Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Huh? What now?
If Communuism and Socialism ( in their ORIGINAL meaning) are not "political," then I don't know what IS "political" then.
Let's back up a bit.
The monarchy believes in the divine rights of kings and aristocracy, and thus their god-given right to obtain the wealth and to exploit others.
This is the ultra-right beliefs on POLITICAL scale.
The ideology of bourgeois society believes that not only kings and aristocracy can exploit and have the wealth and power, but ANYONE who has ability to accumulate money/wealth. At this point God is not dismissed from the picture, he is still incorporated in ideology and the argument that the wealth is his sign of approval/blessing is very much present in ideology - at least in America.
These are still right-wing ideological beliefs, just not "ultra-right" any longer.
Now people like Karl Marx dismiss God all together to begin with, citing religion as the "opium of the people." The center piece of his ideology become the money/wealth, why/how they give an opportunity for one man to be exploited by the other, and how this can be stopped.
These are the "ultra-left" political ideas that were supported, for example, by the economy of the Soviet Union.
Overall, ideology/beliefs that dominate any given society ( i.e. politics) come primary; economy that supports these beliefs come secondary.
I hope this helps.
Just to add to this, I often advise people to look at the root of words. Etymology can be very helpful in understanding what terms truly mean.
Both politics and economy can be traced back to the Greeks, with "political" referring mainly to the 'city-state' and, by extension, the citizen, while 'economic" refers to the household and it's ruler. States slightly different, 'politics' is a public matter while 'economics' is private.
The political center, now made up of the "liberal order" so to speak does tend to view these matters as mostly separate. There's obviously some overlap, with interstate trade, taxation, and so on, but production is largely independent of the state, determined by the needs of the owners of industry, who are responding to market forces.
The far left and right however blend the two. Monarchies are the classic example of a far right system, though the fascist state actually exemplifies it perfectly (I'd argue that if monarchies had modern production capabilities, fascist states and monarchies would look almost identical, the only difference being that fascist rules don't feel the need to invoke God). The state is mobilized into a single direction, as determined by the rules. The economy of a fascist state can be understood as the state standing in for the household, and it's leader being the ruler of the state. Essentially, everything is the rulers property and production is controlled by the ruler as if it were his private property.
The far left (in communists and socialists; anarchists are somewhat of an exception) believes the opposite. The far right more or less wants a political system controlled like an economy (i.e. everything is the business of a head of household/state) while the far left wants an economy that is controlled politically (concerned with the 'public good,' as communists would see it anyway).
I realize that they are ethical stances. I don't believe in the use of force against peaceful people, either. I do believe in peaceful people banding together to protect themselves from the less peaceful.
The thing is, unless people become perfect, even in a stateless society, there would be instances where force would come into play. People would form alliances to protect their interests from those who would harm them, and those with no alliances would be at the mercy of anyone with the strength to victimize them...unless they chose to join forces with people they didn't much like, to buy protection. It wouldn't end up being one state, it would devolve into a whole bunch of little warring factions, each one with a leader. Within a few years, the strongest would win, and you'd be right back at square one, if not worse.
If you can give one example of AnCap working as intended, I would love to hear about it.
As said in another post, and I don't believe it's intentional at all, the burden of proof is being shifted. The burden of proof is on the person claiming we need to initiate force against innocent people, and that is usually flipped by putting the other side on the defensive... like an atheist or agnostic saying they don't see proof of God, and the theist saying "well then prove that he DOESN'T exist". No...they don't have to prove that. Just something I like to point out.
On the last sentence - a) on a small scale, you just have to look at our personal lives, since virtually all of our interactions align with the basic principles of a voluntary society. The problem is that the rules completely change when the government is involved. I remember reading or watching a few things where someone talked about all the small-scale examples of "anarchy" in action, but I'm drawing a blank right now...and b) if you want a large-scale example, it hasn't existed.
The typical response is that if it was really that great, it would have been tried already, but that's a really flawed argument. For one, it will only work when enough people are on board with the philosophy, and we aren't there yet. Two, a government won't allow it to exist within their ("their") territory, so that goes back to point number one... it's kind of like "you're not allowed to start your own restaurant...*later*...your food must suck based on how unpopular it is."
"The thing is, unless people become perfect, even in a stateless society, there would be instances where force would come into play. People would form alliances to protect their interests from those who would harm them, and those with no alliances would be at the mercy of anyone with the strength to victimize them..."
Yes... I'd say that's a fact of life, state or no state. In a voluntary society, you just have a choice over which collectives you belong to.
As for the rest of that paragraph, I'd need more explanation as to why you believe that in order to answer.
Did you not take civics in school? The government does have a right to collect taxes
Because they wrote it on paper and the majority believes it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FirebirdCamaro1220
The government in this country is voted into office by the people; the mafia on the other hand is all by "appointment" with guys who all grew up together and are usually the same ethnicity. Not a good comparison
Even if the majority in the neighborhood voted for the mafia boss, what difference does that make? They're still demanding your money when you never agreed to give it to them.
...Karl Marx, history is about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, while economics is about the middle class (bourgeoise) and nobility exploiting the working class, namely by paying the worker less for his or her labor than the actual value of goods and services the worker produced, in effect stealing part of the workers’ labors and paying them just enough to survive.
...
The histrory of post-soviet countries and factual description their inherent "wild capitalism" has proven it, at least here. Here the employers pay their emloyees as few as possible. Even within the so called exporting industry sector what is often praised to be the "cornerstone" of economy the real incomes of real people of real life are not noticeably higher than the official minimum wage determined by governmental decree is. So actually he wasn't that wrong when saying so.
Just to add to this, I often advise people to look at the root of words. Etymology can be very helpful in understanding what terms truly mean.
Both politics and economy can be traced back to the Greeks, with "political" referring mainly to the 'city-state' and, by extension, the citizen, while 'economic" refers to the household and it's ruler. States slightly different, 'politics' is a public matter while 'economics' is private.
The political center, now made up of the "liberal order" so to speak does tend to view these matters as mostly separate. There's obviously some overlap, with interstate trade, taxation, and so on, but production is largely independent of the state, determined by the needs of the owners of industry, who are responding to market forces.
The far left and right however blend the two. Monarchies are the classic example of a far right system, though the fascist state actually exemplifies it perfectly (I'd argue that if monarchies had modern production capabilities, fascist states and monarchies would look almost identical, the only difference being that fascist rules don't feel the need to invoke God). The state is mobilized into a single direction, as determined by the rules. The economy of a fascist state can be understood as the state standing in for the household, and it's leader being the ruler of the state. Essentially, everything is the rulers property and production is controlled by the ruler as if it were his private property.
The far left (in communists and socialists; anarchists are somewhat of an exception) believes the opposite. The far right more or less wants a political system controlled like an economy (i.e. everything is the business of a head of household/state) while the far left wants an economy that is controlled politically (concerned with the 'public good,' as communists would see it anyway).
You might find this interesting... There was a guy named Hegel who some argue was a major enemy of liberalism/laissez faire, and two factions eventually formed - the left and right Hegelians. These two schools of thought kind of morphed into the left and right that you just described.
The speech below is Jeffrey Tucker talking about the left/Marxism/etc. coming out of left Hegelianism, and how learning about right Hegelianism made the alt-right/Trump phenomenon make complete sense. 15:20 is when he gets into that a bit more, but I just hit play and listened to the whole thing in the background while doing other stuff...ended up really getting into it and learning a lot. (Also a good one for understanding the libertarian mindset, even if you don't necessarily agree with it.)
As said in another post, and I don't believe it's intentional at all, the burden of proof is being shifted. The burden of proof is on the person claiming we need to initiate force against innocent people, and that is usually flipped by putting the other side on the defensive... like an atheist or agnostic saying they don't see proof of God, and the theist saying "well then prove that he DOESN'T exist". No...they don't have to prove that. Just something I like to point out.
On the last sentence - a) on a small scale, you just have to look at our personal lives, since virtually all of our interactions align with the basic principles of a voluntary society. The problem is that the rules completely change when the government is involved. I remember reading or watching a few things where someone talked about all the small-scale examples of "anarchy" in action, but I'm drawing a blank right now...and b) if you want a large-scale example, it hasn't existed.
The typical response is that if it was really that great, it would have been tried already, but that's a really flawed argument. For one, it will only work when enough people are on board with the philosophy, and we aren't there yet. Two, a government won't allow it to exist within their ("their") territory, so that goes back to point number one... it's kind of like "you're not allowed to start your own restaurant...*later*...your food must suck based on how unpopular it is."
"The thing is, unless people become perfect, even in a stateless society, there would be instances where force would come into play. People would form alliances to protect their interests from those who would harm them, and those with no alliances would be at the mercy of anyone with the strength to victimize them..."
Yes... I'd say that's a fact of life, state or no state. In a voluntary society, you just have a choice over which collectives you belong to.
As for the rest of that paragraph, I'd need more explanation as to why you believe that in order to answer.
I've discussed some of the reasons why in another thread. I will try to find it for you later, although I think it's actually pretty clear. I think one of the things I addressed is the issue of scale: the fact that I could envision it working in a very small community where the majority of the people know each other and are willing to cooperate, but being virtually impracticable when numbers climb into the millions, or even the thousands.
I've discussed some of the reasons why in another thread. I will try to find it for you later, although I think it's actually pretty clear. I think one of the things I addressed is the issue of scale: the fact that I could envision it working in a very small community where the majority of the people know each other and are willing to cooperate, but being virtually impracticable when numbers climb into the millions, or even the thousands.
The problem with that is that A), as soon as there is agreement on how to proceed with life, you have created a de facto government, and B) without a government, as soon as two of your fellow anarchists decide to team up for their mutual benefit and take what belongs to you, you are toast.
Society created government to protect itself from itself.
The problem with that is that A), as soon as there is agreement on how to proceed with life, you have created a de facto government, and B) without a government, as soon as two of your fellow anarchists decide to team up for their mutual benefit and take what belongs to you, you are toast.
Society created government to protect itself from itself.
As mentioned before, you have to define what you mean. You can call it government if people get together voluntarily - no idea why you would, but that's not what I'm against. I'm not against "government" per se. I'm against the initiation of force against peaceful people. I'm not against using force against people who break that rule.
Not even sure what you mean by "agreement on how to proceed with life". That everyone needs to agree on one way of living?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
