Liberal Communist, A Philosophical Misnomer

What do you call a person who happens to not only make a lot of money out of market transaction (or capitalism), but also spend a considerable sum of it for charities or deeply concern with social responsibility?

Think people like Bill and Melinda Gates, Bono, or you --who is working at the heart of capitalism, the firm, but love to buy only fair trade product, deliberately join anti-globalization protest, or sincerely pay the zakat more than legally required.

Slavoj Žižek, in his latest provocative book, Violence, calls them liberal communist.

In his words, they are the true citizens of the world today, who think that they can have the capitalist cake, i.e, thrive as profitable entrepreneurs or workers, and eat it too, i.e. endorse for social responsibility and ecological concern.

I think Zizek is just caught off guard: in the standard myth of capitalist, one can only win in the market only if he/she applies maximum greed. A class of citizen, who bypass the state to effectively channel the resources for redistribution, also does not support the ideal of socialism.

In my opinion, however, nothing's funny about this. Such behavior does not violate the standard argument that people maximize his/her utility by combining their actions --not only the ones with financial reward, like working your ass off in a company, but also ones with non pecuniary reward, like seeing the poor children's utility goes up by giving them scholarship, and at the same time avoiding government, because to them, it is a dis-utility.

I would just call them good guys.

Walking Westward

Today, Kompas published an op-ed from the poet Sapardi Djoko Damono commemorating 100 years anniversary of Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana. Takdir was one of the Indonesian intellectuals who in 1949 wrote an essay on his idea of being Indonesia. Inspired, apparently, by the European Renaissance, modernism, and industrial revolution, he defined progress as to follow the western path.

But in his time, when post-war nationalism was at its heydays, when as a young nation the problem of identity was very much troubling, his idea of progress as by looking up western standard was anything but hard to accept by many who argued for something called particular Indonesian values and way of living. For them, defining our own identity was seen as more critical than any attempt for inclusiveness toward universal values (even if by that myths needs to be invented --and then taught to school children in my generation as Indonesian history.)

This is the paradox, however. The idea of Indonesia as a nation was born from people who were inspired by the very European ideals, that is, the young intellectuals in the early 20th century. Pramoedya Ananta Toer's This Earth of Mankind describes beautifully the tension, amazement, and restlessness that arose from the meeting between old values and the new (European) values as seen from narrative of its protagonist Minke.

Fast forward to 2008, the tension remains. But this time thing is more complicated because the idea of "western" is now becoming more and more difficult to comprehend. In philosophy, various writings under the rubric of postmodernism deconstruct the notion of western modernism. In practice, these days, the virtue of western civilization can not be easily observed by watching MTV or seeking explanation why democracy can appoint George W Bush lead to Iraq war.

We live in the situation of neither horizon nor ready answers of all queries. By that, one may look inward, mutter "I told you so" while arguing the supremacy of being Indonesia --whatever it may mean. But I think Soedjatmoko, another Indonesian great thinker made a point as early as 1967

"The jump from the a-historical Weltanschauung of traditional agrarian society, with its chiliastic yearnings for the perfect society, to the closed and self-contained system of thought and the vision of the perfect state of Marxism is apparently a smaller one than the jump to the concept of an open future and the acceptance of the Imperfect State as part of the human condition. It is much more difficult to feel attracted to the insecurity of freedom than to the historical inevitability of a perfect world order from which comfort and strength can be drawn" (Australian Outlook, December 1967:288-89)"
--Hanna Papanek and Goenawan Mohamad, Obituary: Soedjatmoko (1922-1989). Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 49, No. 2. (May, 1990), pp. 449-451

Ladies and gentlemen, as you may be familiar with the old saying "there is no such thing as a free lunch", please welcome the price tag of freedom: the insecurity. Rock on.

Raunch is Good

I find this column hilarious --and make some economics senses, too. Let me tell you why --by quoting what the author wrote in it.

#1."What if a woman spends hours in the gym to create a body she is proud of? Is that a waste of time, time she should have spent in a university library? No."

In economics term, if, for this chick, marginal utility of the former --to become, err, sexy-- exceeds the latter --to end up being, well, nerd; so what? Go for the former, stupid

#2."Look at lads' mags from a different perspective and you see that what's being exploited are men's sexual responses, to give money to women"

Yes, market clearing, efficiency, Pareto optimality, and, everybody's happy.

#"Why is labouring to look like Pamela Anderson empowering?". Reply: "For younger women, raunch is not about feminism, it's just about fashion."

You're too serious. Nothing's politics --or morality-- here. Look at #1, and you know, it's merely about making choice --individual choice.

I know, by now, some of you may want to kick my arse already, but make no mistake, I am not saying that I, using economics tools, set a value judgement that raunch is good --well, a title should be eye-catching, no?--. In fact, I can make otherwise case based on the very same tools --by including social norms into my utility function, for instance .

What I am trying to say is that economics can help to tell how one makes rational choice --to be raunchy or to be conservative. But not whether it is bad or good.

Everyday Choices

Economics and morality: a case study

Dear visitors:

As the recent poll in our blog suggests, economists should (may) talk about morality, "only if it is rational." So allow me to discuss an issue of morality from an economic-cum-public policy analysis perspective. As you may guess, the issue is the Anti-pornography bill (RUU APP).

Please read my take on that issue in my personal blog. Apologize to the non-Indonesian speakers, the posting is in Indonesian. I was too lazy, though laziness may not be rational action, to translate it into English.

The main idea is, if 'morality' (in this case, eliminating the overconsumption of pornography) is an objective to serve, then the bill will be a poor means to achieve it. The reasons are:

1. It is inefficient -- it requires a too many resources to achieve the goal, at the same time it potentially creates new, bigger costs. The same objectives can be achieved by some other means: regulating (limiting) the distribution side, not the production side.
2. It is also ineffective -- the bill views that the decline in moral standard -- and the consequences of it -- as mainly supply-side problem. It is the mistake of the girls wearing appropriate dress, the nude women in the pictures, etc. It fails to realize the bigger problem from the demand side. When you rape a woman, or get turned on by one, it is their mistake, not yours. So let's punish them for inviting you, instead of giving harsher punishment to the violators.

So, this is not an argument based on ideology (like the Arabization or Islamization vs. liberalism-secularism). This is simply how we apply rationality framework in analyzing a public policy. The moral of the story is, even if moral standard is the objective, rationality still matters.

Morality Economic philosophy Public policy

The tragedy of moral policing

Read a news about a funny but sad story in Tangerang, Banten. Once again, this just shows what's going to happen when you give the state too many power over morality.

Can't help to agree with the chair of the National Committee against Women Violence, "when the state wants to become the moral police over its citizens, who will be the first victims? Women and poor people!" And this is also why among the biggest rejection to the proposed legislation about pornograpgy comes from various women groups.

Altruism

When Lionel Luthor told the son:

"Altruism is not in your blood, Lex. Believe me."

I was stunned. Somehow my mind brought me back to the day when I was struggling to model altruism in into a paper I was working on -- and gave up. What is altruism? Most people associate the term with something about morality. Many economists have come to believe that even altruism (as opposed to egoism) can enter into one's utility function. That is, even when someone engages in a altruism-spirited act, he or she is actually doing it for his or her own self interest. Hence the birth of oxymorons like "egoistic altruism" or "egocentric altruism". One seminal paper along this line is of course Becker's Rotten Kid Theorem.

Assuming Lex Luthor represents a rational man, who of you thinks Lionel was right? When you give charity, or do good deeds in general, what do you expect? What do you feel?

While I do believe that many altruistic acts are driven primarily by people's belief in some moral value (religion, etc), I can't deny that there's always a slightest "warm glow" feeling involved...

Think about Soros' charity foundation. Many if you, I was told, partly blame Soros for an economic crisis that hit Indonesia some years ago. Assuming you are right. Do you think his foundation was built out of pure altruism? I guess you don't. No self-interest whatsoever? How about the Gates' foundation? Rockefeller? I hear whisperings: "They do it for ... profit", "Don't trust them...", "They're mean capitalists...". Now, let's look at here, in our own home. What do you think of TV7's "Rejeki Nomplok", or RCTI's "Uang Kaget"? Do I hear whisperings?

Lionel might be wrong. Altruism can be in everybody's blood. But even altruism can add to your own utility the way self interest does...

Rationality | Microeconomics