The other day I made the point, borrowed actually from John Searle, that "money"and our economic life is a "social construct." This is an important concept, though one, apparently, not easily grasped in its full implications. Perhaps the easiest explanation is the notion of a "game." I've been spending a good deal of time watching baseball of late, and there's no denying the "reality" of the game. Some players, like Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, make a considerable amount of money playing a boy's game, serious money, and so they take game very seriously. As do others. A stadium filled to capacity with paying spectators also represents serious money, and so the team owners and municipalities take the game very seriously. By calling "money" and our "economic life" a game in no way portends a lack of seriousness, or that it lacks consequence in the lives of many, but merely points out that "baseball," as we know it, is fully described in its "rules." The "rules" define the nature of the game, what it means to "win" and the behaviors allowed and not allowed in pursuit of a "win." The game can be played because everyone playing agrees to abide by the rules, to pursue a "win" and engage in the allowed behaviors in pursuit of that "win." This is not to say that there isn't "cheating" to gain an advantage, but we should note that it's "cheating" within the game, within the basic structure of the rules. There is nothing like "baseball" that exists, independent of those rules, in nature. We did not "discover" baseball. We "created" it.
By suggesting that "money" and our economic life is a "social construct," I am again not suggesting that it is "merely" a game or that we could, like baseball, choose simply to ignore it with little consequence. It is "serious" business, pun intended, but it nevertheless remains a "game." The "rules" of economic life define the nature of game. Robert Reich has made a similar point in his book, Saving Capitalism. I won't recapitulate his entire argument, but one underlying point comes down to this -- we somehow "forget" it is just a "game." There are probably good reasons for this, not least that we are born into and live our entire lives within an "economy." Moreover, we cannot choose NOT to play. Our lives, quite literally, depend upon how we go about "making a living." Moreoever again, the "rules" of the game are enshrined within our legal system. Consequently, unlike other "games," it carries a sense of inevitability and compulsion. Nevertheless, as with baseball, there is nothing like "the economy" that exists, independent of those rules, in nature. We did not "discover" the economy. We created it.
To make this point, he focuses on the so-called opposition between "government intervention/regulation" and the "free market." I suppose one could make the argument that there is a "free market" in the "state of nature," but it is a dubious sort of "freedom." We all know that very quickly the "strongest" among us will appropriate most, if not all of the "goods." I suppose in some sense we are all free to become the "strong" man, but the reality suggests that our chances will be very slim until he ages out of the picture. Reality suggests that there will be one "free" man, and the remainder will, to one degree or another, be enslaved.
This is in very broad brush the argument for at the creation of "government" and, of course, it is "government" that sets the "rules" of the game. Consider, for example, the notion of "property ownership," particularly "home ownership," since it became such an issue in the last recession. I check the box that says "home owner," but in reality, because I have a mortgage, the bank owns my home and I am allowed to call it my own so long as I pay the mortgage. If I were to test that notion, and I simply quit paying the mortgage, the bank would not pay me the principle and take possession of the home, they would simply take the home in its entirety. The "rules" associated with mortgage lending set this out. Assume for the moment, however, that I have paid off my mortgage and have the deed to "my" property. There is that pesky issue of property tax which suggests, at some level, the "government" owns my home and I am allowed to call it my own so long as I pay the property taxes. Again, if I were to test that notion, and I simply quit paying the taxes, it wouldn't be long before I had forfeited the property. Beyond sitting on the front porch with a rifle, keeping the foreclosure agent and the tax man away, the government defines not only what it means to own a house, but also the rules associated with both the mortgage lending and taxation that allow us to acquire and keep it.
Reich's point, and I fully agree, is that the so-called "free market" is a myth. There is ONLY the game defined by the "existing rule of law," such as it is, and this game benefits some more than others. If someone comes along and wants to "change" the "rule of law," we should not wonder whether it trends to some halcyon "free market" where the beneficent "invisible hand" bestows blessings on all alike, nor should we wonder whether it trends to some "communist paradise" where the beneficent "government" bestows blessings on all alike, both of which are myths. We should rather ask the more cynical question of "who would benefit from this change and how?" Any change to the "rule of law" governing our economic life will simply change, so to speak, the balance of benefits.
I lay awake thinking about this last night. My wife, the hospice worker, was with a dying patient and her family. I had listened to a Dan Carlin podcast that talked at some length about the late sixties/early seventies when I came of age, when there was a sense of "revolution in the air" and many felt, including me, that our social structures were on the verge of collapse. So the air of general foreboding hung over my thoughts. I do not think we're nearly as close now as we were then to social collapse, but we're getting closer. The "insurgencies" of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are each, in different ways, point in that direction. If Trump is a conservative candidate, it is because he wants to press the reset button to the "balance of benefits" that existed in 1950, before the racial and social turmoil of the late sixties and early seventies. It is a conservatism, not unlike all regressive conservatisms, that ignores demographic "realities" among other things, but it does point, rather emphatically, to a deep seated dissatisfaction with the "existing rule of law" among a broad swath of our population. If Sanders is a progressive candidate, it is because he too wants to press the reset button to the days of Roosevelt and begin again where he left off. It is a regressive progressivism, however, that ignores the rise of "corporate capitalism" that began shifting the balance of benefits with Reagan, a shift toward the richest of the rich that has continued more or less unabated through the Bushes, Clinton and Obama. It ignores also the fundamental shifts that our digital and medical technologies hath wrought, and after such knowledge, there is no going back to the pre-Walmart, pre-Amazon main street, and big phrama will make us happier and harder with prozac and viagra. Still Bernie points to a loss of hope, whether audacious or not, among another swath of our population.
Such is the rise of "populism." Reich made another point about the "convergence" of populist thinking on six principles (more six actions, but I'm not going to quibble -- much). They are, without elaboration:
1. "Cut the biggest Wall Street banks down to a size where they're no longer too big to fail."
2. "Resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act," separating commercial from investment banking.
3. "End Corporate Welfare," to include "tax breaks."
4. "Stop the National Security Agency from spying on Americans."
5. "Scale back American interventions overseas."
6. "Oppose trade agreements crafted by large corporations."
Reich believes that "left and right-wing populists remain deeply divided over the role of government," but even so "the major fault line in American politics seems to be shifting from Democrat versus Republican, to populist versus establishment -- those who think the game is rigged, versus those who do the rigging." We are no where as near social collapse as we were in the late sixties/early seventies, and Hillary Clinton, as the "continuity candidate," will likely prevail in the coming election. We can expect, perhaps, some tweaking of the "existing rule of law," but not much, certainly nothing from the list of six principles above, and Fox News will berate her as mercilessly as they berate Obama if she even thinks of moving in that direction. If she does not prevail, and Trump is elected, then we can expect what? As I and others have repeatedly pointed out, he cannot do what he promises to do without disenfranchising the emerging "minority majority," without throwing existing international relationships out of the window and the "military industrial complex" that supports those relationships, without rescinding much of the constitution. So he won't do what he promises to do? Can we expect him, over the course of the general election, to back-peddle and become more and more a "continuity candidate?" The sense of betrayal among his "followers" will be profound. If he does, or he doesn't, we would be one step nearer the sort of social collapse we saw in the sixties.
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