The Values of the World Against the ‘World’ of Values: practical contradictions of
economic theories of ‘welfare’
João Leonardo Medeiros1
‘In our reflecting and reasoning age a man is not worth much who cannot give a
good reason for everything, no matter how bad or how crazy. Everything in the
world that has been done wrong has been done wrong for the very best of
reasons’. G. Hegel
ABSTRACT: This paper tries to disclose the abstract manner orthodox theories of ‘welfare’ conceive social
values (ethics) and the consequences of such subjective treatment of values for theory itself and for praxis.
The interest here relies particularly on the demonstration that the abstract utterance of social values stems
from the admission of determined ontological tenets, which characterise a profoundly conservative
worldview. As the realisation of some of the values considered by orthodox theories of ‘welfare’ (such as the
value of equality) demands a truly transformative praxis, their fulfilment is obstructed a priori. To overcome
this continued frustration and finally realise social values, economists reclaim the State intervention. The
question then is whether the State has the capacity to radically modify social reality.
INTRODUCTION
It is not possible to avoid, suspend or simply ignore ethical questionings in the
everyday affairs of contemporary social life. Whether in religion or in sport practices, in
politics or in the intimacy of private life, in scientific or in artistic activities, everyone
necessarily evaluates, explains and criticises (their own and other people’s) conducts and
the values esteemed or despised in them. Should priests marry? Would it be right to
benefit from the possibilities opened up by human cloning or would it be more prudent to
ban it, due to the social risks involved? How should we discharge our professional duties?
What values should we teach our children in order to enable them to live decently in the
rat race of contemporary life? Should artists renounce the pureness of artistic creation and
capitulate to market demands?
Besides all these interrogations concerned with more practical, let us say ordinary,
aspects of life, an equally extensive list of less immediate ethical questions is presented to
higher forms of consciousness (philosophy, science, religion and the arts) and to lower
ones alike. Considering the higher plane of analysis, which interests us directly here,
questions concerning the origin of values, their autonomous social existence (i.e. their
existence outside subject’s mind) and the relation between different kinds of values
(economic, aesthetic etc.) could be immediately pointed out.
1
Lecturer, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Niterói – Brazil. jlgmedeiros@uol.com.br. I thank
Rodrigo Moerbeck and Branwen Gruffydd Jones for helping me with the translation of this paper into
English.
There are obviously several ways to conceive ethics and the origin of values. Some
deduce from the correct premise that values are transcendent to experience the false
empiricist conclusion that values do not exist at all, precisely because they are not
perceived, neither directly nor indirectly, by human senses. For others, following a rather
fashionable interpretation, values exist as purely subjective objects – as relations between
means and ends individually constructed from personal or cultural experiences. Practices
and ends towards which they are oriented would be, in this sense, idiosyncratic – relative
to one’s own individuality – or common to a given cultural community. In short, values
would be like fingerprints: everyone has their own. It follows that there would exist no
reliable criterion to compare, criticise or discuss conducts and values, no matter how
absurd they seemed. Furthermore, individuals would face no restrictions from changing
one system of values for another in a completely free and pragmatic way. At the most,
limits derived from a social ethics established by ‘consensus’ and from the ‘democratic
values’ presumably inherent in this definition would be admitted.
Since its birth as a discipline within moral philosophy, economic science has
explicitly or implicitly dedicated itself to ethical issues. Consider, for instance, the
relatively few and homogeneous answers given to the pivotal question about the origin of
values. At the level of individual behaviour (individual morality), it is notable that the
attempt to solve this complex problem states the supposedly self-centred nature of every
action – a ‘solution’ often synthesised in the notion of utility.2 In terms of the so-called
social welfare – the branch of Economics concerned with social goals (values) and their
implications for conduct – two positions stand out, each of them involving a broader or
narrower set of values towards which society should be conducted.
The first position, utilitarianism, considers aggregate utility (the direct sum of
individual utilities) the social value par excellence. More recently, the ‘capability
approach’, based on Amartya Sen’s pioneer work, proposes equality of individual liberties
as the main goal of social development.3 There are clear differences between these
positions, but also many convergences. The differences, which could not be treated at the
short space of this paper, demarcate the frontier dividing the various (orthodox) theories of
poverty and inequality.4 The common points are related to the ontological tenets shared by
those conceptions of ‘welfare’, which allow us to face both positions as variants within the
same theoretical tradition (ontology, paradigm, worldview etc.). In precise terms, both
ethical conceptions, as with every orthodox theory, admit two interconnected ontological
2
For utilitarianism individual rationality is oriented towards the objective of maximizing personal utility.
This last concept can be defined in many ways. In its classical version, usually described as hedonist, utility
is defined as the pleasure derived from actions: rational individuals would then look for the maximum of
pleasure over pain (disutility). Another famous version of utilitarianism understands utility in terms of
individual preferences. For further details, see: Callinicos (2000); Sen (1992; 1999).
3
The capability approach, elaborated by Sen, is grounded in John Rawls’ ‘justice as fairness’, but not
identical to it. Cf.: Sen (1992); Rawls (1997).
4
Taking as an example the notion of poverty, it seems easy to understand that it presupposes a conception of
individual and social welfare. That notion requires also the real existence of differences of welfare –
otherwise poverty could not even be conceived.
tenets which entail a particular way of treating values: naturalisation of capital and
empirical realism.
Naturalisation of capital refers to the appraisal of capitalist society as the ultimate
limit of theory and praxis: any theoretical statement that mentions the necessity or even
the simple possibility of radical transformation of society is qualified a priori as
(scientifically) meaningless. Empirical realism designates the ontology restricted to the
domain of immediate experience – the perspective which rejects the real existence of
objects beyond perceptive experience (real objects such as social classes, for instance).5 It
is not difficult to notice, even in this succinct presentation, that these ontological
principles, if considered together, establish that diagnosis and therapies of economic
science are restricted to the scope of individual behaviour. This is so not only because
social structures are admitted as immutable (naturalisation of capital), but also because the
only actually empirical object in the social domain of reality is individual activity itself
(empirical realism or, alternatively, social atomism).6
It is the main purpose of this paper to demonstrate that mainstream Economics is
unable to deal with the relationship between social values and real conditions of
realisation of these values precisely because its ontological foundation restricts scientific
analysis to the sphere of individual activity (in a world of supposedly given structures).
This means that social values – or ‘emancipatory values’, since these values give a
concrete form for the ambitions of human emancipation – are necessarily treated in an
abstract way.7 It is also argued that the abstract definition of values explains much of the
obvious practical insufficiency of policies suggested by economic theories of ‘welfare’. In
this case, the objective is to demonstrate the existence of a continuous (concrete) tension
between the ethical and the ontological principles implied in the orthodox studies of
‘social issues’.
The following sections try to follow the steps above indicated. Firstly, the concrete
tension between the ethics and the ontology presupposed by orthodox theories of welfare –
which underlies their abstract way of conceiving values – is properly characterised. The
second section explores the arid terrain of ethics to defend that the analysis of values
should not be developed apart from the inspection of their ontological conditions of
objectification. It is also argued that the end-result of such forced separation between
ethics and ontology is usually the actual impossibility of realisation of the values
abstractly defined. These problems of objectification, which are nothing but a concrete
expression of the analytical tension between ethics and ontology, are invariably attacked
by political means (i.e. by a constant redefinition of social policies). The last section offers
5
About empirical realism, see Chapter 1 of Bhaskar (1997).
Two methodological (or epistemological) corollaries stem from these ontological tenets: ‘presentism’ (i.e.,
the restriction of social analysis to the analysis of present society) and methodological individualism. The
treatment of these and other questions concerning the ontology of society and its consequences for
knowledge is mainly based on the works of Lukács (1978; 1980) and Bhaskar (2000).
7
In fact, social values are defined abstractly, as if they were categories totally disconnected from praxis and
social reality itself.
6
a critique of such ‘solution’ to the problem of realisation of social values. More precisely,
the capacity of the State to overcome ‘social diseases’ is subjected to ontological scrutiny,
based on a famous Marxian argument.
BETWEEN
THE CONSERVATIVE WORLDVIEW AND THE EMANCIPATORY VALUES:
ECONOMIC SCIENCE IN FACE OF AN INSOLUBLE CONTRADICTION
In a well-known article on the methodology of economic science, the 1976 Nobel
laureate Milton Friedman offered one of the most paradigmatic instances of the manner
economists consider values towards which social order should be conducted:
I venture the judgment […] that currently in the Western world, and especially in the
United States, differences about economic policy among disinterested citizens derive
predominantly from different predictions about the economic consequences of taking
action – differences that in principle can be eliminated by the progress of positive
economics – rather than from fundamental differences in basic values, differences about
which men can ultimately only fight. (Friedman, 1994: 182)
According to the renowned economist, then, differences in ‘basic values’ are
solved by fighting. Fortunately, he assures us, conflict has ceased in the Western world
(particularly in the United States) and values are already defined. It would remain only to
select the adequate policies to ensure the accomplishment of those values. And this
selection would involve not a normative task – regarding values themselves – but a
positive one: the choice or development of the most suitable theory to inform concrete
actions.
Writing under the influence of logical positivism (1953), Friedman could hardly
suspect that positive theories are deeply permeated with normative aspects – as Kuhn and
many others, before and after him, demonstrated. It follows that the selection or
elaboration of theories itself presupposes a previous distinction between ‘basic values’. In
other words, if one admits the premise – almost universally accepted in the philosophy of
science today – that theories always entail an ontology within which not only values, but
also theoretical and methodological limits, criteria for selecting theories, etc., are defined,
then every debate about positive science ultimately unfolds a debate about the ontology
implied. The conclusion is that science cannot evade debates about the values it intends to
objectify at the risk of becoming either void of content or completely unintelligible.
Furthemore, Friedman (as any other orthodox economist) could not suppose that
problems related to the process of objectification of the ‘basic values’ presumably selected
in the Western society could actually originate from a normative-ontological source: i.e.
from the fact that some of the values decided by ‘fighting’ could be internally
contradictory or, otherwise, simply impossible to realise in capitalist society. It is precisely
the incapacity of addressing the relationship of current values with each other and with
social development that brings unity to the various ethical statements worked out (or
merely implied) in the economic analyses of ‘welfare’. Whether considered in the light of
positivism (which regards the talk about values as extra-scientific, pertaining to realms as
unfathomable as Friedman’s ‘fight’) or in the light of idealism/subjectivism, the fact is
that modern Economics rarely makes clear the origin of values its increasingly complex
theories intend to realise. In short, values are uttered in an abstract way, as if they could be
really defined, and their subjective and objective conditions of realisation are not even
examined.
The negligence of Economics regarding the origin of values causes at least two
decisive problems. These problems could be taken here as the ethical aspects of the
already indicated continuous tension between the ethics and the ontology presupposed by
economic theories of ‘welfare’. Firstly, as stated above, economic science often disregards
the possibility that some of the values actually assumed in the present society could be
either unrealisable by its own nature or under the influence of the objectification of
conflicting values. As economic theories of ‘welfare’ not only collect values selectively
(usually by means of implicit criteria), but also offer technical (instrumental) support for
their realisation, it is presumably assumed that every value collected is completely
realisable within the existing social structure. The insufficiency of this assumption can be
immediately pointed out by means of two simple examples. Consider, on the one hand, the
contradiction, typical of capitalist society, between economic and ‘humane’ values and, on
the other, the religious value of resurrection. The former case represents a situation in
which the realisation of some values (the ‘humane’ values) is thwarted by the realisation
of others (those relating to capitalist production); the latter refers to a socially legitimate
value that influences the behaviour of a considerable number of human beings, but which
cannot be realised in principle (the resurrection).
The second problem caused by the negligence of Economics towards the origin of
values is closely related to the ontological principle of naturalisation of capital. As
Economics does not take seriously the historical transitivity of capitalism, it misses the
fact that transforming society is precisely the condition of realisation of many social
values (among them equality, as described in ‘welfare’ formulations). Now if the concrete
actions intended to objectify ends (values) possibly realisable by means of transformative
practice are considered exclusively on the basis of immediate possibilities, ends (values)
become unrealisable a priori. And this is the way the narrowing of practice involved in the
anti-realistic banning of social transformation (i.e. the naturalisation of capital) is turned
into a constriction of ethics to the limits of the so-called possible outcomes. An extremely
representative instance of this narrowing of ethics is given in the work of Sen, who is
undoubtedly one of the economists most concerned with the normative basis of economic
science.8
The starting point of Sen’s analysis is the value of equality, which can be
conceived in terms of different variables: income, utility, rights, ‘opportunities’, individual
liberties etc. From each way of understanding equality there can follow, at least, one
8
It is not possible, of course, to reproduce in detail the prolix intervention of Sen within the limits of this
short paper. The following description will therefore just focus on the ethical aspects of his work which are
indispensable for maintaining the present argument.
egalitarian theory and, according to Sen, the objective basis for this plurality lies in the
diversity inherent in human nature: ‘It is precisely because of such diversity that the
insistence on egalitarianism in one field requires the rejection of egalitarianism in another’
(Sen, 1992: xi). In referring to the distinctive characteristics of human beings, Sen
provides a glimpse of a remarkable (rarely explicitly stated) aspect of his analyses, which
is also present in the ethical theories he criticises (utilitarianism, rawlsianism and
libertarianism): their theoretical and practical limits are those posited by the present social
order. As Sen puts it:
Human beings are thoroughly diverse. We differ from each other not only in external
characteristics (e.g. in inherited fortunes, in the natural and social environment in which
we live), but also in our personal characteristics (e.g. age, sex, proneness to illness,
physical and mental abilities). The assessment of the claims of equality has to come to
terms with the existence of pervasive human diversity. (ibid.: 1)
It is quite astonishing to observe how naturally Sen combines irreducible personal
characteristics (genotypical and phenotypical particularities) with the influence of social
development upon individuals. It is quite astonishing to note how naturally Sen
indiscriminately refers to all of them as ‘diversity of human beings’, as if the diversity
among these diversities were entirely irrelevant. If the influence of social development on
individuals’ life and truly individual singularities are considered on an equal footing, then
the existence of social characteristics – such as classes – is naturalised. It follows from this
that the critique of any distinction inherited from history (for example, the distinction
between slaves and free-men) should receive the same status as any attack on human
diversity (such as Nazism and racism).
The naturalisation of historical differences in individual condition, which is only
hinted at in the passage above, becomes explicit when Sen presents his own conception of
‘justice as fairness’ – the so-called ‘capability approach’.9 In this approach Sen takes
equality as the chief social value – the basis for ethics and justice – and defines it in terms
of individual liberties. This last concept is described as the capacity of each individual to
actualise values privately chosen. In Sen’s terms: ‘A person’s capability to achieve
functionings that he or she has reason to value provides a general approach to the
evaluation of social arrangements, and this yields a particular way of viewing the
assessment of equality and inequality’. (ibid.: 4-5) So the ‘good or fair society’, for Sen,
would be a society in which individuals would have the same capability of freely choosing
the life the wanted to live. And the correct individual and collective actions would be
those that bring the ‘good and fair society’ into reality.
The whole problem with Sen’s justice as fairness is that he does never (in fact,
could never) take into account the necessity, or even the possibility, of transforming social
structures in order to actualise libertarian aspirations. On the contrary, to put it briefly, Sen
seeks to combine a libertarian ethics with a deeply conservative ontology. It is not difficult
to grasp the inevitable result of this attempt: the apparently unconditional defence of
9
See Rawls (1997) and Sen (1992; 1999).
individual liberties is relegated to a secondary position, making clear that the only thing
really unconditional in Sen’s ethics is social reproduction itself. An accurate
demonstration of this primacy of naturalisation of capital over libertarian ethics would
require a closer inspection of Sen’s writings. However, the clarity of Sen’s radical promarket manifestos seems to dispense not only this close inspection but also further
comments.
The ability of the market mechanism to contribute to high economic growth and to overall
economic progress has been widely – and rightly – acknowledged in the contemporary
development literature. But it would be a mistake to understand the place of the market
mechanism only in derivative terms. As Adam Smith noted, freedom of exchange and
transaction is itself part and parcel of the basic liberties that people have reason to value. §
To be generically against markets would be almost as odd as being generically against
conversations between people […]. The freedom to exchange words, or goods, or gifts
does not need defensive justification in terms of their favorable but distant effects; they are
part of the way human beings in society live and interact with each other (unless stopped
by regulation or fiat). (Sen, 1999: 6)
Even if such rights [individual rights to undertake transactions and exchange] are not
accepted as being inviolable [...], it can still be argued that there is some social loss
involved in denying people the right to interact economically with each other. If it so
happens that the effects of such transactions are so bad for others that this prima facie
presumption in favour of allowing people to transact as they like may be sensibly
restricted, there is still something directly lost in imposing this restriction (even if it is
outweighed by the alternative loss of the indirect effects of these transactions on others)
[sic] (ibid.: 26). [Italics added in both passages.]
It is worth resuming the main line of argument by emphasising that the abstract
utterance of values obstructs the possibility of coming up with a scientific investigation of
the objective and subjective conditions required for their objectification. This applies both
to the case in which values are stated in an idealist and arbitrary manner and to the case in
which values are uncritically picked up from everyday experience. In relation to this last
possibility, it should be argued that the fact that society cherishes its own values does not
necessarily imply that these values are realisable at any level. There is, rather, a variety of
possibilities regarding the realisation of the values prevalent in a certain stage of social
development: (1) values can be directly realised through daily practices; (2) the realisation
of some values may cancel out the realisation of other values; (3) values can be actually
unrealisable in themselves (as in the example of resurrection); (4) the realisation of some
values can presuppose transforming social structures.
Considering now the last situation, it should be stressed that the negligence of
Economics regarding the study of the genesis of values, and its simultaneous acquiescence
to an ontology which naturalises the existing social structures, produces the
insurmountable tension between ethics and ontology in question. In general, frustration is
what necessarily follows the attempt to actualise values unrealisable under a certain stage
of social development by means of reproductive practices. And this is exactly the reason
for the failure of all efforts to universalise ‘welfare’ (individual liberties, opportunities,
income and consumption patterns, utilities etc) within capitalist society – which is the
most advanced form of class or ‘non-universal’ society. It could even be suggested that
this failure represents the practical manifestation of the contradiction between values
(ends) and practices involved in those attempts.
The insufficiency of economic policies designed to ‘attack’ poverty and inequality
can be seen as an instance of the internal contradiction between the will of eliminating
those social diseases and the conservative character of the policies designed for this
purpose. It does not seem, however, that economists are conscious of the insolvable
character of this contradiction. After all, in spite of the daily demonstrations of the internal
antagonism between the yearnings for universalising ‘welfare’ (that is, for equality) and
capitalist society, Economics still relies on a political solution for the problem. Actually,
this is the only possible way of addressing the issue if naturalisation of capital is assumed
as a departing point. It means that orthodox economists could only suggest a kind of
political management – led by the government and the ‘democratic organisations of civil
society’ – of the tension between the social values entailed in their theories of ‘welfare’
and the conservative ontology which underlies all their theoretical conceptions.
The logic implied in this line of reasoning can be thus summarised as follows.
Firstly, it is assumed that the social order ruled by capital constitutes the utmost limit to
practical and theoretical possibilities. It is admitted, however, that such social form
exposes an increasing number of people to unacceptable conditions of life and work. This
alarming spread of poverty demands a rationalisation from all levels of consciousness,
including the scientific one. Scientific consciousness reacts in two ways: cathartically
denouncing the ‘shameful contemporary social tragedy’ in several studies and statistics
and/or simply proclaiming the universal values of solidarity, equality, liberty etc. Finally,
the ‘democratic institutions of civil society’ are called on to actualise such values. It goes
without saying that the more settled is the opinion that the existing social order is
insuperable, the more cathartic are the studies on poverty and inequality, on the one hand,
and the blinder is the reliance on the placebo of politics as a substitute for social
transformation, on the other.
The following sections try to demonstrate, in a twofold abstract argument, the
absurdity of regarding politics as the means to realise those social values admitted in
Economic theories of ‘welfare’. The first moment involves a cautious incursion into the
arduous domain of ethics, to try and point out the ontological connection between values
and the practices of which they are values. It also tries to expose the consequent
insufficiency of any ethical theory that misses this ontological connection. The second
step is nothing but an explanatory critique, inspired in Marx’s arguments, of the political
solution for social diseases.
VALUES: SUBJECTIVE OBJECTIVITIES AND OBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVITIES
It should be emphasised that there is no ambition of advancing the introduction to a
realist ethics within the short space of this section, inasmuch as the debate on this issue is
certainly still in its infancy. It suffices to defend here the existence of a concrete
relationship between the ontology of social being and ethics. In other words, it is enough
to demonstrate that, as far as values have an objective, ontological (social) existence, they
cannot be considered in an entirely abstract (reified or subjective) manner. In fact, it is
only when values are apprehended in an abstract way, instead of being derived from the
ontological analysis of social being, that ethics can be totally ‘out of phase’ with ontology.
This is precisely what happens, for instance, in the particular tension between the system
of values and the worldview implied in economic theories of ‘welfare’.
The nexus between the ontology of social being and ethics becomes evident in the
analysis of the prototypic form of human activity: abstractly conceived labour,10 i.e. the
transformation of reality intended to produce useful objects for the satisfaction of human
needs and desires. Even in this general and abstract conception of labour, three
characteristics of all kinds of genuinely human practice can be readily identified. In the
first place, human practice is always directed to the objectification of an end ideally
defined: in a single word, human practice is teleological or intentional. Second, any human
act presupposes already existing objects and relations – materials, techniques, tools,
theories etc. – through and with which the end is achieved. It means that human activity
always involves a sort of concrete intervention in and with these objects and relations
which intends to create a result that would not occur otherwise. Lastly, human activity is
characterised by a multiple choice between alternatives, expressed in the selection of
objectives, instruments and materials, and of the methods adopted to realise selected ends
with selected materials and instruments.
This last immanent feature of human practice is particularly significant for our
purposes since it is immediately related to the valuation of things and practices
themselves. The choice between alternatives, in any domain of human life, always entails
a judgement concerning what is a value in itself (the selected ends, objectives, purposes
etc.) and concerning the possible forms of realising these values (for instance, a judgement
between the right and wrong way of objectifying them). And this is exactly the key to
understanding that values are always intrinsically connected with human practices. In
order to properly demonstrate this connection we should continue analysing the
prototypical type of human activity: abstractly conceived labour.
It is important to recall at this point that, even in the most simple kinds of labour,
use-values come out as constitutive elements of labour exactly as described above: first, as
the end (objective) towards which labour is directed; second, and consequently, as the
practice’s internal evaluative criterion. Considering initially use-values as objectives
(ends) of labour, even a succinct inspection of this activity reveals that its general purpose
is always the production of suitable things for satisfying human needs – products. The fact
10
It should be noted that the word ‘labour’ is taken here from the English edition of Lukács’ Ontology of
Social Being as the translation of the German word ‘Arbeit’. It is opportune to observe that the fragmentary
English edition of Lukács’ Zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins (1984; 1986) represents a
considerable obstacle to its worldwide diffusion. Actually, just three chapters out of ten were published in
English (two of which are employed in this article). In addition to that, it should be mentioned that the
translation has various shortcomings.
that products are said to be use-values is a clear recognition that production is
synonymous with judgment of objects (products themselves) regarding their capacity of
satisfying human needs. In other words, production necessarily involves the selection
between what is useful (a value) or not to satisfy a determined concrete necessity.
By choosing a use-value and rendering it objective through labour, human beings
openly express their creative potential, on the one hand, and provide a concrete and
objective existence to their own needs and desires, on the other. Therefore, the objectivity
of products contains in it the essence of use-values, which is also the essence of every
value: the expression and realisation of the peculiarity of mankind and of its level of
development. This transcendental and essential character of values is indicated by Marx in
his analysis of wealth, a category employed to denote the universality of values. In his
words:
It [i.e. wealth] appears in all forms in the shape of a thing, be it an object or be it a relation
mediated through the object, which is external and accidental to the individual. In fact,
however, when the limited bourgeois form is stripped away, what is wealth other than the
universality of individual needs, capacities, pleasures, productive forces etc., created
through universal exchange? The full development of human mastery over the forces of
nature, those of so-called nature as well as of humanity’s own nature? The absolute
working-out of his creative potentialities, with no presupposition other than the previous
historic development, which makes this totality of development, i.e. the development of all
human powers as such the end in itself, not as measured on a predetermined yardstick?
Where he does not reproduce himself in one specificity, but produces his totality? Strives
not to remain something he has become, but is in the absolute movement of becoming?
(Marx, 1987: 447)
In brief, the objectification of specifically human needs and of the creative
potential of human beings constitutes the objective foundation of every value (Lukács,
1980:86). This objective character of values is of paramount importance here not only for
its own content, but also because every valuation (value judgement) that emerge in and
through human practice is objectively based upon them.11 These valuations are, in a more
or less immediate way, referred to the alternative choices that characterise practices
themselves. For example, if the selected choices actually lead to the objectification of the
projected ends (i.e. of the idealised values), they are said to be correct, perfect, adequate
etc. It follows from this that, in order to leave the form of ‘simple’ project and acquire a
real form, values must react back on the positing subject as a criterion of evaluation of
her/his own activity. The conclusion is that human practice is endowed with a device of
internal conditioning: the influence of posited values on the positing subject. In the
following passage Lukács not only establishes the objectivity of values, but also describes
this internal relation between values and practices:
[The value] is a social relation between end, means and individual, and it is as such that it
possesses a social being. Naturally this being also contains an element of possibility, since
in itself it only determines the room for manoeuvre between concrete alternatives, their
social and individual content, the directions of resolution of the questions they involve.
11
Considering the restricted limits of the present argument, it seems enough to continue analysing those
values directly referred to the prototypical modality of human practice – labour – avoiding then the
extension to more complex values, such as those related to artistic activities.
The development of this implicit being-in-itself, its growth into a genuine being-for-itself,
value attains in the acts that fulfil it. But it is characteristic for the ontological situation we
are faced with here that this realisation that is indispensable for the ultimate reality of
value remains indissolubly linked to value itself. It is value that gives its realisation its
specific determinations, and not the other way round. (Lukács, 1980: 95)
It is nevertheless necessary to observe that the objectivity of values – which, in the
case of use-values, ultimately receive the corporeal form of products –, emerges as the end
(objective, purpose etc.) of practice in an idealised form (i.e. ex ante). And it is in this
idealised form that objectively founded values establish the criterion for judging the
adequateness of all alternatives involved in the concerned practices. Now two remarks
about this dialectical relationship between the objective character of values and their
subjective primary form must be readily made. It is important to stress, firstly, that the fact
that values appear initially in an idealised (projected, subjective) form does not make it
subjective in essence. On the contrary, this subjective primary form just denotes the
mainly social (i.e. non-individual) character of values: values posited by individuals in a
certain stage of social development are always conditioned by previous alternatives, by
already objectified values, by past valuations etc. In different terms, values are objective
social structures founded in alternative practices of the past, which condition alternatives
of the present and of the future. Later in this same section, this social character of values
will be resumed.
The second remark about the relationship between the objective character of values
and their idealised primary form refers to the possible misinterpretation of this dialectical
unity. Considering the process of internal conditioning of practice, it is not surprising that
many objectively founded valuations usually acquire the spectral appearance of pure
subjectivities, especially when the connection between the positing of ends and the
process by means of which it is objectified is complexly mediated. Take, as an illustration,
the modes of production in which the intellectual work and its execution are severed. In
these cases the process of internal conditioning, expressed in a set of valuations about the
‘operational’ work, appears to workers as the simple manifestation of an external will.
Thus values have both an objective and subjective character: they are, on the one
hand, subjective objectivities and, on the other, objective subjectivities. As subjective
objectivities, however they have been exteriorised (either as things or social relations),
values are the expression of human needs and of their creative potentials. As objective
subjectivities, values are the criteria that guide, regulate and determine praxis. This
indissoluble unity of objectivity and subjectivity, which characterises the most different
values settled in social life, is what establishes the equally indissoluble unity between the
spheres of ethics and of the ontology of social being. And this last dialectical unity
becomes even clearer when one takes into account that individual practices do not occur in
isolation, but instead always presuppose and are conditioned by social structures.
Actually, as Bhaskar has demonstrated, social structures precede individual activity
not only chronologically but also logically. As he has argued (in 2000: 35pp., for
instance), the realm of human activity and the realm of social structures are, on the one
hand, ontologically distinct and, on the other, internally related. For if individual practices
are always conditioned by existing social structures, these structures always result – as
syntheses – from the effects of individual practices. Human activity, in brief, entails
structures which are reproduced or transformed by this same activity, whether or not
individuals are conscious of this. It can be affirmed, hence, that there is an ‘ontological
hiatus’ between individual practice and its social significance, which is accurately
characterised in Bhaskar’s analogy: ‘we do not suppose that the reason why garbage is
collected is necessarily the garbage collector’s reason for collecting it’ (ibid.: 36).
With this internal relationship of human activity and society in mind, it is possible
to overcome a possible source of ambiguity and misunderstanding in the analysis of
values. Even when values are set straightforwardly by individual practice – as in the case
of simple labour or in the making of a work of art – its unequivocal social content shows
up, for example, in the definition of ends. Subjects, no matter how independent or
powerful they might be, can never set in an entirely autonomous and unrestricted way
their objectives, aspirations and needs – i.e., the values posited in their praxis. Rather,
human objectives, aspirations and needs, including the most selfish and self-centred, are
always socially determined and transformed by social development. Lukács reminds us, at
this point, that individualism itself stems from social development, from the progress of
productive forces: ‘for the primitive man, exclusion from his society still amounts to a
sentence of death. The increasing sociability of human life however arouses in many
individuals the illusion of a general independence from society, a kind of existence as an
isolated atom’. (Lukács, 1978: 78)
Moreover, given the end (the value) posited, the subjective appraisal of the practice
intended to accomplish it – if it is correct or not, useful or not, based on a true or false
theory etc. – has equally a conspicuous social content. This is so not only because the
conditions required for the realisation of values are always socially determined, but also
because some of the selected alternatives, though individually chosen, acquire the social
status of model, of socially correct or exemplar practice. In the following passage, Lukács
depicts this becoming social (structural) of those answers given in alternative practice
(values):
Alternatives are the indelible foundations for specifically human social practice, and only
by abstraction, never in reality, can they be divorced from individual decision. The
significance of such alternatives for social being, however, depends on value, or better, on
the complex of real possibilities at the time of reacting practically to the problem of a
socio-historical hic et nunc. Thus the decisions that realise these real possibilities in their
purest form – whether affirmatively or negatively – attain a positive or negative model
character appropriate to the level of development of the time. […] The mythical heroes are
those who responded to the alternatives of tribal life (culminating in values) at such a level
of example that this response has come to be of lasting social importance, in an exemplary
way (positively or negatively) for the life of the tribe and its reproduction, and has thus
become a component part of this reproduction process in both its change and its selfmaintenance. (Lukács, 1980: 95-96)
Now the social character of human needs and aspirations and of the subjective
valuations of practices seems to evidence that values consolidate as social structures. Like
any other social structure, values result from the activity of singular individuals and react
back on them, enabling or restricting their practices. Like any other social structure, values
are antecedent to the human acts they condition: objectives, needs, criteria, moral
judgements, subjective appraisals etc. appears to individuals as social objectivities, as
something readily made. Like any other social structure, values are reproduced or
transformed by human activity. Like any other social structure, values integrate the totality
of social being and, consequently, interact not only with this totality, but also with all
other singular complexes that compose it. Like any other social structure, the complex of
values dynamically changes, transforming it own content and its relation to the other
objects of society.
It is important to emphasise that values, as social structures, result from social
development, i.e. that the true source of the genesis of values is ‘the continuous structural
change in social being itself’ (ibid.: 94). But it should be also observed that the social
complex of values plays a chief role in the development of social being, simply because
the genesis of values is intimately related to the genesis of everything that is new in social
being. A value is basically something (a need, a desire etc.) human beings inscribe or plan
to inscribe in the (natural and social) world. Whenever a value rises, whenever it is
recognised as something to be objectified, whenever it functions as a criterion of the good,
beautiful, correct etc., then human beings either create something really new or (at least)
develop the ambition (alternative) to create it. In any case a new objectivity – the posited
value itself – emerges, influencing the course of social life.
When the posited value emerges in conditions that allow its immediate
objectification, what is simply objectivity (potential reality) becomes reality. But even
when the conditions of objectification are absent important transformations in social being
can follow, since men can strive exactly to create them (this is what happens in the case of
‘emancipatory values’, such as equality). Combining this argument with the previous
demonstration that values are social structures, one can agree with Lukács’ conclusion that
values are ‘moving and moved components of overall social development’ (ibid.: 97). One
can also agree that this means that the analysis of the emergence, reproduction and
transformation of values entails the investigation of social reality, of its complex elements
and structures, of the historicity of all its constituent parts, of the changes in human
everyday practices etc. To analyse values is to analyse their genesis from social being and
their development in social being, including all the heterogeneities and contradictions
comprised in these processes.12
With this last remark, the main line of argumentation can be resumed by
reasserting that economic theories of ‘welfare’ are unable to discover the real conditions
of objectification of social values because the ontological analysis of social structures is
12
‘This dialectical unity of socially objective existence and objectively founded value relation is rooted in
the fact that all these objectives, relationships, process, etc., although they certainly maintain themselves and
operate independent of the intentions of the individual human acts in which they are embodied, nevertheless
only arise as the realisation of these intentions, and can only develop further by way of their reaction back on
further individual human acts’. (Lukács, 1978: 76)
eliminated a priori from their theoretical agenda. As we have seen in the introduction, this
is a result of the two ontological tenets assumed in economic theoretical activity:
naturalisation of capital and empirical realism. As it was also said, the abstract utterance of
values is the ‘ethical part’ of the permanent tension between conservative ontology and
emancipatory ethics which can be perceived in most Economics’ ‘social analysis’ and in
the corresponding ‘social policies’. Before passing to the concluding section, in which the
reaction of Economics in face of this tension is considered, it is important to emphasise at
least one aspect of the general development of values, as far as it makes clear the main
theoretical deficiency of the idealist ethics implied in Economics: the possible
incongruence between the social existence of values and the conditions for their actual
realisation.
Recall here that some values may be unrealisable by nature, while others may fail
to come into being due to the objectification of conflicting values. Concentrating on this
last case, the point is to stress the contingent or historically determined character of the
value-conflict itself.13 Conflicting values in a determined social order can be perfectly
compatible or even complementary in another. This applies, for instance, to the
contradiction between the realisation of economic values and the realisation of truly
egalitarian aspirations, at work in capitalism as well as in any class-structured society.
It is the merit of Marx to have accurately shown, in several works, how the
division of society in classes, castes etc. establishes an inequality in the domain of
production and reproduction of human life, from which stems the objective conditions for
the emergence of equality as a legitimate social value and the main obstacle for its
realisation (precisely the class, caste etc. division). In fact, as he and Engels pointed out in
The German Ideology, the very origin of social classes is directly related to the actual
historical limitations in the material conditions necessary to the universal emancipation of
human beings. In their words:
people won freedom for themselves each time to the extent that was dictated and permitted
not by their ideal of man, but by the existing productive forces. All emancipation carried
through hitherto has been based, however, on restricted productive forces. The production
which these productive forces could provide was insufficient for the whole of society and
made development possible only if some persons satisfied their needs at the expense of
others, and therefore some – the minority – obtained the monopoly of development, while
others – the majority – owing to the constant struggle to satisfy their most essential needs,
were for the time being (i.e., until the creation of new revolutionary productive forces)
excluded from any development. Thus, society has hitherto always developed within the
framework of a contradiction – in antiquity the contradiction between free men and slaves,
in the Middle Ages that between nobility and serfs, in modern times that between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat. (Marx & Engels, 1980: 291-292)
Marx also shows the way capitalist development carries out the historical and
revolutionary task of removing the material barriers that objectively prevented the
emancipation of all human beings. The author calls attention, however, to the fact that the
class nature of capitalist production not only maintains, but even reinforces the fissure that
13
The unrealisable nature of some ends can be historically contingent too. Icarus, for instance, tragically
discovered that a realised end today was unrealisable at that stage of social development: to fly.
renders incompatible the realisation of economic values and the fulfilment of aspirations
for social equality (universal emancipation). That is the reason why, in Marx’s view, the
first concrete step towards the objectification of equality is the abolition of those social
structures which are the original source of its permanent frustration, namely, social
classes. Only by eliminating classes (or, alternatively, overcoming the production ruled by
capital) could social equality be achieved in a real and not only formal sense. This means
that practices associated with the realisation of equality must be radically transformative,
instead of being restricted to the scope of capitalist social relations.14
This ontological treatment of values and of their relation with social structures and
human activity, which is easily identifiable in Marx’s works, contrasts with the way values
appear in orthodox theories of ‘welfare’. By simply pulling values out of the immense hat
of everyday life straight into the analysis of ‘social welfare’, Economic theories not only
separate ethics and ontology, but also turn values into moral principles. More formally, if
values meant to guide all instances of individual and social practices towards the
achievement of the collective welfare are understood in a reified (subjectivist or spectral)
manner; if the ontological domain of ethics is constituted by abstract or subjective objects
(values) that emerge from nowhere to condition human practices, then ethics is replaced
with pure morality (or moralism).
It is not unreasonable to suppose that the ontological basis of this narrowing of
ethics lies in the contradictory nature of values itself: as social structures resulting from
ends individually posited, values appear to singular individuals as external directives,
independent of their activity. Anyway, what should be stressed is that by expressing
values in this way – as moral precepts dissociated from social development – Economics
runs into the problem of conditions of realisation whenever a contradiction between
distinct value systems or an incompatibility between socially legitimate values and the
current social structures appear. In the latter case, the problem is even more acute, as
orthodox economic theories combine this abstractly conceived ethics with a conservative
ontology, thus ‘eliminating’ in principle any actually transformative practice. Values
concretely realisable (such as equality) through the overcoming of current social structures
(the elimination of social classes) are transformed into utopian statements: things
collectively aspired, but always frustrated in practice.
With this attitude, orthodox economics cannot avoid the reaction of the values of
the world against their idealised conception of the ‘world’ of values. If the obstacle to the
realisation of determined values is associated with modifiable structures of the world, as in
the case of equality, either practices are directed to the dissolution of these structures or
14
This is the essence of Callinicos’ critique of the contemporary egalitarian liberalism set forth in the
introduction of one of his recent works: ‘[…] my concern is to consider the best contemporary philosophical
work on equality, and to show that taking its political implications seriously would require a dramatic
transformation of the present social and economic order. If there is anything distinctively Marxist about this
book, it lies on the contradiction it seeks to expose between the normative claims of egalitarian liberalism,
which does not directly challenge capitalist institutions, and the continued existence of these institutions’.
(Callinicos, 2001: 19)
the utterance of those values will necessarily oscillate between voluntarism and pure and
simple impudence (be it conscious or not) – both identically innocuous, of course. It
would not be possible to pretend, nevertheless, that any rational conception, especially a
scientific theory, could be maintained and reproduced without a plausible ‘solution’ to its
own internal contradictions, even if this ‘solution’ is as contradictory as the original
source of problems. Parodying Hegel, in our reflecting and reasoning age the person
makes no progress who cannot give a good reason for the insufficiencies of reason. In the
case of economic theories of ‘welfare’, reason operates by transforming the permanent
tension between conservative ontology and emancipatory ethics into a political issue. The
next and concluding section delineates the main elements of an ontological critique of the
hope that State action could finally abolish social diseases and fulfil emancipatory values.
THE STATE AGAINST ITS OWN NATURE: THE LIMITS OF POLITICAL REASON
Perhaps we should start this concluding section by recapitulating the chief
moments of the ontological critique of economic theories of ‘welfare’ developed
throughout this paper. It was firstly argued that the common point of departure of the
various economic theories of ‘welfare’, mainly in their most orthodox versions, is the
premise that the present stage of social development (capitalism) cannot or should not be
overcome. Despite this naturalisation of capital, economic theories usually accept the
empirical fact that, in this social form, a considerable share of the world population
actually lives and works in precarious conditions, while a minority enjoys almost
unrestrictedly the fantastic material wealth produced. Theoretical reason reacts to this
admittedly unfair situation in a two-fold attitude: by evidencing its desire to eliminate it
(or, at least, reduce it) through the utterance of emancipatory values and by the attempt to
explain the occurrence of ‘social diseases’. Given the conceptual (ontological) embargo on
the possibility of questioning the structural basis of society, what follows is a process of
blaming ‘democratic institutions’ for the current state of affairs. The final and practical
stance of this way of dealing with ‘social diseases’ is the elaboration of a plan to reform
the State (and the so-called organisations of civil society), preparing it for a solidary
‘attack’ against poverty and inequality.
The question at stake now is whether the State can or cannot comply with the
requests which represent the hopes of emancipation reposed in it. In other words, is the
State capable of realising values incompatible with the social order itself?
Going straight to the point, this section tries to demonstrate that this blind faith on
the capacity of the State to compensate the production of ‘social diseases’ by the dynamic
operation of capitalist society does not take into account the contradictory nature of the
State nor the internal limits to its possibility of intervention. To do so, it is worth resuming
the key elements of Marx’s still up-to-date critique to the ‘politicist’ register of the XIX
century bourgeois analysis of pauperism, introduced in one of his most famous early
papers.15 ‘Politicist’ register refers here to the attempt to ‘attack’ poverty, hunger,
inequality etc. by means of the exercise of political reason or understanding, i.e. by
reforms on the administrative structure of the State. As Marx says (1994: 107), political
understanding (reason) is ‘political understanding [reason] precisely because it thinks
within the confines of politics’. In this perspective, hence, poverty and associated
phenomena are always interpreted as consequences of the inefficacy of the policies
adopted by the public administration. Or, in a slightly more radical version, ‘social
diseases’ are seen as a product of a particular form of the State, which should be replaced
with a different form, presumably more efficient.16 In Marx’s terms:
From the political standpoint, the State and the structure of society are not two different
things. The State is the structure of society. Insofar as the State admits the existence of
social defects, it seeks their causes either in natural laws, which no human power can
command, or in private life, which is independent of the State, or in the unsuitableness of
the administration, which is dependent on it. […]
Finally, all States seek the cause [of pauperism] in accidental or intentional failings of the
administration, and therefore resort to administrative measures to alleviate the
administrative defects. Why? Precisely because the administration is the organising
activity of the State. (ibid.: 106)
Escape from political reason, due to its limited character, all the antagonisms
inherent in the structure of society, including that which underlies the inevitable
impotence of the State in exercising the legitimate will of putting an end to ‘social
problems’ – i.e. the will of realising emancipatory values. Regarding this impotence, Marx
argues that, given the contradictory nature of the State, it cannot eliminate the conflict
between the good will of administration and its means and powers to objectify it without
eliminating itself. The raison d’être of politics, of the State, lies in the restriction of
collective will by the free exercise of private will, which is present in every class
(estranged or alienated) society. Precisely because, in class societies, private interests
conflict with collective interests, a social form of existence – the State – emerges,
sheltering and giving a concrete body to the latter. The conclusion is that the State is not
able to eliminate the insuperable antagonisms immanent to private life, since it would
require an elimination of this contradictory private life that makes the State a necessary
social form. Let me reproduce, at this point, the entire passage in which these arguments
are exposed by Marx himself:
[The State] is based on this contradiction between public and private life, on the
contradiction between universal interests and particular interests. The administration
therefore must limit itself to a formal and negative activity, for precisely where civil life
and its work begin, there the power of the administration ends. In fact, in face of the
15
The short article of 1884, ‘Critical Marginal Notes on the Article “The King of Prussia and Social Reform.
By a Prussian”’, is considered by many authors as a representation of a decisive inflexion of Marx’s thought
and life: it expresses his rupture with a ‘radical democratic’ position and the explicit admission of
communism. Marx offers in this paper a critique of the social-democrat A. Ruge’s analysis of German
pauperism, in which his conception of politics – lately described as a negative conception – is made clear.
16
‘Wherever there are political parties, they all find the basis of every evil in the fact that instead of them,
the opposition is at the controls. Even radical and revolutionary politicians seek the basis of evil not in the
essence of the State, but rather in a certain form of State, which they want to replace with another form of
State’. (Marx, 1994: 105)
consequences which arise out of the unsocial nature of this civil life, this private property,
this commerce, this industry, this mutual plundering of the various civil circles – in face of
these consequences impotence is the natural law of the administration. For this disunion,
this baseness, this slavery of civil society is the natural basis on which the modern State
rests, just as the civil society of slavery was the natural foundation on which the ancient
State rested. […] If the modern State wanted to overcome the powerlessness of its
administration, it would have to do away with present private life. If it wanted to abolish
private life, it would have to abolish itself, for it exists only in contrast to private life. No
living thing, however, believes the deficiencies of its existence are grounded in the
principle of its life, in the essence of its life, but rather in circumstances external to its life.
Suicide is contrary to nature. (ibid.)
There is nothing less surprising, thus, than the fact that Economics always resort to
political rationality as solution to those conflicts and problems produced by the
irrationality of capitalist society – the only social form seriously considered in economic
analyses. This is the way economic science adjusts, in practice, the determinations of its
original class affiliation (to capital) with the desire of abolishing, or at least diminishing,
the human tragedies tolerated by the system up to extremely elastic limits. Actually,
nothing is more representative of this combination of conservatism and ‘social sentiment’
than the eternal hesitation of mainstream Economics in respect to the role played by the
State.
Orthodox Economics is mainly concerned with the behaviour of singular
individuals taken in isolation, that is, with the analysis of the defence of private interests,
of the exercise of private ‘liberties’ etc. The objective, as well known, is to find out the
more ‘efficient’ individual practices or, alternatively, those practices that ‘maximise’ the
individual realisation of values. This uncritical instrumentalisation of private interests,
insensible as it is to the negative social effects possibly involved, could not but bring with
it, on the one hand, a recognition of the State as the social domain in which collective
interests are aggregated, expressed and protected. It could not but bring with it, on the
other hand, an aversion to the interferences of the political sphere over the private domain.
As Marx said in a different context: ‘They grumble about the government whenever it
limits freedom, while demanding of the government that it prevent the inevitable
consequences of this freedom’ (ibid.: 107).
It seems clear, then, that the notion of politics as social panacea is just an instance
of the numerous forms of consciousness simultaneously illusory and necessary. Illusory
because it represents uncritically in thought relations that are false in themselves;
necessary because its continuous reproduction as a form of consciousness is firmly
embedded in the demands of social reproduction. In fact, when Economics reclaims the
solidary action of the State to overcome the permanent tension between emancipatory
ethics and conservative ontology, it dresses with scientific clothes a social dynamics
innocuous by its own nature, but in any sense useless: war on poverty, inequality,
exclusion etc. is frequently declared; complex plans to civilise capitalism are elaborated;
the plans are implemented; few results are observed; a cathartic public admission of the
failure of past plans follows, together with the announcement of new plans, based on new
diagnosis and therapies; these new plans are tested; no qualitative change is noted once
again etc. etc. etc.
In every turn of this social dynamic, public, semi-public and private institutions
appear and disappear, scientific consciousness is employed (in good jobs!) and a ‘sort of
social solidarity, founded on the feeling of compassion for the poor, is articulated’.
(Duayer & Medeiros, 2003: 258) And these are the only effective achievements of the
unrealisable ‘solutions’ inspired on conceptions that never allude (and could not really
allude) to the causes of pauperism, inequality, misery, hunger, etc. As the true solutions
(with no quotes) to any problem, from fixing a chair to eradicating poverty, depend (in
variable levels, of course) on the correct knowledge of the causal relations involved, the
dream of shaping up a genuinely human society, a really universal one, is postponed.
There remains only a cruel impudence, or impotent conformism, that provides the
subjective fuel to move the social dynamic described above and perpetuate the illogical
logic, conservative to its roots, implicit in orthodox economic theories of ‘welfare’. Every
word employed by Forrester in the following passage applies to this illogical logic, and the
author sets the same critical tone adopted in this paper:
A solution? Maybe there is not one. Does it mean that we should not try to elucidate what
scandalises and understand what we have been living? Can we not at least conquer this
dignity? According to the general opinion, unfortunately, to deny the existence of a
solution and insist on raising the problem is held as blasphemy, heresy, clearly immoral,
insane and, above all, absurd. That is why so many false, precipitate, ‘solutions’ are
proposed, so many problems are disguised, denied, hidden, so many questions are
censored. There may be absence of solution; it usually means that that the problem is
incorrectly stated, that the problem is displaced. (Forrester, 1997: 53) [emphasis added.]
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