Rawls' unbiased unborn are similar in function to Adam Smith's "impartial spectator," from whom principles of morality are derived in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.6 In both visions, these hypothetical beings are used to circumvent the bias of individual or class selfinterest when deriving social principles. The difference is that Smith's "impartial spectator" is the conscience of each individual who remains the locus of moral (as well as economic) discretion, within a framework of laws and other social constraints, also reflecting the moral standards of the same "impartial spectator." In both visions, the hypothetical being defines social principles, but the locus of discretion remains real peopleoperating collectively through surrogates in Rawls, individually in Smith. A social framework is a collective product, in either constrained or unconstrained visions, but the ongoing exercise of discretion is what separates them into the self-interested individual decision-makers of the constrained vision and the collective surrogate decision-makers of the unconstrained vision.
The terms "collective decision-making" and "surrogate decision-making" are used here more or less interchangeably, though they are not precisely the same. "Town meeting democracy," for example, would mean collective decision-making without surrogates, even if officials then carried out the decisions made by the town meeting. Referendum government would likewise make possible collective decision-making, with official surrogates being in principle agents rather than major exercisers of discretion. However, neither the constrained nor the unconstrained vision devotes much attention to such special cases, which are not the situations of complex nation-states. Therefore, for present purposes, the collective, surrogate decisionmaking of the unconstrained vision can be contrasted with the individual, self-interested discretion of the constrained vision.
A given vision may fall anywhere on the continuum between the constrained and unconstrained visions. It may also combine elements of the two visions in ways which are either consistent or inconsistent. Marxism and utilitarianism are classic examples of hybrid visions, though in very different ways.
HYBRID VISIONS
Marxism
The Marxian theory of history is essentially a constrained vision, with the constraints lessening over the centuries, ending in the unconstrained world of communism.? However, at any given time prior to the advent of ultimate communism, people cannot escape- materially or morally- from the inherent constraints of their own era. It is the growth of new possibilities, created by knowledge, science, and technology which lessens these constraints and thus sets the stage for a clash between those oriented toward the new options for the future and those dedicated to the existing society. This was how Marx saw the epochal transitions of history-from feudalism to capitalism, for example-and how he foresaw a similar transformation from capitalism to communism.
This hybrid vision put Marxism at odds with the rest of the socialist tradition, whose unconstrained vision condemned capitalism by timeless moral standards, not as a once progressive system which had created new social opportunities that now rendered it obsolete.
Marx spoke of "the greatness and temporary necessity for the bourgeois regime"8- a notion foreign to socialists with the unconstrained vision, for whom capitalism was simply immoral. As in more conservative compromises with evil, Marx's temporary moral acceptance of past capitalism was based on the premise that nothing better was possible- for a certain span of past history, under the inherent constraints of those times. His efforts to overthrow capitalism in his own time were based on the premise that new options now made capitalism both unnecessary and counterproductive.
But just as Marx differed from other socialists because he believed in inherent constraints, he also differed from those like Smith and Burke who conceived of these constraints as being fixed by human nature. To Marx, the constraints were ultimately those of material production and the frontiers of those constraints would be pushed back by the march of science and technology. Eventually, the preconditions would exist for the realization of goals long part of the socialist tradition, including the production and distribution of output "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." But no such principle could be simply decreed, without regard to the stage of economic development and the human attitudes conditioned by it.
According to Marx, it was only "after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co operative wealth flow more abundantly-only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banner: 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"'9 Marx's vision was therefore of a world constrained for centuries, though progressively less so, and eventually becoming unconstrained. Engels called this "the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom."1o
Marxian doctrine, as it applies respectively to the past and the future, reflects the reasoning respectively of the constrained and the unconstrained visions. Looking back at history, Marxism sees causation as the constrained vision sees it, as systemic rather than intentional. In Engels' words, "what each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed."11 When referring to the capitalist and pre-capitalist past, individual intention was as sweepingly rejected as a source of social causation in Marxism as in Adam Smith or any other exemplar of the constrained vision.12 Unlike many others on the political left, Marx did not regard the capitalist economy as directly controlled by the individual intentions of capitalists, but rather as controlling them systemicallyforcing them to cut prices, for example, as technology lowered production costs,13 or even forcing them to sell below cost during economic crises.14 Similarly, bourgeois democratic governments were seen as unable to control insurgent political tendencies threatening their rule.15
Marxian moral as well as causal conclusions about the past were consistently cast in terms of a constrained vision. For ancient economic and social systems, slavery and incest were considered by Marx to be historically justified, because of the narrower inherent constraints of those primitive times.16 Nor would the immediate postrevolutionary regime envisioned by Marx sufficiently escape constraints to decide deliberately when to end the state; rather, systemic conditions would determine when and how the state would eventually "wither away."17
Only in some indefinite future was the unconstrained world, which Marxism sought, expected to be realized. In speaking of that world, and contrasting its desirable features with those of capitalism, Marx's language became that of the unconstrained vision. "Real" freedom of the individual, to be realized under Marxian communism, meant "the positive power to assert his true individuality," not merely the "bourgeois" freedom of the constrained vision- "the negative power to avoid this or that."
According to Marx and Engels:
Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible.18
Looking backward, Marx and Engels saw the emergence of bourgeois freedom-political emancipation from deliberately imposed restrictionsas "a great step forward," though not "the final form of human emancipation." However, such freedom was "the final form within the prevailing order of things"19- that is, within the constrained world before communism, as conceived by Marx. Under capitalism, Marx considered the worker to be only "nominally free"20; he was "compelled by social conditions" to work for the exploiting capitalist.21 Real freedom was the freedom of the unconstrained vision to be realized in a future unconstrained world. This freedom was defined as a result, in the manner of the unconstrained vision, not as a process in the manner of the constrained vision.
Marx was not inconsistent in using the concepts of the constrained vision for his analysis of the past and the concepts of the unconstrained vision for criticizing the present in comparison with the future he envisioned. His overall theory of history was precisely that constraints lessened over time, wit
h the advancement of science and technology, and that social changes followed in their wake.22 As a system of contemporary political advocacy, it is an unconstrained vision- a theory that the ills of our time are due to a wrong set of institutions, and that surrogate decision-makers, making collective choices with specifically articulated rationality, are the proper locus and mode of discretion for the future.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism was a hybrid vision in a very different sense from Marxism, and to a different degree in its two chief proponents, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Bentham did not originate the basic concepts of utilitarianism,23 but he systematized them, incorporated them into a body of political doctrine, and founded both an intellectually and politically active school in early nineteenth-century England. John Stuart Mill was the leader of the second generation of that school, but was also very consciously seeking to incorporate into his philosophy insights from very different schools of thought. Mill was in effect seeking a hybrid vision.
Man, as conceived by Jeremy Bentham, was thoroughly, relentlessly, and incurably selfish.24 But, however severe this moral constraint, man's intellectual horizons were vast. In particular, it was within man's power to rationally structure the social universe, so as to produce the result of "the greatest good for the greatest number." The constrained aspect of the utilitarian vision consists of man's inherent moral limitations and the consequent need to rely on better incentives rather than better dispositions, in order to reconcile individual desires with social requirements. Bentham's own efforts were directed toward creating schemes of incentives, to be enforced by government, whose function was "to promote the happiness of the society, by punishing and rewarding."25
This reliance on surrogate decision-makers, however, seems to place Bentham's utilitarianism operationally in the category of the unconstrained vision, particularly since the mode of discretion was severely rationalistic.26 However, Bentham's advocacy of governmentstructured incentives did not extend to wholesale government control of the economy. Indeed, Bentham repeatedly declared himself a believer in the laissez-faire economics of Adam Smith, whom he even chided for not carrying laissez-faire far enough when discussing usury laws.27 Bentham rejected surrogate decision-making in the economy, where he argued that a free and rational adult should be unhindered in making any nonfraudulent financial bargain he chose.28
Bentham was not consistently in the tradition of either the constrained or the unconstrained vision. However, the work for which he is best known, in law and politics, reflects operationally the unconstrained vision, though not to the degree of Godwin or Condorcet. But Bentham's less known and less original work in economics essentially followed the constrained vision of Adam Smith- though not always with Smith's reasons. The reason for not allowing legislators to redistribute wealth, for example, was not that doing such things properly was beyond man's intellectual and moral capabilities, but rather that there were specifically articulated reasons against it- namely, that insecurity of property would reduce subsequent production.29
John Stuart Mill's respect for Bentham, and his carrying on-in modified form-the philosophy of utilitarianism (which name he popularized30) did not prevent him from criticizing the scope and contents of Bentham's vision, 31 or from deliberately seeking in Samuel Taylor Coleridge an opposite, complementary, and corrective social vision.32 Mill did not share "Bentham's contempt," as Mill saw it, "of all other schools of thinkers."33 Indeed, Mill was remarkable among social thinkers in general for the range of other social theorists he not only studied but utilized in forming his own conclusions. Even when dealing with theories which he considered to be clearly erroneous, he was concerned with "seeing that no scattered particles of important truth are buried and lost in the ruins of exploded error."34 This intellectual catholicity in Mill led to what might be characterized as either (1) a finely balanced consideration of issues or (2) an inconsistent eclecticism. In either case, it makes it difficult to put Mill unequivocally in the camp of either the constrained or unconstrained vision, though the general thrust of his philosophy was provided by the latter vision. Indeed, he gave one of the clearest statements of the unconstrained vision in its moral aspect:
There are, there have been, many human beings, in whom the motives of patriotism or of benevolence have been permanent steady principles of action, superior to any ordinary, and in not a few instances, to any possible temptations of personal interest. There are, and have been, multitudes, in whom the motive of conscience or moral obligation has been paramount. There is nothing in the constitution of human nature to forbid its being so in all mankind.35
On a number of issues Mill boldly asserted conclusions which derived from the unconstrained vision (that laws are made, not evolved, for example)followed immediately by provisos from the constrained vision (that these changes in the law will be hopelessly ineffective unless they accord with the traditions and customs of the particular people). Similarly, with income distribution Mill combined both visions. He asserted that, unlike laws of production, constrained by diminishing returns, laws of income distribution are not constrained. While "opinions" and "wishes" do not affect production, they are paramount when it comes to distribution. The distribution of output "is a matter of human institutions solely." Mill declared:
The things once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can do with them as they like. They can place them at the disposal of whomsoever they please, and on whatever terms ... The distribution of wealth, therefore, depends on the laws and customs of society. The rules by which it is determined, are what the opinions and feelings of the ruling portion of the community makes them, and are very different in different ages and countries; and might be still more different, if mankind so chose.36
This seems to be a clear statement of an unconstrained choice based on an unconstrained vision- but it only seems so. Mill's proviso in this case is that the "consequences" of particular rules of distribution are beyond man's control- "are as little arbitrary, and have as much the character of physical laws, as the laws of production."37 Constraint has been explicitly repudiated only to be implicitly accepted. A similar pattern of bold assertion and devastating proviso appears even in Mill's more narrowly technical economic analysis, where there is a ringing defense of classical economics on the causes of depressions and the role of money in them- followed by provisos which repeat essential contentions of the critics.33
Much of Mill's rhetoric is the rhetoric of the unconstrained vision. His provisos from the constrained vision make the classification of his overall position ambiguous.
SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS
There are many striking features of constrained and unconstrained visions which, however, do not define them. The role of articulation, the relative importance of external incentives versus internal dispositions in determining human conduct, the meanings of knowledge and of reason, the role of fidelity versus sincerity- all these show characteristic differences between those with the constrained vision and those with the unconstrained vision. However, none of these specific features defines the two visions. What is at the heart of the difference between them is the question as to whether human capabilities or potential permit social decisions to be made collectively through the articulated rationality of surrogates, so as to produce the specific social results desired. The crucial issue is ultimately not what specifically is desired (a question of value premises) but what can in fact be achieved (a factual and cause-and-effect question), though in practical terms goals deemed unachievable are rejected even if conceded to be morally superior in the abstract. In the chapters that follow, even such apparently value-laden concerns as equality, power, and justice are analyzed as essentially questions about assumed facts and assumed chains of cause and effect.
Pending the ultimate achievement of an unconstrained society, the locus of discretion in the unconstrained vision is the surrogate decision-maker (individual or institutional), choosing a collective optimum, whether in economics, law,
or politics, and whether for a limited range of decisions or for the structuring of the whole society. By contrast, in the constrained vision, the loci of discretion are virtually as numerous as the population. Authorities exist, but their role is essentially to preserve a social framework within which others exercise discretion.
The entire spectrum of social visions cannot be neatly dichotomized into the constrained and the unconstrained, though it is remarkable how many leading visions of the past two centuries fit into these two categories. Moreover, this dichotomy extends across moral, economic, legal, and other fields. This is highlighted by the fact that those economists, for example, who hold the constrained vision in their own field tend also to take a constrained vision of law and politics, while those with the unconstrained vision of law, for example, tend to favor economic and political policies which are also consistent with the unconstrained vision. This will become more apparent in the chapters that follow. Contemporary examples of this consistency across fields are no longer as numerous, simply because social thinkers who operate across disciplinary lines are not as numerous. The increasing specialization of modern times makes the kind of sweeping visions of the eighteenth century less common today. Contemporary visions are more likely to be confined to a particular field- "judicial activism" in law or laissez-faire in economics, for example- though there have been a small and dwindling number of twentieth-century thinkers, such as Gunnar Myrdal or Friedrich Hayek, whose writings on a wide range of issues have gone well beyond a single intellectual discipline. However, what makes a vision a vision is not its scope but its coherence- the consistency between its underlying premises and its specific conclusions, whether those conclusions cover a narrow or a broad range.
A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles Page 10