Concepts of Rationality

This is really a "note to self." (Well, this entire blog is a note to self, I know.) It's an idea that I've been thinking for a long while and whose implications are, I think, potentially far-reaching. 

A few days ago I was teaching my seminar on "Rationality and Collective Action" and we got to the inevitable question of what is rationality. The answers I got were not surprising, or wrong. The odd thing was that they were the answers an economist would give, and this in a room where most students were not Economics majors. So, they would fall back to the standard definition of rationality in economics that equates it to maximizing behavior or, if you like "thinking outside the box", "bounded optimization" a la Herbert Simon.

Like I said, there's nothing wrong with this notion of rationality. The problem is that it is a recent historical creation and it is crowding out many others. Whatever happened to the definition of "rational" as "logical"? There used to be a time when we said that an argument was "rational" if it followed from the premises. Whatever happened to the definition of "rational" as "grounded on careful examination"? When we talk about an "irrational fear of spiders" we're not saying that there's anything suboptimal about running away from spiders if one is afraid of them. We're saying that the fear itself is not grounded on any realistic assessment of what spiders are.

I think none of this would be a problem if we were thinking about economic issues. But economic discourse keeps penetrating other spheres (and, for the record, I don't think that's entirely bad; I myself do it) so we should be mindful that in those other spheres it would be very limiting to equate rationality to efficiency. 

For example, in the seminar we were trying to make sense of what Hegel could mean about "rational laws" in his essay "On the English Reform Bill." He was clearly using the idiom of the XVIIIth Century enlightened thinkers in which rational laws are laws that derive from some process of reasoning that is transparent, open to scrutiny, not driven by fear of some hidden deity and so on. In that sense, a "rational law" is not necessarily efficient. Moreover, I can think of many laws that I would call rational that are inefficient. (Don't they always say that us socialists love screwing up the economy?)

If we want to understand politics and, more broadly, to build a "rationalist" social theory, something I'm committed to, we must start by addressing the fact that rationality is much more than efficiency. One place where this is particularly notorious is in the debate about deliberation in politics. Politics, like it or not, requires language. You don't have to agree with everything Habermas has ever said to recognize that. So, a rationalist research program of politics must be able to make sense of language as a rational activity. Which it is. Right now as you read these lines (well, no one is, but just pretending), you are trying to make sense of them using rationality. You're not optimizing anything in the process. You're simply trying to go from premises to conclusions in a way that makes sense. That is every bit as rational as maximizing a profit function.

I still don't have the faintest idea of the implications this might have. But it's been nagging me for long enough to put it here.

Waxing Philosophical about the Health Care Debacle (II)

Democratic fetishism, you may call it or, given that I'm thinking about Marx, I guess his own expression is also apposite: "parliamentarian cretinism." This is how I see what's going on and, if I'm right, it has profound implications for the notion of democracy. 

Before I go on, some background. At this point it is pretty obvious to anyone not in Washington that the Democratic Party needs to vote for the Senate Health Care bill, send it to the President's desk and take it from there. Anything else invites disaster. Now, as much as I've been trying to find out, it's hard to know who exactly in the House is digging in his/her heels against this plan. One House member is on record: Progressive Caucus member Grijalva. If I had him near, I would slap his face trying to bring some sense into him. But, disagreements and all, Grijalva and left-wing opponents of the bill are not incurring in "democratic fetishism." Theirs is a different kind of problem, probably just plain old wishful thinking.

The ones I'm thinking of right now are the self-styled "moderates" that claim that with the election of Brown "the people have spoken" against health care reform. Sure, that's what people like Evan Bayh would say to justify themselves. But, at a deeper level, isn't there something wrong with our notion of democracy when a special election in Massachusetts, again the state that has more consistently than any other supported health reform, so much so that they have one of their own, is taken to represent "the will of the people"? 

It's plain nuts to believe that the will of the people can be found this way. OK, in the case of Bayh it may be bad faith, but in the case of those who believe him, it's idiocy. Trying to determine the will of the people on the basis of the latest election, or the latest poll, or the latest pundit-approved interpretation of the latest poll about the latest election is just chasing ghosts. So, why is the Democratic party in the business of chasing ghosts?

I think the answer is because it is not a party, it just plays one on TV. The Democratic party is a confederation of politicians that on some occasions happen to hang out together. But else than that, it has shown repeatedly that it has no coherence of its own, it doesn't stand for anything. I thought that it stood for universal health care (an important goal but, in the scheme of things, a modest one) but now apparently not even that. So instead of defending its core values it has to be constantly seeking the "will of the people."

I could go on venting about the US Democratic Party but I think there is a deeper problem at hand. The institutions of modern democracies resemble market institutions in several ways. That much is clear and has been noted at least since Schumpeter or Anthony Downs. Within that structure, it is possible to think of the "will of the people" as some aggregate of preferences akin to the consumer preferences in economic markets. 

There are many problems with this way of thinking, problems that hit close to home in my case because they pertain the way rational-choice models of politics are built. The first and most salient problem is that, although political preference may be represented, for analytical purposes, in much the same way we represent consumer preferences, such representation captures just the end product of a much deeper and more complex process.

To see what's wrong with this, let's look first at a non-democratic regime, say, the long-disappeared East Germany. People, even political scientists, operate under the stereotype that dictatorships do not consult the preferences of the populace. But this is inaccurate. In fact, the East German regime went to great lengths to consult the citizenry. It created an elaborate system of "Eingaben" which were, at least nominally, input offered by the people about how to improve the regime. An apolitical East German could, without risk or harm, write letters about this or that complaint affecting his daily life and on some occasions the complaint would be processed which is more than you can say of many democracies. 

The trick here was how to operate within the limits of the acceptable. In terms of form, it would help if you prefaced your complaint explaining how it would help in the "construction of socialism" or something to that effect. More importantly, in terms of contents, there were some things off-limits. Suggesting multi-party elections, or freedom of travel, or the introduction of free markets would not be welcome and could land you in trouble. But there were lots of "safe" issues as long as you were not questioning the pillars of the regime.

The point of this example is that you can have a political system that relies on the "preferences of the populace" but that makes sure that those preference are rather flat and simple. Stuff like reporting pot holes in the streets, the appalling food at the factory's canteen, etc. But a vigorous democracy needs more than this. A vigorous democracy needs to take into account preferences that pertain to deep, structural aspects of the social pact. Health care is a good example. In the US the social pact does not include right now a principle of universal availability to health care; it is not considered a right. Health care reform is, above anything else, about that. Cost and deficit issues aside, the question is whether the US will ever become a society where health care is a right. There might be good arguments on both sides (although you can imagine where I stand on this issue), but the point is that a democracy needs to be able to have such kind of debate.

To some extent, the American democracy IS having such debate, although a lot gets obscured. But the thing is, and here I am getting into more speculative territory, regular citizens don't often go to work thinking "gee, it's amazing the ways in which the deep, structural aspects of the social pact we live in are screwing up my life." To pose deep, structural questions and, even worse, to come up with deep, structural answers requires an elaborate process of political socialization, it requires deliberation and collective action. In other words, it needs social movements, parties, things of the like. 

That's what's so problematic about the American party system. If the Democratic party gets out of the business of bringing people together to arrive at a collective view of where they want to take society, if it insists on just chasing the latest polls, over time it becomes a kinder, gentler and more efficient version of the East German SED, a party that is good at keeping the customers satisfied. (The SED could only keep the customers satisfied for 40 years until they decided that they wanted an altogether different menu.)

Without political organizations and institutions that can bring citizens together to question the social structure they inhabit, democracy becomes inherently conservative and that, I believe, is the reason why many sectors in the left have been uneasy with democracy. These days in the US you hear a lot that "you need 60 votes in the Senate for anything." That's not exactly true. If you want to cut taxes for the rich, illegally invade countries, spurn global efforts at tackling global warming, wiretap and torture suspects, and other great accomplishments of the Bush administration, you don't need supermajorities. It's only progressive change that needs them. And the reason this is so is, again, because the Democratic Party is not a true party or, if it is one, it is every bit as conservative as the Republican only that it strikes a classy pose every now and then. 

Have I become a Naderite? Oh, my. I don't know. I think that, given the institutional constraints of the US electoral system, the best shot for leftists in the US is still to collaborate with the Democratic Party and sometimes probably to work within it, much in the way they have done it. I still believe that it was folly for Nader to run in 2000, let alone in 2004. But I'm with the usually mild-mannered Ezra Klein that has been working himself into a rage these days: if the Democratic Party drops the ball on health care this time, the right thing to do for leftists might be just to sit on their hands in November and send it back into minority status.

Since I'm not a political blogger (well, we already established that I'm not a real blogger, but that's another thing) but rather a social scientists, my issue of the day is not electoral strategy. What I'm trying to argue is that those of us who work within the rational-choice paradigm must acknowledge that the concept of political preferences, while useful for some purposes, is badly flawed. 

I'm proud to say that this is not a sudden epiphany for me. I've been thinking about this for a while only that the current crisis brings my thoughts into focus. I have a whole book to prove it. You'll have to wait for it, though, it's gonna be spectacular!

Waxing Philosophical about the Health Care Debacle

Like most left-wing intellectuals, I belong to the upper decile of the income distribution and, since I've always worked for big employers (universities), I have very good health care. So, the health care debate doesn't affect my pocketbook. Maybe that's why I can afford to get philosophical about it unlike all the people who struggle without health care for which this is a real disaster. So here I go.

In Colombia we have a saying to describe the attitude of the Democratic Party: they killed the tiger and ran scared from the hide. It is still possible that the Dems will pass the Senate bill and accomplish something. But the more time passes, the more unlikely it seems. So, for the purpose of intellectual stimulus, I'm writing as if they had dropped the ball because, even if that doesn't transpire, the very fact that it was a possibility says a lot.

The Democratic party has majorities that would be the envy of most parties in the advanced, industrialized democracies. It has majorities that are larger than anything it has enjoyed in the past 30 years and, probably, it will take another 30 years before they have something like it again. And still they can't get through the single most important initiative they've come with which, when all is said and done, is basically a set of incremental changes designed to preserve as much as possible the status quo of health care. It's not like they are nationalizing the banking sector, or dismantling the military-industrial complex or abolishing private property. They were just changing, nudging to be more precise, health care delivery a little bit in the direction of other industrialized democracies. The level of impotence is just breathtaking. 

Before I get into the crux of my arguments, I'll vent a bit more. Let's consider first the disproportion between cause and effect. A handful of voters in Massachusetts give a Republican a slim margin of victory and, next thing you know, THE SKY IS FALLING!! THE PEOPLE HAVE REJECTED HEALTH CARE REFORM!! 

To repeat what others are saying: Massachusetts already has health care reform. And they love it. If they wanted to reject it, they would have killed it in their own backyard. Furthermore, they've been voting for Ted Kennedy since forever. If that doesn't count like supporting health care reform, I wonder what counts. Even the guy they elected supports health care. So, of all the times that Massachusetts has spoken about the issue, of all the times when it has consistently sent the message that it likes universal health care, the one time it waffles a little bit is the one that counts. 

In any private matter, this would be considered completely ridiculous and irrational. So, why is it that this can happen in "the world's greatest democracy"?

They're kicking me out of the cafe so I'll answer this question in my next post.

Poll ratings, Schmoll ratings

I've tried to stay away from American politics in this blog because I don't think I have much to contribute that you can't find anywhere else. But since yesterday's special election in Massachusetts, lost by the Democrats, there has been a huge uptick in political idiocy that now I feel that even I can contribute something.

Basically, the Democratic party has a few hours (probably not more than 100) to show that it deserves being a major party. So far its reaction to the defeat is one of the most embarrassing things I've seen in politics (and, remember, I'm Colombian, I've seen a lot!)

Since the dust hasn't settled yet and the Democratic party may, against its best instincts, pull itself together and by dumb luck do the right thing, I'll comment on a related issue that actually predates the election: the allegedly alarming fall of Obama's approval rate.

A few days ago some wag said that with his approval ratings, Charlie Manson could defeat him. Baloney. The Democrats have nothing to fear so far about Obama's approval ratings. Let's see why.

At his inauguration he had approval ratings above 70%. But he won the election with something like 53% of the vote (as opposed to whatever people say to a pollster). Just like any other recently inaugurated president, he generated a lot of good will even among people who voted (again, voted, not responded to a poll) against him. That's normal. Now his approval ratings are comparable to the vote share he got. In essence he has alienated two types of people: some who voted for Mc Cain but were hoping against hope that he would not be a Democrat (what were they thinking?) and some to his left that got all worked up over the new Community-Organizer-in-Chief. 

This second group (and yes, that would include me if I had the right to vote) has nowhere to go. Many things would have to go horribly wrong for the Obama presidency for we to have a significant challenge from the left come 2012. In the US incumbent presidents run, period. So in 2012 it will be Obama vs. some variant of Palin-Limbaugh-Beck you name it. I wonder how many leftists will not vote for Obama in that contest. 

The first group could swing things against him if it were large enough. But so far it isn't. Again, Obama is still having above majority approval rates. And everybody else is doing much worse. It is fair to say that right now he is the most popular politician in the US and that, were the US to hold elections today he would win again. 

So, Dems, chill out! You're guy is still running the country and the country still loves him back. What the Democratic party cannot afford is to cripple his presidency with the kind of tantrum they're throwing today. Because if they do, not only they will lose, they will deserve to lose. 

Real Bloggers Don't Take Holidays...

...then again, I'm not a real blogger.

That said, I'm back.