Normally if someone on another web site writes a critique of something I’ve done, I let it pass. In keeping with Rule #1, not everyone has to agree with me. If someone wants to state their opinion and take exception with mine, fine.
Yesterday a couple of people pointed out to me THIS RESPONSE BY SCOTT RICHERT TO THE POST I DID ON PRICE-GOUGING, and I decided a response was in order.
Mr. Richert takes exception with what I said on the subject. That’s fine. I operate on the principle that not everyone has to agree with me.
In his post, Mr. Richert expresses the concern that many individuals feel when they see prices jump dramatically and therefore charge those who set the prices with "price-gouging." This is a natural, understandable, human reaction.
Mr. Richert regards raising prices out of a motive of greed to be a bad thing. On this, I am sure we can agree (provided that greed is understood as a disordered desire for profit rather than a properly ordered desire for profit).
It is difficult to tell from what he writes, but I suspect that Mr. Richert may think that I would disagree with him on this point.
Mr. Richert clearly has strongly held ideas about economics, and it would be very intersting to be able to interact with his position.
It’s unfortunate, therefore, that his articulation of his position is marred by things such as:
- Ad hominem,
- Guilt by association,
- Distortion,
- Exaggeration,
- Uncharitable inaccuracy, and
- Demonstrably false statements
I’ll try to have something tomorrow that directly interacts with the moral/economic substance of Mr. Richert’s post–time and tide permitting–but for now let me document the observations I just made.
Let’s start by considering the title of his piece, which was
Since my blog post on price-gouging was the principal subject of his post and since titles generally have something to do with the principle subject of a post, a natural conclusion is that Mr. Richert believes that I have portrayed "free-market looting" (which he seems to be using as a synonym for price-gouging) as "heroic"–i.e., a good thing to do. Since I did nothing of the kind, at first glance it seems most reasonable to place this in the category of an uncharitable inaccuracy. It’s a deliberate attempt to portray me or something I wrote in the worst possible light (making it uncharitable), but in fact I did not do the thing in question (making it inaccurate).
Some doubt about this interpretation of the title is raised by the first part of his post, which states:
As always happens in the wake of a natural disaster, libertarians
have started complaining about laws against price-gouging. They either
claim that there is no such thing as price-gouging or claim that price-gouging does exist and that the price-gougers are the real heroes. Sometimes, the same website will offer both arguments.
A person who doesn’t mouseover the links in this might naturally infer, again, that he’s talking about me and what I wrote. In actuality, if one examines the links, one finds that they are to articles on LewRockwell.Com, which means he’s really bashing them. This raises the possibility that his title may not be an uncharitable inaccuracy regarding me but a guilt by association smear on me since after lodging this complaint (implicitly, via links) against others he then proceeds to talk about me for the rest of the post, without clearly differentiating me from the position of those he has just criticized.
For the record, I neither denied the existence of price-gouging, nor did I portray it as heroic. Instead, after quoting a passage of the Catechism condeming certain economic practices, I said:
Though the term "price gouging" is not used here, the same basic idea seems to be present.
Mr. Richert then goes on to say:
What is disturbing is the extent to which libertarian theory has become accepted as reality, to the point where it is taken as a given by those trying to grapple with the moral issues raised by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
He then adds:
Jimmy Akin . . . is a case in point.
This identifies me to the reader as an exponent of "libertarian theory." I’m not altogether sure if Mr. Richert means that I am only an exponent of libertarian economic theory or of libertarianism in general, though in fact I find fault with any purely libertarian view.
The full paragraph in which Mr. Richert says that I am a case in point deserves further examination, however. He writes:
Jimmy Akin, a convert to Catholicism and an apologist who works for Karl Keating’s Catholic Answers and runs a blog on the side, is a case in point. He has written a very long post, “Disaster Ethics 1: Price Gouging,” on his blog and has encouraged Catholic bloggers to link to it.
It is important to note that Akin has repeatedly stated that anything
posted on his blog is his alone and should not reflect on Catholic
Answers. That said, Akin often presents discussions on his blog as if
they are definitive Catholic answers to moral questions (in fact, the
original title of his blog was Defensor Fidei), and this post is no exception.
This paragraph contains a variety of subtle and not so subtle digs and barbs, as well as at least one distortion and at least one false statement.
When he says that I have encouraged Catholic bloggers to link to the post on price-gouging, this is a distortion. If one reads the link in question one will see that I actually encouraged bloggers to link to the series of posts I was doing on the ethical situations that arise in the context of disasters.
My motive for doing this was that I was getting a bunch of questions on these topics, I knew that people in St. Blog’s were grappling with these questions, I was unaware of other bloggers trying to sort through them in a systematic way, and so I decided, as part of my tiny contribution to society as it grappled with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, to try to do the best I could to clarify these issues, even though some of them (like shooting looters) were on topics that were so complex and sensitive that I frankly didn’t want to touch them at all.
I guess the saying is true: No good deed goes unpunished.
Mr. Richert also says that I have "repeatedly stated" that my blog does not represent Catholic Answers. I do have a statement on my blog in which I make this point. I put it up during the 2004 election as extra insurance measure to make it absolutely clear that what I say on my blog I say in my personal capacity and not as a representative of Catholic Answers, in case any IRS people might be confused on this point when contemplating the ministry’s non-profit status. I remember linking that statement a couple of times, but I don’t think that qualifies as "repeatedly" in anything but the most technical sense.
Punning on the name of the organization I work for, Mr. Richert also says that on my blog I often present discussions of moral questions "as if
they are definitive Catholic answers."
This is quite problematic. Of all the apologists working in the field professionally, I am one of the most cautious when it comes to advancing my own personal opinions. In fact, if one reads my posts or listens to me on the radio one will regularly encounter me using phrases like "It seems to me . . . " and "There is no official teaching on this, but . . . " and "There are two views on this . . . " and the like. Hardly the language of "definitive answers."
At times I may simply quote an official Church document (which is usually not definitive in the sense of infallible but is at least official), but then I’m not the source of the answer; the Church is.
Other times I may simply state a personal opinion, but I have a hard time thinking of examples of cases when I don’t qualify this in some way to signal the reader that this is an opinion rather than a "definitive answer." There may be times I have failed to do this, though it is certainly my usual practice and intention to signal the reader what is opinion. Other times what I offer is simply an attempt to think through a problem even though I am not 100% sure of the answer, in which case I am extra certain to qualify it.
In any event, since Rule #1 of my blog states that "People are welcome to disagree with me in the comments boxes as long as they are polite," regular readers of my blog know that I am not seeking to pass off my personal opinions as definitive answers. They also know that I often let people who disagree with me state their case against my opinion in the combox without me offering a rejoinder, thus allowing the reader to decide who he thinks is right.
All this makes me wonder if Mr. Richert reads my blog with sufficient frequency to be in a position to make the kinds of assertions he does above.
Richert then goes on to consider an example of price hikes that I did not discuss in my post–that of sudden, dramatic rises in the price of gas at some stations in Georgia, and concludes his post by saying:
Catholic apologists, however, might better consider that the
three-dollar rise in gas prices was (like the looting in New Orleans)
proof of the doctrine of Original Sin.
This implies that I do not recognize the role of original sin in such matters, which is false.
Catholic commentators, for their part, might better give a careful reading to a text before they start criticizing it.
This is illustrated by a problem that crops up in the combox on Mr. Richert’s site. There he goes on to state that I have "jumped on the bandwagon" with (in the words of a commenter) "some small-fry anarchocapitalists who deny the existence of greed an gouging altogether," which is not true since I have neither denied the existence of greed, nor have I denied the existence of price-gouging. Indeed, as quoted above (and below), I said that the basic idea was present in a passage of the Catechism that condemned it.
He then states (emphasis added):
Read Mr. Akin’s entire article. He not only imports libertarian
economic ideas into Catholic social thought; he actually argues that
the only way that someone can force the price of an item up is to
restrict the availability of the item, as if prices actually are
determined by some "invisible hand"! He uses the example of a hotel
owner with 200 rooms that he normally rents at $100/night and argues
that the only way he can violate the Catechism’s stricture (in other
words, the only way he can violate the Seventh Commandment) would be to
restrict the number of rooms he would rent to, say, 100, so that he can
charge $120/night, since the "natural price point" will have gone up!
The idea that he could continue to rent 200 rooms but charge $200/night
for them is not, in Mr. Akin’s mind, apparently ever a violation of the
Seventh Commandment, because if he can get that amount, it means that
the "natural price point" has risen.
These are demonstrably false statements. In fact, they are directly contrary to what I said. I actually wrote (emphasis added):
Though the term "price gouging" is not used here [in CCC 2409], the same basic idea seems to be present.
Note one element of what the Catechism says, though. It speaks of
"forcing up prices." I’m not sure of all the different kinds of
circumstances that might happen. I suppose that it happens if a
manufacturer were to start deliberately making less of something that
was in demand due to a hardship.
I then go on to apply this idea to the case of a hotel owner who behaves as Mr. Richert describes, but at no time do I say that this is the only way he can violate the Catechism’s strictures. Nor do I say that charging $200 a room when the market will allow this is never a violation of the Seventh Commandment.
Mr. Richert then maligns me by saying:
Catholic apologists who tell sellers that they are not forcing up
prices if they simply confine their greed to the same level as
non-Christians are not accurately interpreting the Church’s teaching,
and they’re potentially doing great moral harm.
This, of course, not being what I said.
He also maligns me by implying that I think that I dwarf even advocates of Austrian economic theory by believing that Church social teaching is synonymous with libertarian economic theory. He writes (emphasis added):
whatever Church social teaching is, even Austrians can agree that is
not synonymous with libertarian economic theory. Mr. Akin, however,
apparently disagrees.
Having already erroneously identified me with libertarians and "anarchocapitalists," Mr. Richert also goes on to erroneously associate me with another group he finds odious, stating:
he is clearly, in political terms, a neoconservative
which is also false.
When Catholic commentators do things like that, is it a proof of the doctrine of original sin?
I must confess that I haven’t spent much time reading ChroniclesMagazine.Org, but somehow I suspect that the critique of my post did not represent its finest hour.
I recommend the article “Gouge On” by Jerry Taylor of the National Review:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/taylor200509022359.asp
It tackles the issue of price gouging from a purely economic standpoint.
Part of the problem, I suspect, is Mr. Reichert’s dismissive attitude (in stark contrast with Jimmy’s openness to the value of discussion and debate) that it’s “really not worth arguing with” those whose views he thinks so little of, since such views, “[l]ike any other ideology,” are only used by people “to justify the reality that they prefer.”
Without having any prior familiarity with Mr. Reichert (and thus not being in a position to say how he does or doesn’t generally behave), I have to wonder whether he exempts what he thinks of as his OWN views from this dismissive reductionism.
(Some would, some wouldn’t. There ARE theorists of various chools who cheerfully affirm that ALL theory, including their own, is only ideological will to power, and that their aim is not to serve any such idealistic abstraction as truth, but merely to further their own agenda. I don’t attribute such a view to Mr. Reichert, but I have to wonder on what grounds he might seek to justify dismissing without argument the views of others on the grounds that they are merely held to “justify the reality they prefer” while considering his own views to be of a nobler and more respectable sort.)
As evidenced, obviously, by my casual approximation of the spelling of his name. Oh, well, at least I was very clear that I made no pretensions of making any sweeping generalizations about him or his work….
The oddest thing is that you weren’t advocating Libertarianism is the series. I can understand to a degree the quacks and walks like a duck assertion, but the series would have infuriated your typical Libertarian. The fact that I haven’t seen a posting on marijuana legalization yet indicates to me that any Libertarian leanings are lukewarm at best.
I am a frequent reader of Chroniclesmagazine.org and frequent listener to Catholic Answers Live. I was one of the first to read Mr. Richert’s article. I did not take away nearly as much ill will from the reading of Mr. Richert’s post as did Mr. Akin. The main issue that Mr. Richert had with Mr. Akin’s commentary, according to my reading, was Mr. Akin’s use of the term “natural price point”, also known as “equilibrium price”. I do believe there are serious issues with Catholics using this term, especially in the explanation of Catholic social teaching. It is a term that when used communicates a particular economic theory, primarily that of libertarians. This particular theory can be and has been used to justify dissent on Catholic moral teaching (e.g., not paying a “just wage” because the “natural price” for labor is below the rate that would provide for a decent living standard). Mr. Akin’s use of “natural price point”, in my opinion, did present the term as hard fact not to be doubted, rather than as problematic theory. I believe Mr. Richert’s primary concern was with Mr. Akin’s use of this term. Again, the use of “natural price point” in any context that presents it as an established fact presents problems in the interpretation of Catholic social teaching.
Mr. Barnes,
While I would like to read Mr. Richert’s post in the non-polemical spirit suggested by your comments, it seems to me that you are doing so only by focusing on the main substantial issues that Mr. Richert raises with Jimmy’s post to the exclusion of everything else — whereas the whole point is that Mr. Richert’s post does not confine itself to the substantial issues.
Most obviously, Richert directly accuses Jimmy of “often present[ing] discussions on his blog as if they are definitive Catholic answers to moral questions,” and states that the post in question “is no exception” — as if it were the exception rather than the rule for Jimmy to distinguish definitive Catholic teaching from his own opinions and speculations.
That’s not a critique of Jimmy’s treatment of economic categories, that’s a much more serious personal attack — and, in my opinion, one that is grotesquely off base and unfair.
But perhaps that’s to be expected when the speaker considers himself to be addressing a point of view whose proponents are “not worth arguing with.”
Richert begins by characterizing what he considers “libertarianism” as an “ideology” that “puts a pretty face on the will to power” and is used to “justify the reality” preferred by its proponents — then cites Jimmy as a “case in point” of the “disturbing” trend of libertarianism being “accepted as reality.” This, too, isn’t just a difference of opinion about economic concepts.
Richert definitely aggressively misreads Jimmy in his ridiculous claim that Jimmy “actually argues that the only way that someone can force the price of an item up is to restrict the availability of the item,” which it is hard to see any charitable reader of Jimmy’s post concluding.
And he concludes by implicitly attributing to Jimmy a particular point of view regarding a particular price hike about which Jimmy had not even expressed an opinion, then implying that as a Catholic apologist Jimmy should know better.
Given the level of snarkiness and disrespect shown by Mr. Richert, I think Jimmy’s response displays supererogatory class and gentlemanliness.
In fact, when you go from Richert’s subject heading, “Heroic Free-Market Looting,” to his closing “zinger” that “Catholic apologists” ought to realize (which they apparently don’t) that the kind of three-dollar hike in gas prices that said apologists inexplicably seem willing to defend actually resemble “the looting in New Orleans” in exemplifying original sin (something Catholic apologists ought to know about), it’s hard to avoid the impression that Richert is, if not quite outright accusing Jimmy of championing the moral equivalent of looting, nevertheless implying that Jimmy is at least gravely suspect of some serious offense in this regard, e.g., giving illegitimate moral comfort to free-market looters, or something of the sort.
Let us hope, for Mr. Richert’s sake, that Jimmy’s closing line is closer to the mark than Mr. Richert’s.
Jimmy,
I clearly need to re-read your original post, as I was a little unclear on what you were advocating originally. In fact, I came away from it with *some* of the same impression as the unfortunate Mr. Richert. (I say “unfortunate” because it is unfortunate that whatever his opinion, he would choose to express it in context of slander and ad hominem.) Actually, the point of near-agreement is when he said that you seem in effect to deny the existence of gouging. (actually that is not what he said, but I am trying to put careful qualifiers on statements to modify it) Of course you explicitly did not deny the possibility of gouging, (but rather affirmed it) however the picture you drew was one which seemed to make gouging either unlikely or implausible. That seemed to me to go counter, if not to reason, then at least to intuition. It seemd that your hypothetical hotel gougers were only able to raise prices by artificially limiting their available rooms, which was not in the best interest of their profit. So that made it improbable. Or if they raised prices without limiting, then you seemed to mitigate the sinfulness of doing so by suggesting that this higher price was dictated by the market demand, and also the greatest good for the greatest number of people would likely result because of the other factors of choosing alternative shelter that you mentioned.
Perhaps this is a confused paraphrase of what you wrote, but I would be grateful for someone to straighten me out. The one thing I think we can all definitively agree on is that price-gouging (taking advantage of other’s hardship) is wrong and sinful, and that just because prices go up in a given situation, we shouldn’t be too quick to cry foul (any more than we should be eager to accuse anyone of any other sin).
Thanks,
Josh
David Barnes writes:
That’s natural.
My experience is that one is generally more aware of jabs, barbs, ad hominems, and misrepresentations when one is the person being jabbed, barbed, ad hominemed, and misrepresented.
Jimmy,
Can I quote you next time someone tries to tell me “ad hominem” cannot be used as a verb?
🙂
To quote the great scholar Calvin, “Verbing weirds language.”