Comments on: ‘Progressive fusionism’ and classical liberalism

By: skepticlawyer » So, what does ‘progressive fusionism’ look like?

Wed, 07 May 2008 20:04:26 +0000

[...] had its origins in a pair of posts written by Don Arthur over at Club Troppo, and followed up by Andrew Norton, Andrew Leigh, Will Wilkinson and Backroom Girl. The idea that libertarians and [...]

By: Sacha

Sacha — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:32:28 +0000

In terms of “Progressive fusionism”, individuals contribute quite well notwithstanding the lack of institutions/think-tanks.

By: Leopold

Leopold — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:35:15 +0000

PS - My conclusion that greater income equality has benefits arises from a view that for someone on $75,000, the marginal utility of an additional dollar is likely to be less than for someone on $15,000, so maximising social utility/welfare can require some degree of redistribution. Obviously a debatable assumption, but I think a reasonable one.

By: Leopold

Leopold — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:28:02 +0000

In response to your question about the appropriate level of equality, assuming that increasing equity tends to have efficiency costs (actually, I often find efficiency and equity point in the same direction, but restricting this to the cases where they are in conflict, which is where liberals and rational egalitarians are likely to be in conflict), the appropriate level of equity is the one where the marginal social cost (in efficiency) of additional equity is equal to the marginal social benefit of additional equity. —
How do you calculate that? Nightmare. It would be a values-driven hodge podge, and you couldn’t possibly expect any two people to come to the same answer. So to that extent, its a fair criticism to say we don’t really know what we want as an outcome.
—
But you can look at individual policies and say ‘well, it has this effect on equity, and this effect on efficiency’ and try to weigh up the trade-off in individual cases. I.e., I would argue the equity benefits of higher minimum wages are somewhere between very low and negative, the efficiency costs are positive (if moderate), so higher minimum wages are on balance a bad thing.
—
And one could turn the criticism around. Liberals believe in liberty - but how much liberty, exactly? You tend to do pretty much what I suggested in the above paragraph, Andrew: analyse individual issues on the basis of your underlying liberal principles, and at times even come down in favour of restrictions on liberty, just as at times someone like me will choose efficiency over equity. Do you have an exact level of liberty in your mind that is appropriate, which you can define any more exactly than my first paragraph above defines the appropriate level of equality?

By: Great Andrew Norton post - esp for thinking lefties « Balneus

Great Andrew Norton post - esp for thinking lefties « Balneus — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:15:18 +0000

[...] say in the nicest possible way). "Carlton’s lone classical liberal" wrote a great post recently on progressives, conservatives and liberalism, stimulating a series of comments well worth [...]

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:36:19 +0000

Ken -You are right that some conservatives are more likely to support capitalism (ie their own property) than markets. I had in mind more intellectual critiques of markets as driving out non-market values or causing change that is too rapid. Conservatism and leftism can both be seen as reactions to the forces unleashed by a liberal market society, but these days in Australia I would class conservatism as the milder reaction.

By: Vee

Vee — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:23:24 +0000

The more I read about Andrew Norton’s discussion of political philosophies and the current situation, the more I begin to think of him as a conservative than a classical liberal. A moderate one at that though.

By: Ken Nielsen

Ken Nielsen — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:30:19 +0000

A good discussion of a subject not often discussed.
I am becoming more and more uncomfortable with labels and categories.
We are all a bundle of beliefs and values derived from teaching and experience. I think you cannot really say (as some do) that it is inconsistent to have market-based economic views and liberal social views. Or, indeed the converse.
One thing I find fascinating and annoying is the tendency to accuse someone of hypocrisy if they do not hold the complete package of beliefs that usually go together. Though this seems to be most common in universities and some parts of the media.

“While anti-market thinking started out conservative, and there are still conservatives who are suspicious of markets, this is a very minor strain of thought in Australia.”
Gee, Andrew, I would have thought this is still quite strong in the outer reaches of the Liberal and National Parties as well as with quite a few businesspeople, who really don’t like competition.
My favourite examples (of which I have been threatening to write some day) are Telstra and Qantas whose business strategies seem to a large extent to be based on attempts to keep as much as possible of the monopoly powers they once had.

By: Dave Bath

Dave Bath — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:21:59 +0000

The “liberal” philosophy of minimizing government interference has two major groupings (not mutually exclusive):
(1) Government shouldn’t limit individual freedoms (e.g. what consenting adults do in the bedroom)
(2) Government shouldn’t intervene in non-individual pursuits (e.g. corporate activity, economic sectors, etc)

I link to a view political viewpoint tests (of various tests) here, and at least one of those tests has two axes, corresponding to state control of persons versus economic activity.

Here’s another bit of the post, which explains why myself as a “lefty” sees a “righty” like Andrew (ans ALS) as worth reading and thinking about:
Freedom for persons is an objective, constraints (and some command) of economic activity, the distribution of resources is a means to the objective. I’m highly unlikely to change my freedom-for-persons stance, but I’m open to discussion, on a case-by-case basis, about means.

By: Rajat Sood

Rajat Sood — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:18:26 +0000

I was recently re-reading Nigel Lawson’s memoirs and came upon this interesting passage in a speech he gave soon after taking office in 1980, entitled “The New Conservatism”:

“Those Conservatives who none the less feel ill at ease with the new Conservatism are inclined to suggest that it smacks far too much of classical liberalism. The charge is a strange one. Nineteenth-century politics was about wholly different issues. There was, behind the rhetoric, a fundamental consensus on economic policy. Disraeli may have used the Corn Laws and protection to secure the leadership of the Conservative party, but in practice he was operating in precisely the same world of non-intervention in industry, adherence to the gold standard (and thus to stable money) and free trade as was Gladstone. They had their differences outside the field of economic policy, but what matters to us today is what they had in common—which is scarcely surprising given that Gladstone himself was a Conservative Cabinet Minister before becoming the embodiment of Liberalism. Of all forms of heresy-hunting, this variety seems particularly futile.”

See: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/commentary/displaydocument.asp?docid=109505