Alternative social systems and individual wellbeing

Communism ...

or Capitalism?

A joke from Poland in the 1970s: "In capitalism it is a question of man's exploitation by man. In communism it is the reverse."

A modern social system is an environment where millions of people find opportunities, develop their talents, express their beliefs, and earn their livings within the context of a set of economic and political institutions. Specific institutions of property, power, ideology, education, and healthcare create an environment within which citizens of all circumstances pursue their life interests. Individuals exercise their freedoms through the institutions within which they live, and those institutions also determine the quality and depth of social resources available to the individual that determine the degree to which he or she is able to develop talents and skills and gain access to opportunities. Institutions create constraints on freedom of choice that range from the nearly invisible to the intensely coercive. Institutions create inequalities of opportunity and outcome for different groups of citizens; rural people may have more limited access to higher education, immigrant and minority communities may experience discrimination in health and employment; and so on. Further, social systems differ in the balance they achieve between "soft" constraints (market, education, regional differences) and "hard" constraints (police, regulations governing behavior, extra-legal uses of violence).

To describe a set of institutions and a population of individual actors as a system has a number of implications, some of which are unjustified. The idea of "system" suggests a kind of functional interconnection across its components, with needs in one subsystem eliciting adjustments in the activities of other subsystems to satisfy those needs. This mental model is misleading, however. Better is the ontology of "assemblage" discussed frequently here (link, link, link). This is the idea that a complex social thing is the unintended and largely undesigned accumulation of multiple independent components. One set of processes leads to the development of the logistics infrastructure of a society; another set of processes leads to the development of the institutions of government; and yet other path-dependent and contingent processes contribute to the system of labor education, management, and discipline that exists in a society. These various institutional ensembles are overlaid with each other; sometimes there are painful inconsistencies among them that are resolved by entrepreneurs or officials; and the result is a heterogeneous and largely unplanned agglomeration of social arrangements and practices that add up to "the social system". 

A central premise of some classics of social theory, including Marx, is that the institutions through which social interactions take place form large and relatively stable configurations that fall into fairly distinct groups -- feudalism, capitalism, communism, socialism, social democracy, authoritarianism. And different configurations of institutions do better or worse in terms of the degree to which they allow their members to satisfy their needs and live satisfying lives. The ontology associated with the theory of assemblage, however, is anti-essentialist in a very important sense: it denies that there are "essentially similar configurations" of institutions that play crucial roles in history, or that there is a tendency towards convergence around "typical" ensembles of institutions. In particular, it suggests that we reject the idea that there are only a few historically possible configurations of institutions -- capitalism, socialism, authoritarianism, democracy -- and rather analyze each social order as a fairly unique configuration -- assemblage -- of specific institutional arrangements.

This perspective casts doubt on the value of singling out "capitalism," "liberal democracy," "religious autocracy," "apartheid society," "military dictatorship," or "one-party dictatorship" as schemes for understanding distinctive and sociologically important patterns of un-freedom. Rather than considering these different "ideal types" of social-political systems as structures with distinctive dynamics, perhaps it would be more satisfactory to consider the problem from the point of view of the citizens of various societies and the degree to which existing social, political, and economic institutions serve their development as full and free human beings.

Amartya Sen's framework for understanding human wellbeing in Development as Freedom is valuable in this context (link). Sen understands wellbeing in terms of the individual's ability to realize his or her capabilities fully and to live within an environment enabling as much freedom of action as freely as possible. Sen's framework gives a powerful basis for paying close attention to inequalities within society; a society in which one-third of the population have exceptional freedom and opportunities for development, one-third have indifferent attainments in these crucial dimensions, and one-third have extremely limited freedoms and opportunities is plainly a less just and desirable society than one in which everyone has the same freedoms and a relatively high level of opportunities for development -- even if the average attainment for the population is the same in the two scenarios.

This prism permits us to attempt to understand the structural characteristics of society -- political, cultural, religious, economic, or civic -- in terms of the effects that those institutional arrangements have on the freedoms and capacity for development of the population. This is the underlying rationale for the Human Development Index, but the HDI is primarily focused on development rather than freedom.

We might try to evaluate the workings of a given ensemble of social and political institutions by devising an index of human wellbeing and freedom that can be applied to each society. Examples of indexes along these lines include the Human Development Index, the Opportunity Index, and the Cato Institute Freedom Index. Every index is selective. It is interesting and important to observe, for example, that political freedom plays no role in the Human Development Index, while the Cato Institute index pays no attention to the prerequisites of freedom: access to education, access to health care, freedom from racial or ethnic discrimination.

So each of these indices is limited as a scheme for evaluating the overall success a particular institutional configuration has in creating a free and enabling environment for its citizens. But suppose we had a composite index that reflected both freedom (broadly construed) and wellbeing? Such an index might look something like this:

• Rule of law 
• Security and safety 
• Movement 
• Religion 
• Association, assembly, and civil society 
• Expression and information
• Identity and relationships 
• access to quality education
• access to quality healthcare
• freedom from racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination in employment, education, housing, and other social goods
• equality of opportunity

(It is interesting to observe that these characteristics align fairly well with the contents of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.)

Using an index like this, we could then ask important comparative questions: How do ordinary citizens fare under the institutions of contemporary Finland, Spain, China, Russia, Nigeria, Brazil, Romania, France, and the United States? An assessment along these lines would put us in a position to give a normative evaluation of the various social systems mentioned above: what social, political, and economic arrangements do the best job of securing each of these freedoms and opportunities for all citizens? Under what kinds of institutions -- economic, political, social, and cultural -- are citizens most free and most enabled to fully develop their capacities as human beings?

It seems evident that the answer to this question is not very esoteric or difficult. Freedom requires the rule of law, respect for equal rights, and democratic institutions. Real freedom requires access to the social resources that permit an individual to fully develop his or her talents. A decent life requires a secure and adequate material standard of living. These obvious truths point towards a social system that embodies the protections of a constitutional liberal democracy; extensive public support for the social resources necessary for full human development (education, healthcare, nutrition, housing); and an extensive social welfare net that ensures that all members of society can thrive. There is a name for this set of institutions; it is called social democracy. (Here are several earlier posts that reach a similar conclusion from different starting points; link, link.)

And where are the social democracies in the world today? They are largely the Nordic countries: Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. Significantly, these five countries consistently rank in the top ten countries in the World Happiness Report (link), a rigorous and well-funded attempt to measure citizen satisfaction with the same care as we measure GDP or national health statistics. The editors of the 2020 report describe the particular success of Nordic societies in supporting citizen satisfaction in these terms:

From 2013 until today, every time the World Happiness Report (WHR) has published its annual ranking of countries, the five Nordic countries – Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland – have all been in the top ten, with Nordic countries occupying the top three spots in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Clearly, when it comes to the level of average life evaluations, the Nordic states are doing something right, but Nordic exceptionalism isn’t confined to citizen’s happiness. No matter whether we look at the state of democracy and political rights, lack of corruption, trust between citizens, felt safety, social cohesion, gender equality, equal distribution of incomes, Human Development Index, or many other global comparisons, one tends to find the Nordic countries in the global top spots.

And here is their considered judgment about the circumstances that have led to this high level of satisfaction in the Nordic countries:

We find that the most prominent explanations include factors related to the quality of institutions, such as reliable and extensive welfare benefits, low corruption, and well-functioning democracy and state institutions. Furthermore, Nordic citizens experience a high sense of autonomy and freedom, as well as high levels of social trust towards each other, which play an important role in determining life satisfaction. (131)

The key factors mentioned here are worth calling out for the light they shed on the current dysfunctions of politics in the United States: effective institutions, extensive welfare benefits, low corruption, well-functioning democracy, a limited range of economic inequalities, a strong sense of autonomy and freedom, and high levels of social trust and social cohesion. It is evident that American society is being tested in each of these areas by the current administration, and none more so than the areas of trust and social cohesion. The current administration actively strives to undermine both trust and social cohesion, and goes out of its way to undermine confidence in government. These are very disturbing signs about what the future may bring. Severe inequalities of income, wealth, and social resources (including especially healthcare) have become painfully evident through the effects of the Covid-19 epidemic. And the weakness of the social safety net in the United States has left millions of adults and children in dire circumstances of unemployment and hunger. The United States today is not a happy place for many of its citizens.

Defining the philosophy of technology

The philosophy of technology ought to be an important field within contemporary philosophy, given the centrality of technology in our lives. And yet there is not much of a consensus among philosophers about what the subject of the philosophy of technology actually is. Are we most perplexed by the ethical issues raised by new technological possibilities -- genetic engineering, face recognition, massive databases and straightforward tools for extracting personal information from them? Should we rather ask about the risks created by new technologies -- the risks of technology catastrophe, of unintended health effects, or of further intensification of environmental harms on the planet we inhabit? Should we give special attention to issues of "technology justice" and the inequalities among people that technologies often facilitate, and the forms of power that technology enables for some groups over others? Should we direct our attention to the "existential" issues raised by technology -- the ways that immersion in a technologically intensive world have influenced our development as persons, as intentional and meaning-creating individuals? Are there issues of epistemology, rationality, and creativity that are raised by technology within a social and scientific setting? Should we use this field of philosophy to examine how technology influences human society, and how society influences the development and character of technology? Should we, finally, be concerned that the technology opportunities that confront us encourage an inescapable materialism and a decline of meaningful spiritual or poetic experience?

A useful way of approaching this question is to consider the topics included in the Blackwell handbook, A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology, edited by Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis, Stig Andur Pedersen, and Vincent F. Hendricks. The editors and contributors do a good job of attempting to discover philosophical problems in issues raised by technology. The major divisions in this companion include Introduction, History of Technology, Technology and Science, Technology and Philosophy, Technology and Environment, Technology and Politics, Technology and Ethics, and Technology and the Future.

The editors summarize the scope of the field in these terms:

The philosophy of technology taken as a whole is an understanding of the consequences of technological impacts relating to the environment, the society and human existence. (Introduction)

As a definition, however, this attempt falls short. By focusing on "consequences" it leaves unexamined the nature of technology itself, it suggests a unidirectional relationship between technology and human and social life, and it is silent about the normative dimensions of any critical approach to the understanding of technology.

Another useful approach to the topic of how to define the philosophy of technology is Tom Misa's edited collection, Modernity and Technology. (Misa's introduction to the volume is available here.) Misa is an historian of technology (he contributes the lead essay on history of technology in the Companion), and he is a particularly astute observer and interpreter of technology in society. His reflections on technology and modernity are especially valuable. Here are a few key ideas:

Technologies interact deeply with society and culture, but the interactions involve mutual influence, substantial uncertainty, and historical ambiguity, eliciting resistance, accommodation, acceptance, and even enthusiasm. In an effort to capture these fluid relations, we adopt the notion of co-construction. (3)

This point emphasizes the idea that technology is not a separate historical factor, but rather permeates (and is permeated by) social, cultural, economic, and political realities at every point in time. This is the reality that Misa designates as "co-construction".

A related insight is Misa's insistence that technology is not one uniform domain that is amenable to analysis and discussion at the purely macro-level. Instead, at any given time the technologies and technological systems available to an epoch are a heterogeneous mix with different characteristics and different ways of influencing human interests. It is necessary, therefore, to address the micro-characteristics of particular technologies rather than "technology in general".

Theorists of modernity frequently conjure a decontextualized image of scientific or technological rationality that has little relation to the complex, messy, collective, problem-solving activities of actual engineers and scientists.... These theorists of modernity invariably posit “technology,” where they deal with it at all, as an abstract, unitary, and totalizing entity, and typically counterpose it against traditional formulations (such as lifeworld, self, or focal practices). ... Abstract, reified, and universalistic conceptions of technology obscure the significant differences between birth control and hydrogen bombs, and blind us to the ways different groups and cultures have appropriated the same technology and used it to different ends. To constructively confront technology and modernity, we must look more closely at individual technologies and inquire more carefully into social and cultural processes. (8-9)

And Misa confronts the apparent dichotomy often expressed in technology studies, between technological determinism and social construction of technology:

One can see, of course, that these rival positions are not logically opposed ones. Modern social and cultural formations are technologically shaped; try to think carefully about mobility or interpersonal relations or a rational society without considering the technologies of harbors, railroad stations, roads, telephones, and airports; and the communities of scientists and engineers that make them possible. At the same time, one must understand that technologies, in the modern era as in earlier ones, are socially constructed; they embody varied and even contradictory economic, social, professional, managerial, and military goals. In many ways designers, engineers, managers, financiers, and users of technology all influence the course of technological developments. The development of a technology is contested and controversial as well as constrained and constraining. (10)

It may be that a diagram does a better job of "mapping" the field of the philosophy of technology than a simple definition. Here is a first effort:

  

The diagram captures the idea that technology is embedded both within the agency, cultures, and values of living human beings during an epoch, and within the social institutions within which human beings function. Human beings and social relations drive the development of technologies, and they are in turn profoundly affected by the changing realities of ambient technologies. The social institutions include economic institutions (property relations, production and distribution relations), political institutions (institutions of law, policy, and power), and social relations (gender, race, various forms of social inequality). In orange, the diagram represents various kinds of problems of assessment, implementation, development, control, and decision-making that arise in the course of the development and management of technologies, including issues of risk assessment, distribution of burdens and benefits of the effects of technology, and issues concerning future generations and the environment.

A general definition of technology might be framed in these terms: "transformation of nature through labor, tools, and knowledge". And a brief definition of the philosophy of technology, still preliminary, might go along these lines: 

The philosophy of technology attempts to uncover the multiple issues raised by "transformation of nature through labor, tools, and knowledge" within the context of large, complex societies. These issues include normative questions, questions of social causation, questions of distributive justice, issues concerning management of risk, and the relationship between technology and human wellbeing.

Thinking about pandemic models

One thing that is clear from the pandemic crisis that is shaking the world is the crucial need we have for models that allow us to estimate the future behavior of the epidemic. The dynamics of the spread of an epidemic are simply not amenable to intuitive estimation. So it is critical to have computational models that permit us to project the near- and middle-term behavior of the disease, based on available data and assumptions.

Scott Page is a complexity scientist at the University of Michigan who has written extensively on the uses and interpretation of computational models in the social sciences. His book, The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You, does a superlative job of introducing the reader to a wide range of models. One of his key recommendations is that we should consider many models when we are trying to understand a particular kind of phenomenon. (Here is an earlier discussion of the book; link.) Page contributed a very useful article to the Washington Post this week that sheds light on the several kinds of pandemic models that are currently being used to understand and predict the course of the pandemic at global, national, and regional levels ("Which pandemic model should you trust?"; (link). Page describes the logic of "curve-fitting" models like the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model as well as epidemiological models that proceed on the basis of assumptions about the causal and social processes through which disease spreads. The latter attempt to represent the process of infection from infected person to susceptible person to recovered person. (Page refers to these as "microfoundational" models.) Page points out that all models involve a range of probable error and missing data, and it is crucial to make use of a range of different models in order to lay a foundation for sound public health policies. Here are his summary thoughts:

All this doesn’t mean that we should stop using models, but that we should use many of them. We can continue to improve curve-fitting and microfoundation models and combine them into hybrids, which will improve not just predictions, but also our understanding of how the virus spreads, hopefully informing policy. 

Even better, we should bring different kinds of models together into an “ensemble.” Different models have different strengths. Curve-fitting models reveal patterns; “parameter estimation” models reveal aggregate changes in key indicators such as the average number of people infected by a contagious individual; mathematical models uncover processes; and agent-based models can capture differences in peoples’ networks and behaviors that affect the spread of diseases. Policies should not be based on any single model — even the one that’s been most accurate to date. As I argue in my recent book, they should instead be guided by many-model thinking — a deep engagement with a variety of models to capture the different aspects of a complex reality. (link)

Page's description of the workings of these models is very helpful for anyone who wants to have a better understanding of the way a pandemic evolves. Page has also developed a valuable series of videos that go into greater detail about the computational architecture of these various types of models (link). These videos are very clear and eminently worth viewing if you want to understand epidemiological modeling better.

Social network analysis is crucial to addressing the challenge of how to restart businesses and other social organizations. Page has created "A Leader's Toolkit For Reopening: Twenty Strategies to Reopen and Reimagine", a valuable set of network tools and strategies offering concrete advice about steps to take in restarting businesses safely and productively. Visit this site to see how tools of network analysis can help make us safer and healthier in the workplace (link). 

Another useful recent resource on the logic of pandemic models is Jonathan Fuller's recent article "Models vs. evidence" in Boston Review (link). Fuller is a philosopher of science who undertakes two tasks in this piece: first, how can we use evidence to evaluate alternative models? And second, what accounts for the disagreements that exist in the academic literature over the validity of several classes of models? Fuller has in mind essentially the same distinction as Page does, between curve-fitting and microfoundational models. Fuller characterizes the former as "clinical epidemiological models" and the latter as "infectious disease epidemiological models", and he argues that the two research communities have very different ideas about what constitutes appropriate use of empirical evidence in evaluating a model. Essentially Fuller believes that the two approaches embody two different philosophies of science with regard to computational models of epidemics, one more strictly empirical and the other more amenable to a combination of theory and evidence in developing and evaluating the model. The article provides a level of detail that would make it ideal for a case study in a course on the philosophy of social science.

Joshua Epstein, author of Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling, gave a brief description in 2009 of the application of agent-based models to pandemics in "Modelling to Contain Pandemics" (link). Epstein describes a massive ABM model of a global pandemic, the Global-Scale Agent Model (GSAM), that attempted to model the spread of the H1N1 virus in 1996. Here is a video in which Miles Parker explains and demonstrates the model (link). 

Another useful resource is this video on "Network Theory: Network Diffusion & Contagion" (link), which provides greater detail about how the structure of social networks influences the spread of an infectious disease (or ideas, attitudes, or rumors).

My own predilections in the philosophy of science lean towards scientific realism and the importance of identifying underlying causal mechanisms. This leaves me more persuaded by the microfoundational / infectious disease models than the curve-fitting models. The criticisms that Nancy Cartwright and Jeremy Hardie offer in Evidence-Based Policy: A Practical Guide to Doing It Better of the uncritical methodology of randomized controlled trials (link) seem relevant here as well. The IHME model is calibrated against data from Wuhan and more recently northern Italy; but circumstances were very different in each of those locales, making it questionable that the same inflection points will show up in New York or California. As Cartwright and Hardie put the point, "The fact that causal principles can differ from locale to locale means that you cannot read off that a policy will work here from even very solid evidence that it worked somewhere else" (23). But, as Page emphasizes, it is valuable to have multiple models working from different assumptions when we are attempting to understand a phenomenon as complex as epidemic spread. Fuller makes much the same point in his article:

Just as we should embrace both models and evidence, we should welcome both of epidemiology’s competing philosophies. This may sound like a boring conclusion, but in the coronavirus pandemic there is no glory, and there are no winners. Cooperation in society should be matched by cooperation across disciplinary divides. The normal process of scientific scrutiny and peer review has given way to a fast track from research offices to media headlines and policy panels. Yet the need for criticism from diverse minds remains.

Good government and the pandemic

Governments at multiple levels are making decisions that affect all of us in ways that really matter. Our health may be protected, or we may contract a serious and life-ending illness; our jobs may be preserved, or we may be furloughed; our savings and retirement funds may be buffered, or they may be wiped out. So what do we want from government when it makes decisions of this degree of seriousness?

It is not particularly hard to answer this question. We want government to fulfill its mission of preserving the public good in the most prudent possible way. We want to see a process of reasoned decision-making, informed by honesty and integrity; full commitment to science and evidence; commitment to the common good by legislators and executives; policies that are informed by accurate knowledge of what citizens in all parts of society need and want; and effective design and administration of public policy. We want decisions that respect the laws and institutions of our democracy. And we want government fully committed to serving all the people without bias or preference. We want good government, without irrational impulsive decisions by officials, without corruption and self serving, without a craven attempt to use the tools of government for the advantage of one's political party or one's followers. 

Many aspects of this ideal have been challenged in our national politics for years: climate denial; disregard of racial disparities in criminal justice, education, and health; corporate capture of regulatory processes. And now in the past three years we've had to confront the threat posed to our democracy by right-wing extremism and hate-based political activism. We've had to worry about the deliberate efforts by the right to undermine voting rights, to create tax "reforms" that benefit corporations and ultra-rich individuals, and to capture the Federal court system with hacks whose only qualifications are their loyalty to the conservative agenda. We have had to ask whether our institutions of law and constitution will survive, and whether there are institutions, practices, and strategies that can make our democracy more resilient in the face of assault by right-wing populism. 

Is good government possible within a liberal democracy? Is this description a realistic expectation of the governments that serve us within liberal democracies? Or is this description simply naive idealism? 

It is certainly true that we have lost institutional capacity in government (in regulatory agencies, for example -- EPA, NRC, FDA, FAA) as a result of the determined assault on government by conservatives and corporate interests. And, of course, there is the fact of corrupt and self-interested use of office by some elected officials and government officers -- greatly exacerbated in the past three and a half years. But it is clear that honest, effective, and evidence-based democratic government is possible, and we need to struggle to make it a reality. The values expressed here are crucial to democracy. So it is our task as citizens to reaffirm the role that public institutions must play in a complex society like ours. 

In fact, the Covid-19 crisis has created some grounds for hope for the future of good government, as demonstrated at the level of state government. In Michigan, for example, Governor Gretchen Whitmer has followed an exemplary process in attempting to design policies and regulations that will best protect the Michigan population from the ravages of the pandemic. Her priorities have been admirable and appropriate, and her efforts to pull together the best possible advice from experts in the state, including experts in public health, workplace safety, logistics, and medicine from the state's universities, provides a case study in prudent, forward-looking, and fact-based policy formation in a time of great uncertainty. Governors in other states have likewise shown wisdom and courage in leading their various agencies to create wise policies for public health. Governor Inslee in Washington, Governor Cuomo in New York, Governor Hogan in Maryland, Governor Newsom in California, and Governor DeWine in Ohio have all succeeded fairly well in creating rational and science-informed policies to preserve the public health of the populations of their states. (These six states represent about 29% of the whole population of the United States.) And, in the absence of effective Federal action in this crisis, governors have succeeded in creating regional partnerships with other states to coordinate their policies. Of course it is evident that there are also a handful of Republican governors who continue to deny the seriousness of the crisis and to act in flagrant disregard of the most basic public health policy recommendations. But it is clear that we have some good examples of government processes that have worked well at the state level. (At the national level, of course, it is a completely different story.) So good government is indeed possible. We must do our part by electing leaders and legislators who are committed to the principles of good government.

Can the functions of government be delegated to voluntary individual action? The pandemic sheds light on this question too. The efforts that some states pursued in February and March to beg citizens to practice voluntary social distancing were fundamentally ineffective. Spring break in Florida, crowds in California, people saying "they have faith that God will take care of them" -- as a public we didn't do very well in self-designing or self-imposing sound public health behaviors. And as epidemiologists have demonstrated throughout this crisis, it doesn't take many non-compliant individuals to keep the exponential growth of infection going. Free-riding ("I can go to the grocery store without a mask if enough other people don't"), failure to understand non-linear processes ("there are just a few cases in Seattle, how bad can it get"), and perverse magical thinking ("it will all blow over in a while, and I'll probably be OK") seem to have motivated enough people to behave badly that voluntary measures were doomed to failure. One part of the problem is the complexity of a disease epidemic. Most citizens simply could not incorporate the mathematics of an epidemic into their practical thinking. They could not accept that on this nice sunny day, devastating disaster was already unfolding. So the power and regulatory authority of the state was needed. (Even mandatory measures don't seem to be enforceable in many places.) 

We thus have concrete illustration of the fact that good government is both necessary and possible. So a fundamental demand of citizens upon their potential leaders must be one of commitment and competence: is this candidate committed to using government for the key functions of securing the health, safety, freedoms, and wellbeing of all citizens? And does he or she have the leadership competence and skill that will be needed to marshal the organizations and agencies of government in support of these fundamental goals? 

Right-wing extremism and the Covid-19 crisis

No one needs to be brought up to date on the devastation already wrought by Covid-19, in the United States, in Europe, and in other parts of the world, and more is almost certain to come in the next two years. The virus is highly contagious in social settings -- not as contagious as measles, but more so than other viral diseases. It has a high mortality rate for older individuals, but it kills patients of every age. It can be spread by persons who do not yet show symptoms -- perhaps even by people who will never develop symptoms. The disease has the great potential of overwhelming health systems in regions where it strikes hardest -- northern Italy, New York City, Britain, Detroit. There is no effective treatment for severe cases of the disease, and there is no vaccine currently available. This is the pandemic that sane governments have feared and prepared for, for many years. Ali Khan, an experienced and long-serving leader on infectious disease at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides vivid descriptions of the background scientific and public health infrastructure needed to contain viral outbreaks like ebola, monkeypox, MERS, and SARS (The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Dangers). (Here is a list of possible global virus threats by the World Health Organization (link).

It is therefore plain to any sensible person that government-enforced public health measures are required in order to slow the spread of this disease. Countries that were slow to take the pandemic seriously and establish strong measures designed to slow the infection rate -- like the United States and Great Britain -- have reaped the whirlwind; the United States now has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world (link). And the stakes are incredibly high. The 1918 Spanish flu, for example, hit the city of Philadelphia with savage effect because the mayor decided not to cancel the Liberty Loan parade on September 28, 1918 (link); whereas cities like St. Louis made different decisions about public gatherings and had much lower levels of influenza.

The governors of most states in the United States have enacted physical distancing orders mandating "stay-at-home" requirements, business closures, closures of public places, and restrictions on public gatherings. And these measures have worked, on the whole. The governor of Michigan, my home state, for example, has assembled a world-class team of scientific and health advisers concerning the details of the shut-down orders, and a highly respected committee of business and health system leaders to work on developing a strategy for reopening the state in a way that does the best job possible of protecting the health of our ten million citizens. And the curve has flattened.

But now we come to the right-wing protests that have occurred in Lansing and other state capitals around the country (link, link). Guns, extremist placards, threatening behavior, and an armed invasion of the floor of the Michigan state house -- what in the world is going on here? Protest of government policy is one of the fundamental rights of citizenship -- of course. But why heavily armed protesters? Why racist, white-supremacist groups in the crowd? Why the hateful, vitriolic language towards elected officials? What are the underlying political motivations -- and organizational resources -- of these protests?

Cas Mudde has a perceptive analysis in the Guardian (link). His recent book The Far Right Today provides the broader context. Mudde sees the anti-lockdown demonstrations as being largely about Donald Trump's increasingly desperate efforts to win reelection. Mudde calls out the financial ties that exist between these demonstrations and well-funded not-for-profit Republican organizations linked to Betsy DeVos (link).

And indeed, these protests look a lot like Trump campaign rallies, calling the faithful in "battleground" states. The hats, slogans, and behavior make it clear that these protesters are making a political statement in favor of their president. And the president has returned the compliment, describing these protests as reasonable, and encouraging more. The president's behavior is, as usual, horrible. The idea that the president of the United States is actively seeking to interfere with the performance of the governors of many states in their duties of preserving the health and safety of their citizens, after himself failing abysmally to prepare or respond to the pandemic, is something out of a dystopian novel. Here is how Mudde describes the political strategy underlying this approach:

For Trump, the anti-lockdown protests provide him with visible popular support for his Covid-19 strategy. For the sake of his re-election, he is keen to move discussion from public health to the economy. Given that a clear majority of Americans support the stay-at-home policies, Trump needs the momentum to shift. The protests can help him, by taking his struggle from the White House to the streets, and thereby to the media. (link)

Where does the gun-toting extremism come into this political activism? One obvious strand of this "movement" is the extremist anti-government ideology that brought world attention to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover in 2016. These are radical militia adherents, rejecting the authority of the Federal government in all of its actions, and willing to overtly threaten the lives of others in their activism. Brandishing semi-automatic weapons is not political theatre; it is not “simply an assertion of second amendment rights”; it is a deliberate effort to intimidate and frighten the rest of society. And it is hard to avoid the question — what if these were anarchist protesters in black masks carrying semi-automatic weapons? Or Black Panthers? And what if the venue were the entrance to the White House, or the entrance to the Capitol Building in Washington? How would conservative Republicans react to these scenarios?

Another stream, not entirely distinct from the first, is the persistent and growing white supremacist movement in the right wing of conservative politics. Their involvement in these protests is opportunistic, but their potentially violent opposition to democratically elected government is in common. Here is a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center about involvement by extremist nationalist group the Proud Boys in the anti-lockdown demonstrations; link. Here is a snippet from the SPLC report:

Even though the Proud Boys weren’t behind efforts to get the protests off the ground, they quickly realized their value. They are the perfect platform for the proto-fascist group to make the case that the will of a small minority of Americans – the hyper-individualistic “patriots” who attend these rallies – should supersede democratic processes, and that individual desires should trump the collective public good. The protests also provide other benefits: the chance to launch their ideas into wider right-wing circles, further cement their status as core members of the Trump coalition, build relationships with local politicians and gain attention from outlets like Fox News.

(Neil MacFarquhar and Adam Goldman's coverage in the New York Times of the white-supremacist terrorist organization, the Base, is sobering reading; link.)

It is certainly true that the pandemic is creating huge economic suffering for millions of Americans (and Europeans, Indians, Brazilians, ...). People are suffering, and some much more than others. Poor people, hourly workers, small farmers, gig workers, and people of color are disproportionately victims to the economic recession, and people of color are vastly over-represented among the infected population and the death rolls of the disease. Closures of businesses have led to vast numbers of unemployed men and women. But notably, these demonstrations in Lansing and elsewhere don't seem to be supported by the constituencies most at risk in the economic shutdown; the participants who show up to flaunt their guns and their reckless disregard for social distancing seem to be mostly angry activists pursuing their own agendas.

So an answer to the fundamental question here -- why are we seeing this surge of right-wing extremist protests to pandemic policies? -- seems to involve three related factors: political supporters of Donald Trump (President Trump's efforts to normalize the pandemic and attack Democratic governors who are doing something about it); anti-government extremists who object to any exercise of the appropriate powers of the state; and opportunistic efforts by white supremacist organizations to capture the moment. Add to that the understandable concerns that citizens have about their immediate economic futures, and you have a combustible mixture. And the issue of trust in the institutions of government, raised in a recent post, is plainly relevant here as well; these extremist organizations are working very hard to undermine the trust that ordinary citizens have in the intentions, competence, and legitimacy of their elected officials.

Yes, the economic consequences of the pandemic are enormous. But the alternative is undoubtedly worse. Do nothing about physical distancing and the virus will sweep every state, every county, and every town. Experts believe that the unchecked virus would infect 20-60% of the globe's population. And a conservative estimate of the mortality rate associated with the disease is on the order of 1%. Thomas Tsai, Benjamin Jacobson, and Ashish Jha do the math in Health Affairs (link), assuming a 40% infection rate. For the United States that implies an infected population within about eighteen months of about 98.9 million victims, 20.6 million hospitalizations, and 4.4 million patients needing treatment in ICUs. Both hospitalization rates and ICU demand greatly exceed the total stock available in the United States. Tsai et al do not provide a mortality estimate, but at a 1% mortality rate, this would amount to about a million deaths. It goes without saying that the health system, the food supply system, and virtually every aspect of our "normal" economy would collapse. So the only choice we have is rigorous physical distancing, a sound public health plan for cautiously restarting economic activity, massive increase in testing capacity, aggressive search for treatments and vaccine, and generous programs of Federal assistance to help our whole population make it through the hard times that are coming. And generosity needs to come from all of us -- contributions to local funds for food and social assistance can make a big difference.

Did Marx invent "class conflict"?

Marx offered several theories of the modern world that he observed around him in mid-nineteenth-century Britain that have influenced much of turmoil that ensued in the following century and a half -- theories about the "capitalist mode of production," about the role that class conflict plays in historical change, about the determinants of the actions of the state. These themes are expressed in Capital, and in the The German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto decades earlier. So one might imagine that these are theoretical constructions of Marx's imagination, a particular way of interpreting the social realities that he observed. The Right blames "Marxism" for discontent among many citizens in western democracies. Marx was a "radical," and his radical vision of conflict and exploitation guided his narrative about the nature of modern capitalist society. Adam Smith had one vision of the emerging modern society, Thomas Carlyle had a different one, and Marx had a yet another. The reason working people are discontent, according to the Right, is that there's too much Marxism around, too many critical theories that provoke conflict.

But is this the right way of thinking about the matter? I don't think so. It puts the poet of modernity first, with imagination and rhetoric, and the concrete social processes and contradictions second. But that gets the story backwards. Ideas, including ideas about social relations among different groups in society, have had a role in historical development in the two-plus centuries of economic development since Mr. Watt turned on his steam engine. But the real history was written by actors and groups, considering and framing their own struggles, and seeking to maintain their footing in a changing world. These actors were often illiterate, poor, and disadvantaged. But they brought their own practical understanding to their situation in the social world; they brought social identities, they brought moral frameworks, and they brought practical skills of action and interaction to their struggles to secure their livelihoods and dignity.

Consider the brief sketches that Charles Tilly offered in 1978 of "collective action" in early modern Britain in From Mobilization to Revolution. Here Tilly has described two "riots" by ordinary villagers in 1765 against the establishment of new "houses of industry" (poorhouses where the poor were compelled to work for food).

The confrontations at Nacton and Saxmundharn acted out pervasive characteristics of eighteenth-century conflicts in Great Britain as a whole. While David Hume and Adam Smith worked out the relevant theories, ordinary Britons fought about who had the right to dispose of land, labor, capital, and commodities. Attacks on poorhouses, concerted resistance to enclosures, food riots, and a number of other common forms of eighteenth-century conflict all stated an implicit two-part theory: that the residents of a local community had a prior right to the resources produced by or contained within that community; that the community as such had a prior obligation to aid its weak and resourceless members. (3)

And these protests were not guided by "revolutionaries" in the background; neither were they inarticulate cries of protest against changes they could not understand. Rather, these ordinary villagers recognized well the actions that were being taken against them, and they came forward to resist.

Not that the fighters on either side were mere theorists, simple ideologues, hapless victims of shared delusions. Real interests were in play. The participants saw them more or less clearly. At two centuries' distance, we may find some of their pronouncements quaint, incomprehensible, or hopelessly romantic. In comfortable retrospect, we may question the means they used to forward their interests: scoff at tearing down poorhouses, anger at the use of troops against unarmed crowds. Yet in retrospect we also see that their actions followed a basic, visible logic. The more we learn about eighteenth-century changes in Great Britain, the clearer and more compelling that logic becomes.

The struggle did not simply pit different ways of thinking about the world against each other. Two modes of social organization locked in a battle to the death. The old mode vested power in land and locality. The new mode combined the expansion of capitalist property relations with the rise of the national state. Many other changes flowed from that fateful combination: larger-scale organizations, increasing commercialization, expanded commercialization, the growth of a proletariat, alterations of the very texture of daily life. The new mode won. The world of the moral economy dissolved. But when ordinary eighteenth-century Britons acted collectively at all, usually they acted against one feature or another of this new world. On the whole, they acted in defense of particular features of the moral economy. (4)

Tilly's interest in this book is a familiar one that recurs throughout his long career: analyzing the historical details that provide sociological insight into the processes of "mobilization and rebellion" when men and women find themselves in circumstances that are existentially threatening for themselves and their families. And yet, Tilly understood what Marx sometimes did not: that it is not true that "workingmen unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains." In any real historical situation (except perhaps the Warsaw ghetto during the uprising, or with Spartacus in Thrace) the potential rebels always have something to lose; mobilization and rebellion are always risky and costly. Mobilization and rebellion require explanation.

Here Tilly provides a very compact description of Marx's theory of class as Marx works it out in his analysis of the politics of the 1848 revolution in France:

If that is so, we might pay attention to Marx's mode of analysis. Implicitly, Marx divided the entire population into social classes based on their relationships to the prevailing means of production. Explicitly, he identified the major visible actors in the politics of the time with their class bases, offering judgments of their basic interests, conscious aspirations, articulated grievances, and collective readiness for action. Classes act, or fail to act. In general, individuals and institutions act on behalf of particular social classes. (There is an important exception: in analyzing Louis Napoleon's seizure of power, Marx allowed that those who run the state may act, at least for a while, in their own political interest without reference to their class base.) In analyzing readiness to act, Marx attached great importance to the ease and durability of communications within the class, to the visible presence of a class enemy. When Marx's political actors acted, they did so out of common interests, mutual awareness, and internal organization. (13)

So, no, Marx did not invent class conflict. Marx was not the inventor of class conflict or the spark who ignited a motivation to find a pathway to fundamental change in the relations of power and property that govern the lives of ordinary people. Rather, he was the John Snow of early capitalism, the scientist who worked out which pump handle was giving rise to the cholera of fundamental inequality. As that timeless philosopher, Bob Dylan, put it, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Marx was the weatherman, not the weather. E.P. Thompson put the point vividly in The Making of the English Working Class: class was "made" through concrete historical experiences, and conflict was an unavoidable component of this making; link.

Who, then, is the actual author of "class conflict"? The modern world, with its economic relations governed by a system of property guaranteeing various extremes of inequality, and no guarantee that a humane social contract will emerge protecting the life interests of all parties -- this is the circumstance that invented class conflict. There are powerful, pervasive features of our economic system that generate and deepen inequalities. The only check to this process is the organized strength of ordinary men and women, demanding a fair share of social cooperation, and all too often this countervailing force has not been sufficient. Social democracy  is a solution (link, link, link, link) -- provision of extensive prerequisites of a decent human life to every individual (education, healthcare, access to a job); full and equal rights of political participation, real equality of opportunity, use of progressive taxation to ensure that everyone benefits from economic cooperation -- and yet social democracy has been unconscionably hard to sustain in western democracies.

And in case anyone thinks that this is just an antiquarian question, relevant to Nacton and Saxmundharn in 1765 but not to Detroit, Atlanta, or Seattle today -- just consider the devastation created by the current pandemic for people all over the country who are on the disadvantaged side of the buffet line: disproportionately without healthcare, disproportionately represented in "frontline" positions in the coronavirus pandemic, disproportionately forced to return to work in unsafe conditions or lose what slender entitlements they currently possess, disproportionately represented in the lists of sick and dying, ... This is class conflict in our contemporary world. And the genuinely important question for Chuck Tilly's successors is this: what kinds of mobilization are possible in 2020 to address the appalling inequalities of power, property, opportunity, and wellbeing our society has created? How can ordinary working people achieve and maintain the social democracy (link) that alone promises to fulfill the compact of the equal freedoms and human fulfillment of all people?