Philippe Van Parijs has made some “correspondence with John Rawls concerning the Law of Peoples“:http://www.uclouvain.be/10166.html available on-line. The final two paragraphs of the Rawls letter are remarkable for their explicit anti-capitalism, a sentiment that is not so clearly expressed elsewhere in his work.
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Chris Bertram
[This post is co-written by Harry and Chris and is an extended follow up to Chris’s “initial response”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/03/06/cato-on-inequality/ to David Schmidtz’s Cato Unbound piece “When Equality Matters”:http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/03/06/david-schmidtz/when-equality-matters/ .]
We live in a highly unequal world and in strikingly unequal societies. The income discrepancies between the global poor and those in wealthy societies are enormous, with around one quarter of the world’s population living on less than $1 US per day, and many suffering from acute malnourishment, disease and premature death.[1] (For some further details see articles by Thomas Pogge “here”:http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3717 and “here”:http://portal.unesco.org/shs/es/file_download.php/9c2318f24653a2a4655347d827f144acPogge+29+August.pdf .) But even within the very wealthiest societies great wealth coexists with severe poverty. Moreover, this is not simply an inequality in outcomes. Whilst the United States, for example, likes to imagine itself as a land of opportunity, social mobility is extremely low and in recent years the benefits of economic growth have been ever more concentrated in the very richest sectors of the population. According to one study, only 1.3 per cent of children born to parents in the bottom 10 per cent of income earners end up in the top 10 per cent. By contrast, almost a quarter of children born into the top 10 per cent stay there, and almost half stay in the top 20 per cent. Children born into the richest tenth of households are 18 times more likely than children born into the poorest tenth to end up in the top tenth. (Further see the “Economist”:http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560 and “Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis”:http://www.umass.edu/preferen/gintis/intergen.pdf .)
David Schmidtz’s recent piece for Cato Unbound, “When Inequality Matters”:http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/03/06/david-schmidtz/when-equality-matters/ is an artful and unnerving attempt to make use of some recent work within egalitarian political philosophy to argue against what we what we think of as the core of egalitarianism: the demands for greater equality of condition and opportunity. We are not convinced. In our view Schmidtz’s case neglects the impact that relative inequalities have on absolute levels of flourishing and depends at crucial points on dubious analogies and on muddying important distinctions. But it would be churlish not to acknowledge that he gets some things right. For instance, he is correct to emphasize that we must identify the dimensions in which equality matters, for the basic reason that making people equal on one dimension will often have the simple effect of making them unequal on another. Equalizing incomes, for example, would leave people unequal in well-being, because different people have different capacities to convert their income into well-being.
Will Wilkinson emails me to push a Cato Institute forum on “When Inequality Matters”:http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/03/06/david-schmidtz/when-equality-matters/ . I see that he’s also emailed Glenn Reynolds to promote the same. The paper being discussed is by David Schmidtz. Schmidtz is a serious philosopher whose writings I’ve read with profit and interest in the past. Nevertheless, I have to greet his opening sentence with some skepticism:
bq. Everyone cares about inequality.
I’m linking to “Ian Sanson’s piece on Johnny Cash from the LRB”:http://lrb.co.uk/v28/n05/sans01_.html [via the “Virtual Stoa”:http://users.ox.ac.uk/%7Emagd1368/weblog/blogger.html ] both because it is entertaining and perceptive, but also — in the light of “John Q’s Blonde post”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/03/05/blonde-joke/ below — to report that Chuck Klosterman’s “hilarious sociobiological explanation for Led Zeppelin”, as referenced by Sanson, is freely available to the moderately ingenious via Amazon.com’s “search inside” feature.
“Jamie Kenny”:http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/ and “Backword Dave”:http://backword.me.uk/ have been keeping up commentary on the Mills/Jowell affair (scroll down for their various posts). Meanwhile, their friends in the meeja have been doing their best with the exculpatory smokescreens. Notable today is “Peter Preston in the Guardian”:http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/comment/0,,1724395,00.html (the newspaper most compromised by gourmet dinners and rounds of golf):
bq. Let’s all get off our high horses. David Mills is the Inspector Clouseau of global capitalism. He doesn’t lurch from hedge fund to hedge fund and pillar to post in order to grow fabulously rich; just to stay one stumbling step away from the knacker’s yard. Silvio Berlusconi (joyous news!) chooses back-to-front men, more naff than Mafia. Old Labour should remember Lord Gannex and John Stonehouse among too many others before it starts casting New Labour stones.
Some of us (including Preston it must be said) are old enough to remember the “Kagan”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kagan%2C_Baron_Kagan and “Stonehouse”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stonehouse affairs. One of the things about “New Labour” was its rehabilitation of Harold Wilson & Co. as against their post-79 detractors, and among the things that the detractors detracted was precisely the association of Labour grandees with the likes of Kagan. So playing the Old Labour/New Labour card here just reeks of bad faith.
The Jowell/Mills business also reminds me — though the parallels are superficial — to recommend the recent Danish political thriller “King’s Game”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0378215/ , which centres on dodgy politicians with cosy insider relationships in a leading newspaper.
In my role as a music reviewer for Bristol and Bath’s “Decode”:http://www.decodemedia.com/tiki-index.php magazine, I got to see “Buddy Miller”:http://www.buddyandjulie.com/ on Tuesday night. I’m not sure that music reviews are my forte, but you can read my effort “here”:http://www.decodemedia.com/tiki-index.php?page=Buddy+Miller . Miller really is a remarkable guitarist and a pretty good singer too. I guess he’s “officially” “country” (whatever that amounts to) , but he’s really someone who transcends genre. He’s made some important records with some famous people (he’s Emmylou Harris’s guitarist) , but his own material (and that with his wife “Julie”:http://www.buddyandjulie.com/biojulie.html ) is also fantastic. His religious affiliations (Christian) are pretty much to the fore in his most recent record — “Universal United House of Prayer”:http://www.buddyandjulie.com/house.html — though they weren’t on Tuesday. UUHP is sort of country/rock/gospel crossover (if it even has a genre) with the highpoint being his cover of Dylan’s With God on Our Side (Miller plainly doesn’t think that God is a Republican). Anyway, check him out.
The “Ken Livingstone”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4758246.stm affair and the “Jowell/Mills/Berlusconi”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4761194.stm business have both focused attention on various “codes of conduct” which set out what public officials may or may not do, when they should declare an interest, etc. These were all brought in after the “Nolan committee”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Nolan%2C_Baron_Nolan , which was UK central government’s response to scandals such as “cash for questions” (a scandal involving central government). I won’t go so far as to say that the various codes make interesting reading, but there are some notable differences between them, especially as concerns what constitutes a relevant “interest”. Basically, if you are a parish councillor, with the power to do just about nothing, then you should recuse yourself if your niece’s live-in boyfriend might be affected more by a decision than someone else in the parish. On the other hand, if you are a member of the Cabinet the circle of persons in whose interests you are taken to have an interest is drawn much more tightly.
The codes for local government are on the “Standards Board for England”:http://www.standardsboard.co.uk/TheCodeofConduct/IntroductiontotheCodeofConduct/ website, the ministerial code is at the “Cabinet Office”:http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/propriety_and_ethics/ministers/ministerial_code/ site.
UPDATE: Specifically on Jowell/Mills/Berlusconi, this “Guardian profile of Mills”:http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1716785,00.html makes interesting reading.
Horowitz has now given us the opportunity to “vote for the worst of the worst”:http://www.frontpagemag.com/survey/vote.asp , and Michael Bérubé is way out in front. Keep the votes pouring in and expose this dangerous radical as the dangerous danger he is to apple pie and all that.
The whole business with the Danish cartoons has now reached new levels of insanity with Christians and their churches being attacked in Nigeria and Pakistan. That the Danish newspaper had the right to publish its deplorable cartoons ought not to be in question. But it does not help the case for freedom of speech if Muslims can truthfully say that there is a double standard and that the sensibilities of Christians are regarded as a valid legal reason for restraining freedom of expression whereas theirs are not. Mark Kermode had “a piece in the Observer a week or so ago”:http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1707715,00.html concerning the film “Visions of Ecstasy”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098604/ which the British Board of Film Classification refused to grant a certificate to on the grounds that a successful prosecution under Britain’s blasphemy laws was likely to succeed. The film maker took his case to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that that the refusal to grant classification was a breach of his rights under Article 10 of the Convention. He lost. In line with a previous judgement, the Court
bq. accepted that respect for the religious feelings of believers can move a State legitimately to restrict the publication of provocative portrayals of objects of religious veneration.
It is therefore simply not true to say that in Europe freedom of expression trumps the sensibilities of believers. What is true is that some believers, of some denominations, get legal protection from being offended, and others don’t. Not a satisfactory situation.
The full judgement of the ECHR (complete with concurring and dissenting opinions) is “here”:http://www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1996/60.html .
JAAIS is short for Jane-Austen-Adaptation-Inauthenticity-Syndrome. Sufferers can be of either sex, though most are female. The symptoms are a craving to see the latest TV or film adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, accompanied by anticipatory worries that “I bet it is going to be awful”. If the victim watches the adaptation at home, perhaps on a rented DVD, she feels the compulsion to keep up a commentary on the inauthenticity of the costumes, performances, location and on unwarranted departures from the original novel. “Mr Bennet was never at that ball!” or “They would never have done _that_ !” or “She’s far too old!” are standard remarks. There is no known cure.
I had to help someone suffering from a particularly bad case of JAAIS last night. When we then played the “alternate US ending” to “Pride and Prejudice”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414387/ — the awful extra syrupy gooey ending that was demanded by test audiences in Des Moines — I thought I was going to witness a seizure! No doubt the special super-schlocky ending was inflicted all over North America, so that even unsuspecting Canadian JAAIS sufferers were caught.
Following on from Kieran’s “post about British and US TV”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/02/13/turnabout-is-fair-play/ the other day, I started thinking about the best “TV miniseries/drama serial”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_miniseries ever, by which I mean just the best drama series telling a story over a limited number of episodes. My list of five contains four British examples and one German. Maybe I’m just parochial, but maybe this is a format the British excel in and the Americans don’t. That’s my hunch. So here’s my list (with annotations). Post rival suggestions in comments.
1. “Heimat”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087400/ . Does this count? It is long by miniseries standards, but Edgar Reitz’s story of the the Simon family and the village of Schabbach from the end of the First World War to the 1970s is simply the best thing I’ve ever seen on TV. The sequels, Heimat 2 and Heimat 3 are also pretty good, and some think Heimat 2 the best of the three. They’re wrong, but non-culpably so.
2. “The Edge of Darkness”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090424/ . Mid 80s nuclear drama set in Britain as policeman Bob Peck goes after the killers of his daughter (Joanne Whalley) with help from rogue CIA man Joe Don Baker. Eric Clapton soundtrack with frequent playings of Willie Nelson’s “Time of the Preacher” thrown in (the daughter’s favourite record). Tense, paranoid, and secured Peck his role in Jurassic Park.
3. “The Singing Detective”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090521/ . Who could watch the pathethic Hollywood remake after this? Michael Gambon, Joanne Whalley (again!) and a sense of growing incredulity that the plot can actually come together. Complete with Dennis Potter’s trademark use of music and song as the key to the unconscious. His best work.
4. “Our Friends in the North”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115305/ . Currently being shown again in the UK. From 1960s idealism, through local government and police corruption, vice, and the miner’s strike. Christopher Ecclestone and Gina McKee both superb.
5. “Traffik”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096716/ . Why did they ever make the crummy Hollywood version with Douglas and Zeta-Jones? Lindsay Duncan gives an ice-cold performance as the wife as the various threads come together in the UK, Germany and Pakistan. Shostakovich’s 8th String Quartet as the backing music.
I note the dates for these are 1984, 1985, 1986, 1996 and 1989, suggesting the 1980s as a golden age for the format. I might have included Bleasdale’s “Boys from the Blackstuff”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083689/ (1982) or “GBH”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101104/ (1991) on a different day.
I’m currently listening to Bob Dylan and The Band, Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, 30 January 1974, Madison Square Garden on “Vault Radio”:http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/Static.aspx?Type=Audio/Radio.htm&CategoryID=RA&LeftNav=Audio/RadioNav.htm . The stream is from the archive of live shows recorded by Bill Graham at the Fillmore and other venues … now on to Jefferson Airplane, “White Rabbit”, Fillmore Auditorium, Feb 1967 … Elvis Costello, “Radio Radio”, Winterland 1978 … this is too good!
Via “Flop Eared Mule”:http://flopearedmule.blogspot.com/ . Thanks Amanda!
The past few weeks have, in the light of the cartoon dispute, brought forth much in the way of blogospherical indignation, analysis, clarification, etc. on the subject of free speech. This has sometimes been accompanied by philosophical and legal reflection of varying subtlety and insight on the idea, its relation to the theory of speech acts, and so on. The “British House of Commons votes today”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4714578.stm on HM Government’s proposal to outlaw the “glorification” of terrorism, a vague offence that may outlaw the praising of historical events in distant lands. If passed this law will, like all laws, be enforced with the resources of the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts, and so on. Since this measure is, therefore, a far more immediate and effective threat to free speech than the complaints of genuinely and synthetically offended members of a religious minority, why does it not provoke a similar level of outrage?
I’m off to hear my colleague Jimmy Doyle talk about the “Gorgias”:http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html . In preparation I came across this passage (at about 457d) .
bq. Socrates: You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience of disputations, and you must have observed, I think, that they do not always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either party of the subjects which they are discussing; but disagreements are apt to arise-somebody says that another has not spoken truly or clearly; and then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing from personal feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest in the question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another until the bystanders at last are quite vexed at themselves for ever listening to such fellows.
I was pleased that “Liverpool beat Arsenal”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/4703844.stm last night, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. Despite having heard Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson tell us on may occasions (usually apropos Chelsea) that money doesn’t buy success, I’m struck by the “table of 2004 transfer spending”:http://www.footballeconomy.com/stats/stats_turnover_10.htm for English PL clubs on the “Political Economy of Football”:http://www.footballeconomy.com/index.htm site. Here are the top spenders:
1. Chelsea
2. ManYoo
3. Liverpool
4. Tottenham
5. Arsenal
and the rank ordering of the “Premiership today”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/table/default.stm after 26 games?
1. Chelsea
2. ManYoo
3. Liverpool
4. Tottenham
5. Arsenal
The correlation breaks down somewhat further down the table, but still.