Dewey's short and superb book Individualism Old and New was published in 1930, but could easily have been written last year. In it, he argues that personal liberty is enhanced - not diminished - by social cooperation, and the real threat to the individual comes not from a dynamic concept of the public good, but from the social isolation and economic injustice endemic to mindless corporate capitalism. Dewey thinks that promoting individual freedom and opportunity requires not just private ambition, but also public collaboration and an open, experimental attitude. Unfortunately, we watched a different experiment play out over the past 30 years - the Randian experiment of deregulation, deunionization and regressive tax policy - which culminated in economic crisis, soaring inequality, decreased social mobility,political gridlock and cultural decline. It's time to learn from another experimental period in American history, one that brought us 30 years of relative progress, growth and prosperity - time, in other words, to stop listening to John Galt and to start listening again to John Dewey.
Now, despite their radically different worldviews, Dewey and Rand have some striking similarities. Both are pragmatists who value action over abstraction and believe that the ultimate worth of an idea is how it works in practice. Both are champions of modern science and the human capacity for reason, although Rand believes that such tools uncover absolute and immutable truths, while Dewey considers all intellectual inquiry problem-oriented and therefore provisional. Both are also critical of organized religion, although Dewey acknowledges the role that faith plays in bringing people together and giving them a shared sense of purpose, while Rand dismisses faith as an odious device for controlling the weak-minded. Finally, both envision a free and just society in which individuals can flourish and prosper - in other words, both are individualists, of a sort. Their respective understanding of individualism and how to foster it, however, couldn't differ more.Truthout | Op-Ed
The Antidote to Ayn Rand
Jeffrey Mikkelson | Independent Scholar
I've liked reading John Dewey ever since I took a survey course in American philosophy in graduate school with a prof who was a Dewey expert. America really does have some excellent philosophers in it relatively short history as a contributor to culture, and Dewey is right up there in the top echelon. Unfortunately, Dewey is not a thinker that most people are likely to engage today.
BTW, I should add that John Dewey understood Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and relies on it. Rand's "Aristotelianism" is a parody of Aristotle, whereas Dewey brings the ancient Greeks up to date with scientific understanding and experimental methodology, which had eluded them as products of their time.
Short summary of Dewey's ethics.
2 comments:
Since it's now clear that MMTers cannot tell the difference between a situation where harsh "anti-gouging" price controls are in effect and a free market, nothing you guys ever put forward should shock me.
1. In it, he [Dewey] argues that personal liberty is enhanced - not diminished - by social cooperation, and the real threat to the individual comes not from a dynamic concept of the public good, but from the social isolation and economic injustice endemic to mindless corporate capitalism. Dewey thinks that promoting individual freedom and opportunity requires not just private ambition, but also public collaboration and an open, experimental attitude.
"Social cooperation" has meaning only as VOLUNTARY social cooperation. You know, the kind that is mandated by the application of libertarian protections of bodies and property via the non-aggression principle from the ravages of criminals and the marauding Keynesian state. Coercive "social cooperation" is a preposterous concept and cannot exist. If the parties were cooperating, there would be no need for the threat of arrest and prison by the state's SWAT teams. If there is no threat of violence by the state, there is no state action. By definition. I know that's a hard truth for you lovers of SWAT teams and prisons to accept, but it's still true. There is nothing in Rand's political philosophy that forbids voluntary social cooperation or allows coercive government threats.
2. Unfortunately, we watched a different experiment play out over the past 30 years - the Randian experiment of deregulation, deunionization and regressive tax policy - which culminated in economic crisis, soaring inequality, decreased social mobility,political gridlock and cultural decline.
The last 30 years have been an orgy of Keynesian fiat funny money dilution, government spending, military Keynesianism, relentless nanny statism as exemplified by the war on drugs and the war to bring democracy to the Muslims. Plus, the war on drugs and the phony war on terror have just about eliminated any Constitutional privacy protections. Keynesianism is a ruse designed to allow the elite to loot the poor and middle class. No wonder there has been decreased social mobility. And, of course, Rand advocated the Austrian School of economics. Paul Ryan is a Keynesian and there was nothing Austrian about Greenspan's reign of terror at the Fed. And as anyone who has ever watched a Hollywood film about public school knows, those schools are snakepits of enforced conformity and bullying designed to eliminate the power of critical thinking. Considering the numbers of MMTers, they've obviously been quite successful in their mission.
The joys of coercive "social cooperation".
It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!
But this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater crime, and for this crime there is no name. What punishment awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has come in the memory of men and there are no laws to provide for it.
Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said: "There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers." But we cannot change our bones nor our body.
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