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| Ethical Perspectives |
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| Due Respect, the Morality of the Welfare State |
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Fred Groh |
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Ashgate, Aldesrshot- 1998 |
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The title of this volume suggests little, if anything, about the stance that will be defended here. It was therefore a bit of a surprise for me to find such non-conventional (although the author may not quite agree) theorizing about an institution such as the welfare state, in which its very existence is questioned. It is interesting to see with how much vigour, and, indeed, strong argumentation, the conservative author lashes out against the basic ideas that liberalism `provides' for the `welfare state'. It would have been interesting as well if the conservative point of view had been based on more than a vague concept such as individual sovereignty. However, after a thorough reading of this book, I failed to find a clear answer about what exactly the conservative wants, apart from being `left alone'.
The author cannot be labeled dishonest: right from page 2 he states his position that “basic liberalism and its welfare state are to be rejected for moral reasons.” His basic argument runs like this: The welfare state is a liberal institution. Liberalism is grounded on four basic but faulty principles. These four principles are: 1) incompleteness of the individual (the `incompleteness principle'), 2) priority of society's interests over individuals' (the `communitarian principle'), 3) the superiority of democratic decision-making processes (the `democratic principle', ultimately and inevitably leading to the conception of the `welfare state'), and, 4) primacy of basic needs as the basis for personal welfare fulfilment (the `basic needs principle).
The structure of the remainder of the book is inspired by the author's argumentation against each of these principles. In chapters 5 and 6, the author establishes his own `moral alternative' to basic liberalism. In chapter 7 we find his argumentation and in chapters 8 to 10 we find his analysis of the `problem' of the welfare state and how to deal with it in a conservative setting.
The fundamental point of departure for the analysis is that each person is an individual self. In this sense, liberal ideas hardly form a credible basis on which society can be built, society meaning a network of mutual obligations and rules for `how to treat people who have things we want'. The basic question then becomes `would liberal society best serve self-interest?' The author clearly contests this idea and tries, by way of not always equally convincing `arguments', to defeat any argument he feels the liberal puts forward as if it lay in the natural order of things. First, the liberal concept of self-interest in the sense of personal well-being `uncritically considered' is considered too vague a concept.
Secondly, the liberal democratic principle is criticized for severely limiting personal freedom, hence damaging the concept of personal well-being uncritically considered. The only possible rationale for accepting a restraint on self-determination in the liberal system may be for welfare reasons. However, since the liberal welfare state rests ultimately on fulfilling the basic needs principle, we should check whether this principle has any significance. According to Groh, the basic needs argument is false and constantly conflicts with the will to determine one's life in an autonomous way. Individual sovereignty is sacred, and no statements can be made in advance as to what constitutes a good life for everyone alike.
The communitarian principle should be dispensed with because of its possibly negative consequences. The author refers to extracts from Hitler's Mein Kampf to substantiate this statement: “The conclusion (...) is not that liberal ideas necessarily led to the Hitler phenomena, but that the Hitler phenomena embody liberal ideas. Of course the appropriate circumstances must be added in order to have the events. But nothing else is needed.” The author forgets that unintentionally (or intentionally?) the status quo may also entail negative results. It is also a mystery to me as to how the author would plan on defending the Jewish population against the holocaust in his conservative view, if we accept at full his egoistic standpoint. In his view, what could stop anyone from trying to eradicate another population? And, also, “why should we not be allowed to eradicate whoever we like?”
The alternative the author presents against liberalism in chapter 5 is what he calls `ethical egoism'. In making his claim for egoism, he distinguishes an objective definition, and a more comprising subjective definition. Self-esteem should be a `determining factor' in the right way to live and `one ought always to think and act as required by the goodness his life has for him.
The welfare state fails in meeting the self-interest condition to which all human behaviour is supposed to respond. The author proves this by starting from a more or less ad hoc presumption: “I believe that others have a moral right to be let alone by the actor and that what he may do or is to do in the name of self-interest is to be determined accordingly, and then to look for justified exceptions.” These exceptions reduce to: 1) vital needs or desires, 2) situations in which there is uncertainty as to the effect of the act on the sovereignty of the others, and 3) circumstances created by someone else violating the right. In either case, the author shows there is no justification for expropriation, which is the ultimate means the welfare state falls back on.
So, self-interest should be the general orientation for a person's life and individual sovereignty the general principle for moral rights.
Groh then attempts to establish a practical guide enabling each individual to have a good life. But this individual has to meet certain requirements which, in my view, are very constraining, if not unreal. They are to be normally informed, intelligent, rational, and physically capable adults. In this view, the individual for whom Groh prescribes a given set of rules to live by, is sovereign not only with respect to his or her own wishes and longings, but also with respect to whatever goal he or she may pursue, be it good or damaging to oneself. The liberal view, according to which the individual is inherently incomplete, is completely dispensed with by Groh.
The remainder of the book goes deeper into this notion of self-direction. Chapter 8 goes into the issue of the `alleged helplessness or incompleteness of the individual'. Chapter 9 focuses on the successful self-management of an individualist morality in problems of everyday life. Chapter 10 deals with the helping problem, the issue as to whether it is our moral duty to help the poor. Here lies the core of the book, or at least ought to lie the core, because it is the most vaguely written of all chapters.
The author sees several moral and empirical constraints on `acceptable' liberal anti-poverty plans. He sees no real reason why one should feel the poverty problem is the worst of all troubles in life. Again it is clear that the author rejects every possible way of political decision-making and favours nothing but the status quo. Furthermore, liberal policies and programmes cause, perpetuate and aggravate privation in certain cases. The author refers to the adverse employment effects of minimum wage legislation. Finally and most essentially, according to Groh, since the basic needs principle fails, one can not be forced to help the poor. Groh proposes as an alternative to help those who are poor but talented or hard working. And then one automatically bumps into the free market solution. “What should be done for the poor? The economy should be set free (...). That is the principal action that should be taken at the societal level. At the individual level, there is nothing to prevent any person, including the liberal, from doing as much for the poor as he wants to.”
So, the author asserts, there are many different ways the egoist/individualist can give to the poor. One such mechanism is the parent-child relationship. But outside the family, helping is understandable if a gift is sufficiently profitable to the benefactor, or may coincidentally increase the receptor's gain without decreasing the benefactor's well-being. The author acknowledges that the gift from the benefactor will heavily depend on the amount of similarity between both benefactor and receptor, irrelevant to the poverty issue. As long as people have a project in life, which Groh assumes everybody has, nothing should deter them from reaching for this goal, and responsible, normal adults will of their own accord provide insurance against the contingencies of life. In this way they never have to rely on gifts.
In a final and presumably conclusive argument, the author centres on what he feels constitutes the real difference between liberals and conservatives regarding the helping problem. The difference does not lie in the syllogistic reasoning behind the egoist's benevolence, nor in the presence or absence of benevolent feelings, nor even in the fact that the liberal incessantly finds new projects to finance, forever laying heavier sacrifices on some or other group in society, but, according to Groh, in the liberal wanting self-sacrifice `for its own sake'. So, the poverty problem in the liberal discussion reduces to this: “(...) given that the individual has a moral obligation to sacrifice and harm himself in order to help the poor, how can we be sure he will meet this obligation if we do not use government to make sure he does?” The answer according to Groh: “(...) is that there is no such moral obligation in the first place.”
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Erik Schokkaert |
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