I talked about “openness and incompleteness” as one axis of my 2 x 2 political Matrix (I have tickets for 10:00 pm Thursday, btw, with TG and the oldest boys…). The other is Equality.
Equality is one of those words whose meanings change depending on your perspective; the two definitions seem to be “equality of treatment” and “equality of outcome”. I’ll be abstract from this and suggest that while this distinction is damn important, the more important one is between “equality matters” and “no it doesn’t, I rule”.
Most societies have as their organizing principle the question of the distribution of power. Even the most repressive medieval societies were ruled by kings (and queens) who were caught in a delicate web of obligations … both upward and downward … and who usually prevailed or fell in no small part based on how well they managed them.
In modern political thought, we have one pole which suggests that equality is good (in one form or the other), and another pole which suggests it is bad, whether because of Divine Right in some form or another or because of the Invisible Hand and humanity’s inherent variations.
If you take this matrix, you get four quadrants:
Let’s go through them.
Closed/Unequal. The Nazi ideal. ‘Baathist Iraq would be a good example. A rigidly controlled society in which a strict hierarchy is not only an incidental part of maintaining control, but is a part of the value system of the society.
Closed/Equal. The Socialist ideal. Soviet Russia, in the imaginations of its supporters. In reality, Pol Pot’s Cambodia probably would stand as a good (that can’t be the right word in this context) example.
Open/Unequal. The Libertarian ideal. Much of Dickens’ (Victorian) England would be the best historical example I can quickly think of.
Open/Equal. The American ideal. America doesn’t perfectly embody it, but certainly holds it up and makes an effort to do so.
This maps to but doesn’t quite mirror Pournelle’s 2 x 2 matrix, which Trent Telenko pointed out to me in the comments to “The Fantasy Ideology of the GOP”.
I’ll try and extend this a bit and explain the differences and why I like mine better…
Your observations tie strongly into a perennial problem in political discourse: the failure to differentiate between “power to,” otherwise known as ability, and “power over,” which is true political power. This goes back to John Dewey.
Everyone can simultaneously possess immense and steadily rising “power to,” but “power over” is relational. What one gains, others must lose.
The libertarian ideal of equality, equality of individual rights, minimizes “power over,” regardless of whose hands it might rest in. Because human ability is unevenly distributed, that usually gives rise to large differences in “power to,” although that’s not an absolutely foregone conclusion. The collectivist ideal of equality maximizes the State’s “power over,” which equalizes everyone else at almost no “power to.”
Anyone concerned with equality must therefore face the all-important question: “Equality of what?”
Reverend John Williams of FEE is my source for this extremely attractive formulation.
The LAST thing communism is, is equal. Not even in misery. Party cadres are always a cut above – essentially, all it does is substitute political power for currency. Failure to understand this is an essential failure to understand Communism in any of its forms. Hmm, maybe Michael Totten was right.
Sub-titling “unequal/open” as “Dickens” without a similar pejorative up above doesn’t foster serious debate. Not to mention the issue Francis Poretto raises re: equality. You can’t dispense with the question “what kind of equality” when that IS a key question behind your matrix. To dispense with such an important argument and then go on to divide its 2 halves into “equal/unequal” is just rhetorical sleight of hand used to highjack the term.
Difficult to hold a serious debate on foundations this rickety. This matrix needs a serious rethink.
Joe, did you read this?? “The Socialist ideal. Soviet Russia, in the imaginations of its supporters. In reality, Pol Pot’s Cambodia probably would stand as a good (that can’t be the right word in this context) example”
(emphasis added)…want to reread and think through your response??
I don’t consider Dickensian to be a loaded term, if it is to you and others, I’ll find one less loaded to describe a highly class-oriented society.
You raise a legitimate issue re equality; the distinction between the two types is significant. But I’ll suggest that a commitment to equality of either type stands in opposition to a strongly class-based or hierarchical society.
Back to you…
A.L.
In the words of a very wise man:
“Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good for the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
LOL – Fortunately, I’ve been rereading Heinlein with my teenager…
A.L.
This largely a result of the stage I was at when I read it, but no book did more to shape my worldview than _Tunnel in the Sky_.
But I’ll suggest that a commitment to equality of either type stands in opposition to a strongly class-based or hierarchical society.
I would argue that commitment to “equality of outcome” which would require total state control actually reenforces the class-based system. Indeed, I’m of the opinion that socialism has gained such currency in Europe because while it promises equality, it keeps the elite in power. The real European populists are the conservatives. It’s a way of retaining an aristocracy which is analogous with past European governance. Witness some of the continuity between Czarist Russia and the USSR.
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