There are still different wages, just a much smaller wage gap due to a living wage, very progressive taxation(especially at the highest levels, so that people with estates of the tens of millions would be taxed well over 50%). So I don't really see how you're subsidizing idiots. The best people would still rise to the top, but the poorest would be able to eat and get health care, unlike in America. Just look at Sweden and the Scandanavian countries. They all are capitalist states with unionization rates greater than 50%. And guess what-their economies are some of the most competitive in the world! I'll dig up the chart of economic competitiveness, which shows that Scandanavian economies are some of the most advanced and successful on earth.

4:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

To play devil's advocate, let's consider the idea of "subsidizing idiots." This is how a lot of Americans view social programs of any sort: moma immigrant can draw a welfare check for sitting on her lazy, non-english-speaking ass and letting her kids sell drugs on the streets, and all her government-subsidized lazyness comes off the backs of hard-working businessmen who resent having even 36% of their $200,000 per annum taxed. Whether this perception of the roll of social programs in America (extending beyond established ones like welfare and social security to hypothetical ones like a living wage) matches the reality of the situation or not is hardly the point: social programs in this country run up against resistence because people- democrats, social democrats, college students, etc., have historically been unable to dissuade many of their countrymen of this vision. Fred's point is that its up to guys like you, Ben, to convince the world that Germany's model is one worth adapting, a difficult pitch when you consider the precariousness der jetztigen oekonomischen Situation in Deutschland selber, its deep political division over the future of said social programs, and America's fundamental distrust of foreign ways of doing things. But this is a good start, in my opinion it seems fairly reasonable, until you start talking about more than 50% taxation. Then again, I don't suspect you'd be looking for high-rollers to give to that campaign, anyway.
~Leo

5:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Kreider has called me to help him. I think Fred's comments show a classic example of the fundamental disagreements on values between us. Lets ignore value judgements on "lazy "people, as focus solely on the so-called constraint on economic rights he talks about. Democratic socialism wouldn't as much constrict economic rights of indivudals. I assume most people here agree on things like income tax, are against insider trading, etc. It would constrict the rights of capital to abuse (clearly democratic capitalism can't stop enrons). So why should we expand liberty, equality, solidairty to the economic and political sphere as Marx wanted? Because you have to look at things not only as an individual issues (the lazy people fall back argument) as to a social issue. neither capitalism or socialism can stop people from being lazy. we have all worked with people who are lazy, but not every lazy person is on welfare. but providing social services such as welfare and fairer schools funding can prevent crime, future cycles of poverty, and institutionalize forms of discrimination (which i find white capitalists happily ignore). Obviously, this is not the end of the conversation. Of course you have to have democracy first, than any time of socialism. What you also need to have is a democracy that is not just electoral, but expanded locally and economically.

6:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

With the understanding that I always use hyperbole to make a point...

First, I think people missed the point of my first post. I was simply saying that the statement that socialism can exist in a democratic state is a fairly meaningless statement without some conception of "democracy" to provide context. You're approach to democracy is majoritarian-driven and substantive: you think that (1) you can tell the allocation of rights between the private and public spheres that leads to the best outcome for the majority and (2) since it is the best for the majority it should be the universal rule. I don't like this approach because most people don't think that (1) it's bad for society when homosexuals marry and (2) since society rights are implicated we should ban gay marriage.

That being said, let's get right into it. As I see it, there are six arguments for any economic redistribution scheme. The first is Marx's: capitalism will fail because it is destined to fail. This is stupid. The second is purely "I think this isn't fair" - let's call that one the Aronson approach. This is also stupid for the reasons discussed above. The third is that we don't want to price people out of the market for essential goods. This one is easy to take care of on the margins without any real disruption to the market. The fourth is a Rawlsian belief that "but for the grace of God go I," but taken to German/French extremes it leads to what should be an especially impressive Eurozone collapes in around 30 years. Private insurance handles this, and if we ever get around to banning insurance commercials (which represent like 80% or something of the price of insurance) it would be absurdly cheaper than the Euro-socialist equivalent (as opposed to only mildly superior). Fifth, you have David's first argument, which is that you need to spend the money investing in the future. This is easily the best point, but it's really only focused on direct redistribution (e.g. school funding), not market-distorting approaches like wage-fixing that destroy European labor markets. Finally, you have David's other point, which is that we're all interconnected. And every minute I spend watching clown porn is a minute of societal efficiency loss. Does that mean I can't watch clown porn? This necessarily results in the complete command state.

Are there more? Let's see if we can do better,

Fred

11:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Also, you realize that all of the arguments about the larger good of society that rest on anything but pure reason can be easily used to defend the importance of banning abortion and euthanasia and imposing severe punishments (i.e. death) for murder in order to protect a societal sanctity for life. I mean, "[t]here is still plenty of individual freedom;" we're operating on the margins here, very few people are actually affected. It's just "democratic control of" killing, which is surely less objectionable than majority tyranny over anythig else (we've had laws against murder as long as we've had laws, while progressive income taxes are quite new to human society).

Once we start talking "justice" we might as well just leap into the abyss,

Fred


"Of course they deserved to die, and I hope they burn in hell!" - Samuel L. Jackson

11:14 PM  
Blogger Evan McLaren said...

Insofar as I am educated enough to comprehend our political history and your thoughts, I understand you as one who considers himself a member of the non-centralist Democratic Left, who agrees with the Democratic Socialist model that was formed as one of several possible answers to the totalitarianism of Soviet communism. Stated plainly, this part of the Left adheres to the idea that all conceivable social ills derive necessarily from the institution of private property, and that public ownership of the means of production does not require the centralism and chaos that characterized the USSR, as long as it is arrived at correctly. You make clear your belief that socialism arrives logically at (political) democracy and vice versa, a thought that dovetails nicely with Aronson’s article (with whom I am guessing you would agree), in which he argues that the Democratic Left’s original program is in many ways stalled, and that ideologues like Fukuyama and Friedman are interested primarily in keeping and spreading the status quo, not carrying socialism forward.

You may or may not be surprised to find that I agree with much that I’ve stated here. The Democratic Left was perhaps the strongest proponent in the struggle against Soviet Communism during the Cold War–in fact, it may not be misleading to say that this particular part of the Left won that struggle. The Bolsheviks, especially the Communist leaders (and especially Stalin) were simple brutes much more than they were Marxists. Today’s political class thrives by robbing Marxism of its mantle and thereby luring voters away from true Leftism (I know this because I am hyper-aware of a similar process on the Right). Most surprisingly, I agree with one of your key theoretical points: that political democracy and private property are mutually exclusive. Though neither you nor Fred seem to have understood that statement in those precise terms, I think it is basic to your argument. Yet why any of this necessitates socialism is not obvious to me.

Also, neither is it obvious to me why a discussion of justice in theoretical terms makes a trip to the abyss inevitable. What other terms of discussion are there? I know of no conversation about justice anywhere in the history of political thought that was not theoretical. If I am wrong, I am eager to be corrected.

Evan

11:00 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

I take it this is Evan as in the libertarian from Bowdoin, right?

I need to answer your comments briefly since it's graduation and all. I think you're right on the money. The Democratic Left/Social Democrats were on the front lines against both Fascism AND Communism.

I am not completely opposed to private property, as many Marxists of various forms are. It should be noted that I have never been an orthodox Marxist. I consider myself a neo-Marxist who agrees with the majority of Marx's economic views, but strongly opposes the way his ideas have been carried out(especially in the Soviet Union). The complete abolition of private property was never necessary. What is necessary is universal health care, a vibrant public sector, strong unions, free universal education, and strong protection of public goods. It does not necessarily mean complete nationalization of resources.

I am not opposed to free markets in principle. The work in certain cases. They surely do NOT work in the health care field, nor with utilities. What occurs in these sectors is monopolies, concentration of power, etc. The needs of the masses will always outweigh the needs of the corporate elite. It's a shame that in America, our demented form of capitalism has led to 45 million people without healthcare, energy prices that send middle-class people into poverty and hunger, and a media controlled by about 5 major corporations.

America is not truly democratic in any way, shape, or form. Sweden is far more democratic in terms of representation of women, the work place(80 percent unionization!), distribution of economic resources, etc. I'd love for you to prove otherwise to me...

4:05 PM  
Blogger Evan McLaren said...

I’m afraid I’m ill-equipped to prove that America is less “truly democratic” than Sweden. Partly this is because I’m not well-informed enough about the functioning of those two economies to venture what I would consider a useful comment. But in addition, it’s not clear why the model you have selected (“universal health care, a vibrant public sector . . .”) is true democracy, or why true democracy leads to this point logically. I wonder also why you believe that the state is the only agency that can provide health care, govern relations between workers and employers, and regulate what are commonly understood as “public goods”, while you also hold that markets are useful and necessary in many other cases.

To clear up this confusion, it might help if you explained what you the think the state is, and why, if it were to enjoy full control in any of the areas you mentioned, this would not constitute a “monopoly”. I suspect that you would agree that this situation would fit a strict definition of monopoly (a situation, maintained forcefully by the state, in which only one firm may provide a particular good or service). But you might go on to say that this monopoly would function differently, and would succeed in providing better service to many more people.

You can see why, stated in these terms, it might seem curious for someone to trace the cause of a social problem to monopoly, and then proceed to argue that pure monopoly is the solution. And why is state control the solution only in the particular settings you’ve mentioned? If the state is the only agency that can provide certain goods and services, why is it less able to serve in other sectors?

5:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that it is useful to remember that the 19th-century architects of the socialist idea (including the early marxists) did not understand socialism to mean a state-administered economy.

In fact, the utopian socialists advocated a variety of anarchistic schemes in which the means of production would be managed socially (by the workers themselves, in the absence of the state or other owner.)

To the extent that a democratic (genuinely representative) trade union controls a shopfloor and claims a share of an enterprise's profits in the form of workers' wages, I would argue that that trade union represents a step towards socialism.

The state can only be an agent of socialism if, like the trade union, it represents the desires and aspirations of working people. How can the state play this role unless it is routinely held accountable through formal democratic mechanisms?

Therefore, I have always believed that 'authoritarian socialism' is an oxymoron and 'democratic socialism' is a redundant. State ownsership without democratic accountability seems no better (and probably far worse) than private ownship by business elites in a liberal democratic state.

Certainly, the horrors of the 20th century have taught us to be suspicious of statist solutions. But it is ridiculous to suggest that socialized health insurance represent a Hayekian 'road to serfdom.'Or an erosion of liberty in any real sense.

Universal health insurance is not a hypothetical, utopian scheme - it is a reality that exists in most of the developed world and is cherished and supported by voting majorities in many nations.

As a dual citizen of Spain, I have personally benefited from the welfare state's healthcare provisions and can say that the Spaniards, because of their freedom from fear of medical costs, enjoy a very real liberty that we do not enjoy in this country.

Incidentally, most Americans support universal single-payer health insurance. That our political elites have failed to deliver such a program is not a testament to the rugged individualism of the American character, it simply represents the extent to which big capital has defanged our democracy.

Adrian

2:33 AM  
Blogger Evan McLaren said...

Even if it were useful to recall the arguments presented by Adrian, and even though he has noticed correctly that I favor the Austrian paradigm of social scientific analysis (practiced most famously by Hayek), these thoughts by themselves contribute nothing in the way of an answer to my question, namely: Is the state (especially as conceived in Ben’s suggested solution to several social problems) a monopolist, and if so, how does/can it differ from the monopolies he warns us against? If we were to answer each of these questions convincingly we would still need to show that Ben’s solution would improve upon the market. Finally, as I noted, we would then be begging the question: Why is this administrative democratic approach (since Adrian dislikes the term “statist”) perfect for some sectors of the economy but incorrect for others?

Notice that I refer only to “the market”. We can all agree, at least, that the current situation is unjust, unstable, and that our potential ability to bring low-cost goods and services to the public is woefully underutilized and horribly mismanaged by our political leaders. But the “current situation” is a mixed one, containing elements both of the market and public administration. Given this situation, in which direction we ought to travel is an open question.

Adrian has raised some arguments in order to counter thoughts he feels are implicit in my statements. The early socialists, he notes, “did not understand socialism to mean a state-administered economy”, instead often expressing their belief that they had found a third way, neither statist nor capitalist, via “socially managed” anarchism. But did they speak this way because they had discovered such a solution, or because they simply failed to notice the statism inherent in their proposals? This is yet another open question.

In any case, that I dare to wonder at the consequences of, for example, socialized medicine (something Ben and most of the other readers of his blog regard as an absolutely settled matter), and that I even read F. A. Hayek marks me as hopelessly out of touch with the current state of affairs . . . I’m fortunate I was deemed worthy of a reply! Finally, Adrian himself has been to Spain to see the future and can report that it works, and the electorate agrees with him. To any correctly-minded person this obviously would end the discussion, or so Adrian implies.

Though Adrian failed to provide a full answer to my question, he has, at least, pointed to what he imagines to be a possible solution. It involves social management by the workers themselves, in an institutional framework of trade unionism. In this way, he hopes, we will succeed in avoiding the chaos of statism while correcting the problems he regards as endemic to market-based capitalism.

In response I cannot improve upon the thoughts contained in Ludwig von Mises’s landmark work on socialism, in which he sought to answer each and every socialist proposal to remake the social order. The two sections I think are most applicable here are Mises’s discussions of syndicalism: http://www.mises.org/books/socialism/part2_ch16.aspx#_sec4

and his treatment of trade unionism: http://www.mises.org/books/socialism/part5_ch34.aspx#_sec4

Though I very much appreciate being permitted to post here, I will not do so in the future. After bringing the discussion to this point, where I’ve cited one of the works I hold as most correct and informative (and perhaps led some to visit my blog, where I link to other books I regard as indispensable), I have nothing more to offer. In my ideas I am indebted wholly to the scholars associated with Mises, Murray Rothbard, and their followers, and if one is unwilling to study their work, I can not pretend that my feeble imitation of their arguments supplies an acceptable substitute.

4:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Evan, please don't leave. I think you raise the questions that we leftists need to hear. Our generation needs to set up a successor to 'Right and Left'the journal that Rothbard and the New Leftists set up in the sixties.

Your question: Why is this administrative democratic approach perfect for some sectors of the economy but incorrect for others?

My response: in the case of healthcare, I offer two answers to your question. The first is wonkish and the second is theoretical.

Answer #1: The 'possibilist' left in the United States should not set its sights on 'socialized medicine.' Instead we should aim for national single-payer health insurance.

Under such a system, Americans would be served largely by private healthcare providers (as they are now), these clinics and hospitals would be subject to all of the beneficial rigour of the market.

The difference would be that rather than paying monthly premiums to a private insurance company, these would be paid to the state in the form of a dedicated tax, like the the Social Security FICA.

This would avoid the adverse selection problems we see in the private insurance system, in which the young and healthy pay very low rates(and often gamble not to buy a plan) whereas the sick and old have to pay very high rates (and often cannot afford to buy a private policy).

Answer #2. As a pinko, I believe that a decent society must satisfy certain moral, social imperatives.

For example, the healthcare and education of children, free and accessible park space, the preservation of cultural patrimony, etc.

The private sector won't provide these goods because it has nothing to gain by taking on that responsibility.

One might say that "there ain't no such thing as a free park." True enough! We pay for the park on tax day. But when we decide to finance public goods through taxation, it allows the 'consumers' to pay on a sliding scale, this guarantees the 'universal access'I consider a moral imperative.

How does the libertarian right envision the administration of parks? Will a private park management company send us a monthly park bill? Will children punch into municipal playgrounds with their purchased park passes?

Nonesense! Only socialism can give us the tire swings, seesaws and jungle gyms we need.

Adrian

3:55 PM  
Blogger Evan McLaren said...

If a Leftist is wondering honestly how a paleolibertarian thinks society should approach an issue such as health insurance, I ought not to disappoint. I will say something about this issue, and also comment on the perceived and actual differences between my point of view and that held by the readers of this blog (acknowledging that Ben, David, Adrian, and others certainly do not agree on all or perhaps even most things).

Although I will say something about this problem as a “Right-libertarian”, it is not my aim to convince anyone that I hold the answer to this or any issue. This would amount to Adrian and I simply trading plausibilities, with me claiming that the free market provides its own solution and Adrian claiming instead that the free market would leave the most destitute at the mercy of the ascendant capitalists, and that if we are interested in ending this arrangement our only hope is some variety of intervention, though perhaps one that seeks to preserve market mechanisms to a safe extent. Partly this is because I would be rejected as utterly insane if I were to reveal, all at once, my thoughts, prejudices, and ideas on politics and society. But beyond that, I think that conversing in this manner is useless even for two people who feel that they agree on most issues.

Is plausibility enough to make a proposal deserving of our support? Certainly not. How can we know, then, that a proposal is correct without trying it? Can we know anything about it without first putting it into effect? If we do enact something, how can we interpret the results knowingly, confident that our interpretation itself is true and not simply plausible? If we can’t know anything about our actions prior to trying them, we are in a chaotic position indeed. We would need to attempt every plausible solution and try to evaluate each one a posteriori . . . though, if we are consistent in adhering to this sort of positivism, I hold that we could not even permit ourselves to do this.

Anyone who finds my comments here confusing cannot be blamed completely. If we imbibe the interpretation provided for us by the established media and academics, we might conclude that the difference between a member of the Left and a member of the Right is a matter of compassion and lacktherof. Fred, bellowing about lazy deviants, sounds much more like a drunken frat brother than an intelligent commentator, and isn’t helping dispel the semantic confusion I’m suggesting.

I am confident that we can do better. I am confident that we can improve upon our habitual “I’m right, your wrong” method of conversing, and that we can reach firm knowledge about the consequences of our various proposals without having to try each one. But to do this (indeed, to have a meaningful conversation about anything in the social sciences), we must be able to suspend our personal prejudices for the purposes of analysis.

To give some idea of what I mean: I am an extreme anti-egalitarian and anti-democrat. Yet before now I have not mentioned it or allowed its influence to creep into my close questioning of Ben and Adrian, and I will continue to keep those prejudices separate from this portion of the discussion. Instead I have questioned your means (socialized medicine and social insurance) without challenging your ends (universal health care), asking simply (and by now familiarly) about the precise nature of your proposals and how they will function differently from the free market.

Still, my question remains unanswered. Adrian insists that social insurance will be more fair than possible free market solutions, but he is evaluating this measure solely in terms of his own prejudices (as, I have noted, I avoid doing). In this context I am not interested in the fairness or unfairness of socialized medicine or insurance. Instead I wish to know if it will accomplish what you claim it can. So far Ben and Adrian have held each of their proposals as morally unassailable. But if it turned out that socialized medicine were to leave the members of our society (including and especially the most poor) in a much more desperate situation than previously, what would be the moral status of these proposals? Would they carry the same weight? That the answer is ‘no’ is obvious, and this is why I insist on asking pointed questions about how they will function. The possibility that I will not receive an answer is alarming.

By now I’ve done all that I can to make clear my concerns about such ‘solutions’ as we have been discussing. If the significance of my comments is lost on the readers of this blog, it may be due to my failure at elucidation. But if that is the case I’m afraid that I cannot improve significantly upon what I’ve written.

8:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How cruel of you to turn on me, Evan, despite the fact that you raise the exact same question I originally proposed. While you commented "Also, neither is it obvious to me why a discussion of justice in theoretical terms makes a trip to the abyss inevitable. What other terms of discussion are there? I know of no conversation about justice anywhere in the history of political thought that was not theoretical," you agree with me perfectly when you statd "I am not interested in the fairness or unfairness of socialized medicine or insurance. Instead I wish to know if it will accomplish what you claim it can." So don't blame me for your own inconsistencies.

So, after 16 comments (17 after this one), we have had the chance to use lots of big words and cite cool authors yet we still have no idea what the following words mean:
fairness
justice
democracy
Without these, we are just talking past one another. Evan has been kind enough to try and get the pinko wing of the discussion to present some emperical evidence.

As much fun as it is for me to say "I think it's unfair that, as a healthy person who eats well and runs every day, I have to subsudize the healthcare of people who choose to make life choices that place them at higher risk for disease," I'm not going to convince Adrian since his conception of fairness is very different. I'm better served by pointing out the inferior care, long waits, and bureaucratic hassle that pervade the Canadian state-run health insurance scheme. Or that demographics will destroy the system in europe since europeans don't have kids, so the young and healthy cannot continue to subsidize the old and sick unless you make an entire generation of doctor-slaves.

And I'll have you know that I was completely sober while posting and that I lived in a social house, not a frat.

Love,
Fred

11:38 AM  
Blogger Evan McLaren said...

I was not agreeing with Fred when I outlined the bounds of this discussion. Earlier, when he made his pessimistic comment about the impossibility of arriving at a certain notion of justice, I expressed my disagreement. I believe that there is such a thing as just law and that it can be identified with precision through the use of logic. I have not contradicted that belief; in the interest of expediency I've set that debate aside and sought to evaluate these proposals on their own terms.

8:58 PM  

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