Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis

Thanks Manfred Eigen... But, neither my comment editor nor my faculty adviser would accept that deep of a trek into the bowels of post-modernism.

In the second draft of my paper [first draft info: here and here] I am trying to really make my theme and thesis shine throughout. The question is, what is my theme? I really wish I could say my theme is that US business should be held accountable for causing harm to injured Chinese workers. I am just unable to sympathize on any sort of meaningful level with the plight of workers half the world away. Mostly because I find that sort of sympathy pretentious and paternal, no matter how politically correct it may be. 36 hours ago I had problems admitting that to myself let alone to the world, but two nights while reading Stephen Pinker’s The Blank Slate, a passage by Adam Smith from The Theory of Moral Sentiments allowed me to make peace with a theme in line with my beliefs. Here is that passage:

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would react upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would, too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquility as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger tomorrow, he would not sleep to-night; but provided he never saw them, he would snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred million of his brethren.

Pinker writes that science is proving that human nature is largely defined by this selfishness, a selfishness he describes as the Tragic Vision of humanity which finds that “humans are inherently limited in knowledge, wisdom, and virtue, and all social arrangements must acknowledge those limits.” Pinker connects Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, and Richard Posner, to this Tragic Vision. Once we realize that humans are largely guided by selfish impulses (and, yes, there are extreme examples of human selflessness, but these too fit into Pinker’s science based philosophy), we can design our laws to make our selfishness compatible with the improvement of humanity.

Pinker writes, “the Tragic Vision looks to systems that produce desirable outcomes even when no member of the system is particularly wise or virtuous.” Adam Smith’s butcher, brewer, and baker, from the greatest document of 1776 point to the Market Economy as one such system that produces desirable outcomes based on the selfish desires of the actors within the system. Noble intentions are not necessary, but as long as actors play by the rules of a competitive market economy, wealth is increased by the “invisible hand.” The invisible hand is a dirty word to many, but Pinker, by way of Hayek, says that the invisible hand is an intelligent system because it “is distributed across millions of not-necessarily-intelligent producers and consumers” as a sort of neural network which makes the system itself more intelligent and function better than any person or group of persons could hope to achieve by actively directing the market. Hayek himself goes a bit further, and writes in Law, Legislation, and Liberty Vol. II: The Mirage of Social Justice, with the innards filled in by Pinker: “’The manner in which the benefits and burdens are apportioned by the market mechanism would in many instances have to be regarded as very unjust if it were the result of a deliberate allocation to particular people.’ But that concern with social justice rests on a confusion, he claimed, because ‘the particulars of [a spontaneous order] cannot be just or unjust.’” This means that if the system is deliberately allocating benefits and burdens to a particular people then the system is unjust. In a perfect market economy, benefits and burdens would not be deliberately allocated to a particular people, but when workers in a foreign country are being allocated undue burdens and companies are reaping undue benefits, there is injustice.

I apologize, but we must take a deeper detour into the land of law. It should be short, and it should come together in the end. Justice Holmes, whose words form the title of this blog, had more than a few words to say when it came to modifying the system we live in. He wrote that his job was “to see that the game is played according to rules whether I like them or not… [and] to improve conditions of life and race is the main thing… But how the devil can I tell whether I am pulling it down more in some other place?”

Hayek, Pinker, Holmes, Smith, and the law coalesce with my topic and the facts to form a thesis and theme that I believe in and can be proud of:

Under current law, US businesses that manufacture in China should take every step to protect themselves from tort suits by Chinese workers who are being exposed to chemicals and industrial processes that are known to be unreasonably dangerous.

There is injustice, and it can be cured under the law without changes, spurred by the selfish desires of US companies to protect themselves from a frivolous disaster that would occasion real disturbance producing the desirable outcome of improving the conditions of life.