Introduction
The Analytical Framework of Orders of Worth
Brief Introduction to OW Framework
For the E[conomie des] C[onventions], the name giving notion of convention is important. Conventions are not to be confused with arbitrary “standards” or traditional customs or ad hoc agreements. Conventions are understood as shared interpersonal logics how to coordinate and to evaluate actions, individuals and objects in situations of uncertainty […]. Conventions are socio-cultural resources for the coordination between actors. (Diaz-Bone, 2011: 46)
Micro-, Meso- and Maco-Levels of Conventions Situatedness: Justification and Critique in a Situation and of a Situation as it is
Discussion of an Analytical Blank Spot in the OW Framework
Methodological Problem Discovery in OW Framework
Theoretical Blank Spot in the OW Framework
Civic | Industrial | Market | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mode of evaluation (worth) | Collective interest a | → | Technical efficiency | → | Price, cost |
Test | Equality b | → | Competence, reliability, planning | → | Market competitiveness |
Form of relevant proof | Formal, official | → | Measurable: criteria, statistics | → | Monetary |
Qualified objects | Rules and regulations, fundamental rights c | → | Infrastructure, method, plan, project, technical object | → | Freely circulating market good or service |
Qualified subjects | Citizens d | → | Engineer, expert, professional | → | Customer, consumer, merchant, seller |
Time formation | Perennial | → | Long-term planned future | → | Short-term, flexibility |
Space formation | Detachment | → | Cartesian space | → | Globalization |
Brief Overview of the German Statutory Health System
Enrollees in private health insurance are healthier, have higher incomes and have fewer dependents than enrollees in [public] health insurance. Adverse selection decreases average premium income and at the same time increases average healthcare expenditures in social health insurance. As a consequence, financial sustainability of the public system declines. Moreover, financial incentives for healthcare providers have led to preferential treatment for privately insured patients in outpatient care.
Basic | Comfort | Premium | |
---|---|---|---|
Outpatient | |||
General treatment | + + | + + | + + |
Treatment by chief physician | + + | + + | + + |
Treatment by medical specialist | + | + | + + |
Drugs and bandages | + | + | + + |
Remedies (e.g., massages, speech therapy, ergo therapy and physiotherapy) | + | + | + + |
Adjuvants (e.g., glasses and contact lenses) | + | + | + + |
Healer/alternative practitioner | − | + | + + |
Psychotherapy | − | + | + + |
Alternative method of healing | − | + | + + |
Inpatient | |||
General hospital | + + | + + | + + |
Treatment | + + | + + | + + |
Single/double bedroom | − | + + | + + |
Individual selection of doctor (chief physician) | − | + | + + |
Dental | |||
Teeth | + + | + + | + + |
Dentures (artificial denture, dental bridge and dental crown) | + | + | + |
Inlays, dental implant and orthodontia | + | + | + |
An important difference affecting the supply of services is that for the same treatment, the compensation doctors receive for privately insured patients is, on average, 2.3 times as high as the compensation for publicly insured patients […]. Therefore, doctors have an incentive to treat privately insured patients first, and more intensely, possibly providing better treatment […]. For example, waiting times for privately insured patients are lower on average […]. (Hullegie & Klein, 2010: 1049)
The German Industrialized Health Market
The ‘Equality’ of First-Class Market and Second-Class Industrial Health Treatment
Including the Socialism OW in the OW Framework
The Seventh Axiom: Analytical Adequacy
Characteristics of the Socialism OW
The word ‘socialism’ finds its root in the Latin sociare, which means to combine or to share. The related, more technical term in Roman and then medieval law was societas. This latter word could mean companionship and fellowship as well as the more legalistic idea of a consensual contract between free men. (Vincent, 2010: 83)
Socialism OW | |
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Mode of evaluation (worth) | (Collective) welfare |
Test | (Communal and reciprocal) solidarity |
Form of relevant proof | Safety, quality of life |
Qualified objects | Health, accident, pension, subsistence, unemployment |
Qualified subjects | Solidaristic singularities |
Time formation | Human lifetime |
Space formation | Nation state, alliance |
Selection of the Canonical Text according to OW Axioms
Justification of Canonical Text by Rosanvallon
Criteria | Socialism OW |
---|---|
(a) The selected text should be (one of) the earliest political text(s) to present the polity in a systematic form. The grammar of the political text should provide for general formulations, i.e., be applicable to everyone and in all situations, which validate the operating customs, procedures, rules and settlements on the local level. The higher common principle must be satisfied “in order to sustain justifications” (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006: 66). However, not all aspects of a canonical text are relevant. For example, the Civic OW defines the “State” (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006: 72) based on a (legal) equality of citizens | Rosanvallon’s Society of Equals is selected as a canonical text because he is (among) the first to focus on the ‘singularity’ (individual) as a ‘solidaristic human being’ that constructs a communal and reciprocal polity (social world). The ‘solidarity’ among singularities is rooted in the esteem for oneself and others (see also Honneth, 2005: 121). Based on a historical and contemporary analysis of the French and US societies, Rosanvallon theorizes (Chap. 5) that the sociality of individual human beings can be singular as well as communal and reciprocal. In contrast to other accounts of alienation in the individualized, singular world (e.g., Bauman, 2000; Reckwitz, 2020), Rosanvallon provides a clear grammar to describe the communal and reciprocal ‘solidarity’ between singularities (see also Rosanvallon, 2014) |
(b) The text needs to define a higher common principle, which is used in a socially structured situation for the construction of worth, [and to] present “a form of sacrifice and a form of common good possessing universal validity” (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006: 72) | The higher common principle is communal and reciprocal ‘solidarity’ between singularities. Worth is based on the ethical continuum of singularities’ ‘solidarity’: the generality pole consists of “just rules,” and the particularity pole consists of agreement on singularities’ benefits being tied to “forms of attentive behavior” (Rosanvallon, 2013: 268). The worth of the higher common principle and its expression of subsidiarity ideally reduce the need for legal ‘rules and regulations’ (Civic OW) to a minimum. However, the sacrifice of singularities’ communal and reciprocal solidarity threatens social stability |
(c) The text has to be explicitly political in the way the author argues for the “principles of justice that govern the polity” (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006: 72) | The ‘solidarity’ of singularities, based on mutual esteem, is fundamental for the social construction of a communal and reciprocal polity |
(d) The canonical text has to aim to establish practical trust within a polity by constructing a “natural order so as to institute situations that are stabilized by recourse to a higher common principle” (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006: 73) | Rosanvallon argues in Chapter 4 that the natural trust known in industrial modernity (e.g., cultural conformity, rationalization, technicalization and expansion of the welfare state) is no longer valued in late modernity. In Chapter 5, the idea of singularities’ communal and reciprocal solidarity might be judged utopian in 2022. However, the Socialism “world is possible – that is, logically possible, cohesive and robust” (Boltanski, 2012: 99) based on Rosanvallon’s (2013) political philosophy of the Society of Equals |
(e) This criterion is ambiguous. Boltanski and Thévenot (2006: 74) start by postulating that the text should be “widely known,” and then specify that the text's use to formulate political technologies is a more important element of this criterion. Political technologies are defined as the “construction of instruments for establishing equivalence that are of highly general validity or for the justification of such instruments” (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006: 74) | Of course, in comparison to Rousseau’s Social Contract, which is used by Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) to justify ‘legal’ structures (Civic OW), the work by Rosanvallon (2013) was published only recently. Rosanvallon (2013) systematically analyzes from a historical perspective the American and French dissonance of ideals in the evolution of non-solidaristic social structures of singularities life chances. In particular, Rosanvallon (2013) describes the political technologies of devaluation of singularities by the five different compensation types of social justice Rosanvallon (2013) defines the arrangements and arguments for esteem-based ‘solidarity’ as the core of a polity of communal and reciprocal singularities. Accordingly, ‘solidarity’ is the test for the justification of worth of the Socialism OW |
OW Axioms Applied to Socialism OW
Axioms | Socialism OW |
---|---|
Principle of common humanity [a1] | |
Members of a polity who are capable of identifying with and reaching an agreement about a common definition of humanity (presupposition excludes slaves and subhumans) | ‘Common welfare’ is based on the communal and reciprocal ‘solidaristic’ assurance of safety and quality of life when there is contingent loss of health (e.g., due to an accident), subsistence (e.g., food) and work (e.g., retirement) |
Principle of differentiation [a2] | |
Polity members have at least two possible states of existence that preserve personal particularities and may have as many states as the number of existing people | The possible states are situated on a continuum between ‘solidarity’ and indifference. According to Rosanvallon (2013: 260), the singularity of an individual is constituted by diversity, the difference in relation to other singularities. The diversity of ‘solidaristic singularities’ supports ‘equality,’ which is based on a democratic and reciprocal recognition of the other |
Common dignity [a3] | |
All members of a polity have potentially identical power to access all the different states of the multistate humanity | A common welfare system consists of singularities who provide for the means of welfare support and those who benefit from it. Ideally, singularities first provide for and then benefit from welfare (e.g., work and unemployment benefits). However, access to the different states in the common welfare system might be limited due to unfortunate circumstances (e.g., an accident) |
Order of worth [a4] | |
Compromises, disputes, disagreements and justification are necessary to achieve a ranking of polities that express a range of values (e.g., for the common good) | Need is the worth creating the order of ‘common welfare’. Communal and reciprocal singularities are morally required to balance their personal needs with those of others through ‘solidarity’. According to the subsidiarity principle, the State is supposed to define legal procedures to prevent fraud by members of the polity who are either non- ‘solidaristic’ or overly dependent |
Investment formula [a5] | |
Human beings with equal power to access all states (when a higher state equates to a greater degree of happiness) have to balance the benefits against the costs or sacrifices made to access higher and lower states | The investment formula of singularities in the higher states is based on the calculation that it could be me in need of ‘common welfare’ sometime in the unknown future. The communal investment formula is based on the political economy of a singularities’ potentially not being able to provide for welfare needs. The investment formula of the lower states is based on a singularities’ potential to avoid common welfare as far as possible |
Common good [a6] | |
This states that a good or happiness correlates to the higher or lower rank of a state and is not beneficial in a similar way to all members of a polity | The paradox of solidaristic common ‘welfare’ is, in the highest state, the willingness to contribute to it and at the same time hope not to be in need of it. In contrast to this highest state, the lowest state is defined by the paradox of being unwilling to contribute but knowing that common ‘welfare’ is a safety net to rescue a singularity in need |