Transcending False Dilemmas with Living Income Guaranteed – Part 3 – Tools of Intervention

This post is a continuation to the blog-posts:

Transcending False Dilemmas with Living Income Guaranteed – Part 1
Transcending False Dilemmas with Living Income Guaranteed – Part 2 – Sustainability vs Full Employment

Please read them first for context.




Example 2

‘The government has two kinds of policy at its disposal to correct market failures: fiscal policy and monetary policy – not using these policies means letting the free market dictate economic conditions.’

Most economists have come to accept that the free market is the ideal way of conducting economic activity – let market forces dictate prices and output and don’t try to control these forces, because they eventually create the best outcome for everyone. Most economists, however, have also come to accept that there are certain situations in which intervention is called for – to correct market failures and inefficiencies. Looking at only the national economy – the ways in which intervention happens, apart from declaring laws that set standards, minimum or maximum requirements, quotas, etc. – fall under the categories of either fiscal policy or monetary policy.

Fiscal policy refers to those policies that have to do with tax collection and government spending. In overly simplistic terms: if the government sees it is needed to increase output and income/employment – it can implement expansionary fiscal policy through reducing taxation and/or increasing government spending.

Monetary policy refers to those policies that have to do with the rate at which money is released into the economy. Here the government has no authority, it is the central bank in each country that influence interest rates to either contract or expand the economy.

Both kinds of policies, when used to achieve a certain goal, always have certain drawbacks in other areas. In other words, the usefulness of their application is always limited by the nature of the free market principles – where their use becomes a careful balancing of adjustments here and there to ‘kind of’ have ‘some’ movement in a certain desirable direction.

Problems such as poverty, deprivation, insufficient incomes and job insecurity, to name but a few, cannot be tackled directly from within this economic paradigm – to do so with the use of fiscal and monetary policies would in most countries require substantial interventions – and create substantial drawbacks, crippling the economy in other areas, and over time, undoing its own efforts. So – what can we do? This is just how it is, right? This is just the nature of economics, right? ‘Sorry for those fellas struggling to survive, but there’s really not that much we can do for you. Sure, in theory you have certain basic human rights, but looks like it’s just not gonna happen.’ In brutal terms, that is the attitude that has been adopted when it comes to our economies and the intertwined question of human rights.

At the Equal Life Foundation, we take the guaranteeing of human rights very seriously – in our view, they are not optional and they should not be seen as variables that are dependent on the grace of market forces that may or may not grant these rights at some points in time. Seeing that the conventional paradigm and available policies lack the capacity to ensure these rights, it became clear that it was necessary to step outside of this paradigm and dare to look for alternative measures that CAN guarantee human rights, yet won’t result in the crippling and destabilizing of the whole of the economy.

Providing a Living Income to those who are unemployed or retired through the profits of companies that are considered human rights companies and national resources companies is exactly such a measure. It’s not a fiscal policy, because it is not funded through taxation and it’s not a monetary policy, because it is not funded through printing more money. Fascinatingly – if a measure is none of those two – and it’s not purely free market… ‘well… well… then… it has to be communistic!’ Lol. Yet, it’s not communistic, because the economy will still operate according to free market principles, there will be no centralization of ownership – there will be decentralization – and the role for government would become smaller than it is now.

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Transcending False Dilemmas with Living Income Guaranteed – Part 1

One of the ways in which we limit our ability to address problems and steer ourselves towards solutions without entering into an endless debate, is through our acceptance of false dilemmas at face value.

What is a false dilemma?

"A false dilemma arises when we allow ourselves to be convinced that we have to choose between two and only two mutually exclusive options, when that is untrue. Generally, when this rhetorical strategy is used, one of the options is unacceptable and repulsive, while the other is the one the manipulator wants us to choose. Whoever succumbs to this trap has thus made a choice that is forced, and as such, of little value. . . . Here are a few examples of common false dilemmas:

•    Either medicine can explain how Ms. X was cured, or it is a miracle. Medicine can't explain how she was cured. Therefore it is a miracle.
•    If we don't reduce public spending, our economy will collapse.
•    America: Love it or leave it.
•    The universe could not have been created from nothing, so it must have been created by an intelligent life force.”

(Normand Baillargeon, A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense. Seven Stories Press, 2008)

It seems easy enough to spot false dilemmas and yet, they seem to dominate the discussions about some of the most important issues we require solutions for. Have a look:

Example 1

‘If we want to reduce the use of fossil fuels for a better environment, we will lose thousands of jobs in the energy-sector. So – which do we choose: preventing unemployment or fighting climate change?’

Example 2

‘The government has two kinds of policy at its disposal to correct market failures: fiscal policy and monetary policy – not using these policies means letting the free market dictate economic conditions.’

Example 3

‘If we don’t maintain our military forces and curtail individual freedoms, terrorists will have free reign and come to destroy our beloved country.’

Example 4

‘We’ve created a society with an abundance of choices and so freedom to choose. Producing so many varieties of the same product places pressure on the environment, but reducing it would mean to give up the freedom we’ve gained.’

Do you start seeing to what extent false dilemma’s – the ‘either/or’ presentation of options – is thoroughly ingrained in media, in politics, in every day life discussions?

On the one hand false dilemmas are used to manipulate those presented with the false dilemma to choose the option that the presenter of the dilemma wishes – but on the other hand – it also encourages stagnation and paralysis. Because what happens, is: you have groups who have an interest within the one option, or who support the one option – and you have groups who have an interest within the second option, or who support the second option. And now there is a back-and-forth quibbling, to put it plainly, about which option to choose, about which group ‘loses’ and which group ‘wins’. Of course, no one wants to lose, or be the one to sacrifice their interests for the other group’s or the other goal – so everyone is fighting, but in the meantime, you maintain the status quo, because there is no movement, there is no common solution – there is just a debate, a discussion, an argument, when what is really needed is direction and action.

We tend to so blindly accept information the way it is presented to us – without critically thinking for ourselves and seeing if there are no alternatives. No, instead we immediately position ourselves on one or the other side of the dilemma and feel good about ourselves for ‘taking in a position’. But what does it matter to take in a position, if that position is not going to lead to a solution, but simply perpetuates a back-and-forth dynamic that can only lead to losing? Either ‘our group’ wins over the other, then the others lose out, or the other group wins and then ‘our group’ loses out – or no solution is reached and everyone keeps quibbling, then everyone loses out, because nothing gets directed – or both groups go into a ‘compromise’ and don’t really take on either issue, but just do ‘ a little bit’ on both fronts to please everyone – which seems like a ‘win-win’ solution – but it actually isn’t – because everyone is compromising.

The first thing to do is to take a step back and allow yourself to see the bigger picture. Because – what is presented with a false dilemma? You’re presented with a zoomed-in picture that shows two doors, two options. Now, instead of trying to break your brains over figuring out which of the doors represents the lesser of two evils – take a step back – zoom out the picture and suddenly more becomes visible within the frame – there might be a third door that had not been mentioned or there might be a pathway going around the wall that the doors are in, making every door entirely irrelevant.

In my next post, I’ll go over each of the examples and show how the Living Income proposal steps outside these false dilemmas and offers real win-win solutions.

Day 263: Campus Education vs. E-learning - My Verdict

With a rising amount of online tertiary courses being developed and made available, a debate has started about whether online education can guarantee the same quality tertiary education that a student would receive when attending a campus college. (See: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/can-online-courses-replace-campus-education/)

Anant Agarwal - the CEO of edX, a joint partnership between MIT and Harvard University that offers free online learning - sees the benefits of recording lectures and then making them available to a large amount of students. He says: "Of 155,000 students that took the course, about 5 percent passed the course and earned a certificate. So that was about 7,200. That is a big number. If I were to teach on campus twice a year, both in the spring and fall semesters, I would have to teach for about 40 years before I could teach 7,200 students."

On the other side of the table,  you have arguments such as the one formulated by Shyam Sharma from Stony Brook University: "In our discipline, the objective of students learning is not to basically learn the content of the discipline, but instead to use the content as a context to engage in intellectual discussions, to develop their positions, intellectual positions, to debate and argue and develop critical thinking skills. And that oftentimes requires the expertise and guidance and mentoring and close connection, one-on-one support to the students."

Having had the 'pleasure' of receiving tertiary education in a classroom on a campus as well as through online courses, with some subjects being the same, let me share my perspective.

Comparing the content-material of the subjects I took both at the campus college and through the online course - I can say it was largely the same. So, from that perspective, the 'quality' of the online course was no different than that of the campus college. Differences were mainly due to the fact that I attended the campus college in Europe and the online education in Africa, so case-studies and examples were local and therefore quite different. Considering that the core content was the same, which did I prefer? If I have to choose between sitting in a classroom with hundreds of other students where the professor is standing at the bottom with a microphone, or comfortably sitting at home and going through the material at my own pace, I have to say the latter is my preference. Video lectures can be paused and re-winded so a student can make sure he/she hears all the information. This luxury doesn't exist in a classroom, where one can get distracted by other students, or simply miss information as one is splitting one's concentration between hearing what the professor is sharing and writing it down simultaneously.

To attend classes I had to either travel from my home town to the campus each day, spending time and money to be able to sit in the class room, where most of the time I had to hear the professor repeat what was already explained in the textbooks - or I needed to rent a room on campus/close to the campus to not waste the time traveling between home and campus - but this obviously came at the extra cost of paying rent. It was the fact that 'the professor might share information that is not already covered in my books' that required me to attend, in order to make sure I had all the material necessary to prepare myself for assignments and exams. I didn't find that for the subjects that I took in both scenarios - which were largely theoretical - that I gained anything from sitting in the class room - the amount of students that attended the course were plentiful, not really allowing for any one-on-one support in any case. For some subjects I was sitting in a room with a thousand other students. Rather then, make one lecture that can be used by many universities - and professors can add their own insights, examples, exercises and notes to provide their personal touch. This was exactly the format that was used in my online education.

Now, there were subjects I attended on the campus college that were very different in nature from the ones I attended online, where the focus of the subjects was to develop practical skills such as working in teams, making presentations, going out in the field, interviewing people, etc. For such subjects where you require to produce and present a project through team-work, there are benefits to physically sitting in the same room and having a personal relationship with your co-students. It is in these instances that I would say it is worthwhile having an actual campus with professors assisting students to develop these skills.

When it comes to 'developing critical thinking skills' as an argument for class-attendance - I have to disagree. Critical thinking should be a focus in primary and secondary education. If a person is supported from an early age to develop a clear vocabulary and to develop common sense, then whether one is at home going through material or sitting in a class room - one can view the material in a critical manner either way. Online platforms such as forums can be utilized for students to exchange views on subject material as well. I personally engaged critically with all the material I was presented with throughout my online education, of which the Economist's Journey to Life blog is a clear testimony.

So, I believe that campus college education has been romanticized and been given more credit than it actually deserves. A large part of college and university courses can be provided online. This would reduce the cost of the education and make it accessible to a larger audience. Why have professors - experts in a certain field - spend their time every year giving the same lectures over and over again - when they could record it once and then make it available to students to watch at home? Surely, humanity would benefit if professors were able to dedicate a larger portion of their time on research and developing solutions to current problems? Reducing the cost of tertiary education, more students could afford it and avoid the trap of student loan debts. Some degrees can then be followed online entirely, whereas for others a mix would be optimal, to have some subjects/courses online and have classes in education centers/on campuses for practical skill development.