A while back I addressed those many people in the USA with great concerns about social power in the form of political power but not at all in the form of economic power. I suggested economic power is just political power one step removed. I noted it may be useful for such people to view markets as a sort of political system for determining resource use in which people vote with dollars and some people have a great many more votes than others. I then noted the step beyond that is to consider how those dollar “votes” are defined, how they’re distributed, and what interpersonal conflicts of preferences they’re meant to resolve, who decides that, and on what basis. Voters, technocrats, priests, ethicists, economists?
I may have mentioned before that the ethical half-theory of neoclassical welfare economics requires certain exogenous normative, ethical inputs to generate normative results in the real world as opposed to the attenuated Fairy Land of Economic Theory. Those exogenous normative or ethical inputs relate to defining economic power, distributing it, and using it in markets to resolve particular interpersonal conflicts of preferences. There are a variety of views about the ethically proper origin of those exogenous ethical inputs. In any society, those inputs will be expressed in law or, absent law, in the acceptance of the law of the jungle, brute force. The process by which a society decides those ethical inputs is political in the broadest sense of the word. The democratic ethos is based on a modern secular understanding of ethics as based ultimately in the subjective moral sense or moral sensibilities of individuals. In that perspective, social ethics is something for one-person one-vote democracy to work out, express in law. Under the democratic ethos, nothing is ever final. All decisions are temporary, contingent, liable to change and evolve with the ever changing and evolving ethical views and understanding of the population itself. There is no interpersonally, objectively correct ethics.
In contrast, other perspectives reject democracy. Some suppose there is only one true, timeless expression of interpersonally, objectively, correct ethics that must be enforced even if some or all the people, in their ignorance, fail to understand or accept it. Some suppose we can obtain the necessary exogenous ethical inputs from non-human sources, from nature itself (Natural Law), from non-human supernatural entities (Divine Law), etc. Democracy obviously has little appeal for those with such beliefs. Although status quo social decisions about the definition, distribution, and use of economic power to resolve interpersonal conflicts of preferences are expressed in laws inherited from previous democratic government, under this view that has no independent ethical significance. Under this view, previous iterations of democratic government may have gotten it right, by coincidence or a supposed greater ethical insight or acuity of politicians or voters of an earlier age, but that implies nothing about the ethical status of democratic government now. Other perspectives rejecting democracy may suppose decisions about social ethics must be, and are in reality, made by humans, not simply received by them from external sources, but only certain qualified humans ought to make those decisions. According to these anti-democracy views, ethical decisions relating to the definition, distribution, and use of economic power must be received from non-human sources or made by qualified individuals, and must then be enforced on the people, against their will if necessary.
These conflicting views on the ostensibly ethically correct way to resolve normative or ethical issues or inputs relating to the definition, distribution, and use of economic power translate into what are essentially different and opposing political views on social power. One view of politics accepts the primacy of resolving interpersonal conflicts of preferences using one-person one-vote democracy. The other accepts the primacy of resolving at least some interpersonal conflicts using one-person multiple-“vote” economic power in markets. One view of politics accepts that ethical inputs governing the definition, distribution, and use of economic power in markets expressed in law should be based on one-person one-vote democracy. The other suggests voters can’t handle that responsibility and must be kept in check. I suggest those who see government coercion, political power in expressions of one-person one-vote democracy, but not in the use of economic power in markets, are not being entirely honest about what distinguishes their political views from those who support democracy. The difference is not about freedom or liberty from government coercion, political power, it’s about who controls that government coercion, political power, and the ethical basis of that control. It’s about politics, specifically, democracy versus fascism.
True utopian anarchists, who reject law, legal property specifications, laws relating to markets, contracts, police, etc., are different. What they fail to appreciate, however, is their system, in reality, generates an equivalent coercion and social power by violent warlords. Thus, even utopian anarchism may be viewed as a preference for one form of coercion, social power, “politics,” over another. One may choose whatever one likes, of course. But do try to be honest about it. As for me, I’ll take democracy, the most sensible and stable of the lot.
One cannot simply wish away interpersonal conflicts of preferences. Every society must, and will, include some system to resolve them. If one wants to live under what one supposes an ethical system, one must make choices: law or anarchy, democracy or fascism, etc. I’m not telling anyone what their ethics should be. I know what makes sense to me, and I suppose others know what makes sense to them. But I am saying keep it real. Think and speak honestly. The strength of humanity is the word, communication, don't throw it away lightly.
