Prometheus 6: Thomas Sowell through the eyes of Julian Sanchez

September 11, 2003

Thomas Sowell through the eyes of Julian Sanchez

Having found Julian Sanchez views the multi dimensionality of political thought much as I do was interesting, as it's likely he is unfamiliar with me as I am with him. Al-Muhajabah says he's a thoughtful libertarian and as I've found her judgment trustworthy I decided this morning to look around his site. I found his review of Thomas Sowell's "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" an interesting read.

People who've read more than two days worth of posts here will accurately assume I have little truck with Sowell's political positions, so I have not read the book myself. I will say Mr. Sowell would make an intellectually challenging adversary. He tends to make fairly sound, detailed analyses that are difficult to refute. One can, however, understand his analyses and turn them on the positions he himself holds, while insuring ones own positions are sound enough not to be vulnerable to the same tactics. Anyway, because I haven't read it I can't really say I'm taking issue with Sowell, and because I've commenting on Mr. Sanchez' review I have to assume his take on the book is correct. And though I believe Mr. Sanchez finds himself in accord with the meaning he finds in Mr. Sowell's book, because he is presenting his view of Sowell's ideas rather than his own, I can't take issue with Mr. Sanchez' views either. An interesting balancing act.

From the review:

Justice, Sowell argues, ain�t what it used to be. Once, it was understood by most to mean the impartial and equal application of some determinate set of rules. Increasingly, however, the dominant conception is one of "social justice," which attempts to balance out individual differences in economic status, talent, or character, which result from the position one is arbitrarily born into. Sowell believes that "social justice" is better termed "cosmic justice," because it takes the perspective of a godlike observer, recreating the world in a more aesthetically pleasing way. But as Sowell wryly notes, however, "God does not have to worry about what is going to happen the day after Judgment Day." Today�s desirable outcome is often tomorrow�s perverse incentive.

I don't think justice has ever been seen as an impartial and equal application of rules, mostly because few people have ever assumed such an application has taken place. Within a given class, perhaps; all royals receive the same treatment and all peons receive the same treatment, but there's never been a fair and impartial application of a set of rules across the board, unless you include the rules by which one differentiates the various classes and applies to it the set of laws specific to it.

That "[t]oday�s desirable outcome is often tomorrow�s perverse incentive" is indisputable, though. It's a parallel to the social truism "there are only permanent interests." Laws and rules are not internal to us, they are a part of the environment we respond to. So changing the rules doesn't change our motivation, it merely changes what we must to to achieve our goals. The results of our actions further modify the environment, which change we respond to, et cetera until, like all self modifying structures, the process generates something that was both unpredictable and inevitable.

That "individual differences in economic status, talent, or character…result from the position one is arbitrarily born into" I take strong exception to as regards talent and character. I don't know whether to direct my ire toward Sowell or Sanchez, so I'll leave it at that for the moment.

Onward…

Part of the problem with the search for equality, Sowell writes, is that "merely defining it opens up a bottomless pit of complications." After all, any two people may be compared along countless dimensions, and may be equal or unequal along any of these. Moreover, these two people are not likely to desire equality in all respects. One may place a high premium on spending time with his family, while the other�s priority is to accumulate wealth.

Yet in making rules one must at some point establish a standard on which judgment is based. The only alternative is to abandon judging at all.

Further points I'd like to make can, I think, be done by quoting the review and asking that you apply the principle expounded in the quote to the Conservative position. I invite you to read the review and judge for yourself if my quotes are taken unfairly out of context.

The proposals of the moral elite are to be judged by the righteousness of the intentions behind them, rather than the consequences of their implementation. It does not matter, then, that banning or boycotting sweatshops only moves workers from a bad job to, worse yet, unemployment and destitution. It matters only that the sweatshop owners can be painted as greedy and mean, while the anti-sweatshop activists "care". That egalitarian attitudes have become so prevalent among intellectuals, a "default setting," as Sowell puts it, only makes it easier for dissenting voices to be marginalized.

Like most people convinced of their monopoly on truth, partisans of Cosmic Justice see little reason to bother with normal channels in implementing their program. Like the leaders of the French Revolution, they eschew such formalities as checks and balances on state power- formalities American revolutionaries considered to be of paramount importance. Assured of their own moral rectitude, they see no reason to hobble themselves with legalistic impediments, preferring to resort to unaccountable agencies, modern day versions of Robespierre�s Committee of Public Safety.

Such tactics should not surprise us, says Sowell, because the Cosmic vision is fundamentally incompatible with the rule of law. The latter requires simple impartiality, while the former requires micro-management to ensure that the rules do not interfere with the desired outcome.

Divested of the partisan examples and rendered as skeletal principle, Sowell's book would appear to be as great an indictment of the current direction of Conservative action as part Liberal thought.

Posted by P6 at September 11, 2003 10:22 AM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1605

Comments

You wrote:

"I don't think justice has ever been seen as an impartial and equal application of rules, mostly because few people have ever assumed such an application has taken place. Within a given class, perhaps; all royals receive the same treatment and all peons receive the same treatment, but there's never been a fair and impartial application of a set of rules across the board, unless you include the rules by which one differentiates the various classes and applies to it the set of laws specific to it."

Not having read Sowell's book either, i'm inclined to think that he was referring to the understanding of justice in the abstract-ideal sense. Point being that correcting deviations from that abstract-ideal in the real world only requires, well, correcting those deviations (like freeing slaves and vesting them with the same rights everyone else has), not anything more.

Posted by at September 12, 2003 04:15 PM

I see I'll have to install that "prevent multiple posts" hack. I just double posted at Brad DeLong's blog myself.

Point being that correcting deviations from that abstract-ideal in the real world only requires, well, correcting those deviations (like freeing slaves and vesting them with the same rights everyone else has), not anything more.

Taking your particular example, if you do what you've suggested and nothing more you're only corrected the deviation in an abstract-ideal way. In the real world, there's enforcement and protection required. In the real world a theoretical investment of rights means little in the face of an active opposition to the manifestation of those rights because the slaves will not have the resources to defend their rights themselves.

And that's just one problem, one that would face slaves freed across the millenia. If we get to the specific case of the USofA where a culture developed around the brutalization of ex-slaves, well…

And expanding our reference beyond your example, can you honestly think of any case where the abstract-idea description of a thing or process is an exact match for its real world manifestation?

Posted by at September 12, 2003 05:45 PM

Taking your particular example, if you do "what you've suggested and nothing more you're only corrected the deviation in an abstract-ideal way. In the real world, there's enforcement and protection required. In the real world a theoretical investment of rights means little in the face of an active opposition to the manifestation of those rights because the slaves will not have the resources to defend their rights themselves."

I agree. I thought it was obvious that 'vesting' ex-slaves with the same rights would mean enforcing/protecting their free exercise to the same extent as everyone else (i.e., not as per jim crow).

"And expanding our reference beyond your example, can you honestly think of any case where the abstract-idea description of a thing or process is an exact match for its real world manifestation?"

I doubt anything real every matches its ideal. But it makes sense to strive for that.

Posted by at September 14, 2003 01:25 AM

I thought it was obvious that 'vesting' ex-slaves with the same rights would mean enforcing/protecting their free exercise to the same extent as everyone else (i.e., not as per jim crow).

It seems sufficiently unobvious to the right that I feel the need to get specific about it. Even when they are sincere it looks like the idea is, just say things are so and wait for a complaint.

Posted by at September 14, 2003 10:43 AM