Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Some comments in the ongoing debate regarding the candidacy of Elizabeth Warren got me to thinking about our political system and people’s reactions to it. Warren is criticized by the Right for obvious reasons, given her strong stances on managing the economy and controlling the excesses of the Corporate Culture. In a sense she offends their sense of political purity, but then that is but a given because she is a Democrat. We have seen though on the Right that such conservative stalwarts as Richard Lugar have gone down to primary defeat because he failed the Tea Parties test of what a “true” conservative should be. Richard Lugar failed the “purity” test even though his conservative history is impeccable. In my conception political purity conforms to “party line” thinking, punishing those that fail to adhere in all respects to the standards of a given faction’s concept of standards their candidates must adhere to in order to retain enthusiastic support. I use “faction”, rather than “party”, because our two party political system actually represents an amalgam of various factions imperfectly coalescing under the rubric of a “Political Party”.
From a Left, or even Centrist perspective, there has been both amusement and trepidation about how the “Tea Party” faction has exerted control over the Republican Party. Then too, there is the same reaction to the power exerted by Fundamentalist Christians, a group that at some points overlaps with the “Tea Party”. A human trait is to see the foibles of groups we define as “other”, while being oblivious to the idiosyncrasies of the groups we are aligned with. Liberals, Progressives, Radicals and even Leftist Centrists like to believe that they are immune from the turmoil that they see in their Right Wing opposites, yet the “Left” and even the “Center” also routinely define people in terms of litmus tests of political purity. This was highlighted by certain comments on the Warren thread where people who were seemingly in tune with her domestic policy views, disliked her positions on the Middle East and appeared to hold them against her. This has definitely been true with many progressives and/or civil libertarians in viewing this current Administration. My purpose here is not one of castigation for anyone’s perspective; rather I’m interested in exploring the phenomenon of the belief that political figures need to meet all of our expectations in their positions, or be unworthy of our support. My own perspective is that tests of political purity are self defeating because it is impossible for any particular political figure to be in perfect agreement with all that any of us individually believe and politics becomes oppression without the ability to negotiate. The process of real negotiation requires compromise. What follows is why I believe that is true. Before my discussion though, I think a definition of perspectives would be helpful. There are some of us, including myself to a certain degree, who believe that we are living under a corporate oligarchy and as such the common pretense that our national fate is in the hands of the majority’s vote, is but pleasant mythology. I wrote about this in my guest blog Published 1, March 17, 2012: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/ .One logical conclusion that can be drawn from believing that democracy is an illusion, is that voting is a wasted effort, since whatever person we choose will either be a corporate stooge, or unelectable. I can respect those who draw that conclusion since the evidence of its truth is quite convincing. My own conclusion is not quite there yet, even though I do believe that we are under the rule of a coalition of the Military Industrial Complex and of the Corporate Elite. The redeeming feature to me is that I don’t believe in the homogeneity of the “ruling classes”. I think that they are made up of various factions and roiled by clashing egos. In my estimation voting for politicians thus has value because the vote affects the competition among our oligarchs. There is a qualitative difference for instance between Buffett/Gates and the Koch Brothers, in the sense that the former believe in more humane social policies and the latter have a draconian social view.
If one believes that Democracy is completely illusory, then why bother voting, since voting is a futile exercise? The logical conclusion of such a belief is to disdain all of American politics and politicians as being tools of the Oligarchy. From that perspective it isn’t a question of particular policy, since almost every player in normative politics is not to be trusted. So the question becomes how do the people change things when the political process is believed to be non-existent? Obviously, if it is ones view that America politics is a total sham, then a massive uprising of the people would be needed to make change. How does that uprising occur? Will its’ nature be peaceful, or violent? While I know there are “militias” out in the hills of places like Idaho, are they capable of banding together to overthrow our current government, I think not. Violent revolutions always seem to breed unforeseen and unpleasant excesses, which make their original aims moot. So the question becomes how do we effect a peaceful revolution? The answer is simple, but the process itself is immensely complex. A peaceful revolution can come about when you are able to convince an overwhelming majority of the people that the current system needs change and that they need to refuse to cooperate with it. Think of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When the media is in the hands of corporations though, the issue is one of how does the message of change come across to reach the populace? It’s a question I’ve pondered for years.
Back in the 60’s there was the idea of “dropping out” of a corrupt system. Its problem was that it was espoused by many and practiced by few. The truth was that for those “dropping out” the system didn’t miss their participation, nor would it now. A current conservative stratagem is to make voting harder, thereby limiting turnout of voters negative to their cause. We solve nothing by not voting. We could vote, but cast our votes for nascent opposition parties. This is not a bad premise in my estimation, even though in our loaded political system, minority party effectiveness is more limited than under parliamentary government. Let us think though about a minority party legislator’s ability to be effective once elected, since I assume that the process of gaining political power through organizing a minority party opposition would be slow and could be violently opposed. Think of the police reactions to Occupy Wall Street. However, OWS does show that the elite can feel threatened by a mass movement.
When we discuss the election of someone whose political views are outside of what the “mainstream allows”, we need to take into account how much positive influence they can have on the political process, if they are unwilling to compromise their “political purity”. Let us take the real instance of Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist, as he does his job in the Senate. I believe that Bernie is the most ethical and perceptive Senator we have had in the Senate in a long time. He is also an effective Senator in terms of being able to not only put forth a progressive point of view, but to actually influence Senate activity. In order to be effective in the Senate, Bernie has had to compromise on certain issues and thus would certainly be seen from the orthodox socialist perspective to have sold out. In contrast let us take another man whose career I’ve admired, Dennis Kucinich. Dennis has been an aggressive/effective spokesman on a national level for unpopular, yet valid causes. Within the house though he has not been able to effectuate change simply because Dennis does not do compromise well
In today’s world a political change process is mainly effectuated in four ways:
1. Violent revolution, which is highly problematic at best.
2. Massive non cooperation with the system, ala Gandhi and King, which can be very successful based
upon the right circumstances.
3. Organizing and creating an opposition political movement, a possibly fruitful, yet hard process to carry
out with success..
4. Working within the system, imperfect as it may be, to effect slow change.
All of the above can be work to effect change in a given context, but one factor is a given no matter which method is chosen. To build a mass movement in a diverse population the need to compromise is paramount. This need to compromise is called “coalition building”. The Right has been effective at this for years when you think of the coalition between religious fundamentalists, lukewarm objectivists and outright corporatists. What would Jesus, Ayn Rand and even Adam Smith think of the ways their teachings have been presumably melded? In the past the Left also coalesced around certain issues, bringing together groups that were hardly homogeneous. However, from the 60’s onward building of coalitions on the Left has broken down. “Centrists” and “Liberals” became anathema to “progressives” and “radicals”. After all that he had accomplished Martin Luther King became an “Uncle Tom” in the minds of “Black Power” advocates for his refusal to entertain the concept of violence as a tool.
The Left coalition also began to break down in the 60’s over the issue of Viet Nam. Working class union members generally supported the war that was drafting and killing their children. The leadership of the AFL-CIO, who had striven to disassociate themselves from Marxism during the McCarthy era, had become part of the country’s establishment. As George Meany, the AFL-CIO President, began to play golf with Eisenhower and major industrialists, the Union movement swung away from its Left Wing roots. The fact that the labor movement was overwhelmingly “white working class” in an era where Blacks were demanding equal status also took its toll on the coalition between Big Labor and the Democratic Party. The AFL-CIO and Teamsters supported Richard Nixon in 1968..
The labor movement’s departure from coalition with the Democratic Party was to have devastating consequences for its strength. Their workers, doing well financially aspired to a scaled down version of the American Dream. The threat that competition with Blacks for jobs and with the Left’s critique of muscular foreign policy, helped drive white workers into the Republican Party. The fact that their leadership had become cozy with Management and Republicans led the way. The power of the labor movement waned until today it is a shadow of what it once was. The Left coalition forged under FDR and informed experientially by the “Great Depression”, began to fight amongst themselves. The battles increasingly became issues of “purity of political belief”. When a person’s political value is weighed on only specific issues that are politically “black and white”, coalition becomes almost impossible. Without the ability to coalesce “Movements” face severe limitations in their ability to grow.
I believe that in the desire for reforming our governance to work for the interests of all the people, all viable methods must be used. Of the four methods I list above I believe that only the latter three are really viable. A violent revolution in this country will only hasten the totality of oppression, since violent revolutions never seem to work out the way people have planned and that the people once having risen find themselves ruled harshly by those they so hopefully followed. Refute this premise if you will, but please don’t cite the American Revolution. While it certainly had violence it was a rebellion of colonies against an overseas colonial state. By revolution I mean the rebellion of a people in a certain geographical area against their own government.
Methodologically, none of the three methods can work without bringing together people of differing standards via a coalition that accepts deviation from a “party line”. This seems obvious to me since rarely do those who wish change agree on all issues. Are there “deal breakers” that cannot brook compromise? That depends upon the individual, the perceived threat and the current circumstance. I have my own deal breakers, certainly, but I invoke them in context of my reading of the perceived threat.
What do you the reader think of the argument I’ve made? If you disagree please let me know, since I understand that on any given subject I can be wrong and I am really willing to learn. If you agree with me then what are your “deal breakers”? Perhaps if you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
@hskiprob: A home builder may not require repeat customers but a hardware or grocery store does.
The fact that you admit businesses exist that do not require repeat business is all the evidence we need to show that any “invisible hand” regulation relying upon the mechanism of repeat business is fatally flawed.
As for grocers, if NO grocer will sign a contract making them liable for food poisoning, carcinogens, or any other unsafe condition of the food they sell, then what? People will still frequent the grocer because they have to EAT.
A grocer that guarantees their food might get more business, but two things would prevent that: First, it would cost the grocer more to inspect the food, test the food, and to discard unclean food, so the grocer would only be catering to the rich that do not CARE how much their food costs, and second, bad food can kill, and any lawsuit against the grocer could easily undo many years worth of added profit. So they won’t accept liability voluntarily, it just isn’t worth the risk.
So we have grocers that refuse liability, and customers forced to accept that in order to keep eating, or grow their own food (then you have the same lack of liability situation with pesticides, fertilizers, seeds, preservatives, etc).
Liability must be based in the law. By making ALL grocers reasonably liable for the safety of their food, they all have the same overhead and it is still a level playing field, but consumes are protected. The grocers can all pass on the cost of ensuring safety, and there are punishments if they try to cut costs by cutting corners on safety and endangering their customers.
And the law can specify legal guidelines that limit liability. If they have met reasonable health inspection standards for cleanliness, procedures, temperatures, pest control, disinfected surfaces and so on, the law can reject suits against them as baseless without further proof of negligence.
In short, the free market fails when it comes to liability, whether it is one-time transactions or repeated transactions. With repeated transactions, withholding your repeat business does you no good if the vendor’s endangerment of you kills you or your kid or your elderly grandparent. When it comes to liability, the free market fails, it is NEVER in anybody’s best interest to accept responsibility for liability if the liability can exceed the profit from the transaction.
The solution to free market failures is to make liability the LAW, so it is inescapable. Then vendors work on a level playing field; when product liability claims cannot be escaped by contractual agreement, they must all do the work to minimize their liability claims, and that means fewer product failures and that means this system protects consumers, even if it costs them more (due to safety costs being figured into the product price).
Tony, have you ever seen or read about what a group of homeowners, either pre or post construction, can do the the builder/developer when they are unhappy with either quality and/or price?????
You don’t believe that people will hire the better doctor or dentist as the community gains more knowledge of his capabilites, quality of service and experience??? Do people generally trust the older more experienced doctor rather than the young wet behinds the ears doctor???
In our area, even hospitals are noted by there reputation. There is even a rating system for them.
@Bron: Because then people will want to keep doing business with you and that is good for the bottom line.
That is the irrational part, believing in that infantile view of commerce as if everybody NEEDS repeat business. The vast majority of transactions are one-shot transactions, and the reason the current system is failing is precisely because of that.
For example, how many times must you be denied life-saving medical care, despite your insurance? ONCE. Then despite paying a lifetime of premiums, when the time comes for them to pay up, and they refuse, what is your recourse? You have cancer and six months to live without somebody paying for care, the insurance company knows that, and they are the “fox” among the chickens because they can wait out and delay any lawsuit until you are dead, and the fact that you do not have money (which is why you needed the insurance) means you cannot fight their court tactics.
Car dealerships, TV dealerships, home builders, and on and on, people use them so infrequently their business model is not really dependent on repeat business, and to forestall the next argument, they do not really worry about word of mouth too much either, it is far overrated. A hospital treating your heart attack or car accident trauma is not depending on your repeat business, that is why they can charge you $30,000 a night with impunity.
The laws protect people like me from predators like you and Gene.
The laws protect all of us from predators, including the predators that can sell you something indirectly and hide their identity so you cannot ever pin the blame on anybody. In your system, that can happen all the time, and nobody would be protected. That is what the FDA is for, the SEC is for, the FAA is for, the EPA is for, and on and on. All are in response to predators getting away with harming and killing people for profit.
Your idiotic solution is “contracts” that will not work, and obviously so. If you want proof, look at the standard Software contract (or license agreement): Absolutely no liability for the seller anywhere, of any kind, ever, and you will not find software liability on any consumer software.
That is what you get when liability is left up to vendors: In their own self interest, they protect themselves and absolutely everything is at your own risk. As part of protecting themselves, they also will not disclose a damn thing about how they produced their product, what chemicals or compounds were used, whether they were carcinogenic, or anything else. If you think the market will produce testing: Where are the testers for software? If they also prohibit any liability for their test results (e.g. “You rely on our test results at your own risk”), how do we know they aren’t lying or corrupt or paid off by vendors? Who tests Consumer reports? Who tests the guys that test Consumer Reports?
What is infantile about your approach is your belief that liability cannot be hidden and can always be traced, and your belief that responsibility will be voluntarily accepted.
The opposite is true in both cases, when people act in their selfish best interest they will conceal as much as possible to make it difficult to pin responsibility on them, and in contracts if they are allowed they will make all deals liability free on both sides, just like the standard software license.
That is fine under your system, and the result is not the kind of freedom citizens want, because it is just the freedom of the ruthless to prey on the desperate without reprisal, the freedom of the strong to subjugate the weak, and the freedom of the rich to exploit the poor.
Of course that is the other infantile thing about your ideology, you see yourself as the hero in that environment when you would be the victim, just as you see yourself in your fantasy battles as killing the bad guys when the bad guys would be killing you, as the defender of your castle when they would be raping your wife and children. The irrational thing is you think you would do better if the criminals were less constrained, when history proves you do worse.
As for “fuck my victims” Madoff: For a man without empathy or shame, what is irrational about spending 30 young years living like rich royalty on a billion stolen dollars in exchange for probably less than five years as an old man in prison?
Tony you state so many things that are finite and incorrect. Such as your first two sentences. A home builder may not require repeat customers but a hardware or grocery store does. When your premises are wrong, you conclusions are going to follow suit.
You sue the insurance company. At least you are finally acknowleging that the system we have now is really screwed up.
Underwriters Laboratory, a private company founded many years ago tests most products when public safety is a concern. I think most products must be UL labeled to be sold in the US. That’s why no one really worries about their lamps catching on fire anymore.
Tony C:
“Your philosophy does not allow for the control of those people. Your philosophy is based on the naive, practically infantile idea that nobody would intentionally harm another for profit. It is as laughable as the admiration you have for the monied, whose fortunes are quite often built on somebody (them or an ancestor) getting away with the brutal exploitation and robbery of other human beings and making a fortune in the process.”
People harm people for profit all the time, that is why we have laws and why we need government. The laws protect people like me from predators like you and Gene. Predators who dont eat what they kill but redistribute to the tribe for their own selfish motives. All the while claiming they are selfless and somehow morally superior because they dont eat what they kill.
It is infantile of you to think I am not aware that people will not always act in their self interest and sometimes screw the other guy. The best deals however are those where everyone walks away thinking they did well. Because then people will want to keep doing business with you and that is good for the bottom line. That is what we in the Objectivist community call rational self interest.
You think Madoff was selfish? He wasnt rationally selfish, he is spending the last years of his life in prison, one son is dead, his wife and other son are pariahs in society. He was living a lie. See the difference Dr. C?
“The laws protect people like me from predators like you and Gene. Predators who dont eat what they kill but redistribute to the tribe for their own selfish motives.”
Bron,
Seriously? I think this statement is more than a tad hyperbolic. Why is it that whenever you find an objectivist mate to hook up with on a thread, like Skippy,
your rhetoric increasingly turns to hyperbole as the thread continues? Any rational reading of all that both Gene and Tony have written about politics & economics easily shows that neither is a partisan of any particular position,
rather they come at the issues pragmatically, based on their own conceptions of the world around them. Each in his own way presents their own original perceptions, without regard to the adoption of partisan lines. To wit in the context of the original article they are most definitely not political purists.
Now Bron, most times though we disagree on much, I would admit that you too bring your own unique conceptions to your political/economic theories.
That changes though when on a thread you find a cohort that presents the objectivist viewpoint. When you find such a soul-mate then you become a party line purist. Why is that?
Okay good, replace the { and } with the less than and greater than sign respectively; shift comma and shift period. Give it a shot!
Oops, that didn’t come out. The tags are the greater than sign and less than sign, the two angled brackets. So let us try { and } for those, and see if they work. {b} starts bolding {/b} stops bolding…
@Malisha: Unless I got you wrong again.
I certainly might have got you wrong, I am not infallible; but it sure looked to me like you were trying to hijack this thread to replace the old Z-M thread, because you aren’t done talking about it.
I have seen that sort of selfishness before, somebody is upset that posters have moved on from a thread they liked, and aren’t responding to them, and so they decide to try and make a new thread into their old thread because they aren’t done pontificating. I think that behavior is rude and selfish, it is like butting into a conversation between a few people at a party and trying to take it over with a new topic. It fits my definition: Screw what they want to talk about, I want people to talk about MY topic!
This thread has nothing to do with Z-M. We are still subscribed to that thread and get the posts. Speaking for myself (and perhaps some others) I think there is nothing more to say until something really new develops that establishes something definitive, and I expect Turley (or one of his guest posters) will begin a new thread if that happens.
To bold something, use HTML code. If you remove the underscores from the following, the code to start bolding is and the code to stop bolding is . So three characters to start, four characters to end. Italicization is the same way; but ‘i’ instead of ‘b’. They can be nested.
Here, try and reproduce this line: Fuck you, Tony, you supercilious bastard!
@Bron: But anyway humans arent chickens. Your analogy is telling.
I was responding to skip, and I did not compare humans to JUST chickens, I did the same as him: A fox and chickens.
On the contrary, my analogy was quite apt. Chickens will quarrel, but mostly they are just focused on their own business. The problem is the humans represented by the fox; the 1%, the sociopathic and pyschopathic that will murder their fellow humans and (metaphorically) destroy their lives in return for a good lunch. The problem in human society is the humans, born every minute, that are incapable of NOT harming others, that have no empathy, no sympathy, and will do literally anything (including torture and murder) that they can get away with.
Your philosophy does not allow for the control of those people. Your philosophy is based on the naive, practically infantile idea that nobody would intentionally harm another for profit. It is as laughable as the admiration you have for the monied, whose fortunes are quite often built on somebody (them or an ancestor) getting away with the brutal exploitation and robbery of other human beings and making a fortune in the process.
Tony C, well here I think you got me wrong. What I was talking about was the way the “public policy” gets made out and described because of the linguistic propaganda that is very commonly in use. It’s stolen a march on the language so that “freedom” means the right of the powerful to do exactly as they wish and “catastrophe” is when a bank has to go under, rather than an individual losing his home.
I don’t have to pretend not to understand you, and of course I did understand what you were saying and it was quite correct in my view. But what I was doing was trying to show the massive projection that we have all seen going on for probably our whole lifetime, where the words are used to essentially represent the opposite of what they mean.
If one stands on the real meaning of the words and insists that we mean fairness to OTHERS (I don’t know how to use boldface type in these comments) and so forth having to do with OTHERS, pretty quickly our points are dismissed as “socialist” and all meaning is gone.
The American Constitution Society, for example, always emphasizes the “tension between freedom and equality.” This is a struggle, as far as I can tell, between each of us taking the freedom to do as much to others as we possibly can, and the freedom to gain as much from others as we possibly can, which is then balanced against equality, which would have our personal gains and contributions moderated by some method that would decrease the freedom of those who were “winning” to continue to “win” without limit. I argued, for a while, that there was no real tension between freedom and equality because each person’s freedom ended where the other person’s position appeared, although we had taken to defining “freedom” as the right to run over that line any time we could.
Naturally when I read I interpret things by comparing them to what I already know. If that’s “selfish” OK, but if it’s just my way of dealing with information so I can make sense of it, and my way of commenting on it in an articulate way, so I can live with that degree of selfishness.
BUT to fit into your definition of selfishness:
“To me, selfishness in the pejorative sense (and Objectivist sense) is doing something for personal gain (including good feelings or actual reward) that the actor knows harms others, or does with disregard for any harm it may cause to others. Selfishness is not giving a shit about other people.”
I’d have had to do a lot more than what I did, or else others would have had to be harmed by something that was pretty passive, along that continuum of doing damaging things.
Unless I got you wrong again.
Tony C:
I dont know why you think I am not willing to pay taxes, I just think we have too many and the government has many places in which it could tighten its belt and never miss the money.
I think a flat tax [total tax, state federal and local and sales tax] of around 15-20% of any income is fair. If you make 1000 bucks from any source you give up between $150-200.00 that’s it. No occupational taxes, no sales taxes, no property taxes, no social security taxes, etc. 15-20% and government has to figure out how to do more with less. My guess though is that with the substantial reduction in taxes, the private sector would go gang busters and we would easily make up the difference.
But politicians use the tax code as a weapon and so does government. They dispense favors with it. They use its size and complexity to make us all criminals.
Tony C:
A fox would tear 99 chickens a new asshole and be well fed. That is why some government is necessary to protect the people from predators. But that doesnt mean you put the people in a small enclosure and have many guards running around.
But anyway humans arent chickens. Your analogy is telling. Comparing humans to chickens is a real tell into how you think about government. And what you think about people.
Rational chickens would kill the fox. Rational chickens dont need a farmer to protect them, they dont need a pen to keep them contained.
skip,
If you want to live under the rule of aristocracy (which is what an oligarchy is) you be my guest. No man is my master. They may be my representative, but in a democracy, they work for me – not the other way around.
So much for all of your talk about freedom. In the end, with Libertarians, that’s all it is: talk without substance or understanding of the meaning of the word.
And what Tony said.
Gene stated: “Skip, If you want to live under the rule of aristocracy (which is what an oligarchy is) you be my guest. No man is my master. They may be my representative, but in a democracy, they work for me – not the other way around. So much for all of your talk about freedom. In the end, with Libertarians, that’s all it is: talk without substance or understanding of the meaning of the word. And what Tony said”.
I feel like we’ve almost gone full circle. I don’t know why your would say I want to live under a fascist oligrachy, when I’ve been the one speaking out against a fascist oligrachy since the beginning of this blog?
I will make an assumption that you believe that a democracy or more specifically, a democratic republic is the only entity capable of usurping the powers of a fascist oligrachy. Since we both want to do the same thing, it is really a matter of how to “get er done”.
As an example, the American consititutional republic with even a bill of rights has failed to protect private property rights and limit government powers. Further evidence of this, is if you take the production of the military industrial complex and war out of the equation, our total cost of government as a percentage of GDP puts us into bankrupcy and just printing more money, over the long term just exascerbates the imbalance.
Hense, another democracy has failed to achieve success at dismantling the power of the ruling elites.
I have been saying that government itself is a tool of the oligarchy to achieve additional powers. I think it was one of the Supreme Court Justices who said, the “Power to Tax is the Power to Distroy”.
So what you and I have been squabbling over is really, as the Harvard economist Howard Schwartz once said to me “what are the ligitimate functions of government”.
In a nut shell, the common thought is a Justice/penal system, defence/police, education, infrastrure and helping the less fortunate who cannot care for themselves.
My contention is that if you give government this much power, that you will not be able to negate/curtail it’s growth over the long period and that no society that I’m aware of, has done so. Eventually they collapse from their own excessive governement spending.
I keep looking for a solution, sadly from my observations and study, government doesn’t appear to be a viable part of the equation. The reasons why are multi page analysis, in of itself, so I will not detail them here. The question really is to you, how do we limit government?
If you are able to do this and more importanly tell everyone how to specifically implementand and enforce it, you will be the new Jesus Christ Superstar, overshadowing the valient efforts of our founding fathers.
“Since we both want to do the same thing, it is really a matter of how to “get er done”
Skippy,
That isn’t quite true. Anarcho-Capitalism doesn’t eliminate Fascism, it leads to it inevitably and nothing you’ve presented contradicts that. Your system ends basically in the proposition that whoever has the most guns/power wins. Even if you are personally pacifistic in nature the sociopaths/psychopaths making up society will always push themselves towards the top. Anarcho-Capitalism only facilitates their rise.
Mike stated “Since we both want to do the same thing, it is really a matter of how to “get er done” Skippy, That isn’t quite true. Anarcho-Capitalism doesn’t eliminate Fascism, it leads to it inevitably and nothing you’ve presented contradicts that. Your system ends basically in the proposition that whoever has the most guns/power wins. Even if you are personally pacifistic in nature the sociopaths/psychopaths making up society will always push themselves towards the top. Anarcho-Capitalism only facilitates their rise.
Funny; It seams like you could just as easily be discribing a democratic republic and your inability to present contradictory facts. Back at yea.
From a poll:
What is the single most important problem facing America?
The Existence of The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States – our central bank 12.12% (4 votes)
The Existence of Fiat Currency – Federal Reserve Notes 9.09% (3 votes)
The Existence of a High Progessive or Graduated Income Tax – Federal and State Income Taxes 3.03% (1 votes)
The Existence of Public Education – Free Education controlled by Government 3.03% (1 votes)
Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the Federal Government – FCC and DOT 0% (0 votes)
None of the Above 12.12% (4 votes)
All of the Above 60.61% (20 votes)
I used the platforms of the communist manifesto as the basic questions except for the fiat currency question.
“Hense, another democracy has failed to achieve success at dismantling the power of the ruling elites.”
While you may be as well read as you say you are, your comprehension skills are lacking. Nowhere in humanity’s history has there ever been any society not ruled by an oligarchy/dictator. This was true in Athens and it is true in the U.S. since its birth. The difference always has to be measured in degree. The US is provably a better systems than Athens, but it is highly imperfect. Your problem is that your solution is provably unable to mitigate against that and in fact guarantees it. Like Rand you postulate a non viable Utopia and deem it the solution.
That is your opinion Mike that many people disagree with and that you have provided no “facts” to support. Like Tony and his inability to understand the invisable hand of the market, you are perhaps not taking into considerations something that you have not considered as your opinion is highly and extensively disputed.
The problem is, I cannot know what you don’t know or should I just assume that you know everything.
@hskiprob: I have a better parable for your philosophy: One fox and 99 chickens deciding what’s for lunch, with no holds barred.
@Bron: As we discussed before, if government is necessary, mandatory taxation is necessary, if mandatory taxation is necessary, then that is not theft or a crime.
It is impossible to define a system of society in which crimes are absolutely necessary for it to continue. Such a system redefines the word “crime,” which has to be something absolutely prohibited and punishable by society. It would make the word “crime” meaningless, it becomes a synonym for the word “act:” We have “crimes” that are necessary to our survival and therefore are not prohibited and cannot be punished, and “crimes” that are prohibited by society and punishable by society. Substitute the word “act” in there, and it means precisely the same thing. But we already have a word that means “an act that is prohibited by society and punishable by society,” that word is “crime.”
Mandatory taxation is not a crime. The only possible way to understand that is to understand that it is not extortion, or theft, but is a payment of some sort, which means that a legal debt was incurred, and thus you have to understand that a legal debt CAN be incurred without your explicit agreement.
That is what happens, because it would be silly and expensive overhead to have every 18 year old agree in writing that they wish to remain a US citizen, remain in the country, and agree to pay taxes and abide by the law and accede to the system of government, representation and determination of laws we have devised.
What we have is the equivalent of that, however. If you stay with us, you owe us a share of any profit you make or work you do, it is as simple as that.
Bron,
I didn’t say that you said government wasn’t necessary. I said Libertarianism has an anarchistic bent and a tendency to selectively read the Constitution until it comes into conflict with some of Libertarianism more ridiculous ideas. You and skip should look into buying straw men in bulk. You’ll get a discount.
As for Locke? Schooled and yet you still don’t recognize that Locke isn’t a source of secondary let alone primary law. Tsk tsk.
Also, you saying you understand socialism is not the same thing as demonstrating you understand socialism, Bron. You can say you understand all manner of things. Until you demonstrate that you actually do, you are just blowing ill-informed opinionated smoke out of your ass. You have demonstrated time and again you don’t have clue about most political/economic forms and cater to your preconceived Libertarian notions instead of relying upon actual knowledge and understanding and letting that information inform your theories instead of your theories informing your information. Combine that with your propensity to think in absolutes and that’s a recipe for argument from ignorance.
Gene H:
I have never said I was for no government Mr. Cant Understand English, I have said many times that some government is necessary. Locke says that government is for the protection of Life, Liberty and Property and Sam Adams also said that in document from 1773.
Jefferon’s Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are directly from Locke. As Bob Esq schooled us all a few months ago.
I know full well what communism and socialism mean and I also know from history that McCarthy was right, there were many communists in government in the United States. Now that is OK if they were elected and identified themselves as communists on the ballot. But during the late 40’s and early 50’s most people would not knowingly vote for a communist. So I am not sure what your point is, or if you even have one.
I dont like communism and I dont like socialism, I think they are bad economic and philosophical systems. I dont think they have any redeeming value and they always fail because they are bad, not because they havent been tried correctly. They are just shitty systems from the mind of a troglodyte for troglodytes.
By the way from Websters 1913 version the definition is:
Trog”lo*dyte (?), n. [L. troglodytae, pl., Gr. one who creeps into holes; a hole, cavern (fr. to gnaw) + enter: cf. F. troglodyte.]
1. (Ethnol.) One of any savage race that dwells in caves, instead of constructing dwellings; a cave dweller. Most of the primitive races of man were troglodytes.
In the troglodytes’ country there is a lake, for the hurtful water it beareth called the mad lake.” Holland.
2. (Zoöl.) An anthropoid ape, as the chimpanzee.
3. (Zoöl.) The wren.
@Malisha: Obviously for all of those things I am talking about charity preventing harm to others, not to yourself or your cause.
Do not pretend you did not understand that just for the sake of turning the subject to something that interests you more, like the Zimmerman case. That is being selfish.
“What makes an act selfish or charitable is NOT how one feels about it, but whether it has increased fairness, reduced misery, prevented catastrophe, extended life, reduced despair, relieved pain either psychic or physical.”
Part of our problem in being both a society (undeniably) and a collection of individuals trying to survive or get ahead or both is this:
“whether it has increased fairness” — defined by some politicians, openly, as increasing fairness to the people who have the most money because they should have the most decision-making power to decide what happens with the society’s money, since they control more of it than do others
“reduced misery” — again, some politicians and those who vote for them believe that it should reduce misery for THEM and that includes making them feel better about NOT “GIVING” “THEIR” MONEY TO OTHERS
“prevented catastrophe” — some people who wield enormous political power in this country do not believe that “catastrophe” includes the illness, death or even murder of lots of people who “deserve it.”
“extended life” — whose?
“reduced despair” — but again, if you’re stupid enough and unworthy enough to be poor, then you deserve your despair, don’t look at us to reduce it
“relieved pain either psychic or physical” — here we run into a real problem. George Zimmerman would have undeniably had psychic pain if Trayvon Martin had “gotten away” on 2/26/2012. YET ANOTHER ASSHOLE GOT AWAY!! That would be painful for Zimmerman; nobody could deny that. I think we’ve reached a point in our society where you have some people screaming in pain and attracting a lot of political attention but who are really expressing the “PAIN” of the psychopath who cannot manage to get into control of a situation he desperately wants to control. It has probably always been so but I probably haven’t noticed it so much in the past.
This came home to me recently when a situation came up where a grown woman, who works as an aide to a prominent US Congressman, was in a situation with me. I wanted to propose that she correspond with her mother, who had saved her life when she was a child, but who had been viciously slandered and deprived of all contact with her for years as a result (took her to the emergency room when the child was near death, and in spite of medical testimony that she saved her daughter’s life, the violation of a court order not to seek medical help caused her to lose her visitation). I came at this gently at first to suggest that there could be a measured mediation of their relationship so they could once again talk. BAM — I was hit full force by a GANG of people describing me and another person as “agents provocateurs” and criminals of all sorts and a big-wheel at AEI personally dressed me down using the most bizarre and hateful terms and then I was called in to a meeting with a psychiatrist and a social scientist to be informed that I was about to cause this young woman to commit suicide and it would be on me — blood would be on my hands — for killing this poor young innocent who could not tolerate the IDEA of such a thing happening. So I caused all this psychic pain and risked a life, see? And a nationally recognized psychiatrist told me this. He gives speeches to wealthy notables about how the mind works, and even about peace on earth and stuff. He’s a public figure.
So decreasing pain, despair and hopelessness and increasing equality and fairness may be best expressed by — it’s quite open to many forms of Romnification, that’s all I’m saying. (Oh, and if you’re a suspected terrorist, it will also be open to several lethal forms of Obamnification; don’t even think about it.)
Do you even know what the word “democratic” means, skip? Apparently not.
dem·o·crat·ic \ˌde-mə-ˈkra-tik\, adj.,
1: of, relating to, or favoring democracy
democracy \di-ˈmä-krə-sē\, n.,
1a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.” Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, 1782.
Why . . . that sounds a lot like democracy!
Seriously, skippy. It’s funny when you talk about thinks you really know nothing about.
Yea Gene, in the 40 plus years of reading and writing about political economy, I’ve never looked up the word Democracy.
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.” Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, 1782.
Gene Stated ……..”Why . . . that sounds a lot like democracy!” You’re almost always wrong dude.
Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” – Thomas Jefferson
“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams
Remember when Ben Franklin was asked by a women what kind of government did you give us. I believe he stated “A Republic my dear, if you can keep it.” A bill of rights was added for obvious reasons.
To bad we have not protected them.
I wonder if the term ignorance come from phrase “to ignor” —- Perhaps Gene you need a bit clearer understanding of just what a democracy really is. Remember this Cute little parable. Two foxes and a chicken deciding what’s for lunch. Maybe that we help you remember it.
@Malisha: I certainly think intent has something to do with whether it is selfish or not; if you were devoting time and energy to try and help somebody else, that is charitable.
Not everything has to be charitable, an activity that makes you feel good (eating out, getting a massage, going on vacation) and harms nobody is neutral on the selfishness scale, to me. There is nothing wrong with enjoying yourself or having a hobby. The same is true of work, I have done many a job that was just for money, and I do not feel bad about that, and I do not think it was “selfish” in any pejorative sense, I was not doing harm to anybody, just helping companies produce their product.
To me, selfishness in the pejorative sense (and Objectivist sense) is doing something for personal gain (including good feelings or actual reward) that the actor knows harms others, or does with disregard for any harm it may cause to others. Selfishness is not giving a shit about other people.
@Bron: Not to mention, the majority of great fortunes in the world today are simply mining wealth, which includes oil wealth. Nobody worked for those, the “labor” is a tiny factor in the extraction of oil, gold, sliver, diamonds, or other natural products. The wealth is just a function of the rarity of a natural product, not the work people put into getting it.
The Saudis had no particular education or work ethic or inspiration, they were just the recognized owners of the land they took by force of arms and brutal murder in the middle ages.
Much the same is true in the USA, the land wasn’t earned by work, it was taken by force, and the wealth in the land was usually discovered much later. The majority of fortunes are “found money,” not earned.
As for industrialists that get rich, like Sam Walton, he did not get that rich on HIS labor or his families, he got rich on the labor of others; by paying them much less than the profits they were generating for him.
I do not mind that too much, but if you truly believe that the fruits of a man’s labor should be HIS, than you should believe that the owners of Walmart are THIEVES. Because it would make no difference what the person AGREED to work for, the fruits of his labor are his proportional share of ALL the profits generated by Walmart, and that would mean a significant bump in his salary. Why should the owners of Walmart be entitled to any share of his fruits at all? What have THEY done? Not a damn thing, they jet around to parties and produce nothing of economic value whatsoever.