June 18, 2010
World Cup Ticket Sales…and an Ethos of Justice?
As this article from The Independent indicates, the reasons for the poor attendance and empty seats at recent World Cup matches are complex. Corporate no-shows seem to be part of the story. But this is an intriguing quote from The Guardian:
“The empty seats – which look terrible on television – are a problem for Fifa because, having sold batches of tickets at reduced prices to local groups, it cannot now put them back on the market.”
Another related – albeit speculative – thought is that Fifa is not allowing the South African government to bus-in school children and the local poor (as it promised it would) to fill empty seats because this would aggravate those who have paid for their tickets.
We perhaps therefore have a situation whereby tickets
a) cannot be put back on the market at normal price because reduced-price tickets to the poor have already been made available, and so selling tickets again at full price would be deemed unfair or unacceptable
and
b) seats are left empty because giving free tickets to the poor when others have paid is deemed unfair or unacceptable.
If so, there may be an interesting parallel with a recent debate within Anglophone political theory.
First, let’s re-cap John Rawls’ famous “difference principle”: that when constructing the rules that govern the basic structure of society (i.e. its key institutions that have a lasting and significant impact on people’s lives) inequalities in essential ‘primary’ goods are to be permitted only to the extent that they make the worst-off better-off than they otherwise would be.
This principle came under attack in the late work of Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen. Cohen asked us to imagine the following sort of situation (I’m simplifying quite extensively for ease of exposition).
Imagine a society whose basic-structure institutions are ordered in line with Rawls’ principles of justice, including the difference principle. Now imagine there are a group in that society – “the Talented” – who, if they were to work in a particular line of employment would make everybody better-off, such would be their productive output. However, the Talented will only do this work if they are highly remunerated on a pay-scale out of line with what others can expect to earn. Cohen believed that Rawls’ difference principle permitted such out-of-line pay for the Talented, on the basis that their higher output would make the worst-off in society better off.
But for Cohen this exposed a fundamental failing in Rawls’ institution-focused conception of justice: that the Talented lack a proper ethos of justice and are inflicting inequality – and injustice (though the two are not necessarily synonymous here) – upon their society. The Talented could do their socially-productive work for lower pay, but they choose to extract higher wages instead. Rawls’ difference principle permits this, and for Cohen it therefore misses a fundamental component of what justice (allegedly properly understood) requires: that society be characterised by an ethos of justice whereby some – e.g. the Talented – do not exploit their abilities in order to advantage themselves over others, even if that extra work benefits the worse-off.
I’m not going to take a stand on the extent to which Cohen’s critique of Rawls is a good one.* What I want to do is take the idea of a social ethos of justice and apply it to the case of World Cup ticket sales. Underpinning Cohen’s understanding of a just social ethos seems to be something like the old Marxist adage “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” For indeed if the Talented contributed in line with their ability simply in order to benefit the more needy, then they would not demand higher pay, and (perhaps) society would therefore be more just.
In the case of South Africa, let us imagine that everybody were to adopt this Marxist adage with regards to the World Cup. In this case, Fifa’s problems might melt away. On the first hand, tickets could indeed be put back on sale despite some having been discounted earlier; potential customers able to afford the last-minute full-price tickets might say to themselves “it’s OK for me to pay full-price, because I can afford to – those other people who bought the reduced-price tickets were poorer than me. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need!” Similarly, children and the local poor could be bussed-in to fill empty seats on match day. Those who had already paid full-whack would simply adopt the same reasoning. Indeed, a (minor) egalitarian redistribution would have taken place, arguably making society more just and more fair.
But here’s the rub. Despite the initial appeal of the Marxist adage, no human society ever seems to have gotten up and running off the back of it. Some level** of acquisitive self-interest propels capitalism, and like it or not it’s capitalist societies that have tended towards the greatest freedom and prosperity for all members (despite their myriad failings).
Sadly, there’s little prospect of being able to temporarily induce an ethos along the lines of “from each according to his ability…” amongst South African football fans simply for the duration of the World Cup. A prevailing social ethos, after all, cannot be so quickly or so readily instantiated.
And whilst Cohen’s last book attempted to envisage a world in which more people had the social ethos of Marxist justice, there are reasons to find his efforts unconvincing. Justice may in some sense lie beyond us – and World Cup tickets may likewise have to remain unsold.
–
*Though for what it’s worth, my sense is that Cohen is right and that justice fully understood requires an operative ethos of justice not just a certain institutional structure. However this is a very esoteric debate, and I’m not sure whether anything of much significance turns on it because a Rawlsian society would be so much more just than anything we’ve yet seen that Cohen’s critiques are academic in both the literal and pejorative sense of the term.
** Though the devil will be in the detail of how much, and how much is both necessary and/or desirable.
senusert said,
June 18, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Regarding Cohen’s thought experiment: I fail to see how the Talented could extract wages beyond what everybody else (the un-Talented?) would be willing to pay them.
On a different note, the labour-power theory of value is notorious for being wrong (it predicts that real wages decline and hours worked increase, neither of which has occured), which should give pause to any interpretation of justice that the thought experiment above implies.
Peter said,
June 18, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Senusert,
“Regarding Cohen’s thought experiment: I fail to see how the Talented could extract wages beyond what everybody else (the un-Talented?) would be willing to pay them.”
- This doesn’t matter for Cohen’s critique.
Jamie said,
June 18, 2010 at 11:21 pm
senusert
But if the Talented refused to do the work for lower pay, they’d limit the position of the worst-off in that society because of their own self-interest/lack of ethos of justice. They’ve not extracted more than the society was willing to pay, but by demanding more than society was willing to pay they’ve prevented society from being less just.
Er, does that make sense?
Paul Sagar said,
June 19, 2010 at 10:57 am
Jamie, that’s an interesting take, but Cohen’s point is actually that there is a third, even more just situation: where the talented do their productive work, making everyone better off, but do it for
less pay than they COULD extract, thus preventing a)a rise in inequality via their increased salary and b)an (allegedly) unjust situation in which a few effectively hold the rest to randsome to extract rents.
Jamie said,
June 19, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Paul
Yeah, there’s that too – I almost added something like a) to my original comment.
I hadn’t thought of b), but it helps me see where senusert’s going. Can it be considered ‘holding to ransom’ if the society has agreed to pay the Talented that amount for their skills?
If you believe that it can’t, that negates the force of b). There’s still the objection of a), and if you believe it’s unjust for someone to benefit from a (presumably) natural talent you’d still oppose the Talented being paid a lot.
Jamie said,
June 19, 2010 at 8:02 pm
(Also, I wouldn’t normally comment on this but your typo ‘randsome’ seemed apposite…)
Tom Kealy said,
June 19, 2010 at 9:31 pm
“Regarding Cohen’s thought experiment: I fail to see how the Talented could extract wages beyond what everybody else (the un-Talented?) would be willing to pay them.”
- This doesn’t matter for Cohen’s critique.
I do think it matters for Cohen’s critique, as I think he’s introducing a false alternative: that the Talented work for less than they could have. I don’t think Cohen’s alternative is a real one – a refusal on the part of the Talented to work for what everyone else is willing to pay them, would make them (along with everyone else) worse off. Whereas I’d agree that justice requires some ethos, I don’t think the choice to extract the rent is a real one. Then, the critique can’t have much force if the choice it’s based upon doesn’t exist.
Peter said,
June 20, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Tom Kealy,
I don’t follow you. Are you saying that it’s impossible for the talented to work for less than they do in some society that satisfies the difference principle but doesn’t have Cohen’s ethos? Because that’s quite a strong claim, and it’s one that seems false to me.
Peter said,
June 20, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Jamie,
I agree to pay the person who kidnaps my child the ransom, but that doesn’t mean he’s not holding the child to ransom, does it?
Tom Kealy said,
June 20, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Peter,
I’m not saying anything about the difference principle, or whether or not the society has Cohen’s ethos. At least not consciously.
What I am saying is this: it would be impossible for the Talented to work for more than the un-Talented are willing to pay them – because if they don’t accept the wage they are offered, they are worse off. For instance they can’t demand more than the entire productive capacity of the society. This has implications for Cohen’s thought experiment: namely it proffers a false alternative. Perhaps he is right about economic justice being an ethos, but a better argument is required.
On a deeper note, as Cohen is/was a Marxist he believed that value was linked to labour. As I pointed out in my first post, this is empirically false (although, it has the virtue that you can increase the value of your house by punching a hole in a wall, employing yourself as a plasterer and then documenting the whole experience). This is why Paul used the word “extract” in the original discussion – i.e. the capitalists would extract wages from the workers. I’m claiming that any discussion of justice based on this theory of value will be wrong.
Ste For Sure said,
June 20, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Tom,
Cohen wrote a paper which successfully defends what he sees as a ‘Marxian’ theory of exploitation, which rejects the labour theory of value. Its easy to follow, and available online (I think).
Basically, he admits that labour does not create value, and that value is not determined by socially necessary labour time. However, workers produce the objects which have value, regardless of where that value comes from and what determines its magnitude. Capitalists receive some of that value, even though they did not engage in the productive labour which produced the object which possesses it. So, a very simple picture of exploitation is available without all the dodgy trappings of LTV.
Ste For Sure said,
June 20, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Oh, and if you think that the fact that the Talented can’t receive more than society is willing/able to pay, has any force against Cohen’s argument, then you clearly don’t understand the argument. Further I reckon it means you have a conception of justice so alien to mine that I just don’t know what to say. The idea that voluntary market transactions cannot result in unjust outcomes is absurd as far as I can see.
Cohen isn’t imagining that the Talented demand more than society is able/willing to pay. Rather, just that they demand an income that increases inequality, when they could do the work anyway without demanding an income so much higher than that of others. The only reason people would do that is if they want to act in accordance with an ethos of justice. So institutional arrangements – whether Rawlsian, or bat-shit crazy libertarian – don’t guarantee justice. Reflecting after studying these (rather tedious) debates, it annoys me that such a common-sense point is taken to be so controversial.
Peter said,
June 20, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Tom Kealy,
Cohen’s argument is that a society’s basic structure can satisfy the difference principle, yet the society is not just. Conclusion: it’s not only the basic structure that matters, we need an ethos too.
I agree that the Talented can’t get more than the entire productive capacity of the economy. But Cohen’s argument doesn’t need them to be able to do anything like that. All it requires is that having a particular ethos might change the wages demanded. And that seems a pretty plausible point to me. So, Cohen’s argument doesn’t rely on an impossible alternative.
Paul Sagar said,
June 20, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Ste and Peter are, of course, completely correct.
Tom Kealy said,
June 20, 2010 at 11:23 pm
But I’m not endorsing any conception of justice!
I said in my original post (when I posted as senusert) that I agreed with Cohen, but thought his argument offered an alternative choice that wasn’t possible.
The new theory you’ve outlined (where the Capitalist still gets some value, but without doing any work) still looks a lot like a labour theory of value to me, whether or not it’s explicitly Marxian.
I used the example of demanding more than society’s productive output to show you that the Talented are constrained, and constrained in such a way that makes Cohen’s choice a non-possibility. I still maintain that the inequality could not be so great that the un-Talented would object to it; they have a say in whether the Talented get paid (in fact they do the paying).
Having a different ethos may indeed change the wages demanded, but it doesn’t matter; the Talented cannot demand excessive rents. Cohen’s argument relied on that extraction as a choice; I’m criticising it because I think the choice is a false one, and I think a better argument could be made. I don’t think voluntary transactions in a market make it all alright; just that the extraction of rents is impossible.
I am perfectly capable of understanding of understanding these arguments. I shall endeavour to make my language more precise in future.
Tom Kealy said,
June 20, 2010 at 11:36 pm
Peter,
I think we’re arguing past each other, and that we basically agree. Even if the Talented don’t extract a rent, they still could work for less than they do. That would be a good thing. Choosing to work for more than you absolutely need to is not the same thing as monopolising on your talent. If you accept that, then you’d indite much of Britain.
Peter said,
June 21, 2010 at 12:21 am
Tom,
I agree that endorising Cohen’s critique would basically indict 99% of British people. For the record, I don’t endorse Cohen’s critique, and I think the Rawlsian can get round it. I was just commenting on the perceived confusion as to what Cohen’s critique *is*. But as you say, it looks like we’re all on the same page now so cool beans.
Tom Kealy said,
June 21, 2010 at 12:15 pm
I’ll post a numerical example later today, which should make my position clearer.
Jamie said,
June 21, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Peter
“I agree to pay the person who kidnaps my child the ransom, but that doesn’t mean he’s not holding the child to ransom, does it?”
Yeah, but this is what I mean about it depending on whether you believe a natural talent (as I was assuming the Talented had) is just. If you believe that an individual’s natural talents are acquired unjustly because they’re through no effort of the individual themself, then the comparison holds.
But if you don’t agree, there’s a definite difference between a kidnapper holding someone to ransom and a naturally-talented individual being paid a lot: the Talented individual has acquired his advantage justly (or at least not unjustly), whereas the kidnapper hasn’t.
Jamie said,
June 21, 2010 at 11:06 pm
I agree, incidentally, that the Talented working for less than the society was willing to offer would have a more just outcome. But if they don’t agree to work for less than they could, they’re not holding anyone to ransom because they didn’t acquire those talents unjustly.
(Sorry for the second double-post on this thread)
Status Hunger « Bad Conscience said,
August 13, 2010 at 7:33 am
[...] by designing institutions which limit it and compensate for its effects, or by cultivating a social ethos that downplays [...]