Fuzzy left

Back to now, then. We have heard the expression “gauche caviar” a lot in french-speaking politics recently, whether in Québec or in the old country, and it does have some english equivalents, whether “champagne socialists” in Britain or “lexus liberals” in conservative America, but the common thread is that it links within a provocative oxymoron a moral outlook which values social justice and a luxury good which symbolizes the lack thereof. As to the chattering sects it refers to, we certainly have a host of talking heads in Québec who fit the bill perfectly, and I guess people like Maude Barlow and her Council of Canadians do as well, and certainly many more that we don’t know much of in Québec, because a received idea here is still too often that english Canadians are a right-wing bunch of capitalist “moneymakers”. Sure. You wish. Anyway. Seems to me, on the contrary, that there is still a strong albeit fuzzy linkage between the “caviar” Canadian left-wing and an anti-Québec universalist brand of centralism, which is actually quite damaging on its own for this country, but that’s not what I’m interested in here. Nor will I concern myself with the fondamental problems of either the marxist or keynesian roots of current statist left-wing doctrines, generally based on the long outdated idea that economic value is an objective characteristic of things, or of the work put in their production, such that self-described public-serving altruists can plan and manipulate at will the distribution of this value for the good of mankind.

Actually, what I’m most interested in is the “caviar” side of things, and the paradox it induces in a normative framework thereby disparaged as incoherent. How could the lofty ideal of a just society ever be tainted by association with such a symbol of economic inequality? Obviously, beyond the irony that fish eggs would have any impact on core beliefs and desires of real people, we should see this, I suppose, as evidence of another subliminal conspiracy of the right, the rich, the big bad mean economists, the subservient medias and all that Chomskian stuff. The contradiction between the two ideas is so obvious that the only way to explain how ordinary minds can read any meaning in it has to be through some organized hypnosis or something of this kind. Yet, how about trying to see what is really going on instead? Maybe this could actually be describing something real out there?

This is where the Veblen effect comes in. Luxury goods such as caviar, champagne and Lexuses are typically involved in the leisure class’ conspicuous consumption activities. It’s not that they are so intrinsically worthy that only the rich can buy them, but their price is in good part driven precisely by a demand for expressing publicly that those who can waste enough resources to buy these things belong to the upper class. Caviar is a classic case of this, sure enough, but left-wing ideologies do not appear to be such obvious candidates. Yet there is more to this talk of champagne socialists than the observable fact that many who do claim publicly their leftist beliefs, in particular through denouncing other people’s wealth, are themselves pretty well-off, either working as they are in the media, the liberal arts, cultural industries or university faculties. More to the point, a real exercise in intellectual waste is also being played out here, through which one associates him or herself with the current political leisure class, in exactly the same way as how Veblen described what went on in the intellectual elite of his time.

Now if the academic leisure class of American 19th century was mostly made up of conservative classicists, it certainly has enriched itself since then with a very different group of people, longing no less however for some imaginary nobility, and who wouldn’t either, for the world of them, stoop as low as to acknowledge the value of vulgar market relationships (from vulgus that is - the common people, the plebs). In their case though, they wouldn’t think of themselves so much as distant cousins of the ancient aristocracy, but as relatives of another idealized community, in the future rather than in the past, which between you and me changes strictly nothing of substance. Take a quick look at the following bit of Veblen’s thoughts, and replace “the dead languages of southern Europe” with “economic theories discarded by economists”, and you could probably smile too. If it helps, you can also think of the “system of education” in a wider sense, including the reading of daily papers and how one is socially required to have a strong opinion on everything, from equalization payments to Paris Hilton’s trip in jail.

“Owing to the circumstance that this knowledge has become part of the elementary requirements in our system of education, the ability to use and to understand certain of the dead languages of southern Europe is not only gratifying to the person who finds occasion to parade his accomplishments in this respect, but the evidence of such knowledge serves at the same time to recommend any savant to his audience, both lay and learned. It is currently expected that a certain number of years shall have been spent in acquiring this substantially useless information, and its absense creates a presumption of hasty and precarious learning, as well as of a vulgar practicality that is equally obnoxious to the conventional standards of sound scholarship and intellectual force.” (Veblen, 1899, ch.14)

There is obviously a crucial difference between the contexts of then and now, and it is the significance that economics have aquired as a credible scientific endeavour in the public space over the last hundred years or so. In fact, one could easily see the economist as a traitor of sorts to the leisure class, to which he belongs, no doubt, but which he has contributed to bring down by giving real credit to “vulgar practicalities”, that is simply by virtue of making the latter its main object of interest. This certainly helps explain the bitterness of the attacks on the practice of our discipline from other quarters of social sciences and from the humanities in general. Admitting that ordinary wealth, the kind that helps you fill up your fridge, could actually have real precious value, is much too close to letting know that we are just like everyone else. Veblen’s intuition is central here: the elite shows its superiority by wasting goods and time. Hence, the last thing it could want is for this waste to be recognized as just that, and not as a symbol of anything else. It is not too surprising then that the number one virtue of welfare economics, efficiency that is, can be so often disparaged in some quarters, as if it always clashed with social justice, which is the one thing that “the best” among us have a mission to uphold, at the apparent (conspicuous?) cost of their self-interest. Mmmm…

Let me recap somewhat rigorously. At level 1, the caviar leftists are caviar-eating leftists. Fair enough, but insufficient. At level 2 and extending Veblen’s analysis, they are conspicuously wasting their intellectual resources on old and useless ideas, apart from how these grant the said leftists special social status. I also just identified level 3, where the content of these ideas implies an attack on economic efficiency, a value which is a menace to the very justification of this elite’s standing. How convenient. There is still a 4th level to explore though, because these ideas do have an impact on society, not only because they are a waste of time and resources but also because they really are socially demotivating. This was part of Veblen’s criticism as well, as he considered the attitudes he wrote about as “disserviceable anachronisms” from pre-industrial eras. The intellectual resources wasted in depreciating other people’s work obviously mean that a number of useful things for the whole of society are actually not being produced, ironically in the name of the greater good.

Yet, today’s caviar left does a lot worse than waste its time quoting ancient thinkers in their own language, beyond depriving society of useful brainpower that is, and belittling other activities. It also openly defends institutional setups and policies that are bound to impoverish all of society, including if not first of all its less wealthy members. Sure enough, in liberal democracies at least, it shares the public space with other, more enlightened analyses and policy frameworks, but it contributes nonetheless to delay real progress, as bad decisions will still be made just as to reach a workable compromise with even worse proposals, put forward with all the rhetorical sophistry that cunning public intellectuals can muster. After all, citizens do not always enjoy the “leisure” of identifying correctly the best ideas among all that are on sale, and used ideas salespeople who close the most sales aren’t always the most honest of the team. This very reading of things is certainly part of the ideological debate itself, the conspicousness of which is not trivial either, but clearly this debate pits a limited but consistent understanding of economic processes, as is taught in economics departments, against a set of misadapted but still seductive theses, essentially defended through invoking the supposed absence of self-interested motives by their proponents. Which is just bull, naturally.

I can hardly resist, here, to suggest to the reader a little detour through one of neoliberalism’ most powerfully argued case, Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” that is, but I still want to pursue my own analysis, as the 4th level of wasteful conspicuousness which I identified, stressing its counter-productive effect on actual collective welfare, is quite consistent with a straightforward microeconomic picture of imperfect competition. This could even explain, going full circle in a way, how it is possible that members of this eminent group of ideologues can actually end up affording quite a bit of luxuries, even when they defend theses that have wealth-decreasing effects on the members of their public. For one thing, as a society gets wealthier, it gets that much harder for its elite to distance itself from the less affluent, as the latter can start affording more and more traditional signs of superiority. Conversely, the cost of conspicuous waste goes down when all of society gets poorer, holding everything else equal. But there is also an economic rent that is shared by our professional leftists and which will also rise for each who will remain on the market as the collective wealth sinks. That’s a pretty good deal, if you ask me.

And it’s not that odd. It’s all in how effective one is at holding others responsible for social problems, or equivalently, at how one can waste conspicuously his own selfish motivations in the name of the common good. “To sacrifice one’s own interests” is how they will want it reworded, and this false distinction will be easier to sell when things go wrong. The return to one’s investment in his capacity to convince others of his good will, will then benefit even more in times of general suffering, because this is when the public wants most to believe in such generous sacrifices. So much that it becomes quite understandable that some would want to preach bad economic policy. I’m still following Veblen’s thread here, if with a somewhat Hegelian slant: by renouncing monetary success, and this is what our holding a stance that supposedly displeases capitalists testifies to, we show such detachment from our own vital necessities, that the merits of our superiority are plain enough for all to see. Yet how can I reconcile this conspicuous disdain for wealth with an actual rise of their own wealth - which is what I sure am suggesting - while the policies they put forward simultaneously impoverishes the whole of society?

The answer is in two steps: first we need to distinguish between economic and monetary values, and then we must analyze how a collective decrease in wealth can bring on a decrease that is even more pronounced in the number of left-wing ideological pushers, leading to economic gains for those who keep their standing on the market. So we should realize first of all that this market of “unselfish” ideas has a very peculiar character, which comes from the fact that many of the transactions involved are of a non-monetary nature. These are not un-economic however, since they do allow this very activity to happen, an activity which does use some costly resources. For sure, the institutions or businesses buying ideological products in order to provide them as content for their own customers, do it within the monetary economy, but the fees, salaries, royalties or bursaries that are paid are just a portion of the economic value that can be accumulated by public intellectuals. Let’s remember that these suppliers of ideas market their products all bundled up in package deals including their name, reputation and personal history, as do filmmakers or baseball players. They are entrepreneurs in the economy rather than suppliers of work hours, but contrary to their particular products, their business itself is not available on an observable market, it can’t be bought or sold in the same way that rights for distributing a movie can be, or baseball players’ contracts.

Is this really the case? We can certainly imagine how much money the powerful “capitalists” should be willing to spend to buy some of our intellectuals’ silence. As this is not happening, we must then suppose one of two things: either the economic value of their business is so darn high that nobody can afford to get them to shut up, or on the contrary it is actually worthless because nobody really cares what they say. The first case would strongly support the idea that these intellectuals derive their own wealth from their capacity for economic nuisance, while the second would just show that there reputation is quite overdone. There is still a third possibility though, which is that their silence isn’t bought simply because nobody would trust that they would honor their commitment to stay put. This is less elegant but is no less the core assumption behind the theory of incomplete markets. The main point though is that in all plausible cases, the buy-out value of a “caviar left-wing” intellectual, all else being equal, is linked not only to his or her general credibility, but rises as a function of the detachment he or she can boast of with respect to the “vulgar practicalities” which fuel the marvelous world of business. As this vulgarity is mainly symbolized by monetary wealth, it is easy to see why there will be a high propensity for these people to invest their economic value in non-monetary capital, in their intellectual repute that is, and that the return to this capital will more often be “cashed” in other forms than money, such as paid trips to conferences in exotic cities, good wining and dining, gratifying citations in dictionaries, TV interviews and heartfelt applause with just a tad of caviar. Again, the economic value of things does not have to be explicitly monetary, we only need to be willing to sacrifice some of our limited resources to obtain them. There is thus no actual need to make a transaction, which means nothing needs to be observed in our bank account. Pretty convenient in fact, when the whole point is to make others believe one is indifferent to all of it.

Once we have found the secret of this fantom interest of disinterested people, what is left to see is how this economic value can actually rise while the whole of society is actually getting poorer. I’m not implying obviously that the buy-out cost of the whole industry of socialistic ideology would go up. Its agregated value would go down just as well with the agregated ability to pay. But from an individual ideologue’s point of view, decisions must be made which will favour those who do remain in the market. The main problem is that it is a bit uncomfortable for a left-wing public figure to compensate a loss in non-monetary revenue with the more vulgar kind without losing some of his or her credibility, and thus of his audience. Hence, when society gets poorer, enough ideologues are likely to leave the market so that remaining ones actually get richer, both monetarily and otherwise.

Here’s a plausible series of events: the global decrease in wealth implies at first a loss in revenues for ideologues, because like Bertolt Brecht warned, grub first, then ethics. Now the lower cost of conspicuous waste, which I alluded to earlier, may certainly mitigate this loss, yet you don’t buy your groceries with non-monetary revenue, nor with your capacity to make the Sunday op-ed page. In other words, even if it gets easier to distance yourself symbolically from the other poorer schmos, maintaining your status in the chattering class when the money gets harder to find doesn’t help you one bit to pay the bills. Hence, those who will find their loss in monetary revenue just too hard to handle will switch on other markets where they can monetize their talents in less disreputable ways. This first wave of dropping out will however have the effect of raising moral expectations in such a way that those who do remain will have to resist the worldly temptations of better-paying contracts more than ever. They certainly must show more moral strength than those who left the boat. Competition will then separate those with true courage - that is, those who can stock up their fridge more easily now because they filled the freshly vacated spots on the market quick enough - versus all those other wimps for whom the pressure against making more money will get too damaging. This process of concentration will then go on until it gets costlier to discredit a competitor out of the market than whatever benefits come from an additional market share. Basic stuff, really.

At the end of the day, the few, the proud who resisted the “right-wing” ideological waves that decimated their own ranks will be celebrated profusely, with the very ideology that produced the drop in aggregate wealth in the first place: as we all know, that is, the monetary economy is the kingdom of mediocre moneymaking exploiters which they can’t even protect from their own greed, and no higher soul should compromise its nobility by dealing with it. For those who buy these views, the consequences are clear enough: why should one invest time or talents at the pursuit of economic ambitions if all the value thus created is stolen by low-lives who owe us all because we let them exploit our angelic nature? And so it is for the economy: low growth, recessions, and all this depressive stuff. Waddyathink. Yet what happens with the noble heroes of immaterial purity who stayed the course? Tons of invitations to talk in top venues with cocktails and amuse-gueules counter-cyclically financed, just as old school keynesians like’em, where people will very seriously ask themselves where in hell all this stinking money disappeared. Showbizz!

It would be pretty depressing in fact if it weren’t so funny. The worst is quite probably behind us, actually, in Québec at least. Could be a little slower in the RoC, but it’ll get there too, I’m pretty sure. We are nonetheless going to see another very telling example this fall of how much “disinterested” moralisation we can still be fed, when the Castonguay committee on healthcare restructuring will consider involving more of the private sector in healthcare provision and funding. It’s already started actually. And my little finger (Chantal Hébert agrees) tells me it will have some echo outside Québec as well. By the way, when I said “non-monetary gains”, did I include all the 5-star service you can get from old friends who became doctors, lawyers or top public servants, and who don’t even need a good memory to remember you? “I really liked your paper on how these stupid capitalists actually make more money than I do, now please say AAAAH.” It sure don’t hurt to have good friends, does it? Too bad for progress and civilization, Madame La Marquise, such decadence in fact, if this second-tier service could actually be bought by regular working schmos with just plain and vulgar dough. God help us if they could actually buy so easily these signs of our own precious nobility!!! Wow indeed. Flabbergasting.