De Gustibus Est Disputandum

I feel lately I’ve been getting away from discussing economic theory, per se, so maybe this week we can talk about something that occurred to me the other day about the individual preference rankings that form the normative basis of neoclassical welfare economics.

I’ve discussed before how neoclassical welfare economics is based on a distinctive take on “utility” that defines it to be, or makes it equivalent in practice to, individual preference rankings. That sort of “utility” is undefined or inapplicable in interpersonal contexts. The particular issue I was thinking about the other day involves a normative proposition about individual preference rankings meant to apply to economists qua economists generally expressed rather facetiously in Latin as de gustibus non est disputandum. If your ancient languages are a bit rusty, it just means economists qua economists are not meant to dispute, evaluate, delve into the normative significance of their subjects’ individual preference rankings, second guess them, discredit them, whatever. 

Within the Fairy Land of Economic Theory, the proposition presents no particular normative difficulty or controversy. Cipher X has preference rankings A > B > C. Do you dispute it? No? Me neither. Seems fine. Whatever. Not very controversial, is it? But, of course, things get a bit more normatively, ethically complicated, controversial in the real world. Why? For one thing, real people, possibly unlike the ciphers of the Fairy Land, may be misled, confused, manipulated, tricked, and the normative significance of those preferences is unclear. I say “possibly” because the famous assumptions of perfect information, rationality applied in the Fairy Land are often introduced as requirements for the normative argument relating specifically to perfectly competitive markets, not necessarily generally to the Fairy Land. Therefore, it’s not entirely clear if the theoretical ciphers populating the Fairy Land are meant to uniformly have perfect information, be all knowing, perfectly reasonable, immune from manipulation and error, when analyzing the normative or ethical arguments presented. This is where confusion within economic theory between ethics and science or maybe engineering modeling, positive and normative, is and ought, kicks in. In a normative or ethical argument, one needs to know the factual premises meant to apply to an argument to evaluate it.

Anyway, to return to the plot, the preferences of real people, as opposed to theoretical ciphers, may clearly be affected by external forces, other people, and in real market systems vast amounts of money are spent on advertising, marketing, to dispute, indeed alter preferences. Attending to the issue I call “actors and roles” clarifies that behavior is consistent with profit maximizing behavior on the part of firms, but of course the de gustibus normative principle was never meant to apply to them as such, only to economists qua economists. As far as voters, the real subjects of economists proposing to discuss reality, voters dispute preferences indirectly by supporting laws placing boundaries on, or prohibiting, false and misleading commercial speech designed to manipulate preferences. It’s awkward because real people, voters, are the people economists qua economists are meant to be talking to (unlike the Fairy Land, where economists are meant to be talking not to the subjects, the theoretical ciphers, but an implied third party also outside the system). Of course, again, de gustibus is not a normative principle meant to apply to everyone, subjects, only to economists qua economists in the context of the ethical half-theory of neoclassical welfare economics. That’s where it’s uncontroversial, not in reality.

Why would voters care if, say, preferences were manipulated by lies, fakery? If only some individual were involved, one assumes many voters might not care. No matter how foolish the preferences, that individual is still satisfied in some way when they’re met. It’s hard to avoid the suggestion the reason voters care is again this issue of other people being involved, scarce resources going to arguably foolish, fabricated preferences based on lies, that might otherwise go to other more normatively significant preferences. Considering the interpersonal context, real people spend a great deal of time, effort, money to dispute, challenge, change other people’s preferences affecting others in any number of ways: law, ethics, religion, literature, popular culture, political debate, and so on.

Why do I bother saying all this? The normative content developed within real neoclassical welfare economics is restricted to individual preference rankings, no interpersonal conflicts can be addressed, and the preferences ranked by individuals are unevaluated. It’s a normative, ethical argument that has little relevance to the real world, where the lion’s share of ethical controversy relates to resolving interpersonal conflicts, including of preferences, as allocating scarce resources, and involving disputing preferences. Attempts to apply the normative or ethical reasoning in neoclassical welfare economics to the real world are generally expressions of bad economics in the conservative style, in which the necessary controversial ethical content is slipped in one way or another. If one wants to dispute the normative argument in neoclassical welfare economics applicable in the Fairy Land, that’s fine. If one wants to dispute the normative argument in bad economics in the conservative style applicable to reality, that’s fine. Two different things. Watch for the rhetorical game of jumping back and forth between the arbitrary, contrived conditions and ethics of the Fairy Land and reality, between the ethical half-theory of neoclassical welfare economics and more complete full ethical arguments relevant to the real world. Watch also for a rhetorical bait and switch between the normative concepts and arguments in neoclassical welfare economics, on the one hand, which relate to bad economics in the conservative style, and more open-ended “general welfare analysis” on the other.

Small Fascism

Maybe we can talk this week about what I think of as “small” or “limited” fascism and its seemingly ambiguous status in the eyes of many conservatives, Republicans, right wingers in the USA. Sound a plan? Let’s do it.

The core of fascism is that it’s undemocratic, authoritarian government to defend conservative views on the ethics of economic power against “leftist” views delivered from voters in a democracy or from authoritarian communism, which fascists tend to lump together as equivalent. It’s impossible to come to terms with the right wing movement of fascism if one doesn't understand its entire reason to exist was to fight “leftist” views on the ethics of economic power coming from liberals, progressives, democratic socialists, and also authoritarian communists.

In order to be seen as a viable contender, European fascists found it expedient to argue right wing fascism, like “The Left,” had society’s best interests at heart, believed in welfare state goals, was in fact an alternative, conservative, right wing form of “socialism.” Modern fascists in the USA have taken hold of the social welfare pretensions of the old European fascists, their claim to care about (their) society no less, if not more, than “leftist” socialists, were another form of socialism, to risibly argue fascists were “leftists.” That seems a clueless, uninformed take that misses entirely the main point of contention between authoritarian fascists, authoritarian communists, and supporters of democracy, namely, the ethics of economic power, how society is meant to address them.

The ethics of economic power concerns the issues of the definition of economic power (legal property “rights”), the distribution of economic power, and the use of economic power in markets, or not, to resolve interpersonal conflicts of preferences, allocate scarce resources. The ethics of economic power are exogenous to the normative or ethical argument in neoclassical welfare economics about markets, and people typically have very strong views on them, who should have what and why, what the economy is meant to do, and so on.

Some conservatives in the USA seem to feel if one has a “small” or “limited” undemocratic, authoritarian government devoted to expressing, preserving, protecting conservative views on the ethics of economic power, but having no welfare state pretensions, it’s not really fascism. In their view, it may even be consistent with a sort of democracy if economic issues can be cordoned off as a special area immune from so-called “activist” democratic government. An inactive democratic government that supports conservative views on economic power would be fine. If democratic government constrained to support and not challenge conservative views on the ethics of economic power is impossible, they accept undemocratic government as conservative, right wing, authoritarian government, but feel it’s not yet fascism, per se. I see it rather as “small” or “limited” fascism. Having it the other way seems to me a case of the tail wagging the dog, making the core of fascism irrelevant to the definition of fascism, and making the unnecessary, contingent, insincere periphery the basis of definition.

During the heyday of European fascism, all nations expressed welfare state ideas, promoted social programs, in response to widespread economic suffering during the Great Depression, including democratic USA, communist USSR. There was nothing specifically fascistic about it. And then of course we have the fact fascism in the USA, in fact, does not diverge in any significant way from old European fascism except in relation to the specific word “socialism.” American fascism clearly also has welfare state pretensions, talks about social welfare. Indeed, American fascists talk just as much about what society, “America” wants, what’s best for everyone (of the right sort), as the Nazis ever did in Germany. It hews quite closely as well to the original in many peripheral issues such as racism, nationalism, and other issues.

The innovation in American fascism, if any, is that its social welfare pretensions rely heavily on the market utopianism of anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style, hardly rhetoric available to the Nazis during the economic upheavals of the Great Depression. Bad economics in the conservative style, by playing games with normative or ethical ideas like socially optimal market results, muddies the water in terms of pretended, false professions of concern for society and authentic or sincere concern. There seems little reason to suppose under the right conditions US fascists will not do exactly as the Nazis did. During times of economic distress they will likely also profess an interest in social welfare programs for some; promote racism, bigotry: resort to thievery, war. Nor is there any reason to suppose undemocratic, authoritarian government in the USA, once established, would be any more concerned about intended limits on their power than were the old Nazi elite, no reason they would choose to remain “small,” by any definition.

What’s my point? Anti-democracy conservatives and Republicans promoting “small” or “limited” wholly or partially authoritarian government confined to promoting, defending conservative views on the ethics of economic power, are fascists, small or large.