A SOCRATIC INTERLUDE

I have in the last two postings made a case:  those concerned with local schools should know something about educational philosophies.  This includes those parents who take an active role in their children’s education.  And while I believe that local business people and other citizens should be likewise engaged, they too would benefit in their interactions with schools by knowing this material.  The call is not for such people to be experts, but to have a conversational familiarity with the subject.  The main reasons for this is to apply that knowledge toward, one, evaluating the schools in question – each philosophy sets a normative direction for what a particular school’s efforts should be – and, two, determining where the school people they interact with are “coming from.”  The lay person can be armed with an albeit limited language so that interactions can be more meaningful and better directed. 

This posting is dedicated to reviewing the first of four philosophical traditions and two “near” philosophical traditions.  The first addressed philosophy is considered the most conservative of the four and is one of two philosophies that are classified as teacher centered approaches to education; I’ll explain shortly.

Perennialism, at its core, is based on an assumption.  That is, in life, throughout the course of history, there is a list of principles and concerns that is timeless, universal, and deserving of our continued interest.  This list includes liberty, happiness, equality, trust, and the like.  This focus is preferred over educational efforts to convey facts, structures, or processes, for example.  As these listed concerns indicate, topics of interest are aimed at human issues as opposed to technical, mechanical, or vocational topics.  A main difference between perennialism and essentialism, the other conservative philosophy, is that essentialism tends to be centered on what is considered essential knowledge and skills for the given economy in a school’s location.  So, present day conditions, for example, would be aimed, in part, at teaching computer skills.  Perennialism would consider such a focus short-sighted and a bit superfluous.  Those who subscribe to perennialism would instead state that the aim of education is to prepare students to live more meaningful lives and that calls for them to be engaged in dialogues over the time honored principles and values, such as those just listed, as they pertain to contemporary realities. In terms of initiating such discussions, students should be exposed to the great thinkers of Western Civilization. 

This approach has been popularly related to the Great Books program that originated at Columbia University through the efforts of John Erskine back in the 1920s and later popularized chiefly through the public efforts of Mortimer Adler.  Encyclopedia Britannica publishes the set known as the Great Books series and provides in-service teacher training programs on the use of the Great Books for classroom use.  Their training is based on perennialist principles and teaching instructional strategies.  Adler provides the following three standards by which to include a particular work in the Great Books collection:

·        The book has contemporary significance; that is, it has relevance to the problems and issues of our time;

·        The book is inexhaustible; it can be read again and again with benefit; “This is an exacting criterion, an ideal that is fully attained by only a small number of the 511 works that [were] selected.  It is approximated in varying degrees by the rest.”

·        The book is relevant to a large number of the great ideas and great issues that have occupied the minds of thinking individuals for the last 25 centuries.[1]

Along with the assumption regarding timeless principles and values, perennialism also assumes that mental capacity can be likened to a muscle and that appropriate educational efforts should be about exercising that “muscle” by engaging in active discussions that challenge accepted beliefs and values.  If this sounds familiar, it is highly reliant on the Socratic method.  Based on, in my opinion, a not so accurate view of Socrates’ “gadfly” role in ancient Athens, teachers skillfully using focused questions challenge students to reflect and reconsider opinions, beliefs, values, and attitudes associated with an issue.  The questions would probably reflect some position proffered by a great thinker.  Who are these thinkers?  The list includes, randomly, Plato, Livy, Cicero, Plutarch, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, Jane Austin, Charles Darwin; you get the idea.

What can be said about perennialism in relation to federation theory?  In effect, federation theory is a perennialist approach in that it banks on Enlightenment ideals – its strong reliance on reason, for example – as those ideals influenced the philosophical basis of our nation’s constitutional principles.  But it does not solely depend on this tradition (I will further develop this theme when in a future posting I review progressivism).  Pure perennialism has an absolutist view of values; they are valuable in and of themselves and do not rely on consequential factors.  That is what gives these values and principles their timeless character.  As with essentialism, this philosophy has an objective view of reality – it shies away from relativistic and constructed views of knowledge.  The teacher is expected to control the teaching/learning process, although he or she is counted on to pose the challenging questions mentioned above.  In this, perennialist ideals call on teachers to open instruction so that students can engage in the give and take of dialectic discussion.  This process will find corresponding strategies in the more liberal philosophies of progressivism and reconstructionism.  As such, it also mirrors what I have indicated my favored instructional approach would be in implementing federation theory content – a modified values clarification approach.

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[1] Wikipedia, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_books .

A FUNCTIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

With the last posting, I began a series of entries in which I will review the four prominent philosophies that dominate the literature of curricular studies.  In addition, I will add another posting that will report on two off-shoot philosophies or “sort of” philosophies.  But before I begin, I will comment on the function that educational philosophies should provide, but under the structural realities of our public school systems, they do not.  As I review the ideas that constitute the separate philosophies, ask yourself:  in a given school, how important is it for the teaching staff at that school to share in a unifying philosophy?  Much of the debate among educators over philosophy is about which one is best.  While important, a much more important concern is how unified the teaching staff of a school is in supporting that school’s prevailing philosophy.  Private schools are in a better position to insure that the teachers they hire will fall within the philosophical tradition of that school.  They are in a better position to insist on such compliance since these teachers do not enjoy employment protection that their counterparts have in the public schools.  But why is this an issue of any standing?

Consider your typical public school.  If you were to ask an average teacher what philosophy of education he or she subscribes to, you would get either a blank stare or some extended version of “I teach because I believe in education” or “I believe in the future” or “I love children” or a similar response.  If you instead ask if the teacher is a Perennialist, an Essentialist, a Progressive, or a Reconstructionist, then you would more than likely see a bewildered face.  They might have heard these terms some time ago in college, but chances are that that was some time ago and the concern has not been revisited in all the ensuing years.  But the problem is that such negligence can be the source of many problems a school is facing. 

The problem has to do with the lack of coordination in how different philosophies are implemented.  Even though most teachers in public schools, whether they know it or not, tend to be Essentialists, there are those who are not.  I would say that sprinkled among a given faculty of any size, you will find several Progressives and a few Perennialists.  To further complicate matters, you might have an administrator, even a principal, who is not an Essentialist, but a follower of one of the other philosophies.  Why are they this, that, or the other?  Because, in their teacher training programs, they were trained to be that “kind of teacher” and they took the lessons to heart.  It is their way of trying to be a good teacher.  The secret they don’t share in is that for any of these philosophies to be successful, it has to be practiced in a supportive environment.  Let me illustrate.

Consider expectations.  I have, in this blog, described education as a discipline, not a consumer service.  Education demands effort and, for many, one form of sacrifice or another.  Usually, students upon entering school do not have an appreciation for what education is going to afford them.  Parents and teachers strive to put a positive spin on the demands of education; they might put a great deal of effort in heightening the intellectual pleasures that education can provide.  Or they might offer rewards for diligent work and the like.  But the bottom line is that the student is asked to exert effort and that effort is not going to be entertaining all or even most of the time.  Under such a discipline, it is useful for those involved – both for teachers and students – to have expectations met.  This simple requirement is fundamentally disrupted when a student proceeds from classroom to classroom with various views about what the whole enterprise concerns.  This is further detrimental when the majority is of one philosophy with limited numbers being the other philosophies.  This situation makes the efforts of those in the minority subject to feelings that what they are about, what they are asking and demanding of students, is somehow illegitimate.  And since, as a group, teachers are ill-informed about what it means to be an Essentialist, for example, what results is an approach that lacks consistency.  Teaching becomes a hodge-podge of activities or a singular instructional strategy in which students are victimized not by variety, but by boring repetition as those teachers lecture all the time or pass out one worksheet after another.   None of these philosophies promote or justify such approaches.

To get back to the notion of a supportive environment, I wish that public school principals were, first, knowledgeable and appreciative of the function of philosophies and, second, in a position to hire and evaluate teachers according to the philosophy the principal espouses.  This choice should be a public one; all stakeholders should know, even before being hired, what the philosophical leanings of a principal or potential principal are.  In turn, that principal should be allowed to hire those educators who share in his or her philosophy.  

I hold the philosophy I subscribe to because I believe it leads to the best educational results.  That means, if implemented by a sufficiently talented teacher, using that philosophy will arrive at the best possible result for the student and the community in which the student resides.  But that opinion does not preclude me from believing that any of the philosophies can lead to positive results.  The advocates of each can cite supportive empirical evidence as to the viability of their preferred philosophy.  As I indicated above, what is more important than the philosophy a school utilizes is the consistency in which the philosophy is used.  So what is a functional philosophy?  It is a philosophy a faculty can implement wholeheartedly and skillfully.

DIFFERENT WAYS TO LOOK AT CURRICULUM

Throughout the history of this blog, I have tried to make the case that a civics curriculum guided by the natural rights construct in what content it should include has enabled or, at least, done little to ameliorate the levels of certain unsavory social conditions.  These conditions are low levels of political knowledge, political participation, political skills or the disposition toward developing those skills or attaining that knowledge, low levels of civility, and high levels of criminal behavior.  I have provided reports of evidence and expert opinion to support these contentions.  With this posting, let me add to that list of support.  Let us “listen” to Daniel N. Robinson’s – on the record – lecture:

[Thomas] Jefferson’s writings outside of politics make clear, abundantly clear, and there’s no voice raised to dispute this, that you cannot have this kind of [republican] government except with an educated and instructed people, that the core of republican virtue is education itself.  If I might reflect briefly on our own times, I would say that the deplorable state of education, particularly in the primary and secondary schools, and the rather trite nature of what we are pleased to call higher education, has to be worrisome.  A self-governing people must be particularly adept in weighing arguments and comprehending them, and in uniting their own ideas and contrasting their own ideas with the best that history could produce.  The men assembled in Philadelphia [at the Constitutional Convention in 1787] by and large could do that, and could do it with great agility, though not that many of them had degrees of any sort at all.[1]

I could delve into my overall agreement with Robinson, but instead I want to use this quote to introduce a new topic – educational philosophy.  While this might sound hotsy-totsy, there is a very practical reason for my foray into the subject.  But before I begin, I can’t help saying that if the current presidential campaign doesn’t make Robinson’s point, I don’t know what does.

Anyway, it seems from the tenor of the above quote that that writer ascribes to an educational philosophy known as Perennialism.  Perennialism is one of four overarching educational philosophies and I believe it behooves parents and other citizens to know about these philosophies if they take on the federalist responsibility to engage in what is happening in their children’s schools.  It will not only give such “intrusion” a more knowledgeable foundation, but will also suggest optional courses for what is going on in the schools in question.  I will merely introduce the topic in this posting, but in upcoming entries I will delve further.

The four main philosophies are the aforementioned Perennialism and Essentialism, Progressivism, and Reconstructionism.  I have already in this blog introduced, some time ago, Reconstructionism.  I identified it as critical theory, 1.0.  As a philosophy, this idea takes on a more encompassing definition, but runs in the same direction as I previously indicated.  I will elaborate in an upcoming posting.  There will be amplification on these four.  Of more recent vintage, two more philosophies have been advanced.  They are Eclecticism and the educational form of Existentialism.  Of course the term eclecticism gives away this philosophy or should I write philosophies; that is, they are constructed sets of ideas that borrow from the four main ones identified above.  I would have to admit that what I have promoted in this blog would be considered an expression of Eclecticism, but I would argue that I probably fall, in terms of content, under the Perennialism umbrella and in terms of instruction and instructional strategies under the domain of Progressivism.  If you are a regular reader, as I go through these different schools of thought, you can give me a grade on how true I am to any of these isms.  As for Existentialism, again I have made reference to it when reviewing critical theory.  Some thinkers who have attempted to soften the Marxian influence on critical theory have relied on ideas and ideals from the Existentialist perspective.

Beyond helping one become a better observer and advocate at a given school, there is more to my madness.  Specifically, as when I reviewed several elements of change theory, I would like people to be well “armed” if and when they actively strive to implement a federalist civics program in their communities’ schools.  If in my teacher preparation training I was typical, I was not made aware of these alternative philosophies until graduate school.  Therefore, perhaps what I am about to share can be helpful to many practicing teachers – hopefully so. 

In this blog, my attention has been on secondary schools and their curricula, but that is not to say that a federalist approach could not and should not be implemented at the elementary level.  My hesitation to “go there” is that I do not feel knowledgeable enough to do so.  Whatever expertise I do enjoy concerns secondary education in social studies.

In hopes of enticing you, I do believe the topic of educational philosophy is interesting.  Serious and gifted minds have expended a good deal of effort in its study and I hope to share a relatively small portion of the resulting literature.

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[1] Robinson, D. N.  (2004).  American ideals:  Founding a “republic of virtue.” [a transcript booklet] Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company/The Great Courses. 

WHAT IS BERNIE ABOUT?

It’s Bernie’s turn.  I have, in the last series of postings, taken the occasion of Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for president to revisit a topic this blog addressed some time ago.  Since the candidate professes to be a socialist – a democratic socialist – I thought it was timely to review our history of how we have viewed equality.  Why?  Because socialism is an expression of one of those views and I think it is helpful to place its beliefs alongside the other orientations we as Americans have held in relation to this value.  To date, I have re-described and explained four of these orientations in the order in which they range from the most elitist view to the most egalitarian view.  The first four are genetic elitism, earned elitism, equal condition, and regulated condition.  The fifth orientation is the one Sanders ascribes to and is called equal results.

In order to give you an overall sense of what this orientation believes, let me offer the following definition:  a general belief orientation in which the individual might hold some superior human assets, but that condition, in terms of compensation, mostly entitles the person to limited, higher status.  All monetary compensation should be based on labor value determinations which in practice equates labor efforts with equal monetary compensations.  Also, accumulation of monetary assets is highly restricted to avoid anyone from attaining unequal advantages either financially or politically.  Ideally, distributions of responsibilities are to be based on merit, which includes faithfulness to the equal condition doctrine.  Of course, this is in its purest form.  All policies that would be needed to apply this definition in its entirety would have to be legislated in a democratic socialist system – which is what Sanders professes.  In addition, it is still unclear how “pure” Sanders is.  Even with a long political career, his exact stand on many issues lacks specificity.  The campaign will surely dot some of the “i”s and cross some of the “t”s.  But let me flesh out some of the ideas composing this orientation.

In the last posting, I presented the basic ideas proposed by the late philosopher, John Rawls.  His two main relevant ideas regarding equality are (1) the notion that justice is the product of a people/group establishing the basic rules of their arrangement when no one knows beforehand what his/her status will be once the arrangement is formulated and (2) that once one analyzes the reasons for anyone’s success, one can only attribute limited attribution to a person’s effort for said success.  Both of these factors lead one to limit any compensation one is apt to receive relative to market determinations.  Last, Rawls argues for assistance for those not so privileged under the consideration that life can and does visit misfortune on potentially anyone – “there but for the grace of God go I.”[1]  If we take the ideas of John Rawls and like-minded thinkers to a heightened degree, we still approximate the fifth orientation, equal results.

Advocates of equal results hold that since people have little control over the abilities they enjoy, they should not be entitled to any financial benefits beyond those that others are able to secure.  In terms of our economic system, not only are those with rare gifts in high demand skill areas compensated way above what they deserve, they can accumulate such financial benefits – accumulate capital assets, that is – and use them to further their advantage to the detriment of those not so advantaged.[2]  This is, in the equal results advocates view, immoral because it is basically unfair.

The beliefs of the equal results orientation are:

1.     A person’s abilities are primarily developed from social conditions over which the person has little to no control.  Therefore, a person who is able to secure a very high income is taking advantage of benefits he or she had little to do with in acquiring them.

2.     A person’s rewards for work should not reflect the randomness in the distribution of skills with which some might be blessed and should, therefore, in order to be fair, be pretty much the same as that of others.

3.     The height of unfairness in capitalist economic arrangements is that some can earn in a few days what takes others to save in a lifetime.

4.     We pay very little attention to a person’s merit, as a person, in determining what rewards he or she is able to acquire.  Instead, we focus on marketable skills or other arbitrary assets that a person has.

5.      All people’s labors are fundamentally equal and the pay received should not vary much.  The only difference among their labors is simply that they are different.  Highly paid workers or business owners are not the only providers of hard work.  Laborers also work very hard.  Therefore, labor should be more or less seen in terms of equal value.  An example: the movie star who performs in front of a camera should not make so much more than the cameraman or woman who works behind the camera. Both are equally responsible for the product produced.

You might think these beliefs are highly un-American.  Well, not so fast.  There have been prominent Americans who have espoused such views or views that are similar.  Eugene V. Debs comes to mind; he was a prominent labor leader and presidential candidate in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.  Don't get me wrong; his views were never that popular, yet he did represent a tradition of thought that harkens back to political thinkers of the past from the more obscure John Ruskin to, at least to some degree, Henry David Thoreau.

Of course, there are Marxian-socialist ideals contained within these beliefs, but they also can be found in the works of Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi.  In America, such beliefs seem to have gotten more traction during times of extreme exploitation of laborers, such as during the industrial revolution of the late 1800s, or during harsh economic times in the Great Depression.  More recently, as I am indicating in this series of postings, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has attracted many followers. Reported disparities currently characterizing our income and wealth distributions might have something to do with Sanders’ popularity.  The results of today’s primary election in New Hampshire will indicate how popular the Vermont senator is among the Granite State’s Democrats. 

All socialists, at least to some degree, espouse Marxian principles.  For a dramatization of such advocacy, see the film, Reds, starring Warren Beatty, who was also the film's producer and director.  Many adherents to these beliefs have derived them from religious teachings as in the case of Tolstoy and his view of Christianity.  Others, like Marx himself, view such beliefs in a more “scientific” fashion, claiming that economic realities will evolve or erupt into a system where such beliefs will take actual form in resulting social and economic relations and institutions.

Let me focus a bit on Karl Marx, considered the father of socialism.  Influenced by the philosopher Hobbes, Karl Marx saw the eventuality of a socialist state – one in which productive property would be owned in common – as inevitable.  In his view, the development of society is simply the product of deterministic laws in which people, following their nature of being hedonistic egoists - a la Hobbes – are just pursuing their selfish interests.  This pits people in antagonistic relationships, according to the economic classes in which they find themselves.  In the case of socialism, this inevitable system will take hold as a result of the conflict among the business class, the bourgeois, and the laborers, the proletariat.  The proletariat will prevail according to Marx – a “scientific” eventuality.

In terms of policy, such a takeover, if past socialist programs are an indication, will call for a stronger to a much stronger presence of government in the operations of our economy.  For example, Sanders is calling for free college tuition and a single payer system of healthcare.  The single payer will be government and that calls for higher taxes.  If his other goals follow the socialist lead, we can anticipate his presidency to seek other programs where government involvement will call for even higher taxes.  He often cites the fact that other advanced countries provide for certain public services.  He often reminds us that we are the only advanced country that does not provide universal healthcare.  If you compare tax rates between those countries and ours, ours are a lot lower.  According to Tax Policy Center, in 2008, tax rates of many European countries are 40 percent of GDP, while the US is 7 percent of GDP.[3]

In a capitalist nation, equal compensation would be approached, more than likely, through taxation instead of mandating equalized pay schedules.  Someone’s gross pay might be quite a bit higher than someone else’s, but after taxes the effective pay rate will be more equal.  In so doing, we would approach, if not reach, the Marxian principle:  “From each according to his [her] ability, to each according to his [her] needs.”  For those who live by this dictum, he or she is worthy of higher status among his/her comrades.  Whether or not this represents Bernie Sanders’ thinking, I’m sure the upcoming campaign will give us a clearer understanding of how Marxian Sanders is.

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[1] Of course, you are welcome to visit the last posting to read a lengthier description of Rawl’s ideas.

[2] In a recent book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist, Thomas Piketty, argues that due to the accumulation of capital, there has developed an entrenched class that is benefiting from the income based on that capital.  See Piketty, T.  (2014).  Capital in the Twenty-First Century.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press.

[3] See  www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing.../international.cfm .

WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR SUCCESS?

I have to this point, over the last several postings, described three orientations concerning equality.  I thought a review at this time would be useful given that a prominent candidate for president is an avowed socialist.  To many Americans this might sound bizarre and un-American.  One way to couch any consideration for Bernie Sanders would be to compare his position or views against the views of others.  Socialism is primarily concerned with equality.  In this blog, I have described socialist ideas and ideals as they pertain to critical theory – a vying construct in the study of curriculum. I pointed out that critical theorists hold equality as their trump value.  So the question I have been addressing is how socialist views compare with other views Americans have held concerning equality through their history.  Previously, in the last three postings I have described three orientations about equality; they have been genetic elitism, earned elitism, and equal condition. 

Each of these orientations, in turn, is a view of social structure starting with the most elite and working toward the most egalitarian.  There are two more orientations left.  While each orientation has been in the past supported by significant numbers of Americans at one point or another, one can generally say that at any given time, there are people in this nation who will ascribe to any of these orientations.  This posting will look at the next more egalitarian view and I have given it the name regulated condition.  You can also call it regulated equality or, more descriptively, equal opportunity/limited rewards.  As with equal condition, the view has some philosophical justification for its stance on equality.  Let’s see what that might be.

First, let me give this view a definition.  Regulated condition is a general belief orientation in which individuals who enjoy superior human assets (e.g., intelligence, physical dexterity, humor, etc.) do so due to effort for the most part, but also are “blessed” in having been exposed to favorable conditions – more on this below.  Their superiority entitles them to above normal consideration and limited only to areas associated with their earned accomplishments.  Any entitlements are time limited as a recipient must continue to demonstrate his or her worthiness, but said rewards, other than status, must be purchased.  Monetary rewards – compensation or income – are paid in exchange for the individual’s labor and are calculated by reasonable standards to represent that labor’s contribution to the welfare of the society.  In actuality, reward relies generally on market forces but can be manipulated to reflect that contribution through mostly taxes or minimum wage provisions.  This orientation allows the individual to negotiate his compensation, but this process is regulated in some fashion – either by law, by custom, or some other expectations which are broadly accepted as being legitimate.  Sometimes regulations limit compensation by the nature of the labor involved; does it, for example, relate to essential services (medical, religious, educational, or security related services such as serving in the armed forces)?  If so, the general feeling is that such services cannot charge whatever the market allows.  Another example would be if market determined salaries are too exorbitant.  Such considerations take into account how much of the national income is going to the various income groups.  The question would be:  is there, for the health of the economy, sufficient distribution of income to sustain functional levels of consumption?  In other cases, compensation can be bolstered in cases when market determinations would render less than a living wage to some workers.  There might be other considerations such as whether concentration of wealth and income is providing inordinate levels of political assets to certain groups at the expense of others and distorting the democratic quality of a given polity.  Most policies governing manipulations of income are or should be conscious of their effects on supply; that is, distortions can arise and supply can become too limited if prices including compensation are too low.  For example, if the salaries doctors receive are below market price, fewer will provide their services, as is presently the case with Medicare.  As one would suspect, policy that has so many ramifications would need to be justified, especially when you are limiting a person’s income derived from his/her labor or property.

Since in a moneyed society, income is the source of determining how economic goods and services are distributed, the topic of income is highly related to justice.  A number of years ago, a prominent philosopher passed away.  His name was John Rawls.[1]  He thought and wrote about justice and his arguments have been used by what we currently call liberals or progressives.  His main argument is best understood, I feel, by looking at what he felt justice to be.  He doesn’t give us a straight definition, but instead gives us a mental exercise. 

Rawls asks us, in this exercise, to think of a group of people starting a society (the “original position”) with a particular limitation.  That is, no one in the group, ahead of time, knows what his or her position will be in this new society (“veil of ignorance”).  Therefore, the individuals in this exercise will not know if the advantage in the new society will fall to the talented, the strong, the swift, the dullard, or to any other person with a particular asset or detriment.  Their job is to set up the basic rules for this society.  You might be able to think of practical problems with such an experiment, but Rawls' point is that without knowing how one will fare in such an arrangement, each participant would seek to establish the fairest system possible which includes providing the most equal opportunity on the off chance that he/she will not have an advantaged position.  Under such conditions, according to Rawls, a just society can emerge.

While this line of thought addresses equality to a certain degree, Rawls went further.  He questions the right of anyone to claim any advantage, even those advantages that are accrued through personal effort.  Generally, Rawls is concerned with how responsible an individual is for his or her good standing, status, or level of success.  He asks a set of basic questions.  How responsible is a person for his or her talents and skills?  Are they inbred, in which case the person is not responsible at all?  Are they the product of having the good fortune of being raised by parents, households, and communities that nurtured such development?  Or is it the result of attending adequate schools?  Again, the individual has, at best, a limited say in how he or she will turn out.  Therefore, the responsibility a person has for his or her success or lack of success is, at best, limited.  Another source of success is the endeavor a person chooses to pursue.  Does the person just happen to be interested in a skill that is in high demand and short supply?  These, again, are conditions outside the person's full control.  Even when the development and execution of such talents and skills are derived from hard work, how much is the person's disposition toward such work the product of the appropriate family and other social milieus, the right neighborhoods, the right schools, the right churches, and so forth?  All in all, even if hard work is involved, in a just society how much is the person entitled to receive in terms of compensation, status, and other rewards?  Seeing advantages through these lenses, one might come to the conclusion that such rewards should be limited.

Rawls was not a socialist.  He believed in private property, self-initiative, and receiving rewards from property and other resources.  He even wrote about moral hazard, a result in which people who are rewarded without warrant, as in the case of illicit behavior, will learn lessons leading to unproductive behaviors and strategies since rewards lead to repeated actions.  But he felt we needed to be realistic.  We need to be honest when it comes to what can be truly attributed to a person and, therefore, how we view a person's rewards.  There is a multitude of factors that determines how a person's career and other endeavors will turn out and, in reality, a person has little control over those factors.  All in all, therefore, there should be limits to the rewards a person can garner. 

I think Rawls’ argument gives us the rationale for an orientation about equality that I am calling regulated equality or conditions – the fourth orientation I am presenting.  Here are its beliefs:

1.Some people develop talents and they should be rewarded according to how they use those talents to help society.  Society should be set up so that those who have demonstrated the abilities and intelligence to do a job should be rewarded in equal value to their contributions.

2. Laws should be passed that guarantee that only the skills and knowledge needed for a job should be taken into account when people are trying to find work.  Another way to express this belief is to say the orientation is for equal opportunity in its most literal sense.

3. Those who have sacrificed to become talented should be judged by the same standards as the rest of us.

4.  Laws should be in place that put limits on compensation so that several social ends can be accomplished.  These include a functional distribution of income to allow sufficient demand for goods and services and an avoidance of concentrated political assets that undermine the ability of portions of the citizenry to reasonably compete for favorable governmental decisions.

5.  Poor people are generally those who have not been granted the appropriate opportunities to either develop a useful skill or have been unwilling to develop that skill due to social circumstances.

This orientation emphasizes those practices that promote equal opportunity.  It recognizes that the influences of wealth, no matter how justified by the conditions of its accumulation, give some people opportunities over others and that that offends our commitment to equality.  This orientation does not give much credit for past contributions.  Yes, past contributions can be cited as proof that a person has certain skills and knowledge, but that evidence has a “short shelf life” and, as with equal condition, the general attitude is:  what contributions has the person achieved of late?

Our current political discourse, to a great degree, seems to be split on the differences between the last two orientations I presented.  Conservatives and the Republican Party seem to support the equal condition, unlimited rewards orientation.  Liberals or progressives and the Democratic Party support the regulated condition or equal opportunity, limited rewards orientation.  The last orientation, regulated condition, is also sensitive to historical conditions that have affected members of groups in negative ways – such as the effects of discrimination – and that pose competitive obstacles in the present.  In such cases, the orientation would support remedial policies that are aimed at eliminating the obstacles, if possible, or reasonably ameliorating their effects.  Therefore, past discrimination might lead to policies that provide advantages to affected group members such as quotas in which a certain percentage of employment or educational positions are reserved for members of victimized groups.  This is done for a set amount of time or until the discrimination and its effects are deemed to have ended.

The former orientation, equal condition, unlimited rewards, places a higher degree of adherence to raw liberty, the merits of competition, self-initiative, and the sanguine benefits given to individuals who deal independently with the harsh realities of life.  Advocates believe to a greater extent in a government that protects but does not, as they see it, coddle its citizens.

The latter orientation, regulated condition, places a high allegiance on liberty, but softens that devotion with a consideration for what truly constitutes real opportunity. Along with a belief in government protecting us, the orientation promotes a government that is capable and actually provides an agenda of compassion and nurturing policies to assist people, especially those who cannot fend for themselves. The advocates of regulated equality see success as having a corresponding obligation; that is, the expectation that those who are successful are willing to support societal efforts to provide those programs and institutions that genuinely level the playing field, as far as that is possible. Why? Because such a commitment furthers the health of the society by promoting justice as Rawls would have defined it.  It also acknowledges the observation among those advantaged that “there but for the grace of God (or nature), go I.”

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[1] A good overview of John Rawls’ theory of justice can be found in Kukathas, C. and Pettit, P.  (1990).  Rawls:  A theory of justice and its critics.  Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press.

I WANT IT ALL AND I WANT IT NOW

Our next orientation concerning equality also has a long heritage on our American soil.  The lineage can be traced back to the 1600s.  Of the five orientations I am reviewing in these current postings (I have already presented genetic elitism and earned elitism), this orientation does not, in theory, justify inequality.  I say in theory because, as I will explain below, in actuality many argue that it rationalizes existing economic inequalities.  This orientation is known as equal condition or, more descriptively, equal opportunity/unlimited rewards.  Overall, this orientation holds that the individuals who enjoy some superior human asset(s) do so due to their effort – as with the earned elitism orientation – and their assets, if marketed, entitles them to above normal considerations.  The belief goes on to include that such rewards should not be limited other than limitations imposed by the vagaries of the economic or political system in place.  In capitalist societies, that would be the market.  These rewards are purchased and their enjoyment is determined by contractual – therefore, negotiated – provisions of such purchases.  Each party in any contracted arrangement enters its negotiations on an equal basis (equal condition).  This attribute is defined by the provision that all are to be treated equally before the law.

This last point originates from our early colonial history.  According to Daniel N. Robinson, this belief in equal standing before the law is a central component of Calvinist (Puritanical) thinking.  I have often commented in this blog that our belief in equality stems from the notion that all men have the ability to give consent.  More descriptively, we have inherited a strong sense that despite all the inequalities one observes around us – some are tall, some are short, some are smart, some are not so smart, some are rich, some are poor – “God has given each person sufficient reason to comprehend and to accommodate the requirements of natural law, and we must have equal standing with everybody else in an ordered commonwealth.”[1]  This sense of an individual having the wherewithal to deal with the requirements of law has been subject to refinement to the point that today we attribute to the individual all of his legal prerogatives but have dismissed any notion of a commonwealth.  In short, this foundation has come down to us as the natural rights construct which was described and explained previously in this blog.  What’s interesting is that in terms of affecting public policy, this very idea of equal standing had a stronger currency in the colonies before it took on any prominence in the mother country.

In its present form, capitalists find this orientation more to their liking.  Today, it basically means that since we have the right to property and can exploit it, we should go for it – let’s get as much advantage from our property as the law allows.  Let’s play this game of business and let the chips fall where they may.  Here are the beliefs of this orientation:

1.     Some people develop talents and society should reward them according to how much they can legally negotiate.

2.      Those in society who show a higher level of a developed talent should be considered useful and there should not be any preset limit on how much they should be rewarded.  Laws should protect the negotiating power of each participant, individually, in any legal, business transaction.

3.     Tax levels should be kept as low as possible to encourage people to develop and pursue their skills and ambitions.

4.      Standards of morality which a society lives by should not limit a person’s choices or rewards; at least they should not be restricted by law unless absolutely necessary in order to guarantee such opportunities for all.

5.      Poor people are generally those who cannot command enough pay.  That is, they have not developed those skills and knowledge that are in demand by society.  This is generally rectifiable with education and determination.

If you recall what has been explained in this blog about the natural rights construct, I think you would agree that the above set of beliefs fits swimmingly with that construct.  The beliefs rely heavily on liberty as defined by classical liberalism.  They limit their concern over equality to the belief that every individual has equal standing before the law, a distinction that separates it from the earned elitism orientation.  Other than the benefits accrued from accumulated wealth mostly in the form of rents,[2] there are no residual benefits from acquired status in the past.  No one should be treated either with advantages or disadvantages in relation to the law.  All advantages are those that can be and are purchased in a free and legal market.

These beliefs emphasize the interests of the individual.  They have little or nothing to do with the general welfare of society other than to make a somewhat vague argument that this orientation, as history demonstrates, leads to the highest levels of wealth and benefit.  When pushed on this, those who hold these sentiments will argue that an economic system based on this orientation’s beliefs lead to a population with sufficient incentive to generate the most prosperous economy possible.  This means more jobs as more businesses open their doors and hire the help they need.  Whether this result is true is an open question.  Not enough history, I believe, has transpired to responsibly make such a claim.  There are intelligent people who would argue whether or not strict adherence to the orientation leads to the healthiest economy.  The fact is that the more we allow this view of equality to flourish uninhibited, the more we see inequality grow, as the more talented people in business use their skills to eliminate competition which results in concentrated markets (fewer and fewer competitors) among the various industries in the economy.  Some of that activity is geared toward exporting jobs as those who run the large business entities seek cheaper wage rates around the world.  This results in higher degrees of concentrated wealth.  It also undermines the democratic quality within those societies that maintain “free” markets.  For example, in the US, according to G. William Domhoff (Who Rules America?[3]) the richest 25% of the population owns 87% of the wealth.  Former labor secretary Robert Reich warns that such concentrated wealth has curtailed the consumer spending of millions of Americans and is instrumental in keeping the economy from performing satisfactorily.[4]  As for depictions of concentrated wealth, from time to time, the media gives us ample examples of this development as was the case in the TV show, Selling New York.[5]

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[1] Robinson, D. N.  (2004).  American ideals:  Founding a “republic of virtue.” [a transcript booklet] Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company/The Great Courses.  Citation on p. 28.

[2] Rents here refers to any income derived from capital.

[3] Domhoff, G. W.  (2009).  Who rules America? Sixth edition.  New York, NY:  McGraw-Hill.

[4] Secretary Reich makes this point as he is promoting his latest book, Saving Capitalism:  For the Many, Not the Few.

[5] A show broadcast on HGTV network for several years.

A QUALIFIED BELIEF IN INEQUALITY

I want to continue with my review of the different orientations Americans have held concerning equality.  These orientations reflect varying support levels of equality from out and out disdain to total allegiance.  In the last posting, I explained what I am calling genetic elitism; that is, an elitism that basically considers any attempts at establishing equality as a fool’s errand.  For those who espouse this orientation, human talents and skills are genetically determined and therefore an aristocracy based on family lineage is in order.  Such beliefs lead to a caste system in which social positioning is and, it is felt, should be inherited.

The second orientation is what I call earned elitism.  I pointed out earlier that the ideas of genetic elitism were attacked by prominent Americans almost from the start of our nation's history.  I believe that the frontier experience had much to do with the distaste for such thinking.  Unfortunately, for the sake of democracy, the ideal of elitism, perhaps under a different guise, was not seen to be so disagreeable.  The orientation that was most prominently supported was earned elitism.   This orientation promotes what Thomas Jefferson called a natural aristocracy and has a lot of scholarly support, either as a good way to run a society or as a condition that is simply inevitable.  This is not to say that that support is free from challenge. 

People who espouse earned elitism believe that individuals who enjoy superior human assets (generally talents or skills deemed beneficial) do so because of their efforts and hard work.  Some are naturally disposed to exert the necessary effort to become more talented and those talents should be allowed and encouraged to emerge.  If this takes place, they will naturally be recognized by their fellow citizens.  Their superiority generally entitles them to above normal consideration in society in the form of status, wealth, material possessions, etc. This might and usually does, if allowed to materialize, include political privileges. This general entitlement is not based on those “gifted” purchasing the advantages, but instead owed them because of their superior, acknowledged position in society.  The central belief of this orientation is that societies are run by the elites, and that's simply the way things are.

 A good introduction to this view is the textbook, The Irony of Democracy: An Uncommon Introduction to American Politics, by Thomas R. Dye, Harmon Ziegler, and a more recent author than was originally included in its first publication, Louis Schubert.  This book has at least fifteen editions and is used by some college professors as an introductory text in American government courses.[1]  While elitist ideas can be traced all the way back at least to Plato, Vilfredo Pareto (The Mind and Society, 1916) and Gaetano Mosca (The Ruling Class, 1896) wrote influential theoretical books espousing elitist views and are considered the fathers of elitism.  Despite the fact that Mosca argued that elites try to establish hereditary structures of government to assure their advantages, he and Pareto did not argue that genetic advantages were the cause of such social advantages.  They did, though, see elite rule as the natural course of politics.  Other more recent works that use or arrive at an earned elitist view are Community Power Structure (1953) by Floyd Hunter – an analysis of Atlanta, Georgia politics – and The Power Elite (1956) by C. Wright Mills – a national description of elite power among the political, economic, and military institutions.[2]

Let me share a few ideas concerning this view.  I once had a political science professor who told the class that elite theorists were not telling us anything insightful.  Of course, nations, particularly modern ones, were/are mostly controlled by relatively few people.  The structure and complexity of modern life made such arrangements necessary.  In terms of production, communication, distribution, and consumer preferences, large corporations have enormous influence on how we behave and view our social and personal realities.   For example, how much of your political thinking is influenced by the language used in political messages on TV?  Research indicates that political ads on TV have an effect on how the average American views the political conditions at a given time.  While this level of influence might be argued, I accept the assumption that there is an important influential effect.  One needs to look only at how many people, arguably, vote against their interests to give one a strong suspicion that such an effect exists.[3]  And who controls that messaging?  Who pays for those ads?  Well-heeled interests do.  Also, where are our economic centers?  They are in large cities in which large corporations have inordinate influence.  On and on it goes.  This is nothing new; this is nothing surprising.

The questions are:  how should we view this elitist reality?  Are elites simply, as Marxists claim, a result of classes or the wealth distributions of a society?  Or is it better to view the organizational arrangements in a society as reflecting a more complex reality?  That is, we should have an open view that recognizes people having more access to opportunities to attain elitist positions.  Is this a more useful way of seeing how power is achieved and maintained?  These are questions which scholars who adopt elitist theories consider.  In any case, while genetics might contribute some advantages, the general consensus of this orientation is to view elites as individuals who have worked hard and taken advantage of the opportunities the existing system offers.  This description might lead one to confuse this orientation with the one I will next explain, equal condition.  The main differences between earned elitism and equal condition orientations are, one, the more pervasive nature of earned elitism – members of this type of elitism enjoy benefits and deference beyond their area of work.  As members of an aristocratic class, they are attributed a level of deference in all areas of social interactions whereas equal condition limits benefits to those the individual can purchase.  Two, earned elitism has more of a timeless quality; once attained, the person is held in a high level of status and respect.  Under equal condition, the sense is “what have you done for me lately.”  And three, earned elitism is dependent on a particular system's structure to determine how many people will share in the responsibilities of making the political and financial decisions under which the rest of society lives.  Under an equal condition arrangement, there is no presupposed notion of limitation – there is no limit to what one can accomplish.

Under earned elitism orientation, the following beliefs can be listed:

1.     Some people develop highly sophisticated talents and society should hold these people up to higher standards than the rest.  At best this takes on a paternalistic sense of obligation to those not so advantaged.

2.     Those in society who show higher levels of developed talent should be considered exceptional and given more privileges in employment, material rewards, respect, and political position.

3.     When considering which people will advance in the workplace, the number one element to look for is those who have worked hard to develop exceptional talents.

4.     Those who have sacrificed to become geniuses or otherwise talented people should not be judged by the same ethical standards as the rest of us; they operate under a different morality.  For example, society should expect more meaningful contributions from these citizens and, if not attained, that failure should be judged a moral shortcoming.  On the other hand, minor infractions of moral codes, those particularly associated with personal habits and social interactions, should be considered less serious than would be the case in dealing with others.

5.     People who have not worked hard to develop their abilities should be discouraged from having or even seeking influence.

Summarily, earned elitist scholarship analyzes how organizational hierarchies, power holders, and organizational interactions produce the decisions that change society and how the rest of the population, through varied roles, maintains what the elites have arranged.  By focusing on these areas, earned elitist scholars distinguish themselves from Marxist scholars.  Pure Marxist scholars emphasize class and class conflict in their analysis.

There are, therefore, two versions of elitism espoused in our history.  One orientation argued that securing a lofted status in society resulted mainly from genetic factors.  The other orientation, earned elitism, argued that the lofted status should be secured through hard work and taking advantage of the opportunities that life presents.  This latter view was advanced by Thomas Jefferson and John Adams as well as many of our founding elites.  But both orientations see it as natural for those so advantaged to be treated in special ways that align with their superior position in society.  Therefore, these orientations were really justifications for inequality and the views of social realities that result in unequal status among people.

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[1] Dye, T. R., Schubert, L., and Ziegler, H. (2011). The irony of democracy: An uncommon introduction to American politics, 15th edition. Cengage Learning, ISBN: 0495802700. This work argues that in a democracy, as in any society, the population is divided between the few who lead and the many who are led. In order for democracy to survive, the talented few must lead because the many are incapable, either in intelligence or disposition. 

[2]There is some disagreement as to whether Mills is more accurately described as a Marxist than an elitist. One thing both Marxists and elitists agree on is that power in a capitalist society is held by the few.

[3] Wilson, J. Q. and DiIulio, Jr., J. J. (1998). American government: Institutions and politics, seventh edition. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co. Let me quote this source: “Paid commercials [as opposed to news coverage] … especially the shorter spots, often contain a good deal of information that is seen, remembered, and evaluated by the public that is quite capable of distinguishing between fact and humbug,” p. 204.  This salutary notion does not contradict the fact, as we all can attest to, that the constant drumbeat of political messaging during any election season will establish the language of that election.  As to determining who wins, political ads are less efficacious than the spending amounts would lead one to believe.  They seem to make a difference on the margins, but each side cannot just pass on at least spending comparable amounts to the opposing side.  See Farhi, P.  (2012).  Presidential campaign ads are ubiquitous, but do they work?  The Washington Post, June 13, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/presidential-campaign-ads-are-ubiquitous-but-do-they-work/2012/06/13/gJQAqQ7waV_story.html .  As for voting against your interests, the issue is complex.  See Tirado, L.  (2015).  Opinion:  Why the poor vote “against their own interests.”  MSNBC, September 24, http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/opinion-why-the-poor-vote-against-their-own-interests .  In this article, the author reports that there is enough “betraying” of core political principles by both parties that, in turn, favor the rich, to make it difficult to determine which set of politicians actually represents a constituent’s interests.