>Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 11:35:33 -0800 >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >From: Robin Hahnel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >The essential issue, I believe, is whether or not particular social >institutions promote socially productive or socially unproductive >behavior. [I'm sure we could argue for a while about how to define >what is socially productive and unproductive, but let's assume we >could agree on that for the moment.] Well, how does an institution >promote one kind of behavior rather than another? For the most part, >or if you wish to be more cautious in statements, certainly to some >extent, institutions promote one kind of behavior rather than another >by making one kind of behavior individually rational, IR as you say, >and other kinds of behavior individually irrational. People do NOT >always have to behave in IR ways in order for this phenomenon to >occur. And people are always "free" to choose to behave in ways that >are NOT IR for various reasons -- one of which might be moral or pol- >itical committments. As one who as frequently chosen individually >irrational courses of action -- as I'm sure you are too -- I know that >the pressure from social institutions does not always succeed in getting >me to behave in a particular way. But, that does not obviate the fact >the social institution promoted, or pressured me and others, to behave >in a particular kind of way, and forced me to behave in a way that in >some meaningful sense was counter to my own self-interests as I see >them. I don't see why we have to give such pride of place to a subjectivist notion of individual rationality. Institutions may promote one kind of behavior over another, but it seems unnecssary to add that they do so by making one kind of behavior IR. Institutions constrain, empower, and pressure for some behaviors over others, and it seems almost besides the point to worry if individuals consciously choose these behaviors. I cannot plan an effective course of action counting on my vassels' oaths of fealty to provide me with labor when I need it, but I might be able to count on my savings account serving the same purpose. The prospects of feudal labor relations are so remote from my real possiblities that I do not even consider them. There must be an infinite set of alternatives I do not even consider, my actual actions must have an infinite set of implications I am not even aware of; ditto for motivations. It seems more meaningful to talk of the institutional detemination of the scope for possible conscious action before we worry about the rationality of those actions. In other words, the path to human action does not necessarily pass through consciousness. > >It is in this sense that I think progressive critics of capitalism >can argue that markets and private enterprise promote socially unpro- >ductive behavior. And I don't see how that conclusion is contradicted >by the fact that many people -- perhaps all people -- to some extent >resist the pressure to behave in the ways markets promote, and even >that the very viability of market systems hinges on people NOT always >behaving in the ways that markets push them. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
