The Establishment Elite

I saw a story of two boys trashing their school library and it made me want to revisit the concept of an “establishment elite” and how and why the meaning of the term differs between conservatives and right wingers on the one hand, and liberals and other leftists on the other.

Liberals, concerned as they typically are with real economics, suppose the establishment elite are those with economic power, particularly vast economic power, who have done very well for themselves under status quo economic arrangements, so rich people, CEOs, bankers, Wall Street types. When liberals voice opposition to the establishment elite, it typically involves the notion the economically powerful are busy looking after their own interests to the detriment of others, for example, by promoting anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style and conservative fascism. 

In contrast, conservatives, right wingers see the world through a different lens. They worship the “establishment elite” as the economically powerful because they follow normative arguments in anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style and suppose the rich superior and special. Following the rhetoric of bad economics in the conservative style, conservatives typically resolutely ignore issues relating to resolving interpersonal conflict of preferences, as over scarce resources, and the potential roles of economic power and democracy in that area.

No, conservatives define the “establishment elite” primarily along an intellectual axis as smart people, educated people, experts, anyone who might challenge their own hubris and ignorance. The oppression conservatives, right wingers feel, that they’re concerned about, is not economic or material oppression but a sort of perceived intellectual oppression, an underlying suggestion they should talk more sensibly, read, think, learn, respond to criticisms, stop lying, that sort. 

As democracy is ideally about voters having reasonable, rational, informed conversations, conservatives tend to despise democracy as a venue, much like academia, where their oppressors, relatively glib, educated, intellectual voters wield power, so they come to despise democracy as well. Indeed, when conservatives talk about opposing the “establishment elite” they quite often mean simply opposing democratic government, that realm in which they, the simple, are savaged and put upon by the other, the clever and glib. So they support politicians who mock and play with that system. Much like any fool who feels a need to be involved in a conversation over his or her head without having anything relevant or useful to say, they randomly blurt out various whoppers, tall tales, jokes, insults, bits of rhetorical chicanery, then suppose they’re winning a “debate.”

It’s why, although I spend much time working on the rhetoric those I recognize as the establishment elite use to pursue power, which I call anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style, I recognize by doing so I mark myself as part of what conservatives see as the establishment elite. But I do it anyway because my goal is to draw attention to some tricky bits of misleading conservative economic rhetoric for those who care to know, not to appeal to conservatives by carefully ignoring it or pretending to also be confused by it. Yes, I follow the Way of Philosophy. 

Utility Is Not Money

I did a storm on “utility” in neoclassical welfare economics recently so maybe don’t need to have another go at that just yet, but maybe this week I can talk about the peculiar habit of conflating “utility” with money or economic power in bad economics in the conservative style?

“Utility” in neoclassical welfare economics does not equate to money. One can compare money across individuals. One person has $5; one has $10. Interpersonal “utility” comparisons are either undefined or impossible in neoclassical welfare economics depending on the interpretation of utility used. This means an argument of the form, person X must get more “utility” from good G than person Y because person X is able and wiling to pay more for it, is incorrect in real neoclassical welfare economics. That’s an external ethical proposition relating in part to economic power. It’s fine to add such an argument as an external ethical proposition relating to so-called “equity” concerns, that is, addressing the ethical issues relating to resolving interpersonal conflicts of preferences as over scarce resources; however, it should be explicitly stated as such. If one tries to introduce it on the sly, associating it with the relatively less controversial issues associated with the sort of “utility” used in neoclassical welfare economics, a peculiar, idiosyncratic sort that cannot rightly be used in interpersonal ethics, one is doing a bait and switch. A rich man building a castle on Mars while a poor man starves in a forest is not justified on the basis the rich man gets more “utility” (as defined in neoclassical welfare economics) from his castle than the poor man gets from a nice dinner. That’s an interpersonal utility comparison.

Much of bad economics in the conservative style involves rhetorical stratagems and devices, word play, equivocations and conflations, designed to suppress honest expression, discussion, evaluation of the ethical propositions needed to go beyond “utility” as used in neoclassical welfare economics. If you can’t take the time to study actual neoclassical welfare economics or the rhetoric of anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style, extensively used on the right, at least understand neoclassical welfare economics can never tell you if any resource should go to person A or person B. To decide that sort of thing, one must go beyond the normative argument presented in real neoclassical welfare economics. One must introduce external, exogenous normative or ethical propositions relating to interpersonal ethics, and the question then becomes whose ethical views should matter? If one can understand that much, then one may come to understand one important rationale for democracy in the proposition such controversial issues should be decided by the people, the governed, not handed down from on high by technocratic or theocratic Ethical Arbiters, even those one agrees.