A missing word

by Chris Bertram on October 10, 2005

I’m just back from Germany where I’ve been to a very interesting interdisciplinary workshop at the University of Bremen ‘s Sonderforschungsbereich “Staatlichkeit im Wandel”:http://www.staatlichkeit.uni-bremen.de/ on Trade Governance, Democracy and Inequality. As usual in such cases, the bringing together of philosophers and practitioners was both stimulating and revealing of how little we know about one another. Starting my own, basically normative, paper, I asserted that a central purpose of trade rules should be to promote justice. I was informed that “justice” was one word that would never pass the lips of a WTO negotiator. Which, doesn’t show, of course, either that I’m wrong about what should happen or that concerns about justice aren’t lurking in the shadows somewhere. But it suggests a startling disconnect between the public rhetoric about global inequality and the concerns at the negotiating table.

{ 34 comments }

1

Matt 10.10.05 at 2:40 pm

Chris,
Despite this, though, something that’s arguably related to justice is behind much trade policy- the idea of cooperation for mutual advantage. And, many aspects of trade law seem designed to protect something like justice, or closely related virtues- national treatment and most favored nation provisions, for example. I certainly don’t want to defend all or even most of current policy, but it’s not as if none of these issues are considered- they are just not the stated goal, any more than the parties in the original position set out w/ justice as their goal. (There are obviously massive differences between a trade negotiation round and the original position, but there are some similarities, too.) But, to my mind much work by philosophers on the area looks silly becuase it’s so poorly informed as to what happens (I’m not making a remark about you here.) This greatly limits its ability to be effective- it looks too much like phiosophy of science done by philosophers who know nothing about science. So, I encourage philosophers who want to work in the area to get down and dirty with the details of trade law (and other international law) if they want their work to be taken seriously and to be effective. (Again, I’m not saying anything about your paper in particular, just much of the normative work in the area which, I think, shows an obvious lack of knowledge of the field being discussed.)

2

Bob B 10.10.05 at 5:05 pm

If my admittedly uneven career experience is anything to go by, political strictures on trade policy often come from sources unhampered by a burdensome knowledge of trade theory.

There is nothing inherently irrational in claiming considerations of justice or equity trump considerations of economic gain – the logic of trade-offs between equity and efficiency gains were extensively analysed in Ian Little’s justly celebrated Critique of Welfare Economics (1957) – but the basics of Ricardo’s insight into comparative advantage are apt to be brushed aside even though the essentials are quite straight forward:

If a car exchanges for 20K TV sets in country A and 25 TV sets in country B, there is a profitable gain to be made by exporting a car from country A to country B and selling it there to purchase 25K TV sets for import back into country A. The outcome is a net gain of 5K TV sets – and doubtless an argument about how that gain is distributed. However, it verges on the absurd to suggest that the potential gain should not be realised if the argument about distribution is not settled in the “correct” way.

JS Mill, an exponent of the benefits of free trade, recognised two valid exceptions to the case made: (a) establishing infant industries and (b) the optimum tariff argument when the scale of a country’s exports or imports is sufficiently large to affect its international terms of trade.

3

stormy 10.10.05 at 6:25 pm

Justice has nothing to do with how the financial world runs.

If that were so, the WTO would be paying attention to labor and environmental regulations. Nothing like keep cheap labor cheap.

4

stormy 10.10.05 at 6:39 pm

Ah yes…how Delphi makes sure its executives are fine..but…

“Workers were particularly embittered when Delphi made an 11th-hour move, a day ahead of its filing, to sweeten substantially the severance packages available to 21 top managers. The company said it was a necessary step to retain executives”

Now there is corporate justice. Take a long hard look at its reality.

5

lemuel pitkin 10.10.05 at 7:23 pm

the basics of Ricardo’s insight into comparative advantage

.. which explicitly rules out the possibility of capital flows.

it verges on the absurd to suggest that the potential gain should not be realised if the argument about distribution is not settled in the “correct” way.

Really?

Suppose a trade deal reduces the price of a TV by $10 a set, and results in the closure of domestic manufactuers with 10,000 employees. It “verges on the absurd” to ask if the tradeoff is worth it? It “verges on the absurd” for those workers to insist on compensation as a condition of the deal. (If the efficiency gains are real, what’s the obstacle?) It “verges on the absurd” to ask if liberalization will improve welfare as well as increase national income? It “verges on the absurd” to think that preserving a country’s industrial base is a legitimate goal of policy?

6

Matt 10.10.05 at 7:36 pm

Lemuel,

I fully agree with the sentiment you express- that if the gains from trade are real then those that lose inside a country should expect compensation. But, it’s important to see that that’s a principle of domestic justice and has nothing in particular to do w/ trade policy. It’s exactly the same rule that would apply from changes in the domestic market.

7

jp 10.10.05 at 10:41 pm

most law dealing directly with economics is about producing more goods, not about justice, not about distribution of the more goods created.

according to free market theory, resources are supposed to go where they are most valued. however, what many economists fail to remember is that “where most valued” means where valued AND the valuers have the ability to pay for what they value more.

many people value things highly, but have no ability to pay (starving poor people may value food highly, but without the ability to pay for the food, the food resources will not flow to them). confusion between value and ability to pay for what one values (money) permeates free market theory.

it is crazy that we make exceptions* to free market principles with the argument that the interference will produce more goods (sometimes more jobs) than would have been produced without the interference, but still ignore any call for redistribution of the greater wealth created by the interference.

(*exceptions include: interference because of market failure, market control issues, intellectual property, and the creation of corporations to name a few.)

8

Tracy W 10.10.05 at 10:46 pm

To follow-up on Matt’s post, while 10,000 employees may be laid off in country A, if country B is expanding production that much then it could be taking on 10,000 employees (assuming a linear relationship between TVs produced and employees).

One of the problems of applying justice to trade theories is that there isn’t a generally agreed way to decide that if person A loses and person B gains, what that means in terms of justice. Person A’s family and person B’s family tend to have vastly different assessments. For example, there are people in NZ and Australia who believe that the USA was evil in applying tariffs to protect its own sheep farmers against NZ and Australian competitors.

Philosophers might be well occupied in trying to come up with a way of weighting people’s outcomes in a way that commands near-universal agreement, though I think it is an endeavour that has low odds of success.

9

mel n 10.10.05 at 11:32 pm

tracy w,
justice is getting what is one due.

philosophers disagree on what a person is due, however, for free traders, what one is due is what one get through voluntary trading. this would be fine if exceptions were not made to the rules of voluntary trading.

as jp pointed out, intellectual property and corporations are made be government coercion (like tariffs and subsidies, inconsistent with free market rules). so those things distort incentives and investment and consumption flows. those distortions often lead to a more severe concentration of wealth, but are never addressed by free market philosophers.

the justice that depends upon voluntary trading disappears in the exceptions to the rules.

10

Dan Simon 10.10.05 at 11:44 pm

Starting my own, basically normative, paper, I asserted that a central purpose of trade rules should be to promote justice.

Why justice? Why not, say, romance?

11

Sebastian Holsclaw 10.10.05 at 11:57 pm

Why not, say, trade? At least trade can sometimes get you a pony.

I’m not even sure what ‘justice’ means in this context. At least as good as some cosmic idea of ‘justice’ is a hugely better economy for poor countries than they currently have. That is almost certainly a more attainable aim than cosmic justic and free trade can usually help with the better economy thing.

12

djw 10.11.05 at 12:55 am

Sebastian, I have no doubt that a ‘hugely better economy’ for impovershed countries is a big part of most any theory of justice. Generally, when we goofy political theorists talk about “justice” as it applies to policy, trade or otherwise, we’re generally talking about policies that make the world a more just place than it is right now, rather than instantly and perfectly recreating the world as an injustice-free zone.

I’m not sure what rhetorical purpose inserting the word “cosmic”, appropos of nothing, in front of the word justice is supposed to accomplish, other than to make it seem silly in a new-agey kind of way. I’ll have to remember that trick.

13

Dan Simon 10.11.05 at 1:24 am

Generally, when we goofy political theorists talk about “justice” as it applies to policy, trade or otherwise, we’re generally talking about policies that make the world a more just place than it is right now, rather than instantly and perfectly recreating the world as an injustice-free zone.

I think the source of confusion here is the use of the word, “policy”. Trade agreements aren’t really policy, in the sense that, say, domestic economic regulations are. The latter are instituted by governments within their own countries, in the context of a particular political order. The former, on the other hand, are entered into by groups of national governments in the context of a kind of global “state of nature”. This context includes none of the standard mechanisms by which governments formulate and impose policies, nor any of the host of inherent incentives–beyond coldly calculated short-to-medium-term material gain–with which to entice the parties involved to abide by them. Speaking about “justice” in this context is about as meaningful as speaking about justice among the fauna of the jungle.

Of course, innumerable political theorists like to believe that because people seem naturally inclined to exit the jungle, form orderly societies, and embrace ideals of justice, therefore nations can, will, and ought to do the same. Personally, though, I see far more similarity between individual humans and individual jungle-dwelling mammals than between individual humans and individual nations.

14

Chris Bertram 10.11.05 at 1:55 am

Why justice? Why not, say, romance?

Well put it this way, justice is about making sure people get what they are entitled to, that their rights are respected etc. As such, it is something that I owe to all human beings, whatever my personal feelings about them, and it is something that all social institutions ought to be guided by. Romance, on the other hand ….

Of course, there is wide disagreement about what people’s rights are. But if, for example, people have a right that institutions not be put in place that avoidably condemn them to severe poverty, and if some possible trade regimes would do this, then there’s a role for talk about justice.

15

Dan Simon 10.11.05 at 2:57 am

Well put it this way, justice is about making sure people get what they are entitled to, that their rights are respected etc. As such, it is something that I owe to all human beings, whatever my personal feelings about them, and it is something that all social institutions ought to be guided by. Romance, on the other hand ….

All social institutions? Musical theater, for instance?

I assume you see what I’m getting at: wanting “justice” (assuming one even has a good definition of it) is not the same as considering it a good goal for any particular social institution. As I explained above, I don’t even consider trade agreements between national governments to be “social institutions” in the normal sense, let alone ones that “ought to be guided by” some notion of justice.

16

Chris Bertram 10.11.05 at 3:25 am

Sure musical theatre ought to be guided by justice: it should not be used to promote the values of the Ku Klux Klan, nor ought theatre companies to discriminate unfairly against would-be members. I could go on, but I guess you’ll see the picture.

17

soru 10.11.05 at 8:30 am

Surely, in order to talk about Justice, you need a King, or at least a King-shaped object?

Who’s King of the World?

soru

18

Tim Worstall 10.11.05 at 8:52 am

Justice in trade policy? Would be interesting to see. The end of import tariffs for example, as they impoverish (avoidably condemn to ….poverty… C.B.) those upon whom they are imposed. The end of export subsidies as they impoverish those who pay for them.

Absent the (controversial?) idea of trade immiseration justice in trade policy might actually mean free trade. Fine by me.

19

Chris Bertram 10.11.05 at 8:58 am

Good Tim! You and I certainly don’t agree about everything that justice requires, but we can agree that the CAP, protection for US cotton producers etc., impose an unjust burden on developing country producers and would-be producers and should therefore be scrapped.

20

lemuel pitkin 10.11.05 at 1:20 pm

Surely, in order to talk about Justice, you need a King, or at least a King-shaped object? Who’s King of the World?

This weekend I just read Tom Geoghegan’s new pamphlet The Law in Shambles. It’s an excellent little book, but some passages I thought went a little too far, verged on hysteria. Like this:

I could say they [the new right] think government is illegitimate. But it’s really worse than that. They think everything is arbitrary and illegitimate. It’s all subjective. When people like me talk about the good and the true, they stick their tongues out at us….

In the schools, right and left line up in such a different way than we do in the courts. In the courts, we on the left beleive in the moral absolutes and the nagels of our better nature, while people on the righ take the side of the prison guards an torturers and say that everything is relative.

As I say, I thoguht he was maybe painting with too broad a brush. But no, as soru shows, he’s got it exactly right.

21

Dan Simon 10.11.05 at 3:20 pm

Sure musical theatre ought to be guided by justice: it should not be used to promote the values of the Ku Klux Klan, nor ought theatre companies to discriminate unfairly against would-be members.

These claims are much more controversial than you make them out to be. Should Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation”, for instance, not have been made, because it portrays the Ku Klux Klan sympathetically? How about “The English Patient”, a film which eulogizes a fictional romantic hero who collaborates with the Nazis out of love? Should all artistic considerations really take a back seat to “justice”?

More generally, saying that justice is an overriding moral imperative that ought to govern everything in a general way, says nothing about its relevance to the details of pursuing specific activities. For example, we might agree that the proving of mathematical theorems is an activity that should be pursued in an overall just manner–granting credit where due, for instance. But I’d hope we’d also agree that considerations of justice have little guidance to offer regarding the pursuit of the activity itself. Likewise, one might believe that delegates to an international trade negotiation should refrain from murdering each other, treat their colleagues fairly, and so on. But that doesn’t mean that justice ought to be prominent in the substance of their negotiations. Do you have an argument for why it should?

22

engels 10.11.05 at 4:13 pm

I knew that “Justice” was going to come in for bashing one of these days. Scepticism about human rights is so last season.

23

Chris Bertram 10.12.05 at 1:45 am

Likewise, one might believe that delegates to an international trade negotiation should refrain from murdering each other, treat their colleagues fairly, and so on. But that doesn’t mean that justice ought to be prominent in the substance of their negotiations. Do you have an argument for why it should?

Those negotiations are about what the terms of co-operation among human beings linked through a global division of labour should be. So just about as central a case for the virtue of justice to apply as anywhere. If you want an argument based on some _further_ consideration beyond justice (such as rational self-interest) that explains why justice applies to such a case then one can’t be given, since the imperative to justice is basic rather than derivative.

Rawls, to name but him, addresses his arguments not to the moral sceptic, but to the person who already has a commitment to justice but wants to know what it requires. Frankly, I doubt that there’s anything that can be said to people like you, Dan.

24

Chris Bertram 10.12.05 at 1:46 am

And “Birth of a Nation” shouldn’t have been made. Which isn’t to say that anyone should have stopped it being made, nor that it doesn’t have valuable aesthetic properties.

25

Durutti 10.12.05 at 4:30 am

All things being equal, trade is to be considered a social good; as Adam Smith argued, wealth is created every time an exchange occurs because both parties are voluntarily discarding a lower-valued commodity in return for one they value more. Remove the voluntary element and it is not trade any more – it is theft. Drake´s piracy was justified by his national patrons in the free-trade lexicon of his day, as were those responsible for the Rape of Bengal, the Irish Potato Famine, the wave of regime changes imposed on Latin America by the USA every decade or so since 1900, and the less violent extortions labelled ¨structural adjustment` in recent times – such as forcing the Bolivian government to outlaw the collection of rain water by citizens, so as to ensure profits for foreign-owned utilities. Joseph Stiglitz, a former World Bank Chief Economist, has argued that structural adjustment plans are sometimes designed to create civil unrest (as happened in Bolivia, for starters), because the price of assets in the country drops sharply during a crisis, allowing international investors to clean up.
There are two good reasons for anything called a trade agreement to be evaluated in terms of justice. These involve preserving the voluntary principle by asking; are the nations signing freely, or are they being intimidated? And are the voters of either nation being forced to sacrifice longstanding rights and freedoms because their leaders have excluded the populace from the decision on whether to sign? Most nations were colonies sixty years ago, and their elites can rarely be counted upon to represent their nationals in these matters.As it is, the relationships between nations are embedded in a legacy of injustice – the poor nations are not the undeveloped, less-developed or under-developed, they are the robbed.

26

Dan Simon 10.12.05 at 11:13 am

Those negotiations are about what the terms of co-operation among human beings linked through a global division of labour should be.

Really? The direct participants clearly don’t think so. And I’d venture to guess that apart from you and a small clique of like-minded colleagues, almost none of the billions of indirect participants think so. Just about everyone else in the world understands them to be a hard-headed deal-making process among entirely self-interested nations. If you’re saying they’re all wrong, then it would help if you offered a justification.

Rawls, to name but him, addresses his arguments not to the moral sceptic, but to the person who already has a commitment to justice but wants to know what it requires.

Aaah, Rawls….another master of the grandiosely-proclaimed, utterly unfounded global moral imperative.

Frankly, I doubt that there’s anything that can be said to people like you, Dan.

Right back at you, Chris. Look, I’ll make you a deal: I’ll agree to discuss justice and morals with you, without insulting you for not taking the premises of the Talmud on faith, if you’ll agree to discuss justice and morals with me, without insulting me for not taking the premises of A Theory of Justice on faith. Deal?

27

engels 10.12.05 at 12:05 pm

I’ll agree to discuss justice and morals with you, without insulting you for not taking the premises of the Talmud on faith, if you’ll agree to discuss justice and morals with me, without insulting me for not taking the premises of A Theory of Justice on faith. (Dan Simon)

Dan, you don’t seem to believe that there is such a thing as justice in global trade rules. Given this fact, it’s rather hard to have a discussion about it with you, isn’t it? Rather like trying to have a discussion about atomic physics with someone who believes that everything is made of cheese.

28

engels 10.12.05 at 1:03 pm

I’ll agree to discuss justice and morals with you, without insulting you for not taking the premises of the Talmud on faith, if you’ll agree to discuss justice and morals with me, without insulting me for not taking the premises of A Theory of Justice on faith. (Dan Simon)

Dan, you don’t seem to believe that there is such a thing as justice. Given this fact, it’s rather hard to have a discussion about it with you, isn’t it? Rather like trying to have a discussion about atomic physics with someone who believes that everything is made of cheese.

29

Dan Simon 10.12.05 at 1:06 pm

Dan, you don’t seem to believe that there is such a thing as justice in global trade rules. Given this fact, it’s rather hard to have a discussion about it with you, isn’t it? Rather like trying to have a discussion about atomic physics with someone who believes that everything is made of cheese.

Shorter Engels: You don’t agree with me about X, so you’re an idiot, and there’s no point discussing X with you.

As a matter of fact, I don’t believe that justice has much relevance to global trade rules–at least under the current global political order, and possibly under any other global political order. I also believe that my opinion is completely conventional, and that yours and Chris’ are the outliers.

To use an imperfect analogy: when two corporations negotiate a business deal–even in the most acutely justice-conscious countries in the world–one doesn’t normally expect justice to take center stage in their negotiations, or to figure prominently in either side’s goals. There are those, of course, who believe that every such negotiation should be dominated by (usually some outside authority’s idea of) furthering the cause of justice. But they are a tiny minority, and their ideas have historically not had the best track record when applied in real life.

And if someone were to proclaim loudly that justice should self-evidently be a major component of any such negotiation, and that its habitual absence is head-shakingly absurd and incomprehensible–well, his or her reception in most circles would be far less polite than you and Chris have garnered so far.

Now, one could argue that countries negotiating international trade agreements are different from corporations negotiating business deals, in a way that makes the case for placing justice front and center in the former case, if not in the latter one. But that would be actually arguing the issue at hand, whereas you and Chris appear reluctant to do more than demagogue it.

30

engels 10.12.05 at 1:25 pm

I should have said justice tout court. And no, I didn’t call you an idiot, but thanks for expanding my point.

Your previous arguments do indeed give the impression that you are sceptical about the whole idea of justice. If you are trying to make a more specific point then you haven’t made this very clear.

31

engels 10.12.05 at 2:08 pm

Also, you appear to be confusing two claims. One is that justice should constrain trade agreements. The other is that justice “takes centre stage” during negotiations.

Chris was asserting the first: his original post explicitly denies the second.

32

lemuel pitkin 10.12.05 at 2:09 pm

when two corporations negotiate a business deal—even in the most acutely justice-conscious countries in the world—one doesn’t normally expect justice to take center stage in their negotiations, or to figure prominently in either side’s goals. There are those, of course, who believe that every such negotiation should be dominated by (usually some outside authority’s idea of) furthering the cause of justice. But they are a tiny minority, and their ideas have historically not had the best track record when applied in real life.

But the legitimacy of political institutions lies precisely in the fact that they do not behave this way.

And, those who have tried to devise instituions to constrain self-interest in national affairs are hardly a tiny minority. In fact, I would say that the track record of institutions based on some notion of fairness is rather better than those based on might-makes-right.

33

lemuel pitkin 10.12.05 at 2:16 pm

(Strikes me that Dan Simon is arguing as if the 20th century never happened — “justice doesn’t have much relevance to global trade rules” would have looked smart in 1911 or so.)

34

Dan Simon 10.12.05 at 3:15 pm

Also, you appear to be confusing two claims. One is that justice should constrain trade agreements. The other is that justice “takes centre stage” during negotiations.

Chris was asserting the first: his original post explicitly denies the second.

To quote Chris:

I asserted that a central purpose of trade rules should be to promote justice.

In my insouciance, I took “central” to mean, you know, central.

But the legitimacy of political institutions lies precisely in the fact that they do not behave this way.

Domestically, I actually agree. Internationally–not so much.

And, those who have tried to devise instituions to constrain self-interest in national affairs are hardly a tiny minority.

I assume you mean “international affairs” here. Certainly, many people have put much effort into devising institutions to constrain self-interest in national affairs–so far, without much success. Of course, even if they succeed one day–and I’m open, and not unfriendly, to the possibility that they might–I don’t see why that will suddenly change the nature of international trade negotiations from hard-headed business deals to mushy ruminations on justice, any more than domestic governmental constraints on self-interest have turned all business negotiations among corporations into charity events.

(Strikes me that Dan Simon is arguing as if the 20th century never happened—“justice doesn’t have much relevance to global trade rules” would have looked smart in 1911 or so.)

Au contraire–I’m quite confident that the best and the brightest of 1911 were far more naive about the nature of international relations, including trade relations, than are most informed folk these days. If nothing else, the 20th century taught most of us that getting national government representatives together in a room and telling them that they should work together for global justice–whether in the context of trade negotiations, mutual defense treaties or anything else–is simply a non-starter. Unfortunately, a few stragglers have failed to learn that lesson.

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