"This bastardised libertarianism makes 'freedom' an instrument of oppression"

10 posts

Ash

Corporatism was mentioned above, and it's an important topic, because corporatism is the only way complex modern societies are actually going to be constituted. You can't get rid of the state, you can't get rid of corporations, and you can't erect some kind of impenetrable barrier between them. It's best to acknowledge this reality and harness it to your ends by means of a strong executive (as in fascism). In fact, the only way to get anything done in modern societies is to acknowledge this reality, as idealistic liberals usually discover when they get into power. It's the libertarian ideals underlying American conservatism that make it a consistently losing proposition, because it is not willing to deal with the realities of power and wield them to its ends.

Broseph
Yes. This is what leftists cry. Someone who has ruined their life building consumer goods that people feel they "have the right to" are taxed at 50%, and that isn't enough. They're breaking the "social contract" they have by getting away with too much.

LBJ's greatest focus was on Detroit. You should check it out, it's a real cool place. It's been doing better than ever since the great society project.

This is what people who appeal to democracy do. They chimp out. Then when a democratic government allows in foreigners which people don't like, it's not democracy to blame.

A 13-year depression, a world war, and destroying food to keep prices up while people were starving were all good things because it wasn't unpopular enough to cause revolt. :thumbsup: Ok there.

You can't say stuff like this. The idea of Hitler and everything he spoke about gives people the fuzzies around here.

Yes. Real life, which produces and is influenced by ideas like the ones talked about in this thread.
Broseph
Well why not? Because it's what we've grown up with?
Ash
Because political power is a fact of human existence, and a large complex society is just going to have a lot more of it concentrated in one place. The libertarian desire to rid the world of a whole dimension of human life - the political - is of a kind with the communist desire to wipe out other intrinsic dimensions of life like the market and religion. The intellectual-religious, the political, and the economic: these are the three great estates of human society and no rationalist scheme, however consistent, will ever get rid of any of them or replace one with another. Libertarians want to replace the political with the economic; it's just another absurd form of rationalist utopianism.
Broseph
There is no denial of human-human interaction. There is no denial that politics "exists". The theory itself is based on the notion that there is no social contract and the state is immoral as a result. If this an attitude people tend to adopt (suspicion of large centres of political power) then there wouldn't be a concentration of this power because it would lack consent.

This doesn't refute any theory of libertarianism. The theory just explains how society would be set up if private property was supreme and the state was seen a bad/exploitative. The point isn't to "describe the world as it works today", but to describe how a society could organize itself with having it's values set up as I describe.
Trajan
"Guys, let's be pragmatic. We can't abolish the state and we'll never set up effective regulations against big business. Forget your pipe dreams and accept that a fascist dictatorship is inevitable." Are you for real? You're asking us to acknowledge a 'reality' wherein masses will flock to an authoritarian government rather than quarantine the cross-contamination between business and politics. Presumably an authoritarian government to your liking.

But let's assume you're correct and a strong executive is necessary to 'get things done' in modern societies. Well, precisely one of the problems with modern society is that we regularly overstep our mandates and attempt to get 'things done' that don't need doing. On the whole, I'd prefer a useless or inactive executive -- say, a Coolidge -- to a pharaoh who lords over a political totality. An even better option would be to abolish modern society, rather than tailor our regimes to its requirements. But that's not likely.
Trajan
A 'large complex society' requires greater specialization, which implies centralization of a sort but not the kind of centralizing power that would be placed in the hands of strong executives. More likely that power would be distributed among an inner party of bureaucrats and managers, who oversee specialized roles within the power structure. This is more or less how our government (and most Western governments) operates now. There wouldn't be a strong military type overseeing everything from his secret office and personally directing peons left and right. So your earlier assertion that a fascist-type government is the only way to get things done in modern society isn't really correct anyways.

As for the notion that libertarians seek solace from the political in economic formulas, there's a ring of truth to it, but it's not entirely accurate. And like myself, certainly not everyone who desires to abolish the modern state is a libertarian.
Ash
You could swap out a few words and this would be a communist rant. The market is "immoral", we just have to convince everyone of our ideology, we can redesign a fairer society from scratch... sorry but it's just as delusional. How would a society without a central authority "organize itself", who would "set up its values" to suit your preferences?

That last part is really an admission of the uselessness of libertarian theory: it doesn't apply to the world as it actually exists, but only to a super-rational fantasy land where big bad government doesn't get in the way. If we could just get rid of the irrational dimensions of human life involving power and force, we would live in a world of fair, logical contracts between free individuals!
Ash

Mlad, you're arguing against a strawman. I mentioned fascism as one example of a system that's explicitly (that is, honestly, instead of dishonestly) corporatist, that by taking hold of this reality of modern social organisation tried to ameliorate the antisocial, antimoral, antitraditional (etc.) effects of modernity. A strong executive doesn't have to be one person, but perhaps a group of people who have the will and abillity to play the system, including the whole web of bureaucratic, governmental, economic institutions you pointed to.When you say "This is more or less how our government (and most Western governments) operates now" - yes, and I think it's inevitable and head-in-the-sand utopian ideologies will not do the right any good in the face of this reality.

That said, I wouldn't disregard Spengler's prediction that the declining West is heading into its own period of Caesarism.

Trajan

If it's inevitable why are we even talking about this? Why are you suggesting fascism, etc? This is another thing I don't understand. And our current regime is no less 'utopian' than some of the alternatives being proposed.