I've noticed that some of our most prolific posters seem to be aligned with Libertarians. If there ever was an example that there really can be too much of a good thing (individual liberty) or of taking a concept too far, it's Libertarianism.
The more I reflect on what's really going on, what are we really trying to do, and how do thing really work, the more I get to we're all just trying to get by and its a real mixed bag. On one hand we're trying to push forward the boundaries of human knowledge, bring the fruits of that creativity to the people, on another we're trying to open our hearts to each other and the divine spirit that is reflected in our neighbors eyes, and generally that we are all unique individuals and yet all one.
Lot's of schools of thought have arisen about how to organize society and structure our https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Nolan-chart.svg/180px-Nolan-chart.svg.pngrelationships, including the relationship of the commons to the individual. There's feudalism, capitalism, communism, fascism, anarchy, socialism and libertarianism, and I'm sure lots more that don't come to mind at the moment.
Many of these "isms" flow from a fundamental concept, whether its "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" and everything is organized around the commons (but who controls the commons?), to " 'invisible hand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand); of the market, through which the pursuit of individual self-interest unintentionally produces a collective good for society" or the maximization of individual liberty.
These fundamental isms have something to offer. They choose one aspect of the human experience and human nature and then extrapolate that to all of society and all of the human experience. The assume everybody truly is like them.
In my view, like I said, we're a mixed bag. We're all different, some more than others, all just trying to get along, now that we've come down from the trees. And we're all individuals and we're all one. So any ism that is optimized for one aspect, the more an ism is more intellectually pure, like libertarianism, it is going to get that right and lots else wrong. And conversely, the more an ism is more of a hodgepodge, like, say Democratic Socialism the more it tries to incorporate the many aspects of human nature and society. It's messy, but human, IMO.
I didn't set out to write this tonight. Instead I just wanted to share a comic that pokes fun at the libertarians and I thought I'd add a few words...
Barry, this is an outstanding primer for opening up all of the big questions in philosophy and political science. "Political Philosophy" is one of the four major branches of Political Science as an academic discipline (the other three being Comparative Government, American Government, and International Relations, although there is an incipient discipline within research and statistics).
You might consider taking an intro course at SRJC. It would begin to answer some of the questions you've brought up here in your thread. Or you might buy the text book at the college bookstore and read that. You might even be able to challenge the course through a comprehensive exam or take it online.
Your thread opens up a series of cans of worms that our civilizations have been struggling with since recorded history. If you ever find the answers then you should publish them and become famous. Or work for the Obama administration or a think tank.
;0)
But having a relaxed discussion here is also nice.
According to your diagram, I am clearly in the "Left-Wing" camp. Imagine that dotted line continuing further in the upper-left direction, outside the box, and you would eventually find me about 3 or 4 squares later.
Edward
I've noticed that some of our most prolific posters seem to be aligned with Libertarians. If there ever was an example that there really can be too much of a good thing (individual liberty) or of taking a concept too far, it's Libertarianism.
The more I reflect on what's really going on, what are we really trying to do, and how do thing really work, the more I get to we're all just trying to get by and its a real mixed bag. On one hand we're trying to push forward the boundaries of human knowledge, bring the fruits of that creativity to the people, on another we're trying to open our hearts to each other and the divine spirit that is reflected in our neighbors eyes, and generally that we are all unique individuals and yet all one.
Lot's of schools of thought have arisen about how to organize society and structure our https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Nolan-chart.svg/180px-Nolan-chart.svg.pngrelationships, including the relationship of the commons to the individual. There's feudalism, capitalism, communism, fascism, anarchy, socialism and libertarianism, and I'm sure lots more that don't come to mind at the moment.
Many of these "isms" flow from a fundamental concept, whether its "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" and everything is organized around the commons (but who controls the commons?), to " 'invisible hand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand); of the market, through which the pursuit of individual self-interest unintentionally produces a collective good for society" or the maximization of individual liberty.
These fundamental isms have something to offer. They choose one aspect of the human experience and human nature and then extrapolate that to all of society and all of the human experience. The assume everybody truly is like them.
In my view, like I said, we're a mixed bag. We're all different, some more than others, all just trying to get along, now that we've come down from the trees. And we're all individuals and we're all one. So any ism that is optimized for one aspect, the more an ism is more intellectually pure, like libertarianism, it is going to get that right and lots else wrong. And conversely, the more an ism is more of a hodgepodge, like, say Democratic Socialism the more it tries to incorporate the many aspects of human nature and society. It's messy, but human, IMO.
I didn't set out to write this tonight. Instead I just wanted to share a comic that pokes fun at the libertarians and I thought I'd add a few words...
Good response. If only everyone who comments about political issues had a basic knowledge of Political Philosophy, we'd at least be able to have the beginnings of an intelligent conversation.
Everybody,
As for Libertarianism itself. As I've stated a few times on waccobb.net before, I am in pretty much complete agreement with Libertarianism on issues of social justice. In other words, victimless crimes relating to lifestyle, should not be criminalized. The usual list is prostitution, drug use, "aberrant" political thought and expression, etc. In other words a very "liberal" interpretation of the Bill of Rights.
I know that the debate about whether or not prostitution or hard drug use is victimless or not, is not a done deal. Let's just say that if whatever a person does, does not demonstrably harm anyone else, it shouldn't be against the law.
Where I part with Libertarianism is the idea that an unregulated Capitalist market will create the best possible economic outcome, that the problem with markets is their regulation not their results. I think this is complete bullshit and the history I've read, and experienced, shows this to be completely wrong.
It's a simple, appealing idea. Hard work and sharp dealing will get you the best results and keep you the freest a person can be. The problem is that the "free market" is an ideological construct. It has never actually existed in the course of human history. Life is a bit more complicated and Libertarians need to learn some real economic history and theory before spouting simplistic truisms which have no bearing on reality.
As for "ists" and "isms", Barry your articulation of the complexity of social and economic reality is apt. Life is complicated, and these constructs we've come up with are just generalizations used for discussion in order to try and make some sense of it.
But when we start to think that our general constructs are reality itself, we end up obscuring the issues and are guilty of doing bad philosophy. Bad philosophy leads to bad policy leads to bad practice leads to human suffering.
Of course, most ideas are made up after the fact of something real in the world that we want to justify to others. Milton Friedman, free market economist extraordinaire comes to mind as a good example of what I'm trying to get at here.
Hugely complex subject. It really is about the entirety of human society and history. Spent seventeen years studying it and there are relevant fields of it that I have only a passing understanding for.
What it comes down to is how do you describe, given the limitations of language and human understanding, Freedom, Justice and Equality. Suffice it to say the debate isn't going to end any time soon.
"Mad" Miles
GetReal145
02-26-2010, 01:30 PM
I have respect for half of the libertarian ism, which is that I believe strongly in, and consider myself, a "social libertarian." This is where folks like Ron Paul get a lot of kudos for being against drug prohibition (pro legalization), and other state-enforced laws that dictate what adults can choose to do with their bodies and put into their bodies.
What I am not is an economic libertarian. As an ism, libertarianism assumes that charity should take care of the needy, and if it doesn't, and an impoverished, homeless 70 year old woman starves to death in the street, it is not the business of the government to feed her, and any taxes that are assessed to do this are an imposition on the "liberty" of the citizen who ought to be left to his own decision whether to donate to feed her.
So to me, as a political system, libertarianism is retro-human evolution. As a legal construct for personal freedoms, it is right on. :Yinyangv:
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
someguy
02-26-2010, 02:31 PM
I hope you're not talking about me. hehe. Its okay if are, so let me make something clear. I am not a libertarian. Although like Mad Miles, I like the social justice and social freedoms that libertarians value, but for me, I would abolish the economic and monetary systems all together. I do not think that pure capitalism is the way to go at all. Its way too hospitable of an environment for corruption and crimes against humanity. But then again, so is communism. And history shows a great deal of terrible crimes against humanity when economic structures turn into communism. Really when you grind it all down, monetary-ism is the real problem. Think about it, we have plenty of resources in this world to go around. We have the technology to make those resources work for us. But everyone is competing with everyone else because of our profit based system. When profit and competition run society, then corruption becomes necessary. Morality is practically impossible when we live in competition for 'scarce' resources. Peter Joseph will explain this way better than I ever will so please watch his movie Zeitgeist Addendum. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. (https://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=9iTE-MKCdDs&v=NT-2fenmLnc)
The basic premise of his fascinating film is that many of society's ills, these things that we look to government to correct, are in fact caused by the monetary system. Some people think that the economy is some sort of organic system that must be obeyed and adhered to, but the fact is, these structures are entirely man-made and can be destroyed. Life would go on. As Peter Joseph points out, you cant eat money, money is not essential to life. I feel that life in a resource based economy, rather than a profit based economy, would not need a government, or any type of ism. Its an interesting thought. Check it out.
LenInSebastopol
02-26-2010, 04:56 PM
You know, I will probably hate myself for asking this question, but what is an alternative proposal for money?
Morality IS impossible in the midst of poverty, starvation and destitution. It is only wealth that enables philosophy and such pursuits to be engendered. As for capitalism, it is contradictory in terms, as it is based on greed (a bad thing in our larger and general culture) and yet when one "makes it" they are SUPPOSE to turn and spread their wealth to the less fortunate (at least that was the American Ideal) but that was tossed out and withered on the vine. So to ask the greedy to give away their stuff is that above contradiction. Is it money or just monetary-ism (whatever that is) you wish to end?
I hope you're not talking about me. hehe. Its okay if are, so let me make something clear. I am not a libertarian. Although like Mad Miles, I like the social justice and social freedoms that libertarians value, but for me, I would abolish the economic and monetary systems all together. I do not think that pure capitalism is the way to go at all. Its way too hospitable of an environment for corruption and crimes against humanity. But then again, so is communism. And history shows a great deal of terrible crimes against humanity when economic structures turn into communism. Really when you grind it all down, monetary-ism is the real problem. Think about it, we have plenty of resources in this world to go around. We have the technology to make those resources work for us. But everyone is competing with everyone else because of our profit based system. When profit and competition run society, then corruption becomes necessary. Morality is practically impossible when we live in competition for 'scarce' resources. Peter Joseph will explain this way better than I ever will so please watch his movie Zeitgeist Addendum. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. (https://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=9iTE-MKCdDs&v=NT-2fenmLnc)
The basic premise of his fascinating film is that many of society's ills, these things that we look to government to correct, are in fact caused by the monetary system. Some people think that the economy is some sort of organic system that must be obeyed and adhered to, but the fact is, these structures are entirely man-made and can be destroyed. Life would go on. As Peter Joseph points out, you cant eat money, money is not essential to life. I feel that life in a resource based economy, rather than a profit based economy, would not need a government, or any type of ism. Its an interesting thought. Check it out.
podfish
02-26-2010, 09:09 PM
Boy do I disagree with that diagram. Populism identified as total lack of freedom? And if 'liberal' is considered a synonym for left-wing, and 'conservative' for right-wing (neither of which should be true) then it's bad there too. As I write I find I really dislike defining these in terms of respect for freedom at all....
I agree that the diagram is deeply flawed. How would you define the terms? What are "liberal" and "conservative" for you?
Boy do I disagree with that diagram. Populism identified as total lack of freedom? And if 'liberal' is considered a synonym for left-wing, and 'conservative' for right-wing (neither of which should be true) then it's bad there too. As I write I find I really dislike defining these in terms of respect for freedom at all....
LenInSebastopol
02-27-2010, 06:13 AM
I agree that the diagram is deeply flawed. How would you define the terms? What are "liberal" and "conservative" for you?
Thanks to your buddy, G.W. Bush & fiends, those terms are thrown out the window.
How about "Constitutionalists" and "others"?
:hmmm:
jbox
02-28-2010, 09:11 AM
I agree that the diagram is deeply flawed. How would you define the terms? What are "liberal" and "conservative" for you?
Perhaps the diagram should be in the shape of an omega where the extremes approach one another. It could be argued, for example, that Stalin, the left winger, had more similarities than differences with Hitler, the right winger. :Yinyangv:
someguy
02-28-2010, 09:33 AM
Perhaps the diagram should be in the shape of an omega where the extremes approach one another. It could be argued, for example, that Stalin, the left winger, had more similarities than differences with Hitler, the right winger. :Yinyangv:
Hitler was not a right winger.... He was a Socialist. Nazi Party - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party)
jbox
02-28-2010, 09:57 AM
Fascism is right wing. To say Hitler's National Socialist party is "socialist" is akin to saying the Christian Democrats are religious.
someguy
02-28-2010, 10:10 AM
Fascism is right wing. To say Hitler's National Socialist party is "socialist" is akin to saying the Christian Democrats are religious.
I disagree. Fascism can go both ways. Mao was a fascist. Stalin as well.
jbox
02-28-2010, 12:59 PM
Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco were fascists. I think Mao and Stalin would take exception to being cast in with that lot. However if you view my original point about the shape of the political diagram in question as more of an omega shape I can see how you may (however mistakenly) view the extremes of both left and right wing philosophies as fascist, since they are so close to one another.
Barry
02-28-2010, 01:09 PM
Here's another useful graph from Wikipedia's article on the Political Spectrum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum) that introduces a very important (vertical) dimension of government control, which show that Fascism and Communism, rather than opposites, are closely related.
Here's another useful graph from Wikipedia's article on the Political Spectrum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum) that introduces a very important (vertical) dimension of government control, which show that Fascism and Communism, rather than opposites, are closely related.
Thanks Barry, I like that graph much more than the last one. But do you notice how all of these types of systems never work out that well? Isn't a monetary system the foundation of all of the above systems? In my opinion that is why these systems don't work and we constantly are fluctuating between different systems. And its really a crying shame that when these systems all fail (as they always do) people suffer immensely.
LenInSebastopol
03-01-2010, 06:09 AM
ALL those guys are after YOU.
ALL want to take away and are the enemy of FREEDOM.
Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco were fascists. I think Mao and Stalin would take exception to being cast in with that lot. However if you view my original point about the shape of the political diagram in question as more of an omega shape I can see how you may (however mistakenly) view the extremes of both left and right wing philosophies as fascist, since they are so close to one another.
Valley Oak
03-01-2010, 07:01 AM
Although this diagram is much better and communicates some interesting ideas (such as putting the dictatorial systems close together), this is still only a model and models will always be limited. In a way, it is as if you could accurately plot all ideas and public policy simply by following this "map." But this is not true. The diagram serves some purpose but it cannot be a very effective tool in explaining ideologies, historical events, public policy, and the various forms of government that have existed. It can serve as a rudimentary reference to give some orientation but nothing more. It is almost as if people believe that by tweaking an ideological map that they can effectively determine theoretical orientation or what would be good public policy, etc, but this simply isn't true.
For example, lumping together the authoritarian systems is effective but only to a degree. You would need several charts based on different references because this last one is anchored primarily on the concept of authoritarian governments crossed with a questionable left/right axis. But it leaves out far too much information, such as the nature of those authoritarian governments. So you would need another chart for explaining the extremes of totalitarian systems, which would usually disperse all of the other labels. You would need a Master Ideological Map with sub maps that extends several pages and that would not be enough because there would always be conflicts and inaccuracies.
If a diagram were based on measuring ideologies based on a free market, capitalism, or a private sector, then you would find Communism and Fascism (Nazis, Mussolini, etc) in opposite extremes on the map. In Germany, under the Nazi government, and if you were not Jewish, you could still own property and run a business. As a matter of fact, with notable exceptions (e.g. being Jewish, Communist, LGBT, etc), Hitler's government encouraged capitalism (under their thumb, of course). This was one of the most important ways that the Nazis proudly distinguished themselves from Communists, whom they hated intensely and exterminated in prison camps and firing squads. And the Germans tried, unsuccessfully, to destroy the Soviet Union even though Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin. Capitalism would serve as just one cross diagram to help give a more complete ideological photo. But you would need other diagrams, such as "Quality of Democracy," in which the United States would have a piss poor position among post industrialized democracies.
In order to successfully understand ideologies, public policies, different forms of government, etc, you have to do the hard work of studying all of them in detail. You have to delve considerably into history, economics, political science, sociology, philosophy, etc, and this takes time. There is no short cut to learning all of these difficult concepts and an ideological map isn't going to give you instant knowledge for free. Diagrams can only serve as an aid.
Edward
Here's another useful graph from Wikipedia's article on the Political Spectrum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum) that introduces a very important (vertical) dimension of government control, which show that Fascism and Communism, rather than opposites, are closely related.