Hayek, Privilege, and the Roundabout Self

In a recent guest post on the blog of Cathy Reisenwitz, Mr. Brendan Moore drew attention to conservative and libertarian's habit of saying, "check your privilege" as an means of lampooning a caricatured form of identity politics. Nobly, the purpose of his post is to suggest a misunderstanding arising from the failure of the Right to go beyond in-camp conversation and confront the postmodern critique of the autonomous individual. It is correct that such an omission would hold back libertarian thought's growth, and we should appreciate that his post takes public debate more seriously than a defensive piece dripping with implied cries of "Oh yeah?!" Still, might his coverage of the Right suffer from the same flattening and truncated coverage that he sees in its treatment of privilege?

The Contextual Contingency of Privilege

First, he suggests that the Right's misunderstanding of privilege is manifest in their discussion of "intersectionality" of its various types as if they've discovered a new way to deflect the concern. Except where I take specific issue, the reader would do well to read his coverage of this concept, and examples of its (mis-)use in commentary. Correctly, he points out that privilege is a quality that one either "has" in full or loses completely by suffering one chink in its armor. One cannot say, hey, I clearly have no advantage by being a white, upper-income resident of Georgetown that dines with members of Congress regularly, because I'm a woman. One source of social disadvantage doesn't some how clear the scorecard, and I think any of us, Right or Left, would readily concur.

Further, he thinks many mistakenly assume "identity politics" deals exclusively with the groups with which voters self-identify. Regarding privilege, he reminds readers that when one's view of him/herself contrasts with a pervasive view held and/or promoted by dominant social forces, it is really only the latter that is relevant. You see yourself as just an "American" - great, glad for the camaraderie - but if you're also of an ethnic minority, the empirical social reality may be that, as you execute your life plans, you meet frictions that your privileged peers seamlessly do not encounter. Protesting, "I'm just a fellow American" will not change that fact.

Now, he ignores that many do not dispute these social barriers, but rather believe 1) they'll always exist, and 2) for all of us, at one time or another, depending on context. His piece isn't proposing an action agenda, just that we stop talking past one another, so we can leave discussion of the first retort for another day. He does address the suggestion that we all would stand amid those who are privileged over us if we are in social subgroups in which they have a "knowledge differential". Unfortunately, he really doesn't address this with more than an epistemological "duh", because he claims - in lexicographical fashion - that subgroup privilege is always going to be subordinate to political privilege. It is not a right-wing retort to suggest knowledge taking a backseat to power ignores the instances in which knowledge is power (Foucault 2000). My suspicion is he is thinking that mere social discomfiture doesn't compare to not being able to meet one's primary needs (i.e. find employment, maintain equal political dignity), but the second order problem of social awkwardness and confusion can quickly impact those primary needs. The person rapidly and tragically brought low may be accustomed to social fluidity, and now find the swift escalation they must hike is not merely a source of psychic consternation, but actually hinders their ability to find economic opportunity.

Jumping ahead, it may actually be that their human capital was always contingent on their "cultural capital" (Bourdieu 2002), and in the new cultural milieu their lack of cultural capital concomitantly diminishes the marginal product of their labor.  Illustratively, think of an elite citizen of a political community that experienced diaspora, perhaps due to natural disaster. Arriving in safe harbor in a neighboring port, they may largely need to "start over", yet what if a large part of their skill-set involved communication and/or organization. It's not enough to speak the language - what of the dialect? It's not enough to know the denotation, what of the mannerisms and mores that drive behavior? How does one not appear strange? Indeed, Mr. Moore grants this predicament when he talks of the post-structural rebuke of understanding a pairing of a particular semiotic element in relation to its concept outside of the full network and relation of concepts.

"Wait a second," you may implore, exasperated that I've gone to extreme circumstances to dethrone politics. After all, though Foucault (2000) would encourage us to look for points of discontinuity to find the limits of "political technologies", that doesn't change the fact that the Right betrays its interdiction against false relativism when it takes a "call it even" attitude to the degree of restricted opportunities wrought by privilege. After all, the economically well-off can take steps to guard against this threat, and are much less likely to even face it. There are two big problems with such a quick dismissal. One is that Libertarians are always the ones reminding us that we tend to underestimate systemic fragility, and encouraging us not to bailout the well-connected when their Tower of Babel comes crashing down at the end of the monetary Jenga game. In fact, here all seem to grant that elite privilege is inextricably bound with "the system", and Libertarians are the ones holding open the door to the TARP-free alternative reality on which we turned our backs. Poignantly, Moore suggests a link with Bastiat's unseen.

Escaping a Rigged Game: Identity & Secession

What I consider the larger reason, though, is that Moore seems to prioritize the impact of the political even over economic, probably precisely because he acknowledges finance proves more dependent. He downplays subsuming this within "wealth", but recall the preeminence that he gave the larger, political community over subgroups. How fickle, then, is his deplorable invocation of "secessionist" as a derogatory term. In federal political systems, competing jurisdictions offer real political power to subgroups, and secession provides a safety valve whereby a group that no longer trusts that hierarchical subordination is mutually gratifying or reliable can exit (Buchanan and Faith 1987). Theoretically, the American Right has a better track record of embracing this safety valve he mockingly connects with Cliven Bundy. Practically, his emphasis on hierarchical dominance undervalues the ability to politically transfigure privilege over time without having to resign ourselves to separatism - safety valves let you live your life securing gains from knowing you could use it but without constantly doing so.

Historically, I would remind this étudiant du français who deploys secession as an insult to look beyond the American experience. As recently as the late 1970s, a new canton formed in Switzerland for the French minority in the Canton of Berne (Eschet-Schwartz 1989). This followed "terrorist" activity unusual for modern Helvetica, possibly voicing the exasperation of an ethnic group feeling underprivileged, never having voluntarily joined the bund (Keech 1972). Similarly, before the extreme of the LFQ, the Quebecois experience was one of feeling economically shut out due to entrenched cultural experiences (Pettinicchio 2012). He may live in a place where opinion favors those who would dismiss those whose alienation leads them to speak of a North Colorado that would favor their rural lifestyle, but here, especially if he wants more on the Right than Mark Levin's applauding seals to take his missive seriously, he should check his privilege.^[1]

Maybe you think I'm making too much of a pithy comment, but, though true this Southerner^[2] will admit to being perturbed when secession is wedded to all matter of unconscionable causes (i.e., racism), but could this not be emblematic that the author is doing exactly what he asks his audience not to do: looking at a caricature of the right honorable opposition, rather than the Real McCoy? He suggests that Libertarians have spent too much time in the echo chamber, citing among their catachism the "tomes of Hayek". This brings us to the more important point - the question of whether there is an undetermined, self capable of exercising free will. He suggests we've not dealt with the postmodern critique that would fruitfully galvanize those who take it seriously to see the interconnection between a subject and his/her social environment. Actually, it has been acknowledged - and from my own readings of more of Hayek's work than merely The Road to Serfdom^[3] - that there is a postmodern strain (albeit limited) to Hayek's work.

F.A. Hayek's Treatment of the Social Self

Bruce Caldwell (1994; Postrel 2004) and Gary Dempsey (1996a, 1996b) point primarily to Hayek's work in The Sensory Order as a basis for portraying Hayek as ahead of the modernist curve. As early as 1982, John N. Gray supportively summarized Hayek's view on free will as "compatibilist", because the latter fully recognized that we may be totally materially-determined beings, but that our inability to fully learn with predictive capacity forces the law to treat humans as if we have free will. Surely, the socially contingent nature of cosmopolitan man as expressed in The Fatal Conceit, supplanting his/her "atavistic" tendencies with a heady mix of rationality and learned behavior, is also relevant. Though Caldwell hedges a bit on the extent of Hayek's postmodernism, C.R. McCann Jr., writing in The Review of Austrian Economics, sees Hayek's view of the mind and society as more truly locked in symbiosis. He says (2002, 5):

Yet at the heart of Hayek’s social philosophy is a regard for the socially-constituted nature of man: the individual is not taken to be asocial or pre-social, but rather it is recognized that society defines the individual.

In contrasting the methodologies of the lights of the Austrian School of Economics, Richard N. Langlois (1985) portrays Hayek as neither an empiricist nor a rationalist in the full sense, but rather embracing aspects of both. Like a Kantian, Hayek held that "all we know, we know through our own mind" (1948), but Langlois notes that he saw the categories in a "creative" form in which they were amenable to modification. This confirms McCann above. Further, even where he focuses on three broad motives - instinct, reason, and tradition (Hayek 1991) - it bears repeating that he clearly doesn't see the weights placed on each as static. One's context does factor into our view, not merely a frame rigidly cast in the fires of "human nature." We can learn and put into practice all that we do because of the global order in which we all find ourselves.

Further, some traditions compress ways of  understanding sufficiently as to promote the propagation of their adherents, propelling themselves into the future (Hayek 1991; 1960). Here, we see a utilitarian view of religion one would not expect for un homme de la droite, though of course he protested he never was such a "bogeyman" (Hayek 1960). It's not that he singles religion out, but that he treats all cultural mores and conventions alike from the standpoint of cultural evolution (1991; 1960), going so far as to claim: 

All that we can know is that the ultimate decision about what is good or bad will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the decline of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs. (1960, 36).

Significantly, Hayek even takes care to treat what libertarianism often considers most vile - coercion - in such a way as to make room for abuse of entrenched privilege, by providing a caveat for use of social positioning. In so doing, it is not the "national greatness" conservative who heaps scorn his way, but rather those seeking more stark delineation of the confines of the state, or advocating its removal (Rothbard 2007; Hoppe 2012). Hans-Hermane Hoppe sees as too murky and broad the Hayekian view that a water monopolist in the desert could coerce by in-action, as well as that a spouse's nagging or sulking could constitute "coercion". How ironic that the Right would suggest spousal emotional performances can be easily escaped, because you can leave. Can you?

From a political standpoint, yes, unilateral no-fault is a reality, but if you believe in your vows, is that option available to that "self" as constituted? What if one lacks such ethical qualms or metaphysical accoutrements, but lives in a social milieu where a stigma still attaches to those who exercise that option? Is that person free? However one alters vows - I personally oppose "obey" - there must be a behavioral aspect. If someone is to pledge to forego a secular safety valve (divorce), then does this not entail a duty to not act in ways intended to cause emotional anguish to your partner? Connectedness is inherently an emotionally trying arrangement, if ultimately gratifying, part of the human condition (Brown 2012) - commitment's value has little meaning otherwise - but I'm not referring to acts like purposeful manipulation.^[4]

The Socially Precarious Applicant

Before closing, let us return to more practical matters and see how libertarianism raises questions of privilege, even if it doesn't necessarily address it on those terms. Certainly relevant just after Labor Day is Wage Theory, Jeffrey Tucker has an amusing book filled with lots of anecdotes, but also offering a few distilled wisdom nuggets with a light delivery. Consistently, rather than portraying wages as representing the marginal product of labor, as neoclassical economics likely would, he understands wages in investment terms, with all the future outlook and speculation of any other investment. He states:

An employer often pays wages in advance of productivity, hoping that he is making some kind of investment in the future. It is only later that you become productive enough to make it worth it for him, at which point he has to raise your wage in the anticipation of future productivity. (2010, 76).

With all the ruckus in favor of raising the minimum wage, many of us on the Right are concerned that many are being priced out of the labor market. Empirically, some try to show this isn't the case, but they often don't capture changes in the structure of human capital that don't necessarily decrease its number. Like privilege, here we can be concerned with the steepness of the slope one must walk. When the steps of the ladder are further apart, the obstacle to amount of potential promise you have to indicate beyond what history demonstrates is that much steeper. Maybe you stay in school longer to accrue signalling devices of your potential^[5]; however, if you look at most job search advice, you hit upon the "confidence" racket. By this, I mean encouraging confidence completely irrespective of the underlying bases (i.e. performance, competence, belief).

Two relevant points here. First, the smaller but more direct claim, is that clearly this is less of an encumbrance to those with privilege. Again, the advice already acknowledges social privilege when it ballyhoos networking, and treats it as purely an act of will. Without denying the tenuousness of that view of social capital, what I find the larger concern is that altering the variegation of the structure of human capital almost puts a tax on the accumulation of genuine confidence, and encourages posing and bluster.^[6]

Lets suppose something that should not be much of a stretch what we call "confidence" is not something one either has or does not, but is open to degrees, and impacted by performance. Lets further suggest that the marginal importance of its outward projection is highest precisely where past performance is less abundant. One can try to traverse this "gap" by signalling (i.e., degrees, references), but all these sources are susceptible to the laws of diminishing marginal returns. Additionally, their initial value is market contingent. How much signal does a Bachelor degree provide future employers if more people are getting them. We can set aside the reasons (i.e. demand-pumping, standard lowering, changing parental beliefs, or even prudent decision-making), and just see this can be like seeing a cash crop as a great investment at the same time as 10 other countries come to the same conclusion: You better be first to market or you have a big problem!

So, how to you jump the gap? I would suggest that, whatever the solution for "real" confidence,  this can raise the opportunity costs of what we'll call "false" confidence. By false confidence, I mean the ability to project confidence to others without regard to whether you, yourself, are convinced. When one tries to relay on real confidence exclusively - for ethical, psychological, or performance reasons - one has the opportunity costs of not (developing the ability to) avail oneself of false confidence. As this value rises, cet. par., the temptation to change strategy (or stance, or training focus) also increases. The applicant is hit with this prospective calculus first; however, consider the long term impact from the entrepreneur's point of view. Now, signal devices are less valuable, and more applicants than usual are likely to endeavor to overproject confidence^[7]. When this is discovered, the wedge between demand and supply for employment increases, resulting in the forced caching of labor.

The Austrian School and Socially-Contingent Qualities of L'Individu

Above, the focus on the wage earner highlights not only his/her decision-making, but how macroeconomic conditions warp that behavior. This focus, usually thought structural, appears to comport well with Austrian analysis, and we see this not only by considering wage theory, but also the challenge faced by the would-be borrower. In more independent economic activity, one often needs to take on debt, precisely because of the forward-looking activity of entrepreneurs just discussed. Henry Hazlitt, in eschewing government loans, reminds us of a point languishes in our collective memory the further we get from the Building & Loan of It's a Wonderful Life: how trust is enmeshed in finance.

There is a strange idea abroad, held by all monetary cranks, that credit is something a banker gives to a man. Credit, on the contrary, is something a man already has. He has it, perhaps, because he already has marketable assets of a greater cash value than the loan for which he is asking. Or he has it because his character and past record have earned it. (1979, 43, emphasis added).

In this quote, we see the intermingling of a distinction that Moore makes between "having" privilege, and it being more a quality, whether ascribed, inherited, or developed. Here, we see how credit brings together both. Also, the invocation of reputation - a characteristic of one's performance that is social in nature - clearly invites privilege to come into play. At least the Austrians would make the banker own the exclusivity in which s/he indulges, in competition with others.

The question of how the Great Recession impacts confidence was raised for selfish reasons, but also because clearly it connects to a Rightist position (keep wages unregulated) that does involve a certain awareness of social structures, it just uses a different language. My hope is that it is evident that this helps confirm the author's overall thesis of the bounty that awaits from cross-ideological intellectual engagement. By deconstructing advice often portrayed as purely a voluntary choice - "be confident" - into a social function laborers confront within the constraints of current political economy, the attempt here was to take up that task. As the potential problem was raised within existing Austrian-Libertarian perspectives, this should also buttress the counter-assertion that, indeed, even if under-emphasized, that perspective already does take social analysis seriously, including individuation.

    

Notes:

^[1] Another blog posits (here) that "Anglo privilege" explains the incredulity of English Canadians at not being addressed in English by Québecois while making little to no effort to accommodate francophones in other provinces. 

^[2] If you view the political world through humanitarian, but Constitutionally "unreconstructed" eyes, or merely speak with too much of a regional dialect, you will experience the estrangement and barrier to reception that meets those not privileged to be on the winning side of the battlefield. Calhoun (1851) would lament the subjugation of the South, and though we must admit the boldfaced irony from one who defended slaverys, that does not change that in doing so, the South "othered" itself and made it easier for industrialists to catalyze the subjugation of the free trade supporting South and chain its poor (of either race) to the higher prices for basic subsistence that come from taxing the imports of 19th century, agrarian Dixie. Gillman (2001, 44-45) quotes Eric Fomer as suggesting the abolitionist sentiment was stoked not merely on humanitarian grounds, but on the same basis that colors WTO protests: unfair labor competition. 

^[3] Not surprisingly, a Nobel Laureate's most astute scholastic contributions will not be fully compressed into the work most oriented to a popular audience (Postrel 2004), nor should one expect the latter to be the most representative pieces.  

^[4] Lets avoid the weighty subject of whether a spouse cannot offer water in a desert, and merely suggest the classic "guilt trip" or goading, often drawing on social strictures like gender roles, could constitute marital coercion. Our inability to externally distinguish coercion from genuine communication on a weighty concern doesn't create an epistemological question of non-existence!

^[5] Bourdieu (2002, 245-246) does address this somewhat from a sociological perspective, though his emphasis is on how the state can effect the "conversion rate" of "academic capital" into the kind that can be monetized in the marketplace, bundling cultural trappings and acting as a gatekeeper. Without disputing that phenomenon, here we are referring to the more stripped down pursuit of human capital with an imprimatur. Other sources not included well establish this behavior as well.

^[6] Austrian Theory suggests tinkering with the interest rate ultimately results in "forced savings" when the bust comes (Garrison 2001). Further theoretical rigor is necessary to make this symmetry, but the conjecture comports with existing Austrian Business Cycle Theory to proffer without trepidation.

^[7] Or even outright deceive with false signals. Is there a difference, though, between claiming you can do more than you believe you can, and claiming you have two degrees instead of one?.

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