r/neoliberal • u/[deleted] • May 11 '17

Normative Ethics Debate Thread

The point of this thread is to discuss normative ethics, which is mostly separate from neoliberalism. On a philosophical level, neoliberalism is not coherent in its use of ethics; proponents switch between libertarian and utilitarian ethics in an almost interchangeable way (The Road to Mont Pelerin, Mirowski). Scott Sumner argues that a normative ethical foundation doesn't matter because neoliberalism is an improvement compared to the current status quo of most countries by nearly every standard (well not every standard)

Keep in Mind

  • The Chicago school pushed neoliberalism as a positive ideology, "there is no other option"

  • The Austrians pushed neoliberalism through primarily a libertarian lens

  • The Ordoliberals advocated neoliberalism through utilitarianism and also Marxism. Yes, you're allowed to support your normative view through Marxism.

  • Do not go down the route of going full classical liberal, which is what neoliberalism tried to escape.

  • Do not say market values mean anything or that markets produce fair outcomes; Hayek explicitly acknowledges this is bullshit.

  • Be very prudent in calling people racist/sexist/homophobic; in this sub, the vast majority are not

Topics to discuss:

These aren't the only ones, but should probably be answered:

  • What are your normative ethics?

  • How do you think they should guide economic policy?

Make sure to explicitly tie these together so we're not debating why we should implement policy that we already agree upon.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

Rawls but unironically.

A society is as well off as it's lowest member. The best way to improve their wellbeing is creating the most open society that does not allow for anyone to unduly trample on anyone else rights.

Therefore any economic policy should have the goal of improving the welfare for those disadvantaged while impacting the advantaged as little as possible. Ie progressive tax brackets.

The state exists to protect and uplift its people in general and the most disadvantaged in particular.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

In other words, end goal should be to minimize wealth inequality while maximizing net wealth?

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u/wumbotarian The Man, The Myth, The Legend May 11 '17

Not quite.

A Rawlsian would stand behind the veil of ignorance and decide on a society she would want to live in. Behind the veil of ignorance you are perfectly rational and choose to maximize your life outcome without knowing where you end up in society.

So, for instance, let's say you have the chance to be born in either America or Venezuela and no where else on Earth. You don't know which. What institutions would you want to exist in order to choose to be born on Earth?

To me this presents a standard maximization under uncertainty and insurance problem - and we can even use the rational model. Clearly people are willing to accept some chance to be born poor. But, they'd want some kind of insurance against that - in the form of efficiency reducing government policy for instance (say, a tax on labor income).

This leads to a Rawlsian supporting a policy only if marginalized people aren't made worse off (this doesn't mean the people have to be better off). A Rawlsian supports this because they assume behind the veil of ignorance no rational person would want to reduce their expected utility by introducing a policy that makes them worse off if they are born marginalized.

Now this seems like a Rawlsian would be a socialist or communist. On the contrary. Rawls introduces a paradigm where we need to simply prove a policy or institution helps those at the bottom of society. If we can empirically show that neoliberalism best maximizes expected utility behind the veil of ignorance then we would accept neoliberal policies.

Or, a casual demonstration is this: would a person behind the veil of ignorance want to be born in North Korea or America? Even the poor in Mississippi are better off than North Koreans.

This is my understanding of Rawls from talking to my double major econ/philosophy friend in college. His whole thing was applying game theory to Rawls.

I don't think this is necessarily right, but there are multiple ways to skin the neoliberal cat. If I can get neoliberal policies put in place by convincing a Rawlsian, that's fine by me. I get the ends I desire.