Meh. It is a lot simpler than that. I don’t think it was by design, but Ford took advantage of the same situation as the Federal politics.
The Conservatives have basically been able to win Federally because the right united the Reform/Alliance with the Progressive Conservatives, under the Conservative Party. The Left on the other had split between Liberals and NDP, which enabled the Conservatives to win enough to lead.
In Toronto, there were three major candidates for Mayor. Ford on the right, and two on the left. The left split the vote, and Ford won. How he even got that many votes is also simple. The City of Toronto amalgamated some time ago into the Greater Toronto Area or GTA. Most of the people and votes (and money) live in the suburbs. The ONLY thing they really care about is Taxes and Property values, that is it. They could care less about the City itself or the core, and will elect anything that gives them that, and really can smoke as much crack as they like and act like a buffoon so long as they deliver lower taxes. The Ford family is also rich, and also connected already to the City government.
Anyway it is that simple, really given the situation, it would have been very hard for him to actually lose. However I expect with the recent news, he will lose some following (but not much, as I said they could care less other than their suburban taxes), however more importantly, the left will probably rally around former NDP Olivia Chow, and I have no doubt she will win. She will to say the least be a VERY different mayor of Toronto, and I dare say someone who will likely do a very good job.
Sure. And if they try to quantify it in dollars or their equivalents, the sort of things you find in markets, that means they’ve blinded themselves to any value that can’t be reduced to them - which seems to be what Ygret said in the first place.
The problem with this, um, fantastical bullshit is that the arrow only goes one way. The loss of a life is quantified by lost earnings, but large frauds are not looked at as capital crimes, nor are giant frauds looked at as mass murder. If you argue that the arrow should go both ways, you end up with a completely corrupt, totalitarian shitshow. It is the criminals who benefit the most from controlling who gets executed.
Over and over, democracies tend to reject this kind of equivalence. They demand more than simple remuneration for loss of life, and they reject capital punishment for economic crimes. If we are wrong, you’re going to have to convince us with more than just proposing an equivalence as an analytical tool.
Well reification isn’t unique to neoliberalism in particular, but rather an inherent part of capitalism in general. Neoliberalism is just more open about the issue, transforming it into a virtue, where human fulfillment is simply a matter of consumer choice and efficient market interactions. Living life the maximum [utility] and fullest [contract obligation].
Can you please provide some sort of argument for this? It seems to me that trying to apply a “value” or “worth” to life is a sort of category error. Let me try a metaphor: you can quantify the value of a house but can you quantify the value of a home? It seems not only possible but blindingly obvious to me that there are many aspects to life that simply can’t be quantified using economic theory.
That’s not to say you can’t try. It’s to say that when you try you inevitably lose sight of a lot of aspects of life that are not quantifiable or subject to market interactions. When you try to understand of all life through economics what you’re actually doing is applying an economic metaphor to life, and like all metaphors economic models only elucidate some aspects of the metaphor target at the expense of hiding other aspects.
“Value” only makes sense within the context of being alive. Nothing is valuable to a dead person. How, then, could I quantify the value of my own life? It’s invaluable to me. If I somehow “sold” my own life I would be unable to actually “cash in” since no matter what was offered in return for my life it would have no value to me once I lose my life.
If you want to talk about life in general then I would think supply and demand would apply. With 7 billion people on earth it seems to me life should be dirt cheap. The more people are around, the less valuable any individual is. Does this seem like a worthwhile moral perspective to you?
Also, you used the term “barbaric” to justify taking castration off the table as a form of legal punishment. I asked you directly whether you could put “barbaric” into economic terms and thus justify this apparent moral judgment in economic terms. You didn’t answer. Could you please do so?
In reply to jerwin:[quote=“wysinwyg, post:47, topic:27460”]
you used the term “barbaric” to justify taking castration off the table
[/quote]
I think the idea of “economic barbarism” deserves more development, where ethics and the needs of society are impressed more, um, rigorously upon neoliberals.
I’ve seen an economic estimate on the value of human life; they took what pay people accept for risky jobs, and extrapolated from there. But there is the problem that this is in the context of lives where people face some risks anyway, and obviously isn’t some linear scale up to a value someone would commit suicide for, the way a real value would be.
Really, it gave me the very strong impression they were just trying to justify a level of profit it would be worth letting other people die for.
I asked you directly whether you could put “barbaric” into economic terms and thus justify this apparent moral judgment in economic terms. You didn’t answer. Could you please do so?
Probably would violate the eighth amendment, which is part of the social contract, and is thus sacred. A cop out? Sue me.
But the bbs is saying
Let others join the conversation
This topic is clearly important to you – you’ve posted more than 24% of the replies here.
Are you sure you’re providing adequate time for other people to share their points of view, too?
And since I find Posner’s ideas to be interesting enough to consider carefully, but not necessarily persuasive, it would be counterproductive for me to comment further.
No need to sue you, you just conceded the argument.
Pretty funny that you used all that “blood sacrifice”, “mortal sin”, and “taboo” sarcastic rhetoric upthread and now justify the concept of social contract by assuming that it’s “sacred”.
now justify the concept of social contract by assuming that it’s “sacred”.
I misspoke. Liberal political theories are based on social contracts, and to a certain extent, liberal societies are based on the notion that contracts are enforceable. To embrace cruel and unusual punishment in violation of this social contract would undercut the legitimacy of a liberal society.
In other words: it should be possible to design a just society by proposing a set of rules which apply universally.
But why should I abide by a social contract? First of all, the social contract is a figment. There’s not really any such thing, certainly none signed by me. Second of all, the social contract is not voluntary the way pretty much any other contract at least theoretically should be. I didn’t choose to be born where I was and I was never given the rundown on the rules and asked if I agreed. Third, according to the neoliberal economic construction of moral values, if my gains from breaking the social contract more than offset the penalties for breaking the social contract, it would simply be a rational choice for me to break the social contract.
Economic theory can’t provide a justification for adhering to the social contract in the first place. Just as I’ve been arguing, moral values can’t be provided by economic theory. In fact, the application of economic theory presupposes certain moral values (such as the enforceability of contracts).
Let’s get a little more specific. Suppose that some condition that varies person to person – let’s say “wealth” for the sake of argument – makes it easier for some than for others to break the social contract without consequences, or with consequences that are more than offset by their gains from breaking the contract. Now we have a class of people – the “wealthy” – who can effectively ignore the terms of the social contract because they can simply buy their way out of it. Why isn’t this simply rational choice on their part?
The argument I’m making is that the neoliberal construction of morality justifies such thinking but that this is not a good system of moral values. Because it ensures that society and its rules cannot be just.
Not sure what work the word “should” is doing here. So far no one has produced such a set of rules or a just society so I remain skeptical of this premise.
I’m a moral skeptic. I think rationally-conceived systems of moral values fail partly because of unintended consequences but mostly because actual, real-world human moral values aren’t rationally-conceived systems.
Edit: I’ll give it a read, though. Looks interesting.
Not sure I agree with that either. I’m not sure “injustice” means anything without a pre-existing moral framework.
To be honest, I’m not sure what the hell moral values are, but Jonathan Haidt has made a good case that they’re based in emotion rather than rationality, and that all rationality can do about it is try to come up with consistent post hoc explanations for why we feel they way we do:
