The falsity of the labour theory of value

Marx’s argument—as set out in the first chapter of Das Kapital—for the labour theory of value is based on three false claims. The first is:

The utility of a thing makes it a use value. But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity.

This is wrong, for utility is utility to someone. The utility comes from its connection to their purposes. So, the utility of a thing does have existence apart from that commodity, it exists in the relation of the thing to the purposes of anyone who has a use for it.

The second is:

…[commodities of equal value] must, as exchange values, be replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first: the valid exchange values of a given commodity express something equal; secondly, exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it.

Which is equally wrong, since variation in value (between people, across time and space) is what drives trade in the first place. Each person trades something that they value less for something they value more: the exchange value is a point of intersection. There can be no trade without such variation. Indeed, much of commerce is finding people who put an intersecting valuation on things you want to exchange: hence the gains from trade (each person ending up with something they value more than what they gave up). If there were genuine indifference by both parties to each item (i.e. they both valued them equally), the exchange would not be worth the bother. Trade began operating across vast differences comparatively early in human history precisely because things increase in exchange value the more scarce they are—hence trade items moving from places of less scarcity to places of more, in long chains of shifting intersections of different valuations. Marx’s finding of some “common quality” creating some equality in exchange does not define the nature of exchange, it abolishes its underlying reality and driver.

What both these errors do is separate exchange value from what people want. The subjective element of value is replaced by a (spurious) objectivity.

The third false claim is:

… if then we leave out of consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour.

Which is also not true. Commodities also have the qualities of being made of materials (what economists call ‘land’) and by tools (what economists call ‘capital’): labour on its own produces little or nothing.

Even more basically, to be exchanged, such things have to be controlled by someone. Locke’s metaphor that a person in the state of nature acquires something by “mixing his labour” with it is misleading: what they do is take control of it. Any contribution of labour to exchange—whether in production or the realisation of value in exchange—is framed by such control: as is also true of land and capital.* Moreover, the control has to matter: the thing has to have sufficient scarcity and be sufficiently wanted by someone for such control to matter. We can control a twig, but who cares? Control, scarcity and wanting are the bases of exchange value.

Having, in fact, not established the labour theory of value, Marx is confronted with the problem that not everything with exchange value is the product of labour, not everything produced by labour has value and the exchange value of something can shift dramatically after it has been produced. So, to maintain his theory, Marx cannot use the term labour (or, for that matter, value) in the way they are normally used. Hence we end up with labour in Marxian economic theory meaning socially necessary abstract labour time: a rather odd, “Platonic form” of labour. The socially necessary part being rhetorically necessary, as it allows labour to be redefined so it “fits” with the evidence. (How do we know any given bit of labour is “socially necessary”? Why, because it produces something of value, of course!)

If one is so gauche as to argue against the labour theory of value by referring to labour as it actually appears in an economy, one finds that one has so misunderstood. Even though Marx and his followers promptly draw moral implications which are precisely anchored in labour-as-what-workers-do, it is simply not kosher to infer back from that, that labour in Marxian economics means what you would ordinarily think it means. Marxism uses the notion of “labour” as what-workers-do to get its moral rhetoric working—but shifts to socially necessary abstract labour time whenever that gets awkward. It invokes the power of particular words (‘labour’, ‘value’) but evades the meaning that gives them that power.

When arguing with Marxists and Marxians, it is very easy to get lost in their logical traps. They certainly are.

* Locke's metaphor has had a long and deleterious effect on the development of economic thought, since it encouraged looking at exchange as being a culmination of a productive process (which it may or may not be, and to varying degrees of success) rather than as a purposive act of (changing) control, which it always is. The importance of economic property rights (who has actual control of something) is brilliantly analysed in Yoram Barzel, The Economic Analysis of Property Rights, part of the transaction costs revolution which is steadily transforming economics. Barzel demonstrates that economic property rights are basic to economic analysis, not some ancillary add-on.

ADDENDA Adam Smith scholar Gavin Kennedy argues, very plausibly, that Smith did not hold a labour theory of value. Smith viewed labour as a measure of value, not a source of it. If one reads the key passage in The Wealth of Nations, this seems correct:

The real price of everything what everything costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, who want to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by labour as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That money or those goods indeed save us this toil. They contain the value of a certain quantity of labour which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who posses it and who want to exchange it for some new production is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command. ( WN I.v.2: 47-48)

Smith's thinking strikes me as a little confused, and one can see why a cursory reading might be taken as expressing labour as a source of value, but what Smith is about here is labour as a measure of value. Smith is, at least in part, expressing the notion of opportunity cost.

The Legacy of Jihad

It is doubtful that there is any aspect of Islam about which there is more misinformation disseminated – wittingly or unwittingly – than jihad. Typically, such misinformation belittles the role and nature of jihad to make Islam seem as innocuous as possible.

This despite the fact that there is a plethora of Islamic texts and historical accounts which show quite clearly that jihad – offensive war to spread Islam – was a basic feature of Islam from the time of the Prophet onwards, as The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims compiled by Andrew Bostom makes quite clear.

The Legacy of Jihad is a compilation of scholarly articles, original documents, Islamic commentaries and historical accounts from the beginning of Islam to the present. It starts with a Foreword by Ibn Warraq then a series of Parts. The first is a survey of jihad and the imposition of dhimmitude. The second is on jihad in the Qur’an and the hadith, with excerpts from Islamic commentaries on the former. The third is a series of excerpts from Islamic commentaries on jihad from the C8th to C20th. Part 4 is a series of overviews of jihad from C20th scholars. Jacques Ellul’s piece on the (corrupting) influence of Islam on Christianity is easily the weakest, since it makes a series of striking assertions without evidence.

Part 5 is a timeline, maps and period illustrations on jihad from the C7th to C11th. Part 6 is a series of extracts from historians on jihad in the Near East, Europe, Asia Minor and the Indian subcontinent. Part 7 is on jihad slavery. Part 8 is a series of eye-witness and near eye-witness accounts, Muslim and non-Muslim, of jihad campaigns from the C7th to the C20th (the Armenian genocide). There is also a series of useful appendices.

The greatest single power of The Legacy of Jihad is the sheer amount of material. The power of original materials and repetition is great.

The logic of Islam

Islam-the-religion is Submission to God, conceived as Sovereign Legislator: that is its defining principle. Followed by, as a natural consequence, spreading the message of Submission. One can choose to Submit or one can be forced to submit to being ruled, according to the laws of God (i.e. Shar’ia), by those who have Submitted.
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The People of the Book are in partial submission, so are permitted to continue in their partial submission, as dhimmis, under the rule of Muslims, the full submitters. Polytheists and animists are not even on the path of submission, so only have the choice of full submission (becoming Muslims) or death. One of the more horrifying sections in The Legacy of Jihad is the discussion of the Armenian massacres and genocide (Pp 518ff), pointing out that later C19th and early C20th agitation for equality before the law within the Ottoman Empire was a breach of the contract of dhimmitude. That contract spares the lives and property of non-believers in exchange for them accepting Muslim rule, including second-class status. If one rejects second-class status, then one has breached the contract and one’s life and property can be taken. As, indeed, happened, both in the “Hamidian massacres” of the 1890s and the genocide proper during the First World War.

Jihad follows naturally from the logic of Islam: particularly the concept of Allah as lawgiver. If Submission to God – and thus to the laws of God – is the highest principle, then spreading the coverage of those laws is a deeply worthy act: both within oneself and across the world. The latter being the more worthy. In the words of one hadith:

It is narrated on the authority of Tariq b. Shihab: It was Marwan who initiated (the practice) of delivering khutbah (address) before the prayer on the 'Id day. A man stood up and said: Prayer should precede khutbah. He (Marwan) remarked, This (practice) has been done away with. Upon this Abu Sa'id remarked: This man has performed (his duty) laid on him. I heard the Messenger of Allah as saying: He who amongst you sees something abominable should modify it with the help of his hand; and if he has not strength enough to do it, then he should do it with his tongue, and if he has not strength enough to do it, (even) then he should (abhor it) from his heart, and that is the least of faith.

Hence aggressive war to spread Submission to Allah was a fundamental part of the mission of the Prophet, the conquests of his Companions and of Muslim rulers for the next thousand years. (The picture on the cover of the paperback edition of The Legacy of Jihad is a C19th rendition of the Prophet and his son-in-law Ali [both represented as flames, being too holy to represent as images] supervising the beheading of the men of Jewish tribe of the Beni Kuraizah [aka Bani Qurayzah].) A pattern of military expansion that only halted because Islam-the-civilization came up against more successful predators.

A clear pattern of operation can be seen, particularly in the pieces on the Turkish advance across Asia Minor and the Balkans. First, regular raids “soften up” the infidel: such raids being sanctioned by the actions and words of the Prophet. Including the taking of booty. In the words of a C14th Granadan writer:

It is permissible to set fire to the lands of the enemy, his stores of grain, his beasts of burden—if it is not possible for the Muslims to take possession of them—as well to cut down his trees, to raze his cities, in a word, to do everything that might ruin and discourage him, provided that the imam deems these measures appropriate, suited to hastening the Islamization of that enemy or to weakening him. Indeed, all this contributes to a military triumph over him or to forcing him to capitulate.

Acquiring booty while doing one’s religious duty (indeed, offering oneself up for potential martyrdom as a ghazi, a holy warrior of Islam) is a highly congruent merging of the spiritual and the material. Such raids de-populated border areas by massacre, by flight and by famine due to the destruction of crops. Having undermined the material basis of any defence, the Muslim armies then move in and take control, with terror being a pervasive part of the process. Once control is established, Muslim peasants and warriors would move into the conquered lands and the process would repeat at the new borders.

While there has been some spreading of Islam-the-religion via trade routes, Islam has overwhelmingly been spread by the conquests of pastoralist nomads (Arabs, "Moors" [i.e. Berbers], Turks, Mongols). The religion suits such: most emphatically jihad with its religious sanctification of raiding.

The historian Vasiliki Papoulia, in an excerpt discussing the effect of devshirme (the tax of dhimmi boys to the Sultan) on Greek society, discusses briefly Arnold Toynbee’s theory of nomadic states collapsing due to not adjusting properly to rule of agrarians (p.556) with Toynbee explaining the longevity of the Ottoman state by its successful development of the slaves of the Sultan as “enforcers” (in effect, “herd dogs” on the peasantry).

There is a narrower point to be made about pastoralist (i.e. nomad) rule. The historian Dimitar Angelov, in his piece on the Turkish conquest of the Balkans, refers regularly to the Turkish “feudal lords”. This is precisely what they were not. The standard way to finance warriors in Islam-the-civilization was either to pay them a direct salary or to assign the right to collect the taxes of peasants in a given area. Land was precisely what they were not given.

The operating principle is a pastoralist notion of peasants as “herd” to be lived off, not land-as-property. The book includes excerpts from early Caliphs explicitly ruling against directly sharing out land so that the peasants could provide revenue (Pp591ff). In pastoralist society, grazing land is communal (which helps cement the solidarity that is a feature of pastoralist life: a recurring pattern is that the infidels were often disunited, even to the point of treachery), it is not a thing owned individually.

The interaction between warriors, peasants and land in Islam-the-civilization was therefore typically quite different from that in Latin Christendom, where the land-owning-and-inheriting warrior elite had strong incentives to concern itself with the productiveness of the land, commerce and productive relations with the peasantry. Over the longer term, the former generated seriously inferior incentives for economic development, while fostering far more centralised concentration of power: especially given the right to tax peasants could be re-assigned at any time and was usually not heritable (particularly not the same set of peasants). Even a late C12th Muslim chronicler, ibn Jubayr, noted with concern that the Crusader states (or Franj, Arabic for “Franks”) treated their Muslim peasants better than did neighbouring Muslim rulers (p.263 of The Crusades Through Arab Eyes):

Upon leaving Tibin (near Tyre), we passed through an unbroken skein of farms and villages whose lands were efficiently cultivated. The inhabitants were all Muslims, but they live in comfort with the Franj—may God preserve us from temptation! Their dwellings belong to them and all their property is unmolested. All the regions controlled by the Franj in Syria are subject to this same system: the landed domains, villages, and farms have remained in the hands of the Muslims. Now, doubt invests the heart of a great number of these men when they compare their lots to that of their brothers living in Muslim territory. Indeed, the latter suffer from the injustice of their coreligionists, whereas the Franj act with equity.

It is noted in one of the contributions to The Legacy of Jihad that slaves were a preferred asset (purchase of slaves represented one of the best investments p.569). This makes sense, since they were direct warrior property as land was not. Jihad slavery – explicitly sanctioned by Islam – was probably the largest manifestation of slavery across human history. Even in our time, Islamism in Sudan has seen a revival of slavery (Pp 579ff).

Indeed, anything one might damn, particularly fashionably damn, Western civilisation for – imperialism, colonialism, religious wars, militarism, misogyny, degradation of “the Other” – Islam did more so, longer, and explicitly religiously sanctioned.

Any claim that the Crusaders (most notoriously the First Crusade) were worse in their homicidal barbarity than Muslim conquerors is completely false. From the beginning of the Arab conquests on, Muslim jihad raids and conquests were marked by massacre, rape, enslavement, looting and destruction. To take but one example, the massacre of the inhabitants of Syracuse, when it was taken in 878, was every bit as horrid the Crusaders massacre and sack of Jerusalem in 1095. And jihad was a hugely bigger phenomena across time and space. For example, the jihad depredations in India were much worse, over much longer period of time, than that of the crusaders in Outremer: since Buddhists and Hindus were “polytheistic idolaters”, their only choices in terms of Islam were Islam (Submission to God) or death, as Islamic clerics kept preaching.

Simple practicality stopped Muslim rulers going all the way with that, but they went horridly far in rape, massacre, pillage and enthusiastic destruction of “idolatrous” art, temples, buildings etc, regularly boasting of how many 100,000s they had killed or enslaved. British rule in India was much less oppressive than Muslim rule, as Indian historians freely acknowledge. In the words of the Amir Timur (Tamurlaine) in 1399 (in a very C19th translation):

My principle object in coming to Hindustan and in undergoing all this toil and hardship, has been to accomplish two things. The first was to war with the infidels, the enemies of the Muhammadan religion; and by this religious warfare to acquire some claim to reward in the life to come. The other was a worldly object; that the army of Islam might gain something by plundering the wealth and valuables of the infidels: plunder in war is as lawful as their mothers’ milk to Musulmans who war for their faith, and the consuming of that which is lawful is a means of grace (p.650).

A very congenial merging of the religious and the material – for the pastoralist raider and conqueror. Working through the material in The Legacy of Jihad, one is struck by the consistency of the reports across the centuries and regardless of region. A congruence of religious belief, institutional forms and cultural outlook. With regular boastings down the centuries of the numbers of infidels slain, women and children enslaved, idolatrous temples destroyed, booty taken and Submissions to God achieved. All of which is impeccably based on the example of the Prophet.

It is a common contemporary notion that people are defined by their beliefs. So, it is held, to criticise Islam is to attack and denigrate Muslims. And that is bad. So, the implication is, one cannot criticise Islam. No matter what its logics and doctrines have led to, again and again and again.

Of course, Islam-the-religion also defines people by their beliefs. Very much so.

So we have an eminent Pakistani Shar’ia jurist, in September 2007, holding that Muslims should live in peace in countries such as Britain where they are free to practice their religion only until they are strong enough to establish Muslim supremacy. An unimpeachably Islamic sentiment.
Equality before the law is un-Islamic. In the words of al-Ghazali (perhaps the most important figure in Islam after the Prophet):

... the dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or his Apostle … Jews, Christians and Majians [Zoroastrians] my pay the jizya [poll tax on non-Muslims] … on offering up the jizya, the dhimmi must hand his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits on the protruberant bone behind his ear … They are no permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or church bells … their houses must not be higher than the Muslim’s, no matter how low that is. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule; he may ride a donkey only if the saddle is of wood. He may not walk on the good part of the road. They have to wear [an identifying] patch, even women, even in the public baths … (p.199).

To Western minds – to whom the dominant “template” of what a religion is, is Christianity, followed by post-Diaspora Judaism and perhaps Buddhism – to read excerpts on a serious religious debate (Pp 151ff) about whether it is permissible, under one’s religion, to kill hermits, old people, the insane … during war is a little disconcerting. But we are dealing with a seriously different model of what a religion is and a seriously different civilisation. It is an odd doctrine, this doctrine that we must always “respect” the Other: to hold that cultural differences must be respected and so no differences can be anything other than benign ones.

Yeshua ben Miriam held that His message was reducible to two principles. Love God and love one another. If we abandon the first, there is still the second. In the West, there is an important sense in which we are all heirs of Niccolo Machiavelli and, even more so, Thomas Hobbes: the man who, more than anyone else, changed the big question from God and Man to Man and the World. By contrast, Islam is nothing without God, which is why its politics keep returning there. Few people in Islam are the heirs of Hobbes. We operate across a great gulf in presumptions.

Moreover, the Christian injunction to love one another is a general injunction, it is not restricted or layered by belief. In his 1537 bull Sublimus Dei, Pope Paul III proclaimed, regarding the inhabitants of the Americas, that:

... the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect.

By contrast, an Islamic jurist wrote, in a book published in 1940, reflecting consistent Islamic jurisprudence about the law of Allah down the centuries:

… the Imam may condemn the population of the conquered countries, in case they do not accept Islam and the Imam does not demand that they shall work and pay the tribute, to be slaves and be divided among the Jihadists as [the spoils of war]. The owner of a slave had the liberty to treat him any way liked. If the slave were a woman, he was allowed to have sexual connection with her without marriage (p.577).

Or, in the words of al-Ghazali again:

… one must go on jihad (i.e. warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year … one may use a catapult against them when they are in a fortress even if there are among them women and children. One may set fire to them or drown them … If a Person of the Book is enslave his marriage is revoked … One may cut down their trees … One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide … (p.199).

It is not the Christians adhered to what Pope Paul decreed. It is that Islam has no such higher standard to invoke.

The world would be a better place if Christians more consistently lived up to their religion. It would be a much worse place if Muslims more consistently lived down to all of theirs. As The Legacy of Jihad makes abundantly clear.

Culture and Conflict (II): Conceptions of God

Building on Anthropologist Phillip Carl Salzman's analysis discussed in my previous post, since God is the ultimate Authority, conceptions of God reflect the prevailing conceptions of authority. Thus, if authority is male, God is gendered as male: as He is in all the Middle Eastern monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and quasi-monotheism (Zoroastrianism). They are all very much God-the-Father religions. Judaism and Zoroastrianism are both particularist monotheisms lacking universalist aspirations. (Very Middle Eastern in a sense – our God is the God of the universe, but He is ours, so there.) The two universalist monotheisms – Christianity and Islam – arose in very different contexts with very different conceptions of authority and thus very different conceptions of God.

Christianity – growing up within a law-bound Roman Empire – was not originally concerned with political authority and social order (the Romans took care of those) but with moral order. But the legacy of Greek political thought and Roman order made it natural to think of God as law-bound, as a law-keeper. Otherwise He was a capricious and wilful tyrant. So the idea of God as a “constitutional monarch” who ruled over an ordered Creation, because a good ruler is law-bound, was natural to Christianity. In the words of Adelard of Bath in the C12th:

I do not detract from the power of God, for all that exists does so from him and by means of His power. However, this is not to say that nature itself is chaotic, irrational, or made up of discrete elements. Therefore it is possible for men to achieve an understanding of this rational order inherent in nature, an understanding as complete as the extent to which human knowledge progresses.

Even the conception of the Trinity creates a sense of God as being ordered.

Conversely, Islam grew up in a deeply tribal society where Muhammad created a political order as part of his new religious order. A tribal society based on balanced opposition with a radiating pattern of loyalties that get more intense the closer the kin connection. “Me against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and my brothers against the world” as the Arab proverb runs.

In tribal society, honour comes from winning, since one’s loyalties are entirely defined by connection and opposition. The more complete the victory, the greater the honour – for the greater the triumph over the defining opponent. So, the greater the domination, the greater the authority, for the greater the honour. Hence to suggest any limit on the absolute sovereignty of Allah is to impugn His honour. Even in suggesting that there is any ordering in His will. Contrast Adelard of Barth’s contemporary Al-Ghazali in his deeply influential The Incoherence of the Philosophers on precisely the same topic as Adelard was writing on above:

our opponent claims that the agent of the burning is the fire exclusively; this is a natural, not a voluntary agent, and cannot abstain from what is in its nature when it is brought into contact with a receptive substratum. This we deny, saying: The agent of the burning is God, through His creating the black in the cotton and the disconnexion of its parts, and it is God who made the cotton burn and made it ashes either through the intermediation of angels or without intermediation. For fire is a dead body which has no action, and what is the proof that it is the agent? Indeed, the philosophers have no other proof than the observation of the occurrence of the burning, when there is contact with fire, but observation proves only a simultaneity, not a causation, and, in reality, there is no other cause but God.

(Philosophers might note David Hume’s argument on causation being put several centuries before Hume.)

It is not hard to see which view is more conducive to the development of science. But not only the development of science. For if to suggest there are limits to the absolute sovereignty of Allah is to impugn His honour, then it is an easy step to the jihadi view that democracy is blasphemous because it intrudes on the sovereignty of Allah. Just as prevailing notions of authority affect the conception of God; conceptions of God, in turn, affect how the world is understood.

Al-Gazali’s view was contested within Islam – Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote his The Incoherence of the Incoherence in response. But al-Ghazali’s view won out because it resonated in Middle Eastern culture. Averroes was far more influential in the West, because his views resonated among the Christian heirs to Classical civilisation.

It is a great mistake to not acknowledge that Islam is a different civilisation, with different fundamental presumptions, than our own. Salzman’s book is deeply enlightening about those differences and from whence they arise.

Culture and Conflict in the Middle East (I)

Every so often, one reads a book that clarifies a great deal. Anthropologist Phillip Carl Salzman’s Culture and Conflict in the Middle East is one such book. It examines the way tribal-pastoral societies work and their interaction with peasant farmers and state power. Much history is clarified by Salzman’s analysis, ranging from the Old Testament to the present day Middle East.

Salzman analyses Middle Eastern culture (particularly, but not only, Arab culture) in terms of balanced opposition (p.11) arising out of the demands of tribally-based pastoralism. What Salzman calls culture is often what economists would call institutions. His analytical model is usefully summarised at the end of the book. The key concept is

balanced opposition (each group of whatever size and scope is opposed by a group of equal size and scope).

It is based on

affiliation solidarity (always support those closer against those more distant).

In this structure of who you belong to being defined by who you are against

success in competition, conflict, and combat brings honor, while defeat brings loss of honour and shame

as it demonstrates the capacity to benefit you and yours. For

loyalty is always defined as support of one’s own group in opposition to another group (Pp210-1).

Such an arrangement is deeply particularist, a particularism not compatible with formal universalism (p.16).

Salzman's analysis is derived from extensive field work within the Middle East. At all times, Salzman is careful to convey the virtues and functionality of the arrangements. He also strongly defends looking at cultural arrangements in terms of general characteristics, and as having both strength and limitations (Pp206-8). It is not surprising that, early in the book, there is a short dismissal of Edward Said’s analytical framework (something I am hardly going to disagree with) – Salzman argues that not acknowledging differences in culture is to project one’s own set of values, ways of thinking and goals onto others but that it is entirely possible to still understand different cultures (Pp 14-15). We are all human, even if we do think in variant ways.

Salzman notes a fundamental, long-term, pattern of Middle Eastern history as being the waxing and waning of predatory central control (p.13). Salzman makes a point of noting the predatory nature of the Muslim conquests (Pp139ff).

Even though the tribal pastoralists are deeply integrated into trade based around urban markets (Pp29-30) – a key concern is to maintain herds large enough for economic viability – the tribal pastoralists live in very different social context than the controlled sedentary peasantry, as the peasants are socially atomised while tribal nomads are far more cooperative (using Ibn Khaldun’s term, have high levels of asabiyya) (Pp 31-32).

Pastoralism is based on group and personal property rights (Pp35-36). As both peasants and pastoralists live off their property, its defence is central to social arrangements (p.48).

A key difference is that the sedentary peasants are (generally) much more vulnerable to state activity (Pp39ff). But the relationship with the state is a complex one – there are controlled pastoralists and uncontrolled farmers (Pp42ff). Moreover, the boundaries can shift – peasants can flee to pastoralism if state activity becomes too oppressive, or too ineffectual to stop raiders (Pp44ff).

To achieve social order, two different strategies are on offer: “self-help” based on segmented (family, clan, tribe, confederation) lineages or “authority” based on controlled specialists (Pp50ff).

In security based on self-help, the most efficient defense is deterrence based on an image of cohesive group solidarity and successful bellicosity. Tribesmen wish to be respected and feared by other groups. (p.57).

These two strategies are not spatially distinct, but interweave and overlap.

Our map image of countries as large territories delineated by clear boundaries grossly misrepresents reality though much of history and in many parts of the world today. It is more accurate to think of state entities as centers of power, functioning a bit like magnets, which control areas close to them, but which lose holding power as the distance increases … Between state centers there are marginal regions, often quite large, not under the effective control of the state (p.59).

Thus

states tend to be strongest at their centers and weaker at great distances, and thus tribes on the peripheries tend to be more independent of the state … It would be more accurate to think of states and tribes as alternative forms of organization that shared space and power, compromising to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the circumstances (p.178).

Even nowadays, tribesmen seek to safeguard their independence by crossing state borders (p.63).

Tribesmen have four strategies for gaining access to the wealth of the state – trade, offering “protection”, raiding and conquest (p.65). Any or all of these may be used, depending on circumstances.

Various strategies are adopted to ensure lineages are large enough to be viable (p.93). These are based on intrinsic, internalised and extrinsic motivations (pp102ff). Marriages are arranged for the benefit of the lineage (p.114) with group solidarity, asabiyya and honour being closely related (p.115).

Interlineage conflicts arise because people feel they must defend themselves against all threats or become an open target (p.117).

The situation of the sexes is not equivalent. Men can add to their and the lineage’s honour, women can only detract from either (p.118). Naturally, in circumstances where one is defined by group loyalty and public perception, it is not the act, but the public knowing of the act that generates shame (Pp120ff).

Men’s honour comes from strength, women’s from childbearing contributing to the rank and strength of the lineage (p.128). Children and livestock are highly (and rationally) desirable (p.132). In other words, patrilineal arrangements based around, and designed to generate, male strength lead to male domination, with lower standing for female roles. Salzman’s analysis make “honour” killings (which he discusses [p.121ff] as part of a wider pattern of control) make perfect sense. (Such functionality gives the vile practice more staying power.)

The tribal context of Islam
Salzman very much sees Islam as arising out of, and reflecting, this tribal culture of balanced opposition. The default Islamic attitude to non-Muslims is one of conquest and dominance (p.146). A dominance universal in its nature, since Allah made everything (p.148).

Thus, Islam is universalist in its aspirations. Indeed, it is more so than Christianity not only because it is a territorial religion, but because it deems Islam to be the original religion, the religion of Adam and of all the Prophets (p.152). So Jews and Christians have always been in error, there was never a time when they represented the operating Covenant. And wilfully in error too, since Submission to God was always possible. Muhammad is merely the Seal of the Prophets, God’s message was always there. Thus the universalism of Islam is very much a layered universalism (Muslims over non-Muslims, men over women).

In this milieu of being defined by who you are against, Arab rejection of Israel becomes “overdetermined’ being based on conflicting material interests, use of Israel as an external enemy and scapegoat by Arab regimes, definition-by-opposition and challenged honor (p.163). Attempts to learn from Israel’s success are blocked. Indeed, the self-image of being religiously superior undermines any pressure for change (p.171), despite the Arab world’s poor performance across a wide range of social indicators (p.194).

Salzman assembles clear evidence of Muslim bellicosity – Muslims are far more involved in intercivilisational conflicts (the “bloody borders” problem) than members of other civilisations, while Muslim states are far more militarised and far more likely to resort to violence – and more extreme violence – than non-Muslim states (Pp172-3).

In this context, inter-tribal politics is “winner take all” with all social contests being zero-sum games (p.184):

At the top of the ruler’s priorities must be cementing relations with tribal groups and discouraging adventurism. He does this by constant travel and visits to tribal regions with his impressive entourage to persuade tribesmen of his worthiness as leader and his steadfastness against any challenge. These deadly serious royal parades take place within a general, agonistic cultural milieu, in which, at all levels, each and every relationship, engagement and transaction is a struggle between parties. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that, in these circumstances, might makes fight, and the winner is always right (Pp198-9).

The pattern of balanced opposition is so entrenched (precisely because it is functional) that its patterns extend way beyond tribal pastoralism.

Balanced opposition is not seen here only in the formal structure of tribes, but more broadly in society, throughout the range of social transactions. At the maximal level, the state apparatus is balanced against the weight of the surrounding tribes, and is constantly trying to keep its balance (p.199).

Arab culture inculcates strong virtues which are, however, not conducive to a formally ordered society. Turkish and Iranian cultures are both more amenable to the strategy of authority (p.200).

Rulership based on glory of the ruler, where all deference is humiliation, leads to regimes seen as unjust and illegitimate, hence the regular pattern of religiously-inspired insurgencies (p.201). Which, even if they achieve power, fail to resolve the problem as they inevitably fall prey to the exigencies and failures of politics – a pattern Salzman sees as currently operating in mullah-ruled Iran (p.202).

If constitutionalism (in the broad sense) and the rule of law are crucial to modernity, then the Middle East has a problem. For Arab culture in particular lacks the sense of overarching rules and formal structures because the frame of reference is always in terms of one’s own group and loyalty to it (p.205). This, Salzman argues, is extremely unconducive to democratic rule (p.209). Which will only prosper if individualism gains more sway against group loyalty (p.210). For

the particularism of Middle Eastern culture precludes universalism, rule of law and constitutionalism, all involving the measuring of actions against general criteria, irrespective of the affiliation of particular actors (p.211).

For progress to occur,

Middle Easterners will have to decide what they are for is more important than whom they are against (p.212).

I found Salzman’s book deeply enlightening, both about general patterns of history going back centuries, extending (both spatially and temporally) beyond Islam, and about Islam itself.

Concepts in Economics made clearer

Some plain English explanations of basic terms and concepts in Economics and other helpful tips for puzzled students and others.
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'Marginal' just means 'the last one before you stop'.

You draw the line in the graph for (perfectly) Inelastic as a big I.

You draw the graph for (perfectly) Elastic as a big E without the top line. (This mnemonic did much to get me through first year Microeconomics.)

If it is only quantities/prices that are changing, you move along the supply/demand curve.

If it is how much is demanded (at a given price) or the supply costs (at a given quantity) that is changing, then you move the curve.

The price of something is what you give up to get it.

The cost of something is what you give up to get it.

If you don't ration by price, you ration by queue.* (Hence the hardy political perennial of “reduce hospital waiting lists”.)

Revealed preference is what folk actually do.

Expressed preference is what folk say they will do.
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Externalities are effects on third parties. They can be positive or negative. (The victim of a contract killing suffers a negative externality since they were the subject of the contract but not a party to it. Property owners near a new railway station gain a positive externality.)

Gains from trade are why people do. (Trade that is.) They exist because utility is subjective, so the same thing can have different value to different folks. A bookseller already has lots of books, it's money and everything they can do with it that they want; while a book buyer has money, but they don't have that book. If they trade, each ends up with something they value more than what they started with. Which is why people buy and sell.

Comparative advantage is about what you are most productive at, not who is more productive. (A doctor probably can clean her office better than a cleaner: but it's a damn silly use of her time.)

The market system is a profit and loss system. The latter is more important.

Risk matters. (This may seem really obvious, but it's amazing how many otherwise smart people talk as if it doesn't. Everyone who thinks trading futures is a wank, for example. Or all private profit is exploitation—i.e. every Marxist.) So much commercial activity is all about managing risk. For example, the most important labour market intermediary being "friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc": the connection and information that people have about such "friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc" lessens the risks in hiring a new person.

Arbitrage is buying and selling the same thing: the gain is from knowing that some other buyer(s) exist that the first seller doesn't know about or can't reach.

Transaction costs matter. So prices often vary according to how close the nearest competitor is because travel is a cost in transacting.

Networks tend to be natural monopolies because adding an extra person is cheaper (and gives greater benefits) the bigger the network. (I.e. there are economies of scale because the costs of establishment get spread over more and more folk, so fall per person.) Of course, if networks costs are a sufficiently small part of total costs, or there are diseconomies of scale (typically in management), then not so much.

Finally, there are three ways to say anything in economics—words, graphs or mathematics: as long as you can master 2 out of 3, you're fine.

(*Or elite favour, but that's a case we prefer not to think about, it being arbitrary and all.)

Philosophy of Mind: A Short Introduction

Edward Feser’s Philosophy of Mind: A Short Introduction is an excellent introduction to the philosophy of mind. As he brings out in his book, philosophy of mind is deeply interconnected with other areas of philosophy. It is also an extremely active area in contemporary philosophy. (Indeed, Feser appears to have already produced an updated version of the book.)

As is natural, given the subject, Feser starts with Descartes. Actually, he starts with the film The Matrix whose people-in-vats-sharing-a-virtual-reality is an updated version of Descartes how do you know what’s real? question – after all, everything you perceive might be delusions foisted on you by a malignant deity. (The modern version being you might be a brain in a vat being stimulated by Superscientist.)

Each chapter covers an area (or, in the cases of the second and third chapters) an approach in the philosophy of mind. So the first chapter is Perception, then Dualism, Materialism, Qualia, Consciousness, Thought, Intentionality, Persons: a logical progression that allows Feser to take us through the arguments and counter-arguments in the philosophy of mind in a remarkably thorough way.

Each chapter ends with a helpful suggested reading list. At the end of the book is a useful glossary of terms.

While the book is structured to introduce the reader to modern philosophy of mind, it is not an easy book. Feser covers a lot of ground and many of the issues are inherently difficult. But the language is precise without being convoluted, jargon-ridden or unnecessarily verbose.

That Feser, as a Thomist and Catholic, does not share the dominant contemporary philosophy of materialism is helpful, because it minimises the chance of falling prey to presumptions of correctness. Feser points out that many contemporary debates are re-visitings of previous arguments stretching back to Aristotle and earlier.*

Feser is careful and thorough in his presentation of arguments and counter-arguments. Philosophy of Mind: A Short Introduction is a very useful text.

(* A common feature of philosophy. For example, indeterminacy of meaning was a hot topic to Socrates and the boys.)

Wishing President Obama Well

It would be good if President Obama managed a successful Presidency for lots of reasons. One of Reagan’s most overlooked achievements was that, prior to his Presidency, it was beginning to look like a successful two-term Presidency was no longer possible (Kennedy shot; LBJ broken by Vietnam; Nixon resigned in disgrace; Ford not elected; Carter, one-term failure). Moreover, unsuccessful Presidencies tend to have manifold unfortunate consequences. And it would be good to complete the I Have A Dream effect.

Having had black Senators, Secretaries of State, Supreme Court Justices and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the US now has a black President. Not only did he win the election, President Obama is only the third Democrat in 100 years to crack over 50% of the popular vote.

This is the most spectacular vindication of Martin Luther King's career and aspirations. In his gracious victory speech, then Senator Obama quoted the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln and used the same bible as the latter for his Inauguration oath.

It was in front of Lincoln's memorial, the President who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, that Martin Luther King gave one of the great speeches of the C20th, his I Have A Dream speech. There is a direct line from King's speech to Obama's victory.

Listening to Martin Luther King proclaiming in 1963 his hopes for his country, we can remind ourselves how far things have traveled within the life-time of the man who is now one of the US's youngest Presidents.

Even with all this, how are we to understand the avid extolling of Barack Obama's ascension to the Presidency? To the extent of merging idolatry with narcissism. Just as there was highly personalised animus against President George W. Bush, now there is amazing gushiness about President Obama. Some of it appears to be the result of transferring the search for transcendence that marks religion, mysticism, art, etc to politics: always a worry, since politics is such an unsuitable (indeed dangerous) vehicle for that. But a lot of it seems to the result of deeming political beliefs to be markers of personal character. This is also a dangerous move, and not merely because it is so destructive of civility in public life.
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Yes, it is a fine thing that the United States of America has a President of African descent whose children (though not he himself) are the descendants of slaves. But that fine thing does not make Barack Hussein Obama anything more than a (gifted) politician. It is yet to be established whether he is an able President. Though I would agree his nominations and appointments are broadly encouraging, despite a remarkable tendency for misfires: even if on ethics, rather than capacity, grounds. I am distinctly underwhelmed by the stimulus bill and the continued groping on financial markets: still, it is early days yet.

It is also a mark of the worth of the United States of America as a polity, as a work-in-progress which embodies a great deal of human achievement. For that is the other grave error in the sanctification of some political actors and the demonisation of others. It undermines any sense of worth or virtue existing in institutions by hugely (over) elevating the worth (or lack of it) in particular people.

Which may also help explain a propensity to so over-personalise. If one sees oneself as part of an existing something larger, anchored in the past, extending into the future, then much less is invested in particular persons in the passing human parade. Victor Davis Hanson expresses this when he writes:

Whether Obama is President or McCain had won, no matter; it is still the US, and as a Jacksonian I pretty much pull for America … I never thought that only with the ascension of Reagan could I really be again proud of the US.

If, however, one feels various levels of alienation from actually existing institutions, traditions, society, then that passing parade is likely to emotionally matter far more. Marx, with his highly personalised vituperation of ideological opponents, exemplifies this tendency.

Moreover, the real is inevitably flawed. If one is comfortable with flaws, that also lessens the need to demonise and exalt. If, however, one has some standard of imagined perfection, then what goes against such imagined perfection is thereby worthy of demonisation, what moves towards it—or even embodies it—is to be exalted. One both extols an unreal (and thus unblemished) ideal while rating people according to their stated commitment to it: a form of collective narcissism.

A far less personalising approach to politics strikes me as both healthier—and better grounded—than investing huge emotional significance (for good or ill) in particular people: especially people who only really exist to us as public personas.

So, hope President Obama has a successful Presidency.

Witchcraft

It took me a while to finish Witchcraft in Europe: 400-1700. Reading through primary sources is something that I find I can only do in spurts. The pieces tend to the wordy, which can be good for helping one go to sleep. Which is not to say I did other than appreciate the book greatly. The short lead-in commentaries were intelligent, helpful and informed. The pieces themselves were great insights into what people thought and did, though the misogyny becomes wearing after a while. Wow, what weird things people believed and acted upon. And we are talking the intellectual elite here – such substantial intellectual figures as Jean Bodin (Pp290-302).

What is also striking is how relatively quickly the mass persecutions arose, and then later died away. The ‘Witch Craze’ itself starts in the mid-C15th and is dying rapidly in the late C17th. Some of the stories are remarkable – the persecutions in Spain were essentially ended by the dissident reports of an Inquisitor, Alonso de Salazar Frias, in 1610-14, arguing that the treatment of evidence was very bad and making a series of recommendations. Which the Spanish Inquisition’s ruling tribunal basically adopted as instructions to all Inquisitors. Once proper evidentiary procedures were enforced, the whole thing died away in Spain (Pp407-418).

But it definitely helps if you don’t think too much about the human misery and suffering that underlies it all – in Latin Christendom, about 50,000 people were killed (p.17), often burnt alive, often after appalling torture, from C13th to the C18th for witchcraft. One Johannes Junius, a burgomeister, who "confessed" to witchcraft and was burnt, smuggled out this letter to his daughter (his hands were so severely crippled it took him several days to write the letter).
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Letter of Johannes Junius, Burgomeister of Bamberg, to his daughter Veronica, 1628

Many hundred thousand good-nights, dearly beloved daughter Veronica. Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent must I die. For whatever comes into the witch prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents something out of his head and—God pity him—bethinks him of something.

I can tell you how it has come with me. When I was the first time put to the torture, Dr. Braun, Dr. Kotzendorffer , and two strange doctors were there. Then Dr. Braun asks me, "Kinsman, how come you here?" I answer, "Through falsehood, through misfortune." "Hear, you," he says, "you are a witch; will you confess it voluntarily? If not, we’ll bring in witnesses and the executioner for you." I said "I am not witch, I have a pure conscience in the matter; if there are a thousand witnesses, I am not anxious, but I’ll gladly hear the witnesses." Now the chancellor’s son was set before me…and afterwards Hoppfens Elsse. She had seen me dance on Haupts-Moor…I answered: "I have never renounced God and will never do it—God graciously keep me from doing it. I’ll rather hear whatever I must." And then came also—God in highest Heaven, have mercy—the executioner, and put the thumb-screws on me, both hands bound together, so that blood ran out at the nails and everywhere, so that for four weeks I could not use my hands, as you can see from the writing…Thereafter they first stripped me, bound my hands behind me, and drew me up in the torture. Then I thought heaven and earth were at an end; eight times did they draw me up and let me fall again, so that I suffered terrible agony…

And this happened on Friday, June 30, and with God’s help I had to bear that torture…When at last the executioner led me back into the prison, he said to me: "Sir, I beg you, for God’s sake confess something, whether it be true or not. Invent something, for you cannot endure the torture which you’ll be put to; and even if you bear it all, yet you will not escape, not if you were an earl, but one torture will follow another until even you say you are a witch. Not before that," he said, "will they let you go, as you may see by all their trials, for one is just like another…"

And so I begged, since I was in wretched plight, to be given one day for thought and a priest. The priest was refused me, but the time for thought was given. Now, my dear child, see in what hazard I stood and still stand. I must say that I am a witch, though I am not,—must now renounce God, though I have never done it before. Day and night I was deeply troubled, but at last there came to me a new idea. I would not be anxious, but, since I have been given no priest with whom I could take counsel, I would myself think of something and say it. It were surely better that I just say it with mouth and words, even though I had not really done it, and afterwards I would confess to the priest, and let those answer for it who compel me to do it…And so I made my confession, as follows; but I was all a lie.

Now follows, dear child, what I confessed in order to escape the great anguish and bitter torture, which was impossible for me longer to bear…

[paraphrases his confession]

Then I had to tell what people I had seen. I said that I had not recognised them. "You old rascal, I must set the executioner at you. Say—was not the Chancellor there?" So I said yes. "Who besides?" I had not recognised anybody. So he said, "Take one street after another, begin at the market, go out on one street and back on the next." I had to name eight persons there. Then came the Zinkenwert—one person more. Then over to the upper bridge to the Georgthor, on both sides. Knew nobody again. Did I know nobody in the castle—whoever it might be. I should speak without fear. And thus continuously they asked me on all the streets, though I could not and would not say more. So they gave me to the executioner, told him to strip me, shave me all over, and put me to the torture. "The rascal know one on the market-place, is with him daily, and yet won’t name him." By that they meant Dietmayer, so I had to name him too.

Then I had to tell what crimes I had committed. I said nothing…"Draw the rascal up!" So I said that I was to kill my children, but I had killed a horse instead. It did not help. I had also taken a sacred wafter, and had desecrated it. When I said this, they left me in peace.

Now, dear child, here you have all my confession, for which I must die. And they are sheer lies and made-up things, so help me God. For all this I was forced to say through fear of the torture which was threatened beyond what I had already endured. For they never leave off with the torture till one confesses something; be he never so good, he must be a witch. Nobody escapes, though he were an earl…

Dear child, keep this letter secret so that people do not find it, else I shall be tortured most piteously and the jailers will be beheaded. So strictly is it forbidden…Dear child, pay this man a dollar…I have taken several days to write this: my hand are both lame. I am in a sad plight.

Good night, for your father Johannese Junius will never see you more.
July 24, 2628.

[Written in margin] Dear child, six have confessed against me at once: the Chancellor, his son, Neudecker, Zaner, Hoffmaisters Urself, and Hoppfens Elsse—all false, through compulsion, as they have all told me, and begged my forgiveness in God’s name before they were executed…They know nothing but good of me. They were forced to say it, just as I myself was

Mayor Junius was convicted and burnt at the stake.

Modern resonance
The techniques and dynamics remind me most of Stalin’s purges. Indeed, Norman Cohn makes the excellent point (p.89 of Europe’s Inner Demons) that the example of Stalin’s show trials should make it easier to see it was all nonsense. In both cases, the confessions only make sense as inversions of the ideology of the accusers. But then most of the modern techniques of totalitarianism – censorship (Index of Prohibited Books), heresy hunts (Inquisition), propaganda (Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith), show trials (auto de fe), agitprop (preaching friars), population culls (Albigensian Crusade) – were pioneered by the Church. If you claim to have the Truth for the complete moral ordering of society based on such ultimate authority that dissent from the same is wicked – plus have the appropriate set of causal explanations and possess the institutional power to back your claim – there are certain inherent dynamics which follow and will tend to work themselves out: particularly if they become useful weapons in power struggles.

It also helps to understand the Stalinist resonance if we understand the implications of Lenin Jacobinising Marxism. In Lenin's words and emphasis:

A Jacobin who wholly identifies himself with the organization of the proletariat—a proletariat conscious of its class interests—is a revolutionary Social Democrat

. The entire Soviet enterprise was an expression of self-declared beneficent, revolutionary will. Therefore, clearly opposing will was possible (indeed, a ready explanation for anything going wrong, since the Bolsheviks had the key to history, so clearly any failures were a result of malign intent). Hence Lenin's enthusiasm for capital punishment. Leninism came with a ready-made demonology, even more than Marxism proper.

Witchcraft accusations have a further totalitarian confluence. In many societies, accusations of witchcraft are typically levelled against those more successful than their neighbours. They become devices for systematically and brutally selecting against innovation and extra effort. Which is what happened with “kulak” and “hoarder” accusations in the Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mengistu’s Ethiopia, Ho’s North Vietnam, Mao’s China, and so on.

(My favourite quote on totalitarianism as a concept is Peter Berger’s pre-1989 observation concerning

the persistent incapacity of even American professors to grasp a difference understood by every taxi driver in Prague.

The complaints about ‘totalitarian’ not being "predictive" strike me as particularly otiose: are the concepts of monarchy, democracy and dictatorship ‘predictive’ in that sense?)

Ironically, Marx himself endorsed some of the long tradition of conspiracy-mongering, citing alleged research to show that early Christians really had ritually slaughtered children. (As Cohn demonstrates, early Christians were subject to similar accusations by outraged pagans as those later Christians made against witches.)

Historical development
Cohn is very useful to read in conjunction with Witchcraft. He points out that peasant lynchings for witchcraft had occurred for centuries. What was needed to get the mass persecutions going was for officialdom to get in on the act. This was a process that occurred slowly.

Attitudes to Satan changed: Satan evolved from bumbling lesser being to God’s powerful enemy. Sorcery also became equated with heresy. St Thomas Aquinas was one of the important thinkers in this process, since scholastic philosophy provided a complete theoretical and causal structure for such views, even though sorcery itself was a minor element in St Thomas’s work. (Indeed, scholasticism as a complete systematised ontology, epistemology, ethic and causal analysis was unrivalled until the development of Marxism.)

Particularly after the 1231 agreement between Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX formalised laws for the suppression of ‘heretical depravity’, the developing Inquisition provided a jurisdictional apparatus available for enforcement of such beliefs, replacing the episcopal (bishop-run) inquisition, established in 1184 at the Verona Synod by Pope Lucius III with the support of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, with a more centralised and professional papal inquisition.

The removal of the ‘talion’, penalties for false accusation, from witchcraft trials by the use of inquisitorial, rather than accusatory, procedures opened the door to snowballing accusations. Once the belief in the sabbat – large gatherings of witches to worship the Devil – became part of educated belief, it plus inquisitorial torture was enough to set off the mass persecutions.

Endorsements by Popes Alexander IV (1258), John XXII (1326), Pope Alexander V (1409) of the evils of sorcery; an opinion by the authoritative Theology Faculty of the University of Paris linking ‘learned’ ritual magic with popular sorcery as both being diabolic (1398); the activities of popular preachers such as St Bernardino of Siena (1420s): these culminated in Pope Eugenius IV letters to inquisitors (1434, 1437) and the mass persecutions were away, holding Latin (Catholic and Protestant) Christendom in its grip until for the next two-and-half centuries, though the last witch burnings were as late as the 1780s. The 1487 publication of the Malleus Maleficarum provided the ‘encyclopedia’ for the Witch Craze, which was actually notably more virulent in the post-medieval period than in its original late-medieval manifestation. More jurisdictionally important was Pope Innocent VIII’s 1484 Bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, as it brought together the whole set of beliefs in one authoritative document.

There were three groups most commonly burnt alive in Latin Christendom: sodomites, witches and heretics – defilers of body, soul and mind. If you were accused of one, you were quite likely to be accused of another. Indeed, the witch persecutions clearly grew out of heresy persecutions, particularly of the Waldensians. That the Church examined, tortured and condemned before handing over to the civil power for execution (except where it was itself the civil power) was simply a vile manifestation of the squabbling alliance of Church and warlord that post-classical Western civilisation was built on. The witch burnings were the last to get underway, but also the last to end (though execution by hanging for sodomy extended into the C19th).

Johannes Junius stands in for a very large number of victims indeed.

Presumptions and evidence

How people frame things—and what presumptions are behind such framings—can generate a lot of heat in public debate because people can look at the same events so differently. Worse, they can fail to see any legitimate reason for people not seeing things the same way they do. Leading, of course, to presumptions of illegitimate reasons.

These tendencies are magnified if use of evidence itself is subject to different framings and presumptions.
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Consider two different points of view. One is generally impressed with how well a current society works, sees it as embodying a lot of human achievement and is sceptical about schemes for improvement. Confronted with some critique of some aspect of that society, any evidence cited for such a critique is going to tend to be “read down”. More neutrally, there is going to be a fairly high standard required for the evidence to be accepted and resonate.

There is some nuance here depending on whether the viewpoint is explicitly conservative or is based on some political philosophy that the society in question happens to substantially embody. But the general tendency is clear enough.

Consider a different point of view. This is centred on hoped-for or expected values or aspirations that the society in question—or large sections thereof—do not satisfactorily embody. This a point of view essentially based on permanent critique of the society. Any particular matter that fits in with that permanent or general critique is going to have a presumption in favour of it. Evidence is going to tend to be “read up”. Indeed, relatively slight evidence may be sufficient to resonate.

There is some nuance here depending on whether the viewpoint is based on some fairly structured sets of values or aspirations or it is being critical of the society that is the key thing. But the general tendency is clear enough.

Of course, much of the achievement currently embodied in society rests on past dissatisfactions with how society was and is the result of active efforts to change structures within society motivated by such dissatisfaction. The abolition of slavery, votes for women, the end of Jim Crow, to name a few examples. There is not an “automatic win” to either broad perspective.

Moreover, people will shift patterns depending on the issue: critics and defenders of public broadcasting may well reverse their attitudes to evidence compared to an issue such as past removals of indigenous children.

It also matters how successful the society in question is. The more obviously successful the society, the less evidentiary plausibility in basic critique and the more risk that changes defined against the society will misfire. If one defines virtue against success, one is likely to end up embracing a lot of failure. Indigenous policy in Australia over the last 40 years embodies this tendency—take a group doing markedly less well than the rest of society, destroy the institutions which evolved to connect them to that society (the missions and pastoral work), replace them with structures designed to be as differentiating as possible from the (much more successful) mainstream and then take no responsibility for the resulting social disaster (one much worse than anything arising from removing children), despite the same people being extremely ready to engage in the blame-game in other circumstances.

We can see the same differences in perspectives in the reactions to the Victorian bushfires. Between those who see existing society as embodying human achievement and aspirations, and so is actively worth defending (which still leaves plenty of room for debate about proper policy), and those whose immediate reactions are to see current society as moral blight. Which is, indeed manifesting echoes of previous disputes because it is the same divide coming up again and again.

From issue to issue, we see these different reactions. Including varying (and shifting) evidentiary standards. Even attitudes to examining the evidence are going to differ. Particularly between the defenders and critics. The former are going to be very demanding about evidence. The latter may well even take sceptical concern about evidence cited in the critical case as itself being maleficent: there has been a lot of this in both the stolen generation and global warming debates.

All of which militates against constructive public dialogues. Conflict is built-in before one even gets to any details. Which makes commitment to the importance of truth, and of a certain basic civility in public debate, all the more important. The former because what other arbiter is there: other than brute power? The latter so that the ability to come anywhere near the facts of the matter is not severely damaged or destroyed by ideological passions.

Explaining Postmodernism

It is a profoundly enlightening experience, to read a clearly written, knowledgeable book that takes some of the points you have been groping towards and puts them in a much more complete context.

Stephen Hicks’s Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault is such an enlightening book. So enlightening that, having finished it, I proceeded to re-read it.

It is worth reading just for its excellent, thorough and very clear rendition of the history of Western philosophy since John Locke. It would make a fine teaching text for any survey course on such. Not merely because it is very clearly written – Hicks is happy to include tables and flow charts – but because it shows a solid grasp of the historical context of ideas. (Something philosophers – even great philosophers – are not always good at.) Chapter Four, The Climate of Collectivism, is, for example, a fine rendition of the intellectual history "Right" and "Left" forms of collectivism up to the collapse of Right collectivism with the defeat of Nazism and Fascism.
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Hicks puts his central thesis at the beginning of the table of contents:

The failure of epistemology made postmodernism possible, and the failure of socialism made postmodernism necessary (p.i).

The first chapter sets out What Postmodernism Is relying, as Hicks does throughout the book, on frequent use of quotations from the cited thinkers. In one of his useful tables, he summarises post-modernism as anti-realism in metaphysics, social subjectivism in epistemology, a social construction view of human nature, collective egalitarianism in ethics, socialism in politics and economics, occurring in humanities and related professions in the late C20th (p.15).

The second chapter deals with the Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason where he locates Immanuel Kant’s epistemological subjectivism (the belief that we do not know reality, just our sense-perceptions thereof) as the key break from Enlightenment thought from which a stream of thought – Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger – then follows. A central motive for Kant was to rescue religion (specifically Christianity) from the corrosive effects of Enlightenment scepticism. If we only know phenomena—and not reality as such—then God could be doing anything out there in the “real” world and the realm of faith is thereby safe.

As Hicks points out in the last chapter (Chapter Six, Postmodern Strategies) given the failure of socialism (the subject of the preceding chapter, The Crisis of Socialism), folk on the Left had a need to safeguard a realm of faith since brute reality was being so unhelpful. So Kant’s move became their move. The realm of fact may be unhelpful, so we will just discount it—it’s all just language games—in order to protect our realm of feeling and commitment (i.e. faith). Helped along by the failure of epistemology to come up with a convincing answer to the problems of empiricism and rationalism (Chapter Three, The Twentieth Century Collapse of Reason).

As Hicks notes, Postmodernism is a philosophical doctrine of the Left (typically the very far Left). This is strange in a movement in philosophy, which usually have adherents of a range of political views

Hicks notes the similar biographies of the key figures of Postmodernism (Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty). All were born between 1926 and 1931 and had strong Left (typically far Left) credentials. So they were all coming of age as the 1950s showed the failures of the Soviet model while international and economic resurgence showed the vigour of liberal capitalism as a social system.

The facts were being inconvenient so the Left – which had been very modernist (committed to universal values, science, economic development) – became increasingly postmodernist. They took the Kantian out of retreating into subjectivism.

Of course, if Enlightenment/modernist epistemology had been fine and healthy, that would have been harder. But it was not, having collapsed into various dead-ends (e.g. Logical Positivism). The rescue of Enlightenment project by an effective epistemology Hicks states (in his last paragraph [p.201]) is the necessary task to really get on top of post-modernism.

I found the book both clear and enlightening. I was not entirely convinced by his analysis of motives, though. I am not querying Hicks’s looking at the emotional basis of postmodernist beliefs: not least because he has the evidence to back it up. But his emotional analysis works quite well for older cohorts, less well regarding the emotional appeal for younger ones. There it strikes me that the effectiveness of such beliefs as status markers is worth considering. After all, if it is all ultimately about the strength of your feelings, the worthiness of your intentions, then that is not only an easy status marker, but it leads directly to the ad hominen style of rhetoric which, as he points out, is so much the postmodernist style (p.20). For your good attitudes display your (positive) status only if different attitudes display (negative) status. Hence the juxtaposition of cultural relativism with virulent moral absolutism: part of a wider pattern of (as critics frequently point out) blatant contradictions (p.184).

The great strength of the book is its clear outline of the history of Western philosophy over the last three centuries. It is that clear setting out of the philosophical history, and putting it in wider context, which makes the critical analysis of postmodernism so effective.

The Little Black School Book

Dr Mark Lopez is the author of the best study of public policy in Australia, The Origins of Multiculturalism. (His eccentric research method was to talk to all the people involved and read all the documents.) Origins shows lucidly how public policy actually works.

For about 18 years, he has run a private tutoring business, Competitive Advantage, helping students cope with their teachers. He gave evidence to a Senate inquiry about his experience and the experience of his students.

Dr Lopez recently published Volume 1 of The Little Black School Book: The Secret To Getting Straight ‘As’ at School and University which distils what he has learned and his methods. The book has received some media attention.

The aforementioned link has video of author talking about his book and origins.

The Little Black School Book is a case of Machiavelli meets the self-help genre. It is, at times, a bit disturbing in its unsentimental realism. This is not a book about bravely stating your views regardless of consequences, it is a book about dealing with people in authority over you so as to get the best results (for you) that you can. It is about subterranean empowerment: about apparently dancing to the tune of teachers and examiners to get the outcome you want, using techniques Dr Lopez originally developed in his own experiences as a student—in his Ph.D. thesis which became The Origins of Multiculturalism, Dr Lopez adapted the linguistic techniques of C17th freethinkers in avoiding Christian persecution in order to get around academe’s hegemonic multiculturalist discourse—and which he has refined over 18 years of running a tutoring business.
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The Little Black School Book is divided into four chapters. The first, First Principles, sets out the underlying approach. The second, Learning the method: Your first steps towards your empowerment concentrates on the three purposes of note-taking (establishing the appropriate student persona for best results, recording information, establishing a psychological profile of your examiner). The third and longest, Success through the mastery of basic, advanced and super-advanced study skills, goes through a range of study skills. The fourth, Closing Thoughts, recapitulates the message of the book.

Since it is a primer for students from high school to university, it covers all aspects of study, no matter how basic – including public speaking, given students are likely to make tutorial presentations and may face oral exams. But even an experienced researcher and essayist can read various sections with profit.

The book has wider interest as well: the discussion on ideology (Pp 28ff) is particularly enlightening, covering the nature of ideology and recent social history. Similarly enlightening is the related discussion on the fact/value dichotomy (Pp 43ff) and what Dr Lopez identifies as two different mindsets – one where ideology is used to verify facts and one where facts are used to judge ideology. The former is congruent with science populariser Matt Ridley’s characterisation of political correctness as deriving is from ought (e.g. it ought to be the case that there are no major differences in range of aptitudes between men and women so it is to held to be the case that that is so). It is also congruent with Victor Davis Hanson’s recent comments about what students are so presented as being “academic” in contemporary universities:

Political correctness, meanwhile, turned upside-down the old standard of inductive reasoning, the linchpin of the liberal arts. Students now were to accept preordained general principles—such as the pernicious legacy of European colonialism and imperialism and the pathologies of capitalism, homophobia, and sexism—and then deductively to demonstrate how such crimes manifested themselves in history, literature, and science.

Dr Lopez has some particularly apt advice about writing to maximise one’s appeal:

If you express yourself tactfully and avoid the use of value-laden words that suggest bias, you can allow the members of each audience segment to highlight in their own imaginations what appeals to them in your work and to brush over material they find less appealing or unappealing … While it is unlikely that you will have each of your audience segments thinking the same way about your work, you make it far more likely that their responses are predominantly positive. (p.160).

A constant theme in The Little Black School Book is that one is dealing with people’s emotional responses and—given the very high subjective content to judging merit in humanities subjects—the trick is to elicit positive emotional responses from the person marking your work. That this process can be profoundly empowering if one approaches it deliberately and knowingly.

The Little Black School Book is carefully and precisely written, making the points it wishes to convey highly accessible. It is an excellent investment for any student seeking to do well, but it makes points that are more generally enlightening.

[Declaration of interest: Mark is a personal friend. Though I was touting The Origins of Multiculturalism as the best book on how Australian public policy works before I got to know him.]

Riot or Revolution

Don Parham’s Riot or Revolution is an excellent documentary on the Eureka Stockade of 1854. Narration over scenes from the period (either pictures or acted recreations) is interspersed with comments by historians (Geoffrey Blainey, Weston Bate, Anne Beggs Sunter) and writer Thomas Keneally. Which is all good, but what makes Riot or Revolution particularly effective is the use of actors to portray historical characters speaking their documented words in a series of soliloquies. This anchors the documentary in the perspectives of the people at the time – either in their words as the events were unfolding or in their reflections later on what they did and saw.

So we get the words of Governor Hotham – a naval officer who did not want the job of Governor of Victoria and who was somewhat out of his depth. Along with those of Douglas Huyghue, a retired goldfields civil servant reflecting on events; Raffaello Carboni, a miner who later wrote a history of what he had witnessed and participated in; Celeste de Chabrillan, the former courtesan who was wife of the French consul; and Peter Lalor, leader of the Stockade almost by default.

Riot or Revolution covers the lead-up to the events—including the difficult politics and fiscal problems of the colony—the immediate sequence of events leading to the storming of the Stockade and the aftermath, notably various leaders of the Stockade were charged with treason but acquitted by juries. The role of trial-by-jury as a check on overweening executive action is thereby displayed.

Riot or Revolution makes it clear that Eureka Stockade had no influence on the constitutional development of Victoria—the process of granting self-government was already underway following the fairly standard pattern for the Antipodean colonies. Indeed, given the Stockade was the only time free Australians have engaged in military-level violence over a political dispute, its lack of such resonance is something to be grateful for, as Thomas Keneally points out. (Vinegar Hill, the only other pitched battle, was a rebellion by convicts.)

Even apart from its value as a documentary on the Stockade itself, Riot or Revolution is an excellent resource for schools, since it uses both primary and secondary sources in such a vivid and mutually supporting way. It is a fine example of how to do historical documentary.

Two lives of achievement

Helen Suzman, for many years the only Opposition member of the South African Parliament, died last month. (An appreciation.)

I heard her speak once, at Mietta's in Melbourne, and have a copy of her autobiography signed by her, which she was promoting at the time.

Helen Suzman represented a very rich electorate and I remember her being an inspiring example of standing up for decency, one that did not fit some of the more glib and simplistic models of the political world. She was, as one would expect, a fine public speaker. Her feisty personality came across quite strongly and she was, entirely understandably, quite a hero to the (mainly Jewish) audience.

John P. "Jack" Powelson, who ran the Quaker Economist website for some time, also died last month, with the website publishing the obituary he wrote himself. He visited Melbourne at roughly the same time as Helen Suzman, promoting his book (more the ideas in it) Centuries of Economic Endeavor: Parallel Paths in Japan and Europe and Their Contrast With the Third World. I used to have a copy signed by him, but I lent it to someone I later worked with and never got the signed copy back.

Centuries of Economic Endeavor is a book that I devoured at the time and whose analysis still influences the way I look at and think about history. Jack Powelson came across as a thoughtful, decent person with a vast array of experience which he had thought much about. His speech had a certain amount of quiet, self-deprecating wit about it. I remember him talking about his experience of how development economists such as himself would do all this work and give all this advice which would be completely ignored. Which set him off on an intellectual journey to find out what was actually going on and why some societies (North-Western Europe, its offshoots and Japan) were wealthy and many others not.

I see his work as complementing that of Douglass North and Eric Jones (The European Miracle and Growth Recurring). There is also a certain resonance with the work of Robert Putnam.

While Jack Powelson's ideas have stayed with me, what I think of now is his decency. I took the time to comment on what became part of his The Moral Economy (I think he may have published it online as a work in progress) and remember receiving this delightfully gracious thank-you email. He was clearly touched that I had bothered.

They were very different people who I happened to meet at about the same time, one only briefly (when she signed my book) one at a bit more length, but Helen Suzman and Jack Powelson both lived lives that contributed well beyond the ordinary to the betterment of their fellows. Requiescat in pace.