Freedom vs. Security - the Right-Left Continuum

[dr_mabeuse]

I originally wrote this for the "Why Are Artists Liberal?" thread, but it seemed like such a manifesto that i decided to put it in a thread of its own.

Have at it.
===============

My view of things is that every culture and every society takes up a position on a continuum of personal freedom vs. material security. On the right end of the line there is perfect freedom and no security. People are free to starve or feast on their own, do whatever they want, and use various types of force and coercion to get whatever it is they desire. Here liberty has devolved into virtual anarchy with the strong devouring the weak, money going to money, a privileged elite versus the rest of the people. This is radical conservatism.

On the left end of the spectrum is perfect security and no freedom. All material needs are met but one must adhere strictly to the rules as laid down by the powers that be. You have no freedom to challenge the system or to stand out for your own talents. On this end, the desire for security has led to virtual slavery to the provider of that security--the state, usually. This is radical liberalism: communism.

One the right is the tyranny of the individual. On the left is the tyranny of the masses. All of history can be seen (simplistcally, admittedly) as a struggle between these two outlooks. Where one stands ion this Freedom vs. Security continuum is largely a function of one's personality, talents, and proclivities. Very few people are cut out to be either absolute communists on the Left or free-wheeling entrepreneurs of the Right. The great majority of us are somewhere between these extremes, and the distributuion is gaussian.

The most dangerous ground for the most people is found on the extremes of left and right, and so all societies take one or another position between these two extremes, anarchy vs. slavery.

To argue that one extreme is 'better' than the other is kind of futile. It depends on where you stand on the economic spectrum and what your values are, and these change from person to person.

Most civilizations find themselves somewhere in between, trading some freedoms for security, trading away some security for the sake of individual liberty. The society exists in a state of dynamic equilibrium between the two, like two sides tied in a tug of war--sometimes the center shifts more left, sometimes more right. In democratic societies, the idea is to find the spot on the continuum that makes the most people happy. In non-democracies, that spot is determined by the ruling class.

This dynamic tension is very clear here in the US, where the government periodically oscillates between right and left, ultimately achieving a dynamic balance that's like the vector sum of all the social, cultural, and economic forces at work at the time, and there it quivers, like the needle on a high-pressure gauge.

The key word here is "dynamic". That means society's position on freedom vs. security is not fixed and absolute, but moves slightly with each election, with each opinion changed, with each government program or cancellation of same, with each bit of news. There is no resting point, no final answer. It's supposed to be quivering all the time. It's the vector sum of the will of the people, which is what a democracy is, and it's fluid and negotiable.

Dynamic equilibrium is a very unsettling idea for some, especially for those on the right, who believe strongly in the idea of absolutes and seek to maintain the status quo, but it's much better to be near the center than to let power shift to either end of the continuum, because there is found tyranny, without a doubt.

In a democracy, the power is invested in the people (or the masses, if you like), theoretically at least. Since there are always more poor people than wealthy ones (by definition), they tend to pull things in a populist or leftward direction. They're opposed by the moneyed interests who tend to own the means of communication and social institutions and tug things back toward the right in an attempt to preserve themselves.

From the left come the dreams, ideas, and visions that help shape society's future and contribute to a sense of progress. From the right come the laws and rules that contribute to a society's sense of identity and cohesion. It's a an irony of the system that the Right, who believes most strongly in freedom and liberty, is also the most dedicated to enforcing laws and maintaining order, while the Left, with its concern over basic material survival, is the source of most dreams and visions for change.

In the same way, I believe there's a continuum in humans between right brain and left brain; between the world of dreams, emotion, and imagination, and the world of logic and rationality. Both sides must be served if we're ever to be happy, and both exist in a state of dynamic tension. All of us have our own set point on the continuum, but we all should have at least some rationality, and some imagination and emotion. Rationality without empathy is soulless, and imagination without rationality is brainless.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

DOC

Let me piece my reply in installments.

Anarchy isnt conservatism at all; anarchy is unlimited license. No conservative champions unrestricted license. Stalin was an anarchist. Hitler was an anarchist.

There is no perfect security on the left because anarchists can and do control socialist and totalitarian governments. You seem to be describing fascist government when you speak of perfect security. I lived in fascist Spain for 2 years, and Franco took pretty good care of everyone. A university education cost little, and getting in medical school was as simple as getting in junior college here. Food was cheap and plentiful. Medical care was inexpensive. Housing was inexpensive. And public transportation was convenient and cheap. A woman was safe on the streets 24/7. Anyone crazee enough to bother a woman didnt go to jail or have a trial. But you couldnt vote, you couldnt parade your kink on the street, and your pay was fixed by the government.

 

[xssve]

No argument, this was the goal of the constitution IMO.

Reframing it from an anthropological viewpoint, the issue becomes acentric vs. centripetal - again, a dynamic balance, acentric behavior representing individual initiative, centripetalism being a defensive response, tradition, status quo, etc., vs. some external "threat", liberalism, minorities, change in general, etc.

Protecting the status quo is a defensive response and it utilizes classic centripetalized defensive strategies; the real key to sorting it all out rests on the ability to identify what is a valid threat and what is merely a device to organize a defense of specific political-economic interests.

Again, there is no right or wrong in terms of whether acentric or centripetal strategy is superior, they both serve different but distinct purposes; the question is always about which is the appropriate response in a given situation.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No argument, this was the goal of the constitution IMO.

Reframing it from an anthropological viewpoint, the issue becomes acentric vs. centripetal - again, a dynamic balance, acentric behavior representing individual initiative, centripetalism being a defensive response, tradition, status quo, etc., vs. some external "threat", liberalism, minorities, change in general, etc.

Protecting the status quo is a defensive response and it utilizes classic centripetalized defensive strategies; the real key to sorting it all out rests on the ability to identify what is a valid threat and what is merely a device to organize a defense of specific political-economic interests.

Again, there is no right or wrong in terms of whether acentric or centripetal strategy is superior, they both serve different but distinct purposes; the question is always about which is the appropriate response in a given situation.

None of this makes any sense. It reads like schizophrenic twaddle.

 

[rgraham666]

My favorite author uses the metaphor of an atom to describe society; a structure held in a state of dynamic equilibrium by a tension of opposites.

And as he points out repeatedly ours is a society out of balance. What we call 'Reason' has become the single most important facet of society. But Reason is a narrow and exclusive thing. It starts at a given point and proceeds to a given point and rejects those things extraneous to its progress.

So things such as ethics, imagination, intuition and memory are rejected because these things are irrational.

That is the beauty of democracy. It is the only system that can use all the facets of society. take all things into consideration and choose among them. Nor is it limited to a single choice. It can select from the whole buffet.

Unfortunately humans aren't comfortable with democracy. That sort of dynamism means you must constantly be aware of the world, and accept that things aren't always going to be the way you want them.

So people reject democracy for some other system where stability is a given thing.

 

[xssve]

None of this makes any sense. It reads like schizophrenic twaddle.

The fact is that the neo cons have been using this little known aspect of primate psychology quite deliberately and what they call politics is largely the manipulation of mythemes, a linguistic device in binary opposition form, alá Lévi-Strauss's structuralism.

It's classic fascist tactics, Hitler presented Jews and Communists as an external threat against which the German people were exhorted to organize.

Similarly, the threat of "Global Communism" proved very lucrative for the military industrial complex.

The binary opposition presented as a mytheme, or exploiting a pre-existing mythme is itself the linguistic mechanism used to evoke a centripetal defensive response.

As details of the mortgage crisis emerged for example, columnists in major conservative media outlets very quickly attempted to shift the blame onto subprime mortgages taken out by African Americans, capitalizing on the underlying binary opposition of racism, and essentially, have kept to this strategy, just shifting the emphasis onto Acorn, i.e., the threat of the emerging political power of the Black underclass, which has small but stable demographic of adherents.

It's actually pretty fucking transparent, republicans have been targeting these special interest groups all along: White Supremacists, Evangelicals, etc., because they are already emotionally invested in various binary mythemes, all that is required is a trigger to provoke a hysterical centripetalist outburst.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Democracy is a mob strong enough to oppress and exploit the weak with law.

 

[xssve]

You see, you rely so heavily on these binary mythemes that you basically cannot manage to express anything but.

 

[Recidiva]

I agree. I think there's a yin and yang thing going on here. Both influences are needed in a society as options when required. But neither liberalism or conservatism have all the answers.

"Anyone who isn't a Liberal before the age of 30 has no heart .... and anyone who is still a Liberal after the age of 30 has no brain" - Winston Churchill

I consider myself a moderate. I try to listen to the specifics of whatever the problem is and choose from whatever tactics are required.

I don't identify myself with the tactics themselves, which is what I think happens with extreme idealism and partisanship.

 

[Verdad]

You locate the key theoretical conflict well, Doc. At the one extreme, there's Hobessian war of all against all, and at the other, totalitarianism.

The part I'm not so sure about is how well it maps onto the political options known as left and right. There are totalitarianisms of both persuasion (e.g. communism and fascism) as well as anarchist ideas tinged with either right- or left-wing ideology. There's also an important distinction to be made between cultural and economical issues, which makes a single left-right axis insufficient for description. At the very least, an axis is needed for fiscal issues and another one for social ones. It is possible to be 'conservative' on the one and 'liberal' on the other—and that's assuming the common sense-meanings of the words, without going into their long and diverse histories as political labels.

Nitpicking aside, though, I appreciated your main thought about dynamic equilibrium.

 

[Recidiva]

You locate the key theoretical conflict well, Doc. At the one extreme, there's Hobessian war of all against all, and at the other, totalitarianism.

The part I'm not so sure about is how well it maps onto the political options known as left and right. There are totalitarianisms of both persuasion (e.g. communism and fascism) as well as anarchist ideas tinged with either right- or left-wing ideology. There's also an important distinction to be made between cultural and economical issues, which makes a single left-right axis insufficient for description. At the very least, an axis is needed for fiscal issues and another one for social ones. It is possible to be 'conservative' on the one and 'liberal' on the other—and that's assuming the common sense-meanings of the words, without going into their long and diverse histories as political labels.

Nitpicking aside, though, I appreciated your main thought about dynamic equilibrium.

I think it has to do with establishing a platform for a campaign and how you'd deal with hot issues, and how the electorate responds to that. You have to stand for something and key issues require taking a stand and making a declaration of how you would respond.

It happens often that people are accused of being cagey or unprepared or the notorious "flip flopper" when they say "I would have to see what the specifics require." It doesn't make a good sound bite and can appear as if someone is lacking principles or convictions. I think you see judges respond this way. Judges tend to as a group refuse to say how they would respond to a hypothetical case. Politicians that do not inject some level of passionate belief in an issue do not get elected.

 

[xssve]

Definitely, the binary mytheme is a classic rhetorical trap, crude but effective, it sets up a binary condition depending on the response whether in fact that condition is rational or not.

i.e, are you for or against congress regulating trade as per the constitution?

If for, you're a socialist, if against, an anarchist.

Sadly, it tends to displace any sort of more finely grained dialogue over what regulations in particular you might be talking about.

 

[rgraham666]

An interesting article on War Against Evil.

 

[xssve]

Of course, if coming from the right, the question would be framed differently: "are you for or against regulation?"

Neatly avoiding the whole constitutional argument: i.e., why did the framers grant congress this authority if they had no good reason to do it?

It oversimplifies a complex issue into a neat binary package that leaves no room for rational debate.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE

I'm a simple country boy. I know whats useful and what isnt. I know what I can grasp in my paws and what I cant. And if I cant hold it or carry it, IT doesnt exist. So I intentionally ignore all the happy horse-shit that comes in the form of gerunds and nominalizations and labels. I'm not impressed with people who know lotsa different words. Richard Feynman used to say that you can know the name of every effing bird on the planet and not know shit about birds.

For me it comes down to I drive the bus or someone else drives the bus.

 

[xssve]

An interesting article on War Against Evil.

Robert Wright is a terrorist symp!

 

[xssve]

XSSVE

I'm a simple country boy. I know whats useful and what isnt. I know what I can grasp in my paws and what I cant. And if I cant hold it or carry it, IT doesnt exist. So I intentionally ignore all the happy horse-shit that comes in the form of gerunds and nominalizations and labels. I'm not impressed with people who know lotsa different words. Richard Feynman used to say that you can know the name of every effing bird on the planet and not know shit about birds.

For me it comes down to I drive the bus or someone else drives the bus.

So fall back on the bumpkin defense - it's a complex world, you are simply admitting you're out of your depth.

I would agree.

 

[xssve]

Can you hold and carry your 401K?

As per my example in the other thread, the Spitzer incident, what we have here is the presentation of two distinct hypothetical threats: Spitzer is warning us about an economic threat, but is in turn being accused of being himself a threat to "family values" - in your opinion, which is the greater immediate threat to you personally?

Not really a fair example perhaps, we all know how that one turned out.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

ESSVE

No.

Take Borderline Personality Disorder for example. All the books on the subject can fill a library, and most experts have trouble explaining it to noobs. But its actually very simple to construe: WHEN YOU MEET SOMEONE FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND FIFTEEN MINUTES AFTER YOU METT THEM YOU WANNA STAB THEM THRU THEIR HEART WITH YOUR PENCIL, THEY HAVE BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER. This is all you need to know to recognize it. They stress and exasperate you beyond endurance in no time at all.

Borderline means theyre equal parts psychotic and panic stricken.

What you got against bumpkins? We have Superman x-ray vision.

 

[Epmd607]

The fact is that the neo cons have been using this little known aspect of primate psychology quite deliberately and what they call politics is largely the manipulation of mythemes, a linguistic device in binary opposition form, alá Lévi-Strauss's structuralism.

It's classic fascist tactics, Hitler presented Jews and Communists as an external threat against which the German people were exhorted to organize.

Similarly, the threat of "Global Communism" proved very lucrative for the military industrial complex.

The binary opposition presented as a mytheme, or exploiting a pre-existing mythme is itself the linguistic mechanism used to evoke a centripetal defensive response.

As details of the mortgage crisis emerged for example, columnists in major conservative media outlets very quickly attempted to shift the blame onto subprime mortgages taken out by African Americans, capitalizing on the underlying binary opposition of racism, and essentially, have kept to this strategy, just shifting the emphasis onto Acorn, i.e., the threat of the emerging political power of the Black underclass, which has small but stable demographic of adherents.

It's actually pretty fucking transparent, republicans have been targeting these special interest groups all along: White Supremacists, Evangelicals, etc., because they are already emotionally invested in various binary mythemes, all that is required is a trigger to provoke a hysterical centripetalist outburst.

Mexican invasion -- they're coming over the border to take your job, take your healthcare, and sell your kids drugs! That's why me must attack Iraq!

North Korea has something resembling an ICBM. That's why me must attack Iraq!

The Chinese are trying to poison your kids with the jobs they stole from you and buying all your debt to make your money worthless. That's why we must attack Iraq!

There'll never be a more hysterical, mytho-dislogical moment in US History than the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Can you hold and carry your 401K?

As per my example in the other thread, the Spitzer incident, what we have here is the presentation of two distinct hypothetical threats: Spitzer is warning us about an economic threat, but is in turn being accused of being himself a threat to "family values" - in your opinion, which is the greater immediate threat to you personally?

Not really a fair example perhaps, we all know how that one turned out.

Nope, but I can hold and carry currency and coins.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

None of this makes any sense. It reads like schizophrenic twaddle.

It's not as clever as that.

 

[xssve]

Care to be any more specific?

 

[trysail]

Remarks by John C. Bogle
Founder and Former Chairman, The Vanguard Group
The Wall Street Journal
November 18, 2004


"Most of the mistakes and major faults of the financial era that has just drawn to a close will be ascribed to the failure to observe the fiduciary principle, the precept as old as holy writ, that `no man can serve two masters' . . . . Those who serve nominally as trustees but consider only last the interests of those whose funds they command suggests how far we have ignored the necessary implications of the principle."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote those words in 1934. Today, they could have been as easily written by New York State's crusading attorney general Eliot Spitzer. At first almost alone, he turned the spotlight on the unprincipled conduct of too many financial intermediaries during the recent era.

His campaign to eliminate conflicts of interest between service providers and their clients began with Wall Street investment bankers in 2001, spread to mutual fund managers in 2003, and last month enveloped insurance brokers. While it would be unfair to tarnish the entire financial field with the brush wielded by the attorney general, the misconduct was not only rife, but practiced by some of the oldest, largest and once most respected firms in each of those fields.

The practices he attacked were open secrets to industry insiders, indeed often accepted as the normal way of doing business. On Wall Street, for example, it was hardly unusual for analysts to publish glowing "research" reports on stocks of companies that they believed were junk, often with the objective of puffing initial public offerings or winning investment-banking clients.

In the mutual fund industry, managers enriched their own coffers by aiding and abetting short-term speculators in fund shares to engage in widespread market-timing and time-zone trading, at the dollar-for-dollar expense of their long-term owners. In insurance brokerage, bid-rigging and contingent commissions -- "preferred service agreements" -- were used to force insurance companies to pay rebates to brokers as a quid pro quo for winning the business.

These pervasive examples of conflicts of interest in the financial services field are violations of the public trust. Trustees who accept the responsibility for other people's money have a fiduciary duty to place the client's interest ahead of their own, and those who handle money for others no less so. "Put the client first," an obvious rule for any business, takes on a whole new imperative in the profession of handling other people's money. Why? Because the value provided to clients in the financial field is measured largely in dollars and cents.

Unlike consumer products such as food, television sets, automobiles and perfume, for example, whose value is measured as much by satisfaction and style as by intrinsic worth, the value of a financial service -- the performance of a brokerage account, the investment return on a mutual fund, the amount covered by a homeowner's policy, the face amount of a life insurance policy -- can be precisely measured in dollars and cents. And the cost of providing that service -- the advisory fees and operating expenses, the policy premiums, the sales commissions -- can be precisely measured in dollars and cents as well.

The fact that product cost directly impacts product value lies at the very heart of how well financial service firms serve their clients. Costs matter. So providing real, honest-to-God, dollars-and-cents value to our clients requires offering our financial services at fair, reasonable, and competitively determined prices. If our clients are to make the best possible choices within their budgets as they seek to protect their assets and property, fully disclosed pricing is essential.

As a result of that unique relationship between cost and value, the vast multitude of American families who have placed their trust in their financial service providers must be applauding Mr. Spitzer and his staff. But since fair and open competition in our system of free-market capitalism puts pressure on prices and profits alike, many, if not most, providers of those services are excoriating these determined regulators.

Much of their criticism has been based on the attorney general's reliance on New York statutes adopted long ago, for rather different purposes. For brokers and fund managers, it was the Martin Act of 1924, a "Blue Sky" law originally designed to prosecute the "bucket shops" that were rife in the early part of the century. For insurance brokers, it was the Donnelly Act of 1893, a "Baby Sherman" antitrust act designed to block collusion and price-fixing.

Even if it has not been used for 100 years, however, a law is a law. Consider our United States Constitution, ratified 217 years ago and still standing today as a monument to our commitment to "protect the general welfare." Mr. Spitzer's aggressive pursuit of the public interest seems entirely appropriate under state law, and wholly consistent with that national commitment as well.

The description of the attorney general as "politically ambitious" may well be accurate. But doubtless most capable state attorneys general are "governor-ambitious," even as most capable journalists are "Pulitzer-ambitious," and scientists "Nobel-laureate-ambitious." Bless them! And when we describe our businessmen and entrepreneurs as ambitious to build firms and create economic value, it's usually meant as a compliment. Mr. Spitzer is entitled to the same treatment.

While the "Spitzer effect" focuses directly on the scandals of the era, it also points to our need to attend to the forces that have driven them. Vast changes have taken place in the structure of the financial services field. Once dominated by a series of free-standing and largely privately held professional firms, it is now dominated by giant business conglomerates whose interests span a variety of wide-ranging services which themselves often entail conflicts -- commercial and investment banking; stock brokerage and mutual funds; insurance and consulting, a list that only scratches the surface.

Of course, the officers and directors of these financial titans have a fiduciary duty to serve the shareholders of their own firms. But they also have a directly conflicting duty to serve another master: the shareholders of the mutual funds they control; the holders of their insurance policies; the customers of their brokerages.

Mr. Spitzer has revealed how badly that balance has been distorted. When the chief executive of one of the nation's largest banks announces his goal of doubling the 7% share of the bank's revenues provided by the asset management group by "cross selling," he sets into motion a chain of events whose outcome is almost foreordained. Managers roll up their sleeves and try to make it happen. Witness this series of e-mails at one firm: "Market timing . . . is very disruptive to the portfolio managers and operations of the fund. (However) your call from the sales side . . . I don't want to turn away $10-$20 million . . . it's in our best interests (increased profitability to the firm)."

In taking constructive action to restore that balance, Mr. Spitzer and his counterparts in other states have been joined by state securities regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Many of the "bad apples" that have betrayed the public trust have been indicted, fined and penalized. But that's not enough. It's the responsibility of the "good apples" that remain to put their own character on the line, beginning with the recognition that the financial services barrel that holds all those apples -- good and bad alike -- is badly in need of repair.

It's high time that our financial leaders acknowledge the mistakes and faults of the recent era and establish "best practices" that preserve, protect, and defend the interests of their customers and clients. But not only to serve them. To serve themselves. Without maintaining its character -- operating with integrity, responsible conduct, and service to others before service to self -- no financial service firm can achieve long-term success.

It will not be easy. As Demosthenes warned us two-and-a-half millennia ago, "Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true." Admitting mistakes requires character; so does introspection; so does changing the status quo; so does courage. But if our financial service leaders who do have character -- and there are many of them -- accept responsibility for what has happened, we can begin to take the necessary steps to restore the nobility of fiduciary duty to its pre-eminent place on our priority list.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of Vanguard's present management.

Speaking solely from my years of experience as a ( salaried, i.e. non-commissioned and therefore NOT a salesman [ in the parlance of the industry, I spent my life entirely on the "buy-side" ] ) professional investment researcher and investment manager, I was sorry to see Elliot Spitzer's fall.

He did A LOT of good as New York's Attorney General by effectively putting an end to many really abusive practices long practiced by the investment bankers, the stockbrokers and far too many mutual funds. It was high time and long, long overdue.

The "high tech" IPO bubble and boondoggle that went on from 1996-1999 was partially enabled by horrific conflicts of interest between underwriters, issuers and corrupt securities analysts. The minority of "honest" people employed in the field were well aware of what was going on as thousands of irresponsible "research" reports were written by "analysts" who were cowed by threats from the investment bankers.

In another case, large mutual fund complexes were routinely allowing fund managers to make after-market-close-purchases by favored clients ( thereby baldly violating their fiduciary obligation to the rest of the mutual fund investors ).

Over the course of my career, I was aware of far too many shady practices that were tolerated with knowing winks. I can't tell you how absolutely thrilling and satisfying it was to see somebody FINALLY expose the thieves for the frauds that they were.

I was brought up to hold a deep suspicion of and an abiding hatred of Wall Street. The vast majority of people employed in that arena cannot be trusted because it is nothing more than a gigantic marketing machine.

This post on Elliot Spitzer and my comments are solely related to this aspect of his career.

 

[xssve]

Lengthy but acceptable - clearly trysail's threat assessment faculty is working, and yet I suspect that if you polled the average American, Nine out of Ten of them will only remember that he dated a hooker.

EO, I'm presuming your Coherantist philosophy means you don't understand the question.