I think John Oliver was put off a bit by the blatant American exceptionalism and weird fervor for the military on display at the Democratic national convention — so was I. But as he points out, we don’t have much choice, because Trump is so abysmally horrible.
And Trump is simply incompetent at even the simplest parts of the job that require minimal human decency, or even just the ability to pretend to be a caring person.
Honestly, the main take-away from these two weeks is that, incredibly, we may be on the brink of electing such a damaged, sociopathic narcissist, that the simple presidential duty of comforting the families of fallen soldiers may actually be beyond his capabilities. And I genuinely did not think that was the part of the job that someone could be bad at.
So there’s a lot to dislike about the Democratic party, and the Republicans are in the process of disintegration — we really need a better party and a better choice. No, not Gary Johnson and the Libertarians — they’re openly incompetent and driven by a failed ideology. Not the Greens, either, as long as they’re led by Jill Stein.
I’ve been getting a lot of pushback from people trying to argue that Stein isn’t anti-vax, because she doesn’t come right out and say it, and “ANTI-VAX” isn’t tattooed on her forehead. But I’ve had to deal with a lot of anti-thises and thats — the climate change deniers, the evolution deniers, the vaccine deniers — and this is pretty much their standard operating procedure. Think Bjorn Lomborg, for instance: because he admits to the reality of climate change, I’ve heard people claim he’s actually pro-environment. It’s not true. He’s just taking a more cautious approach to making his denialism sound reasonable, even while he’s fundamentally wrong.
Mike the Mad Biologist makes a similar case for Jill Stein being a vaccine denier who is straining to make her position seem plausible.
One hideous thing she has been doing is making the standard anti-vaccination arguments. If you follow this stuff, it’s obvious what she’s doing, but there are a lot of newbies who just aren’t aware of how the anti-vaccine game is played.
Anti-vaccinations never come out and say ‘we oppose vaccination.’ It is always couched in terms of altering vaccination schedules, urging ‘caution’, and calling for safer products.
This is really no different than when anti-abortionists come up with bullshit medical safety arguments (or bullshit pre-natal neurology and developmental biology), rather than admitting they want to end all abortions. Nor is it any different from Republicans who are supposedly protecting us from voter fraud, while really attempting to disenfranchise Democrats for partisan gain.
What’s awful is that she is mainstreaming garbage that undermines one of the most successful public health interventions of the 20th century.
Exactly right. And why I’d never vote for Stein.
Does that disqualify Clinton and Obama for the 2008 election as well? “OBAMA AND CLINTON ON AUTISM, VACCINES, RESEARCH” [Warning: crank site] There’s plenty of anti-vaxxers in the Democratic party tent too.
I thought the American exceptionalism and pro-military stance at the DNC was a brilliant bit of political maneuvering. For decades Republicans have slammed Democrats as being “un-patriotric” and “anti-military”. With Trump, though, they can’t really pursue those arguments, so the Democrats moved into that rhetorical space (while still giving it a more liberal twist).
They did the same thing with “family values”–the DNC was clearly more family friendly and family oriented than the RNC. And if the Democrats follow up, they may be able to deny the Republicans those rhetorical advantages in future elections as well.
I am heartily sick of the self-righteous prigs who wave their index fingers (usually the index) and proclaim “the lesser of two evils is evil.” How clever of them to repeat a stale meme as if they just thought of it. However, there’s an unsubstantiated premise that they always fail to justify. Since Clinton isn’t evil, their declaration falls face-plant flat. Hint: Lack of perfection isn’t the same as EVIL.
Trump’s only conceivable redemption [my bad for even considering it] is that his goal is to demonstrate how awful the Rethuglicans are, and destroy it from within, rather than attacking it from the “other party”.
The problem with that possibility is how hard the public is working to support his deranged blather of inconsistent hate speech and flimsy coverups of his own fuckups.
Trump is sick, in more ways than one. but his support is worse.
I get that many people are frustrated and angry with the current government and mindlessly think the admin controls everything, and want a doofus to come in and wreck the system; in order to get a better one from rebuilding it. but. but… but… *sputter* *cough*
why they won’t go for someone who has a record of noticing flaws and working to correct them is inconceivable. *shrug*
Well, if the vice-president is in charge of domestic policy, then he would comfort grieving families. That’s certainly not something the big boss would dirty his hands with. Somehow I don’t thing the words “empathy” or “sympathy” are in the tiny Trump lexicon.
It’s a much tougher call for me. All things being equal – and without a potential Trump presidency in the mix – I’d take an anti-vaxxer environmentalist over a neoliberal war hawk. In fact I did just that in the last presidential election.
But I did so knowing that I live in one of the bluest neighborhoods, in one of the bluest cities, in one of the bluest states in the nation. If I lived in a swing state, my vote would have been for the neoliberal war hawk sporting a D after his name.
slithey tove, #4
Why do you think that’s his goal?
redwood 5: empathy and sympathy are not in any conservative’s emotional repertoire, though the words may be in their lexicon.
The exceptionalism and nods to the military were certainly there, but considering how the biggest such nod came from the father of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq, it wasn’t to glorify the military but to counter the prejudice against Muslims that Trump is cruelly appealing to.
I wish there was a third party worth making a useless vote of ideological support for, but the greens nominated an anti-science crank, the libertarians are a dumping ground for dissatisfied conservatives and paulbots, and the P&F keeps nominating and supporting TERFs.
My vote doesn’t count for much, given my deep blue state.
Any vote for a third party would just be to show that I support them ideologically, despite their near-zero chance of actually winning. With that in mind, I could never vote Green or any of these third parties, because I don’t support their ideology.
In regards to @1
Nah, because the republicans they were running against were so much worse.
Voting for a major party isn’t just a useless show of ideological support, it’s also voting for a candidate that has an actual chance of winning.
If my options are “vote for a bad democrat that’s better than the opposing republican” or “make a useless show of ideological support for a less bad third party candidate”, I’d pick the former every time.
I’ve bitten the bullet and decided to vote for Clinton, but only as a vote against Trump. I wish the #NeverHillary crowd would open their fucking eyes and see just what is wrong with the alternative…
God I hope Trump loses…
Third parties won’t be viable in the US until there is more widespread adoption of instant runoff voting, acceptance voting, or something similar that removes the ‘spoiler’ effect.
http://www.chickennation.com/tag/instant-runoff-voting/
Until then, it’s going to be Total Bastards vs. Partial Bastards forever.
Hillary Clinton is now the only candidate not pandering to the anti-vaccine movement
.
“We Should Not Be Subjecting Children’s Brains To Wi-Fi Screens In Schools. It’s Not OK “Jill Stein
re 7:
I think you know, but for clarity, I said “it is the only conceivable” possibility to possibly explain Drumph’s statements and Tweet blurbs. No I do NOT think that is the case, just the only possible explanation I can conceive of, for my fantasy story of a demented blowhard infiltrating an established system that is working perfectly.
ack I’m starting to bluster…oops
Clinton is only the preferred candidate because of the vulgarity of the two party system. Either Stein or Johnson are infinitely better candidates in spite of Stein being a crank and whatever strawman you have in your head for libertarianism. (Pro tip the gilded age wasn’t a libertarian paradise).
And yes Clinton is evil; like Obama she is quite possibly a war criminal.
Gary Johnson’s the only one of these people saying things that would actually make a difference. Even with your disdain for libertarian ideology, ending the drug war and stopping mindless foreign interventions are humongous policy changes – one that will impact our poor here at home and another that will stop helping create power vacuums abroad. Who the hell knows what Trump will or won’t do (Whatever it is will probably be bad) – but we know what Clinton’s position has been. She’s been a drug war crusader and an interventionist. She’s the status quo and the status quo isn’t serving actual liberal policy changes.
There are some good libertarian policies and in general who can disagree with the general notion of having more liberty and less intrusive government? But the important point is that libertarian economic policies are fantasy, the same way “trickle down” economy is pure fantasy. This combined with the fact that the core of the libertarian party is their economic policies, makes them a mostly fantasy party. Afterall, “Chicago Boys” tried the closest thing to Libertarian policies and as predicted they had short-term success but eventually the average growth of Chile was not impressive at all in the long run.
You seem to be on some strong hallucinogens. They are both ideological assholes without any means to govern. Which means people of their parties in the House and Senate. Zip, zero, zilch, nothing. Even trying to elect them as president, who has no power to impose laws (that is up to Congress), says something about your lack of reality.
Pro tip: Pinochet’s Chile also not a libertarian paradise.
There are libertarians out there that do support welfare programs such as universal basic income.
And libertarian thought is wider than the LP platform.
You folks better get accustomed to libertarianism, it’s on the rise and I’m guessing will eventually replace the GOP.
as it is here all the “fringe parties” are just that, small parties that a offering nothing functional and usually have some major conflict with reality. the major 2 parties have been alternating power back and for the for all my life as has apparently the population in policy desires.
This time it looks to be more of a real choice between one party that desires a functional democracy and consensus for some changes and an anti-democratic change to authoritarianism and a “great leader” country.
yes the criticism of Hillery is true to a degree she is rather conventional at heart but she has at least been pushing for changes on the issues that have been her principle concern the whole time. she does seem to be someone who can accept reality she did stay with bill after all
So has Trump! His principle concern being Trump of course. His reality? He just makes it up as he goes along.
uncle frogy
The right-wing “Libertarianism” we have today is actually Objectivism, popularized by the profoundly selfish and intellectually immature Ayn Rand (who hated Libertarians, BTW, who, at the time, were actually quite a bit more left wing than today’s “Libertarians” are). This should be obvious if you pay attention to who today’s “Libertarians” hold up as one of their favorite intellectuals (Ayn Rand).
Also, to those of you pushing Jill Stein despite her quackery… no. We already have scientific illiteracy in our government. We don’t need more.
@Mike Smith, 20:
Yes, Chile was not the Libertarian paradise but the outcome did not bode well regardless. I mean, what good is a political philosophy that does terribly unless you get it 100%? Also, the same argument is used by the communists since afterall no government has ever managed to get Karl Marx fully right.
Yes, you are talking about Milton’s negative tax. It is a nice idea but it is too simplistic. It might work in small scale but not beyond that. Human societies are complex and they have complex problems that might need complex solutions. This whole Libertarian obsession with “simple ideas that can magically solve all problems everywhere” is just that, magic.
Also, Libertarians rely too much on the “invisible hand of the market”. The saying “once you have a hammer everything looks like a nail” applies perfectly.
Oh good nerd is unable to read my post in its entirety once again.
Nerd you blighted fuckwit. I started that post by observing that Clinton is only preferred because of the two party system. The two party system includes the that most elected officials are from those two parties. You yelching at me that Johnson/Stein wouldn’t be able to get much (if anything) done because there are no Greens/libertarians in congress us A) something I already implicitly granted and b) does not address the underlying point that both Stein and Johnson advocate for much better policy. Ftr I have repeatedly state I will be voting for Clinton in all likelihood.
Second you fucking dense asshole much of why Johnson and Stein are better has little to do with them being able to enact additional laws but to do with things that fall within the president’s purview. Namely,
1) both immediately would place us on a more dovish foreign policy stance
2) both immediately would stop defending unconstitutional civil liberties abridging laws and/or doctrines. I.E. the state secret privilege.
3) both would ramp down the war on drugs via persecution discretion. I think that is also likely for immigration.
4) I’m half convinced Johnson would pardon all non violent drug offenders.
5) both are highly unlikely to start a new war. Etc.
The next president, no matter who, is unlikely to be able to do much with a divided and hostile congress.
And it’s fucking rich that you are lecturing me on how the govt works. You don’t even seem to realize that voting affects others and thus is public. No I’m not letting that go because you are still a fucking moron in light of that.
@lotharloo
Pinochet’s Chile is as much libertarian as the kill fields were. Roaming death squads within a legal structure that doesn’t recognize human rights is not just not completely libertarian it’s positively anti libertarian.
It’s like being fearful of Obama care because the Soviet Union was so bad.
Second, I wasn’t thinking just if Milton’s ideas, but also Hayek, Payne, Left-libertarianism generally, a couple of random reason pundits and well libertarian adjacent people like David Gauthier, myself, Hume, Smith etc.
Now excuse me if I don’t feel like debating the merits of the invisible hand or Milton’s ideas because frankly most people who rail against libertarianism in partisan Democratic circles seen unable or unwilling to charactize libertarianism correctly.
There’s more to the set of ideologies covered by the label than the Non libertarian libertarian objectivist Rand and the minarchist Nozick.
I also fail to see how govt intervention is not a hammer.
@ anthonybarcellos, 3
Clinton is pro-surveillance state, pro-war, pro-fracking, and pro-wall street. She whole-heartedly supports giving government funds to mass murderers (in this case, I mean the health insurance industry).
No, she isn’t worse than the majority of her party. She’s better than many. She really isn’t a monster. She’s far preferable to the alternative. She is still the lesser of two evils.
It’s not a worse sort evil than what we’ve been dealing with for at least the Reagan Administration, but it’s still evil. It is far, far less evil than what the Republicans will do, if they’re given chance, but it’s still evil. It’s boring, banal, wonky, work-a-day evil, but it’s still evil.
Every one of us bares a share of the responsibility for the everyday evil in this world. The slavery, the needless suffering, the short-sighted greed at the expense of all else. We all have blood on our hands. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make you wise, mature, grown-up, a realist, or whatever you wish to call yourself. Denying the reality of the evil only serves to ensure we will never, ever have a chance at anything better.
For feck’s sake, the goal is NO THUGS! NONE. ABSOLUTELY NONE.
That does mean, in essentially all cases, the dummie, which is deplorable.
In that case… get all the necessary equipment and forms and preparations in order, and when the Republicans do disintegrate (which isn’t actually going to happen), start the FTB Party!
@Mike Smith:
Regarding Chile, the discussion is about the economic policies and I fail to see you can easily dismiss it specially since what happened in Chile was pretty much expected. You cannot deny that they did really try to implement “the free market” policies.
Also, I get it that there is a huge spectrum of libertarian ideas but the problem is that libertarians are driven mostly by ideology rather than evidence or logic, e.g., they argue “carbon taxes are bad because it’s government intervention” which is nothing by argument from ideology.
It is only a hammer if someone advocates government intervention for every problem or issue. But most liberals or least most respected liberals agree that there is value in free market and capitalism but they don’t advocate it as solution to every problem, unlike the libertarians who want to hammer everything with “free market”, “competition” and “invisible hand of the market”.
*snicker* It doesn’t matter, and hypotheticals are for people not grounded in reality. Talking hypotheticals about the non-electable is simple a waste of time and electrons.
Stein and Johnson are IRRELEVANT.
Take your hypotheticals to a philosophical site.
Pretty good post by Corey Robin giving some historical context.
One problem with Johnson’s idiotology. He wants to do away with the FDA.
Without the FDA, the US Pharma companies would have trouble selling their goods in Europe and Japan without clinical trials also being run in those countries, which was the case prior to ICH. It also allows the US to accept clinical trials run in Europe and Japan. Ask the Pharma companies if they really want to get rid of the FDA and ICH. The answer will be a resounding “NO!”.
Why is it against the public interest to have a pharma company show safety and efficacy prior to launching a new drug?
Libertarians don’t give a shit about the public good.
Mike Smith
Are there any countries that are being, or have been, successfully run by libertarians? If not, why not?
Shorter version of Nerd – we obviously can’t stop the US army and CIA death squads bombing hospitals and murdering civilians so talking about how to save their lives is waste of time.
Vote Clinton but don’t stop the criticism.
This is what happens when you have pharma companies putting drugs on the market without proving safety and efficacy.
Thalidomide
That is why regulations and regulatory agencies are needed, for the public good.
Looking a little more into Johnson’s stances:
Instantly disqualified, but let’s see what else
Let’s try that again
Disqualifiedx2
Disqualifiedx3
Disqualifiedx4
I could keep going, but long story short I’d consider Stein and her anti-science kookery long before I’d consider “Basically a conservative but not enough of a religious kook to run as a Rethug” Johnson.
Link for those who can’t see the video https://ca.proxfree.com/permalink.php?url=s54aaHA%2FaGsaD5vHs0QZLcUclS%2FcUxrnNZwEMCiA0I%2B%2FLJlu5XQy4yrGfbEV49Lp5DJ2VmEeS9KdpJplZtypLA%3D%3D&bit=1
re 34:
bullshit
@lotharloo
RE: Chile. No this discussion is not about economic policies in isolation, but whether or not Chile is representative of Libertarianism. You cannot have a free market within a legal structure where central authority rests with a quasi-fascist dictator. That Pinochet liberalized some aspects of the Chile’s economy does not mean he was bringing about a free market. You are making the same mistake that right libertarians do, namely prioritizing economic liberalism.
Second, it is simply not true that libertarians (in general) are any worse or better than being driven by ideology than other political groups. I have people on this site try to argue the labour theory of value to me despite the evidence against it being fairly conclusive was in over a 100 years ago. You are ignoring large swaths of libertarians than do take into account lines of evidence and logic. ideological thinking plays a role in decisions making because umm yes your political beliefs should be coherent and systematized.
Oh for the record, here’s a libertarian arguing for a carbon tax on libertarian grounds. (http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/12/a-libertarian-argues-for-a-carbon-tax) 15 freaken seconds on google.
And yes I have seen numerous liberals call for gov’t intervention as the solution of all problems. Our political culture doesn’t do nuance well.
@jefrir
there has been no country one earth that has ever been run completely inline with any political ideology you care to name. This is an unfair question. I might as well as what country has ever been run along (high) liberalism lines.
But to answer your question, the classical liberal tradition that libertarianism developed out of as greatly influenced western liberal democracy. To the extent that you care to characterize America as libertarian, which I want to say can be a fair partial characterization, America serves as a model for it. We have, of course, gotten more and less libertarian over time depending on what you are talking about.
@Nerd
1) Tell your scientists friends to stop making experimental predictions and Hypotheses then because those are hypothetical, and hypothetical thinking you complete ass. Hypothesis and hypothetical even share the same Greek root you ignorant buffoon.
2) minor parties influence major parties and the policies that the minor parties advocate become relevant to the degree in which the minor parties are successful in push the major parties around. You blinkered fucknugget would know this if you paid an once of attention in history. Quick examples: A large chunk of the New Deal was taken from that era’s socialists parties and pressure (in part) brought from oh Debs in 1912 getting a millionish votes. Another example: Thatcher was deeply influenced by Hayek despite Hayek being vehemently against conservatism and being not involved with the Tories at all.
So given that I want to move both parties away from the bipartisan hawkish policies on foreign affairs and civil liberties I am going to praise any and all parties that reject that has having better policies. This is going to be the case if I have to remain within the major parties electorally.
And, just a question, who pissed in your coffee this morning?
I’m not sure how the restoration of comments at the old Pharyngula is progressing, but propertarians have been loitering arrogantly and annoyingly around this blog since at least the run-up to the 2008 election. Do a search for this blog and “Scott from Oregon,” for example, but there have been many others over the years. You’re not introducing people here to some fascinating new philosophy.
Asshole, Scientific Hypothesis have a modicum of EVIDENCE in reality, and must be supported by reality, unlike your flights of delusion, which is ALL YOU HAVE. Reality separates those who are delusional from those who deal with the world. Why aren’t you grounded in reality? Oh, that’s right, Reality Has a liberal bias…..
Yep, I think March 2008, and always loud, vocal, short on any third party evidence to back up their claims.
If somebody says I must take their word for it, I doubt their word from that point on. Which is all Libertarians (liberturds) have, their word….
Look, ideologue, this has all been covered here in great depth hundreds of times over. I alone have linked to multiple posts on this precise issue. There’s this one, for example, which includes this Hayek quote:
Go there. Read the posts, comments, and links. So tiresome. You are a “right libertarian.” If you were a) knowledgeable and b) really gave a shit about what you purport to care about, you would be an anarchist or a democratic socialist.
One hideous thing she has done is making the standard racist arguments. If you follow this stuff, it’s obvious what she’s doing, but there are a lot of newbies who just aren’t aware of how the dog whistle game is played.
Racists never come out and say ‘we oppose civil rights’ It is always couched in terms of a war on crime, urging caution against “super predators”, and calling for safer African American communities.
This is really no different than when supposed broken window advocates come up with bullshit stop and frisk policies (which disproportionately targets people of color), rather than admitting they want to end civil rights. Nor is it any different from Republicans who are supposedly protecting us from drugs, while really attempting to push policy which disproportionately targets people of color.
Of course that was hyperbole.
What’s awful is that people buy into that kind of shallow political rhetoric every few years. I’d liken it to a perennial fever that slowly grows hotter as elections draw near. You see it mounting in the press. You see it in the wide eyes and suspicious glances sideways during conversations at the water cooler. People who were once politically aligned suddenly take to pointing white hot fingers of accusation “you’re no better than the opposition!”. Our logic is cast aside. Intellectual honesty? An impossibility. The fever has come. Political Pon Farr is upon us.
I have yet to find a libertarian who doesn’t resort to some sort of no true libertarian fallacy.
It always, always, boils down to “libertarian stuff would work best becausefreedomandliberty”, and anything that demonstrates how the ideology fails “isn’t truely libertarian” because the market isn’t free enough and the guy down the street has too much “force” because of some reason or another, or something.
It’s goofy, and boring at this point.
Stein really seems to be a crank: http://gizmodo.com/now-jill-stein-thinks-wi-fi-might-be-hurting-kids-1784664503?
Nepos @ 2
So embracing aggrandizing jingoistic hubris and vulgar militarism of the Right is perfectly fine so long as it put’s your party in power?
Pardon me, but I’ve got to vomit.
@SC
First of all, do not presume to tell me what my own political beliefs are. I am infinitely closer to Rawls and other high liberals than I am to any libertarian. As I have repeatedly stated, I am a classical liberal who believes in a robust social safety net. My own political beliefs are mostly shaped by Hobbes, Rawls and David Gauthier.
Second of all, I am well aware that Hayek and other Right Libertarians got involved with Pinochet directly and/or praised what he did, this is one of the reason why I said this: “You are making the same mistake that right libertarians do, namely prioritizing economic liberalism.” I’m involved in these debates academically. I think right libertarians are profoundly wrong to stress the economic aspects public policies above personal aspects, and I think they are wrong on this on their own principles. Regardless of that, the failure of right libertarianism is no more a failure of more general orientation of libertarianism than the the failure of communism is a failure of a more general collectivist/Marxist orientation.
Hayek was wrong to praise/work with Pinochet and, more to the point, I think he was wrong on his own principles that he laid out in earlier works. (I have no desire to have this debate) But at the end of the day Pinochet’s Chile demonstrates the ideological AND practical failings of RIGHT libertarianism, or at least the version of right libertarian that Hayek supported when he was 80 years old. But as I have made clear in this thread there is a vast wealth of libertarian ideologies, not all of them are right wing and sure as shit not all of them are Hayekian. Here’s a a right libertarian condemning Hayek for his support of Pinochet ( http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/17/the-mad-dream-of-a-libertarian-dictator ).
Ball to you.
@nerd
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/
The use of hypotheticals to derive moral intuitions is perfectly acceptable in normative theory. you can’t observe what you should do.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/
Here’s a good overview of the various issues and differences of various ideologies that get labeled as libertarian,
Yea I think your reasoning is pretty sound, and its pretty much my position going into november (except my state is is extremely red, but same difference).
Anyway, if PZ and others won’t vote Stein because they don’t think a third party candidate can win and Clinton not as bad as Trump that’s fine, but just be upfront about it and stop the posturing and hysterics about how Stein’s anti-vaxx position disqualifies her from your vote.
I meant shit, Clinton is chummy with literal war criminals and murders like Kissinger and Alrbright and she has openly courted (and is a member of frankly) that element of the American foreign policy elite, but Stein’s mild flirtation with New Age anti-vaxxers is what crosses the line for you ?
You’ll never vote for an anti-vaxxer.
You’ll never vote for an anti-choicer.
But drone strikes and wars of aggression are an “acceptable compromise.” Endorsing the status quo on systemic racism is something you’re willing to tolerate as the “lesser evil.”
I’m starting to get the impression that what you consider acceptable if it’s the “lesser evil” depends on the skin color of who it’s being done to.
most memorable line:
“Why is your penis made of glowing white light?”
hindsight is always 20:20.
the only time I can recall where there was clear evidence a president would likely go to war, if elected, BEFORE they were elected… was W.
and I rather think nobody on this thread voted for him.
You’d like to think someone like stein would not promote the use of american toops or drones in the ME.
you also think she has enough experience with national defense to ignore what her staff tells her?
no?
then it’s quite likely that you would see the same things you see under Obama…. under Stein.
your naivete is showing.
I rather think the Greens smell blood in the water and are hoping they can gain ground with their “top down” strategy, so are pandering to basically any group they can cram under their ever increasing tent.
but it won’t work.
Give me a break. It’s all so stupid and slippery. If you want to talk about political philosophy, great. Talk about ideas in relation to reality. Don’t just name isms and dudes and then run away from them when their concrete actions and statements are called into question. You’re the one who brought up libertarianism here, and the one suggesting “really existing libertarianism” wasn’t actually representative.
You also said the things I quoted in my last two comments, so you’re being quite disingenuous.
There’s no such thing as “economic liberalism” as you understand it, and it’s absurd to claim a capitalist “economic liberalism” that stands in a positive relationship to real democracy. Nor are these separate spheres. Democracy is political, economic, and social – it’s how we make decisions about our lives and future in common.
And YOU said “Pinochet’s Chile is as much libertarian as the kill fields were. Roaming death squads within a legal structure that doesn’t recognize human rights is not just not completely libertarian it’s positively anti libertarian.” I’m glad you appear to disown those famous propertarians, but you can’t singlehandedly define the ism, especially when you’ve name-checked them in the same post.
It shows.
I believe you mean no less a failure. They’re authoritarian failures. (And that includes your so-called left libertarianism.)
You brought up Hayek. If you want to talk about propertarian ideas (though, again, these have been discussed here for 8+ years), bring them up in terms of actual realities in the world and suggestions for change – not just “We have general answers to political problems, and any criticisms people might have don’t apply to my version.”
Oh, STFU.
And no, I’m not going to respond to each of your long, sloppy comments. If I find a coherent argument, I’ll answer it.
This post by dianne presented a side of Stein that’s important to note, I think.
You’re the one who brought up libertarianism here,
This was incorrect. Apologies.
If I was voting purely off of ideology, both major parties and every “major” third party would be out of the running. Clinton, Trump, Johnson, and Stein all have disqualifying parts of their political ideology.
However, I don’t only vote by ideology, I’m primarily interested in reducing the harm as best as I can. Throwing my vote away on a third party I don’t even like that will have zero support from any other branch of government even if they somehow managed to poll better than >5% of the vote doesn’t do that. Voting for the least bad out of the two viable candidates does.
I find Hillary Clinton pretty fucking awful, but I think it’s pretty clear that she’s less bad than Trump, even if only by degrees.
@SC
I’m going to have longer response tomorrow. But a couple of quick points.
1) I was not the one who brought up libertarianism. Professor Myers did.
2) I have discussed my politically preferences in this very thread in relation to reality. For example on policy, taken in isolation of the two party system, I said Stein and Johnson both are better choices because both are far less likely to bomb the shit out of poor brown folks and both are not going to use the power of the state to run rough shod over people.
3) where did I bring up Hayek as an example of person to listen too? Where did I do this? Did you pull a Nerd?
4) I’m not saying all libertarian ideology in action is not representative. I’m saying Chile is not representative of anything besides a very slim slice of right libertarianism
Do you know what I consider a fairly good representative example of libertarianism in action? The USA, western Europe and internet. Perfect? No but there are strong currents of libertarian or libertarian ish policies there. Shall we talk about the success of Portugal drugs laws being liberalized? Or how even Denmark has private property protections?
Finally, what do you mean by a real democracy? I’m just trying to decide if I want to bother responding further.
As an Australian the challenge for me is who will come last on my preferential voting. Who comes first is usually either a clear cut Green, or Labor vote.
The American voting system is a complete cluster fuck, and that’s how the GOP/Dems want it. So the question you should be asking yourself is, ‘who do you don’t want to be president,’ and vote in a way that makes sure that doesn’t happen. Because voting for Jill Stein is more, or less a vote for Trump.
Johnson would allow companies, and the owners of capital generally, to run roughshod over poor brown (especially) and all other “folks” in the US around the world. (Of course, this would necessitate the power of states, as it always has, because that’s the only support for capitalism/corporations.) Even if we were to ignore the anti-union and -social justice measures that would be required, the difference from the present would be that people would have no democratic say in their economic – and therefore political – existence.
Johnson believes in propertarian fairy tales:
Right, let the democratically unaccountable “private sector” decide about an existential crisis. I think not.
#25.
How convenient.
This is silly. At their best, these are examples of liberalism, anarchism, and democratic socialism. People fought and died for the freedoms that exist in these societies. Before you claim phenomena large and small for your philosophy(ish), you need to define it concretely. Until you do, there’s little point interacting with you, since you’ll just keep pulling the “no true libertarian” card. You can just snipe and then dance away. (Too Many Metaphors.)
*eyeroll*
I’ve said what I mean. It’s people together deciding their future – social, economic, and political.
* He also, despite his freedom-leanings, “on a personal level…believes in the sanctity of the life of the unborn. As Gov. he supported efforts to ban late term abortions.” That’s comforting. Liberty! Honestly, is there a single propertarian presidential candidate who can simply support autonomy and human rights? Oh, and Johnson thinks health care will sink us. No link between health security and freedom, of course.
This will be the last time I’ll post this, at least for now. But possible evidence of election fraud:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5O9I4XJdSISNzJyaWIxaWpZWnM/view?pref=2&pli=1
Website of the organization: http://electionjusticeusa.org/
Thank you very much.
Does Stein have a lot of positions that I vehemently disagree with? Yes.
Does Clinton have a lot of positions that I vehemently disagree with? Yes.
So, if I were in the position of having to choose (which I’m thankfully not, not being a US citizen*) I would have to weigh up those positions to decide which I considered most important. Stein’s anti-vax rhetoric is certainly concerning, but then Clinton’s long history of support for US military action is also concerning. Personally, I strongly suspect that the US military has a rather larger body count than the anti-vaxxers… I have to say, I find it a little odd that so many people seem to be more concerned with anti-vax rhetoric than they are with war crimes and human rights abuses on an epic scale.
*Of course, there would also be tactical considerations depending on which state I was voting in. I can certainly see the argument that voting against Trump is the over-riding concern.
Why isn’t there this level of involvement and discussion regarding the House and Senate elections?
I’m not American, but if I was, I’d vote for Clinton as the lesser of two evils, certainly. That said, I can’t really fault people who don’t feel they can’t support her. Voting Green or Socialist is at least a better sign of protest than staying at home entirely, which would simply be taken as apathy. And those people might at least still vote for Democratic Senate and House candidates, no? If those don’t get the needed results, Clinton won’t be able to get much done, whatever her intentions and priorities.
And once again, we find ourselves being told that whatever the hell Libertarianism actually is, it definitely isn’t what Libertarians actually say or do.
@65 Dunc
I’m not an American, obviously, but it strikes me that with your current electoral system this “do I vote for Hilary Clinton or Jill Stein” business the calculation made must be on one question – what will my protest vote achieve here?
I get the impression that the safe states where one party is always victorious are the ones where a protest vote can safely be made without jeopardising the overall national result. So if you live in one of those then it’s a real decision rather than a hypothetical one. If you live in a state where it’s close and there is a chance that not voting for blue will result in a victory for orange then voting for green is out of the question.
But what if you can make a protest vote in reasonable certainty that it won’t affect the national result? What would that achieve? It seems to me that the most it could achieve is to make one of the two big parties sit up and take notice. Possibly shift their focus and policies a little bit in the direction of the protest party that has garnered a non-negligible number of votes. Not an insignificant goal. Over here in England we have seen precisely that happen. The growing support for UKIP has made the Tories more euroskeptic in outlook and has led to our current dire Brexit fiasco. Meanwhile the steadily growing support for the Greens has helped to empower the left wing of the Labour party.
So it seems to me that Jill Stein’s personal opinions on vaccines are kind of irrelevant really. The precise details of her party’s manifesto don’t matter, because they’re never going to be enacted – all that matters is that your Green party could give a slight gravitational tug to the Democratic party in a leftward, pro-environment direction if they get enough protest votes. Or your Socialist party (if you have one) could do the same. But ideally there would be a single protest bloc, as that stands more chance of having an effect.
Of course, your local elections are a different matter. But since we are only talking about the glacially slow progress of the oligarchic presidential juggernauts here, I think it’s a reasonable point to make.
@SC
Yup. You can’t read. In #25, I referenced Hayek descriptively as a libertarian that supported some form of social safety net spending; he famously calls such spending prudent. I didn’t reference him prescriptively as a person to listen to. This is clear from the context. But it gets even clearer when I throw myself in the non libertarian group that while it is close to libertarian is not identical with and therefore implicit perspective differences.
And you might have rolled my eyes at my Denmark comment but it’s true. Even so called Nordic socialism is closer in practice to capitalism and libertarianism than bona fide socialism, democratic or otherwise, because by far and large the means of production are private and have strong legal protections. It makes more sense to call Denmark a property owning democracy than a democratic socialist state. Do you need me to dig up the PM bragging about how capitalist Denmark is in response to Bernie Sanders.
I feel in light of this this will prove to be a fruitless conversation. But a parting shot: if a democratically enacted law bans abortion outright, is such a law just? Democracy!!
@68
What people in democratic circles usually do around libertarianism is a kin to insisting that because a lot of Catholic priests have raped kids and all believe that the communion literally becomes the body of Christ that therefore all Christians are child molesting cannibals.
The basic structure of our society–private property, strong individual rights, market economy, rule of law, etc–can all be fairly charactized as libertarian. The basic structure also can be fairly called liberal. There is also elements–judicial review being the most obivous–which are (philosophical) republican. Democratic inability to recognize shared ground and history with libertarianism is frustrating.
I know several libertarians who are lifelong Democrats because of their libertarianism.
@SC
For the record I don’t think Stalin’s Russia is representative of Marxism generally either. I think it is only representative of a far narrower slice of Stalinism in the cluster of Marxist and Marx adjacent ideologies.
This might be a “convenient” standard (I prefer to be accurate) but I’m willing to apply it consistently.
I very much doubt that the result would be over five million dead and fifty million displaced (which is approximately what you get if you scale up the effects of the Iraq war proportionately to the US population), the destruction of most of the basic infrastructure of the country, and the destabilisation of the entire region for decades to come.
Measles is bad, but it’s not as bad as war. Fuck, you could bring back smallpox and it wouldn’t be that bad.
F.O. #66
That’s a really good question.
Other people have asked it before but there seems to be little interest in answering it.
OK, I’ve just checked the epidemiology of smallpox, and this may be overstating matters somewhat. Bringing back smallpox actually would be about as bad as being on the sharp end of US foreign policy.
Measles? Not even close.
Yawn, when will MS actually define and show examples of his pet policies?
@75 Dunc
Consider all diseases that can be prevented by vaccines, not just a couple. These whackjobs will go so far as not vaccinating at all against anything. So take smallpox, add measles, whooping cough, etc. While most (I hope) people would continue to get vaccinated, what if a hypothetical “President Stein” ordered the FDA to “temporarily shut down” vaccines while “issues of public safety” were looking into. Granted that’s a stretch and perhaps borderline “slippery slope”, but there’s a Trump out there proposing crazier things.
Yes, there are severe problems with our overseas war policies. That needs to be addressed. However allowing our country to descend into the depths of anti-science whackery isn’t the way to do it.
Stein and Johnson almost certainly will not put US military power to use, since they will not come anywhere near the Oval Office unless they book a public tour of the Whitehouse. There are two possible choices in this contest. I would also point out that Stein need not occupy any public office to have a deleterious effect on public health. All she needs to do is keep rationalizing woo.
Nobody vaccinates against smallpox any more, and it’s several orders of magnitude worse than all the rest put together.
Anyway, we’re getting away from my point: it’s not obviously unreasonable to feel that you can more easily put up with anti-vax nonsense than war in the Middle East and a willingness to nuke Moscow, and given a straight-up choice between an anti-vaxer and a mass murderer, all other things being equal, I would probably choose the anti-vaxer and not lose too much sleep over it.
As noted in this thread already, First-Past-the-Post voting drives us in the direction of two parties.
If the Republican Party completely disintegrates, or at least declines to UKIP size and influence, where will the new second party arise? IMHO, it’s unlikely that an existing third party will rapidly grow into the new alternative to the Democrats.
Instead, I expect the Democratic party will eventually fission into two, probably the progressive wing vs. the conservative wing, and we’ll end up with something like the Labour/Conservative split other democracies have, instead of the sane/insane split we have now.
@79 Dunc
Fine, don’t be so hung up about smallpox, it’s one example. There are a number of diseases (polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (German measles), mumps, tetanus, rotavirus and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) ) that are prevented by vaccination in the modern era. (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/howvpd.htm) Personally I’d rather keep these things controlled than have some anti-science nutcase in charge allowing the conditions to ripen for these to be unleashed on the public again.
Nuke Moscow? Never heard that in the Clinton camp and Trump and Putin seem to be snuggle-buddies, so no idea where you pulled that from. I could have missed something…
If I were to hazard a guess I would think the odds are favorable that you don’t have any young children at the moment.
Unfortunately, you don’t have said choice. Or at least, not as unqualified as you put it.
What you have is a mass murderer who has a very likely chance of winning with support in congress and in the states that is better by degrees than the other mass murderer who has a very likely chance of winning with support in congress and in the states, and an anti-vax fringe candidate from a Party that has never significantly polled and would have zero support in any other branch of government.
Sure, you can vote for the latter, but you’d either be lowering the threshold needed for the Rethugs to win by a vote (if you’re in a swing state), or throwing your already useless vote away to show ideological support with anti-vax morons (if you’re in a blue/red state)
Either way, I think it’s a shit decision.
@Grumpy Santa: And I’m guessing you don’t have young children anywhere where they’re likely to be killed as a result of US foreign policy. I also guess you don’t take cover whenever you hear anything flying over head, or live in fear of ISIS over-running your village and killing everyone they don’t keep as a sex slave.
@Vivec: Sure, I’ve already hedged a great deal for exactly those reasons. The point I’m trying to make is that politics always involves ugly trade-offs. I’d be prepared to vote for Clinton despite disagreeing with her about a great many extremely important things – I disagree vehemently with her on a lot, but those disagreements aren’t necessarily deal breakers. Similarly, Stein’s stupid anti-vax positions aren’t necessarily deal breakers for me either. The key phrase is “all else being equal”.
@ 83 Dunc
Nope. But electing someone like Stein isn’t going to change that. Really, it won’t. She’s effectively clueless on the political stage and would be subject to the advice of her advisors. However if I did have kids in that situation I would at least only have to worry about that and not them also at risk of dying due to some disease that could have been prevented… (or at least to a much lesser degree than if not vaccinated).
Most of the excess deaths of children in Iraq over the last 30 years have been caused by the collapse of the public health system, thanks to the direct effects of US foreign policy, so yes, you would have to worry about that. They don’t even have clean water, never mind vaccines. Cholera is a big killer in Iraq now.
@83
All else being equal, I’d still never vote for Stein. Being an anti-science moron with zero actual political experience is a disqualifying position.
Hypothetically, if I was literally picking the president out of the list of candidates, and my vote was all that determined who won, I couldn’t ever vote for Stein.
@85 Dunc
So what you’re saying is that electing Stein would indeed change nothing. De-sciencing our country is doing enough damage already to our economy, jobs, etc. taking it further and inviting public health crises and the additional economic detriments that would be associated with the antivaxxer ilk (for starters) would certainly make things worse. So given the choice between “It’s bad over there but at least we’re healthy” or “It’s bad over there and now we’re sick”, well, sorry… I’m no martyr.
Well, that’s your call. I have some very strong feelings about not committing war crimes, but I’m prepared to compromise.
By the way, there’s a cholera vaccine.
Just don’t let your compromise wind up endangering numbers of other people that never would have been in harms way in the first place, especially the most vulnerable among us. Settling for an anti-science leader because you think she’ll be less likely to engage in conflict overseas… what could possibly go wrong?
@87: I’m saying voting for Stein, might, under some circumstances, help discourage further military adventurism. It’s not great, but I’m not sure I’m prepared to accept that absolutely nothing can possibly be done to influence foreign policy in any positive way.
Dunc, no one is saying that nothing can be done to influence foreign policy. What we are saying is that it cannot be done instantaneously, and if you insist on not getting your hands dirty, then, no, you can’t accomplish anything. Start by electing the least offensive candidates who have a chance of winning. Vote not just in Presidential years, but in off years as well. Become part of a voting bloc.
Also, you have to look at why the gummint responds the way it does. A President actually has very little in the way of tools to respond to an affront or crisis. There’s
1) Do nothing–often not politically viable
2) Impose sanctions–ineffective unless imposed globally (virtually impossible), and even then slow working and perceived as ineffective
3)Launch a cruise missile or two
4) Invade
5) Nukes
I think decision makers would make much better decisions if they had options between 2 and 3.
@92: All great suggestions, and I completely agree that the presidential election is the wrong place to start. Not that it matters in my case, as I’m not in the US anyway. I’m not actually arguing in favour of a vote for Stein, I’m just saying that people who have certain red-line issues should be able to understand that other people have different red-line issues, and there’s a lot in US foreign policy that would not make for unreasonable red lines.
@Mike Smith:
That’s actually a very interesting read from an academical point of view but is it not really helpful in discussions regarding current politics. The academic discussion of Libertarian philosophy paints a broad picture that goes from nutjob rightwing fantasies to more reasonable liberal positions and I have already acknowledged this broad spectrum. But that is all “theory” and “playing academics”. In real life Gray Johnson holds nutjob position that assumes the private sector can solve problems such as the climate change (other posters have listed more of his crazy positions so I won’t repeat them here). He holds the title of “The Libertarian Candidate”.
So, what some Libertarian academic believes is not as impactful as what the majority of Libertarian voters believe or what the Libertarian candidate promotes. And in this regard, I have to say that the “Left Libertarian” philosophy is not really well-represented so that is why the example of Chile is going to stay as a counter-example to very popular libertarian fantasies held by the army of Ron Paul fanboys and the like.
That being said, of course a lot of the positions that Gray Johnson holds are better than Hillary Clinton (oppositions to death penalty, or wars as examples). But all in all, he is too much of an ideologue to be trusted with an economy as massive as USA.
Where were all these third party folks when we were still in the primaries? I assume they were all (or mostly) voting for Bernie, the peace loving hippy who has voted for plenty of military intervention and said he would have continued Obama’s drone policy. So, why is it now that Hillary is the candidate that everyone is switching over to third party and “lesser of 2 evils” rhetoric? Just seems strange.
Maybe sometimes, she takes those kinds of positions simply to get elected (not to give her too much credit… but the lying/bullshitting part wouldn’t be giving her credit in my book anyway). This makes her a “centrist” or a “realist,” according to some. That is to say that many voters do want/expect that kind of talk from a politician, even if they don’t have anything too specific or concrete in mind about what they’re supposed to do about it. I mean, people rightly complain about how terrible the candidates always are, but sometimes people seem to forget that they don’t have that many fellow voters with acceptable/responsible/coherent ideologies, certainly not on every conceivable issue. Lots of people want terrible shit to happen, believe it or not, and some do actually vote like they have every right to do. Politicians do encourage it with their bigotry and fear-mongering and chest-pounding and assorted nonsense, but many don’t need the encouragement since they were already shitheads. So while you’re shopping for a candidate, they’re shopping for you…. People like Stein and Johnson are an exception in a way. They don’t have a reasonable hope of actually being elected. So, they can say whatever they want (and perhaps what they actually think) to attract people on the ideological fringes, good, bad or otherwise. I’m sure they can get by just fine in life that way — why bother having an actual political office at all, when you can spend years just being a professional “candidate” in one election after another?
If that’s directed at me, then the answer (as I’ve indicated several times) is “not voting, because I’m not a US citizen and I live thousands of miles away in an entirely different country”.
However, if your hope is to try and pull the Democratic party to the left, then it’s perfectly reasonable to take different strategies during the primaries and during the actual election, or depending on the likelihood of particular outcomes in your state.
Sorry I couldn’t return yesterday – pain issues. Mike Smith,
I don’t believe you’ve presented any coherent picture of libertarianism here. I get that you want to marginalize the aspects that you (rightfully) recognize as abhorrent and push a less horrific vision as the truer version, but in the end what you’ve come up with is basically a rightwing liberalism with a smattering of leftwing ideas (libertarians did not invent drug liberalization). That already exists.
But the bigger problem is that in cobbling together your ideal version of libertarianism you’ve failed to appreciate the realities of capitalism and its political implications. What was done in Chile – and many other places – wasn’t an unfortunate effect of misguided rightwing sentiments among some libertarians who betrayed their political-liberal principles in their quest to build economic liberalism. Capitalism isn’t and has never been economic liberalism. Anarchism and social democracy are economic liberalism: based on the democratic control of production and distribution (as they’re trying to build in Rojava). Capitalism is about rule by property owners – both within the sites of production and beyond them. The capitalist system has been built through centuries of slavery, imperialism, and the theft of land and resources. That continues today in new forms. The relationship isn’t accidental. It’s not accidental that in Chile, when the country moved in the direction of real economic democracy and justice, libertarians were ready to support dictatorship in order to crush people, and especially labor organizers, under the boots of capitalism. Libertarian “economic liberalism” has never been a real liberalism as the word is understood (I think this language often tricks libertarians into believing they’re champions of liberty, but of course it does nothing to change the nature of capitalism); libertarian “economic liberalism” never been, and never could be, congruent with political liberty, democracy, or addressing real human needs.*
Because capitalism isn’t in reality economically liberal but quite the contrary, the rhetoric of libertarianism will never predict the actions of libertarians. You argue that Gary Johnson as president would “immediately…place us on a more dovish foreign policy stance” and “immediately would stop defending unconstitutional civil liberties abridging laws and/or doctrines. I.E. the state secret privilege,” that he’s “highly unlikely to start a new war,” “far less likely [than Clinton] to bomb the shit out of poor brown folks,” and “not going to use the power of the state to run rough shod over people.” But his commitment to capitalism would require all manner of violent and repressive state intervention both at home and abroad, because capitalism requires it, and always will. Moreover, Johnson’s program would mean removing even more spheres of life – education, health care, energy – from any sort of public, democratic control.
*
As I argue at the link I provided in response to this, the failure of libertarianism in action is very much the same as the failure of Marxist collectivism in action. They’re both based on fundamentally unsound premises about social organization, and they both claim to disown authoritarianism while necessarily relying on it. Anarchists argued this long before Stalinism and as the Bolsheviks were beginning to put their ideas in action. They predicted exactly where things were headed.
SC@#98: Well said. Libertarians are capitalists’ “useful idiots.”
If I may add, it’s impossible for the US to take a less involved international stance because the US’ economy depends on being able to smash open and grab other economies, to make them “safe for market capitalism” We grow our market by expanding aggressively, and that requires a very expensive navy and worldwide bases for pacification, just to maintain the open flow of commerce for US benefit. It’s gunboat economics as practiced by England during the opium wars, we’ve just perfected it and are pushing it out globally.
LOL.
Yes, and an interesting aspect is the extent to which the people in the foreign policy establishment can delude others and even themselves that it’s about being “exceptional,” a “shining city on a hill,” the “indispensable nation”… even while they recognize the reality at another level.
re 100
*chuckling* yeah, the foreign office duty is to tax those foreigners livin abroad. eh
@sc
First of all stop calling or implying I’m a libertarian. I am not one.
Second, we are having two very different conversations. I was not trying to present a coherent picture of a libertarianism. Indeed I do not believe that the spectrum of ideologies that get labeled as libertarian is coherent, as the label is quite broad. (For the record all families of ideologies have this problem) My goal in this thread was to point out the label applies to a greater range of ideologies than Professor Myers thinks. As I said I’m involved in these debates academically. People reducing libertarianism down to oh Nozick is like reducing Christianity down to Catholicism. If people routinely claimed that all Christians believed that Communion literally became the body of Christ I also would speak up to correct them. At no point have I recommended or prescribed any form of libertarianism. My interest is not that in this thread.
Now a couple of points:
1) what you say about Johnson having to use the power of the state to do capital’s bidding applies to Clinton as well. So even if Johnson ends up having a hawkish foreign policy/civil liberties because CAPITAL!!! It’s certainly be less awful because Johnson’s stated intentions and record are dovish. Clinton is a neoliberal hawk. I said he was better I didn’t say he was great
It’s also worth noting that Johnson is quite willing to break with right libertarian orthodoxy as he did several times in the nomination phase (to the point he had to voted on twice at the convention). Two cases in point: he is in favor or at least open to anti discrimination law and he us perfectly fine with requiring state licensing.
2) I have zero interest having a debate about this but if your beef is with Johnson believing in capitalism then virtually no western politico is viable to you, so I don’t see the difference Johnson vs Clinton should make. It’s not like Clinton is less of a capitalist.
Just to go on record, I am capitalist insofar as I have never been presented with an alternative system that is viable in terms of accounting for human nature and/or justifying its presuppositions.
If we take altruistic to mean “only doing something for another” then people are not capable of being altruistic. We are always and in all cases acting only from self-interested motives, as the world is physical and causal.
On another line of thought, I have never seen a justification for democratic control of the means of production that isn’t critically dependent on the labor theory of value. But as the labor theory of value us wrong all such justification fall apart.
We are only going to agree on the capitalism being fundamentally wrong if you can disabuse me of those two points. Good luck!
I will tell you again that you’re one of several dozens of people who’ve come here with this purpose. Some have been self-proclaimed libertarians of whatever stripe, and others have not. The common threads are 1) that you all assume that PZ and others here have a lack of familiarity with libertarianism; 2) that you all seem to believe people here have an interest in joining the arguments among the various libertarian and libertarian-friendly factions; and 3) that you have the same tendency, whether or not you’re libertarians, of responding to people’s pointing to this or that well-known libertarian or libertarian policy or project with the claim that it’s not representative, which makes discussion of libertarianism all but impossible. It’s true that the label is broad, but at its core is a belief in capitalism as a form of governance and an implicit acceptance of its authoritarianism and violence (presented as a form of liberalism).
But more to the point, PZ’s post was about the 2016 US elections, so his remark about libertarianism didn’t seek to take in every possible strain. It was explicitly about Gary Johnson and the Party. It’s irrelevant here that “libertarian thought is wider than the LP platform.” If you wanted to argue that PZ was setting up a strawman version or didn’t understand some particular nuance, you needed to address specifically Johnson’s or the Party’s positions, actions, and beliefs. Talking only about Johnson and the LP in this context isn’t being reductive.
Of course! As my links to my posts about the books by Ellen Meiksins Wood and Perry Anderson above should have told you, I believe this to be true of all US foreign policy (Democrats are on balance not as bad as Republicans in many important respects, but the differences are merely relative). As I said on the earlier thread, to take one example, Clinton personally bears a large part of the responsibility for the destruction of Honduran democracy and the ongoing suffering, terror, and death there.
As I said above,
You argue that Gary Johnson as president would “immediately…place us on a more dovish foreign policy stance” and “immediately would stop defending unconstitutional civil liberties abridging laws and/or doctrines. I.E. the state secret privilege,” that he’s “highly unlikely to start a new war,” “far less likely [than Clinton] to bomb the shit out of poor brown folks,” and “not going to use the power of the state to run rough shod over people.”
First, let’s establish one more time that this is all hypothetical – Johnson has no realistic shot at the presidency, so he can say about anything at this point. I do think Johnson probably believes this would happen, but it wouldn’t, for the reasons I described above. The same pressures would apply to anyone in that position. Relatively speaking, a Bernie Sanders would likely be more dovish, but to put someone like Johnson who believes corporations should be subject to little or no democratic accountability or control in that position would be madness. It’s more likely that facing real global challenges to corporate interests or to capitalist power (he supports the TPP, by the way) would push him to use the instruments of state repression and violence before you could blink an eye. (It’s no coincidence that David Koch ran as a libertarian and that Gary Johnson originally ran as a Republican and was a Republican governor. Libertarianism, as an ideology – or set of ideologies, if you like – has a basic affinity with other rightwing philosophies and movements.) We have evidence of libertarians who’ve been in a position to influence policy, like Hayek and Friedman, and we’ve seen what they’ve done. It’s not especially plausible that Johnson would be totally different.
And that’s setting all other aspects of domestic policy aside! Johnson wants to destroy the meager health care and welfare provisions that currently exist in the US. He wants to privatize public systems, removing them from democratic accountability. He wants no public action on AGW, which is just bugfuck nuts, would be world-destroying, and alone disqualifies him from public office.
That is worth noting, but probably not in the way you think.
This is using vague language to make a false equivalency. As I said above, the core of libertarianism is the belief in capitalist rule, not simply the acceptance of capitalism, which they share with liberals and even some socialists. Of course, in a capitalist world, and particularly in the heart of the empire, the ideology of capitalist governance has penetrated deeply into politics. But increasingly (once again) there are countervailing pressures and movements to regain democratic control over and protection from capital – movements against privatization, for higher taxes on corporations and the rich, for labor rights and governance, against corporate trade deals, against land and resource grabs, for the public provision of health and childcare and education (“free stuff,” as Johnson calls it), against austerity, for global public action on AGW, for protection against banks, and on and on. These are often supported by liberals and socialists who accept capitalism as an economic system but believe it should and can be constrained by democracy. As a liberal, Clinton has long supported some of these movements; in other cases, she’s being pushed from the Left. To claim that she’s “no less of a capitalist” than Johnson is simply disingenuous. Unless the terms have no meaning, a liberal is in fact “less of a capitalist” than a libertarian.
This last sentence is a total non sequitur. In any case, “self-interested motives” is an extremely broad term, into which my beliefs would fit. I think we try to fulfill our human needs. Because these don’t vary all that widely, we can arrive at an idea of the good life (as Fromm argued, organisms differ but we can still arrive at a general notion of what “health” is and organize our societies in ways that promote it – this can be extended to all well-being). It would be too involved to go into here, but democratic social organization is the best suited to the fulfillment of human needs, including the need for what Fromm describes as effectance or effectiveness. None of this requires a purely altruistic and unself-interested “human nature.” It simply requires the recognition that we’re a social and political species with certain needs that have to be met for our well-being. (I’ll note that somehow humans managed to survive for the vast majority of our history without capitalism, which is a recent development.)
You seem obsessed with the labor theory of value for some reason. The justification for the democratic control of production and distribution is the same as, and inextricably linked to, that for the democratic control of anything that’s important in our lives. If someone accepts democracy generally, then they need to justify the exclusion of this realm. It’s only due to a few centuries of capitalist ideology and propaganda that people participating democratically in making decisions about what to grow and make and use is seen as a radical notion.
@sc
The core of libertarianism is not a commit to capitalism. The core of the ideologies is either the notion of self-ownership which constrain certain things you can do towards individuals or the notion of the nonaggression principle which again constrain actions you can take towards others. Capitalism may or mat not fall out of those commitments easily. It also doesn’t follow that wielding if state and corporate power is unobjectionable on libertarian grounds. Corporate personhood and limited liability are massive state interventions in the marketplace. Virtually every libertarian I know of objects to both on libertarian grounds. So yes I do think you are misrepresentating the position when you claim that capitalism is core if the ideologies.
Until we clear this confusion up there’s no reason to proceed in regards to Johnson.
Second, my line about everything being physical and causal is not a non sequitur. The causal chain that determines my behavior must run through the physical matter that makes up my head; it is literally impossible for me to act from any other basis. This means I can’t help but be selfish and self-interested. We are compelled to seek power after power by the fact we are physical creatures in a causal universe. We are only rational and any reasonableness we can mimic is not easy and doesn’t come naturally to us.
As for me having to accept democratic control of the means of production because I accept democracy generally the simply answer is I don’t accept democracy if it is defined as majoritarian rule. (Which for all I know is how you are defining it). There’s nothing about the majoritarian rule that grants legitimacy to illiberal outcomes and human rights take president over majority wishes. I only accept democratic rule instrumentally or with qualifications in that it tends to produce more reasonable policy as the power to make law is spread out. The use of private property, with qualifications, is a human right. Complete democratic control of the means of production is beyond the pale for the same reason that democratic control of which religions are allowed to be practice is beyond the pale; individuals have a right to use their property as they see fit along a central range of applications.
Oh I’m “obsessed” with the LToV because that is how the left generally justifies the control of the economy.
And more to point I don’t trust majoritarian rule, ever, to be able to either run the economy wisely or have significant power over my life. As a general rule power, all power, should be highly constrained and limited. I don’t (can’t) trust anyone better than I trust myself and I sure as hell don’t trust my fellow American not to violate my rights at the ballot box. I mean I already endured nearly 20 years of that already.
No, it doesn’t mean that. If I help another person, or if cooperate with them on something helps them more than it does me, then “the causal chain that determines my behavior
must[does] run through the physical matter that makes up my head.”Being a physical object doesn’t imply selfishness. And I may personally benefit from being altruistic, in at least some cases if not all of them, because there’s no logical need to define or understand altruism otherwise.
Denying a libertarian (contra-causal) notion of free will doesn’t mean I’m denying the possibility of acting in a way that is (1) altruistic or (2) not self-interested. It means my actions, like every physical thing, are determined by the parts that make me up, which are not all under my own control as an agent. It isn’t limited to that, of course, because there are also the environmental influences around me — these can all interact, because in fact I’m not in a universe of one.
I simply don’t see the point (certainly not the need) for mangling all of these concepts beyond recognition.
So what would you make of a corporation polluting the environment? I don’t particularly care if it’s a majority or a minority of the population which manages to create democratic regulations in that society which try to resolve the problem.
Do you have more reason to trust a powerful of corporation to run the economy for you, have significant power over your life, not violate your rights, etc.? If you accept the moral argument that people should be able to decide such things, because they are a sovereign and autonomous nation that can decide what happens to itself whatever a tiny faction of corporate profiteers may want, then clearly the kinds constraints and limitations on democratic power which you’re blathering about aren’t relevant here.
“if I cooperate with them on something that helps them more than it does me”
and
“the kinds of constraints”
This will be my last response. I have other things to do, and decreasing patience as this is becoming repetitive. Enjoy the last word.
No, that’s standard libertarian rhetoric. The notion that libertarianism in reality, in terms of its relationship to real capitalism, is about individual self-ownership or non-aggression is too absurd even to bother with.
Still a total non sequitur. This is capitalist (and often sexist and speciesist) propaganda, which Kropotkin dealt with more than a century ago. The facts of materialism and human evolution do not point to the conclusion that humans or any other animals are inherently, compulsively selfish and power-seeking. (And even if we were, it wouldn’t follow that capitalism is the best economic or political system. Your argument takes the form: materiality and evolution, therefore [greed, the propensity to truck and barter, competitiveness, selfishness, etc.], therefore capitalism is the best and only workable social system. There are huge logical leaps here which don’t fit with the existing evidence.)
People (apparently including you) do exist who are compelled to “seek power after power” because they’ve been damaged by the family environment and culture in which they were raised, but this isn’t an indication of any “real human nature” that needs to be accepted, much less catered to. It’s a tragedy, and your use of the word “compelled” suggests that at some level you recognize that it isn’t even a rational goal-oriented behavior but an unhealthy compulsion that will never result in true well being or the satisfaction of real needs.
I saw you arguing something of the sort on another thread. As an anarchist, I think democracy can take a number of procedural forms; we also appreciate constitutions or compacts protecting human (and nonhuman) rights. This seems to be another of your fixations, but I’m not sure what you mean to be arguing here. If you accept democracy generally as the best means of governing a community – as opposed to monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy,… – then there’s no reason to exclude production or distribution.
Nice try.
Think about this for a moment. I’m sure you can recognize the difference between practicing (as opposed to imposing or enforcing) a religion and owning and controlling the means of production of a society.
And this includes economic power. I’m arguing that participatory democracy in the context of constitutions or compacts that spell out fundamental rights and principles, and a society and culture that encourage rather than discourage participation in decision-making, are the best means of distributing power and arriving at decisions that are most conducive to the fulfillment of human needs. There’s no justification for excluding production and distribution, and the exclusion of this realm from democratic control obviously allows powers to emerge – in workplaces and outside of them – that work against democracy, individual rights and freedoms, and the fulfillment of needs generally. In capitalism, the means of production and distribution – again, due to centuries of theft, imperialism, and slavery – are in the hands of a small group of people who therefore have the power to make decisions that profoundly affect the lives of everyone on the planet and all future generations. That power is not highly constrained or limited, and if people like Johnson had their way they would even remove many of the existing constraints and limitations.
Non sequitur.
First, why is the use of private property a human right?
Second, why shouldn’t private control of the means of production be one of the qualifications?
Why do you put “being able to own company shares” on the same level as “being able to marry the person you love” or “being able to pray to the god you believe in/not praying at all”?
@c razor
That the causal change runs through my head means I only ever act from the matter in my head. When I do something for another I’m not doing the act for their sake, I’m doing the act because of biomechanics discharge in such a way that a get a hit of pleasure or a relief of pain. Altruism, doing something only for another, is metaphysically impossible. I do stuff to get pleasure or avoid pain.
@SC
I too tire of this. I especially tire that you seem to be unable to operate in good faith. For example you dismissing the notion of self-ownership as being a central concern for libertarians is too as refuse to believe what people are telling you. A libertarian can’t win as you after all know better. Likewise my use of compelled doesn’t indicate that I know my views are damaging because for one thing I reject the notion that they damaging. I’m living a perfectly happy and fulfilling life where my biggest problem is whether it’s the cubs year or not. I find it incredibly damaging and unhealthy when people think we are “better” than we are. We are mere machines that only ever seek our own pleasure/avoid pain.
Oh for the record my position on this while rooted in materialism is derived from the work of Hobbes. Which both predates capitalism and has fuck all to do with evolution. But it’s super nice for you to assume I was taking a evolutionary psychology line when I said nothing to imply that.
You lock your doors right? Yeah that’s what I thought.
@giliell
Because there’s no objective answer to which right is more valuable. It’s not up to me to say a person should value owning shares less than being able to get married. Scrooge McDuck was living the good life by his lights.
The right to private property is a human right because virtually all other humans rights requires the use of material things. You right to privacy is not secured if the state can just take your house, freedom of the press is toothless if the state can just seize printing presses as means of production.
Pure sophistry. The fact that you’re caused or motivated (by factors that are beyond your control) doesn’t imply anything about which types of things you’re motivated to do. You could for instance be caused to jump off a bridge, and that doesn’t imply you wanted to jump off the bridge, that all agents must be in a similar situation, or any other absurd thing you might be imagining. The fact that we know, which is actually supported by evidence and not a load of horseshit like you’re spewing here, is simply that you’re caused to act.
Maybe you’re a selfish asshole. This doesn’t imply there’s some metaphysical necessity for all people to be selfish assholes. I don’t think much of anything is metaphysically necessary, but if for the sake of argument it were one example, your being a selfish asshole doesn’t establish that fact.
You can act for all sorts of reasons. Pleasure and pain simply do not dictate all of your behaviors. It might help to read a fucking intro to psych textbook before you make claims like this. Even when “pleasure” and “pain” are accurate ways of describing the motivating factors, this doesn’t imply what you’re suggesting it does. That’s because nobody’s claiming you can’t (or must) feel a certain way or have a certain kind of experience. You shouldn’t confuse what you experience, after the fact, with what actually causes your behavior.
You’re using the word “only” again. As I already said, if you thought that the word “altruism” must have the meaning doing something such that you can’t benefit in any conceivable way and only others can benefit, then you’re mistaken about what it means. You’ve said nothing to invalidate or refute that, and maybe you’re not even reading my comments carefully. Anyway, words don’t have metaphysically necessary meanings, to begin with, and that happens not to be the way people use the word (if they’re not pompous idiots like you, at any rate).
Argh. Last week I told someone I would leave them the last word, and followed through. This time I can’t. What can I say? It’s a compulsion. :)
I believe that that’s what some libertarians believe or wish to convince themselves and others that they believe. My point is that it’s not at all what libertarianism is about in action in the real world, historically or at present. To define a capitalist ideology in terms of free-floating abstract concepts as though capitalism had no real existence is obfuscating. I won’t accept this rhetoric any more than I’ll accept “pro-life” rhetoric.
This is confused. I said “your use of the word ‘compelled’ suggests that at some level you recognize that it isn’t even a rational goal-oriented behavior but an unhealthy compulsion that will never result in true well being or the satisfaction of real needs.” First, note that I said “at some level” – I wasn’t suggesting that your recognition of the compulsive nature of this propensity was fully conscious. I was suggesting that some part of you appreciates that seeking power after power isn’t a selfish goal-directed phenomenon but a compulsion. Second, I didn’t say your views were damaging, but that a compulsion to seek power after power was damaging. Third, unhealthy and damaging doesn’t necessarily mean destructive of a person’s entire well being – just not conducive to well being.
Glad to hear it. So you’re not actually compelled to seek power after power? Color me shocked.
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. I had the same response to reading this as I did several years ago to learning about efforts to curb texting and driving. I thought, and still think, Texting and driving? Why the hell would anyone do this? At least most people making arguments similar to yours attempt to give them scientific trappings. Why the hell would anyone ignore all of the research in anthropology, sociology, ethology, evolutionary biology, neurology, psychology, and history and base their understanding of humans, and thus their political philosophy, on the assertions of some dude from the 17th century? And why would anyone expect people to take such arguments seriously? What could “rooted in materialism” even mean when there’s such an extreme disdain for evidence?
@SC
You are pulling a nerd. When I used the word compelled I was not referring to a psychological compulsion in the sense of obsessive compulsive disorder. I meant compelled as in we are not free, metaphysically, to choose otherwise. I.e. we don’t have free will. But yes even my love of baseball is seeking power after power, such as being the most knowledgeable Cub fan in any given social situation and thus setting myself up to have my ego stroked, because I like having my ego stroked it feels good. That I acknowledge that this is what I am doing in settings like this does not mean its a psychological compulsion. It’s just, metaphysically, impossible to behave otherwise.
RE: Hobbes. First of all, while the conception of human nature I am using is rooted in Leviathan (which if you have read this cover to cover and understood it I’ll eat one of the copies I own) it neither started with or ended with that book. Glaucon pursues such a line in the Republic and David Gauthier develops a modern Hobbesianism in The logic of Leviathan and Morals by Agreement. So yes I take recent developments into account.
For the record, Hobbes doesn’t assert anything central to his account without evidence. It’s that the evidence is conceptual not empirical. Because what we are discussing is not scientific. Atheists, generally, are so bad at this. Science is the wrong tool here because either we don’t observe oughts and/or what to make of science is itself embedded in a deeper philosophical views.
Besides, if you don’t trust this inference from the passions there’s a really easy test to carry out. Name a single culture that didn’t take systematic steps to protect themselves from outsiders or from internal aggression. I’ve never heard of a culture who didn’t “lock their doors.”
It is empirical evidence for what I say; I just don’t need it. Anybody who locks their doors accuses humanity with their actions as I do with my words.
Even the most egalitarian cultures still take precautions.
Now for as what rooted in materialism means it means exactly what it sounds like. All other canonical normative positions require nonphysical things to exist to be workable. Kantian ethics require people to have free will. Virtue ethics (probably) require God and certainly require folk psychology neither of which is physical. Utilitarianism requires pain and pleasure in the ethical sense to align in physical sense but that’s obvious wrong as masochists exist.
So if you grant everything us physical you lose the ability to make other moral systems work.
@sc
There’s a difference between saying that the core commitment of libertarianism is capitalism and the result of libertarian actions in historical practice is unfetted capitalism.
The first is a straw man and a libertarian is in the right dismiss it out of hand. The second is an argument to take caution around implementing the ideology given these historical conditions. It’s super lazy to conflate and collapse this distinction.
Most pro-life people are likely sexist/misogynistic but you don’t actually defeat the claim that a fetus has a right to life by pointing that out. You are working at two levels at once and conflating them.
It’s not a great reason to be pro-choice because most pro life people are sexists. A great reason to be pro-choice is a fetus’ right to life us insufficient to override bodily autonomy.
@Con. Razor
I am not using the word altruism wrong. I’m just more aware of what the term implies than apparently are you. Let’s check a dictionary:
the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.
(https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=alturism)
And
1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/altruism)
I have been saying that an altruistic act is one that is taken only for another’s benefit. That is a perfectly acceptable way to cash out what the term means. However, I am not wielded to that and if it is a sticking point, whatever. Given that the dictionary defines the term as a practice of selfless and disinterested concern for others we can view an altruistic act as an act that is made from benefit of others. I.e. I am doing this act because it helps others. This is, of course, different from performing an act for the benefit of others. I.E. I am doing this act because I like to help others. I have no problem saying the second type of act, taking actions for others, is possible; I give to charity for example and that is certain for the benefit of others even if it’s not from the benefit of others. But it is not truly altruistic as it isn’t done from the benefit of others. It’s done from the person’s own psychological states. The happiness people derive from being friendly towards others is not incidental to why they are friendly towards others; it explains why they are friendly and the basis from which they are acting friendly.
Regardless of that, I have no interest in getting bogged down in terminology. I am clearly saying people can only ever act from their own psychological states and not from the psychological states of others. This seems uncontroversial to me. Insofar as that a person must act only from their own psychological states they are self-interested (selfish) in this way. I can only ever act to satisfy my own desires as my own desires are the only thing that are causally connecting the world and my behavior. What causes my behavior must run through my head so I must take actions in regards to what the matter in my head compels me to do. Now, this, of course, neither means I only do things that I have some sort of ultimate desire to do, nor does it mean my desires’ content are always self-regarding. I very much do not like moving furniture. It’s a pain in the ass. And at any given moment I have zero desire to help any person move. If a friend asks me to help them move I probably will because my desire to be a good friend overrides my desire to not move furniture.
So when a person jumps off a bridge, assuming that they were not thrown by another person or have a weird involuntary muscle spasm, I am of the opinion that they “want” to do so because their psychological states are what they are. This “want” may or may not track well with how ‘want’ is used in other contexts but I am at loss to explain their behavior without discussing desires as causally connecting the person to the world. Given a case of a person who jumps off a bridge to avoid a bear, it is probably wrong to say they wanted to jump off the bridge but it is perfectly cogent to say they jumped off a bridge because they wanted to avoid a bear. Likewise, in a case of suicide, it is again probably wrong to say a person wanted to jump off a bridge, but it is perfectly cogent to say they wanted to die, they wanted pain to end or more plausibly in many cases (not all) they wanted attention. How do you explain behavior without saying so and so mental states cause so and so to do X? Saying a person Z wanted to do X in context Y neither implies all things being equal all person want to do X in Y nor Z would want to X in all other circumstances.
Nothing I said implies I think all agents have to behave exactly the same in the same (similar) context. I don’t think that, at all. In fact my position requires people to act differently in the same context. They have too their heads are shaped differently. In fact a radically subjectivism falls out of my metaphysics. We are isolated, unable to come to share the same values even broadly (read: objective values do not exist) and have no basis for morality outside of making agreements or share brute power.
Lastly, and this is my fault I should have been clearer up front, when I use pleasure/pain I’m using them in a very restricted sense that doesn’t really track well with how the terms are used in either everyday discourse or psychology. I only and literally mean pleasure is motion towards object x and pain is motion away from x. I don’t just, or really, mean the feeling of being in pleasure (or the feeling All of the other psychological terms that people use to describe why people behave the way they do can be understood as forms of and/or reductions down to these concepts. It is perfectly acceptable to say that people are motivated to do Y because of fear and on a certain level of description it’s important to think of it as fear. But from my lights fear of Q is nothing but the expectation of pain from Q in the future. Or fear of Q is moving away from or avoid being next to Q. I’m of the opinion that all psychological terms are reducible via this sort of treatment or they can be eliminated. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/)
Now before you object, yes the psychology/neurobiology I am presenting here is crude, exceedingly so. First, I don’t feel like writing out an exceedingly long response about how I think the ‘mind’ works as it is too much work and far, far too many debatable issues come up to make it cogent to this particular conversation. Second, I fully acknowledge that human psychology and biochemistry with have a far more complicated picture that can impact how my preferred political agenda gets applied in practice, but once again I am working on the level of normative theory which is several levels up from real world applications. I think it is important to work both conceptual understandings AND real world implications, and to be clear what level you are working at. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reflective-equilibrium/) It really does matter for moral judgments if we live in a universe that is simply material and causal.
Here’s the thing I am of the opinion (an opinion I’m willing to support) that they only two things that are fundamentally real (that exist) are senseless hunks of physical stuff (matter) and that this stuff moves (motion). Science will describe things far more completely and with greater details than matter + motion = existence but at the end of the day the ultimate correct version of atomic theory and the forth coming theory of everything in physics will still hold that matter + motion is all that there really is. Without free will, or dualism, or idealism, or neutral monism, we are stuck in a radically subjectivist universe that in nature anything goes and the basis of all moral theory has to take that into account. Yes contemporary psychology is more complex it still ultimately nothing but matter in motion in the head.
Up thread SC said something about knowing about human needs and certain behavior being conducive to human wellbeing, implying general things that applies to all humans. I do not believe there is any such thing as universal behavior/conditions* that is to conducive to human wellbeing. We are fundamentally alone, isolated and radically different from one another. We are nothing but unique machines trying to get the best deal (as we define it) for ourselves.
*With the possible exception of avoiding death but that’s even debatable.
@SC
I’m also compelled to feel the sensation of weight because gravity. I guess that compulsion is also not conducive to well being and my use to word ‘compelled’ means deep down inside I recognize how destructive it is!
Jesus Christ.
We are compelled to seek power after power in exactly the same way we are compelled to feel the sensation of gravity. It’s not unhealthy and it’s not something we can opt out of. Keep in mind that in the famous quote I was riffing on power means “ability to satisfy desires.” Our desires never cease in life so the ability to satisfy them must be continually sought.
Unless you think desires can cease apart from being dead?
It’s not only a matter of rhetoric vs. results (although you’ve described the result of libertarian actions in historical practice quite well). It’s a matter of a rhetoric about individuals, rights, and violence couched in abstract philosophical terms that bears no relation to the economic or political reality of capitalism and serves overwhelmingly – when it comes into contact with reality and takes the form of more concrete ideas, beliefs, proposals, and movements – as a justification for capitalist rule. (Often, in fact, this is quite explicit.)
Sigh. Now I really am done with you. This will be my last response – your comments are such a jumble. Those particular comments and that analogy weren’t about defeating particular libertarian arguments (I did that in other comments). They concerned the nature of libertarian ideology. My point with that analogy was that we need to be skeptical of some of the rhetoric that people use to describe the core tenets of their philosophy. “The notion of self-ownership which constrain certain things you can do towards individuals or the notion of the nonaggression principle which again constrain actions you can take towards others” appear superficially worthwhile, but when the rubber hits the road – when libertarians have to give real-world form to their ideas in relation to capitalism as it actually exists – they amount, to sound Marxist, to the most extreme bourgeois ideology. If you’re the Koch brothers, it makes sense that you would advocate such a philosophy, as it does if you’re one of their many paid stooges. But for others to defend or support it is as Marcus Ranum said above to be the useful idiot of capitalists.
Good grief that’s stupid.
Out.
@SC
I have more to say but I’m about to get kicked out of a library. Let’s start with this:
“My point with that analogy was that we need to be skeptical of some of the rhetoric that people use to describe the core tenets of their philosophy.”
No. This is unreasonable and not dealing with people fairly. Libertarianism very well might be, in Marx sense, an extreme ideology that is nothing but apologist for exploitative capitalism; it could be. That is, in of itself, not a good argument against a libertarian ideologue. You are not dealing with the position as developed or as it is understood by your interlocutor. Insisting that to a libertarian is to call a person a liar to their face.
@SC
“It’s a matter of a rhetoric about individuals, rights, and violence couched in abstract philosophical terms that bears no relation to the economic or political reality of capitalism”
But as I have said previously aspects of libertarian ideologies do connect to practical reality. Neither perfectly, of course, nor cleanly but there are absolutely strains of practice that connect to libertarianism. Take the 4th amendment’s guarantee to be secure in your person and property. It is true that this has been weakened over time and the concept has been more or less strong in various capitalist contexts. But it is simply false to say that the notion that the state should get a warrant before raiding your stuff doesn’t influence (and makes better) actual actions in the system.
it’s worth noting every single political ideology has this slippage between theory and practice.
“as a justification for capitalist rule. (Often, in fact, this is quite explicit.)”
This begs the question against the libertarian. If, say, self-ownership is foundational, and correct, and capitalism inherently falls out of it (something, BTW not all libertarians think), then it follows that it is a sound justification for capitalism. Any problems that we observe in say Pinochet’s Chile can be attributed to agents not following completely through on their principles. It doesn’t say the principles themselves are wrong.
“They concerned the nature of libertarian ideology.”
This is a complete jumble. You are not in place to tell libertarians what the actually content of their commitments are.
Libertarian ideology, like all other political ideologies, have two (actually more, but that’s not relevant) distinct levels.
1) the level of ideal theory: this is the conceptual level that is highly abstract and, as it should be, separated from any particular historical application/context of the underlying set of principles. What is even the first move on this level is up for debate. For almost the entire time I have been having this conversation on this level. As it is usually the level we care about in academic philosophy. I have made this clear repeatedly
2) level of practical application: how in this world the political ideology plays out in practice. These two never, ever line up because it isn’t the case (yet) that anyone shares exactly the same ideal theory and there’s always some general slippage in applying anything abstract to concrete reality.
What you have been arguing (the best I can tell) is because (most) self-identified and loud libertarians since oh the ~70’s are assholes that the ideal theory should be rejected. You think it is nothing but a smoke screen to hide unfetted capitalist exploitation.
Whereas I have been saying the ideal theories that are labeled libertarian is wider and older than the narrower real world applications of a specific libertarian ideology that started in the ~70’s and some (but not all) of the applications have been good experiments. For example, the world is in a better place that we have largely left monarchy behind and that development falls out of libertarianism-liberalism. Further real world problems with applications doesn’t inherently speak to the normative theory as normative theory.
As I said up thread I do think it is important to keep an eye on both levels when pursuing both real world actions and the development of normative theory. But you can’t say the ideal theory level is wrong because it can’t be applied to in the here and now. Just to take a quick example, I have no idea what flavor anarchist you are (other than you are not an anarcho-capitalist) but even if I, for the sake of argument, stipulate whatever version of anarchy you hold to as the correct ideal theory it is reasonable to expect problems, even if they are short term, as we transition to an anarchist society as the vast majority (all?) of us have been socialized under capital. These expected problems, again which seems reasonable to conclude will happen, do not necessarily discredit your ideal theory. In much the same way Pinochet’s Chile, by itself, does not discredit even the right libertarianism that Pinochet’s Chile was trying to emulate. Now I happen to think there has been enough attempts in practice to worry about the suitability of right libertarianism to humanity but I don’t reject right libertarianism (or libertarianism generally) on those grounds. I reject it because on the level of normative theory I find it untenable, even if it was to work in practice. The problems in practice are a “bonus” to me. Look I can give a lot of objections here but I’ll just give two: there is no explanation in (right) libertarianism for where the content of law even comes from, and (most) libertarians treat all property rights as natural rights, almost as a given. I don’t even believe any right, beside the right to self-defense, is natural. And property is far more artificial than how most libertarians treat it.
On a somewhat similar line of thought I think we are thinking of who “libertarian” refers too quite differently. You are thinking of people who currently espouse views that are called libertarian and/or people who self-identify as libertarian. Like you have the category embodied in people like Johnson, Hayek (the guy), Paul(s), the Koch brothers etc. That’s fine but that isn’t, really, what I am referring to. What I mean is the sets of arguments that get labeled as libertarian and/or just a generic (abstract) person making those arguments. To again to abstract to the highest level of normative theory to work that out first and separately.
I’ll put the point this way, I, in Nov 2016, would never consider voting for or working with the Koch brothers. I am absolutely convinced that their invocation of libertarian ideology IS nothing but a smokescreen to hide their business interests. The Koch brothers’ libertarianism IS ideology in Marx’s sense. The same applies to most loud libertarians (ish) you care to name, i.e. the Pauls (especially Rand), Paul Ryan. If on the other hand Nozick (the guy) was alive and on the ballot, all other things being equal, I would at least entertain voting for him given how repulsed I am by Clinton/Trump and I do believe what he says in Anarchy, State and Utopia is a good faith effort at normative theory. The conversation has petered out but I think Johnson is closer to Nozick than he is to the Koch brothers. I am not so convinced of that that I would vote for him in a swing state (I live in IL) or even to say I like him. I just find him less disgusting than Clinton/Trump, libertarian warts and all.
““The notion of self-ownership which constrain certain things you can do towards individuals or the notion of the nonaggression principle which again constrain actions you can take towards others” appear superficially worthwhile”
For the record, I don’t actually think this. I think the notion of the self-ownership is profoundly misguided and far to inflexible to build an acceptable normative theory on. I shit you not I wrote a paper that got me into the University of Chicago’s master program on this very topic. My distaste for the foundational principle of self-ownership is sufficient grounds to reject the ideology. it is not sufficient grounds to say libertarians are lying when they cite self-ownership as foundational.
You very well might not care about ideal theory, or think that the application level enjoys lexiconical priority over ideal theory considerations. But those are points that require argument and they are not points I share. We do have to worry about ideology in Marx’s sense but that worry requires something more than a couple of bad applications by a limited number of people enacting a narrow set of policies that can be called this thing.
The vast majority of libertarians are sincere. They are misguided and wrong. But to treat all libertarians as “useful idiots” for capitalists is a) wrong as some libertarians are not capitalists* to begin with, and B) in any case utterly unconvincing to them and unfair. You don’t talk people out of a belief by insulting them.
Now if you don’t want to bother with this work, fine whatever; it’s hard, long, usually fruitless and often boring. But it’s work that needs to be done and calling a person a liar to their face is completely unhelpful (and unfair) as is misrepresenting what your interlocutor considers the core of their argument. You might find it convincing and useful to argue that libertarianism is a ideology in Marx’s sense and a third party may be moved. But it is, as you developed it here, beside the point. I entered this thread because, as always, I saw Professor Myers rejecting libertarianism in a knee-jerk fashion; I’ve been reading this blog for years (8+). I have never once seen Professor Myers portray libertarianism either fairly or make an argument that it is mere ideology in Marx’s sense.
*There’s actually a somewhat hysterical argument going on in libertarian circles about how they should even use the word capitalism. If capitalism means = the economic status qua than no libertarian is a capitalist.
“Good grief that’s stupid.”
Hey know you only implied that I was a tragically damaged person (and I some how unconsciously recognized this) because you misunderstood how I was using the word ‘compelled’ and switch my meaning to a far loaded version than I meant. So I would be careful with the claims of stupidity.
I gave you a perfectly easy empirical test to carry out to prove me wrong. Name a single society that failed (or choose not too) to systematically try to defend itself from either outside aggression or internal aggression (or both). I can’t think of any that laid down all means of defense. Everyone “locks” their “doors.”
I can think of several peace movements (civil rights, Gandhi) that existed parasitically in a larger context social context, or held that self-defense in response to aggression was acceptable (i.e. Mohism in ancient China), or held that supernatural agency was sufficient for protection (George Fox/Quakers) but I know of none that held or carried out that all means of defense was unneeded because humans are just so trustworthy. Even Quaker Pennsylvania cheated First People with a forged treaty and individuals homes had arms and locks.
Name one and if it survived for even 6 months I’ll eat my cat. You name one and my beliefs are as defeated as evolution would be if rabbit skeletons turned up in the Jurassic era. (or however that quote goes)