Back to index of Nerve 16 - Summer 2010

We’re in the ornate and bustling ‘Crown’ public house on Lime Street, Liverpool, a popular stopping off point on a Monday afternoon. Liverpool Philosophy in Pubs has been meeting in places like this for the last nine years in an attempt to bring philosophy into the community. There is a group of twenty or so people, drawn from a variety of backgrounds and they are here to enquire into today’s topic of ‘Funding’. People are already deep in lively conversations when Paul Doran, PIPs main organiser, rings a pint glass with his pen and the group quickly settle into ‘Community of Enquiry’ mode with Mo facilitating. Here is a shortened account.

Money Over Matter
Putting the FUN in Funding!

Harry: I don’t think there’s any way we’re going to get to grips with what’s happening with public funding unless we consider the social and economic context in which it takes place.
Chris: We do need to recognise context but let’s not lose sight of the particular subject we’re talking about…Doesn’t the most basic question involve the seeming conflict between the Individual and the State? Is it better for individuals to make spending choices, or is it better to pay tax that can be used for publicly funded projects?
Mo: (facilitating) Okay, we’ve got two approaches going on, which is interesting…are there any other ways in?
Tam: Aren’t there some aspects of a modern society that have to be funded by government – such as defence systems? Maybe if we looked at what kinds of areas can or cannot be funded in this way it would be useful.

There was a group consensus that things such as Healthcare, Education and Defence needed to be government funded.

Mo: We can’t avoid public funding…private enterprise draws on public funding…we could look at it in terms of resources to be allocated. Notions of public versus private are ideological and distort what we are trying to do.
Harry: But what is actually going on is that individuals and states have little control…with the freeing up of markets isn’t ideology already shaping how we use resources?
Brenda: Slightly off track, but don’t some private companies fund some publicly beneficial stuff…Tesco’s school tokens…companies such as ‘Orange’ funding the Arts… haven’t we, in Merseyside, benefited from EU funding?
Sheila: Have you noticed, sometimes in community groups… there’s a kind of insidious effect that market speak has on them. They’re pulled into playing the game in a certain way…having certain restrictions imposed on them… and they’re often well paid jobs. Why doesn’t the government just push resources into areas where they are needed?
Chris: Funding actually introduces layers of bureaucracy…and it’s inefficient. Funds should be spent on the primary project.
Peter: There is an assumption that we need funding in order to get anything at grass roots done. Perhaps that’s not the case. Maybe funding itself is a means of social control.

Here John gives a kind of potted history of the rise of Individualism and Neo-Liberalism. In this view states are seen as too remote, bureaucratic and dictatorial. Profit making, private companies offer goods and services which people are free to decide whether to buy into. Individual v State becomes Private v Public. He continues…

…Most of us do not want to live in a society driven by profit; this is a proper moral intuition. Relationships are at their best when we give to people what they need because they need it. Profit motive knows no limits. The market is sensitive to those with money but it provides nothing for those without. The Neo-Liberal model is self-defeating; it creates greater inequality in societies…
Peter: The problem is Neo-Liberals start off looking at the individual level. They believe the individual exercises his choices and desires freely…they oppose interference from outside. But it’s wrong headed…they’re not free from any coercive forces, the individual is not in some unconnected, free floating state, it is affected by the prevailing matrix of consumer society. Then there’s the idea that somehow, through some ‘moral alchemy’, individual greed is turned into a societal good.
Keith: It’s possible to have social justice within public/private partnerships. It is the present system that corrupts the idea of Democracy. Public funding, carried out by a democratically elected government is still the best way to go. It may be inefficient…public funding is often directed into the wrong areas…but this just shows that our systems of government are not democratic enough.
John: In debate about morality and economics, especially in areas like the Health Service… these issues are emotive and the real issues and distinctions become obscured or even obliterated. Professionals have to make tough decisions on where to allocate resources but they seem to be increasingly devoid of ethical considerations.
Peter: You’re talking about instrumental reasoning. It will tell you how to do things, but it won’t have anything to say on what should be done.
Harry: I feel like we’ve been considering moral issues and democracy in the abstract, when what we should be discussing is the way modern capitalism works. It shouldn’t be a discussion of how we can control capitalism and make it more ethical, but of how capitalism controls us and imposes choices on us. We should be taking apart terms such as ‘public’ and ‘private’, ‘taxation’ and ‘wealth’ rather than attempting to rebalance them in a way which only reinforces them. Ideology mystifies the social nature of wealth production, reducing us all to buyers and sellers. The public sector/private sector division is part of this ideological mystification.
John: I agree, but I think there’s also room in philosophy for a consideration of how things should be.
Mo: (facilitating) Okay, thanks…let’s go around the group and get final comments.

Final comments

Chris: I have to believe that, with a high level of public debate, people would choose the better option – public funding. It makes for a more cohesive society.
Keith: Democracy is corrupted by the economic system. Information is influenced by vested interests.
Sheila: The idea of purely funding through the private sector is corrupt and damaging for a society.
Harry: Everything is already public. All wealth is socially produced, but privately owned and controlled. Ideology around public v private suggests that real wealth is privately and commercially created…it conceals the class structure which is the basis of capitalism and its drive for profit.
Peter: I think that we have got somewhere with it…at least clarified some areas. Philosophy does grapple with the big issues - looks at the way the world works and the different ways of looking at it, questioning any underlying assumptions involved, leading to a fuller understanding.

Jim Stanton (Community Philosopher)

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