Monthly Archives: March 2006

What Progressives Really Think

Individual Rights

DADAHEAD recently wrote about trade, in the context of the upcoming election(s).

[T]he majority of Democratic office holders are not

really populists or progressives; they're welfare-state capitalists, and their allegiance to big business is as axiomatic as any Republican's.

In response, Neil wrote the following:

Personally, I'm happy to identify as a welfare capitalist — can you not be that as well as a populist or progressive? If you set up the economy so that the maximum amount of money

flows in, and it happens to flow in to rich people, that's just fine as long as you tax those rich people heavily enough to fund education and health care, etc, for everybody.

If it slots turns out that it's easier to fund the betterment of the working poor that way than to actually set up the economy so they make more money in their jobs, that's the way we should set up policy.

So, according to at least one progressive (and probably many more), capitalism is great, insofar as the benefits flow away from those who create the capital and towards those who produce nothing. How, exactly, is this ethical, Neil?

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Robert
http://robertopia.blogspot.com/

Insight

Politics

I read Rocket Jones regularly. His zombie pics are a hoot, I love reading about his rocketry and we share a love of science, space exploration and rocket ships. When Ted recently posted a political entry, I pretty much blew coffee through my nose laughing. Not only that, he gave me some insight into the whole Dubai-Port thing that I hadn’t really considered before. Check out Ted’s Evil I tell you, pure eeeevil! for more gems like this one:

To all those cheering the “defeat” of President Bush on his stupid idea to let Dubai run American seaports, I have only one thing to say:

Dubya just made you his bitch.

Ted, you owe me a new laptop screen! Or a zombie pic.

Eric
Security executive, work for Core Security, veteran, kids, dogs, cat, chickens, mortgage, bills. I like #liberty #InfoSec #scotch, #wine, #cigars, #travel, #baseball
http://www.securitycigarsfud.com/

Here’s Why

General

Here’s why so many of us don’t trust the government. It’s not just about their ability to be efficient. It’s not just about the morality of taking my wealth at gunpoint and using it for something I wouldn’t agree with if I had any choice. It’s about, as has been pointed out here and here, the fact that the government just can’t do what it sets out, in its wisdom, to do. As we find out on Slashdot, among other sources, the government can’t even keep its secret agents secret. They were easily discovered on Google (naturally). And yet we are supposed to, somehow, believe that they can provide for our healthcare, our pensions, our safety and so much more. And clearly, governments do a wonderful job with all of these things. Now, try to find out, using Google, the names and locations of the security staff of Fortune 500 corporations (not the CSO, the rank and file staff). Instructive, isn’t it?

Eric
Security executive, work for Core Security, veteran, kids, dogs, cat, chickens, mortgage, bills. I like #liberty #InfoSec #scotch, #wine, #cigars, #travel, #baseball
http://www.securitycigarsfud.com/

They Came At Us In The Same Old Way ….

Blog Discussions, Economics, Theory and Ideas

I noticed a link to The Liberty Papers from a blog that I hadn’t seen in a quite a while, Le Revue Gauche. Eugene, for those who’ve never been to his blog, is “an unabashed libertarian communist”. For those faithful readers who find this combination of words a bit suprising, it’s important to understand that there are really two separate and distinct anarchist movements. One on the Left of the economic spectrum and the other on the right of the spectrum. Both, naturally, are all at the extreme individualism end of the spectrum dealing with state authority. Libertarian communism, aka anarcho-syndicalism or, simply, anarchy, is descended from the socialism and romanticism of the 19th century. If you stop by Eugene’s blog you will notice references to Karl Marx, Pyotr Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin, rather than Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand or Robert Heinlein. It turns out that Eugene wrote an entry about Free Trade and used Hong Kong and Somalia as examples.

Specifically, Eugene linked to my article on Monopolies, Markets and Microsoft and said the following (note the words in bold are where the link is contained).

And the capitalist state is not just any kind of government, it is a specific kind of government that regulates the market in favour of stability for the creation of monopolies. As the history of Hong Kong and of course British and American capitalism shows. This is the history that the right wing of course has always revised, whether it is the Heritage Foudation or the Von Mises Institute.

I thought this was curious, since my article flies in the face of the normally accepted position among libertarians. I finally decided that Eugene had not really read my article in context, nor the discussion that followed. That, in fact, I happen to believe that government promotion of corporatism is a major problem and the anti-thesis of capitalism. More importantly, he betrays an idea that is part of the Left’s meme war. This particular idea has been so effective that many on the Left don’t even recognize just how false it is, perhaps even Eugene doesn’t. The idea that has been promoted since the the mid-19th century is:

Corporatism = Capitalism

Anyone that has read Adam Smith and then looks at how supposedly capitalist economies work would recognize that the USA and UK are not capitalist in any sense of the word. The purpose of government, from a capitalist perspective, is to provide a neutral framework for the market to work within. It should not favor producer, retailer nor consumer, nor should it favor management or labor. By continuously aligning the idea that a scenario where government favors management over labor in the employment market and favors centralized corporations over small businesses and consumers in the broader market, the Left has successfully created the idea that this is Capitalism. Of course, I’m glossing over a lot of the progressive theory of the Left, which would argue that the corporatism of the the 1870’s through today represents the progression from feudalism to mercantilism to capitalism to corporatism and is the means by which class struggle is played out (heh, I can use those terms, even when they just make me want to chuckle).

Eugene (and many others on the Left) is using the Von Mises Institute’s discussion of Somalia to show that anarcho-capitalism perpetuates the “class struggle”. Indeed, the Left points to the issues of drought and starvation in Somalia to show that warlords, strongmen and feudalism will arise in an anarcho-capitalist system, completely ignoring the punch-line from the Mises article:

A democratic government has every power to exert dominion over people. To fend off the possibility of being dominated, each clan tries to capture the power of that government before it can become a threat. Those clans that didn’t share in the spoils of political power would realize their chances of becoming part of the ruling alliance were nil.

What everyone ignores is the bull in the china shop, the UN. It is the UN and the Western states that are trying to create a democratic government in Somalia. Which is a significant contributing factor to the warlords having power. Even disregarding all of that, what Eugene ignores is that Somalia is better off than their neighbors in the Horn of Africa. You know, those neighboring countries that have governments and written laws instead of clans, warlords and customary law.

I don’t particularly think Somalia is a good example of the outcome of anarcho-capitalism since it isn’t anarcho-capitalism. It is completely distorted by the intervention and meddling of a wide variety of governmental organizations. And, even so, with the almost non-existent national government they are managing to do better than their neighbors. That, by itself, should tell us something.

More importantly, if you want to tackle capitalism, I’m game for the debate. But, the Left continues to try and equate corporatism and proto-fascism with capitalism. They come at us in the same old way, time after time.

Eric
Security executive, work for Core Security, veteran, kids, dogs, cat, chickens, mortgage, bills. I like #liberty #InfoSec #scotch, #wine, #cigars, #travel, #baseball
http://www.securitycigarsfud.com/

Responding to: you know Who

Individual Rights

Recently a commenter known as: Who reacted to (and again on his own blog …I guess I’m “another journal”, referenced in the title, although he neither mentioned my name not provided a link to my blog).

You once wrote: “As an individualist, I support the freedom of another to self destruct, as long as there are no other victims.”

And later, aware of a degree of contradiction or paradox, “No one is an island.”

Firstly, what is an individualist…or individualism? Well, Merriam-Webster Online defines it this way:

(1) a: a doctrine that the interests of the individual are or ought to be ethically paramount; also: conduct guided by such a doctrine (2) : the conception that all values, rights, and duties originate in individuals b: a theory maintaining the political and economic independence of the individual and stressing individual initiative, action, and interests; also: conduct or practice guided by such a theory

Now, while I happen to agree with much of Ayn Rand’s philosophy (among others), vis-a-vis individualism, I do not in fact espouse individual isolationism. I appreciate the various benefits that are attendant to civilized society…ergo, “no one is an island”.

On a purely conceptual level, individualism is integral to the human experience. Each and every individual is unique in the universe; each has the ability (theoretically at least) to think and act independently…or, if phonegame download you like, individually. Furthermore, each individual is personally responsible for their own choices and the consequences that inexorably follow (see this).

It may sound elementary, but apparently, not everyone understands it; Who continued:

There is a hidden assumption behind the individualist position, the assumption that we are independent beings. Time(s) and space(s) and matter(s), however, are not compartmentalised on all levels. On subtler levels they are fully connected. It is simply an error to see only the gross.

From a quantum mechanical perspective, the interconnectedness of the material universe goes without saying; everything is matter and/or energy. But that’s not exactly relevant to individualism. What’s more, “the

assumption that we are independent beings” is quite a sound one in my view. For humans may be made of similar stuff, but not the same stuff

(i.e., each individual / mind is a distinct entity). This is not a distinction without a difference.

My first assumptions are that matter and energy are gross forms of consciousness and that there are no boundaries obstructing consciousness from what it wants to experience. Further, it is an illusion that there are numerous independent consciousnesses.

Read the last sentence again…and than again if needed. That’s right, Who claims that “independent consciousnesses” are “an illusion”. I just have one question: on what do you base such an assertion?

So, if somebody overdoses with drugs in the USA, it does affect me here in the UK, truly. If a large number of people do that, it will somehow degrade my own experience of life and I may feel motivated to act. There are always other victims.

I’m not sure I follow his line of reasoning, but I’ll take a stab at it anyway. It sounds like he’s arguing that actions have consequences, which is just stating the obvious. But

the subtler implication is that government, or society at large, ought to simply prohibit activities that could conceivably cause harm to another. Frankly, that’s bullshit! For instance, why don’t we (government, society, the “global community”, whatever) urge lawmakers to criminalize: the driving of automobiles, the owning of baseball bats and steak knives, the drinking of alcoholic beverages, the possession of firearms and the like? The answer is simple really: such prohibitions are an affront to, and egregiously impinge, individual liberty…period.

Here’s a novel idea: why don’t “we” punish actual misconduct that results in harm done to another, instead of advocating the punishment of potential harm?

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Robert
http://robertopia.blogspot.com/
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