| In a number of posts I have stated that neoliberals found on a conception of human nature and that this assumption is seldom spelled out. Nevertheless it is crucial to how we approach a great many things, and it is essentially a matter of philosophy, in the informal sense of that word. I have often noticed that the current hegemony of plutocratic ideology is accompanied by a dismissal of philosophy as a useless enterprise; a commitment to moral relativism; and the elevation of science and the scientific method as the only approach to knowledge worthy of any respect.
It is not credible that this cluster of views has been brought about by a conspiracy of plutocrats to impose their position: but these particular features do seem to me to appear together more often that I would expect, and I was wondering why. What is the underlying presumption which leads to a dismissal of the value of clear and focussed thought and also leads to moral relativism and to scientism? Or are these actually separate things with different underpinnings?
If we consider the value of philosophy it is immediately obvious that it has different branches: there is formal logic, which is not primarily concerned with content. Its value is in exploring how an argument is built up from given premises, and thus finding ways of avoiding fallacy and constructing sound reasoning no matter what the topic discussed. It is a discipline, but it is not what people normally associate with the term "philosophy". Rather what people seem to address is a misunderstanding of philosophy as it applies to the question "what should we do and how should we live". Which, I suppose, is moral philosophy, at bottom.
The objection to that kind of enterprise seems to be based on the fact that there never seems to be a final answer to any such question. But that is true of all the things which are described as "social science" and so it is not obvious to me why it is particularly important in the field of philosophy. As I see it both economics and psychology have attempted to move away from the philosophical aspects (as defined by that question) in frustration: and to have re-made themselves in the image of hard science. But it is obvious that this does not work: and it does not work because the scientific method does not suit the content of those fields. There are no "crucial experiments" and largely cannot be for ethical reasons: but more importantly these disciplines are essentially political and moral. Thus it is not obvious to me that the ethical stances which apply in hard science can, or should, apply in those fields. Indeed the very idea that those stances are applicable even in hard science is open to question, for the consequences of research cannot be divorced from ethics, and the idea that topics for research are free of politics and morality cannot be sustained: nor can scientists pretend to a complete lack of responsibility for the uses made of their findings since they are part of our polity. The fierce arguments over the use of animals in scientific research are instructive in this sense: and since the "test subjects" in economics and politics are human beings those same questions are present and are not counterweighted in the same way. If animals are legitimately seen as instrumental in promoting human well being, as one side of that argument seems to assert, the same stance cannot be applied when those who suffer for that greater good are themselves human beings.
What we see in social science is a determination to focus on statistics, and that is often justified in terms of "utilitarianism" expressed as "the greatest good of the greatest number". That cannot be reconciled with a libertarian position which takes the individual as the unit and denies the importance of group interests. So there is a contradiction at the heart of much that is argued which can only exist if we keep tight walls between our different stances: it is those walls which philosophy seeks to challenge, very often.
It seems to me that the basis for all of these things is the focus on the individual, but more than that: the focus on the individual as a being who is only interested in "ends" and not in "means. That is a very restricted perception, but one consequence is that it allows an emphasis on the human being as a consumer rather than a maker. Freud once said that what is essential for human happiness is "love and work". That challenge to the prevailing view is masked because he used the word work, and it has been distorted in profound ways under a capitalist system. For what we are supposed to believe is that work is only a means to the end of money and consumption. Yet we spend a great deal of our lives at work. It is an end in itself, properly viewed. That cannot happen under a system in which the worker is reduced to part of the production process: for it is an essential element of work that it should be rewarding in itself, for the person doing it.
That will sound romantic and people will say that that cannot be: for there are jobs which need to be done which have no inherent satisfaction at all. Perhaps there are. The usual example given is "cleaning toilets" or something of that sort. If there is no possibility of satisfaction in a necessary job well done then such tasks should fall to everyone in turn and be acknowledged for what they are. But for many such jobs there is indeed satisfaction to be had: if the work is valued by all; if the worker has autonomy in when and how they will do it, and is assumed to be a responsible person who will carry out their task properly then much of the horror of any kind of work disappears.
All of that is sacrificed to "efficiency" and we sell a third of our time for many years for the supposed benefits of money and consumption: are we happier for it? It does not seem so to me. Those who do the worst tasks, with the least autonomy and therefore the least satisfaction, make very little money in the scheme of things: those who are further up the social scale have more autonomy, and those at the top have a great deal: MP's choose whether to turn up in the Commons and although there is information on how they vote when they are there, there is no information about how often they go.
The reduction of the poor to part of the "factors of production" is now being extended to "white collar" and professional jobs: that is what managerialism actually means. The target culture reduces the scope for job satisfaction and both "customers" of those services and the workers themselves are increasingly alienated for that reason. For this is what Marx called "alienation" and I do not think his analysis of this can be bettered
If we are truly interested in the individual and his or her rights then it must be in relation to freedom to act as autonomous agents pursuing their own ends. For the plutocrat that is perfectly fine for half of our waking life: just so long as we do what we are told in the other half. They pretend we have freedom in that half too: unemployment is "voluntary", apparently: and we are free to be poor. Seems like Hobson's choice to me yet they say there is no alternative. Why not? Why cannot we decide what needs doing and cooperate freely to do it? Would it be less "efficient"? Perhaps. But that also depends on an assumption about what is "efficient" and I do not think that producing shoddy goods quickly at the cost of wage slavery is very "efficient" at all. I heard a feature on the radio today where several people were asked about shoes: many of them waxed lyrical about the joy of shoes: one woman said she has more than a thousand pairs, and several said they had more than 200 pairs. Well how many pairs of shoes can one person wear in a lifetime? Is that not an indication there is something wrong with our approach: to the point that it defines insanity when the same people also said that some of those shoes don't even fit? And apparently you can now get your toes shortened to make them fit?
Seems to me we have more than enough shoes, and we should divert our efforts to something more useful
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