Author: Bill Vallicella

The Incompatibility of a Market Economy and a Socialist Welfare State

Janet Daly of The Telegraph has written a penetrating article. Excerpts (emphasis added)

What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union.

[. . .]

Mitt Romney had been hinting, in an oblique, undeveloped way, at this line of argument as he moved tentatively toward finding a real message. Then he took the startling step of appointing Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, and the earth moved. If Romney was the embodiment of the spirit of a free market, Ryan was its prophet. His speech at the convention was so dangerous to the Obama
Democrats, with their aspirations toward European-style democratic socialism, that they unleashed their “fact checkers” to find mistakes (“lies”) in it. (Remember the old Yes Minister joke: “You can always accuse them of errors of detail, sir. There are always some errors of detail”.) When Romney and Ryan offer their arguments to the American people, they are, of course, at an advantage over almost any British or European politician. Contrary to what many know-nothing British observers seem to think, the message coming out of Tampa was not Tea Party extremism. It was just a reassertion of the basic values of American political culture: self-determination, individual aspiration and genuine community, as opposed to belief in the state as the fount of all social
virtue.

[. . .]

So it would be deeply misleading to imply that this campaign will be a contest between what Britain likes to call “progressive” politics and some atavistic longing for a return to frontier America where everybody made a success of his own life with no help from anybody but his kith and kin. In the midst of the impassioned and often nasty debate about the future of health care, in which Ryan was depicted as a granny-killer, there has been some serious Republican thinking about the universal provision of medical care for pensioners (or “seniors” as they are called in the US). Because, you see, the debate over there has gone way beyond welfare reform: the need to restrict benefit dependency among the underclass is an argument that has been won. What is at issue now is much more politically contentious: universal entitlements such as comprehensive Medicare and social security are known to be unaffordable in their present form. Ryan, the radical economic thinker, suggests a solution for Medicare in the form of a voucher system. Patients could choose from competing health providers, with a ceiling on the cost of procedures and treatments, instead of simply being given blanket no-choice care. Thus, the government would get better value for money, and individuals would have more say in their own treatment. Now why doesn’t anybody here think of applying that mechanism to the NHS? Oh, yes, some people have – but nobody in power will listen to them.

Existence and Contingency

Let us return to the problem of contingency that I was belaboring in my last existence post.  Consider this reasoning:

1. (x)(x = x).  Principle of Identity: everything is self-identical
2. Venus = Venus.  From (1) by Universal Instantiation (UI)
3. (∃x)(x = Venus).  From (2) by Existential Generalization (EG)
4. (1) is logically true, hence necessarily true.
5. If p is necessary, and p entails q, then q is necessary.  (Principle of Modal Logic)
6. (3) is necessarily true.  The necessity of (1) is transmitted via the Modal Principle to (2), and then to (3)
7. 'Venus exists' is contingent.
8. If sentence s1 adequately translates sentence s2, then s1 preserves both the truth and the modal status of s2.  (Translation Principle)
Therefore
9. (3) is not an adequate translation of 'Venus exists': it preserves truth but not modal status.

And of course this result is generalizable:  'x exists' cannot be adequately translated as '(∃y)(x = y).'  But that is the canonical translation on the Quinean version of the thin theory.  So the Quinean version is untenable.

If you don't accept this argument, which premise or inference will you reject and why?

If Venus exists, then of course it is identical to something.  But surely it is not contingent that Venus  is identical to something.  It is contingent, however, that Venus exists.  Therefore, the existence of Venus is not its identity to something.  Once again we see that the thin theory is false. 

Rigor and Cognitivity

Some say philosophy lacks rigor.  Well, some does, but the best doesn't.  People who bemoan a lack of rigor in philosophy are typically unacquainted with its best authors.  The problem with philosophy is not lack of rigor but lack of cognitivity.  The lack of cognitivity, however, does not detract from philosophy's value.  Is there no value in the Socratic docta ignorantia?

Could a Universe of Contingent Beings be Necessary?

If everything in the universe is contingent, does it follow that the universe is contingent?  No it doesn't, and to think otherwise would be to commit the fallacy of composition.  If the parts of a whole have a certain property, it does not follow that the whole has that property.  But it is a simple point of logic that a proposition's not following from another is consistent with the proposition's being true.

And so while one cannot straightaway infer the contingency of the universe from the contingency of its parts, it is nevertheless true that the universe is contingent.  Or so I shall argue.

The folowing tripartition is mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive:   necessary, impossible, contingent.  A necessary (impossible, contingent) being is one that exists in all (none, some but not all) possible worlds.  I will assume an understanding of possible worlds talk.  See my Modal Matters category for details.

Our question is whether the universe U, all of whose members are contingent, is itself contingent.  I say it is, and argue as follows.

1. Necessarily, if U has no members, then U does not exist. (This is because U is just the totality of its members: it is not something in addition to them.  If U has three members, a, b, and c, then U is just those three members taken collectively: it is not a fourth thing distinct from each of the members.  U depends for its existence on the existence of its members.)

2. There is a possible world w in which there are no concrete contingent beings.  (One can support this premise with a subtraction argument.  If a world having n members is possible, then surely a world having  n-1 members is possible.  For example, take the actual world, which is one of the possible worlds, and substract me from it.  Surely the result, though  sadly impoverished,  is a possible world.  Subtract London Ed from the result.  That too is a possible world.   Iterate the subtraction procedure until you arrive at a world with n minus n ( = 0) concrete contingent members.   One could also support the premise with a conceivability argument.  It is surely conceivable that there be no concrete contingent beings.  This does not entail, but is arguably evidence for, the proposition that it is possible that there be no concrete contingent beings.)

Therefore

3. W is a world in which U has no members.  (This follows from (2) given that U is the totality of concrete contingent beings.)

Therefore

4. W is a world in which U does not exist. (From (1) and (3))

Therefore

5. U is a contingent being.  (This follows from (4) and the definition of 'contingent being.')

Therefore

6. The totality of contingent beings is itself contingent, hence not necessary.

What is the relevance of this to cosmological arguments?  If the universe is necessary, then one cannot sensibly ask why it exists.  What must exist has the ground of its existence in itself.  So, by showing that the universe is not necessary, one removes an obstacle to cosmological argumentation.

Now since my metaphilosophy holds that nothing of real importance  can be strictly proven in philosophy, the above argument – which deals with a matter of real importance — does not strictly prove its conclusion. But it renders the conclusion rationally acceptable, which is all that we can hope for, and is enough.

Michelle Malkin on Racial Code Words

Here are her recent additions to the list.   By the logic of the Left, cosmologists are racists because they study, among other things, black holes.

The willful stupidity of liberals is evidenced by the umbrage they take at the apt description of Obama as the food stamp president:

At the dawn of the modern federal food stamp program, one in 50 Americans was enrolled. This year, one in seven Americans is on the food stamp rolls. The majority of them are white. Obama’s loosening of eligibility requirements combined with the stagnant economy fueled the rise in dependency. “Food stamp president” is pithy shorthand for the very real entitlement explosion.

Democrats fumed when former GOP candidate Newt Gingrich bestowed the title on Obama and decried its purportedly racist implications. But who are the racists? As Gingrich scolded the aforementioned race troll Chris Matthews last week: “Why do you assume food stamp refers to blacks? What kind of racist thinking do you have? You’re being a racist because you assume they’re black!” Time to find a new code word.

You have to ask yourself whether you want a culture of dependency or a culture of self-reliance.  What is so offensive about Obama and his ilk is their undermining of such traditional American values as self-reliance.

And as I said yesterday, many of these same liberals such as the "race troll' Chris Mathews got where they did in life precisely because of such virtues as self-reliance.  And yet they refuse to promote them and pass them on.  It shows the contempt they have for their clients such as blacks who keep them in power.

If it hasn't happened already, some liberal will now besmirch the beautiful word 'self-reliance' as racial code.  There is just no level of scumbaggery to which a leftist will not descend.

Preach What You Practice!

Liberals who have amounted to something in life through advanced study, hard work, deferral of   gratification, self-control, accepting responsibility for their actions and the rest of the old-fashioned virtues are often strangely  hesitant to preach these conservative virtues to those most in need of them. These liberals  live Right and garner the benefits, but think Left. They do not make excuses for themselves, but they do for others. And what has worked for them they do not think will work for others. Their attitude is curiously condescending.  If we conservatives used 'racist' as loosely and irresponsibly as they do, we might even tag their attitude 'racist.'

It is not enough to practice what you preach; you must also preach what you practice.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: September Songs

September again.  A lovely transitional month leading from hot August to glorious October.

Lotte Lenya sings Kurt Weill, September Song.  A Liberace-Jack Benny spoof.

Dinah Washington, September in the Rain

The Tempos, See You in September

Carole King, It Might as Well Rain Until September

Antonio Vivaldi, "The Four Seasons," Autumn.  Newcomers to classical music — some will say 'real music' — are well-advised to start with Vivaldi and with Pachelbel's Canon in D major.

Clint Eastwood Speaks Truth to Power at the RNC

There were some fabulous but conventional speeches at the Republican National Convention.  The best were by Condoleeza Rice, Paul Ryan, and Marco Rubio.  But the performance that may prove to be the most effective in securing votes, not to mention rankling liberals, was that of Clint Eastwood.

Here is this  aging superstar who introduces himself self-deprecatingly as a "movie tradesman" with hair slightly out of place sporting what the late Paul Fussell referred to in his hilarious 1983 Class as a "prole gap," a class indicator often displayed by working class types on the rare and uncomfortable occasions when they don a suit. (“Here, the collar of the jacket separates itself from the collar of the shirt and backs off and up an inch or so:  the effect is that of a man coming apart.") Eastwood looked like he had blown in from a session with cronies  at a bar and grill.

He then launches into a 'conversation' with a chair whose absent occupant is none other than Barack Obama.  The dialogue is rambling and in places incoherent, but funny as hell.  Here it is in full, for your enjoyment.

An actor in an ill-fitting suit addresses an empty suit, a man as vacant as the chair he does not occupy.

The money quote and standing ovation come at 8:54: "You, we, own this country."  Here, in the guise of a regular guy, Eastwood speaks truth to power, to use that darling phrase of leftists, a phrase they (absurdly) continue to deploy even when they possess power. Eastwood continued with, "Politicians are employees of ours" and "When somebody does not do the job, we've got to let them go."

Was the person who shouted out "Make my day!" a plant?  Plant or not, the Eastwood performance ended on an appropriate "Dirty Harry" note. Dirty Harry, after all, cut through bullshit and did not suffer punks gladly.