A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles

by Thomas Sowell

  When the guilty is about to suffer that just retaliation, which the natural indignation of mankind tells them is due to his crimes; when the insolence of his injustice is broken and humbled by the terror of his approaching punishment; when he ceases to be an object of fear, with the generous and humane he begins to be an object of pity. The thought of what he is about to suffer extinguishes their resentment for the sufferings of others to which he has given occasion. They are disposed to pardon and forgive him, and to save him from that punishment, which in all their cool hours they had considered as the retribution due such crimes. Here, therefore, they have occasion to call to their assistance the consideration of the general interest of society. They counterbalance the impulse of this weak and partial humanity, by the dictates of a humanity that is more generous and comprehensive. They reflect that mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent, and oppose to the emotions of compassion which they feel for a particular person, a more enlarged compassion which they feel for mankind.23

  But, whereas Smith saw the infliction of punishment as a painful duty, believers in the unconstrained vision have seen it as an unnecessary indulgence in vengeance, a "brutalizing throwback to the full horror of man's inhumanity in an earlier time."24 With this vision, the criminal is seen as a victim- a "miserable victim" in Godwin's words25- first, of the special circumstances which provoked the crime, and then of people with a lust for punishment. The criminal's "misfortunes," according to Godwin, "entitle him" to something better than the "supercilious and unfeeling neglect" he is likely to receive.26 The death penalty, especially, imposed on "these forlorn and deserted members of the community" highlights the "iniquity of civil institutions."27 True, the criminal inflicted harm on others, but this was due to "circumstances"- these circumstances being the only distinction between him and the highest members of the society.28 Within the framework of this vision, executions are simply "cold-blooded massacres that are perpetrated in the name of criminal justice."29

  Punishment as a trade-off is barbaric within the framework of the unconstrained vision, for there is a solution at hand: rehabilitation. This is in keeping with the unconstrained vision's general emphasis on internal disposition rather than external incentives. "Punishment," Godwin conceded, "may change a man's behavior," but "it cannot improve his sentiments." Punishment "leaves him a slave, devoted to an exclusive self-interest, and actuated by fear, the meanest of the selfish passions." Were he treated properly, "his reformation would be almost infallible."30 That is, he would revert to a natural state of being unable to harm anyone, once he really understood what he was doing. This view likewise has a contemporary echo, that the rehabilitated criminal "will not have the capacitycannot bring himself- to injure another or to take or destroy property."31 This changed disposition represents a solution, whereas punishment represents only a tradeoff. There would obviously be no point in accepting a trade-off, unless one's vision of human nature was constrained so as to preclude a solution.

  Rehabilitation and its prospects of success are seen very differently by the two visions. In the unconstrained vision of human nature, rehabilitation is a process of returning a person to his more or less natural condition of decency- in principle, much like fixing a broken leg, which consists largely in putting the leg in condition to heal and restore itself, rather than attempting to create a new leg from scratch. In the constrained vision, however, decency is artificial rather than natural, and if it has not been created in the malleable years of childhood, it is unlikely to be created later on.

  In the constrained vision, each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late. Their prospects of growing up as decent, productive people depends on the whole elaborate set of largely unarticulated practices which engender moral values, self-discipline, and consideration for others. Those individuals on whom this process does not "take"whether because its application was insufficient in quantity or quality or because the individual was especially resistant-are the sources of antisocial behavior, of which crime is only one form.

  THE LOCUS OF DISCRETION

  Power lies at the end of a spectrum of causal factors which include influence, individual discretion, and systemic interactions whose actual outcomes were not planned or controlled by anyone. The question as to how much of what happens in the world is caused by the exercise of power is a question as to the locus of discretion- whether among millions of individuals, in groups such as the family, in structured political institutions, or in military forces that ultimately may make or unmake other people's decisions at gunpoint. The cause-and-effect question as to where current discretion lies is only one aspect of the role of power. The more fundamental conflict of visions is over where the locus of discretion should be.

  In the unconstrained vision, where the crucial factors in promoting the general good are sincerity and articulated knowledge and reason, the dominant influence in society should be that of those who are best in these regards. Whether specific discretion is exercised at the individual level or in the national or international collectivity is largely a question then as to how effectively the sincerity, knowledge, and reason of those most advanced in those regards influence the exercise of discretionary decision-making. Godwin, who considered the power of reason- in the articulated syllogistic sense of the unconstrained vision- to be virtually irresistible in the long run, would diffuse discretion to the individual level, confident that the substance of what was to be decided by the many would ultimately reflect the wisdom and virtue of the few. However, those who have shared the unconstrained vision of man in general, but who lacked Godwin's conviction as to how effectively the wisdom and virtue of the few would spontaneously pervade the decisions of the many, wished to reserve decision-making powers in organizations more directly under the control or influence of those with the requisite wisdom and virtue. The unconstrained vision thus spans the political range from the anarchic individualism of Godwin to totalitarianism. Their common feature is the conviction that man as such is capable of deliberately planning and executing social decisions for the common good, whether or not all people or most people have developed this innate capability to the point of exercising it on their own.

  The constrained vision sees no such human capability, in either the elite or the masses, and so approaches the issue entirely differently. It is not the sincerity, knowledge, or reason of individuals that is crucial but the incentives conveyed to them through systemic processes which forces prudent trade-offs, utilization of the experience of the many, rather than the articulation of the few. It is to the evolved systemic processes-traditions, values, families, markets, for example-that those with the constrained vision look for the preservation and advancement of human life. The locus of discretion may also range from the individual to the political collectivity among adherents of the constrained vision, but the nature of that discretion is quite different from what it is among those with the unconstrained vision.

  Where adherents of the constrained vision emphasize the freedom of individuals to make their own choices-the theme of Milton Friedman's Free to Choose, for example-it is to be a choice within the constraints provided by the incentives (such as prices) conveyed to the individual and derived from the experiences and values of others. Where adherents of the unconstrained vision emphasize the freedom of the individual, it is either (1) the freedom of those individuals possessing the requisite wisdom and virtue-as in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty-or (2) the freedom of the masses insofar as they are deemed to be under the influence of the moralintellectual exemplars.

  Neither vision advocates that all individuals be utterly free to act without regard to others. It is the nature of what it is that is conveyed to them by othersand by which others- that differs. In the unconstrained vision, those with special wisdom and virtue convey this wisdom and virtue to others- through articulation, where that is deemed effective, and through coercive power where it is not. To those with the c
onstrained vision, the special wisdom or virtue of moral-intellectual exemplars is far less important than the mass experience of the generations (embodied in traditional values) and the current experiences and economic preferences of the many (embodied in prices). In the unconstrained vision, the ordinary individual is to be responsive to the message of moral-intellectual pioneers; in the constrained vision, the ordinary individual is to be responsive to other ordinary individuals, whose rising and falling prices or rising and falling social disapproval convey their experience more effectively than words.

  Individualism takes on entirely different meanings within the two visions. In the constrained vision, individualism means leaving the individual free to choose among the systemically generated opportunities, rewards, and penalties deriving from other similarly free individuals without being subjected to articulated conclusions imposed by the power of organized entities such as government, labor unions, or cartels. But in the unconstrained vision, individualism refers to (1) the right of ordinary individuals to participate in the articulated decisions of collective entities, and (2) of those with the requisite wisdom and virtue to have some exemption from either systemic or organized social constraints.

  Mill's On Liberty was perhaps the classic statement of the second, the right of the moral-intellectual pioneers to be exempted from the social pressures of mass opinion. He did not believe the reverse- that the masses should be exempt from the influence of the moral-intellectual elite. On the contrary, many of his writings emphasized the leadership role of the intellectuals. While Mill opposed "social intolerance" on the part of the many,32 he regarded democracy as most beneficial when "the sovereign Many have let themselves be guided (which in their best times they always have done) by the counsels and influence of a more highly gifted and instructed One or Few."33

  Among contemporary followers of the unconstrained vision, individualism likewise centers on exemption of moral and intellectual pioneers from social pressures or even, in some cases, from laws. For example, conscientious objections to military service, or militant advocacy of violence in the face of perceived social injustice, are among the exemptions Ronald Dworkin justifies, while denying that racial segregationists have any corresponding rights to violate civil rights laws.34

  All these views on both sides are consistent with their initial premises. If man has moral-intellectual capabilities far in advance of those currently manifested in the mass of ordinary people, then the special wisdom and virtue of those who have already gone much further in the direction of those human potentialities must not only be made the basis for the decisions of others, whether by influence or power, but must itself be exempted to some extent from the social control of retrograde masses, and perhaps even from some laws reflecting retrograde views. But if the knowledge, virtue, and wisdom that matter most are those deriving from the experience of the masses, whether expressed in traditions, constitutions, or prices- as claimed in the opposing constrained vision- then the most that each individual can expect is to be left free to choose among the various rewards and penalties which emerge from systemic social processes, not exemption from any of them.

  The Economy

  The constrained vision sees market economies as responsive to systemic forces- the interaction of innumerable individual choices and performancesrather than to deliberate power shaping the ultimate outcome to suit particular individuals or organized decision-makers. A competitive market, as thus conceived, is a very efficient system for "the transmission of accurate information," in the form of prices.35 These prices not only bring information as to changing scarcities, technological advances, and shifting consumer preferences, but also provide "an incentive to react to the information," according to Milton Friedman.36 The unconstrained vision argues that this is not how the economy operates, that it is currently obeying the power of particular interests and should therefore be made in future to obey the power of the public interest. Deliberate price-setting "exists in the most basic American industries," according to this view. The answer is for "an angry public" to "appeal to its political government."37 Thus "the market gods are increasingly brought within control of humanely exercised power."38

  The point here is not to resolve this contradiction but rather to indicate how completely different are the worlds envisioned by those who see the role of power differently. The locus of discretion is in one case scattered among millions, in the other concentrated in a few large corporate hands, exercised by corporate managements in an "impregnable position," according to John Kenneth Galbraith.39 Each dismisses the other's vision as a myth.40

  It is hardly surprising that the reasons why government exercises power in the economy also differ between the two visions. In the unconstrained vision, it is a matter of intentions while in the constrained vision it is a matter of incentives. The government's intention to protect the public interest forces it to intervene in the economy to undo the harm done by private economic power, according to the unconstrained vision. But the government's inherent incentive to increase its own power leads it into intervention that is often both unneeded and harmful, according to the constrained vision. Incentives are central to the constrained vision"the prime problem of politicians is not to serve the public good but to get elected to office and remain in power."41

  These different conclusions apply not only to the industrialized nations in which such controversies have long been prominent but also to analyses of the poorer, less industrialized "Third World." Diametrically opposite views on the causes and cures of Third World poverty reflect the same underlying differences of opinion on the nature of man, the role of knowledge, the capabilities of the elites and masses which characterize the conflict of visions in many other areas. They of course disagree also on the role of power.

  For convenience, the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Gunnar Myrdal can be considered as representative of the school of thought which has regarded political power and discretion as the key to the advancement of the poorer countries. The opposite view-the constrained vision-has long been exemplified by the distinguished economist from the London School of Economics Lord Peter Bauer. It is not merely in their conclusions but in a wide variety of underlying assumptions that they differ.

  They differ at the most fundamental level, on the very question as to what it is that is to be explained. Myrdal has sought to discover those "conditions" in the Third World countries which are "responsible for their underdevelopment."42 But rather than try to explain the lesser development of much of the world compared to the industrialized west, Bauer has instead sought to explain the causes of prosperity and development, refusing to designate "the position of the great majority of mankind as abnormal."43 To Myrdal, it is poverty which needs explaining; to Bauer, it is prosperity.

  To Myrdal, articulated rationality is crucial to development, which must be "rationally coordinated" in ways made "more explicit in an overall plan."44 This planning "must continually reconcile competing interests and determine the order of precedence among them."45 In short, the discretion of surrogates must determine the trade-offs. But to Bauer, economic performance and political articulation are completely different qualities:

  The market system delivers the goods people want, but those who make it work cannot readily explain why it is so. The socialist or communist system does not deliver the goods, but those who operate it can readily explain away its failure.46

  The relationship between the intellectual-moral leaders and the masses in the Third World is seen in the classically different terms which have marked the constrained and the unconstrained visions for centuries, though the specific economic problems of the Third World are a relatively recent issue. Myrdal has been very concerned (1) to promote greater material equality, within the Third World and between Third World and industrialized nations,47 and (2) to enhance the influence and power of the westernized classes to cause the Third World masses to change their whole way of life and values, so as to increase material advancement.48 In short, h
is immediate concern is for greater economic equality and, simultaneously, a shift in the locus of discretion to the intellectual-moral leaders, the westernized intellectuals.

  To Myrdal, without more "social and economic equality" mere "political democracy would be an empty achievement."49 His goal has been not simple equalization of processes but equalization of results. Moreover, "regulations backed by compulsion"50 must be used to move the masses, for "economic development cannot be achieved without much more social discipline than the prevailing interpretation of democracy" would permit.51 The "resistance to change" of the masses52 must be overcome. Because of "hardened resistance" to change throughout Third World societies, "modernism will not come about by a process of 'natural' evolution" but only by "radical state policies" to "engender development by state intervention."53 It is not the masses themselves but "those who think and act on their behalf"54 who must direct economic development.

  In short, this very modern controversy over Third World development elicits from Myrdal a centuries-old vision which combines economic equality and political inequality, giving power to intellectual-moral surrogate decision-makers-in short, the unconstrained vision. At the same time, it elicits from Bauer all the key features of another centuries-old viewpoint, the constrained vision.