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"Statism v. Anti-Statism" will it replace "left v. right"?


Ser Scot A Ellison

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Sure no taxes. Just the immense fun of rationing with all the power in the hands of the individuals in charge of that rationing.

Why rationing? I see no reason to stop people from spending their pay however they like just because they're all employees of the state.

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Why rationing? I see no reason to stop people from spending their pay however they like just because they're all employees of the state.

Actual rationing happens during shortages of basic goods, not all the time, and certainly not exclusively in communist countries. It's what you'd expect during a war, after a war, during energy crises, economic collapse, embargoes etc. I don't believe it's a very good way to measure the authoritarianism of a given government, since it's an extraordinary measure by default. And often a very real necessity.

But maybe Ser Scot was using the word more metaphorically?

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Felice, Guag,

If a nation becomes truly "communist" such that everything is communally owned why is currency necessary any longer? Under Felice's model I was simply assuming Taxes end because the State owns everything. As such, to prevent shortages, everything would have to be rationed.

If people are continued to be paid wages for work in a communist system I don't see how your don't have the same problems with class divisions between those who control payrolls and those who don't.

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Felice, Guag,

If a nation becomes truly "communist" such that everything is communally owned why is currency necessary any longer? Under Felice's model I was simply assuming Taxes end because the State owns everything. As such, to prevent shortages, everything would have to be rationed.

If people are continued to be paid wages for work in a communist system I don't see how your don't have the same problems with class divisions between those who control payrolls and those who don't.

That was a point of some anarchist, Yugoslav and trotskyite criticsm of the Soviet system. The basic answer is that for a society to be truly communistic, you need to have workers controlling the industries in which they work, so they would vote for the people they best felt able to run those industries, and perhaps directly set wage policy through workers' councils. The Yugoslavs actually made some progress on this score.

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Fuck no. (And if it does, it means we've totally failed as a species of social animals.)

Here's an imaginary example.

Bob is extremely anti-state. He doesn't want anyone to bug him, he wants to be left alone, he despises rules and regulations. In his ideal world, there may be - by necessity - a state and an army and a police force, but that about sums up the state's functions. Bob doesn't want the state to get up in his business in any other way. He doesn't want to pay taxes, he doesn't want his money to end up in the hands of people (in need, presumably) that he doesn't know or care about. If there's inequality in society, Bob doesn't care, or he believes it's inevitable, or he believes it's not his responsibility to change it. Bob wants to be self-sufficient and make money any way he sees fit (provided he doesn't hurt anyone, though anything else is fair game), without the state's help, and doesn't want to help random people make money either. He believes that this system ensures the "to each according to his ability" doctrine, and he likes that, he thinks it's justice. Bob is a definitely a libertarian, but he's an individualist and a right-wing.

but that's just an imaginary example.

Here's another guy:

Baelor is an anti-statist. He doesn't want to be left alone. He believes that all of the best things come from society and human cooperation. He does care about inequality but he views the state as ineffective in dealing with it and is in fact the source of much of the world's inequality. He believes in equality before the law is important but equality of property as an end result is a fiction that could never exist. He wants to be self-sufficient and to be prosperous, but he also wants to help others be prosperous because the process of mutually beneficial transaction is the best way for all to prosper.

He believes the state is responsible for wars and violence against persons to an extent that could never exist without the concentration of power and the legal monopoly on violence that the state entails.

So Baelor is certainly a small-L libertarian, or a classical liberal, but is he on the right? I don't think so.

Not really, I think. The question is power and property, rightist anti-statists basically support power elites based on wealth creating their own mini states governing "their" property. The logical conclusion of what Americans call "libertarianism" is feudalism. People holding those views will always ally themselves with rightist statists when wealth and power is threatened.

feudalism is pretty much the opposite of libertarianism. in feudalism, the land is owned essentially by the king, or through him by lords who have more rights than common people. the king lays claim to land that he never properly acquired and holds it out of production or gives it to who he sees fit.

on the contrary, people who are libertarian (and don't just claim it)should always side against wealth and power in the current society since most who have wealth and power have derived it from the state.(not all)

Just because both come in libertarian and authoritarian flavours doesn't mean there isn't a distinct Left and Right, the former devoted to equality and the latter to tradition (actually, it's easier to just define the Right as opposition to the Left - conservatism is not an ideology, it is absence of ideology).

but this is still no polarity. It is like i said, illusory, althougha common illusion. there is no polarity between equality and tradition: these are not opposites. what you are doing here is grouping anyone who doesn't fall into the breadbasket that you think of as the left, as on the right. when you say there is an absence of an ideology, what you mean is that you have grouped a bunch of conflicting ideologies together

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but that's just an imaginary example.

Here's another guy:

Baelor is an anti-statist. He doesn't want to be left alone. He believes that all of the best things come from society and human cooperation. He does care about inequality but he views the state as ineffective in dealing with it and is in fact the source of much of the world's inequality. He believes in equality before the law is important but equality of property as an end result is a fiction that could never exist. He wants to be self-sufficient and to be prosperous, but he also wants to help others be prosperous because the process of mutually beneficial transaction is the best way for all to prosper.

He believes the state is responsible for wars and violence against persons to an extent that could never exist without the concentration of power and the legal monopoly on violence that the state entails.

So Baelor is certainly a small-L libertarian, or a classical liberal, but is he on the right? I don't think so.

feudalism is pretty much the opposite of libertarianism. in feudalism, the land is owned essentially by the king, or through him by lords who have more rights than common people. the king lays claim to land that he never properly acquired and holds it out of production or gives it to who he sees fit.

on the contrary, people who are libertarian (and don't just claim it)should always side against wealth and power in the current society since most who have wealth and power have derived it from the state.(not all)

but this is still no polarity. It is like i said, illusory, althougha common illusion. there is no polarity between equality and tradition: these are not opposites. what you are doing here is grouping anyone who doesn't fall into the breadbasket that you think of as the left, as on the right. when you say there is an absence of an ideology, what you mean is that you have grouped a bunch of conflicting ideologies together

What does Baelor do when there is a recession and 20% of the population is out of work with no means of support? What does he do when most people can't afford the money to pay for their healthcare? What does he do about the children on the streets?

You can't argue for a minimal state and then reject the horrific consequences it brings.

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Back at our founding the big debate was between the Federalist and the Anti-Federalists. There really wasn't as much division on social issues.

yes, absolutely. As much as they had differences, there were few at the time who had the insane notion that the government should decide social issues

Guag,

I certainly don't believe communists or communism is "evil[sp]TM[[/sp]".

and i don't either. but i do believe that their ideas, if enacted would result in mass poverty and death. (as well as a much greater inequality, even though the political elites would have less than the current American middle class.)

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What does Baelor do when there is a recession and 20% of the population is out of work with no means of support? What does he do when most people can't afford the money to pay for their healthcare? What does he do about the children on the streets?

You can't argue for a minimal state and then reject the horrific consequences it brings.

so, since we have a state, there has not been anyone who could not afford healthcare? we haven't had high unemployment? there aren't children in need?

we do have a state and it hasn't solved those problems.

but the point of that example isn't that he is right. the point is that there are more than two types of libertarians, and not all of them fit into right or left at all.

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so, since we have a state, there has not been anyone who could not afford healthcare? we haven't had high unemployment? there aren't children in need?

we do have a state and it hasn't solved those problems.

but the point of that example isn't that he is right. the point is that there are more than two types of libertarians, and not all of them fit into right or left at all.

You've actually hit the nail on the head. In the country where I was born, nobody has been unable to afford healthcare since 1948, there have been periods of mass-unemployment but nobody has starved, as the state has provided them with just enough money to keep body and soul together, there are children living in poverty because the state doesn't do enough to redistribute wealth, but they are never homeless or hungry, and if they are, the state takes them on and makes sure they aren't.

Now, in Liberotopia, this will not happen, as it does not in those countries with states who do not have the money or the will to care for their people.

If you are a libertarian who believes in private property (as the original libertarians didn't) then you are by definition right wing, because even if you have no desire to see these things happen, they will happen under a mini-state system. And you are supporting them politically, as you believe the right to private property is more important than preventing them.

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If a nation becomes truly "communist" such that everything is communally owned

Only the means of production, ie land and factories. Nobody is advocating seizing your toothbrush for the glory of the communist state.

If people are continued to be paid wages for work in a communist system I don't see how your don't have the same problems with class divisions between those who control payrolls and those who don't.

How about constitutionally mandating the median wage for those who control payrolls? Along with a maximum wage of double the minimum wage?

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statisam is bad, but private (corporate) control is also bad, or worse. Point is, it does not matter if state controls you or corporations control you. In both

cases you are being controlled. And that is bad. Arguably state control is something you can have influence on (democracy) but that is more of an illusion.

Also important thing is difference between state and gouverment- state means monopoly on use of violence (police force, justice system etc.).

I like political compass division better than left vs right, or this.

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statisam is bad, but private (corporate) control is also bad, or worse. Point is, it does not matter if state controls you or corporations control you. In both

cases you are being controlled. And that is bad. Arguably state control is something you can have influence on (democracy) but that is more of an illusion.

That's why socialists argue that there can be no true democracy without collective control of the means of production and distribution. In that way you control the state as well as the corporations. Of course, we then get into the question of the tyrrany of the majority, interestingly, the most compelling criticism I've read of that was in Gadaffi's little green book.

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Knez,

Corporations are part and parcel of large scale Statism. Corporations cannot exist without the State. They are purely creatures of statute.

Yep, limited liability is the only thing that allows capitalism to exist. If it didn't the stock exchanges of the world would be a very minor side show of the economy, because people would be a lot less interested in investing if they were liable for the actions of the corporations which are their property.

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Knez,

Corporations are part and parcel of large scale Statism. Corporations cannot exist without the State. They are purely creatures of statute.

Right. But corporations aren't the only form of private control. Not by a long shot.

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