Don Arthur, now firmly established at Troppo Armadillo has a characteristically erudite post on Quigginism: John Quiggin’s left wing conservatism As the title indicates, it starts off from my discussion of conservatism and the precautionary principle, but it doesn’t end there. Don has a series of updates on more eminent thinkers such as Oakeshott, Rorty and Giddens. It’s well worth reading, and I look forward to continuing the discussion during 2005.
7 thoughts on “Arthur on Quigginism”
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John Quiggin 
This looks like an interesting theme to pursue and I look forward to injecting some other names into the mix like Collingwood, Popper, Hayek and Bartley.
Oakeshott is a great gift to academics because his conceptual analysis lends itself to papers and thesis topics teasing out this or that interpretation of various locutions that he may or may not have revised in the course of his career.
Rorty is a big name but he has been subjected to searching criticism by the New Zealand Popperian Peter Munz. Not in that particular paper, it just provides an indication of where Munz is coming from.
Giddens. Hmmm….What about Habermas? Sorry, only joking:)
Looking forward to a great 2005!
I missed the earlier post on PP but following it up now.
Tony Chisholm and I reckoned we had an argument for PP based on minimax regret. So the usual counterargument to PP (interpreted in the minimax sense of seeking to thwart the worst possible outcome) is that you might take a costly policy action and fail. Then you incur the bad outcome plus the cost of a failed policy so PP does not work. But suppose you could incur a small cost and minimise the regret you might incur from not taking action. You might then choose the conservative outcome because it minimises such regret. With usual qualifications about ‘sunk costs’ this seems to provide a reasonable case for PP.
The case we considered was climate change as in your article.
On another issue my reading of Burke is that he is essentially a skeptic who suspects that behaviour is complex and that leadership from a refined elite matters more than policy. This seems different from making scientific judgements about climate change.
The Old Left is becoming more conservative on economic & the New Left is conservative on ecologic matters. The Old Right is also urging conservatism in both political (state) and cultural (family) institutions.
It is the New Right that is the most progressive political force at the moment, in terms of political movement, although not in terms of income distribution. This includes its radical attitude towards traditional economic institutions (corporate governance and welfare programs, unions) and political institutions (national constitutions and international law).
It is also helpful to Emerging Key Technological movements and hostile to ecological movements.
The New Rights model for social organization is the capitalist firm, which it would like to impose on all other social arrangements (sub-national, national and super-national). The capitalist firms is the very antithesis of conservative organization being ceaselessly transmorphed in the endless quest for profits.
The New Left takes the same attitude to cultural formations, hence its obsession with “makeovers” and cultural stereotype busting.
In that sense the New Left and New Right make perfect bedfellows as they are fashion victims of the post-modern age.
Dear John,
I was mildly irritated when you took your marbles and went home after I revealed the implausibility of your claim that “Rational agents will never choose to engage in war.”
Your explanation in terms of Pareto optimality was crazy (assuming omniscience). Your explanation in terms of “Bayesianism” was never explained, nor did you refute my simple counterexample.
My relationship with CT has degenerated since then. I have been banned and I have declared blogwar on CT. It’s not very cost-effective to keep fighting there, so I am planning to move to your blog.
If you are interested in a resolution that would involve my completely abstaining from posting to CT or your blog, I’d be happy to tell you what that would entail.
Best,
Deborah
I’m on holiday at the moment, and not doing much in relation to the blog. But I will restate my general policy that everyone is welcome to comment here, subject to the requirements of civilised discussion and no coarse language.
Harry, the point you and Tony make is one of a broader class considered in my paper on PP, which I will repost soon.
okey doke, bloke.
i’ll just keep spamming the chaps at CT until you’re done with holiday.
merry haysoos mass.