Capitalism

What is Capitalism? 

One thing is certain, Capitalism (With a capital C) is not synonymous with exploitation and oppression. Rather than talking about those sorts of corruption that may be present within any economic system, whether intended or unintended, let's look at three defining traits that make up a capitalist system. Forewarning, this will be presented in a positive light.

Three Defining Traits of Capitalism

#1 Private Property

You are allowed to own the fruits of your labor. You are the agent that is responsible for what is done. It is not owned by a sovereign, lord, king, state, dictator, community, religious authority, or tribe. This is an important foundation for the next two points to be possible. This gives you a personal responsibility for the stewardship of the capital and resources at your disposal.

#2 Voluntary trade

Because you own the capital, and fruits of your labor you are allowed to keep, trade, sell, barter, or give your 'fruits' to others without compulsion. You cannot force others to trade or work, and they should not be able to force you to do these things either. (This is known as slavery, servitude, bondage, feudalism)

This also means your labor. 

You are free to sell, trade, barter, or give your labor to others of your own choice. In other words; you can make a job, get a job, or have no job. You have the liberty to live as you choose. This is important for the last defining trait of Capitalism.

#3 Profit Motive

You are allowed to do things to make your life circumstances better (or worse). This can also be called creating gain, getting more, or making a profit.

When two people trade, it is because they value what they are getting MORE than what they are giving. (Otherwise, why would you trade? If you didn't like the trade it would be stupid to do so.)

What this means is that when people are in service to others (creating something others value), they themselves benefit!

What shall we make of all of this? To give a short and simple explanation, the ideals of capitalism began to develop in reaction to the feudal states of the time. You did not have property, the lord did. You would trade for what the lord decided, and any gain belonged to the lord, who would distribute or take from the lower classes at their pleasure.

Profit motive means you are allowed to thrive and change your circumstances. It is not left to some privileged individual(s) who feel they have the moral superiority to know what you need better than yourself.

Voluntary trade means that you are free to make your own choices. You don't have to suffer at the inaction, indifference, or moral superiority of privileged individuals who think they know what you want and don't want better than yourself.

Private property means that you own yourself, and what you can produce. You are free.

Is this perfect? No. You still get greed where people try and take from others at their pleasure. You will still see poor, and rich. You will still see those who are good, bad, selfish, and selfless. But you will see less of the bad...because it seems that most of the time people try to be decent human beings and the incentives favor the good.

It does away with the 'systemic' in systemic problems. It creates the incentive to do good for others without force or violence. Capitalism becomes a reflection of what is in the hearts of the people that live within it. (For good, or bad)

It gives a chance for everyone to make that choice.

Do you really disagree with Capitalism?

(As a side note, competition AND cooperation are a natural result of this for BOTH good and bad. The basis (speaking of capitalism) is really really good for improving peoples lives, though externalities, and perfect information act as limits on it (Though I think these limits will also exist with greater impact in other systems generally.) Capitalism also utilizes a Market system, which I view as a natural extension of the above points and the social, navigational, and technological changes at its early period of history. Further discussion of markets compared to earlier systems (Command, or Tradition) might be a good discussion in another post.)

Justice

What is Justice?

Justice is a concept that many, take for granted. It comes in different forms throughout nations and among nations, or stated differently, through time and space.

It seems to be an essential characteristic to the development and maintenance of civilization, and thus intimately related to Law. The law sets bounds on the relations and behavior between people, and in part seeks to regulate justice. Some of the earliest forms of law include Ur-Nammu and Hammurabi's code.

It is worth considering what justice means when it is used because sometimes, people mean different things by it. 

Let us break this concept down into some of its parts.

The Purpose of Justice 

The purposes of Justice can be broken down into punitive, distributive, and societal purposes.

Punitive

Punitive justice sets out to exact a price. In its most basic form it might be described as "An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth." or "If something wrong is done, it should be punished."

Sometimes retribution is taken for misdeeds committed, or due to someone's state of being. I think the keyword here is that it is a form of Retribution.

Distribution

In short, this deals with how justice is like a scale, it seeks to mediate the deeds and transactions among people.

There are three subpoints that qualify under distribution that I would like to cover namely restitution, restoration, and again retribution.

Restorative- Literally to restore. If something was stolen it is returned, or replaced. Sometimes an action is taken and the burden incurred can directly be repaid. 

(I differ here from another definition of  'restorative justice' that is used as a method of administering justice. The alternative definition I think more clearly fits as reformative in nature which I'll cover below & you can compare to Wikipedia's entry on restorative justice)

Restitution- To actively correct, restore to a prior state. Restitution can be seen as paying a price to make up for some indiscretion, it is different from retribution in that its focus is on building up, improving, or to replace with equal/similar value. Sometimes there isn't parity. Some actions simply can't be taken back. If it can't be restored, then some form of restitution might be levied.

If a toy is broken and can't be repaired, It might be replaced with money or other things of equal value.

Retribution- These points overlap in purpose, so I think it is worth mentioning briefly retribution again, especially since it is so commonly held. The goal is to take away what someone unjustly gained.

Societal Purposes

This type of Justice is that which is used to build, maintain, or destroy a society.

Reformative

The purpose of reformative justice is to take an individual and to reform them, that is to change or eliminate socially undesirable behaviors. (or to change a society but we will get to that in a moment) If someone steals, it is to teach them or enable them not to steal.

The goal here is to change people into better people. It seems obvious that reformation should be a goal, but it often takes a backseat to retribution, and not everyone is in agreement on what is justly reformed. Reformation of thieves and violent individuals is generally agreeable to many people, but what about other social ills like racist attitudes, or (in some countries) "A twenty-five-year-old son addressing his father by his first name" (The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, page 19) To what extent is it just to reform people? Should they be willing participants? What about reform when it comes to topics that everyone is not in agreement about?

Beginning with reformation we begin to move on from a basic sense of what Justice is to more informative, debated, and politically relevant points.

Protective

Protective justice is justice that weighs in the balance between chaos and order. It seeks to stabilize a society and protect it from failing. Laws or policies that act as a deterrent fit here as well as prescribed civil behavior. This overlaps a bit with other categories; punishment is a deterrent & can be protective; reform that develops respect for other groups and/or country can be protective.

Destructive

Destructive justice is another form of retributive justice that is used to justify the destruction of social systems, standards, societies, cultures, etc. It is a form of justice of change but is controversial in that the people who support those things which are being destroyed typically don't think of justice used this way as justice.

Scope of the Application of Justice

All of the above are some of the main attributes of justice, but beyond this, there are disagreements in when each form of justice should take precedent and even how important the various forms of justice are. If we further investigate these differences another one is revealed:

Should Justice be applied based on groups, individual basis, or some combination of the two? 

As a few examples:

Should a family be shamed and held accountable for the misdeeds and crimes of one of its members? (A child commits a major theft, so the family is levied a fine, a parent is sent to prison.)

Should an individual be held accountable for misdeeds and crimes when they are part of a group? (If one member of a gang is caught committing murder only the one to commit the crime is sent to prison, not the entire group.)

People view their world through collectivism, or individualism (or some combination of the two, but let's stay focused on these two prominent paradigms.) Each of these views leads to different ways of answering the two questions above. They can also each affect the viewpoints that develop for the sub-categories that I mention above for how people view justice. Is it just that certain groups be given things? Is it just that certain groups not be given things? Should justice be administered towards individuals or the groups they belong to?  

How do you feel about the concept of 'Affirmative Action'? How do you feel about 'Profiling'? Are these two things not similar in that they both judge a group and administer some form of Distributive, and/or Protective Justice towards a group? There are differences between these two policies to be sure, but they both hinge on protecting & reforming: society vs a group, or a group vs society. Arguments for both include statistics for the harm the group causes (e.g. systemic racism) and for harm against the group (e.g. overt crime levels by a group). [Note: I'm sure that someone will argue against this comparison on the grounds that it is some form of false equivalence, though as far as the descriptive characteristics of justice go it is a perfectly valid comparison.]

Suffice it to say with this last example, sometimes Justice is viewed as valid only if it comes from or supporting a preferential group. Is that Just?

Opposing Views of Justice

There is one more interesting view about justice that I came across. This is where Justice is viewed as a process, or where Justice is viewed as an equalizer. These two views also have features written above, but also illustrated a divide in contemporary political views. My summary description of these will somewhat resemble what Thomas Sowell and John Rawls have written.

Justice as a process

This view of justice is where rules are stated and equally applied regardless of circumstance. It is concerned with equality under the law, not some form of cosmic equality. The world is a messy place and people are prone to grant privileges to some and be biased towards others. Since it is impossible to account for all variables that may have had an impact and to avoid the corruption of those who administer justice, Justice should only be concerned about consistent application.

"Traditionally, justice or injustice is characteristic of a process. A defendant in a criminal case would be said to have received justice if the trial were conducted as it should be, under fair rules and with the judge and jury being impartial. After such a trial, it could be said that "justice was done" --regardless of whether the outcome was an acquittal or an execution. Conversely, if the trial were conducted in violation of the rules and with a judge or jury showing prejudice against the defendant, this would be considered an unfair or unjust trial--even if the prosecutor failed in the end to get enough jurors to vote to convict an innocent person. In short, traditional justice is about impartial processes rather than either results or prospects." (Page 9, Sowell)

Justice as an equalizer

This view of justice seeks to correct for advantages or disadvantages to select groups. Sometimes laws, rules, procedures, and social standards should be adapted, exempted, or changed for some groups and individuals because of undeserved inequities.

'Professor John Rawls' celebrated treatise, A Theory of Justice, puts the case more generally. According to Rawls, "undeserved inequalities call for redress," in order to produce "genuine equality of opportunity." In other words, having everyone play by the same rules or be judged by the same standards is merely "formal" equality, in Professor Rawls' view,' 

Sowell continues by stating 'truly "fair" equality of opportunity means providing everyone with equal prospects of success from equal individual efforts. [regardless of undeserved inequities]' (Page 12, Sowell)

Sowell apparently is not very fond of Rawl's views. Sowell makes the case that these two views of justice are incompatible with each other.

Quotes from the section Opposing Views of Justice come from the book "The Quest For Cosmic Justice" by Thomas Sowell

Scientific Thinking: Validity, Debate, Politics?

There are a great many topics that people disagree on, whether the cliché: politics, religion, ethics, or the common: "This is the best way to do such and such.", "This is what's right"...

 

Regardless of what it is, people are generally pretty terrible at accepting and applying logic, or even the scientific method to their beliefs.

 

To an extent, this is acceptable, natural, and fine. The book "The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt does a great job of going into depth of the psychology of these disagreements.

 

On the discussion of logic though I've found there are three common somewhat intellectual responses used to simply disregard and dismiss what another person has said, especially when they do so under the veneer of being intellectual. This is ignoring all of the unintellectual responses such as calling each other names, ignoring what was said, etc...

The three somewhat intellectual responses are:

1.  Claim it has a bad methodology
2.  Claim the data is bad
3.  Claim the argument is overly simply OR there is more nuance to the situation

 

All of these responses can be valid, but there are bounds to when these are valid versus invalid.

Methodology is often subject and domain specific. Beyond domain specific complaints there are some general questions that help with determining whether the methodology and data is sufficient.

 

• Is the sample size large?
• Are there multiple samples?
• Does the data come from multiple sources to account for any systematic error or unintended bias?
• Are other confounding factors and variables controlled for?
• What sort of experiment is this? 
• Does this have an independent and dependent variable? OR 
• Is this a natural experiment? 
• Is this an observational/regression model? (more is needed to declare a causal link)

     -Remember this: "Association is not causation."

• Have the results been replicated using the same methodology?
• Can the results be replicated using a different dataset?
• Can the results be replicated using a different methodology?
• Can the result be invalidated? How? Was this tested?
• If the paper states a conclusion, without being able to control specifically for that effect, or the effect cannot be falsified then it is not a scientific result. (Two common examples of this is when they state "It must be God" OR equally common but often uncriticized is "It must be inherent to the system".) You see it generally when you apply a popular explanation with little or no justification. Such explanations may or may not actually be correct, but they are generally based on logically unsound reasoning.

• Are there logical fallacies? (Can it be reformulated to still stand despite a few logical problems?)
• Are alternative explanations examined, or stated for future investigation?
• What was actually examined? What are the limits of generalizing outside of what was investigated?  (For example, applies to only certain geographical regions)
• Has it been peer-reviewed? (This one helps, but is more of a shortcut for assessing the above)

(These next two are often domain specific, but when possible these are excellent tools that can apply across disciplines)

• * Is it double blinded?
• * Is it placebo controlled?

If it does well on many or most of these things it is likely acceptable science and acceptable as premises for someone's argument. Likewise, if it does not do well on many of these things it is valid to criticize and be skeptical of.

The sociology paper, despite its strong title, "Fuck Nuance" by Kieran Healy does an excellent job of discussing the validity and invalidity of nuance and several commonly misused rebuttals within the social sciences.

https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0735275117709046

In short, overly nuanced models generally fail. A great field that is aware of this is the machine learning community. Too much nuance, or a complicated model, can be too rigid and inflexible. The model overfits the data and fails to generalize well to real-world examples.

 You might even say an overly nuanced model is a chance to apply Occam's Razor...

Overfitting the data in my experience seems to generally be more common than the situation where an argument/model doesn't have enough nuance. Too little nuance is roughly equivalent to underfitting the data (e.g. you draw a line when you need a curve).

 

From: BinaryCoders

Lastly on the topic of nuance, if the disagreement of nuance is about a value assessment (Such as "I'm fighting for Truth and Justice! You're Not!), it's not the model or nuance that has the problem, its a disagreement in premises or paradigm.