December 09, 2009
social democracy?
Americans would like things to be better. According to public opinion surveys in recent years, everyone would like their child to have improved life chances at birth. They would prefer it if their wife or daughter had the same odds of surviving maternity as women in other advanced countries. They would appreciate full medical coverage at lower cost, longer life expectancy, better public services, and less crime. When told that these things are available in Austria, Scandinavia, or the Netherlands, but that they come with higher taxes and an "interventionary" state, many of those same Americans respond: "But that is socialism! We do not want the state interfering in our affairs. And above all, we do not wish to pay more taxes." This curious cognitive dissonance is an old story. A century ago, the German sociologist Werner Sombart famously asked: Why is there no socialism in America? There are many answers to this question. Some have to do with the sheer size of the country: shared purposes are difficult to organize and sustain on an imperial scale. There are also, of course, cultural factors, including the distinctively American suspicion of central government.more from Tony Judt at the NYRB here.
Posted by Morgan Meis at 11:25 AM | Permalink
Comments
How is this "cognitive dissonance"?
"Would you like more X?" is a question only a child can answer.
An adult must respond "At what cost?" before answering the question intelligently.
Our Western European and Scandinavian cousins are the one who can't make an informed answer to the pollsters' question, because the costs are hidden from them behind a curtain of bureaucracy, and are unaccountably diffused and appear to be detached from the goodies.
They can have no clear account of what price they pay as a society - what unrealized goods, services, and ways of life they are forsaking through heavy taxation and the conformity of regulation - when they attempt to get more of everything for "free" via the magic of socialism.
Posted by: anon | Dec 9, 2009 1:15:37 PM
"the distinctively American suspicion of central government"
Oh contrare!
Lord Acton does not sound like an American designation. It was he who said "power corrupts" along with the rest of the story.
True, Americans institutionalized distrust of the toxins within power, but never disputed the need for centralized government.
We have a prominent federal government.
Posted by: Dredd | Dec 9, 2009 1:27:59 PM
Au contraire. Not oh contrare.
/grammarnazi
And Anon's argument makes no sense. If the costs and benefits of social democracy are 'hidden behind a curtain of bureaucracy' Americans would be just as incapable of making a rational choice as Europeans apparantly are.
Posted by: jazz | Dec 9, 2009 3:40:36 PM
"Americans would like things to be better. According to public opinion surveys in recent years, everyone would like their child to have improved life chances at birth. They would prefer it if their wife or daughter had the same odds of surviving maternity as women in other advanced countries. They would appreciate full medical coverage at lower cost, longer life expectancy, better public services, and less crime.
When told that these things are available in Austria, Scandinavia, or the Netherlands, but that they come with higher taxes and an "interventionary" state, many of those same Americans respond: "But that is socialism! We do not want the state interfering in our affairs. And above all, we do not wish to pay more taxes.""
Notice the leap in logic. The author assumes that the "goods" in paragraph 1 are the result of state action as set forth in paragraph 2. The hypothetical American response is then couched in terms that appear to disregard that link.
But what if the paragraph 2 actions have nothing to do with the paragraph 1 goods? For example, what if the "life chances" at birth reflect differences in what is counted as a live birth? I've read that there is indeed such a difference.
Or what if longer life expectancy is the result of a different genetic makeup? Perhaps "less crime" has something to do with effective police enforcement - paradoxically, better police catch more crooks?
In other words, the article is based on the traditional liberal assumption that more government just has to be related to better outcomes.
There's no cognitive dissonance involved for conservatives. Just for liberals.
And we won't even get to the the question of whether there are goods beyond the material. Liberty, for example. If the choice is well off and controlled, as opposed to poor and free, why isn't the latter a better choice?
Posted by: punitius | Dec 9, 2009 8:06:23 PM
Two things punitius:
1 - In Europe, 'liberal' means the exact opposite of what you are referring to. Some American rubes got that shit mixed up for some reason.
2 - The claim that social democrats are merely concerned with material goods, and not with 'non material' goods such as (oh lofty, conservative) freedom is utter rubbish. The whole point of the social democratic movement was that it focussed on creating freedom and non-material equality through system reform, as opposed to the economic/revolutionary focus of other socialist movements.
Posted by: jazz | Dec 9, 2009 8:57:03 PM
Curiously, free market capitalism also focuses purely on economic forces, often referring to them as "revolutionary." Freedom and liberty are seen as secondary byproducts, not a primary goal of liberal economic reforms. Forces that value other ideals than the free market are felt to be nothing more than nuisances. This similarity in outlook with totalitarian socialist ideologies has fascinated me for years.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Dec 10, 2009 10:19:44 AM
A collective should have as much economic freedom to buy and sell as an individual. Why shouldnt a government (elected and supported by tax paying citizens) be able to negotiate for better deals with, say, health care providers for its members? Why should commercial corporations be the only collectives permitted in a free market?
Posted by: aguy109 | Dec 10, 2009 2:41:59 PM
All I can say is that the race issue (and to an unacknowledged extent class) play a lot in the politics of the US. There is a constant feeling that the "other" is getting something for free, and that even a change that would benefit the whole is unacceptable if there are "nonworthy" beneficiaries in the mix.
This was true when Italian and Irish immigrants came here to work, and has always been true for black Americans. even after decades of dismantling racist social structures still find themselves "soft discriminated" against and thought of as "other".
Posted by: cod3fr3ak | Dec 11, 2009 1:20:30 PM
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