tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post112748656690435234..comments2024-01-02T20:31:43.915-06:00Comments on In Medias Res: Liberalism and Antiliberalism in Fast Food NationUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-1128013580819501562005-09-29T12:06:00.000-05:002005-09-29T12:06:00.000-05:00"I think that fast food is only as common and chea..."I think that fast food is only as common and cheap as it is becuase of certain activities by the state, ones you note--poor saftey laws and enforcement of such laws, lax environmental legislation, low minimum wage laws and lax enforcment of them, harmful agricultural subsidies, etc. There's no reason a liberal can't and shouldn't oppose those things, and if these changed fast food would not be as attractive, either for consumers or businesses, as it is. Most of these factors are pathologies of a certain form of liberalism, but are not a necessary feature."<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your comment, Matt; I just posted a long, rather theoretical response to Rob <A HREF="http://considerphlebas.blogspot.com/2005/09/drowning-out-most-heavenly-ecstacies.html" REL="nofollow">over on his blog</A>  on some related points, which you might find interesting. On this particular matter--the way in which certain "speakers" have been the benficiaries of the power of the state--I've no disagreement. As I said in my original post, this is reform liberalism at it's best--and to the extent that such reformism itself needs to operate with a substantive notion of "the good" in the background, well, aside from the theoretical margins I explore a little over at Robb's blog, it is probably reasonable to assume that basic concerns like good health and decent labor practices will be enough to pull off most of the (not deep, but not insigificant either) reforms that Schlosser obviously so strongly advocates. <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://inmedias.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow" TITLE="ra-fox at wiu dot edu">Russell Arben Fox</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-1128010430878144542005-09-29T11:13:00.000-05:002005-09-29T11:13:00.000-05:00Hi Russel,Thanks for your reply- I don't have a f...Hi Russel,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your reply- I don't have a fully worked out response myself to what you say, and I think you're right that it's quite a trick for those who say that they want to structure the "marketplace of ideas" so as to not allow one side to dominate. I think a good example of the difficulty here is found in Owen Fiss's book on free speech- it's an example of how it's hard to pull off, not of how to pull it off. The trick, as you mention, is to distinguish between cases where one side is illegitimately dominating and where one side is just winning the competion. I don't know how to solve it. But, I'm also quite suspicious about the idea of working from a shared conception of the good, since I don't think such exists, at least not in large and diverse countries like the US. It does seem to me, though, that a liberal doesn't need to believe that all forms of "speech", including comercial advertising, are created equal and so can place some limits on advertising. Also, if we think that health is a primary good, something everyone wants, and it's quite clear (as it is) that fast food is unhealthy in many ways, than it seems plausible to think that certain limits on it are appropriate- requiring truthful advertising, disclosure of health risks, keeping it out of public schools, etc. Finally, I think that fast food is only as common and cheap as it is becuase of certain activities by the state, ones you note- poor saftey laws and enforcement of such laws, lax environmental legislation, low minimum wage laws and lax enforcment of them, harmful agricultural subsidies, etc. There's no reason a liberal can't and shouldn't oppose those things, and if these changed fast food would not be as attractive, either for consumers or businesses, as it is. Most of these factors are pathologies of a certain form of liberalism, but are not a necessary feature. I hope this makes my position at least somewhat more clear. <BR/>Thanks again for your reply. <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://inmedias.blogspot.com/2005/09/liberalism-and-antiliberalism-in-fast.html#comments" REL="nofollow" TITLE="mlister at law dot *upenn* dot edu">Matt</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-1127950849902351612005-09-28T18:40:00.000-05:002005-09-28T18:40:00.000-05:00Russell,just so you know, I've posted what is perh...Russell,<BR/><BR/>just so you know, I've posted what is perhaps a slightly intemperate and unreasonable response at my blog, http://considerphlebas.blogspot.com. I apologise for any misrepresentations, and would obviously welcome them being pointed out. This is not solely a shameless shill for my own blog.<BR/><BR/>Rob <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://considerphlebas.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow" TITLE="robjubb at gmail dot com">Rob</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-1127860878586987872005-09-27T17:41:00.000-05:002005-09-27T17:41:00.000-05:00Russell,thanks for the considered and interesting ...Russell,<BR/><BR/>thanks for the considered and interesting response. Predictably, perhaps, I still think that there is a perfectly respectable liberal condemnation which isn't solely private, or focused on the various violations of rights currently endemic in the production processes, of fast food's dominance. Dominance I think is key to understanding where that critique comes from. As I mentioned in my first comment, the problem, it strikes me, with fast food is its ubiquituousness and the closing off or pricing out of the market of other choices that that means. It is excessively difficult to avoid being implicated or involved, in some way, in the culture which has emerged around fast food, particularly in the US I think, and that squeezing out of choice is something that liberals, in good Millian tradition, can legitimately regard as both a loss and an actionable loss. I also think that liberals can also make the stronger claim that on a personal, rather than a collective, level, fast food is an actionable bad, at least to the extent that it is both habit-forming and conformist, but I recognise that that is a stronger and more controversial claim, fortunately one which I don't think is needed to push the critique I want to. <BR/><BR/>You mention both Habermas and Rawls - I'm not familiar with Galston, so can't comment. Rawls would have problems with both of the critiques I make, perhaps - certainly the second - but Habermas is a full-blown emancipatory theorist, and could well see why passivity in the face of dominance would be a problem. I realise that you are skeptical of the substance of the communicative ethics paradigm, but until I see why, I can't offer much of a defence. To my mind, it seems clear that the unforced force of the better reasons requires a degree of open-mindedness which is clearly compromised by dependence and dominance, while the construal of dependence and dominance is properly to a significant degree independent of any individual understanding of the good life. If pressed, I would probably invoke value pluralism in defence of this claim, arguing that a pluralistic account can provide accounts of the importance both of highly specific individual forms of life and of more general normative ideas, like those of dominance and dependence. <BR/><BR/>Anyway, thanks again for the response.<BR/><BR/>Rob <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://considerphlebas.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow" TITLE="robjubb at gmail dot com">Rob</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-1127845984118610162005-09-27T13:33:00.000-05:002005-09-27T13:33:00.000-05:00"It really seems that only a very reductive versio..."It really seems that only a very reductive version of liberalism, one held by only a few economists at the most, I'd think, has very much of a problem with the situation you describe. Of course a liberal won't say that we should just ban or heavily restrict fast food because people are too dumb to know what's good for them, but that's not the only option."<BR/><BR/>Matt, you and Robb make a good point--the "liberalism" I read into Schlosser's attacks on the practices of the fast food industry needn't be framed in terms of, as you put it Robb, "bad stereotypes of Isaiah Berlin." But still, there's a fine line here. A particular liberal could be perfectly content arguing that people ought not eat at McDonald's, and that the best thing for a citizen to do is to encourage people not to eat there, and end it at that; no state involvement, no infringement upon speech or choice, just persuasion. I would, however, assert that as soon as you go beyond such a position, as Schlosser does, you may not have forsaken liberalism, but you need to be clear on what, exactly, you take liberalism to mean. For example, regarding the idea that the marketplace of speech/ideas ought to be structured in such a way so that powerful advertisers can't unduly influence people's choices--the "deliberative democracy version of liberalism." Well, if that version isn't to be simply circular, you must identify what metric it is by which it is recognized that deliberation is being poorly served by the current arrangement of interests. In other words, how do you <I>know</I>  there is undue influence taking place? You could appeal to Habermasian or Rawlsian concepts of ideal or original conditions of persuasion, but I suspect they'll fail you in the long run. What you need to is what William Galston and others have long argued: that a liberal polity, to be thoroughly liberal, must possess a <I>purposive</I>, substantive concept of what liberty is. And such a concept can only be grounded in a cultural understanding, not in the procedures of deliberation themselves. Thus I think that while I may well have gone overboard in characterizing the first part of Schlosser's critique as "antiliberal," I would have to come up with <I>some</I> term to describe it beyond liberalism, because liberalism alone cannot complain about way of life as substantive, affectively, wrong: it cannot write, as Schlosser does, about citrus groves being cut down, and mourn that no one sees what has been lost. <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://inmedias.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow" TITLE="ra-fox at wiu dot edu">Russell Arben Fox</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-1127748939752029322005-09-26T10:35:00.000-05:002005-09-26T10:35:00.000-05:00I'd agree with Matt that it's perfectly possible f...I'd agree with Matt that it's perfectly possible for a liberal to acknowledge and be perturbed by the homogenising effects of a variety of aspects of American culture, precisely because of their homogenising effects. Aggregate decisions made under nothing like perfect market conditions - not that decisions made under perfect market conditions would be sacrosanct, but still - quite obviously restrict individual freedom, which is after all what liberals care about, and so they are, without pain of inconsistency, entitled to call for action against the effects of aggregative decisions. I'd go even further than Matt and say that it is well within the scope of liberalism to express concern at people doing stupid things because they're too thick to know what's good for them: liberal understandings of freedom don't have to be limited to bad stereotypes of Isaiah Berlin. <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://considerphlebas.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow" TITLE="robjubb at gmail dot com">Rob</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-1127686302486223922005-09-25T17:11:00.000-05:002005-09-25T17:11:00.000-05:00A nice post, Russell. I've not read the book so c...A nice post, Russell. I've not read the book so can't comment on your presentation of it. My only real complaint is that I think your presentation of liberalism is a bit narrow. One can, of course, think that we'd be much better off w/o so many (or maybe even any) McDonalds and still be a liberal of all sorts. The first way is just to think that in fact people are making a bad choice, but that in a liberal democracy there's nothing to do about that. (A Millian liberal might think this). So, people would be better off if they made other choices, but we can't force them to do so. That's a perfectly coherent liberal position. Other liberals might think that allowing the sort of business practices (heavily subsidized by our agricultural policy) and advertising that gives fast food its power limits autonomy and so itself should be limited. Something like this for corporate speech rights is argued for by Cass Sunstein, who presents it as a deliberative democracy version of liberalism. It really seems that only a very reductive version of liberalism, one held by only a few economists at the most, I'd think, has very much of a problem with the situation you describe. Of course a liberal won't say that we should just ban or heavily restrict fast food because people are too dumb to know what's good for them, but that's not the only option. <BR/><BR/>Finally, on a rather trivial point, Germany has had to change their Beer (or "Beir", as it was, I believe) rules in the face of challanges from the EU on the grounds that they were an unfair restraint of trade. They were certainly used as such by German manufacturers, whether that was the intent or not. Whether this is a good tradeoff or not over all I can't say.  <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://inmedias.blogspot.com/2005/09/liberalism-and-antiliberalism-in-fast.html#comments" REL="nofollow" TITLE="mlister at law dot *upenn dot *edu">Matt</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com