From distribution and justice to value creation and the good life
Leaving "vulgar" socialism finally behind
Left-wing politics today focus primarily on distribution and justice. That is surprising, given that these ideas played little role in past left-wing projects. Take, for instance, Karl Marx. Socialism, which is primarily concerned with distribution, is for Marx vulgar socialism, and justice is a bourgeois idea. Why is that?
Marx understood that mere distribution leaves capitalism in its main version intact. It has nothing to say about power, dignity, freedom, or self-realization (i.e., the good life), nor about economic organization. Distribution merely ameliorates capitalism's worst effects.
Similarly, Marx saw that justice can be used in a very conservative sense. Justice does not care whether the society to which it is applied is good or bad. For justice, it merely matters whether people have a fair or equal standing in such a society. But that leaves, for instance, the capitalist conceptions of society and fairness untouched.
We see the problems with distribution and justice acutely in liberal ethics and economics that constrain the political imagination of the contemporary left. Be it liberal ethics like that of John Rawls or that of contemporary proponents of utilitarianism such as Peter Singer, the result is always the same. Capitalism is left intact, while merely income and wealth are supposed to be distributed from the top (or even middle) to the people who are worst off.
There are at least three issues with distributive justice in that sense. First, whatever distributive justice is, it is not a main principle of socialism. Socialism is a comprehensive project that embraces several ethical principles and an economic approach that makes these principles possible. For instance, one central principle of socialism is freeing the working class as a whole and allowing humans to self-realize to achieve what could be called the “good life.”. Yet, socialism is not about the distribution of income and wealth from the top, for instance, to the very bottom -- that is rather “social” liberal welfare ethics.
Second, whatever else the problems of distributive justice are, top-down distribution is often not motivating enough for the majority of the population to vote socialist, let alone organize. In particular, then, if the majority does not benefit from such distribution in a relevant way. While the majority of people are, in a very relative sense, not the worst-off, they are still not doing well at all. They might not be the worst-off, but they are still victims of capitalism.
Socialist politics needs to speak to all people who are not doing well. It must not fall for the perfidious liberal strategy of playing the poor against the very poor. It should not take the income “middle class” as the desirable standard for distributive justice, to which everyone else who is worse off needs to be equalized. The income middle class is not doing well either, both on the level of the opportunity income they could have in a socialist society and measured against ideals like freedom and self-realization.
Accordingly, the aim of socialism is not to bring the worst-off or poor to a higher wealth or income level in the capitalist system, guided by the divisive, historically inaccurate, and ineffective liberal "incrementalism." Rather, the aim is to bring everyone to an entirely different level of income, freedom, and self-realization in a socialist society at once through the reorganization of the economy.
That does not mean that this aim will be achievable instantly. And it might not exclude that the worst-off or poor might receive benefits first. Rather, it means that the guiding ideal and message have to always aim at benefiting all in a comprehensive sense. Only in this way can solidarity and community be achieved.
Third, mere distributive justice leaves capitalism untouched. It does not change anything about power. It makes neither workplaces democratic, nor economic decision-making on a society-wide level. Furthermore, it does not end the capitalist assault on human dignity, according to which people only have value when they sell their labor.
Rather, mere distributive justice has the potential to reduce human dignity even further because it is on a par with charity handouts. Distributive justice has little to contribute to economic value creation, which is necessary for realizing the ethical goals of socialism. It has no industrial policy, other than perhaps the effect of boosting consumption through income distribution.
None of that is surprising. Thinkers from Marx to Polanyi to Horkheimer were all too well aware that liberalism and utilitarianism, as well as their concepts of justice and distribution, are the philosophy and economics of capitalism. In that sense, the difference between liberalism and socialism is not that between freedom and equality, as is often wrongly claimed. It is rather the difference between freedom for the rich and freedom for everyone else. Accordingly, leftists should reject the label “social liberal”. Their concern for freedom and plurality is not liberal; it is socialist.
Contrary to “left-leaning” liberalism with its focus on justice and distribution, socialism is about public economic value creation—much in accord with Marina Mazzucato’s demand—to make freedom and self-realization, and with that, the good life, possible. Marx decried capitalism for being tribalist, ineffective, undemocratic, and irrational.
Capitalism does not set societal progress goals with regard to production, the organization of work, or scientific advances. It does not use society-wide industrial scale and scope effects, or cooperation among the people, but only knows senseless competition between capitalists. Therefore, capitalism stands still and produces only minimal value that capitalists siphon from the rest of us.
Furthermore, since power in capitalist society is with the capitalists, we must sell our labor to them and do work that primarily benefits their interests. Such labor is not really free, let alone satisfying. Therefore, socialism, and perhaps even social democracy in the Keynesian sense, is about creating significant economic value through progress in production, organization, and technology. This way, more and more valuable goods and services are created through ever less work, so that people become free to do what they want.
Of course, within such a society, distribution, and justice play important roles. But they are only secondary to considerations about freedom, self-realization, and the good life. Likewise, the distribution of income and wealth from the rich to everyone else is essential in the short- and even midterm as a policy to realistically ameliorate the worst of capitalism. Yet, distribution cannot be the main or end goal of socialist or social democratic policies.