In today's NY Times, Tyler Cowen (economist at George Mason) makes the following astonishing claim about economic inequality:
The broader philosophical question is why we should worry about
inequality — of any kind — much at all. Life is not a race against
fellow human beings, and we should discourage people from treating it
as such. Many of the rich have made the mistake of viewing their lives
as a game of relative status. So why should economists promote this
same zero-sum worldview? Yes, there are corporate scandals, but it
remains the case that most American wealth today is produced rather
than taken from other people.
What matters most is how well
people are doing in absolute terms. We should continue to improve
opportunities for lower-income people, but inequality as a major and
chronic American problem has been overstated.
The
notion that we should only care about "how well people are doing in
absolute terms" appears to be completely untethered from any plausible
conception of human flourishing and its relationship to distributive
justice. One reason that Catholic teachings on economic justice are so
powerfully persuasive is that they are rooted in a realistic
conception of human nature that rejects the unstated individualistic
premises about human nature underlying Cowen's op-ed.
Cowen is
surely correct that "life is not a race against fellow human beings."
But neither is it the case that individual lives are hermetically
sealed pursuits in which our absolute well being can even be measured
in isolation from what happens to others. For starters, as Cornell
economist Robert Frank has argued,
most people actually care about their relative position in society --
so making someone at the top even better off than they already are by
itself makes other people less well off in a real and measurable sense.
The connection between our own well being and the well being of
others does not depend just on the fact that we might be envious of the
wealthy, but also on the fact that conventions of social participation
are sensitive to the well being of others. Adam Smith understood, for
example, that what we legitimately consider to be a necessity will
depend upon our particular cultural and social context. Drawing on
Smith's insight, Amartya Sen has argued that -- even for someone who
accepts an objective and universal account of human flourishing -- the
resources human beings need to flourish will vary from culture to
culture and, within the same culture, from era to era. As societies
become wealthier, what each individual needs in order to meaningfully
participate in that society will also become more elaborate and
expensive.
So, for example, not having indoor plumbing in this
country in the mid-19th century or a telephone in the early 20th
century did not make you shamefully poor. Today, when our society as a
whole is much wealthier and virtually everyone has indoor plumbing and
a phone, not having either one would inescapably place you on the
margins of society, substantially hindering your ability to participate
meaningfully in the social life of your community. Insensitivity to
inequality -- reflected in Cowen's insistence that we should focus
narrowly on absolute well-being -- ignores the social dimension of
human flourishing and, by extension, the social dependence of the
answer we give to the question which resources we need in order to
flourish.
Relatedly, but perhaps more deeply, Cowen ignores the
extent to which society is a joint venture -- that we are all, rich and
poor, in this together. Maintaining this joint venture as a going
concern requires a degree of social cohesion and other-regarding
concern, what the Church calls "solidarity." And, as the Second Vatican
Council put it in Gaudium et Spes, excessive economic inequality, by
itself, undermines that solidarity, and therefore weakens the viability
of the social order:
[E]xcessive economic and social differences between the members
of the one human family or population groups cause scandal, and militate against
social justice, equity, the dignity of the human person, as well as social and
international peace.
When
the richest are allowed to rise too high above the poorest, even when
those poorest are not thereby made worse off in absolute terms, they
tend no longer to see themselves as having anything in common with the
rest of us or having much at stake in the satisfaction of the needs of
the poorest. When inequality exceeds certain bounds, the rich are able
to structure their lives so that they never have to interact with the
poor and so that the poverty of the poor has almost no impact on their
own well being. They insulate themselves from life in society and can
come to fool themselves into thinking that their fate is not bound up
with the rest of us. You see this very concretely when you travel to
highly unequal societies, where the rich live their lives in little
bunkers and simply try to keep the poor from intruding. I think you can
see similar tendencies emerging in this country.
In the 1980s, the American Bishops forcefully addressed the problem of inequality in the specific American context, arguing:
Catholic social teaching does not require absolute
equality in the distribution of income and wealth. Some degree of
inequality not only is acceptable, but also may be considered desirable
for economic and social reasons, such as the need for incentives and
provision of greater rewards for greater risks. However, unequal
distribution should be evaluated in terms of several moral principles
we have enunciated: the priority of meeting the basic needs of the poor
and the importance of increasing the level of participation by all
members of society in the economic life of the nation. These norms
establish a strong presumption against extreme inequality of income and
wealth as long as there are poor, hungry, and homeless people in our
midst. They also suggest that extreme inequalities are detrimental to
the development of social solidarity and community. In view of these
norms we find the disparities of income and wealth in the United States
to be unacceptable. Justice requires that all members of our society
work for economic, political and social reforms that will decrease
these inequities.
And the inequality the American bishops found unacceptable in the 1980s has only worsened in the ensuing years.
Over at the intriguing new blog Catholic Ramblings, there is a suggestion that American tort law has lost sight of justice -- at least as understood by Aquinas and Hilaire Belloc -- as it has expanded the reach of vicarious liability:
[Vicarious liability] is not limited to medical malpractice cases, but seems to operate to impose liability on a larger (and in many cases, wealthier) entity when an individual would not be able to pay the damages caused by that individual. And yet, this liability is imposed many times on the basis not of desire or actual harm caused by the larger entity, but on the theory, the “legal fiction” that the larger entity is somehow responsible for the damages caused by the ill-will or mistake of the individual. Belloc, I believe, is correct in noting that this is a breach of justice - to denote fault to another entity because of the error on the part of an individual which has little or nothing to do with the other entity is unjust, on the basis noted by Aquinas that justice is, “Rendering to each one his right,” since, as Isidore says, “a man is said to be just because he respects the rights [jus] of others.” Rendering to each one his right includes, then, the right to be punished according to fault or breach of justice.
The objection from today’s society is, of course, “who, then, will pay for the loss of the injured, if the one who produced the injury cannot? It would be unjust to allow this injury to go uncompensated.” In the far past, one might expect that the criminal laws would enter now, to imprison the injurer. However, even if the criminal law operates now, the tort law may still have a say in attempted recovery. I wonder if this is an result of our individualism and loss of reliance on God to rectify, whether in this life or the next. If injury to another human being is an affront to God, then on Earth, it becomes an affront to the community of believers, to society, and it is society which will imprison with the force of the magistrate. However, in an individualistic and agnostic society, individual injury, not society, must form the basis of compensation. Yet, we still have criminal laws which we have inherited from ancient times, which operate in tandem with the increasingly danegeld system to produce bizarre results whereby a man may be punished twice for his actions, and, even more oddly, a man be punished and then his entire extended system of contacts be searched for additional sources of wealth to pay for the injury.
This is an interesting perspective, but I disagree. First, I don't think we can say that the vicariously liable entity has "little or nothing to do" with the wrongdoing entity -- generally, the wrongdoing has occurred as part of the larger entity's operations. E.g., even if the hospital is not negligent in allowing the harm-causing surgeon to operate in its facilities, the wrongdoing still occurs as part of the hospital's operation, and the hospital is still in the best position to take steps to guard against the wrongdoing. Second, my conception of justice is much broader than the question "whose behavior is culpable in this scenario?" The law & econ crowd is not always sufficiently focused on issues of justice, but they have driven home the point that the externalities of an entity's operations should be a concern for society. Tortious harm is not just a question of individual culpability. It's a question of incentivizing social actors to account for harms directly related to their conduct. In this regard, vicarious (as well as strict) liability is not simply a "show me the money!" concession to our sense of individual entitlement -- though making a victim whole has to be part of the justice analysis. Non-fault-based liability is also a prudent acknowledgment that the causes of human suffering do not always correlate with culpability. Justice is not just about punishing those who deserve it; it's also about clarifying the relationship between conduct and consequences.
UPDATE: Jonathan at Catholic Ramblings responds here. I think our disagreement centers on my belief that tort law is not simply a mechanism for punishment; it is also a mechanism for the just allocation of risk associated with socially beneficial conduct.
I have been reading with much interest the recent MOJ postings dealing with the hiring of young associates and the enticement of big salaries, power, prestige, etc. Then I recalled the wise words of another lawyer many years ago who counseled about the dangers of these temptations. Perhaps in another context, he could have said this to a young lawyer, whom I shall call Richard, being swayed by the lure: "Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... But for the Wayle's law firm?" RJA sj
MOJ friend Gerry Whyte (Trinity College Dublin, Law) sends us this news:
Cabinet rejects exemption on gay adoptions
Compromise means Catholic church will not be given special treatment
Will Woodward and Severin Carrell
Thursday January 25 2007
The Guardian
The
Catholic church is almost certain to lose its battle for special
treatment over gay adoption rules under a deal agreed by the cabinet to
heal damaging divisions between senior ministers. Cabinet sources said
the new proposals would require Catholic adoption agencies to consider
gay couples - or close down - after a reasonable delay that would allow
them to ensure that the children in their care are properly dealt with.
The
transitional period could be up to three years, but ministers concede
that some agencies may prefer to close rather than consider gay
couples. The compromise is far from the complete exemption demanded by
Catholic and Anglican leaders, who wrote to members of the cabinet.
Their concerns were raised by Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary,
who is a staunch Catholic.
Though Downing Street insists the
prime minister was not calling for an exemption but merely trying to
broker a solution, cabinet colleagues strongly criticised his sympathy
for the church's view. Mr Blair's critics will also seize upon the
compromise as a sign of his political weakness in the last months of
his premiership.
Yesterday Mr Blair held a meeting with a
delegation of Labour MPs, including Angela Eagle, Chris Bryant and
David Borrows, and a number of Catholic MPs, all of whom argued for no
exemption.
Ms Eagle said: "Transition is certainly possible so
long as it is sensible and doesn't have to go on forever. We are not
being the dogmatic ones in this argument. We are not demanding that gay
couples absolutely in all circumstances have to be approved. We are
saying they should not be ruled out as a priority."
The
regulations requiring all adoption agencies to consider gay couples are
due to be laid in April and sources said the government intended to
meet the target.
The Department for Education and Skills
believes that if the Catholic agencies pull out it can cover the
shortfall, which amounts to around 200 of the 2,900 children placed in
adoption every year.
The gay adoption issue has caused deep
divisions in cabinet, with the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, among
those insisting that no faith group can be exempted from the new gay
rights laws.
In today's New Statesman Harriet Harman,
constitutional affairs minister and a candidate for Labour's deputy
leadership, says: "You can either be against discrimination or you can
allow for it. You can't be a little bit against discrimination."
Alan Johnson, the education secretary, also made clear his opposition to exempting the Catholic church.
Cardinal
Cormac Murphy-O'Connor wrote to the prime minister demanding an
exemption for Catholic agencies on the grounds that to "oblige our
agencies in law to consider adoption applications from homosexual
couples as potential adoptive parents would require them to act against
the principles of Catholic teaching". His stand was endorsed by the
Anglican archbishops of Canterbury and York.
Ministers in
Scotland are now bracing themselves for a clash with the Catholic
church over a long-standing arrangement between the Scottish executive
and the church over the adoption rights of gay couples. The church,
which runs two adoption services in Scotland, has had an open agreement
from ministers in Edinburgh that they will not be forced to give gay
couples the right to adopt suitable children.
Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
In case you missed it, Simpson Thatcher just announced it is raising first year associate base salaries to $160,000. Sigh . . .
In response to Rick's post, my 2005 piece posted at the side, The Evils of Elasticity: Reflections on the Rhetoric of Professionalism and the Part Time Paradox in Large Firm Practice digs at some of these issues in part by working through a text from CS Lewis's That Hiddeous Strength. Folks may also be intersted in Cathy Kaveny's Billable Hours in Ordinary Time 33 Loy. U. Chicago L. J. 173 (2001). For my Catholic Social Thought & Economic Justice seminar I'm pairing that with our discussion of Laborem Exercens. Here's the abstract of the "Evils" essay:
“Don’t do it, it is professional suicide.” This is the wise advice that most associates would receive in response to the question of whether they should open a conversation about a “less money for less hours” option in a large firm practice context. Why are large firms so resistant to creative conversations about part-time arrangements? At first glance part-time arrangements might seem inconsistent with large firm client demands. But a closer analysis reveals that a matter of sensible management, working “less money for less hours” is often perfectly consistent with outstanding client service.
Why do so many law firms resist this logic? This Article argues that lurking beneath the rhetoric is, in C.S. Lewis’s terms, the evil of “elasticity,” in which the all-consuming demands of the workplace gradually corrode hope for a more harmonious and balanced life. Understanding this influence not only helps explain the resistance of law firms but offers a way to engage in creative and productive conversations about “work-life” balance, including a helpful clarification of concepts in professional rhetoric such as “calling” or “vocation,” “commitment,” and “service.”
The Article concludes with a reflection on A.O. Hirschman’s scheme of “exit, voice and loyalty.” It proposes that the request for a part-time schedule should be interpreted neither as exit, nor as an act of disloyalty to the firm or the profession, but rather as a “voice” of creativity and hope for a balanced life. Large firms that welcome the “voice” of attorneys with part-time arrangements may be surprised to find that they may offer not only loyal client service, but also constructive contributions to the recovery of positive professional values.
Amy
Larry Solum links here to a paper by David Zaring and William Henderson, "Young Associates in Trouble." The paper is a review of two recent novels about young lawyers: "In the Shadow of the Law," by Kermit Roosevelt and "Utterly Monkey," by Nick Laird. Here is a bit from the abstract:
Two recent novels portray the substantively uphappy and morally unfulfilling lives of young associates who work long hours in large, elite law firms. As it turns out, their search for love, happiness, and moral purpose is largely in vain. In the rarefied atmosphere of both fictitious firms, the best and the brightest while away their best years doing document reviews, drafting due diligence memoranda that no one will read, and otherwise presiding over legal matters with lots of zeros but precious little intrinsic interest. If this is what large law firm practice is like, the reader is bound to ask why large law firm jobs are so coveted. Is it really all about money?
In this review essay, we compare Kermit Roosevelt's and Nick Laird's bleak portrayals with findings from a unique dataset on law firm profitability, prestige, hours worked, and various measures of several associate satisfactions. We also mine the findings of several empirical studies that track the experience of lawyers over time. We observe that higher firm profitability is associated with higher salaries, bonuses, and prestige. Yet, higher profits also have a statistically significant relationship with longer hours, a less family-friendly workplace, less interesting work, less opportunity to work with partners, less associate training, less communication regarding partnership, and a higher reported likelihood of leaving the firm within the next two years. Nonetheless, graduates from the nation's most elite law schools tend to gravitate toward the most profitable and prestigious (and most grueling) law firms. The attraction of the most elite firms may be superior outplacement options. Or perhaps, as both novels intimate, it may stem from a reluctance to make hard life choices.
The available empirical evidence suggests that success within the elite law firm environment often entails a difficult array of personal and professional trade-offs. Although we find our empirical data to be informative, the novel may be a particularly effective vehicle for examining the rather existential nature of these choices. Thus, we suspect that the accounts drawn by Roosevelt and Laird will resonate with many elite, large law firm lawyers.
We might also look again at articles by the "other" Professor Schiltz, now Judge Schiltz, on this same problem, i.e., the problem of unhappy associates.
So, what are we and our institutions doing to educate students about the alternatives to career paths that, it appears, are likely to make them unhappy? What are we doing to equip them to find happiness in big law firms? And, what are we doing to make the practice of law in big firms more conducive to happiness?
