Walzer anticipates Cameron (and Miliband)

by Chris Bertram on November 21, 2013

I was re-reading Michael Walzer’s famous (or infamous) chapter on “membership” from Spheres of Justice (1983) when I came across the following striking passage in the section on “guest workers”:

Consider, then, a country like Switzerland or Sweden or West Germany, a capitalist democracy and welfare state, with strong trade unions and a fairly affluent population. The managers of the economy find it increasingly difficult to attract workers to a set of jobs that have come to be regarded as exhausting, dangerous, and degrading. But these jobs are also socially necessary; someone must be found to do them. Domestically, there are only two alternatives, neither of them palatable. The constraints imposed on the labor market by the unions and the welfare state might be broken, and then the most vulnerable segment of the local working class driven to accept jobs hitherto thought undesirable. But this would require a difficult and dangerous political campaign. Or, the wages and working conditions of the undesirable jobs might be dramatically improved so as to attract workers even within the constraints of the local market. But this would raise costs throughout the economy and, what is probably more important, challenge the existing social hierarchy. (56)

With Cameron (and Miliband) having vowed to restrict immigration to the UK, one person’s modus ponens becomes another person’s modus tollens, and so we have the alternatives of immiseration driving the poor to work or the “living wage” laid before us (not that anyone believes that Labour would make good on the latter).

{ 33 comments }

1

MPAVictoria 11.21.13 at 2:08 pm

If only left wing parties were actually left wing. At least then people would have a clear choice.

2

Pete 11.21.13 at 2:43 pm

“Left” parties in the UK (to the left of Labour) are pretty dysfunctional, and periodic attempts to start a new one such as “Left Unity” ( http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/12/left-unity-alternative ) have fallen into swamps of ideological purity.

The party that seems keenest on advocating for the socially and economically excluded in the UK is the SNP, possibly as they actually need their support. Labour have got far too used to accepting that community as their fiefdom, whom they can ignore in the pursuit of middleclass floating voters.

Current policy seems wildly incoherent: whipping people towards taking jobs, regardless of whether they’re available, pay enough to live on, or doable by that person. It’s pretty much poor-bashing for its own sake and that of the Daily Mail.

3

Hector_St_Clare 11.21.13 at 2:51 pm

If you want people to do difficult jobs, pay them more, give them more benefits and social respect. this isn’t complicated.

4

oldster 11.21.13 at 3:11 pm

“Or, the wages and working conditions of the undesirable jobs might be dramatically improved so as to attract workers even within the constraints of the local market. But this would raise costs throughout the economy and, what is probably more important, challenge the existing social hierarchy.”

Jesus H. Christ. I don’t know anything about Michael Walzer, but this is outrageous.

The mechanism he is describing here is exactly how fans of capitalism say that the system is *supposed* to work. And yet he describes it as though it is an entirely unacceptable–practically unthinkable–outcome.

“Or, we could emancipate the negroes and pay them living wages to pick cotton in the fields. But this would raise costs throughout the economy and, what is probably more important, challenge the existing social hierarchy.”

Did he find it repellent when workers in the financial sector suddenly started creaming off more and more of the profits, thus “raising costs throughout the economy” and “challenging the existing social hierarchy”?

Yeah, I somehow suspect that did not trouble him too much at all. When rich people get richer, that’s just supply and demand, baby–it’s a law of nature. But when the working poor who work shitty jobs ask for a raise? Why, that is overthrowing the established hierarchy! It’s an affront to nature and to nature’s God!

5

bianca steele 11.21.13 at 3:15 pm

My copy of Walzer’s book is on a shelf right near Pinker’s, and they’re two I take down and try to read when I’m between other books. I can’t make much progress through either, but Walzer’s (which I just picked up again yesterday, as it happens, and read a passage about how we won’t talk about welfare for the unemployed because they’re hard to sympathize with but only for the old because everyone knows they’ll someday be old and without a pension) seems especially odd. OTOH I’ve kind of come to assume that since no one’s interested in communitarianism anymore, Walzer’s theories are more or less moot, whatever his intentions.

6

Random Lurker 11.21.13 at 3:24 pm

“But these jobs are also socially necessary; someone must be found to do them.”

But, is this true?
I often heard this kind of argument about immigrants (that they do jobs that locals don’t want to do anymore). But in reality, most underpaid jobs are not at all necessary; many of those jobs are underpaid exactly because could be easily replaced by some expensive (but not unthinkable) machinery, or they provide small “added value” on the final product.
In fact, it seems to me that most essential jobs are low pay, but not exactly “crap jobs”.

In fact it seems to me that the whole idea of “necessary but necessarily low paying” sounds like a rationalisation to keep policies that drive down wages.

The only necessary and necessarily low paying job that I can think of now is that of caregivers for old people, and this also is only necessary because society in various ways is trying to dump the problem of caregiving.

Plus what Hector and Oldster said.

7

prasad 11.21.13 at 3:55 pm

What does Walzer end up advocating? IIRC he also opposes guest worker programs, expansions of which are one likely outcome if Switzerland actually adopts this new guaranteed income proposal.

Me, I don’t hold a strong intuition against such programs, since they are a flexible middle point between excluding foreign workers and granting them all the benefits of citizenship/residence, while preserving personal and basic political rights. But then my ethical ideal would be a reasonably paced weakening of north-south borders, not tighter wagon circling in rich nations understood as gated communities.

8

Chris Bertram 11.21.13 at 3:57 pm

I don’t think that Walzer, in the cited passage, is endorsing the views expressed so much as giving an account of the choices facing politicians in those countries (as they saw those choices). So the outrage directed at him is, in this respect, misplaced. Hector’s view seems to be the official Labour view (at least when they are putting a particular spin on their policy) but I find it hard to believe that they would stick to it in power.

9

Hector_St_Clare 11.21.13 at 3:57 pm

Oldster, he’s being descriptive not prescriptive. Walzer self describes as a socialist of sorts (at least he did when the book was written, I’ve heard he’s become something of a neocon hawk over the years).

10

cjcjc 11.21.13 at 3:59 pm

Well this choice is some distance away, since neither Cameron nor Miliband have the power to restrict immigration from within the EU, and in addition the restrictions on immigration from Bulgaria and Romania end on Dec 31.

11

marcel 11.21.13 at 4:08 pm

Hector_St_Clare wrote (and others seem to agree):

If you want people to do difficult jobs, pay them more, give them more benefits and social respect. this isn’t complicated.

In analyzing price changes, economists recognize 2 effects, income effects and substitution effects.[1] What HST is here advocating is based on the substitution effect; raise the wage (& other benefits) for these jobs, and people will substitute time & labor toward them. The other option that Walzer describes in the quote from the OP, “The constraints imposed on the labor market by the unions and the welfare state might be broken, and then the most vulnerable segment of the local working class driven to accept jobs hitherto thought undesirable.” is an income effect. From an economists point of view, either is an equally appropriate (though not necessarily effective, efficient or ethical) solution to the problem.[2]

[1] Of course, almost no one ever bothers with income effects once they’ve been defined and listed in any specific situation.
[2] I know, I know: alors, tant pis pour les economistes or some such.

12

Matt 11.21.13 at 4:08 pm

But in reality, most underpaid jobs are not at all necessary; many of those jobs are underpaid exactly because could be easily replaced by some expensive (but not unthinkable) machinery,

This is done to a degree in Japan, where it’s thought to be better to use robots than immigrants. This is sometimes comical like the bear nurse, and sometimes more obviously practical, like this snow removal robot (admittedly, still a bit comical in design.) Those are somewhat extreme and fancical versions, but examples of a real trend. What to make of this is not completely clear to me, as it seems that there are lots of complicated trade-offs, both in principle and even more so in practice. I do think that nurses or other aids from poor countries who would gladly go work in Japan, but who are instead replaced by robot bears, are probably not in favor of such developments, but can’t say for sure.

13

Chris Bertram 11.21.13 at 4:10 pm

“What does Walzer end up advocating?”

For the sake of accuracy, here is the punchline from that section of SoJ (p.61)

Democratic citizens, then, have a choice: if they want to bring in new workers, they must be prepared to enlarge their own membership; if they are unwilling to accept new members, they must find ways within the limits of the existing labor market to get socially necessary work done.

14

Metatone 11.21.13 at 4:10 pm

I think Random Lurker touches on a key point. Whilst there are some sectors I’m aware of where mechanisation has failed so far (particular food crops being one) the number of sectors using “low paid immigrant labor to do jobs no-one else wants to do” seems to be much greater.

15

MPAVictoria 11.21.13 at 4:14 pm

“If you want people to do difficult jobs, pay them more, give them more benefits and social respect. this isn’t complicated.”

Hector you are one weird guy and in this case you are 100% right, 0% wrong.

16

Bloix 11.21.13 at 4:30 pm

Walzer’s argument is that a guest worker regime is a regime of “tyranny” (his word) and that justice demands that if workers are admitted they must be given the opportunity to choose citizenship. The misreading demonstrated by Oldster results from ignorance — it really isn’t hard to find Walzer’s full discussion and to read it,

http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/phil267fa12/9WALZERmembership.pdf

— and I don’t understand why this chapter could be described as “infamous.”

17

Hector_St_Clare 11.21.13 at 4:33 pm

Re: Whilst there are some sectors I’m aware of where mechanisation has failed so far (particular food crops being one)

Mechanisation has failed in particular cases because some crops get damaged by machines, and because in other cases a machine can’t easily distinguish if a vegetable is ready to be harvested or not.

18

oldster 11.21.13 at 4:35 pm

Yep, I must admit to ignorance in this case. (As in others).

All aspersions cast upon Michael Walzer are hereby withdrawn.

19

Matt 11.21.13 at 4:37 pm

– and I don’t understand why this chapter could be described as “infamous.”

There are a lot of things in it not to like, but his partial defense of the rights of states like Australia to have explicitly racist immigration policies (the old “white Australia” policy) is one part that has helped make in infamous. Now, Walzer himself thinks, I’m sure, that the “white Australia” policy was a bad one, and would not have supported it if he were an Australian, but he also thinks it should be, as a normative matter, within the discretion of states to adopt explicitly racist immigration policies if they think that’s what’s necessary to preserve themselves as “communities of character”.

20

Bloix 11.21.13 at 4:43 pm

#15 – well, not necessarily, if what you’re saying is that a country that permits immigration is pursuing a bad policy. Is the right policy for a wealthy European country to close the borders even though it has jobs that prospective immigrants would be happy to fill?

I had a Norwegian friend who called himself a socialist, years ago, who argued that Norway was right to close its borders because immigrants drove down wages. Nowadays, the EEA has an open borders policy, so migration to Norway from the poor countries of the EU is unrestricted. Is that a bad policy change or a good one? And is the limitation on migration to European countries a good policy or a bad one?

I’m not trying to answer the question – just pointing out that it’s not so obvious as some may think.

21

Bruce Wilder 11.21.13 at 4:56 pm

. . . only two alternatives, neither of them palatable. The constraints imposed . . . by the unions and the welfare state might be broken, and then the most vulnerable . . . driven to accept jobs hitherto thought undesirable. . . . Or, the wages and working conditions of the undesirable jobs might be dramatically improved so as to attract workers even within the constraints of the local market. But this would raise costs throughout the economy and, what is probably more important, challenge the existing social hierarchy

.

This last phrase was what lept* out at me.

It is standard to mutter pious nonsense about “skills” and education, as rationales for pay levels, but there’s no particular reason why caregiving and service roles, for example, should be particularly low-pay, except that it reinforces social hierarchy, which is inherently involved in personal service. As long as I can remember, nursing, which is well-paid blue-collar work or poorly-paid white collar work, depending upon your social perspective, has evidenced chronic labor shortages in the U.S. The “nurse-practitioner” has emerged to challenge the hierarchy a bit.

Admitting an alien caste into the labor of untouchables is an obvious solution, which inevitably creates another problem. The efforts to improve the situation of migrant farm labor, which has revealed that the “cost” of paying decent wages to the farmhand, or providing decent housing and medical care, works out to a few pennies per pound at the supermarket, highlights the problem that bosses like to enhance their own status at the expense of the oppressed. Its the status difference that counts, and provides an ulterior motive.

The problem with raising pay at the bottom, is that such raises are experienced as cuts in middle and at the (local) top. Which brings me to my next thought: what about the stupid and unnecessary jobs, which are cushy and pay very well, but we do not really need to have done? College administrator comes immediately to mind as an example. But, surely the whole developed world is lousy with administrators and bureaucrats and rentier drones, whose dubious “services” we simply do not need. We could pay $200 outright for our iPhones (built by hand with exquisite care by suicidals in China), and $30 a month for cellservice and Apple wouldn’t be the most profitable corporation on earth, and would that be so terrible?

The skyrocketing cost of the 1% is raising costs throughout the economy. Maybe, we’re coming at this from the wrong end. Give new meaning to the reform of entitlement spending.

*leapt is a misspelling, imho

22

prasad 11.21.13 at 5:05 pm

“Democratic citizens, then, have a choice: if they want to bring in new workers, they must be prepared to enlarge their own membership”

He seems to be saying states can exclude foreign workers entirely, or accept them as citizens, but everything in between is wrong, not just for locals or the state or its institutions, but for those foreigners. At any rate calling a scheme “tyranny” would seem at least substantially to be about those “tyrannized.” But why would it be good for X to exclude him entirely from your utility function *or* to count him equally, but bad (tyranny bad even) everywhere in between? Naively one would expect some sort of monotonicity here.

[I’m reminded of the California Prop 8 case, where the judge produced an argument that carefully left open excluding gays from marriage entirely, while deeming civil unions unconstitutional. There at least the argument was tactical and conclusory, basically to help Kennedy to write a narrow verdict implementing same sex marriage in California, without being forced thereby to legalize it everywhere. Anyway I’m skeptical you can oppose typical guest worker programs for the sake of the guests. And imo the use of a word like ‘tyranny’ signals the iffiness of the case.]

23

Theophylact 11.21.13 at 5:07 pm

Haven’t read the Walzer; but I can imagine a defense of a “White Australia” policy that serves as a stalking-horse for a defense of Israeli intransigence on the settlements.

(I don’t want to derail this interesting thread; just trying to envisage why one might want to defend what seems to me indefensible. The current Australian refugee policy seems to be a revival of the old one.)

24

Chris Armstrong 11.21.13 at 5:10 pm

One of Walzer’s more interesting points is that the only way to prevent there being stigmatized jobs in the economy – which will stigmatize anyone performing them, and entrench wider inequalities if they happen to be drawn from one gender, or ethnic group, say – is to *share* that work between everyone. Work cannot be stigmatizing, or destructive of someone’s social standing, if everyone does it. In sharing what he calls ‘hard work’ in that way we actually ‘abolish’ these roles. I’ve always found that quite informative as a way of thinking about gender roles and gender identities, at least. The negative way we sometimes think about care-giving work feeds all too easily into the negative assumptions we sometimes make about those (mainly women) who usually perform it. The latter prejudice then serves as justification for the initial division of labour. If everyone did this kind of work all the time, the gradual changes we could expect in gender identities would be interesting to watch. And I guess we could say the same for other cleavages, including those between white and blue collar work, etc.

25

Matt 11.21.13 at 5:12 pm

He seems to be saying states can exclude foreign workers entirely, or accept them as citizens, but everything in between is wrong, not just for locals or the state or its institutions, but for those foreigners. At any rate calling a scheme “tyranny” would seem at least substantially to be about those “tyrannized.” But why would it be good for X to exclude him entirely from your utility function *or* to count him equally, but bad (tyranny bad even) everywhere in between? Naively one would expect some sort of monotonicity here.

Yes- it’s a weird argument. For a very good reply to it (among other things) see this very nice paper by Anna Stilz
http://scholar.princeton.edu/astilz/publications/guestworkers-and-second-class-citizenship

26

Mao Cheng Ji 11.21.13 at 5:26 pm

What RL said. Low wages prevent automation, keep the rate of return high. It’s a sweatshop model.

27

lupita 11.21.13 at 5:32 pm

Rich, capitalist countries require growth, first, because they are capitalist and, second, because they are highly indebted. One way to grow was by productivity gains which were led by the technology and financial sectors. The NS spy revelations are changing the world’s complacency regarding letting the US be in charge of global communications while financial crashes, austerity, and inequality have pushed many countries away from a global system centered in New York and London.

The only other way to grow is through population growth. Here, capitalist countries are at a loss given very low or negative rates of population growth. Enter immigration.

The only other alternative is to stop growing, crash, lose global supremacy, and reenter the global community as equals and not masters.

28

Chris Bertram 11.21.13 at 6:12 pm

Yes, on the “in between” policy, Martin Ruhs has a new book out, The Price of Rights

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10140.html

(He’s speaking in Bristol tomorrow night, I’ll be in the audience.)

29

alex 11.21.13 at 7:13 pm

I don’t think the Walzer quote is at all relevant to the UK at the moment. As cjcjc says HM Goverment can’t restrict imigration. Also there’s isn’t a tight job market in the UK, unemployment in 1980 in the countries Walzer was incredibly low: 3% West Germany, 2% Sweden, 0% Switzerland. Unemployment in the UK is around 8%.

Cameron isn’t motivated by the need to attract workers, he hates the poor and the welfare state. That’s his motivation.

30

Chris E 11.21.13 at 9:06 pm

“I don’t think the Walzer quote is at all relevant to the UK at the moment. ”

It’s relevant in the sense that a variance on it is being used by certain segments of business against the living wage. There are plenty of – usually self appointed – voices for SMEs that will say that their business couldn’t survive if they paid higher wages. When this argument came up recently on the Money Programme on Radio 4 – it was rather instructive how many people rang in to suggest that such a business was unsustainable unless the government continued to subsidize them. Instructive, because Radio4 listeners at that time of day tend towards petite bourgeois.

Of course, the FSB spokesperson just responded along Walzer’s lines “If we raise wages we will raise inflation”.

31

Nine 11.21.13 at 11:46 pm

marcel@11 – “From an economists point of view, either is an equally appropriate (though not necessarily effective, efficient or ethical) solution to the problem.”

Not “effective, efficient or ethical”. So what makes it superior to one proposed by lepidopterists or jugglers ?

32

shah8 11.22.13 at 1:14 am

Guys, this discussion needs a little more Japan in it! For example, the dynamics surrounding the Fukushima cleanup program is fascinating, and eminently relevant to the discussion. The nation refuses to create an independent authority that directs and pays for cleanup, preferring to use TEPCO, even though it’s effectively bankrupt and nationalized–while pretending that TEPCO is a viable business with a real bottom line, with black above and red below. Since TEPCO has to go with this fiction, it persistently tries all of these pernicious tactics to do cleanup on the cheap, with low pay and dangerous conditions, such as making use of bonded labor provided by Yakuza groups, who do such a crappy job that the results tends to be perverse. Even when there are some sort of successful cleanup, there is zero real project management that goes into waste disposals. Instead, you have politicians, like the notorious mayor of Osaka (who is quite akin to Toronto’s Ford), deliberately import nuclear debris for incineration, over the objections of his denizens and economically/impractically wasteful. Even cities clear on the other side of Japan get in on the act, like Kita, Kyushu. Something a bit of extra money for municipal leaders… Such hierarchy games just makes a real mess of everything, and labor has to dance to its tune. And things like higher pay and better safety? HA! To add insult onto injury, many unemployed people in Japan are routinely insulted that they should go off to Fukushima! Plenty of jobs there!

33

Tim Worstall 11.22.13 at 10:37 am

“and so we have the alternatives of immiseration driving the poor to work or the “living wage” laid before us”

With respect to the living wage in the UK the answer is really quite simple. Just raise the NI and income tax limits to the full year full time minimum wage.

We have a strange system in the UK whereby the minimum wage f year, f time, is about £12,500. But you start paying NI (social security for Yanks) at around £7,500 and income tax at £9,900.

The living wage is around £14,900 a year with the recent calculation. But that is a pre-tax number. When you knock off the NI and income tax that must be paid on such a sum you get around £12,800 a year post-tax. Which is pretty much what the minimum wage would be if the personal allowance were set at the f year, f time, minimum wage.

It’s an oddity of the UK tax system that doesn’t apply elsewhere (at least, that I know of) but it does mean that there’s a very simple method of increasing the real incomes of the working poor. Just stop taxing them so damn much.

If you’re worried about high income earners also benefitting from that allowance increase easy enough to move the higher rate allowance down to compensate: as has been done in the last couple of raises in the personal allowance.

As to why we’ve ended up in this strange situation where part time work on the minimum wage attracts an income tax charge it’s because of fiscal drag. Over the decades wages rise faster than general inflation. The allowance has only been raise by general inflation and in some years not even that. Thus income tax starts to bite at ever lower levels of income.

It’s actually an interesting proof that wages have risen faster than inflation: that more people are now in the tax net.

But the essential point is true. That we can improve that minimum wage up to the level of the living wage simply by reducing the taxation of the working poor.

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