Free Markets and Families - A Look at Anne Manne

In the latest edition of the Quarterly Essay, Anne Manne has written a provocative piece entitled 'Love & Money'. When the latest polling from around the world informs us the unpopularity of free market solutions to social problems, Manne argues that the invisible hand is failing us when it comes to raising children.

In a nutshell, Manne's thesis is as follows. Australia's population, like that of many other developed nations, is rapidly aging. To the extent that the aged require various kinds of support, it is essential that Australia's women produce offspring, to both provide this support, and to contribute indirectly by way of income tax.

In contrast to this, however, politicians of various stripes, both in Australia and elsewhere, have argued that it is essential for women to be part of the workforce as much as possible, and the value and productivity of women has tended to be linked to their employment, and consumption and spending power, rather than for motherhood.

Manne argues that policy-makers have attempted to reconcile this contradiction by way of a largely market-based solution: child-care. Yet the forms of child-care that have tended to prosper have been cheap and corporate, and Manne cites some reasonable evidence to suggest that their use is not necessarily in a child's best interests. In other countries, particularly in Northern Europe, the solution to this problem has been to amplify welfare state measures, such as providing relatively generous packages of maternal (and even paternal) leave. When given the option, Manne argues that parents would rather stay at home than be forced to participate in the workforce, and place children in care.

The net effect of this, according to Manne, is that motherhood has been devalued, in some cases quite explicitly. Fertility rates are too low, and financial pressures are compelling women to either delay or forgo motherhood. It should be noted that Manne is strictly not attempting to villify those parents who place children in child-care. Nonetheless, maternal love has been reduced to a salable commodity, namely, 'care'. But, as Manne puts it:

Commercialising care cannot always ensure loving attentiveness, which is embedded in particularity and a shared history. Turning care over to the market - commodifying it - has inherent problems. To begin with, all the assumptions about the well-informed purchaser who can withdraw patronage from inadequate services fall down in the case of caregiving services. If people don't thrive in care, it can be difficult to find an alternative. Care services may be in such short supply, or so expensive, that the purchaser settles out of panic on the first, rather poor option they can find. Since services are always labour-intensive, any attempt to lift the quality of care raises the cost. (p. 65).

In short, Manne argues that there exists a 'shadow economy' consisting of (mostly female) carers tending to the needs of the aged, sick, children, and disabled, whose labour is necessary in order for the productive consumers to work extended hours in paid employment. Whilst John Howard told Australians that, economically speaking, they have never had it better, the fact remains that Australians work longer hours than ever, and are up to their eyeballs in debt. Manne concludes with a range of recommendations to address these issues, mainly involving increased Government support for parents who wish to stay at home.

I largely agree with Manne's sentiments, with one major quibble. In an otherwise excellent essay in The Monthly, Manne discussed the pornification of our culture but again, as with 'Love & Money', she situated this phenomenon largely within the context of feminism having taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line. Whilst it is perfectly true that there are feminist apologists for 'raunch culture', as well as feminists who attack motherhood, it is surely more pertinent to point out that capitalism has very successfully co-opted various elements of feminism. When the likes of Peter Costello, or, indeed, Tony Blair, have exhorted women to return to the workplace, it is most definitely not in the name of feminism that they speak. Again, when manufacturers market g-strings for tweens, it is in the service of capitalism, not feminism.

This is one of the chief contradictions of much of today's conservatism in Australia - whilst phenomena such as the devaluing of motherhood, and the rise of raunch culture are deplored, and whilst feminism is scapegoated for this, conservatives fail to see how the pervasive influence of neo-liberal policy has contributed to the situation. Whilst the neo-liberals attempt, with some success, to dismantle Australia's welfare state, it is the role of leftists to continually point out these contradictions, to challenge such a dismantling, and to highlight the the growing evidence that demonstrates that it is unfettered capitalism and 'market solutions' that are chiefly responsible for a range of social problems, and not, as in this case, some feminists on the fringe of public discourse.

Stupidity

'A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.' (Bertrand Russell)

'Almost half of Australian women aged 18-41 were sexually abused as a child.
Research shows a staggering 45 per cent of women were abused as children by family members, friends or strangers.Abuse ranged from non-contact behaviour -- such as indecent exposure or being forced to watch pornography -- through to rape.' (Herald Sun, 9/10/2007, reporting on Griffith University research)

Examples of Stupidity.

The Source:

'I’m always horrified by the abuse of children. But I must say that almost every Australian woman has been abused by dodgy statistics. ' (Andrew Bolt)

Responses to Andrew Dolt:
'Griffith is a strange place.
It is also a hotbed for Wahabism in Australia. Taxpayer funded, of course.' (Village Idiot)

'That is an enormous spectrum of ‘abuse’ and implys that almost every second woman I pass on the street has been ‘sexually abused’.
So before this ‘statistic’ moves into the vernacular as they invariably do - think belief in AGW - let’s see the individual breakdown of these statistical elements otherwise it’s sensationalist nonsense.
Again, kind of like AGW. ' (Inbred Retard)

'Griffith has provided a mecca for Far Left academics and student since established.Unfortunately some escape to mainstream education and positions of power within anti-development groups and Government quangos.
Just read some of the blogs originating from Griffith academics and you will get the message.' (McCarthyite Degenerate Checking Under Bed for Reds)

'Rubbish. Pure unadulterated rubbish! I grew up in a big family with a huge extended family and no one has ever been abused, or has done any abusing. Of course, in making that statement, I leave out all our childhood fights and spats. I well remeber when we were kids the girls gave as good as they got! According to the study and your statement, I should at least know someone, or even know of someone who has been abused, or has been an abuser. Sadly for you, that is not the case.' (Self-appointed & Cretinous Representative of all Mankind).

'Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance.' (Edward Bulwer-Lytton)

Eleven theses on Psychoanalysis

In response to a long and interesting thread on Larvatus Prodeo, I think it timely to provide some clarificatory remarks on psychoanalysis, a much-maligned and oft-misunderstood discipline. I will try to be as schematic as possible.

1. Psychoanalysis is radical. The notion of a psychoanalytic unconscious, a part of ourselves that is fundamentally and irreducibly unknowable, beyond any control, and causative of a range of 'symptoms' (from the hysteric's phantom pains, to dreams, to the symptomatic nature of our romantic lives) is radical. Other psychoanalytic notions can make claims of being radical, however, the psychoanalytic unconscious is what gives the discipline its revolutionary character. Whilst Kant, Hartmann, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and others all dipped their toes into the murky waters of a radical unconscious, none were as detachedly systematic, whilst at the same time frighteningly intimate as Freud.

Nonetheless, psychoanalysis is not politically radical, Reich being the obvious exception. Freud rejected Marxist theories of the origins of society, and Lacan too was dismissive of Marxism, at least, until the uprisings in 1968 Paris. It is possible that, being Jewish, many early psychoanalysts thought it impolitic to also be socialist, given the Zeitgeist in which they operated. A strong sense of social justice can be found in psychoanalysis, from Freud's Free Clinics to the low-cost services provided by psychoanalytic schools today. This notwithstanding, Freud, and psychoanalysis is best understood, in 19th Century terms, as neither conservative nor radical, but as liberal-bourgeois.

2. Psychoanalysis is not a science. At least, it is not scientific in the sense by which we understand the term in physics or mathematics. Psychoanalysis is a science of the particular, which means it will never deal in the relatively tidy universals of the 'hard' sciences. All the same, psychoanalysis displays greater rigour, reasoning, and explanatory power than most of the rest of psychology, which is why today's neuroscientists, such as Damasio, or Kendall, are turning to Freud rather than Beck or Skinner.

Those who proffer narrow and dogmatic notions of scientificity (that is, most of academic psychology) will find psychoanalysis wanting. However, psychoanalysis is perfectly 'empirical' - it deals with a series of 'ones' rather than seeking to apply structural equation modelling or alpha-tests to subjects reduced to some kind of statistical totality. Like any of the 'human sciences', psychoanalysis incorporates 'qualitative' methodologies, which, though they eschew statistical methods, nonetheless proceed by way of evidence and reasoned argumentation. Indeed, given the flimsy conceptual foundations of mainstream psychology, the latters' fear and hostility towards psychoanalysis must be explained by means other than a recourse to notions of 'empirical validation'.

3. Psychoanalysis is not an art. The discipline, as least in its clinical guise, is not simply some whimsical expression of its practitioner's fancy. Nonetheless, unlike other 'therapies', true psychoanalysis cannot be 'manualised', that is, broken into a recipe book-style series of prescriptions for a therapist or subject. Psychoanalysis stands closer to the arts than any other of the psychologies, partly because art itself is 'symptomatic' and 'over-determined', but also because psychoanalysis does not suffer from the same knee-jerk rejection of all that is not narrowly scientific that its psychological cousins exhibit.

4. Psychoanalysis is anti-authoritarian. When practised by way of assisting the analysand to interpret his or her own associations, psychoanalysis is far removed from the likes of CBT, and refrains from issuing directives and imperatives. Furthermore, psychoanalysis does not stigmatise and pathologise in the manner of the DSM-IV; after all, in psychoanalysis, neurosis is 'normal', or even a best-case scenario, given that the alternative is psychosis. Clearly, someone like Foucault was not enamoured of psychoanalysis, yet any criticism that he (or Deleuze or Guattari) might have made could be doubly said of the highly authoritarian treatment 'regimes' currently predominating in our healthcare systems

5. There are different schools of psychoanalysis. Few analysts would accept all of Freud's teachings, though virtually all would cite Freud as the founder of their discipline. In the post-Freud era, psychoanalytic schools include the Anna Freudian, ego psychology, Bion's analysis, object relations, Kleinian approaches, Lacanian analysis, and the intersubjective school. In addition, there are various offshoots initially inspired by, but ultimately distinct from psychoanalysis, such as Jungian psychology, the neo-Freudians, and Adler's individual psychology. Whilst some of these approaches differ sharply from each other, there is no more sectarianism that what one would find in any other discipline, and the dominant form of analysis that one learns is often a result of one's time and place, or the orientation of one's school. Still, psychoanalysis is not homogeneous.

6. Psychoanalysis is neither misogynist, nor anti-feminist. Whilst feminism has an uneasy relationship with Freud and psychoanalysis, there is a relationship nonetheless. Freud made several problematic statements in relation to feminine psychology, which can be attributed to 3 basic origins:

1. Freud was a (relatively enlightened) product of his times, and consequently gave voice to a number of fairly typical prejudices.
2. The exigencies of some of Freud's theories, and the extent to which he took these theories literally, inevitably led him to some odd conceptual formulations. The Oedipus Complex, when applied to females, is among the more notorious of these.
3. Some of Freud's statements are in fact sexist, and seemingly have no basis in either theoretical or empirical necessity, and cannot be explained away via 19th Century prejudice.

Having established this, it should be remembered that not all feminists are hostile to Freud or psychoanalysis. American analysts such as Nancy Chodorow or Jessica Benjamin are excellent examples of a feminist (and intersubjective) engagement with psychoanalysis.

7. Psychoanalysis is not always encountered in its pure form. Indeed, whilst the neuroscientists and 'cognitive analysts' say that they engage with psychoanalysis, it would be more accurate to describe this engagement as one of colonisation. Psychoanalysis is often subordinate to some other discipline, or else the more radical and subversive aspects of its teaching are neutered. For instance, American ego psychologists, and the CBT practitioners (former analysts) shift the focus from the unconscious to the controllable and knowable conscious. Or take the difficult notion of the death drive, which has been virtually neglected by all post-Freudians other than Klein and Lacan. It is surely no coincidence that psychoanalysis becomes more acceptable, and more 'scientific' to people once it has been stripped of the unconscious, sex, and death.

8. Psychoanalysis is analogous to Marxism. That is to say, as Foucault pointed out, both psychoanalysis and Marxism are discourses that critically interrogate other discourses, often discourses of mastery. In psychoanalysis, discourses of mastery belie the subject of the unconscious, repressing to produce this illusion of 'mastery'. In Marxism, analysis is directed to looking at how class-relations are perpetuated through ideology, and how 'neutral' discourses are often sodden with ideological blindspots. This contributes to both disciplines being 'unacceptable'. Freud's discourse is further unacceptable because it engages meaningfully in those things often presumed to be meaningless, that is, the nonsensical elements of experience normally banished from polite academic company, such as neurotic symptoms, jokes, dreams, and slips of the tongue.

Whilst both psychoanalysis and Marxism undermine discourses of mastery, neither were intended to be applied in a haphazard, reductionist fashion. For instance, whilst a Marxist analysis of 'crime' enable us to observe how class relations and private property underpin our notions of legal transgression, phenomena such as sexual assault can never be exhaustively reduced by an analysis of class relations alone.

9. Psychoanalysis is not post-modern. Despite the protestations of Sokal, and others, there is nothing that Lacan has in common with the likes of Derrida, or Baudrillard, other than a similarly difficult oeuvre. Whilst psychoanalysis is applicable to non-clinical phenomena, there are many examples of what Freud called 'wild analysis' in this field. In addition, Kristeva and Irigary, inspired by analysis, have consciously engaged with the 'post-modern'. It should be remembered, however, that in his New Introductory Lectures, Freud explicitly said that the Weltanschauung of psychoanalysis was scientific and medicinal. All of the major theorists of psychoanalysis have since continued in this tradition, albeit incorporating the concerns of feminism, or linguistics. The struggles of psychoanalysts are not merely confined to obscurantist debates on paper; French analysts, for instance, have documented their battles with an unsympathetic and cynical healthcare system in the journal Lacanian Praxis.

10. Psychoanalysis is not dead. In particular, psychoanalysis thrives in places where Latin languages predominate, from Portugal to Quebec. It is Buenos Aires, and not New York, that actually has the highest per capita amount of psychoanalysts. In fact, psychology in Argentina is taught with mandatory units in philosophy, and does not waste its time with the niceties of statistical analysis. Last year, as I travelled through Europe, it was clear that Freud's 150th birthday was celebrated in London, Berlin, and Vienna. On the other hand, psychoanalysis, as enduring as it is, will never be the dominant paradigm, cumbersome as it is to both the 'normalising' discourse of bureaucratic-medical models, and to consumer capitalism. Historian of psychoanalysis, Eli Zaretsky, said much the same thing in the speeches he gave in Melbourne in 2005.

11. Psychoanalysis is on the side of freedom. This may be paradoxical, given Freud's apparent commitment to a thoroughly determinist model of mental functioning. Nonetheless, if we adopt a notion of freedom that is not simply either/or in nature, we can observe how psychoanalysis helps the analysand obtain freedom by degrees, by replacing ignorance and compulsion with knowledge and awareness.

It is no coincidence that psychoanalysis has been demonised by totalitarian regimes everywhere, from Hitler's Germany, to Stalin's Russia, and is today excluded from authoritarian modes of 'treatment' peddled in consumerist regimes. An anecdote that I heard from an Argentinian Lacanian suggested that Lacan's work found resonance in this latter country precisely because the obscurity of its language kept it from the attention of authorities.

Psychologist have ever but sought to change the human subject, that is, transform him/her into an object, force him/her to identify with a 'therapist', or to become the 'healthy', narcissistic, alienated subject of consumer capitalism.

The point is not to change things, but to interpret them. Through interpreting, change follows in any case, or moreover, analysand interprets for his or her own self. Psychoanalysis teaches the analysand how he or she 'enjoys' his or her symptoms; it does not enjoin the subject to necessarily cease this enjoyment.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Distracted from class warfare, and instead waging the war against sleep, the Very Busy and Rather Tired Revolutionary has been occupied recently with gainful employment, scholarly pursuits, and attending to an ailing Ms Revolutionary.

In lieu of a substantive post, here are some snippets from the wonderful world of the Internet:

The Good

I was going to post on this delightful picture, taken from the latest Liberal Party love-in:

but Ms Fits beat me to it. Still, captions are welcome.

Omni Brain has an intriguing clip from You Tube, morphing the face of Woman from 500 years worth of paintings. Should be of interest to art fans, and also, possibly, to the psychologically inclined. Gaze and beauty and all that.

Still on the topic of women, a rather amusing study has been conducted, courtesy of the, err, soft sciences.

The Bad

The News Ltd media are still assuring us that, if Labor wins the next election, then the unions are coming to eat your babies.

Evolutionary science tells us that, between the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man came the rightard. Those rightards who have adapted to the 21st Century and mastered the use of opposable digits seem to think that arming 11-year olds will help reduce crime. God bless. I'm sure they'd feel the same way about armed and 'educated' children in Africa and the Middle East.

The Ugly

The Russians, or at least their authoritarian leaders, are making mischief once again, this time, in response to purported US mischief. This has been highly publicised in the Australian media of late, with a surprisingly measured and non-hysterical response, for now, at least. The same cannot necessarily be said of our Northern friends. The backdrop to this latest missile crisis is, in short, characterised by Russian tension with the former Eastern Bloc countries, flagging negotiations between Russia and the EU/Germany, and attempts by Britain to extradite and prosecute a suspected murderer. We shall see what happens.

In the US, pornographer Larry Flynt is offering $1 million to anyone who can provide substantiated evidence of a sex-scandal involving high-ranking politicians. Let's hope a similarly community-minded scheme is introduced here - the likes of Pru Goward can 'clear the air', and we might finally be able to rid ourselves of an unflushable turd of a PM.

Finally, even a stopped clock can be right twice a day. It seems that The Australian is finally having a moment of (accidental) substance in one of its op-eds/blogs. Gary Hughes has invited discussion on the topic of a number of serial killings from Perth a few years back. If you have the time, follow the links; the discussion is frankly, at times, disturbing. Everything from Freemason plots, psychics, and alien abduction have been mentioned in connection with these killings, and a number of amateur sleuths have popped up offering theories. Some of these characters seem to have take a rather unhealthy interest in the matter. Still, it makes me wonder if there are any similar vigilantes/detectives in the People's Republic of Melbourne who are trying to solve cold cases.