The New Aristocrats: A cultural and economic analysis of the new status signalling

A new report, released today by the Adam Smith Institute, argues virtue signalling has made widely-held ideas like ‘keeping up with the Joneses' and conspicuous consumption completely outdated. Rather than trying to one-up one another by buying Bentleys, Rolexes and fur coats, the modern social climber is more likely to try and show their ‘authenticity’ with virtue signalling by having the correct opinions on music and politics and making sure their coffee is sourced ethically, the research says. The paper, The New Aristocrats: A cultural and economic analysis of the new status signalling by Prof. Ryan Murphy of Southern Methodist University in Texas, lays out how trends in status signalling—showing one’s self to be worthy of respect and privilege in the eyes of one’s group—have changed over recent decades.

While the conventional understanding holds that families are apt to buy ever-bigger cars and ever-bigger homes in the pursuit of higher social rank—a fruitless zero-sum competition that might well be tackled by luxury taxes—the new race for prestige is quite different.

A modern aspirant elitist would be better off getting an arts degree than buying a gas-guzzling four-by-four, Prof. Murphy points out, if they want to raise their profile in the eyes of their peers. This trend of ‘virtue signalling’ has been widely noted, but policy has not shifted with society.

Education is one policy where Murphy’s analysis is readily applicable. Though pursuing practical education, a STEM degree, or even building up work experience may be better for an individual’s earnings and society’s productivity, individuals may pick extended study of essentially useless degrees in pursuit of status.

This is enabled by an extensive system of subsidies, which actually, since the last reforms, made the terms for those expecting to earn very little—i.e. those pursuing degrees that barely enhanced their career potential—much more generous. Murphy’s analysis suggests these subsidies should be scaled back—we are only encouraging an endless arms race.

To read the full press release, click here.

To download the paper for free, click here.

Why you should never give your money to a foundation

Some advice for those lucky enough to enrich the species with a decent idea and thus gain possession of some portion of that wealth created: never donate that wealth to a foundation. Because such, over time, always but always end up being run by the same social justice warriors that caused the problems of poverty in the first place. Entirely fine to spend the money in the manner you think best, of course, but spend it, don't leave it as a pot for subsequent generations of bureaucrats to gorge upon. As here with the amazing piece from the head of the Ford Foundation:

This new gospel might begin where the previous one fell short: addressing the underlying causes that perpetuate human suffering. In other words, philanthropy can no longer grapple simply with what is happening in the world, but also with how and why.

Feeding the hungry is among our society’s most fundamental obligations, but we should also question why our neighbors are without nutritious food to eat. Housing the homeless is an imperative, but we should also question why our housing markets are so distorted. As a nation, we need more investment in education, but not without questioning educational disparities based on race, class and geography.

To discuss why housing markets are distorted is important, of course it is: the answer being that not enough chittys are being given out enabling people to build houses. And that's what is wrong with this sort of musing:

In other words, “giving back” is necessary, but not sufficient. We should seek to bring about lasting, systemic change, even if that change might adversely affect us. We must bend each act of generosity toward justice.

We, as foundations and individuals, should fund people, their ideas and organizations that are capable of addressing deep-rooted injustice. We should ensure that the voices of those most affected by injustice — women, racial minorities, the poor, religious and ethnic minorities and L.G.B.T. individuals — help decide where and what philanthropy puts money behind, not in simply receiving whatever philanthropy decides to give them.

Nonsense. The larger question is as simple as the housing one.

Those places that have been roughly capitalist and roughly free market for more than a few decades are rich places, the inhabitants of them rich by any global and or historical standard. Those places that have not been roughly capitalist and roughly free market for a few decades are not, are still stuck in the immiseration of the absolute poverty of peasantry. The answer is thus clear: more capitalism tempered by that free market red in tooth and claw and she'll be right.

Adam Smith pointed this out over two centuries ago with that bit about barbarism to opulence requiring only a bit of law, reasonable taxes and that economic liberty.

So, if you should happen to profit in this world, it obviously being impossible to take it with you to the next, don't set up a foundation to employ people to whine about inequality. Spend the money here on bringing more people up out of poverty. T%hat being done, obviously, by producing more of value that poor people can then consume.

Mr Corbyn and the deaf philosopher

Jeremy Corbyn captivated the Labour Conference with his calls for a kinder politics and a caring society.  His audience enthusiastically applauded the idea of seeking fairness and compassion.  This is not surprising, since these are all aims that would be shared and expressed by many, if not most, people across the political spectrum.  David Cameron would have received rapturous applause for the same words, as would Tim Farron.

It is not the aims that mark the political divide, but the methods that might be deployed to achieve them.  It is not the intentions that matter, but the policies pursued to bring them about.  Mr Corbyn's speech was long on ambition but short on policy, though there were some policies, together with others in the pre-conference days, that enable us to picture the approach he would take, if not the detail.

I have at times advocated being a 'deaf philosopher,' not listening to what politicians say, but watching what they do, judging them by their actions and not their words.  It is all very well talking about caring and compassion, but not much use if the policies pursued bring about drabber and more restricted lives for the people they claim to serve.

The Communist governments of the Twentieth Century uttered high-vaulting words of fairness and 'rule by the people,' but the reality they delivered was of squalid poverty and stunted lives.  More than that, their rule was marked by a huge gulf in living standards between the party elite allowed to buy Western goods in special shops and the mass of ordinary people consigned to the endless queues for the shoddy products of a socialist economy.

Mr Corbyn talks of rent control, a policy no serious economist endorses.  This is because it fails in practice.  For a few it fixes their rents, but given non-market returns, landlords withdraw properties from the market, so availability diminishes.  Moreover, with inadequate returns landlords do not spend to maintain properties as well, so they decline in quality.  Fewer and poorer properties is not the intent, but it is the result.

Renationalizing railways and utilities is advocated to 'put the people in charge,' but in reality it means bringing them under political control.  When they were under state control they were characterized by under-capitalization, producer capture, vulnerability to frequent industrial unrest, and services that paid scant attention to consumers.  The talk was of one thing, the reality of another.

It will be very important during the coming months to make the case that real-world results matter more than high-falutin intent.  We need to see what happened before in the UK, and what happens elsewhere when politicians attempt to impose ideas without regard to their actual results.

Freedom makes us nicer.

Human imperfection can be counted upon as surely as death and taxes. Despite this, study after study seems to confirm that most of us are rather decent fellows when push comes to shove. I am willing to wager that a desire to do good, whatever that may be, is an evolved trait innate in the condition of most people. Against this, our nature is certainly affected by the conditions in which we live, and resultantly subject to change for good or ill. Our natures cannot be summed up in a single phrase or formula, and any attempt to produce such a rule tends to prove intellectually awkward. Commonality of behaviour, however, suggests that on the whole we do not benefit from the kinds of societies autocrats would force upon us. The material ages of humanity, as outlined by Marx, give a clear indication of how the economic superstructure can warp our natural instincts. The licence of masters, the dehumanisation of slaves, and the mutual fear and loathing induced by this asymmetry in power does not make for moral and responsible agents.

Though the divisions of rank and legal status have been smoothed by time, the continuing divisions between property owner and unemployed tenant still shape the behaviours of both classes to some extent. The property owner has an interest in conservation and expansion of their material interests, the welfare dependent on extracting subsistence from others, both through the coercive power of the state.

Changing the behaviours of both groups will require a new phenomenon, the liberating force of popular capitalism. Universal property ownership which began with right-to-buy should be extended, with planning liberalisations to allow for more house building, and support for personal savings and retirement accounts. As with the sale of council houses in the 1980s, the right to save for old age, and support in the form of replacing National Insurance Contributions with a tax free pensions saving allowance, will change attitudes. The division between property owner, and those alienated from the capital rewards of progress will be erased, with, as its result, a concordantly greater understanding and support of the market.

The greatest role for institutions may be elsewhere. As Randolph Churchill defended constitutional traditions for their role in guiding and balancing the state and its leaders, so too must liberals champion the great pillar of the free society: the voluntary association. Tradition adds colour and a spiritual connection between generations past, present and unborn, but its true purpose is to get the best from each of us. The friendly societies, cooperatives, clubs, universities and trades unions of this country can do just that; and have evolved and sustained themselves out of the better nature of free individuals. You don't need to engineer or manipulate the individual to make them good, you simply need people to discover the essence of what it is to live well with one another. Left to our own devices, human beings will creatively find new ways to overcome our own failings, learning from the past experiences of others through the living network of societies. If institutional memory can teach us how to be good without reference to a state compelling us to live in one particular or narrow fashion, then every liberal person should celebrate. The victims of arbitrary authority reflect its character; therefore, lets make ourselves freer so we can carry on being nice.

Heraclitus v. Parmenides – Flux v. Stasis

I gave the opening lecture at Freedom Week at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge last week.  My theme was "Flux versus Stasis," and I contrasted the views of Parmenides and Heraclitus, two of the Presocratic philosophers.  Parmenides took the view that nothing changes in reality; only our senses convey the appearance of change.  Heraclitus, by contrast, thought that everything changes all the time, and that "we step and do not step into the same river," for new waters flow ever about us.

I divided the world between those who seek permanence (the stasis of Parmenides) and those who embrace change (the flux of Heraclitus).  Those who prefer stasis resist change and innovation, and try to keep society following traditional practices, using social pressures and, if necessary, the force of law to sustain conventional norms.  They include people who resist technological change and the changes it brings to employment, as well as those who urge subsidies and tariffs to sustain domestic markets against foreign competitors.

Those who accept that change happens and try to adapt to its flux follow Heraclitus.  Their societies allow experiment and innovation, even knowing that some will be upset by the disturbance they bring to traditional ways.  They allow markets to pulse and flow, reacting to inputs, and adapting to and coping with those changes.  

Stasis societies value order and tend to entrust government to maintain their status quo.  Flux societies value new ideas and look for progress toward their citizens' goals.  It is the flux societies, the ones ready to embrace change and develop its positive aspects, which are most friendly to liberty and the right of people to pursue self-referring goals unimpeded by arbitrary restrictions imposed by others.

The full text of my lecture can be seen here.

George Monbiot is entirely correct here

This will shock some, that we agree with George Monbiot on any subject more heavyweight than whether kittens are cute or not. It will also shock others that George Monbiot is actually correct about something more heavyweight than whether kittens are cute or not. But it is so, he is right and we agree with him:

No progressive party can survive the corporate press, corrupt party funding systems and conservative fear machines by fighting these forces on their own terms. The left can build only from the ground up, reshaping itself through the revitalisation of communities, working with local people to help fill the gaps in social provision left by an uncaring elite. A successful progressive movement must now be Citizens Advice bureau, housing association, scout troop, trade union, credit union, bingo hall, food bank, careworker, football club and evangelical church, rolled into one. Focus groups and spin doctors no longer deliver.

We're not, to be honest, sure that this is either left wing or progressive. For it is exactly the classical liberal vision of society. Yes, certainly there are some things that must be done by the State. For there is some small group of things that both must be done and can only be done by said State. We are not anarchists. But beyond those things that can only be done in that manner and also must be done there's vast areas of human life that do require some amount of organisation and coordination.

And who are the best people to do this organisation and coordination? Why, obviously, the people themselves in whatever manner they decide suits them to do such organisation and coordination. Let a thousand, a million, organisations of voluntary cooperation bloom across the nation. The Friendly Societies, the Churches, advice bureaus, sporting associations, however and whatever the people decide themselves that they wish to do in such voluntary cooperation. This includes any form of business organisation anyone wishes, a workers' coop, a customer one, a producer one, a capitalist firm, not for profits, for profits and every conceivable variation thereof.

Our agreement here with Monbiot does not prevent us from being just a little sharp clawed, as with those cute kittens. For of course all Monbiot has done here is rediscover Edmund Burke's "little platoons". Something that the rest of us didn't forget in the first place, not since he first pointed it out in 1790.

So why is it that everyone hates libertarians?

The easy answer of course is that libertarians are hateful people. But when you translate "libertarian" from American into English you get "classical liberal" which means us. And we're lovely, cuddly, people so that cannot be the right answer. Over in the US they're trying to answer this question (Tyler Cowen, Bryan Caplan) and there's a variety of reasons given. None of which quite explain it all to our satisfaction. So, we'll put forward two more, the first not entirely serious. Which is that we're right, they know we're right, we know we're right and everyone hates smug gits who know they're right and who everyone knows are right.

The second, entirely serious, reason is that we're the only people not telling people how to live their lives. On the right, the conservatives, want to insist that everyone keep it in their pants until married, don't ingest things that make you feel good, work hard and if you conform to our prescriptions then maybe we'll let you be. On the left we've the usual hodge podge but the same urge is there. Live your life according to the manner in which we demand you live your life. Don't be greedy, don't be too successful or we'll take it all off you, you must respect everyone's decisions about how they live their lives and don't, whatever you do, blame anyone for creating their own bed that they've now got to sleep in.

By contrast we're the only people saying that we don't give a damn how you live your life. As long as you're not harming others, nor their ability to live their life as they wish, why on earth should we even pay attention to how you live let alone control, or even respect, how you do?

Which is why they all shout at us of course. For if you're running around with a set of rules that everyone must live by it's OK to have another group running around with a different set of rules about how you must live. But it's disconcerting, discombobulating even, to have a group insisting that there is no such list so would everyone shut up please? What merit in gaining control of the State in order to force everyone to follow your prescriptive rules if the libertarians (or classical liberals) have got there first and removed the power of the State to insist upon everyone having to follow any set of such rules?

To put it very simply, those who fight to insist upon vanilla flavoured cake are quite happy to battle those who fight for chocolate flavoured cake and vice versa, but they'll unite in hatred against those who say the cake is a lie.

Debating the death of capitalism

I took part last Friday in a debate at Durham University Union on the motion that "This house welcomes the death of capitalism." I opposed it, of course, arguing that capitalism has not died, is not dying, and probably will not die. I argued that two of its central elements went with the grain of human nature: investment and exchange. I suggested humorously that the first caveman who fashioned a bone hook invested time he could have spent happily hunting mastodons in order to gain greater rewards in future. This is like the child who chooses two chocolates tomorrow rather than a single chocolate today, or the investor who forgoes the pleasures that spending £100 might bring in order to have £105 to spend next year. Investment is one way in which people better their lot. Another, I said, was exchange. When the caveman swaps one of his bone hooks for a fur offered by a hunter, both gain something they value more in exchange for something they value less. Each gains value and wealth is created. It was these two elements, I remarked, that had enabled capitalism to generate unparalleled wealth for humanity, the wealth that has lifted billions out of starvation and subsistence, and has paid for medicine and sanitation, the arts and education. It has doubled life expectancy within a century, and has meant that far fewer children die in infancy, or mothers in childbirth. Capitalism survives because of what it enables us to achieve.

I dealt with two things that capitalism is not. The first is cronyism, where big business gets into bed with government to secure special measures that enable it to exploit the public instead of competing fairly for their custom. The second is fraud, where bankers illegally fiddle interest rates, where Enron swindles its shareholders out of billions, or where Bernie Maddoff steals from his clients. This is not capitalism; it is criminality, and both of these practices need vigilance to thwart them.

People have asked "What will come after capitalism?" I replied, "Capitalism," pointing out that after each crisis it is modified so the same mistakes are not repeated. It evolves and learns, as humans themselves do. We should not applaud its death, I said, but celebrate its continued life.

The students came down on the side of capitalism by defeating the motion.

The Ayn Rand Institute Europe

Today in Copenhagen is launched the Ayn Rand Institute Europe. Its mission is to promote awareness and understanding of Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism, and to spread awareness of her life and work, including her highly influential novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Heading up the programmes is Annie Vinther Sanz, originally Danish but now living in France, who has spent two decades in international business and now heads up her own consulting firm. And she is fluent in six languages (don't you hate people like that?).

Lars Seier Christensen, CEO of Saxo Bank, is chairing the new Institute's advisory board, and the event takes place at Saxo Bank's impressive headquarters. Some 300 people are expected at the launch, which includes short talks by Christensen, the head of the Ayn Rand Institute in the US Yaron Brook, and our own Eamonn Butler.

Eamonn admits that he is not an earnest devotee of Ayn Rand, though he shares some of her conclusions – like the importance of free-market capitalism, the rule of law, property rights and a robust system of justice. But that, says Yaron Brook, is exactly why he has been invited to give the main talk. Eamonn is strongly aware of Rand's importance to the intellectual right and her ability, through her novels in particular, to win people over too it.

Many young people, in fact, have been won over to the ideas of capitalism, and a belief in individuals as ends in themselves rather than mere cogs in some collective, by reading Rand. In the words of Jerome Tuccille, 'It usually begins with Ayn Rand.

Rand, Eamonn will say, has many supporters in the United States, where she lived for most of her life. The former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, was a member of Rand’s inner circle. And her work influenced many other notable people, such as the former head of BB&T bank and of Cato, John Allison; Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and PayPal creator Peter Thiel. Entrepreneurs, indeed, still name their children after her or her fictional characters.

She has, perhaps, less traction in Europe. That may be because the American right is more concerned with the protection of individual liberty, while the European right is more about conserving existing institutions. But as a result of today's launch, there is no doubt that Rand is about to become even better known, and much more influential, in Europe too.

Caution: This Car is a Consequentialist

The Technology expo Mobile World Congress was held this week, and amongst shiny new phones and gadgets, a number of reveals pertained to the future of motoring. Across the board firms are leading with the idea of interconnected devices and the ‘Internet of Things’, and the automobile industry is no different. AT&T showed how to control a ‘smart home’ from your ‘connected car’, whilst Visa wants us to use our wheels to order pizza. Tech and automobile companies are converging and partnering, with both Apple and Google racing ahead to provide dashboard operating systems. Of course, Google’s most distinctive contribution to motoring so far is still its cartoon-like driverless cars; a potentially transformative sector other companies are piling into.

This week Renault Nissan announced plans to bring an autonomous, connected car to market by 2016. This wouldn’t be as far down the line as a fully driverless car, capable only (pending regulatory approval) of driving autonomously in traffic jams. Whilst Renault Nissan’s head predicted that autonomous motorway travel is not far off, moving beyond that point is far more difficult because we simply can't currently ensure that autonomous vehicles make rational decisions in an emergency.

Questions of which emergency choices would be rational, and which, indeed, would be most ethical to take are some of the most interesting in the pursuit of automated transport. Such cases bear a strong resemblance to the classic Trolley Problem thought experiment:

There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options: 1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track. 2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the correct choice?

In philosophy this problem (along with permutations involving fat men being shoved off bridges and looping tracks) is used to tease out consequentialist v. deontological intuitions — should you always act to save the many, or is it wrong to treat people as a means to and end? — as well as moral distinctions between forseeing and intending a death, and killing and letting die.

The ethics of driverless cars in this sense are particularly juicy. Unlucky drivers may experience their own trolley-like problems: should they swerve into the next lane or aim instead for the pavement? Generally, though, we’re pretty forgiving of a bad call made in a split second and under extreme duress, and wouldn’t really consider a particular choice an ‘ethical’ one.

However, what driverless cars do in a dangerous situation will be thought far more significant. Even if cars ‘learn’ with road time and experience, their instinctive behaviour will already be premeditated and decided; written in as part of the car’s program and consciously chosen by a coder.

This predetermination of the car’s behavior (and by extension, its moral philosophy) makes trolley-related problems both an ethical and legal minefield. Regardless (or perhaps, because,) of how effective driverless cars may be in reducing overall accidents, lawsuits are likely to be significant, and expensive. Whether or not a car is automated to minimize total casualties or programmed to never hit an innocent bystander, there will likely come a time when someone asks ‘why was my loved one already marked out to die in this situation?’ Applying different moral codes will inevitably lead to very different ideas of what it is acceptable for a driverless car to do.

Picking the ‘right’ ethical choice in a range of hypothetical situations will therefore be important, especially if the deployment of driverless cars relies on political and populist goodwill. There’s no end of considerations — is a forseen death acceptable? Is a child’s life more valuable than an adult’s? How do the number and ages of individuals weigh against one another? Should a driverless car prioritize the safety of its passengers over pedestrians, or should it try to minimize third party harm? Should public and private vehicles act differently? Ultimately it may be governments who insist on taking these decisions, but that doesn’t make them any easier.

There’s a number of interesting articles on this sort of thing, and  it will be interesting to hear futher development and discussion of these issues as driverless technology evolves. However, one solution to ‘choosing’ the right outcomes which I found interesting, posited by Owen Barder, would be to let the market decide and with each person to purchase a car programmed with their own moral philosophy. This may not work out in practice, but I do like the idea of a ‘Caution: This Car is a Consequentialist’ bumper sticker.