Yes - I've taught this relationship between economics, population size and
political infrastructure for about 20 years. No- it's not really in the
Architectonics book. It IS in a graphic book, The Graphic Guide to
Socioeconomics - which a retired CEO banker and myself have just finished
[about 170 slides]....which deals with the pragmatic relations between
population size and economic modes and political modes. I am not sure if I
should attach it since is has nothing to do with Peirce. It's a powerpoint
presentation which we are planning to promote as a 'graphic guide for dummies'
on the topic, so to speak.
That is - we tried to make it clear that democracy, which means 'political
power of the majority decision' is suitable only in large population,
flexible-risktaking- growth economies, and unsuitable in small population
no-growth steady-state economies which must ensure their economic continuity by
focusing on retaining the capacity-to-make-wealth by stable measures [control
of the land, control of the cattle, control of fishing rights, etc].
And we've been very surprised in our test runs with various people - how many
people don't understand the basic issues of growth/no growth economies,
carrying capacity of the economy; growth vs steady-state populations; what is a
middle class; what is capitalism; the role of risk; the role of
individuals..etc. etc.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Richmond
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2016 4:20 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Democracy
Edwina, list,
You've clearly given this a lot of prior thought, Edwina. I want to reflect
on wht you wrote and see what others think before commenting further. Btw,
would looking again at your book, Architectonics of Semiosis, for example,
Chapter 2, "Purity and Power," be of any value in this discussion (as I
initially began reading it I recall that in an off-list message you commented
that in some ways you were now seeing things quite differently than you did in
1998)?
Best,
Gary R
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690
On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 4:01 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
Gary R- that's an interesting topic.
1) I'd like to first comment that democracy, as a political system for
arriving at authoritative government decisions, is the 'right' method but ONLY
in a very large population with a growth economy and a growth population. That
is, political systems have FUNCTIONS; the function is: who has the societal
right to make decisions among this population?
In economies which are no-growth, such as all the pre-industrial
agricultural and horticultural economies which dominated the planet until the
industrial age, democracy is dysfunctional. That is, all political systems must
privilege the wealth-producing sectors of the population. If your economy is
agricultural/horticultural - which can only produce enough wealth to support a
steady-state or no-growth population, then, the political system must put the
authority to make decisions in the control of the owners of wealth production;
i.e., the landowners. This control over the land must be hereditary [you can't
have fights over ownership], and limited [you can't split up the land into
minuscule small farms]. Democracy, which puts decision-making into the hands
of the majority, doesn't work in such an economy.
When the economy moves to a growth mode [and enables a growth population],
the political system must empower those sectors of the population which make an
economy grow. This is the middle class - a non-hereditary set of the
population, made up of private individual/small group businesses. This economic
mode is highly flexible [new business can start, succeed, fail]; extremely
adaptable and enables rapid population growth. As such an economic mode,
political decision-making must fall into the control of this middle class - and
we have the emergence of elected legislatures and the disappearance of
hereditary authority.
For a growth economy to work, it must support individual rights [to invent,
differ from the norm, to succeed AND fail] so that failure, for example, will
only affect those few individuals and not a whole village/collective.
Therefore, individualism must be stressed and empowered; a growth economy must
enable novelty, innovation, freedom of the periphery....as well as success,
which is measured by the adoption by the collective of that product/service.
FOR A WHILE.
2) But - it seems that the definition and function of democracy in Dewey
does not deal with the economy and the questions of the production of wealth
and size of population. Instead, it deals with social issues - Talisse writes:
"The core of Deweyan democracy can be stated as follows. Deweyan democracy
is substantive rather than proceduralist, communicative rather than
aggregative,and deep rather than statist. I shall take these contrasts in
order.Deweyan democracy is substantive insofar as it rejects any attempt to
separate politics and deeper normative concerns. More precisely, Dewey held
that the democratic political order is essentially a moral order, and, further,
he held that democratic participation is an essential constituent ofthe good
life and a necessary constituent for a “truly human way of living”.... Dewey
rejects the idea thatit consists simply in processes of voting, campaigning,
canvassing, lobbying, and petitioning in service of one’s individual
preferences; that is, Dewey held democratic participation is essentially
communicative, it consists in the willingness of citizens to engage in activity
by which they may “convince and be convinced by reason” (MW 10:404) and come to
realize“values prized in common” (LW 13:71).
The above seems to me, to be a social relations account - and doesn't deal
with the fact that democracy as a political system, empowers a particular
segment of the population - the middle class, in an economy based around
individual private sector small businesses. It has nothing to do with 'the good
life' or a 'truly human way of living'. Nomadic pastoralists, and land-based
feudal agriculture were also 'human ways of living.
3) From the Stanford Encyclopaedia, I found the following on Dewey:
"As Dewey puts it, ‘men are not isolated non-social atoms, but are men only
when in intrinsic relations’ to one another, and the state in turn only
represents them ‘so far as they have become organically related to one another,
or are possessed of unity of purpose and interest’ (‘The Ethics of
Democracy’,EW1, 231-2).
Dewey is anti-elitist, and argues that the capacity of the wise few to
discern the public interest tends to be distorted by their position. Democratic
participation is not only viewed as a bulwark against government by elites, but
also as an aspect of individual freedom– humanity cannot rest content with a
good ‘procured from without.’ Furthermore, democracy is not ‘simply and solely
a form of government’, but a social and personal ideal; in other words, it is
not only a property of political institutions but of a wide range of social
relationships.
The above, seems to me, at this first glimpse, to totally ignore the
economic mode - and again, some economies whose wealth production rests in
stable, no-growth methods [land food production] MUST ensure the stability of
this economy by confining it to the few, i.e., those elites'...the wise few if
you want to call them that'.
That is - the to put power in the majority/commonality rests with the
economic mode. Certainly, Peirce's community of scholars was a method of
slowly, gradually, arriving at 'the truth'. But this has nothing, absolutely
nothing, to do with governance and the question of who in a collective has the
ultimate authority to make political decisions. That is, political decisions
are not really, I suggest, the same as scientific or 'truth-based' inquiries.
There is no ultimate 'best way' for much is dependent on resources, population
size, environment..
And, I don't see a focus on the required capacity of a growth economy for
rapid flexible adaptation - which HAS to be focused around the individual.
That is, risk-taking shouldn't involve the WHOLE collective, but only a few
individuals.
4) As for Peirce's philosophy of democracy - again, Talisse writes:
"the Peircean view relies upon no substantive
moral vision. The Peircean justifies democratic institutions and norms
strictly in terms of a set of substantive epistemic commitments. It says that
no matter what one believes about the good life, the nature of the self, the
meaning of human existence, or the value of community, one has reason to
support a robust democratic political order of the sort described above simply
in virtue of the fact that one holds beliefs. Since the Peircean conception of
democracy does not contain a doctrine about “the one, ultimate, ethical ideal
of humanity” (EW 1:248), it can duly acknowledge the fact of reasonable
pluralism. p 112
This seems to suggest that a societal system that enables exploratory
actions by individuals is a 'robust democracy'. And, since a growth economic
mode, that can support growth populations, requires risk-taking by flexible
individuals to deal with current pragmatic problems - then, this seems to be a
stronger political system.
My key point is that the political system, economic mode and population
size are intimately related.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Richmond
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2016 2:59 PM
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Democracy
List,
I read Robert B. Talisse's A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy (2007) a
few year ago and was thinking of it again today, in part prompted by an op-ed
piece in The New York Times by Roger Cohen which quotes H. L. Mencken (see
below). At the time of my reading PPD, I was not at all convinced that Talisee
had demonstrated his principal thesis, namely, that we ought replace the
inadequate, in his opinion, Dewyan approach to thinking about democracy with a
Peircean based approach. This is how David Hildebrand (U. of Colorado)
outlined Talisse's argument in a review in The Notre Dame Philosophical Review.
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23707-a-pragmatist-philosophy-of-democracy/
[Hildebrand] As I read PPD, I kept returning to two fundamental
propellants powering Talisse's argument for a Peircean-based democratic theory.
The first is constructive: his quest for a lean, non-normative pragmatist
inquiry to provide just enough of a philosophical basis for a broadly effective
conception of democracy. The second is destructive: the argument that political
theorists should reject Dewey's self-refuting philosophy of democracy. Taken
together, the insight is this: get over Dewey and accept this particular Peirce
and we get just what we need from pragmatism for the purposes of democracy.
Hildebrand's review is a good introduction to the PPD. While I'm not much
of a Deweyan, and I wouldn't presume to argue for or against his ideas, yet I
don't think Talisse makes a strong case for a Peircean approach to political
theory on democracy,.
I should add, however, that Talisse is, in my opinion, a very good
thinker and an excellent writer. Besides this book, over the years I've read a
number of his scholarly articles and heard him speak in NYC and elsewhere. PPD
is definitely worth reading, while those with a Deweyan democracy bent will
probably find themselves arguing with him nearly point for point (as Hildebrand
pretty much does). On the other hand, the concluding chapter on Sidney Hook is
valuable in its own right. As Talisse writes:
Hook's life stands as an inspiring image of democratic success; for
success consists precisely in the activity of political engagement by means of
public inquiry.
I haven't got my e-CP available, so I can't locate references, but it
seems to me that Peirce's view of democracy as I recall it is, if not nearly
anti-democratic (I vaguely recall some passages in a letter to Lady Welby), it
may at least be closer to H. L. Mencken's:
As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more
closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some
great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s
desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
I doubt that a discussion of PPD would be very valuable, but it might be
interesting to at least briefly reflect on Peirce's views of democracy. As I
recall,he hasn't much to say about democracy in what's published in the CP and
the other writings which have been made available to us. Perhaps more will be
uncovered in years to come as his complete correspondence is published in W (I
probably won't be alive for that as I understand that it will probably be the
last or near last volume in W, and at the snail's pace the W is moving. . .)
Meanwhile, can anyone on the list offer some Peirce quotations which
might help quickly clarify his views on democracy? I would, of course, hope
that if there is some discussion here that we keep to a strictly theoretical
discussion, especially in light of the strong feelings generated by the recent
American presidential election.
Best,
Gary R
st Philosophy of Democracy
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690
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