3. Rhetoric of reaction

Question 1

Perversity:

Answer 1

• They will endorse a policy but then attempt to demonstrate that the action proposed or undertaken is ill conceived; indeed, they will most typically urge that this action will produce, via a chain of unintended consequences, the exact contrary of the objective being pursued.
• The attempt to push a society in a certain way will result in it moving all right but in the opposite direction
• But there are two main pushbacks to this:
o Sometimes unintended consequences are beneficial rather than detrimental – so ask, are the perverse effects always negative
o Sometimes purposeful action that is necessary involves some degree of side effects – like imposing seatbelt rules may cause some drivers to drive more recklessly, but this side effect does not justify removing the entire policy, as the aggregate good that policy has produced outweighs the few side effect

• E.g. Social programs directed at the poor will generate more poverty
• E.g. Minimum wage laws will make low wage earners poorer
• E.g. Getting rid of child labour in factories will drive children into prostitution and other worse forms of child labour
How to address:
1. incidence
- if there are perverse effects, how common?
2. Magnitude
- What is the size of the perverse effects? What is the likely net effect of the reform?

Question 2

Futility:

Answer 2

• Deny the possibilities of change while also celebrating the status quo
• In contrast to perversity, it says that the new policy will have no effect at all
• Action will not even make a dent, leaving promoters of change demoralized
• The perverse effect sees the world as incredibly volatile, any slight move might cause chao. Whereas the futile effect sees the world as highly structured and governed by unchangeable laws, there is no hope for successful human intervention
• Evident in policy debates where after a policy is enacted opposers will contend that the previous pattern has not changed it has just become more challenging to understand
o It never appears to them the intent of the policy when announced versus its actual effectiveness makes for a far more complex story than portrayed by futile claims
• E.g. Changes in suffrage (who can vote) have no effect on who is in power

Question 3

Jeopardy:

Answer 3

• Claims that while the proposed change is desirable in and of itself, it involves a set of consequences that offset its pursuit – if we lose and we gain, but what we lose is more precious than what we gain, then it’s a case of two steps forward and one step back
• Jeopardy requires a historical backdrop and background, for when a new progressive policy is being announced there must be some previous history, tradition, institution, policy that is endangered by the new move
• The case for jeopardy can be made as soon as a new policy is imposed, whereas perversity usually follows after unhappy experiences with the policy, and futility happens even later when you determine didn’t do anything
• Often times all three can be used by the same person to attack the same policy, so their use is not mutually exclusive
• E.g. Democracy threatens individual liberty
• E.g. The welfare state threatens liberty, democracy or both (e.g. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom

Question 4

Jeopardy counterparts for progressives:

Answer 4

Synergistic Fallacy
• A propensity to argue in favour of a policy because of its mutual support, or in other words, because it goes well together with another policy so that it reinforces or improves the other policy. A conviction that all good things go together.
Imminent Danger
• Both imminent danger progressives and jeopardy conservatives do the same thing:
o Look solely at the dangers and risks associated with action and inaction
o Present their certain scenarios of action and inaction as though they are certain about the results it will yield

Question 5

Futility counterpart for progressives:

Answer 5

Historical Inevitably:
• Inevitable character of a forward motion in human history, or also that human societies pass through a number of finite and ascending stages
o Example of Marx claiming that the working class will inevitably uprise and rebel against the owners of production
o Other examples include people who feel confidence by saying they have history/God on their side, which makes combatants more eager to fight

Question 6

Perversity counterpart for progressives: desperate predicament

Answer 6

• To disregard tradition and the concept of unintended consequences completely, whether or not it actually results in perversity
• By evoking the desperate predicament stance progressives argue that the old system needs to be scrapped immediately and a new one must be built to replace it regardless of the unintended consequences it might produce – the status quo cannot persist
• This is meant to override any perverse arguments