From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Sun Nov 19 2006 - 10:05:22 EST
Dogan, Just briefly, I find the question of the irrationality of capitalism is difficult to evaluate, since notions of rationality differ widely and change over time, and differ among different social classes and population groups. It is often linked to notions of - what is reasonable/unreasonable, or - what is morally justifiable/unjustifiable, or - what satisfies human needs/interests/fails to satisfy them, or - functionality/dysfunctionality, or - predictability/unpredictability. The rationality of behaviour is however usually stated in terms of a means-ends relationship of some kind. Thus, if the means do not lead to the end, the means are irrational, and if the behaviour is not oriented to a clear (conscious) means-ends relationship, it is irrational. But - the ends (goals) can also be be judged irrational, in relation to other means-ends relationships, and - much human behaviour simply is not rational, insofar as it does not refer to any explicit means-ends relationship. Elmar Altvater and Ernest Mandel talked about capitalist society as "combining partial rationality and overall irrationality". The idea here is that behaviour which makes perfect sense at the micro-level (it is reasonable and rational) has macro-level effects which are irrational and harmful, and conversely macro-policies which seem rational have micro-effects which are irrational. This is closely related to the notion of unintended consequences, i.e. that the final or aggregate effect of actions may be different or opposite to what is intended. The underlying idea here is that a rational society would be a society in which individual interests and societal/communal interests would be compatible or harmonious, rather than conflict, i.e. that societal irrationality is in good part caused by its structure, the way it is organised. For a simple example, during a boom, it is rational for private investors to invest in increasing output. But the aggregate outcome may be overinvestment in relation to sales, creating a result which disadvantages all investors. The topic is also explored in game theory, often implying that what is "rational" is what is in the "self-interest" of an actor. In that case, all action which is not in the self-interest of an actor, is irrational action. But this assumption may be questionable, insofar as it makes unwarranted assumptions about what is in an actor's interest, and because it reduces all apparently non-self-interested behaviour either to de facto self-interested behaviour, or else to irrational behaviour. In that case, we may end up with a lot of tautological truths which are not very informative. If I am not mistaken, the concept of a "rational society" was made popular by the technocracy movement in the 1920s and 1930s, which created the idea that society can be planned and engineered such that the results benefit all. This idea also strongly influenced Stalinist and Maoist modernisation. However there was often little evidence of any dialectical understanding of the relation between individual and social interests. Social interests were enforced simply by the barrel of a gun. In post-modernist thought, what is rational becomes dependent on one's subjective point of view, and thus the challenge becomes to understand what is rational from the point of view of the Other, acknowledging Difference - in that case, many different rationalities exist pluralistically side by side, and it is not possible to define one as objectively more rational than the other. This introduces a strong epistemic relativism, basically due to the absence of a shared or consensus view about what is rational. A social consensus (about rationality or anything else) is strongly influenced by the capacity of all individuals to make gains, and improve their lot, in proportionate amounts. In that case, there is less conflict of interests, and less of a sense that achieving one's goals is at the expense of others; there is more room for altruism. If however this situation no longer applies, it is impossible to maintain a broad consensus. Hence the importance of ideology in persuading people that what is in the common interest is also in their individual interest, and vice versa what is in their individual interest is in the common interest. Marx once remarked that if the appearance and essence of things directly coincided, there would be no need for science. Likewise we can say there would be no need for moral inquiry or legal systems, if individual and communal interests always directly coincided. Moral inquiry and legal systems exist precisely because of conflicts, real or potential, between individual and communal interests/needs, and they mediate those conflicts. In modern bourgeois society, there is no longer much of a sense that we can collectively make a better society for the good of all. At best we can contain or limit social problems. The discussion about social rationality then focuses mainly on the environment external to subjectivities, for example global warming, and on the limits of what is tolerable. But this is basically a regression of social thought, which involves uncertainty about what kinds of social organisation can harmonize individual and social interests, and how they can be brought about. All that is left is ideologies of managerialism. Jurriaan
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Nov 30 2006 - 00:00:06 EST