Posts Tagged ‘utilitarianism’
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters”*…
From Álvaro García Linera, a provocative essay on the times in which we live, which he begins with a quote from the World Bank (March, 2023):
“Nearly all the economic forces that powered progress and prosperity over the last three decades are fading.”
Linera continues…
For 35 years, from 1980 to 2005, the moral and labour order of much of the world was governed by a set of basic principles. These principles encouraged an imagined and inevitable destiny for the course of societies. They underpinned the personal and family efforts with which individuals justified their daily activities, their sacrifices and their everyday strategies.
The free market was perceived as a “natural” mechanism for allocating resources, offering individuals a “niche of opportunity” for entrepreneurial ventures. Globalisation was seen as the path to a universalised humanity, where the prosperity and welfare of the world’s affluent would eventually percolate down to everyone, commensurate with their efforts. The minimalist state would liberate social energy and reduce taxation. The goal of zero fiscal deficit would shape the nation into a homestead austere in collective rights but auspicious in rewarding the competitive and successful. These guiding emblems served as perceived imperative destinies. Most governments, businesses, journalists, opinion “leaders”, social leaders, renowned academics, and families aligned their expectations of a bright future and their feasible possibilities for development and modernity with these principles.
It was the prevailing spirit of a world with a sense of direction. Societies anticipated an inevitable future. Families, a certainty of epochal proportions. Individuals saw an outlook, a predictive horizon under which they would shape their daily strategies. The distance to these goals did not matter, nor was it demoralising to face numerous failures or disruptions along the way or to consider the uneven odds of success. These were powerful ideas, part of a shared imagination, equipped with the tacit certainty of common sense, which made it possible to organise the fragmented patchwork of daily life towards a destiny of success and greatness.
“That’s just the way the world is, and that’s how one must be in the world”, nearly everyone said. The arrow of time was hurtling towards this optimistic future, and no one, unless utterly out of step with the times or the world, could claim otherwise.
The first early signs of the decay of this global order emerged from the peripheries of the capitalist world at the start of the 21st century. Latin America began experimenting with alternatives to the prevailing economic and political systems, implementing hybrid policies that combined sovereignty, expanded rights and free trade, followed by the global financial crisis of 2008. Then, there was a shift towards a semi-protectionist form of neoliberalism, exemplified by Donald Trump in the United States and Brexit in the United Kingdom. This shift led to the “geoeconomic fragmentation” of the global order into regional blocs that traded based on political alliances and geographical closeness. [1] Overall, we are witnessing the slow and melancholic disintegration of the old free market order and the nascent rise of various alternative models, none of which has secured a definitive foothold yet. This scenario gives rise to a chaotic world, characterised by fleeting trajectories, still unable to discern a new order that, if established, could endure for another 40 to 50 years…
[Linera review the last 150 years, and the economic and political phases that have characterized them…]
We are witnessing the decline of the global accumulation model that has dominated for the past 40 years. The world will not revert to its former state, where globalism was the shared and enthusiastic language across societies. However, this shift does not mean the disappearance of neoliberalism, nor does it indicate that a new model is ready to take its place. Instead, we observe a landscape of global confusion characterised by contradictory economic directions. While globalism is still advocated in certain areas, fervent protectionism prevails in others.
We are witnessing the decline of the global accumulation model that has dominated for the past 40 years. The world will not revert to its former state, where globalism was the shared and enthusiastic language across societies. However, this shift does not mean the disappearance of neoliberalism, nor does it indicate that a new model is ready to take its place. Instead, we observe a landscape of global confusion characterised by contradictory economic directions. While globalism is still advocated in certain areas, fervent protectionism prevails in others.
It is as though the meaning of history has dissipated, overtaken by the immediacy of a world that appears devoid of destiny or promise. We have been left with only the burden of an endless and aimless present.
It is a peculiar foyer of historical times where everyone knows their origins, yet no one has the slightest collective vision of the future. We are in a liminal epoch, a threshold separating an exhausted neoliberal era—with no active people’s consensus, persisting solely by inertia, kind of like a zombie—from an anticipated historical period that paradoxically fails to materialise and remains unannounced, undefined and unexpected. This enigmatic historical moment seems non-existent, plunging the world into the solitude of an unfathomable abyss without name or boundary…
[Linera characterizes this liminal moment…]
In the coming decade, social stupor and unease must swiftly give way to a period of cognitive readiness—an imperative shift to discard old beliefs and embrace new ones where solutions to prevailing anxieties and needs are viable. This will mark the moment for the crystallisation of a new belief system, one that will restore direction to historical time and rejuvenate the passage of social time with clear objectives. A century ago, Durkheim discussed such periods as “moments of creative effervescence”—times when new ideals emerge to guide humanity. This transition basically involves the formation of a new model of legitimisation and domination. This model must either be based on or adapted to a new paradigm of economic accumulation.
The cognitive opening of society follows no predetermined path and has no set timeline. It is not merely a rhetorical flourish or a simple result of top-down negotiations. Instead, it represents a volatile moment in which new modes of future sociality are forged. This opening can veer in conservative directions, such as post-fascist variants, or it may take reformist or revolutionary paths. The political struggle inherent to this moment—determined by how political forces respond to society’s cognitive openness—will define the nature of the new cycle of legitimation and accumulation.
In fact, we are witnessing the early symptoms of this impending battle across various parts of the world, albeit in local, peripheral, partial and ephemeral forms. Economically, this is seen in the experimentation with hybrid models that blend free trade and protectionism, especially in critical areas such as energy transition, telecommunications, microprocessors and modern industrialism. We also see the regional contraction of strategic product value chains through friend-shoring, aimed at reducing dependency on countries like China, or a revival of archaic neoliberal practices, now draped in authoritarianism.
Despite time-related limitations and their current inability to establish enduring and influential hegemonies, these initiatives serve as laboratories for exploring potential future actions. Alongside other emerging options that may overcome these initial constraints, these possible lines of action will contend on a global scale for the monopoly of new, powerful ideas. They aim to foster a new global common sense, one that captivates societal hopes and imaginations for the decades ahead, thereby initiating a new cycle of global accumulation and domination…
Eminently worth reading in full: “The age of uncertainty- liminal time,” in Metapolis. (TotH to Dewayne Hendricks)
* Antonio Gramsci
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As we fumble with the future, we might send thoughtful birthday greetings to a man whose thinking both contributed to our current fix and may offer help in finding a way out: John Stuart Mill; he was born on this date in 1806. A philosopher, political economist, politician, and civil servant, Mill was the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and thinking about political economy.
Mill reputedly learned Greek at the age of three, Latin and arithmetic at eight, and logic at twelve. He studied with Jeremy Bentham, and followed Bentham’s Utilitarian lead, though Mill both extended and deviated from his mentor’s thinking. He was a member of the Liberal Party and author of the early feminist work The Subjection of Women (and was the second member of Parliament to call for women’s suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832).
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has called him “the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century.”
Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
– John Stuart Mill
“What’s so great about The Trolley Problem is that there is no right answer”*…
Long time readers will know of your correspondent’s fascination with the Trolley Problem (a thought experiment in ethics and psychology introduced in 1967 by Philippa Foot)– see here and especially here.
Today, another variation…
From @ShitpostGate via @RogersBacon1.
* Chidi, The Good Place
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As we ponder the imponderable, we might send over confident birthday greetings to Hastings Rashdall; he was born on this date in 1858. A philosopher, theologian, historian, and Anglican priest, he was a proponent of ideal utilitarianism— and so would likely have had a quick and confident answer to the problem.
“Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself”*…
And indeed, what was true a century ago seem still to hold. Everyone seems to hate/fear inflation, but it has radically different impacts on different groups within our society…
Inflation is widening America’s wealth gap.
• Prices have risen across the nation, and so have wages across all income levels.
• The lowest-earning households gained an average of $500 in earnings last year. But their expenses grew by almost $2,000.
• Meanwhile, the upper half of earners pulled further ahead as their incomes outgrew expenses significantly.
“Whom does inflation hurt the most?” from Scott Galloway (@profgalloway)
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As we ferret out unfairness, we might cautious birthday greetings to James Mill; he was born (James Milne) on this date in 1773. A historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher (a close ally of Utilitarian thinker Jeremy Bentham), he is counted among the founders of the Ricardian school of economics (and so, among other things, a father of monetarism, the theory that excess currency leads to inflation).
His son, John Stuart Mill, studied with both Bentham and his father, then became one of most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism (perhaps especially his definition of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control). JSM also followed his father in justifying colonialism on Utilitarian lines, and served as a colonial administrator at the East India Company.
“It’s not an effective protest if it’s not pissing people off”*…
In 1986, millions of Filipinos took to the streets of Manila in peaceful protest and prayer in the People Power movement. The Marcos regime folded on the fourth day.
In 2003, the people of Georgia ousted Eduard Shevardnadze through the bloodless Rose Revolution, in which protestors stormed the parliament building holding the flowers in their hands.
Earlier this year, the presidents of Sudan and Algeria both announced they would step aside after decades in office, thanks to peaceful campaigns of resistance.
In each case, civil resistance by ordinary members of the public trumped the political elite to achieve radical change.
There are, of course, many ethical reasons to use nonviolent strategies. But compelling research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, confirms that civil disobedience is not only the moral choice; it is also the most powerful way of shaping world politics – by a long way.
Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.
Chenoweth’s influence can be seen in the recent Extinction Rebellion protests, whose founders say they have been directly inspired by her findings…
… despite being twice as successful as the violent conflicts, peaceful resistance still failed 47% of the time. As Chenoweth and Stephan pointed out in their book, that’s sometimes because they never really gained enough support or momentum to “erode the power base of the adversary and maintain resilience in the face of repression”. But some relatively large nonviolent protests also failed, such as the protests against the communist party in East Germany in the 1950s, which attracted 400,000 members (around 2% of the population) at their peak, but still failed to bring about change.
In Chenoweth’s data set, it was only once the nonviolent protests had achieved that 3.5% threshold of active engagement that success seemed to be guaranteed – and raising even that level of support is no mean feat. In the UK it would amount to 2.3 million people actively engaging in a movement (roughly twice the size of Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city); in the US, it would involve 11 million citizens – more than the total population of New York City.
The fact remains, however, that nonviolent campaigns are the only reliable way of maintaining that kind of engagement…
Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change: “The ‘3.5% Rule’: How a small minority can change the world.”
* J Lock In
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As we take it to the streets, we might send thoughtful birthday greetings to John Stuart Mill; he was born on this date in 1806. A philosopher, political economist, civil servant, and reformer, he was a founder of what we now call “Classical Liberalism” and a major contributor to the development of Utilitarianism. Mill reputedly learned Greek at the age of three, Latin and arithmetic at eight, and logic at twelve. He studied with Jeremy Bentham, and followed Bentham’s Utilitarian lead, though Mill both extended and deviated from his mentor’s thinking. His conception of liberty was– and remains– an oft-cited justification of individual freedom in opposition to unlimited state and social control.
“Strength lies in differences, not in similarities”*…
With the appearance of the first rays of the sun from Cerro Huantajaya in Alto Hospicio, northern Chile, people celebrate the arrival of the Aymara New Year, Machaq Mara, and the arrival of new energies.
For centuries, Inuit hunters navigated the Arctic by consulting wind, snow and sky. Now they use GPS. Speakers of the aboriginal language Gurindji, in northern Australia, used to command 28 variants of each cardinal direction. Children there now use the four basic terms, and they don’t use them very well. In the arid heights of the Andes, the Aymara developed an unusual way of understanding time, imagining the past as in front of them, and the future at their backs. But for the youngest generation of Aymara speakers – increasingly influenced by Spanish – the future lies ahead.
These are not just isolated changes. On all continents, even in the world’s remotest regions, indigenous people are swapping their distinctive ways of parsing the world for Western, globalised ones. As a result, human cognitive diversity is dwindling – and, sadly, those of us who study the mind had only just begun to appreciate it.
In 2010, a paper titled ‘The Weirdest People in the World?’ gave the field of cognitive science a seismic shock. Its authors, led by the psychologist Joe Henrich at the University of British Columbia, made two fundamental points. The first was that researchers in the behavioural sciences had almost exclusively focused on a small sliver of humanity: people from Western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic societies. The second was that this sliver is not representative of the larger whole, but that people in London, Buenos Aires and Seattle were, in an acronym, WEIRD.
But there is a third fundamental point, and it was the psychologist Paul Rozin at the University of Pennsylvania who made it. In his commentary on the 2010 article, Rozin noted that this same WEIRD slice of humanity was ‘a harbinger of the future of the world’. He had seen this trend in his own research. Where he found cross-cultural differences, they were more pronounced in older generations. The world’s young people, in other words, are converging. The signs are unmistakable: the age of global WEIRDing is upon us….
Are we breeding a global cultural and cognitive monoculture? More at: “What happens to cognitive diversity when everyone is more WEIRD?.”
* Stephen R. Covey
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As we delight in difference, we might send utilitarian birthday greetings to Jeremy Bentham; the author, jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer was born on this date in 1748. Bentham is considered a founder of modern Utilitarianism (via his own work, and that of his students, including James Mill and his son, John Stuart Mill); he actively advocated individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalizing of homosexual acts. He argued for the abolition of slavery and the death penalty, and for the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children.
Bentham was involved in the founding of University College (then, the University of London), the first in England to admit all, regardless of race, creed, or political belief. On his death, he was dissected as part of a public anatomy lecture– as he specified in his will. Afterward– again, as Bentham’s will specified– the skeleton and head were preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet called the “Auto-icon”, with the skeleton stuffed out with hay and dressed in Bentham’s clothes. Bentham had intended the Auto-icon to incorporate his actual head, preserved to resemble its appearance in life. But experimental efforts at mummification, though technically successful, left the head looking alarmingly macabre, with dried and darkened skin stretched tautly over the skull. So the Auto-icon was given a wax head, fitted with some of Bentham’s own hair.
It is normally kept on public display at the end of the South Cloisters in the main building of University College. The real head was displayed in the same case as the Auto-icon for many years, but became the target of repeated student pranks, so is now locked away.
see a virtual, 360-degree rotatable version here
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