“Government provision in water has overseen millions of deaths through lack of sanitation and unsafe water. Bringing in private sector expertise and investment is needed, both to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, but to actively contribute towards social justice the world over. In the vast majority of cases, where the private sector has been called upon, it has delivered the goods – even in cases decried by critics as ‘failures’.”
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Samizdata quote of the dayMarch 5th, 2006 |
 23 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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That’s a fantastic quote.
Thank you.
Well duh, Mischa.
Now, keep walking in the direction of capitalism and skip the “social justice” bit. Let people get rich and work out their own social justice.
You are a harsh one, Verity. He wasn’t talking about people in any imminent danger of getting “rich”. He was on about poor saps who don’t have a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out of.
Though quite why they’d wanna piss in a pot is beyond me. I find a flush toilet perfectly adequate for all micturational needs, though I understand my enthusiasm for this devive is not universally shared, especially not in France.
Verity was not being harsh.
The term “social justice” has a clear meaning, and the meaning (Conservative party high-ups please note) is not “being nice to poor people”.
According the the doctrine of “social justice” income and wealth should be “distributed” or “redistributed” to people on the basis of an ideological view of what “distribution” is “just”.
It is a matter of seeing justice – not as the rules of the game, but as the outcome of the game.
Social justice is the doctrine of “fair shares” or “justice as fairness” – it is not compatible (in the long run) with a large scale civilization.
See “The Mirage of Social Justice” – volume II of F.A. Hayek’s “Law, Legislation and Liberty” and “Equality in Liberty and Justice” by Antony Flew.
There are other books in my mind (such as the great “Ethics of Distribution”) but I can not spell their authors names.
Actuall (if people do not have much time) just skim through M.J. Oakeshott’s “On Human Conduct” – he deals with “distributive” justice and the idea of rights as rights to benefits in a couple of paragraphs in a footnote (and refutes the notion quite well).
Sorry I do not have the page number to hand – it should be in the index.
On water – yes of course it should not be controlled by the state (which will waste it and end up with the poor, and everyone else, being far worse off).
One of the last achievments of Mrs Thatcher was to break the government strangle hold on water supplies in Britain (althought the industry is still regulated to bits).
In doing this Mrs Thatcher broke with the “gas and water” statism that local councils had pushed through (in most places) in the mid 19th century (Mrs T. also sold off the government gas company).
In this the lady defeated John Stuart Mill – who (in his “Principles of Political Economy” 1848) had gone along with such statism and even claimed that “everyone” agreed with it.
But then J.S. Mill always claimed that “everyone” agreed with whatever folly he had in his head.
Thank you, Paul Marks. It might be better if Mischa & Co stayed at home and stopped bossing people in underdeveloped countries about and encouraging childlike dependency. I think it’s quite insulting.
Another amazing sentence that sums it all up.
This one from Paul Marks –
I for one see no problem with privatised water in the yet-to-devlop world per se, but what I dislike is the thought that loans are handed out on condition that foreign companies can ‘privatise’ the water and be paid with those loans. It is interference on a grand scale and can result in vast proportions of the loan value being exported, leaving the nation endebted without the capital on shore to repay it.
This will be completely off-topic, but it is a sentence I read last night before bed and must share. This provides as great a forum as any to find those who will truly appreciate it and soak it in.
From a John Cheever short story entitled, “A Miscellany of Characters that will not Appear.”
“All scornful descriptions of American landscapes with ruined tenements, automobile dumps, polluted rivers, jerry-built ranch houses, abandoned miniature golf links, cinder deserts, ugly hoardings, unsightly oil derricks, diseased elm tress, eroded farmlands, gaudy and fanciful gas stations, unclean motels, candlelit tearooms, and streams paved with beer cans, for these are not, as they might seem to be, the ruins of our civilization but are the temporary encampments and outposts of the civilization that we – you and I – shall build.”
Tim C & his ilk are why the quote is important. Mischa coopts the hateful concept of social justice and reminds us that the Gini index does not, in fact, suggest that capitalist countries see the most inequality.
If you look at Latin America, you’ll find private ownership of water being one of the biggest bogeymen used to scare the people away from capitalism, trade, and the West. Far too often academics and journalists collaborate with evil in this debate.
While we don’t see social justice as an important aim, we should recognise that other people do. Pointing out that the course of action that we would recommend and that they would fight against would further their supposed ends as well as ours is an important part of the struggle.
The idea that we should respect the third world’s desire to be protectionist because otherwise they will suffer in the market relies on narratives like those hostile to the privatisation of water. Turning those narratives around with pithy quotes like this should help us extend freedom even to those who would be treated paternalistically by Tim and his co-idealogues.
While we don’t see social justice as an important aim, (I don’t see social justice as an important aim; I see it as dangerous and self-aggrandising) we should recognise that other people do. Those people who do should have the privilege of funding that belief themselves personally.
I just read a book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid that contends – and proves – that private companies working with an eye to profit are the best way to spread health and prosperity to the five billion poorest of the poor. For instance, India, after sixty years of socialist government, is still a place where forty percent of children suffer from diarrhea because people haven’t learned to wash their hands with soap. A soap company – Hindustan Lever – is intent on making money while correcting this horrendous social ill. Social justice, if it means anything, means economic development and capitalism.
Robert Speirs – your last sentence reads: Social justice, if it means anything, means economic development and capitalism.
No. “Social justice” doesn’t mean diddly.
The clanking chains of “social justice” are a lefty clamp around the ankle of capitalism. I don’t like it.
James of England,
I would ask you to re-read my posting. I am not against private involvement in providing water, just the kind of financial transactions I outline. How this makes me paternalistic is unclear. How this makes me an idealogue with co-‘s is unclear.
One problem with water is that it is very hard to allow the end consumer to participate in a market for their water. It almost always tends to be a monopoly and that is not a good thing.
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Verity,
I agree that the practices that are alleged to promote social justice are almost uniformly harmful. I’d be surprised if anyone debated that here.
The difficulty is that, rhetorically, it has been a somewhat successful meme. Saying that social justice is a bad thing may not be helpful to prevailing in the wider struggle, since many people are simply never going to understand this. Co-opting the language may not be better or easier, but it seems likely to me that it is a better way of defending laissez faire capitalism.
I understand that you don’t like Social Justice in the traditional sense. None of us do. The question is not whether redistributive beliefs are a great idea, but how to combat them. Don’t let the perfect (everyone must be educated to understand basic market theory) be the enemy of the good (most people should support free market policies).
The bulk of the arguments against Free Trade Agreement, IMF, and other neoliberal institutions’ incentivising of politicians to limit their power and reduce the state run along the lines of their not being “ready” or “mature enough” for the market.
Perhaps I missed the point. Still, it looks like you’re suggesting that there shouldn’t be private sector utilities: “It almost always tends to be a monopoly and that is not a good thing.” If you feel that the public sector handles it better, then what kind of “involvement” are you talking about? Some kind of GP fundholder kind of deal?
Or is it good for us and not for them? If this is the case, I’m not sure what is not paternalistic about the approach.
The last option would seem to be that we should not promote good outside our national borders. Is that it? I’m not sure what the position is, but it seemed to be some form of objection to developing countries being encouraged to open up utilities to foreign ownership. Was I completely out?
James,
I was only complaining about the ‘strings attached’ nature of UN involvement, forcing/coercing states to allow foreign private companies to set up monopoly shops and exptriate funds.
I think I made it clear in my first sentence in my first post on this thread that I am not against private involvement, but the nannying and conditionality around it.
In a truly free environment, multiple agencies should be free to create and provide clean water. Last mile piping should not be chargeable by private enterprise, which cannot be ‘voted out’ and as such is IMHO best provided by the State, voluntary or municipal entities. Sourcing the water can then be more open to competition.
Alas, there is a huge risk of ‘concessions’, monopolies and leeching and so we need to be vigilant against blanket approval.
James,
I was complaining about the ‘strings attached’ nature of UN involvement, forcing/coercing states to allow foreign private companies to set up monopoly shops and exptriate funds.
I think I made it clear in my first sentence in my first post on this thread that I am not against private involvement, but the nannying and conditionality around it from uberStatist UN.
In a truly free environment, multiple agencies should be free to create and provide clean water. Last mile piping should not be chargeable by private enterprise, which cannot be ‘voted out’ and as such is IMHO best provided by the State, voluntary or municipal entities. Sourcing the water should be more open to competition with multiple domestic, quasi state and foreign entities providing the water and sewerage treatment.
Alas, there is a huge risk of ‘concessions’, monopolies and leeching and so we need to be vigilant against blanket approval of privatisation.
James of England
Re. ‘social justice’
I would contend that if it has been successful it’s only because this kind of drivel hasn’t been challenged. Firstly, what does it mean? What on earth is ‘social justice’ beyond good ol’ socialist ‘Tax n Spend’. Second, it doesn’t matter what, if anything, it means. It’s just a Trojan Horse statement to be used to open the wider and wider to Leftism – the logic being “because conservatives obviously cannot do ‘social justice’ and ‘social justice’ is so obviously a good thing you’d better continue voting for us Leftists.” Of course you’d hope that there’d be one or two people left to speak up for decency and morality in this country but they seem to have vacated the battlefield.
The phrase ‘political correctness’ has been used in this way, very successfully, for years and it’s advocates have no problem with that. Why? Because while critics of PC employ the term PC , it still doesn’t sound too bad. It’s still just a bit of silly local council, town hall idiocy. Call it by what it is however – cultural Marxism – and it doesn’t sound so benign. That’s why the cultural Marxists are perfectly happy for the majority to be opposed to ‘political correctness’, because while most people are opposing PC the enemies of this country are getting on with imposing their Marxist agenda.
Thanks for an excellent post, Pete_London. I agree that “political correctness” (who appointed the left to determine what is correct, anyway?) is indeed cultural Marxism. It is thought control.
“Social justice” is another one. I personally will determine what is social justice in my life, and I would expect to accord the same courtesy to people in Africa and elsewhere. Let them trade freely with us, throw their energy into making money and determine for themselves what social justice they want.
Cultural Marxism. Cultural imperialism. It makes me sick.
I detest the “social justice” meme as well, mostly because I can’t figure out what it means. It seems to be a contradiction in terms. And those who use it do so with such a self-righteous air. It has, unfortunately, been quite a successful piece of Newspeak. So how about redefining it as “economic opportunity”? There’s certainly no justice, social or otherwise, without that. Instead of trying to crush the other side’s memes, let’s steal them and use them against them. It worked for them for “liberal” and “civil rights”.
I’d like the word “self” in there somewhere, Robert Speirs. The message needs to be, it is individuals who create wealth and individuals who create opportunities, not governments and tranzis, which merely suck up the wealth others have created.
Self-enrichment opportunities, or something like that, but it’s too many syllables. Or, hey, I have an idea. how about: wealth creation.
Robert- I agree we should not waste energy crushing other’s memes. Let them have their own nonsense. We should not let our refusal to crush prevent ourselves from mocking them, however…