民主原教旨主义者：对内森·J·罗宾逊的“社会主义作为一套原则的回应
奥利弗·沃特斯 · 2018 年 5 月 22 日
在《时事》杂志上，其编辑内森·J·罗宾逊（Nathan J. Robinson）对现代社会主义者的常见批评做出了回应，即他们的后资本主义制度究竟会是什么样子。 罗宾逊本人是一名坚定的社会主义者，他承认，虽然许多当代社会主义者会拒绝在整个20 世纪以他们的名义实施的特定模式，但很少能找到一个完全清晰的愿景来替代尝试。
但他认为这不一定是问题。 社会主义作为一套原则或理想，对于一个公正的经济和政治体系来说，仍然是有意义的，而不是一张阐明社会主义社会机制如何运作的详细蓝图。 因此，社会主义可以被认为是一个框架，在这个框架内我们可以尝试许多不同类型的政策，而不必教条地坚持某一特定政策。
罗宾逊最初提出的一些定义社会主义的核心价值观确实在直觉上很有吸引力，并且可能受到各种政治派别的人们的普遍接受：
与其他人的联系和同情心。
个人自主权——塑造自己命运的能力。
每个人都尽可能享受最充实的生活。
为社会主义欢呼三声！ 有什么不喜欢的？
当他开始充实第二个原则——个人自主权时，事情就变得有点复杂了。 以“塑造我们自己的命运”的概念为例。 对于罗宾逊来说，这一原则的政治体现无非是“将民主应用于社会生活的各个方面”。
罗宾逊认为，民主不应仅仅局限于公民投票选举政治代表，这是大多数现代自由民主国家的常态。 相反，他坚持认为，我们都应该对影响我们的任何事情拥有民主决策权。 从表面上看，这个原则听起来很有吸引力。 毕竟，谁不想在自己的生活环境中拥有更多的政治权力呢？
然而，这一原则与经济学家布莱恩·卡普兰（Bryan Caplan）所说的“民主原教旨主义”有着惊人的相似之处，并且经过仔细检查发现存在很大问题。 每天，我们的生活都受到远近各色各样的人做出的数千个决定的深刻影响。 我们应该对每项决定拥有政治权力的想法往好里说是行不通的，往坏了说是具有刑事压迫性的。
首先举一个无聊的例子，最近我对亚历克斯·加兰 (Alex Garland) 改编自杰夫·范德米尔 (Jeff VanderMeer) 小说《湮灭》 (Annihilation) 的电影深感失望。 我是否应该与这本书的数千名其他粉丝一起对最终剪辑发表意见？ 很明显不是。 如果我这么做的话，结果可能会更糟。 显然我无权干涉加兰的创作愿景。
如果单纯的审美影响看起来微不足道，那么让我们考虑一个更黑暗的情况。 离婚可能是我们生活中对情感和经济最具破坏性的事件之一。 罗宾逊激进的民主方法似乎要求，由于一个男人的妻子离开他的决定对他影响很大，他应该在这个决定中拥有平等的发言权。 这大概相当于否决权，因为他控制着直接利益相关方 50% 的选票。
事实上，不久前，这还曾是常态。 丈夫必须征得妻子的同意才能离开他。 那么为何不？ 婚姻的破裂不仅会严重影响他的生活，还会影响他的孩子和社区其他人的生活。
我猜想，罗宾逊的进步本能会让他一想到退回到如此压抑、厌恶女性的状态就会感到畏缩。 但尚不清楚为什么这不是他的民主概念的直接应用。
罗宾逊希望根据他的原则得到什么具体结果，这一点已经很清楚了。 他举了两个直观的例子：长期租房者没有出售房产的权利，工厂汽车工人没有是否搬迁的决定权。 罗宾逊认为，这两种情况都存在不公正现象，因为受经济决策影响最严重的人没有法律参与该决策的制定。
当然，现在租房者或汽车工人希望有更多的权力来指导影响他们的决策。 但如果财产倒塌或公司破产，他们是否也想分担法律和财务责任？
这就涉及到关键问题：“民主原教旨主义”赋予人们自动参与决策的权利，只要他们仅仅受到决策的影响。 这一原则的倡导者需要小心一个古老的问题，即如何准确地得到他们想要的东西。
权利和责任是同一枚硬币的两面，如果你拥有决定权，你也要对该决定的结果负责。
自由民主国家的一个关键原则是，我们在所有非政府组织内的个人决策与我们自愿承担的责任水平成正比。 至关重要的是，为了在组织中拥有任何决策权，您必须自愿与该组织签订协议。 这一原则恰恰可以保护您免受未经您同意而强加于您的义务。
如果您希望建立一个系统，让个人自动获得在组织内行使决策权的权利，那么您就要求一个系统，让人们自动承担相应的责任。 这是个人自主和自由的对立面。 这是对封建时代的回归，人们发现自己生来就陷入了一系列不可避免的法律纠葛，这些法律纠葛是由一个人在社会中任意的起始地位所决定的。 这就是莱谢克·科瓦科夫斯基（Leszek Ko?akowski）的短语“强迫下的博爱”的含义，罗宾逊在他的文章中引用了这句话，作为对过去社会主义政权的恰当描述。
要么罗宾逊没有考虑到这些后果，要么他认为在自由主义、主要是资本主义的体系下，更糟糕的结果是合理的。 他表示担心，如果不从根本上扩大民主的范围，个人自愿交易（即自由市场）必然会导致最富有的人决定其他人的命运。 但他在这里投射了实际上是政府特征的自由市场属性。
在政治进程中，那些拥有最大权力的人确实常常最终独家决定如何分配大量资源。 但在市场中，最终决定公司生产什么以及生产多少的是消费者。 他们的日常小决定单独来看似乎无能为力，但总的来说却是决定性的。
企业寻求满足消费者的需求和欲望，这意味着较不富裕的人最终仍能得到服务，因为企业可以通过向更多人销售更便宜但有效的产品来赚取巨额利润。 苏丹电气工程师穆罕默德·易卜拉欣通过在贫困的非洲国家销售手机赚了数十亿美元，并被誉为“改变了非洲大陆”。 另一方面，政客有动机将其政策“推销”给社会中最响亮、最有影响力的利益集团。 这就是我们最终得到浪费和不公正的玉米、糖和煤炭补贴的原因，更不用说全面的国际贸易战了。
在自由资本主义体系中，群众还可以通过直接的社会活动向公司施加压力。 现在正是谴责公司不道德行为并号召相关公民抵制或撤资的最佳时机。 随着社交媒体的出现，个人影响公司声誉和利润的力量呈指数级增长。
因此，罗宾逊担心自由市场民主不会对公民的选择做出反应，这种担心是多余的。 然而，这并不是要低估市场中出现的需要民主政治行动来解决的经典协调问题，例如市场失灵和外部性。
罗宾逊的民主原教旨主义的明智替代方案是古典自由主义的民主概念。 在这种思想传统中，民主是一种相当生硬的机制，旨在确保社会中的少数群体不能奴役大多数人。 它是许多压迫性政府形式的强大溶剂，例如君主制、寡头政治、种姓制度、神权政治等。
正如哲学家卡尔·波普尔所说，民主的主要功能是使社会能够在不流血的情况下罢免坏领导人。 因此，它绝对必要，但还远远不足以保证开放和繁荣社会的许多要素，例如自由和理性的话语、少数群体的权利以及对个人自治的保护。 这种较薄弱的民主概念与资本主义生产体系完全兼容，并且不会产生像罗宾逊那样的荒谬。
它在实践中也有效。 尽管罗宾逊真正关心资本主义下经济权力的集中，但他似乎忽视了这样一个历史事实：最强大的现代民主国家出现在以资本主义为主的社会中。 英国、美国、加拿大、澳大利亚等国家对普通劳动者私有财产权的保护相对较强，使得劳动者的劳动权利相对广泛。
The Democratic Fundamentalist: A Response to Nathan J. Robinson's "Socialism as a Set of Principles:
Oliver Waters· May 22, 2018Over at Current Affairs, its editor Nathan J. Robinson has laid out his response to a common critique of modern socialists, namely what exactly their post-capitalist system will look like. A committed socialist himself, Robinson concedes that while many contemporary socialists would reject the specific models implemented in their name throughout the 20th century, it’s rare to find a fully articulated vision of what to try instead.
But he argues that this isn’t necessarily a problem. Socialism can still be meaningful as a set of principles or ideals, for a just economic and political system, rather than a detailed blueprint spelling out how the mechanics of socialist society would work. Socialism can thus be thought of as a framework within which we can experiment with lots of different kinds of policies, without dogmatically clinging to one set in particular.
Robinson’s initial formulation of some core values defining socialism are indeed intuitively attractive and likely to be universally embraced by people of all political persuasions:
- Connectedness and compassion with other human beings.
- Personal autonomy — the ability to shape your own destiny.
- Everyone enjoying the most fulfilling life possible.
Three cheers for socialism! What’s not to like?
It’s when he starts to flesh out the second principle — personal autonomy — that things get a little more complicated. Take the notion of “shaping our own destinies.” For Robinson, the political manifestation of this principle is nothing short of “the application of democracy to all aspects of social life.”
Robinson argues that democracy should not just be constrained to citizens voting for political representatives, as is the norm in most modern liberal democracies. He maintains instead that we should all have democratic decision-making power over anything that affects us. On its surface, this principle sounds appealing. After all, who wouldn’t want more political power over their life circumstances?
This principle however bears a striking similarity to what the economist Bryan Caplan has termed “democratic fundamentalism,” and turns out to be highly problematic upon closer inspection. Every day, our lives are profoundly affected by thousands of decisions made by all kinds of people, near and far. The idea that we should have political power over each of those decisions is at best unworkable, and at worst, criminally oppressive.
To begin with a frivolous example, I was recently profoundly disappointed by Alex Garland’s film adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel Annihilation. Should I have had a say over the final cut, along with thousands of other fans of the book? Obviously not. It probably would have turned out to be far worse if I had. Clearly I had no right to interfere with Garland’s creative vision.
If mere aesthetic impact seems trivial, let’s consider a darker case. A divorce can be one of the most emotionally and economically damaging events of our lives. Robinson’s radically democratic approach seems to mandate that since the decision of a man’s wife to leave him affects him greatly, he ought to have an equal say in the decision. This presumably amounts to a right to veto it, since he controls 50% of the vote of directly interested parties.
Indeed not too long ago, this used to be the norm. A husband had to give his consent for his wife to leave him. And why not? Not only his life, but the lives of his children, and others in his community, would stand to be profoundly affected by the break-up of the marriage.
I’m assuming Robinson’s progressive instincts would make him cringe at the thought of regressing to such an oppressive, misogynistic state of affairs. But it’s unclear why it’s not a straightforward application of his conception of democracy.
It’s clear enough what specific outcomes Robinson desires as a consequence of his principle. He raises two intuition-pumping examples: long-term home renters having no rights regarding the sale of the property, and factory auto-workers having no decision-rights over whether it is relocated. Robinson’s view is that an injustice occurs in both of these cases, as those most severely affected by the economic decision have no legal involvement in the making of that decision.
Now of course the renters or auto-workers would like more power to direct the decision-making affecting them. But do they also want to share legal and financial liability if the property collapses or the company goes bankrupt?
This gets to the crucial issue: “democratic fundamentalism” grants people rights to be involved in decision-making automatically, so long as they are merely affected by a decision. Advocates of the principle need to be careful of the age-old problem of getting exactly what they wish for.
Rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin, and if you possess the right to decide, you are also responsible for the outcome of that decision.
A key principle in liberal democracies is that our individual decision-making within all non-governmental organisations is proportional to the level of responsibility we have voluntarily adopted. Crucially, in order to have any decision-making power in an organisation, you must have voluntarily entered into an agreement with that organisation. This principle is precisely what protects you from obligations forced upon you without your consent.
If you wish for a system where individuals are automatically granted rights to exercise decision-making within an organisation, you’re asking for a system in which people are automatically burdened with corresponding responsibilities. This is the antithesis of individual autonomy and freedom. It is a reversion to feudal times, where one found oneself born into a set of inescapable legal entanglements, defined by one’s arbitrary starting position in society. It is the meaning of Leszek Ko?akowski’s phrase “fraternity under compulsion,” which Robinson cites in his article as an apt description of past socialist regimes.
Either Robinson hasn’t thought through these consequences, or he thinks they are justified by worse outcomes under a liberal, largely capitalist system. He expresses the fear that without radically expanding democracy’s scope, individual voluntary transactions (i.e. a free market) necessarily lead to the wealthiest deciding what happens for everyone else. But here is he projecting onto the free market attributes that in fact characterize government.
In political processes, those who have the most power do indeed often end up exclusively deciding how vast amounts of resources are allocated. But in a market, it is consumers who ultimately decide what companies produce, and how much. Their small daily decisions may seem powerless in isolation, but are definitive in aggregate.
Businesses seek to satisfy consumer needs and desires, which means the less wealthy still end up being serviced because businesses stand to make a huge amount of money selling cheaper but effective products to larger numbers of people. The Sudanese electrical engineer Mohammed Ibrahim made billions selling mobile phones in impoverished African countries, and has been credited with “transforming a continent.” A politician, on the other hand, has an incentive to “sel” his policies to the loudest, most influential interest groups in a society. This is how we end up with wasteful and unjust corn, sugar and coal subsidies, not to mention full-blown international trade wars.
The masses can also pressure companies via direct social activism in a liberal capitalist system. There’s never been a better time to call out companies for unethical behaviour and rally your fellow concerned citizens to boycott or divest. The power of an individual to affect a company’s reputation and bottom-line has grown exponentially with the advent of social media.
Robinson’s fear that a liberal market democracy is not responsive to citizens’ choices is therefore overblown. This is not to discount however the classic coordination problems that emerge in markets that require democratic political action to resolve, such as market failures and externalities.
The sensible alternative to Robinson’s democratic fundamentalism is the classical liberal conception of democracy. In this tradition of thought, democracy is a rather blunt mechanism for ensuring that a minority group in a society cannot enslave the majority. It serves as a powerful solvent for many oppressive forms of government, such as monarchies, oligarchies, caste systems, theocracies and so on.
As the philosopher Karl Popper put it, democracy’s primary function is to enable a society to remove bad leaders without bloodshed. It is thus absolutely necessary, but far from sufficient to guarantee many of the elements of an open and prosperous society, such as free and rational discourse, rights for minorities, and protection of individual autonomy. This thinner concept of democracy is fully compatible with a capitalist system of production, and doesn’t produce the same absurdities that Robinson’s does.
It also works in practice. For all of Robinson’s genuine concern with the concentration of economic power under capitalism, he seems ignorant of the historical fact that the most robust modern democracies arose in predominantly capitalist societies. The relatively strong protections of private property rights for ordinary workers in countries like the UK, US, Canada and Australia helped to enable a relatively wide dispersal of property ownership. With ordinary citizens having genuine control over their parcel of resources, they were able to command greater political representation, and put up strong resistance to would-be dictators appropriating all their hard-earned wealth. Indeed, this general historical trajectory from capitalist economies to universal political enfranchisement undermines the central socialist claim that capitalism is fundamentally in tension with democracy.
To be fair, Robinson’s call for a rational, sensible alternative to the nightmares of 20thcentury socialism should be welcomed. But as always, the devil is in the details. His clarification of what he means by “experimenting” with socialist economic models doesn’t exactly reassure:
“Experimentation doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be bold. It just means constantly checking to make sure you’re upholding the principles.”
Note that Robinson doesn’t say “constantly check to make sure your predictions are coming true,” or that “the empirical evidence supports your principles.” He advocates pursuing socialist principles. Period. Regardless of their consequences.
The problem is that his principles are mistaken. It’s just a question of how many more “broken eggs” will convince him to abandon that ever-elusive omelette.
Written by Oliver Waters
