Sceptic Watch

December 12, 2023

The Liberal Reward of Labour

Would you like to know more?

[A] house divided against itself shall not stand.

— Matthew 12:25 , KJV Standard, 1769.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

— Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE)

War can make murders out of otherwise decent people.
That may come as a shock to some of the viewers who perceive these mass murderers as horrible beasts.
Not so.

— Ben Ferencz (1920 – 2023), Prosecuting Evil, 2018.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!

(13 November 1789)

Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity?
Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men?

(The Somersett Case and the Slave Trade, The London Chronicle, 20 June 1772)

Well, Doctor, what have we got:

a Republic, or
a Monarchy?

A Republic, if you can keep it.

(Mrs Powel of Philada & Benjamin Franklin, Constitutional Convention, 1787)

The Liberal Reward of Labour

Naomi Oreskes (1958):
In recent months 14 states have introduced or passed laws weakening labor protections for minors, even in notoriously dangerous industries, such as meatpacking.
Nonenforcement of existing laws that limit the hours and types of work that can be performed by kids is also on the rise.
This past year the number of minors illegally employed—including children as young as 13—increased by 37 percent. …
Advocates of weakened protections for children claim that the states—not the federal government—should decide; that attempts to regulate the workplace represent a federal power grab; and that the defenders of strict limits on child labor are socialists …
(Child Labor Laws Under Attack, Scientific American, September 2003, p 82)

The persistence of hyperconcentrated wealth

	Europe		United States
*Wealth Cohort*	1913	2018	2018
*Top 10%*	89%	55%	74%
*Middle 40%*	10%	40%	14%
*Bottom 50%*	1%	5%	2%
*Top 10% : Bottom 50%*	445:1	55:1	185:1
Europe = Average of United Kingdom, France, and Sweden.

Thomas Piketty (1971):
The sharp increase of the top decile share, especially in the United States, reflects a gradual and worrisome erosion of the share owned by the rest of the population.
The lack of diffusion of wealth is a central issue for the twenty-first century, which may undermine the confidence of the lower and middle classes in the economic system …
(Figure 13.10, Capital and Ideology, 2020)

Financial assets held in tax havens

Thomas Piketty (1971):
By exploiting anomalies in international financial statistics and breakdowns by country of residence from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB), one can estimate that the share of financial assets held in tax havens is:
4 percent for the United States,

10 percent for Europe, and

50 percent for Russia.
These figures exclude nonfinancial assets (such as real estate) and financial assets unreported to BIS and SNB, and should be considered minimum estimates.
(Figure 12.5, Capital and Ideology, 2020, emphasis added)

Adam Smith (1723 – 90)

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. …

Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality.
For every rich man, you must have hundred poor.
And that rich man must live every time in fear because of the jealousy of others.
And if it is not for the firm hand of the magistrate … he would not be able to keep his capital safe. …
[Civil government,] in so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense

of the rich against the poor, or
of those who have some property against those who have none …

Poverty, though it no doubt discourages, does not always prevent, marriage.
It seems even to be favourable to generation.
A half-starved Highland woman frequently bears more than twenty children, while a pampered fine lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is generally exhausted by two or three.
Barrenness, so frequent among women of fashion, is very rare among those of inferior station.
Luxury, in the fair sex, while it inflames, perhaps, the passion for enjoyment, seems always to weaken, and frequently to destroy altogether, the powers of generation. …

But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children.
It is not uncommon, I have been frequently told, in the Highlands of Scotland, for a mother who has born twenty children not to have two alive. …
This great mortality, however will everywhere be found chiefly among the children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with the same care as those of better station.
Though their marriages are generally more fruitful than those of people of fashion, a smaller proportion of their children arrive at maturity. …

Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it.
But in civilized society, it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful marriages produce. …

The liberal reward of labour, by enabling them to provide better for their children, and consequently to bring up a greater number, naturally tends to widen and extend those limits.
It deserves to be remarked, too, that it necessarily does this as nearly as possible in the proportion which the demand for labour requires. …
It is in this manner that the demand for men, like that for any other commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men,

quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and
stops it when it advances too fast.

November 21, 2023

Adam Smith

Blue Army: Persons of Interest

All for ourselves, and nothing for anyone else, seems, in every age, to have been the vile maxim of the Masters of Mankind.

Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality.
For every rich man, you must have hundred poor.
And that rich man must live every time in fear because of the jealousy of others.
And if it is not for the firm hand of the magistrate … he would not be able to keep his capital safe. …
[Civil government,] in so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense
of the rich against the poor, or

of those who have some property against those who have none …

— The Wealth of Nations, 1779.

Adam Smith (1723 – 90)

The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

[The illusion that the accumulation of possessions brings real satisfaction is the] deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. …

The great source of both the misery and disorders and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another …
Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others …
[But] none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us

to violate the rules either:
- of prudence, or
- of justice; or
to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either:
- by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or
- by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations (1776)

According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to …

the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; …
the duty of protecting, so far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice, and …
the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and … institutions, which can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals to erect and maintain …

In spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, [the rich] are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessities of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus, without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. …

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love.

(Chapter 2, Book 1)

What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same.
The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible.
The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms.
The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen.

We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it.
In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer.
A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired.
Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. …

Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. …
Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate.
These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution …

(Chapter 8, Book 1)

Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods, both at home and abroad.
They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits;

they are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains;
they complain only of those of other people.

(Chapter 9, Book 1)

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. …

Poverty, though it no doubt discourages, does not always prevent, marriage.
It seems even to be favourable to generation.
A half-starved Highland woman frequently bears more than twenty children, while a pampered fine lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is generally exhausted by two or three.
Barrenness, so frequent among women of fashion, is very rare among those of inferior station.
Luxury, in the fair sex, while it inflames, perhaps, the passion for enjoyment, seems always to weaken, and frequently to destroy altogether, the powers of generation. …

But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children.
It is not uncommon, I have been frequently told, in the Highlands of Scotland, for a mother who has born twenty children not to have two alive. …
This great mortality, however will everywhere be found chiefly among the children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with the same care as those of better station.
Though their marriages are generally more fruitful than those of people of fashion, a smaller proportion of their children arrive at maturity. …

Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it.
But in civilized society, it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful marriages produce. …

The liberal reward of labour, by enabling them to provide better for their children, and consequently to bring up a greater number, naturally tends to widen and extend those limits.
It deserves to be remarked, too, that it necessarily does this as nearly as possible in the proportion which the demand for labour requires. …
It is in this manner that the demand for men, like that for any other commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men,

quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and
stops it when it advances too fast.

It is this demand which regulates and determines the state of propagation in all the different countries …

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the effect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population.
To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary cause and effect of the greatest public prosperity.

(Chapter 10, Book 1)

The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations … generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it it is possible for a human creature to become.
The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment …
Of the great and extensive interests of his own country he is altogether incapable of judging …

(Part 2, Chapter 10, Book 1)

All for ourselves, and nothing for anyone else, seems, in every age, to have been the vile maxim of the Masters of Mankind.

(Chapter 4, Book 3)

The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from [the business elite] ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention.
[For it] comes from an order of men,

whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public,
who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and
who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

[The individual] is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. …
I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

(Chapter 2, Book 4)

Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality.
For every rich man, you must have hundred poor.
And that rich man must live every time in fear because of the jealousy of others.
And if it is not for the firm hand of the magistrate … he would not be able to keep his capital safe. …
[Civil government,] in so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense

of the rich against the poor, or
of those who have some property against those who have none …

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

(Part 2, Chapter 2, Book 5)

November 14, 2023

Order and Chaos

Would you like to know more?

Order and Chaos

Order, the known, appears symbolically associated with masculinity …
This is perhaps because the primary hierarchical structure of human society is masculine, as it is among most animals …
It is because men are, and throughout history have been,
the builders of towns and cities,

the engineers, stonemasons, bricklayers, and lumberjacks,

the operators of heavy machinery.
Order is:
God the Father, the eternal Judge, ledger-keeper and dispenser of rewards and punishments. …

the peacetime army of policemen and soldiers. …
Chaos, the eternal feminine, is … the crushing force of sexual selection.

— Jordan Peterson (1962), 12 Rules for Life, 2018.

Fascists did not value masculinity per se – only that of some male members of the dominant race.
Socialists and communists (despite their own macho inclinations) were seen as the fomenters of ‘feminine’ indiscipline – while the fascist revolution was characterized by manly order.
The Nazis saw the Jews and Poles as ‘feminine’ races, achieving their goals through devious plots rather than masculine openness.

— Kevin Passmore (1962), Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, 2002.

[The] Western subjugation of the female is … a function of biblical thinking.

— Joseph Campbell (1904 – 87), Love and the Goddess, The Power of Myth, Episode 5, 1988.

The overthrow of mother right [with the advent of farming and pastoralism] was the world historic defeat of the female sex.
The man took command in the home [and] the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude; she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children.
This degraded position of the woman … has gradually been palliated and glossed over, and somewhat clothed in a milder form; [but] in no sense has it been abolished.

— Friedrich Engels (1820 – 95), The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 1884.

[Even] the most thoughtful and fair-minded of [men] fall back on conservative assumptions about the inevitability of present:
gender relations, and

distributions of power,
calling on precedent or sociobiology and psychobiology to demonstrate that male domination is natural and follows inevitably from evolutionary pressures.

— Peggy McIntosh (1934), White Privilege and Male Privilege, 1988.

Kevin Passmore

Proto-fascists drew on contemporary science (or rather pseudoscience) as well as irrationalism. …
Social Darwinists feared that the comforts of modern society, coupled to assistance to the poor, would lead to social degeneration and decadence.
They preached ‘eugenicism’ as the answer …

It is no accident that doctors and lawyers were prominent in the far right.
[They feared] that professions were overcrowded with Jews and women, and [disliked] government plans to introduce ‘socialist’ health-care programmes.
Doctors and lawyers espoused eugenicist theories, which they thought gave them the right to play god. …

This was all the more significant given that it was within the framework of eugenics and racism that many of the elites confronted the advance of democracy at the turn of the century – the much feared ‘age of the masses’.
Racist and eugenicist ideas represented, for some, a new, more effective means to govern and control the dangerous masses. …

[After the Great War, governments became preoccupied with ensuring that their nation was fit to survive in the difficult international situation of the post-war world. …
In its most radical form, adopted by fascists everywhere, national strength implied:

economic self-sufficiency behind tariff walls,
repression of socialism and incorporation of the workers into the national community,
encouragement of women to abandon careers and equality in favour of having babies for the nation,
assimilation or expulsion of ethnic minorities, and
the introduction of eugenic social welfare schemes designed to improve the physical fitness of the nation.

(Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2002)

Bicentennial Man

Real Men Eat Meat

Singing to babies

RICO

Union Man

Ethnic Cleansing in Colonial Australia

Dr Death

Anti-Science Aggression

October 19, 2023

Devon Price

Green Army: Persons of Interest

Devon Price

Autism Activist.
Professor of Social Psychology.

How "unmasking" leads to freedom for autistic and other neurodivergent people, Life Kit, NPR, 18 April 2022.
Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity, 2022.

Autism: From Disorder to Oppression

Price reconceptualizes autism in three stages:
1. Demedicalization: from disorder to difference.
2. Identitarianism: from difference to identity.
3. Politicization: from identity to oppression.
Price accepts that the central problem in autism is in the domain of social communication and interpersonal functioning.
What he rejects is that this due to an impairment or deficits in the capacity for verbal or non-verbal communication and social cognition.
Price's frames autism as a normal human variant with a different cognitive / communication style.
It is this mismatch of styles, he asserts, that accounts for the interactional problems between autistics and non-autistics.

Devon Price:
Autism is neurological.
Autism is a developmental disability that … appears to be largely genetically heritable …

[Much] of what researchers consider the “social deficits” of Autism aren’t really deficits at all; they’re just differences in our communication style that neurotypicals don’t adjust to. …
Autistic people don’t actually lack communication skills, or a drive to connect. …

[The] idea of pursuing a treatment “for” Autism is predicated on the idea we are broken or sick … an idea the neurodiversity movement completely rejects. …
Where the medical model of disability fails is in making sense of disabilities that come from social exclusion or oppression. …

[We] are disabled, robbed of empowerment and agency in a world that is not built for us. …
The world actively dis-ables people by failing to provide accommodations they need.
Naming the reality of disability shows respect for disabled people and awareness of how we are oppressed. …

[Neurotypicality] is more of an oppressive cultural standard than it actually is a privileged identity a person has. …
[There] are just so many ways in which we are punished for deviating from the norm. …
Ableism is a pervasive social force, and one we can’t entirely escape …
The criminal justice system and mental health system are deeply interwoven, and they both serve to perpetuate ableism.
Ableism is a powerful force of oppression. …

Almost every person with a mental illness or disability … has repeatedly tried and failed to earn acceptance by playing the rules of a game that was designed to harm us. …
Being Autistic in a neurotypical world is often traumatizing, and being forced to mask is essentially an experience of society-driven abuse.…
[Your] disability isn’t to blame for what happened, and neither are you.
It was a far-reaching, centuries-old system of injustice that left you in such a difficult spot. …

Almost anyone can be viewed as defective or abnormal under our current medicalized model of mental illness …
By tearing down our current, constricting definition of mental health, and celebrating different ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, we can improve countless lives. …
Our caring professionals and educators must be made aware … that their prejudicial attitudes often create disability where none might otherwise be there. …

When we teach children about racism, sexism, and imperialism throughout history, we should highlight how the oppressed were often branded as hysterical, paranoid, and insane.
It’s important that all people — neurodiverse and neurotypical alike — come to realize how narrow definitions of sanity and “functioning” are used to harm and dehumanize.
Price's conceptualization of disability is most easily understood by examining the ways in which it departs from the standard biopsychosocial model of disability as described in the public health literature:
As the diagram indicates … disability and functioning are viewed as outcomes of interactions between health conditions (diseases, disorders and injuries) and contextual factors.

Among contextual factors are
- external environmental factors (for example, social attitudes, architectural characteristics, legal and social structures, as well as climate, terrain and so forth); and
- internal personal factors, which include gender, age, coping styles, social background, education, profession, past and current experience, overall behaviour pattern, character and other factors that influence how disability is experienced by the individual.
(Concepts of functioning and disability, Towards a Common Language for Functioning, Disability and Health: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, 2002, p 10)
So the standard view of disability is that it results from an interaction between individual impairment (due to a disease or disorder) and environmental conditions.
The archetypal example someone in a wheelchair being disabled due to the absence of wheelchair access.
The impairment is an inability to walk.
The disability is due to impairment (due to some disease or disorder) interacting with an external environmental factor (eg a lack of accessibility).
No impairment (ie no disorder), no disability.
If there is impairment, whether or not there is associated disability may depend on environmental conditions (eg ramps).

In contrast with mobility, is it likewise possible that a neurologically based social ineptitude could be severe enough to cause significant psychosocial impairment?
The scientific community says yes.
Price says no: autism does not cause impairment, therefore it is not a disorder.

In what sense, then, is autism a disability?
Here Price draws a distinction between impairment related (medical) disability and non-impairment related (social) disability; arguing that autism is a social / political / cultural / normative disability, not a medical disability.
And the source of this social disability?
Ablelist / neurotypical oppression.
Though, if Price is correct about the lack of impairment, this cannot, strictly speaking, be 'ablelist' in the usual sense of the word.
Ablelism is discrimination based on actual medical impairment.
Since, for Price, there is no impairment in autism, one would need to expand the meaning of ableism to include the false imputation of impairment where none exists, then stigmatizing autism based on this mislabeling.
So, these semantic contortions leave us with two novel senses of 'disability' and of 'ablelism'.

In summary, neurotypical oppression leads to social disability based on a biological difference between non-autistics and autistics (or alternatively between the neurotypical and the neurodiverse), not a difference between health and disorder, but a difference between two normal human developmental variants.
The source of the disability is not individual disorder / impairment but the prevailing system of oppressive societal norms.
Ableism dis-ables autistics in the same way as slavery dis-ables the enslaved.
According to this view autistics are being compelled to conform to unjust cultural standards only to be excluded when they (inevitably) fail.

What are the difficulties of this theory?
To describe severe autistics, those without language, unable to attend to their own basic self-care and protection, as being normal developmental variants, seems to deny an obvious reality, hiding it behind a screen of confusing language and political ideology.
In any other context — perinatal anoxia, traumatic brain injury, disabling genetic syndromes — such reduced capabilities would be regarded as major psychosocial impairments .
They require intensive professional (ie formal) assistance and support.

Consider the definition of mental disorder:
Mental_disorder:
A mental disorder … is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning.
(Wikipedia, 18 September 2023)
One might add that by 'significant' is meant severe enough to be the focus of clinical / research attention ie professional (formal) intervention as distinct from subclinical, which is manageable by informal supports (self-help, peer-support, life-coaching, personal development).
That is to say, those who fall below the clinical threshold of severity do not have a disorder in the sense of requiring formal assistance.
Whether the 'challenges' of this population are primarily due to systematic oppression, as Price contends, is debatable.
While there is overlap between the concepts of oppression, stigmatized difference, and discrimination, they are not the same thing and are not freely interchangeable.

The mind-body distinction plays a role here.
Certain physical problems, like a broken bones, are not stigmatized.
Communicable diseases on the other hand are stigmatized, for obvious reasons.
Problems with the brain, affecting mind and behavior, are more closely linked with moral personhood.
Mental dysfunction naturally bleeds over into adverse judgements of the self.

Price's seeks to demedicalize autism (presumably) in order to destigmatize it.
Because he takes an identitarian approach to autism, demedicalization is necessary because it is unacceptable to identify with a stigmatized entity.
If autism is identified with the self, and autism is a disorder, then the self is disordered.
And the self has to be defended at all costs.
There's nothing wrong with me, society's to blame.
It's not me that needs to be fixed, but the world.
One can address medical stigma directly, or as in Price's case, indirectly, by denying one has a disorder so as to avoid the associated stigma.
The alternative is to directly address the stigmatizing of illness in general, and developmental disorder in particular.

This identitarianism is expressed in the preference for disability-first over person-first terminology:
- being an Autistic person vs a person with autism,
- being an schizophrenic person vs a person who suffers from schizophrenia,
- being an Asian person vs being a person of Asian descent,
- being a gay person vs being a person who is same sex attracted.
Identitarianism invites essentialist thinking.
In the area of race this is especially dangerous.
Defining people by their ethnicity is the foundation of biological racism.
It essentializes ethnicity and conflates linguistic and cultural identity with biological descent.
There are numerous diasporas where immigrants are fully integrated with the majority culture despite differences in physical appearance.
One is not defined by one's ancestry any more than one is defined by one's neurology.
Benjamin Zachariah [Historian]:
Once upon a time, essentializing people was considered offensive, somewhat stupid, anti-liberal, anti-progressive, but now this is only so when it is done by other people.
Self-essentializing and self-stereotyping are not only allowed but considered empowering.
(After the Last Post: The Lives of Indian Historiography, 2019)

Devon Price:
[It’s] more sensible to view Autistic identity through a social lens than a strictly medical one. …
[The] social model of disability, originally coined in the 1980s by disabled academic [sociologist] Mike Oliver.
In his writing, Oliver described disability as a political status, one that is created by the systems that surround us, not our minds and bodies.
While it is true that Oliver sought to draw attention to the environmental factors contributing to disability it seems he did not believe these were the only factors involved.
That he distinguished between impairment and disability indicates he did believe that impairments existed and played a role in disability.
As originally conceived, the social model of disability was a model of impairment-related disability, not a social model (or lens) of identity.
Social model of disability:
The social model of disability diverges from the dominant medical model of disability, which is a functional analysis of the body as a machine to be fixed in order to conform with normative values. …
In this model, the word impairment is used to refer to the actual attributes (or lack of attributes) that affect a person, such as the inability to walk or breathe independently.
It seeks to redefine disability to refer to the restrictions caused by society when it does not give equitable social and structural support according to disabled peoples' structural needs. …

Oliver did not intend the social model of disability to be an all-encompassing theory of disability, but rather a starting point in reframing how society views disability.
This model was conceived of as a tool that could be used to improve the lives of disabled people, rather than a complete explanation for every experience and circumstance.

A primary criticism of the social model is its centering of the experiences of individuals with physical impairments, which has resulted in overlooking other forms of disability, such as mental health conditions. …

In the late 20th century and early 21st century, the social model of disability became a dominant identity for disabled people in the UK.
Under the social model of disability, a disability identity is created by:
- "the presence of impairment,
- the experience of disablism, and
- self-identification as a disabled person."
(Wikipedia17 September 2023)
In addition to with arguing that autism is not a disorder, Price also criticizes the syndromic approach to diagnosis in general, at least when it is applied to conditions whose manifestations are 'mental' (psychological or behavioral), rather than 'physical' (neuropathic pain).
Again, he concedes that autism has a physical cause, but not that it is a disorder.
Devon Price:
[For] many illnesses and disabilities, medical care and a medical lens is undeniably appropriate.
If you’re someone who is in excruciating, daily pain due to nerve damage, medical treatment and medication can help you.
If you have a degenerative condition that progressively gets worse, such as multiple sclerosis, you have every reason to support medical research in pursuit of a cure. …

[It’s] arguable whether the disability should even be defined by the presence of clear behavioral signs, such as
- trouble reading social cues or
- hesitating to initiate contact with other people. …
Instead of looking to the external signals of autism that others might pick up on, it’s important that we instead focus on
- the neurobiological markers of the neurotype, and
- the internal experiences and challenges that Autistic people themselves report. …
[Autism is] diagnosed based on behavior and reported challenges the Autistic person is facing, not on a brain scan. …

When it comes to mental illness and disability, diagnostic categories are really flawed things.
A disorder is a cluster of symptoms and traits that tend to go together, but don’t always, and the way those clusters get organized tends to change over time. …
Our understandings of these labels are constantly in flux, and who gets stuck with a particular label varies across time and cultural context. …
This dynamic is particularly challenging for people with Autism Spectrum traits, because our neurotype is so multifaceted and so easily mistaken for other conditions. …

I prefer the terms self-determination or self-realization to self-diagnosis, because I believe it’s more sensible to view Autistic identity through a social lens than a strictly medical one.
Diagnosis is a gatekeeping process, and it slams its heavy bars in the face of anyone who is too poor, too busy, too Black, too feminine, too queer, and too gender nonconforming, among others. …

[Self-definition] is a means of reclaiming our power from the medical establishment that has long sought to corral and control us.

Neurotype:
A type of brain, in terms of how a person interprets and responds to social cues, etc.
- 2018, Steve Bloem, The Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness, page 56:
  And the neurotypes aren't random.
  They align with their symptom clusters along two major axes: anxiety and anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure).
(Wiktionary, 23 April 2023)

('Neurotype' does not yet appear in OED online)
If you reject expert opinion using on objective criteria (syndromal diagnosis based on patterns of signs and symptoms), how do you determine your neurotype?
Is it something you knows instinctively, like same sex attraction?
Do you conclude you are Autistic because you feel an affinity with others who identify as Autistic?
How did they discover they were Autistic?
Is it all about identification:
- gender: male / female / non-binary?
- race: black / white / colored?
- neurotype: neurotypical / neurodiverse?
There are no 'neurobiological markers of the neurotype'.
There is no neuroscience or recognized classification of neurotypes.
There are only neurobiological correlates of known clinical syndromes.
Substituting the word 'neurotype' for 'diagnosis' is just trying to demedicalize autism by linguistic manipulation.
This is no substitute for a rational debate about alternative ways of categorizing phenomena.
Like using the word 'disability' in a non-impairment-related (social) sense, when in common usage it refers to disability in the impairment-related (medical) sense.
Unless done carefully, argument by redefinition just creates confusion.

Since it is unclear what the general properties of a neurotype are, one cannot be certain what entities should be included in this category.
Is anyone who is neurodiverse (ie not neurotypical), possessed of a neurotype?
Where do temperaments and personality traits fit in?
Price mentions both:
- a range of specific conditions apart from autism: Tourettes, ADHD, PTSD, depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, and Social Anxiety Disorder; as well as
- certain general categories: Mental Illness / Disorder and Cognitive Disability (TBI, CTE, dementia, ID).
Clearly many putative neurotypes are neither congenital / developmental nor permanent / unchangeable as Price asserts autism is.
Many with PTSD were neurotypical before being traumatized, and some recover.
Likewise, in a significant proportion of cases schizophrenia, depression, and epilepsy are not permanent conditions.

Price's perspective echos a range of past and current intellectual traditions:
1. Demedicalization:
  
  R D Laing:
  Laing took the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of personal experience rather than simply as symptoms of mental illness. …
  Laing regarded schizophrenia as the normal psychological adjustment to a dysfunctional social context, but he later acknowledged that his views on schizophrenia were wrong.
  (Wikipedia, 24 September 2023)
  
  Labeling Theory:
  Labeling theory holds that deviance is not inherent in an act, but instead focuses on the tendency of majorities to negatively label minorities or those seen as deviant from standard cultural norms.
  (Wikipedia, 26 September 2023)
2. Identitarianism:
  
  Devon Price:
  … I capitalize “Autistic” … to indicate it is a part of my identity I am proud of, and to signal Autistics have our own culture, history, and community. …
  Because the neural and cognitive features of autism are so pervasive, it affects almost every aspect of a person’s body and brain. …
  autism is a core part of who we are, impossible to separate from our personalities, talents, preferences, and general outlook. …
  Without our disability (or our gender identity) we’d be entirely different people.
  They’re both core parts [of our personhood or personality …]
  
  Neurodiversity:
  The framework grew out of the autism rights movement and builds on the social model of disability, arguing that disability partly arises from societal barriers, rather than attributing disability purely to inherent deficits.
  It instead situates human cognitive variation in the context of biodiversity and the politics of minority groups.
  Some neurodiversity advocates and researchers argue that the neurodiversity paradigm is the middle ground between strong medical model and strong social model.
  The neurodiversity paradigm has been controversial among disability advocates, with opponents arguing it risks downplaying the suffering associated with some disabilities, and that it calls for the acceptance of things some would wish to be treated.
  (Wikipedia, 26 September 2023)
  
  Identity Politics:
  Many contemporary advocates of identity politics take an intersectional perspective, which accounts for the range of interacting systems of oppression that may affect their lives and come from their various identities.
  According to many who describe themselves as advocates of identity politics, it centers the lived experiences of those facing systemic oppression; the purpose is
  - to better understand the interplay of racial, economic, sex-based, and gender-based oppression (among others) and
  - to ensure no one group is disproportionately affected by political actions, present and future.
  Such contemporary applications of identity politics describe people of specific race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, economic class, disability status, education, religion, language, profession, political party, veteran status, recovery status, and geographic location.
  These identity labels are not mutually exclusive but are in many cases compounded into one when describing hyper-specific groups.
  (Wikipedia, 14 August 2023)
3. Politicization:
  - sexism — discrimination / oppression based on patriarchy (eg the feminist 'male gaze' recast as the 'neurotypical gaze');
  - biological racism — discrimination / oppression based on imagined biological differences between races;
  - homophobia — discrimination / oppression based on sexual taboos;
  - ableism — discrimination / oppression on physical or mental impairment.
  Kenneth Minogue:
  Ideology is commonly signaled by the presence of a tripartite structure of theory.
  The first stage reveals to us that the past is the history of the oppression of some abstract class of person.
  
  It is concerned
  - with workers as a class, not (as a politician might be) with workers at a particular time and place; or
  - with women in general, or
  - with this or that race.
  Specific discontents are all swept up into the symptomatology of the structurally determined oppression.
  The duty of the present is thus to mobilize the oppressed class in the struggle against the oppressive system.
  This struggle is not confined to the conventional areas of politics.
  It flares up everywhere, even in the remoter recesses of the mind.
  And the aim of this struggle is to attain a fully just society, a process generally called liberation.
  Ideology is thus a variation played on the triple theme of oppression, struggle, and liberation.
  (Politics: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 1995)