Notes on Ball & Dagger reader, Reading 45:  Carol C. Gould (1981)  Selections from "Socialism and Democracy"

Carol C. Gould (1946-)

Carol Gould has been a Professor of Philosophy at Stevens Institute of Technology since 1980.  She is also an Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University.

Professor Gould specializes in ethical issues in international affairs and, conceptions of citizenship and cultural identity in global perspective.  She has various books and articles on social, political, and legal philosophy, including Rethinking Democracy;  The Information Web: Ethical and Social Implications of Computer Networking (editor and contributor);  Cultural Identity and the Nation-State (coeditor and contributor);   "Group Rights and Social Ontology";  "Cultural Justice and the Limits of Difference."

She holds BA from the University of Chicago, 1966.  In 1969, she received a MPhil from Yale University, followed by a PhD in 1971.  Professor Gould was Head of Department of Humanities from 1988 to 1993 and a Visiting Associate Professor at University of Pittsburgh in years 1979-80.  She has been an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Lehman College, City University of New York, 1972-75, and taught at Swarthmore College, 1975-79;  and State University of New York, New Paltz, 1970-72.  She was a Research Associate at Centre de Recherche en Epistemolgie Appliquée [Center for Research in Applied Epistemology], École Polytechnique [Polytechnic School], C.N.R.S., Paris, 1993-2000.

In addition to her academic responsibilities, she is the Executive Director of the Society for Philosophy and Public Affairs.  Professor Gould has received many fellowships, including the Rockefeller Foundation's Humanities Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Research Grant, Fulbright Senior Scholar Award (Paris), and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.  She is also Fulbright Florence Distinguished Chair and Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

[Source:  Columbia University web site <http://www.columbia.edu/cu/sipa/RESEARCH/bios/ccg19.html>, last modified 2003-09-19;  downloaded 2003-11-04.]

Gould's thesis

Note criticism of state socialism [286A/1] and the date of publication. Liberal democracies criticized as having and fostering uncaring, uncooperative human relations; socialisms are criticized as paying insufficient attention to individual liberty.

Gould proposes a "market socialism" — a form of utopian (& non-Marxist) socialism

Positive freedom as the right to (equal) self-development.  Implies equal right to access to the objective conditions, both material and social, necessary for such self-development, i.e., the "principle of equal positive freedom". [287B]

{Equal positive freedom requires equal negative freedom [287B], even though it goes beyond negative freedom.}

Market as a useful signal system reflecting demand and the cost to produce;   some distortions, as described later.

Market forces represent control. In our current society, they are non-democratic, because decisions are not made by those affected. (Decisions beyond whether to leave the firm entirely.   Sort of like saying that if you don't like the government, you can't criticize it but must emigrate to another country.)  [Recall Walzer's principle:  what touches all should be decided by all.]

People are "constituted" socially.  Although they are of independent action, they cannot be understood solely as individuals or even as contracting individuals.

Freedom/liberty within economic and social life, not just political life.  Cooperation is itself a condition for full human freedom [286A/1/-1].

The "principle of democracy"  [288A]:  Each individual has an equal right to participate in the co-determination of the social activities in which they are engaged.

The "principle of property right" [288B]:

• right to subsistence [compatible with a like right on the part of others]
• right to personal possessions [compatible with a like right on the part of others].  [Distinguish personal possessions from the means of production.]
• right to co-determination of all productive activities or joint projects by the people involved.  [Ambiguity:  If I keep house and raise children so that my spouse can work in a factory, am I not part of that joint project?]  This implies that the means of production must be under public control.

Concrete Proposals [a sketchy, partial outline]

Note these are utopian, in Marx's negative sense:  not just unclear whether they are right or unclear whether they would work in practice, but also unclear how these proposals could ever gain the political power to be tried.

ECONOMIC SPHERE

Workers' self-management

• Workers decide collectively on the firm's policies, including wages, sales, and the distribution of income.  The firm's capital is owned collectively by its workers.

The market

• No market between capital and labor;  otherwise, a free market.

Planning and market-regulatory functions

• Carried out by commissions
• Based on political units, not firms.
• Purpose:  among other things, to prevent market externalities.  Externalities are costs (or benefits) of production that are borne (or received), unwillingly or unknowingly, by someone other than the producer.  ["Someone other than the producer":  workers;  consumers;  taxpayers;  the public at large.]  "Unfunded mandates" are externalities.
• These commissions are thus intended to preserve the market system's value as a signal system, not — as some might have it — to interfere with businesses ability to function.

Income distribution

• No income from investment.
• In the firm, distribution according to work.  Socially, overall distribution according to need:  free education, health care, minimal subsistence needs, and a minimal income.  [This last comes from the fact that within a cash society, the right to self-development requires having some cash.]

SOCIAL & CULTURAL SPHERE [292A/2]

• Lists these institutions
• Funding through multiple sources
• Self-managing
• If not market-driven, then management that includes representatives of the target population
• The right to participate
• Gould holds that equality & mutuality in the private sphere is necessary for the same to occur in the public sphere.  [293A/2]

POLITICAL SPHERE [293A/3]

Much like our existing constitution:

• Civil liberties
• Civil rights
• Separation of powers;  checks & balances

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

• Describe any one of the (novel) "concrete proposals" Gould makes, whether in the economic, social, or political sphere.
• Marx would classify Gould as a "utopian socialist".  In this case, "utopian" has two meanings:  first, that her vision of the ideal society wouldn't come about;  second, that it wouldn't work even if it did.  Explain, and also indicate how Gould might reply.
• It seems odd to us, with our very different society and economy, that a business could be run by the workers.  How would this work, do you think?  How would executive salaries be set?  How would hiring and firing be handled?  There would seem to be a majoritarianism-type danger that one set of workers would take control from the rest, give themselves the easy jobs, pay themselves more than the others, etc.  How would this be handled?

OTHER, MISCELLANEOUS LECTURE NOTES

Aspects of Gould:

1. Utopian socialist, in two senses:

• unlikely to occur;  no power;  no analysis of history;  no guide to political opportunity.
• impractical in implementation, and/or normatively debatable.

2. Important aspects to notice:

• Social constitution of human beings.  This is characteristic of socialist theory.
• Viewing the problem as involving not merely political power (i.e., government) but also the power of economic and social institutions.
• Differentiation between personal property (e.g., toothbrushes), which are necessary for self-development, and productive property (e.g., capital equipment, factories, etc.), whose importance means it must be socially controlled.
• Acknowledged use of the market as a signal system.  In Gould's view, the market causes problems in a capitalist system by its denial of positive liberty that can occur from the inequalities of wealth (and thus of power) arising in an unfettered market.   If we can avoid these inequalities of wealth and power, then the market is useful (even if not perfect).

Still further miscellaneous notes:

5 questions:

1. What's the motivation behind this proposal?
2. What is the proposal?  [A form of market socialism.]
3. Is this proposal just?
4. Is this proposal reasonable / realistic / doable?  (Recall Burke's skepticism about simple, theoretical solutions applied to the complexity of society.)  Gould says that she means it to be realistic.
5. Is this achievable in practice?  How do we get from here to there? — or is this just utopianism, in Marx's sense?

1. The motivation behind the proposal

• Both liberal democracy and actually existing socialism [in 1981] are flawed.
• We aspire to positive freedom (a la Green) for self-realization.
• Positive freedom requires both individual liberty and the material & social means to exercise it (through "co-determination", meaning quite simply that although one may not be able to decide unilaterally what the society will do, one has a right to participate in the collective determination of it— a shared "principle of democracy" [288A] )
• In the West, we have "liberty" without material means (poverty) or society (breakdown of communities, families, bowling leagues).  ("The social constitution of humans")
• In the USSR, we have [or had] loss of liberty.
• We want both.

2. The proposal

• Central:  co-determination.  Recall Walzer's formulation, "What touches all should be decided by all."
• Economics:  four aspects:
  • Workers' self-management:  management of enterprises by the workers:  production, investment, sales price, etc.  Via direct democracy or via delegates.
  • Free market:  supply & demand.  But no market for labor by capitalists.  (See below.)  Recognized advantages of the free market:
    • freedom
    • adjusts automatically
    • fosters variety & innovation
  • Planning agencies:  making funds available for investment.  "Strategic heights."  Notice decentralization insofar as possible.
  • Market-regulating agencies:  prevent externalities, deception, fraud.
  • Income co-determinedly distributed by workers.  Income need not be equal;  could be proportional to labor.
  • State (presumably) supplies assistance:
    • education & higher ed
    • health care
    • retirement income
• Political institutions:
  • separation of powers, checks & balances
  • federal system
  • presumably campaign finance laws

3.  Is this proposal just?  Is it reasonable / realistic / doable?

Does this exist anywhere?  Would you like it to exist?  What do you think would happen?  What problems would arise?  Can they be overcome?

One problem:  Could one group of workers, enjoying some economic advantage and walling themselves off as an "enterprise", exploit others by treating them as subcontractors / suppliers?

4. Is this proposal achievable?  Is this vision grounded in any actually existing force?  Our current system holds tenaciously to power;  how would the change to Gould's system occur? — through an "islands of rationality" process?

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