A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles by Thomas Sowell
While political thinkers who were also political practitioners may create ambiguities as to their motivations, which may be either ideological or careerist, increasing specialization over the centuries has made the theorist-practitioner in politics almost as rare as the theorist-businessman. Leading social theorists who were at the same time leading political figures were more common in the eighteenth century, when Burke and the Federalists flourished, than in later times. But John Stuart Mill's brief career in Parliament in the nineteenth century or Joseph A. Schumpeter's brief career in business in the twentieth century were oddities having little significance for their own intellectual history, much less for visions in general.
The less extreme claim that visions represent the bias of class position is no more readily supported by evidence. The class positions of those with the constrained vision have not been consistently higher or lower than the class positions of those with the unconstrained vision, and differences in class position have been considerable among those with similar views on either side.
Milton Friedman was far more similar in social origins to Tom Paine than to Friedrich Hayek or James Madison. While Condorcet and Holbach were aristocrats, their philosophic compatriots Paine and Godwin knew what it was to struggle to make ends meet. At the individual level, the class explanation of ideas breaks down completely, while the tracing of assumptions about human nature to conclusions about social policy show a remarkable and enduring consistency.
The numerous other sociological explanations of ideological orientation need not all be rejected a priori, nor is it necessary to enter into their specifics here. To "explain" the social composition of those holding particular visions-whether the explanations be correct or incorrect-is only to assert that people are not randomly distributed in their visions, any more than they are randomly distributed in sports, religion, or a thousand other human activities. None of this denies that class bias exists or plays a potent role in political struggles. The question is whether its influence operates by controlling those who shape social visions or in other ways. That class bias, where it exists, will seize upon a vision which can serve as a rationalization is scarcely denied by anyone. But that has nothing to do with either the origins or validity of the vision.
The very reason visions are useful to those with a special interest to promote is that it helps recruit political allies who do not share that special interest, but who may be won over by the principles or rhetoric generated by a social vision. In short, the resort to visions as a means of recruiting political allies is evidence of the limited appeal of special interests, as such, and the independent power of visions. The relative weights of the two forces in the short run are not the issue here. However much the special interests may predominate as of a given time, the special interests of one generation need not be the same as the special interests of the next generation, while the constrained and unconstrained visions have both been viable for centuries.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
This final set of summaries and conclusions must summarize not only this chapter but the whole work, and derive some of its implications. Behind the episodic eruptions of specific political and social controversies is a pattern of beliefs about the world, about man, and about causation. These implicit assumptions or visions repeatedly divide controversialists at all intellectual levels, on a wide spectrum of issues, and across the boundaries of the law, the economy, the polity, and the society, as well as across international boundaries. Though these controversies often become emotional, the opposing views tend to cluster, not around an emotion, but around the logic of a vision. Each vision tends to generate conclusions which are the logical consequences of its assumptions. That is why there are such repeated conflicts of visions in such a range of otherwise unrelated issues. The analysis here is not intended to reconcile visions or determine their validity, but to understand what they are about, and what role they play in political, economic, and social struggles. The question is not what particular policy or social system is best but rather what is implicitly assumed in advocating one policy or social system over another.
Whatever one's vision, other visions are easily misunderstood- not only because of caricatures produced by polemics but also because the very words used ("equality," "freedom," "justice," "power") mean entirely different things in the context of different presuppositions. It is not merely misunderstanding but the inherent logic of each vision which leads to these semantic differences, as well as to substantively different conclusions across a wide spectrum of issues. Visions are inherently in conflict, quite aside from the misunderstandings, hostility, or intransigence generated in the course of polemics.
Both constrained and unconstrained visions are ultimately concerned with social results. The unconstrained vision seeks directly to achieve those results socially-that is, through collective decisions prescribing the desired outcomes. The constrained vision considers it beyond the capability of any manageable set of decision-makers to marshal the requisite knowledge, and dangerous to concentrate sufficient power, to carry out their decisions, even if it were possible.
Given the unconstrained vision, which permits results to be directly prescribed, its basic concepts are expressed in terms of results. The degree of freedom is thus the degree to which one's desires can be realized, without regard to whether the obstacles to full realization be the deliberately imposed restrictions of government or the lack of circumstantial prerequisites. Justice is likewise a question of outcomes, and the justice or injustice of a society can therefore be determined directly by those outcomes, whether they be the result of conscious decisions, social attitudes, or circumstances inherited from the past. Power is likewise defined by results: If A can cause B to do what A wants done, then A has power over B, regardless of whether A's inducements to B are positive (rewards) or negative (penalties). Equality too is a result, the degree of equality or inequality being a directly observable fact.
All these basic terms are defined in profoundly different ways under the assumptions of the constrained vision. One consequence of this is that those with different visions often argue past each other, even when they accept the same rules of logic and utilize the same data, for the same terms of discourse signify very different things. In the constrained vision, where man cannot directly create social results but only social processes, it is as characteristics of those processes that freedom, justice, power, and equality have significance. A social process has freedom to the extent that it refrains from interfering with the choices of individualswhether or not the circumstances of those individuals provide them with many options or few. A social process has justice to the extent that its rules are just, regardless of the variety of outcomes resulting from the application of those rules. Power is exerted in social processes, by individuals or by institutions, to the extent that someone's existing set of options is reduced- but it is not an exertion of power to offer a quid pro quo that adds to his existing options. Equality as a process characteristic means application of the same rules to all, without regard to individual antecedent conditions or subsequent results. Results matter- they are the ultimate justification of processes- but it is only the general effectiveness of particular processes (competitive markets, constitutional government) that can be gauged by man, not each individual result in isolation.
The clash between the two visions is not over the actual or desirable degree of freedom, justice, power, or equality- or over the fact that there can only be degrees and not absolutes- but rather over what these things consist of, in whatever degree they occur. Moreover, the relationship between the two visions reflects not only logical differences, but also the historical ascendancy of one or the other vision at a given time. Because some of the key concepts used by both sides were first defined primarily in the terms of the constrained vision, those with the unconstrained vision have had to distinguish their concepts as "real" freedom, or "real" equality, for example, as contrasted with merely "formal" freedom or equality. H
In addition to these changing asymmetric relationships between the two visions, there is an enduring asymmetric relationship based on how they see each other as adversaries. Each must regard the other as mistaken, but the reasons for the "mistake" are different. In the unconstrained vision, in which man can master social complexities sufficiently to apply directly the logic and morality of the common good, the presence of highly educated and intelligent people diametrically opposed to policies aimed at that common good is either an intellectual puzzle or a moral outrage, or both. Implications of bad faith, venality, or other moral or intellectual deficiencies have been much more common in the unconstrained vision's criticisms of the constrained vision than vice versa.
In the constrained vision, where the individual's capacity for direct social decision-making is quite limited, it is far less surprising that those who attempt it should fail- and therefore far less necessary to regard the "mistaken" adversary as having less morality or intelligence than others. Those with the constrained vision tend to refer to their adversaries as well-meaning but mistaken, or unrealistic in their assumptions, with seldom a suggestion that they are deliberately opposing the common good or are too stupid to recognize it. Personality variations cut across these patterns on both sides- Burke was less generous to adversaries than Hayek, Shaw less accusatory than Condorcet- but the patterns themselves have persisted for centuries.
Malthus said: "I cannot doubt the talents of such men as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to doubt their candor."25 But when Godwin wrote of Malthus, he called him "malignant,"26 questioned "the humanity of the man,"27 said "I profess myself at a loss to conceive of what earth the man was made,"28 and hinted that Malthus' appointment as Professor at East India College was a reward for apologetics for the privileged.29 In the twentieth century, Friedrich Hayek's landmark book, The Road to Serfdom, made him a moral leper to many,30 though in that book he was very generous to his adversaries, whom he characterized as "single-minded idealists"31 and as "authors whose sincerity and disinterestedness are above suspicion."32 Further examples could be multiplied almost without limit. The point here is that these differences reflect more than personality differences, and are themselves part of an enduring pattern growing out of the fundamental assumptions of the two visions.
The two visions differ not only in how they see differences between themselves but also in how they see differences between ordinary individuals and those more intellectually or morally advanced. In the unconstrained vision, where the intellectual and moral potential of man vastly exceeds the levels currently observable in the general population, there is more room for individual variation in intellectual and moral performance than in the constrained vision, where the elite and the masses are both penned within relatively narrow limits. Striking moral and intellectual differences are recognized by those with the constrained vision, but are regarded as either too exceptional to form the basis of social policy or as confined to a small area out of a vast spectrum of human concerns. Given the inherent limitations of human beings, the extraordinary person (morally or intellectually) is extraordinary only within some very limited area, perhaps at the cost of grave deficiencies elsewhere, and may well have blind spots which prevent him from seeing some things which are clearly visible to ordinary people.
Differences between the moral-intellectual elite and the masses are crucial, especially to modern conflicts of visions over the degree of surrogate decision-making, whether by politicians, judges, or various agencies and commissions. Both visions try to make the locus of discretion coincide with the locus of knowledge, but they conceive of knowledge in such radically different terms as to lead to opposite conclusions as to where discretion should be vested.
To those with the unconstrained vision, who see knowledge and reason as concentrated in those who have advanced furthest toward the ultimate potential of man, surrogate decision-making- economic "planning," judicial activism, etc.- is essential. These surrogate decision-makers must attempt both to influence beforehand and to revise afterward the decisions made by those less accomplished in intellectual or moral terms. But to those with the constrained vision, each individual's knowledge is so grossly inadequate, compared to the knowledge mobilized systemically through economic markets, traditional values, and other social processes, that surrogate decision-makers in general- and non-elected judges in particular- should severely limit themselves to drawing up rules defining the boundaries of others' discretion, not second-guess the decisions actually made within those boundaries. In the constrained vision, the loci of discretion should be as widely scattered as possible, the inevitable errors resulting being accepted as a trade-off, no solution being possible.
Conflicts of visions affect not only such large and enduring issues as economic planning versus laissez faire, or judicial activism versus judicial restraint, but also such new issues as the most effective modes of Third World development, "affirmative action," or "comparable worth." In each of these controversies, the assumptions of one vision lead logically to opposite conclusions from those of the other. All these issues turn ultimately on whether, or to what extent, surrogate decision-makers can make better decisions than those directly transacting. Even with perfect agreement on "value premises" as to what outcome would be ideal, differences in beliefs as to the efficacy of particular policies would put those with different visions in sharp conflict.
Visions help explain ideological differences, which are of course only one source of political differences. Yet, in the long run, these ideological conflicts seem to shape the general course of political trends as much as "practical" political considerations dominate day-to-day events. To a considerable extent, the ideological presuppositions of the times set the limits and the agenda which determine what is feasible, realistic, or imperative to practical politicians.
Powerful as ideology may be, it is not omnipotent. Inescapable and brutal facts- the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939- have caused many to simultaneously embrace or abandon an ideology. Even short of such cataclysmic events, the rules of logic and evidence have historically led many to change ideological positions, suddenly or gradually. Moveover, even when an ideological bias persists, the empirical or logical work of those with such a bias may not necessarily suffer- by empirical or logical standards- however much the semantics used to characterize the findings may betray the ideological leanings of the analyst.33 For still others, however, ideology may totally overwhelm evidence.
Emotions and value judgments are important-but derivative. It is as logical for those with the unconstrained vision to put freedom of speech above property rights as it is for those with the constrained vision to bitterly oppose them on this, as in so many other issues.
While not all social theories can be neatly divided into constrained and unconstrained visions, what is remarkable is how many of the leading theories of the past two centuries or more fall into one or the other of these two categories. Personal and stylistic differences, as well as differences of subject, emphasis, and degree are all superimposed on this dichotomy, but the dichotomy itself still shows through nevertheless.
Logic is of course not the only test of a theory. Empirical evidence is crucial intellectually, and yet historically social visions have shown a remarkable ability to evade, suppress, or explain away discordant evidence, to a degree that scientific theories cannot match. Yet, for individuals, changes of visions have not been uncommon, and catastrophic historic events have created many "road to Damascus" conversions. The hybrid vision of fascism, once touted as "the wave of the future," has been devastated by the experience of World War II.
In short, evidence is not wholly irrelevant even to visions, even historically- and it is of course crucial logically. Historic evasions of
Emphasis on the logic of a vision in no way denies that emotional or psychological factors, or narrow selfinterest, may account for the attraction of some people to particular visions. The point is that neither the validity nor the consequences of a vision can be determined by examining such factors- that the vision has a logic and a momentum of its own, going beyond the emotions or intentions of its constituency at a given moment. Moreover, those subsequently attracted to a particular vision may be quite different from those initially attracted, and attracted for quite different reasons, as the consequences of the vision unfold.34
While visions conflict, and arouse strong emotions in the process, merely "winning" cannot be the ultimate goal of either the constrained or the unconstrained vision, however much that goal may preoccupy practical politicians. The moral impulse driving each vision cannot be jettisoned for the sake of winning, without making the victory meaningless. While defections from one vision to another may be occasioned by empirical evidence, it is usually the relevance of that evidence for the prospects of achieving some morally desirable goal that is decisive.