Neoliberalism? [Archive] - Discussion World Forum

Daktoria

May 15th 2009, 01:00 AM

Michael

May 16th 2009, 12:11 PM

Neoliberalism is more about government reform than human rationality, Mike. Your reference to it being associated with Friedman is spot on (for example, consider the Chicago school's approval of Pinochet's regime in Chile), but associating it with Chinese economic development is not as accurate since the Chinese engage in a sort of twisted state capitalism. On one hand, the government still isn't that transparent or flexible and hasn't really been reformed at all since the integration of free market dynamics into their economy. On the other, the government has to turn a blind eye from its underground economy and allow private interests to "freely" travel beyond China's borders in order to receive training and funding (such as in Europe, Russia, and the U.S.) as well as establish foreign ventures (such as in SE Asia, Africa, and the Middle East).
The reference of "neoliberalism" to China originates in the review cited in the OP (from either the reviewer David Hursh or author Naomi Klein), not from me.

Indeed, that was one of the points that triggered this thread.

I certainly agree that there is nothing very 'liberal' about China (neo or classical) other than a selective relaxation of their authoritarian regime.

Expanded to international relations, think of classical liberalism as being predicated towards domestic policies whereas neoliberalism is about foreign policies. Liberalism was originally a response against mercantilism and feudalism that fought for popular sovereignty and free markets rather than oligarchical state control over everything. Classical liberalism here advocates for the allowance of citizens to control their own destinies by "allowing the free market" to distribute products and incomes. In reality, the invisible hand is just the aggregate of individual decisions coming together in a competitive arena and resolving disequilibrium, not some magical force that garnishes more and more clout as more and more people participate in markets. Neoliberalism, though, advocates for the encouragement of free markets abroad in order to clean up corruption and maximize the opportunities for private citizens to develop relations with foreign states, cultures, societies, markets, etc.
I agree with your characterization of the origin of liberalism. However, I fail to see (or agree) with your distinction (or analogy) between classical liberalism in domestic policy vs neoliberalism in foreign policy.

For example, "the encouragement of free markets abroad in order to clean up corruption and maximize the opportunities for private citizens to develop relations with foreign states, cultures, societies, etc.," is pure classical liberalism, plain and simple. Classical liberals have always held that 'sunshine is the best disinfectent' when it comes to markets.

Now I do generally agree that foreign policy is the one area where the difference between 'neoliberalism' and 'classical liberalism' is the most obvious - but not for the reason you gave.

I'd suggest that the difference is in the question of how much force or pressure one is willing to use in order to encourage free markets abroad. Here I'd suggest that neoliberalism is defacto neoconservativism in the willingness to use military force to overcome opposition and establish free markets. Classical liberalism is best represented by a much more pragmatic (or utilitarian) approach to encouraging free markets abroad and will tend to abjure the outright use of force for this purpose as unjust or impractical.

The overlap between classical and neo- liberalism in IR primarily comes in how international trade acts as a cushion between states and prevents war by giving them an incentive to stay at peace. Classical liberalism argues this because economic actors will appreciate the marginal utility of trade more than the possible marginal spoils of war. Neoliberalism argues this because the erosion of corruption convinces governments to remain peaceful in order to support the long-term principles of prosperity for their constituencies, constituencies which governments rely upon for garnishing legitimacy. Either way, states should refuse to go to war because they appreciate free markets more than warmongering.

Yes, I agree that this is the general theoretical approach that is fundamentally liberal and is common ground to both classical liberals and neoliberals.

Btw, the 'pop-media-culture' term for what you describe is the "MacDonalds rule". ;)

Your claim that neoliberalism is essentially utopian only applies if you believe that economic development is predicated primarily upon technology rather than entrepreneurism. Via technology, economic growth is capped at optimal capital:labor ratios and can only be advanced by further technological development (see Solow-Swan growth model, a cornerstone of neoclassical economics). Reliance upon technology for economic growth though is only viable if average humanity is the dominant force in economic development. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, Efficient Market Hypothesis, Elliot Wave Principle, and even Dumb Agent Theory show though that it is possible to avoid obstacles such as groupthink and peer pressure as long as individuals are primarily concerned with being objectively correct instead of being subjectively selfish.

I like to try to avoid 'monocausal' explanations of anything. :)

While I admit that I'm generally a proponent of technology rather than entrepreneurism as the primary driver of economic development (and that war is a major driver of technology), I do not hold to this as an absolute rule. I do believe that entrepreneurism and technology are both capable of driving economic development.

My hesitation in accepting entrepreneurism as a primary driver of economic development comes primarily from my study of history where I observe that 'great man theory' is very, very weak. Collective patterns in society/culture tend to push events in certain directions regardless of the amazing achievements of individual human will. In the long run of history, the collective patterns hold true while the 'great men' pass away. I'm inclined to see economic development in a similar way - the 'great men of history' are the 'entrepreneurs' of economic development. Individually, they are impressive, but systemically, they are not all that important or influential in themselves.

You might think that this is absurd since it's ridiculous to believe that individuals will behave as constrained maximizers (such as proposed by David Gauthier's contractarianism), but by constraining ourselves through morality, we IMPROVE utility over the long run since our community is able to synthesize more efficiently from accurate anticipation of moral consistency. The largest problem to this, therefore, is maturity since the only way homo economicus would be willing to make this intuitive leap is if it is no longer stuck in believing that reciprocal consequences are the only way for evaluating... properness(?) (see Kohlberg's stages of moral development). Utilitarianism can act as a satisfactory transition in moral development since it helps actors appreciate ethical philosophy more easily by compromising on the practicality of appreciating utility for standards of living. However, constrained maximization can only be engaged in goodwillingly (without conflating fear, innocence, simplicity, etc.) if a deontological ethical theory is applied (including deontological libertarianism demonstrated by scholars such as Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard). Utilitarianism falls short because it's grounded in the reductio ad absurdum argument of hedonic calculus, arguing that pain is morally wrong and that pleasure is morally right. However, this is a completely normative statement grounded on human feelings about reality, not a positive statement about reality itself. In contrast, deontology claims that mankind matters because its morality allows humanity to transform reality regardless of the direction that reality becomes transformed (see Kant's formula of humanity).

<editor's note> Methinks you need an editor! :D

You have packed one heck of a lot of heavy material into that one paragraph there! I've had to read it real slowly (and repeatedly) to work my way through it. The effort was well worth it, but a more disciplined focus/editing on your end might help some others to make it through next time! :)
<end note>

Excellent points there Daktoria! :thumbsup:

Regarding 'constrained maximization' itself, this is another area where I'm influenced by ideas from outside of economic theory - that would be the anthropological ideas expressed by human evolutionary development. That would certainly be an off-topic digression here, but I think 'constrained maximization' is integral to human develpment as a species, as well as being an integral part of individual human development (maturity) and as such, the idea is well grounded outside of pure economic terms.

And I certainly agree that 'morality' is the method that has been the most successful method to constrain maximization on a social and individual level.

However, I disagree about necessity of deontological theory here. As I noted in another post in reply to you, I'm not much of a fan of deontology - I'm much more inclined towards teleological or consequentialism as a general rule. Deontology might suffice, but I don't find it attractive or noble at all - I consider it too egotistical.

I could go on about deontology's partial gripes with empiricism and how those gripes are associated with todays unprecedented degree of information flow due to information technology that imposes information overload on the human mind all the time, but I feel this is enough for now. If you want to talk about information overload and the arguments of JS Mill, Bentham, and Hume about empiricism and utilitarianism, I'm up for it, but I don't want to make this any more cumbersome or confusing than it already is.
Actually, given that I'm inclined towards consequentialism (and thus interested in the problems associated with predicting outcomes), the idea of discussing information overload is very attractive to me. :)

That being said, our discussion is meandering here and threatening to wander far astray from the original topic at hand. I suggest we use this thread for discussing the meaning of "neoliberalism" in the context/contrast with classical liberalism and create new threads for following up some of the other ideas that you've raised here on related topics.

Daktoria

May 16th 2009, 02:18 PM

OK, I'll just focus on the classical liberal v neoliberal discussion at hand then (with smidgens of neoconservatism when applicable in the discussion about democracy).

...I agree with your characterization of the origin of liberalism. However, I fail to see (or agree) with your distinction (or analogy) between classical liberalism in domestic policy vs neoliberalism in foreign policy.

For example, "the encouragement of free markets abroad in order to clean up corruption and maximize the opportunities for private citizens to develop relations with foreign states, cultures, societies, etc.," is pure classical liberalism, plain and simple. Classical liberals have always held that 'sunshine is the best disinfectent' when it comes to markets.

Now I do generally agree that foreign policy is the one area where the difference between 'neoliberalism' and 'classical liberalism' is the most obvious - but not for the reason you gave.

I'd suggest that the difference is in the question of how much force or pressure one is willing to use in order to encourage free markets abroad. Here I'd suggest that neoliberalism is defacto neoconservativism in the willingness to use military force to overcome opposition and establish free markets. Classical liberalism is best represented by a much more pragmatic (or utilitarian) approach to encouraging free markets abroad and will tend to abjure the outright use of force for this purpose as unjust or impractical.

OK, I see the problem here. You're conflating offense-defense theory with corruption disinfection. Classical liberalism cares about the first whereas neoliberalism cares about the second. Sometimes, the two are correlated (which is where neoconservatism comes into play), but that isn't always the case. Consider countries such as Saudi Arabia and Brazil where the government is incredibly corrupt yet there is also an definite preference towards free trade. Regarding neoconservatism, democracy tends to be associated with free trade because it prevents political leaders from interfering with economic entrepreneurism (until monopolies become an issue for entrepreneurial innovation), but neoconservatives care about democracy as an institution in itself because it makes governments more transparent in general, more accessible to domestic civil participants, and more negotiable with foreign interests. Social democratic movements throughout the global south, particularly Latin America and Africa but not as much in the Middle East or south and southeast Asia, tend to encourage this kind of policy.

*Leaves the Washington Consensus on the table for another thread*

The reason neoliberalism feels more correlated than classical liberalism towards neoconservative militarism is because classical liberalism intrinsically refutes the usage of aggressive violence to achieve certain ends (a deontological argument that opposes Machiavellian realpolitik). As such, it's primary objective is to SECURE the well being of a state's constituents via minimalist government while letting citizens investigate and preempt situations abroad (consider the age old privateer who was issued a letter of marque in the name of his country or the employment of viceroys for the British East India company). Unfortunately, classical liberalism only accounts for an obsolete form of globalization where human minds had far more time to accommodate for information and transportation flow. As such, social contracts become accelerated towards negotiations and interventions to expand economic opportunities for citizens beyond the governments own jurisdiction. In the case where an incredibly steadfast government is unable to be broken down, a militant approach might be employed, possibly complemented with democratic reforms if convenient.

It really just comes down to how competitive you want to be and how much moral regret you can recognize and endure. If you have the endurance and tolerance for it, then you should be more aggressive in order to ensure your national interests into the future. Likewise. if you don't have the (pardon my French) gut and balls, then you should be more defensive in order to preserve your national interests right now. As such, pragmatism is in the eye of the beholder who has to evaluate his own capacity and objectives and plan accordingly.

Yes, I agree that this is the general theoretical approach that is fundamentally liberal and is common ground to both classical liberals and neoliberals.

Btw, the 'pop-media-culture' term for what you describe is the "MacDonalds rule". ;)

You've read The McDonaldization of Society (http://www.google.com/search?q=The+McDonaldization+of+society&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a), no?

*Marks yet another note on the future thread agenda*

*Goes back and marks one for Shock Doctrine too*

I like to try to avoid 'monocausal' explanations of anything. :)

While I admit that I'm generally a proponent of technology rather than entrepreneurism as the primary driver of economic development (and that war is a major driver of technology), I do not hold to this as an absolute rule. I do believe that entrepreneurism and technology are both capable of driving economic development.

My hesitation in accepting entrepreneurism as a primary driver of economic development comes primarily from my study of history where I observe that 'great man theory' is very, very weak. Collective patterns in society/culture tend to push events in certain directions regardless of the amazing achievements of individual human will. In the long run of history, the collective patterns hold true while the 'great men' pass away. I'm inclined to see economic development in a similar way - the 'great men of history' are the 'entrepreneurs' of economic development. Individually, they are impressive, but systemically, they are not all that important or influential in themselves.

Heh, fractal dynamics (and fractals in general) are all about how the system works rather than conceding to sequential domino effects.

Anyway, the focus here is on autonomous entrepreneurs, not dominant elites. Effectively, everyone has some capacity to be an entrepreneur and invent something out of the box that goes beyond empirical evidence, but by disintegrating monopolies, societies often impose conformity among "perfectly competitive" markets where the masses conform like sheep in order to minimize their vulnerability, both as a collective as well as many individuals. The trick, therefore, is to encourage entrepreneurism in everybody without:

allowing monopolies to "win",
having complacent stragglers latch onto free lunches,
getting stuck between the industrialist who wants to enslave the world and the terrorist who wants to destroy the world, or
losing liberal democracies to ochlocratic mob justice which imposes conformist mediocrity among the masses while ostracizing anyone who defies popular cultural mores.

Gyah, this thread is really turning into a boon for new ideas.

*Ubermensch: Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The End of History and the Last Man*

*Democracy: The God That Failed*

I'm going to leave the rest of what you said on the table since the next two sections are quite distant from the OP. If we get the chance, a new thread could be fired off from each of them.

Michael

May 17th 2009, 12:24 PM

OK, I see the problem here. You're conflating offense-defense theory with corruption disinfection. Classical liberalism cares about the first whereas neoliberalism cares about the second. Sometimes, the two are correlated (which is where neoconservatism comes into play), but that isn't always the case. Consider countries such as Saudi Arabia and Brazil where the government is incredibly corrupt yet there is also an definite preference towards free trade. Regarding neoconservatism, democracy tends to be associated with free trade because it prevents political leaders from interfering with economic entrepreneurism (until monopolies become an issue for entrepreneurial innovation), but neoconservatives care about democracy as an institution in itself because it makes governments more transparent in general, more accessible to domestic civil participants, and more negotiable with foreign interests. Social democratic movements throughout the global south, particularly Latin America and Africa but not as much in the Middle East or south and southeast Asia, tend to encourage this kind of policy.

*Leaves the Washington Consensus on the table for another thread*
I don't believe that I'm conflating as much as refusing to see much of a distinction here.

Neoliberalism favors and wants to foster democracy, so does classical liberalism. This applies to domestic as well as foreign policy. I just don't see much reason to categorize a distinction between alleged motives.

I see a huge difference between the two in the willingness to use force to achieve the [alleged] goal. I say 'alleged' because as you noted previously, 'exporting democracy' is usually a self-serving and profit-driven enterprise - not necessarily predicated upon the actual creation of real democracies.

And yes, the 'Washington Consensus' is certainly a topic worthy of its own thread!

The reason neoliberalism feels more correlated than classical liberalism towards neoconservative militarism is because classical liberalism intrinsically refutes the usage of aggressive violence to achieve certain ends (a deontological argument that opposes Machiavellian realpolitik). As such, it's primary objective is to SECURE the well being of a state's constituents via minimalist government while letting citizens investigate and preempt situations abroad (consider the age old privateer who was issued a letter of marque in the name of his country or the employment of viceroys for the British East India company). Unfortunately, classical liberalism only accounts for an obsolete form of globalization where human minds had far more time to accommodate for information and transportation flow. As such, social contracts become accelerated towards negotiations and interventions to expand economic opportunities for citizens beyond the governments own jurisdiction. In the case where an incredibly steadfast government is unable to be broken down, a militant approach might be employed, possibly complemented with democratic reforms if convenient.

It really just comes down to how competitive you want to be and how much moral regret you can recognize and endure. If you have the endurance and tolerance for it, then you should be more aggressive in order to ensure your national interests into the future. Likewise. if you don't have the (pardon my French) gut and balls, then you should be more defensive in order to preserve your national interests right now. As such, pragmatism is in the eye of the beholder who has to evaluate his own capacity and objectives and plan accordingly.

To be honest, my repudiation of aggressive violence for the application of political goals is not predicated on any deontological concern. My approach is pragmatic/utilitarian/teleological - that violence may be an efficient way to kill, but it is not an efficient way to govern. Violence just doesn't usually deliver the policy goods and that's why I reject the tactic as a general rule. Violence is a useful tool for some policy problems, but they tend to be rare ones.

And I definitely don't agree when you said "If you have the endurance and tolerance for it, then you should be more aggressive in order to ensure your national interests into the future." Please offer some justification for the rationality of this conclusion. It looks to me like a statement of irrational faith in the utility of violence on principle.

And yes, pragmatism is flexible. Sometimes violence might be the best policy, most often it is not. Pragmatism, like liberalism itself, represents an philosophic approach, not necessarily an ideological policy rule.

You've read The McDonaldization of Society (http://www.google.com/search?q=The+McDonaldization+of+society&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a), no?

*Marks yet another note on the future thread agenda*

*Goes back and marks one for Shock Doctrine too*

Actually, I've not read the McDonalds book, I'm just familiar with the thesis.

And yes, it certainly is a worthy topic of discussion - I remember instinctively rejecting the thesis when I heard about it as a 'gut reaction' and quickly took note of the one or two counter-examples that recent history has provided to support my rejection of the 'rule'. It is a general pattern yes, but not a necessary rule would be my short take on it.

Heh, fractal dynamics (and fractals in general) are all about how the system works rather than conceding to sequential domino effects.
Yes, fractal dynamics suggests a strong influence from 'initial conditions' (which would be analoguous to entrepreneurs or great men in history) though as always, I reject monocausal explanations.

Two equally plausible explanations of a given event, provided they are not mutually exclusive, offer greater explanatory function that either one alone. It is not necessary to pick one and reject the other.

Anyway, the focus here is on autonomous entrepreneurs, not dominant elites. Effectively, everyone has some capacity to be an entrepreneur and invent something out of the box that goes beyond empirical evidence, but by disintegrating monopolies, societies often impose conformity among "perfectly competitive" markets where the masses conform like sheep in order to minimize their vulnerability, both as a collective as well as many individuals. The trick, therefore, is to encourage entrepreneurism in everybody without:

allowing monopolies to "win",
having complacent stragglers latch onto free lunches,
getting stuck between the industrialist who wants to enslave the world and the terrorist who wants to destroy the world, or
losing liberal democracies to ochlocratic mob justice which imposes conformist mediocrity among the masses while ostracizing anyone who defies popular cultural mores.

What's with the objection to complacent stragglers latching onto free lunches? That strikes me as the worst kind of moral posturing. Humans aren't equal, some are lazy and stupid, some are mentally ill, some are old and feeble, some are just foolish. Beating or punishing these people for not keeping up with the production schedule strikes me as un-human-like.

I should think that coddling our weaker members is the sign of a civilized society. Whether this is done for humanitarian/emotional reasons or cold-hearted calculations of species survival or for selfish personal benefits, it seems immaterial to speculate upon.

I certainly agree that 'entrepreneurialism' ought to be encouraged as state policy. That being said, I'm not blind to the fact that liberal ideology holds that this shouldn't be all that necessary...

And speaking of new thread ideas... this reminds me of the problem with advertising and the capitalist market theory that 'supply always follows demand'. The theory is that advertising is a rational reply to the need for information about the product/service. That information is provided by advertising to inform the decision to buy. All sounds good except for the fact that advertising (in reality) tends to be overwhelmingly used in order to create demand for existing and future-planned supply.

Gyah, this thread is really turning into a boon for new ideas.

*Ubermensch: Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The End of History and the Last Man*

*Democracy: The God That Failed*

I'm going to leave the rest of what you said on the table since the next two sections are quite distant from the OP. If we get the chance, a new thread could be fired off from each of them.

Yes, Herr Nietzsche is always due for his own thread. I'm surprised we don't have one here already. :D

Daktoria

May 18th 2009, 12:03 AM

I don't believe that I'm conflating as much as refusing to see much of a distinction here.

Neoliberalism favors and wants to foster democracy, so does classical liberalism. This applies to domestic as well as foreign policy. I just don't see much reason to categorize a distinction between alleged motives.

I see a huge difference between the two in the willingness to use force to achieve the [alleged] goal. I say 'alleged' because as you noted previously, 'exporting democracy' is usually a self-serving and profit-driven enterprise - not necessarily predicated upon the actual creation of real democracies.

What neoliberalism and classical liberalism want to foster are free markets. Democracy is a secondary convenience that happens to work out because of how it decentralizes power and prevents political monopolies from sabotaging economic progress. However, if an alternative form of government (say an anarcho-capitalist night watchman state) was available instead, neoliberalism and classical liberalism wouldn't mind switching to it instead. Actually, they might prefer the alternative if it reduces the potential for ochlocratic and progressive social democracy which infringes upon negative rights and privatization (such as a night watchman state could).

To be honest, my repudiation of aggressive violence for the application of political goals is not predicated on any deontological concern. My approach is pragmatic/utilitarian/teleological - that violence may be an efficient way to kill, but it is not an efficient way to govern. Violence just doesn't usually deliver the policy goods and that's why I reject the tactic as a general rule. Violence is a useful tool for some policy problems, but they tend to be rare ones.

And I definitely don't agree when you said "If you have the endurance and tolerance for it, then you should be more aggressive in order to ensure your national interests into the future." Please offer some justification for the rationality of this conclusion. It looks to me like a statement of irrational faith in the utility of violence on principle.

And yes, pragmatism is flexible. Sometimes violence might be the best policy, most often it is not. Pragmatism, like liberalism itself, represents an philosophic approach, not necessarily an ideological policy rule.The justification for violence arrives in the security dilemma against the unknown. In a world where nobody intends to conquer thy neighbor because of a transcendental appreciation for humanity, violence is indeed obsolete, but the world is neither mature nor balanced enough to wield such an appreciation. Self-preservation is necessary to experience the future world, and self-improvement is necessary to experience the future world optimally. Even if the world was filled with loyalists to justice and the social contract (such as Socrates who willingly drank hemlock to honor the rule of law within Athens), those loyalists could only resist defiance and fulfill martyrdom if they honestly believed that they had experienced the best of what the institutions they served had to offer.

If the loyalists remain loyal, then it implies that they acknowledge hypocrisy in their own life strategies and believe that society will be better off without them in the future. However, if the loyalists believe that they themselves are rational, then they should also believe that they are innocent.* Therefore, society should be perceived as hypocritical, and the institutions the loyalists served should be perceived as traitorous which means that the loyalists still have work to do in the way of purifying corruption.

*Innocence is possible even if the loyalists support a law which is being crossed. Laws are created for reasons, and if enforcement of a law conflicts with why a law was formed in the first place, then the loyalists should campaign for pardons as a way of refining the government and society they live within. In the case that pardons are not possible, the loyalists should resist the state up to the point where it becomes absurd to continue (according to personal subjective evaluation which might or might not coincide with an objective benchmark such as Nash Equilibrium).

As for moral endurance, some statesman bear more philosophical expertise or moral character or even sadistic hedonism than others. Others do not. Those who do can pursue a larger slice of the world's power more confidently while those who don't must remain content with their own corners of the world in order to optimally allocate their resources and exist within their environments. The more you can control via hard power (or influence via soft power), the less dangers you have to worry about in the future for your security, but if you can't afford to control (or influence) the world, then you should prepare yourself to await the impending threat whenever it might arrive. If nothing else, defenders have to prepare for other aggressors who are attempting to hoard as much of the world's finite natural resources for their own consumption, and defenders should preempt such hoarding by engaging in hoarding themselves. There are alternatives such as technological and cultural refinement, but preemptive hoarding is the bear minimum counter preemptive measure.

What's with the objection to complacent stragglers latching onto free lunches? That strikes me as the worst kind of moral posturing. Humans aren't equal, some are lazy and stupid, some are mentally ill, some are old and feeble, some are just foolish. Beating or punishing these people for not keeping up with the production schedule strikes me as un-human-like.

I should think that coddling our weaker members is the sign of a civilized society. Whether this is done for humanitarian/emotional reasons or cold-hearted calculations of species survival or for selfish personal benefits, it seems immaterial to speculate upon.

I certainly agree that 'entrepreneurialism' ought to be encouraged as state policy. That being said, I'm not blind to the fact that liberal ideology holds that this shouldn't be all that necessary...

And speaking of new thread ideas... this reminds me of the problem with advertising and the capitalist market theory that 'supply always follows demand'. The theory is that advertising is a rational reply to the need for information about the product/service. That information is provided by advertising to inform the decision to buy. All sounds good except for the fact that advertising (in reality) tends to be overwhelmingly used in order to create demand for existing and future-planned supply.

Just to note, I'm not a big fan of privatized advertising. That and legal counsel are the two services which I most strongly feel should be absolutely monopolized by the State. The government is supposed to act as a mediating bridge between firms and households which streamlines decision making, so if anyone's going to distribute information about product performance, it should be the State functioning as a neutral third party, not producers, distributors, or retailers who are just trying to con consumers and waste public resources in the process of brand name competition.

Anyway, I think you've misinterpreted what I'm saying regarding autonomous entrepreneurism (although to be honest, I thought you were playing a sarcastic devil's advocate when I first read through what you wrote). Entrepreneurs are not complacent, and everyone has some potential to contribute. However, I don't find it moral to perpetuate stupidity, laziness, foolhardiness, or disability. This isn't to say that those who suffer should be exterminated, but individuals should be left to their own devices to make their own best possible decisions. Yes, everyone deserves to live decently, but this isn't something that should be covered by the state since it would imply that everyone has a duty in accordance with a social contract. Social contracts are agreed upon from interests, not obligations, so it wouldn't make sense to agree to a social contract where someone else is burdening you with an obligation you didn't have to fulfill beforehand and are not being satisfactorily compensated for, satisfaction as defined by your own beliefs, values, etc.

Furthermore, I am NOT saying that entrepreneurism should be encouraged by the state. Such would imply a bureaucratic corporatist or syndicalist approach towards labor relations which completely dismisses the purpose of entrepreneurism in the first place - that entrepreneurs innovate to support lifestyles which they approve of through intuitive innovation. State planning here would not only demand that entrepreneurs innovate to support lifestyles which they do not approve of, but it would also demand empirical evidence for strong entrepreneurs to innovate while weak entrepreneurs could innovate on the whim of a dream, a discrepancy which would exist in the name of social democratic equality.

*Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth*

The purpose of what I'm saying here is not that the feeble should be beaten or punished, but rather that nobody should be FORCED to care for the feeble. Charity cannot be coerced, and while you're right in saying that tending to the weak is one of the ultimate tests for civility, the default consequence of neglect must always be on the table. If a safety net is put in place, then goodwill will never be exhibited because the goodwilling will always be able to count on that safety net to pick up the slack.

Michael

May 18th 2009, 12:05 PM

What neoliberalism and classical liberalism want to foster are free markets. Democracy is a secondary convenience that happens to work out because of how it decentralizes power and prevents political monopolies from sabotaging economic progress. However, if an alternative form of government (say an anarcho-capitalist night watchman state) was available instead, neoliberalism and classical liberalism wouldn't mind switching to it instead. Actually, they might prefer the alternative if it reduces the potential for ochlocratic and progressive social democracy which infringes upon negative rights and privatization (such as a night watchman state could).
I disagree about the "goal" of free markets being the same for both.

For neoliberalism, free markets appears to be a goal in itself. Neoliberals seem to assert that liberty for capital is the ultimate goal and that liberty for individuals usually follows from this.

For classical liberalism, free markets are only desirable as a means to an end. Free markets are good in so far as they advance human liberty, but are not good if they constrain human liberty.

The reverse appears to be true for democracy. Neoliberals seem to like democracy only in so far as it advances liberty for capital. When democracy doesn't give liberty to capital, neoliberals tend to see the democratic process as problematic.

Classical liberals on the other hand hold democracy as an end in itself as the goal of liberty.

This is probably the reason that neoliberals believe that democracy can be imposed by force - since it is only just a tool to a greater end. Classical liberals are always skeptical about the imposition of democracy because they understand it to be functional only when it is an aspiration and aspirations cannot be imposed (by force or otherwise).

Aspirations can only be encouraged or fostered, never commanded.

The justification for violence arrives in the security dilemma against the unknown. In a world where nobody intends to conquer thy neighbor because of a transcendental appreciation for humanity, violence is indeed obsolete, but the world is neither mature nor balanced enough to wield such an appreciation. Self-preservation is necessary to experience the future world, and self-improvement is necessary to experience the future world optimally. Even if the world was filled with loyalists to justice and the social contract (such as Socrates who willingly drank hemlock to honor the rule of law within Athens), those loyalists could only resist defiance and fulfill martyrdom if they honestly believed that they had experienced the best of what the institutions they served had to offer.

A defense of the theoretical assertion of the usefulness of violence does not in any way justify any given usage of violence.

And the classical liberal argument against the use of violence is not a pacifist one (opposing violence on principle) but a pragmatic one (opposing violence as non-efficient or non-effective).

Btw, Socrates had to drink the hemlock in order to stand by the principles of his philosophy which was his ultimate life expression. For Socrates to take the easy way out and escape (which was available), that would demean or devalue everything Socrates ever said or did. In other words, Socrates had to drink the hemlock to support his own principles, not to abide by the orders of the state.

The state in fact was complicit in making the escape option available. Socrates only had to walk out the door and move out of Athens permanently to avoid any punishment at all. Socrates chose not. That choice is integral to understanding the full meaning of the situation.

Sidenote: Plato, Rousseau, Marx and Nietzsche are the political theorists that I claim the most familiarity with from long study (from both an academic and non-academic approach).

Oddly enough, I'm not an authoritarian at all - given that these are the favored theorists of most authoritarians!!! :D

If the loyalists remain loyal, then it implies that they acknowledge hypocrisy in their own life strategies and believe that society will be better off without them in the future. However, if the loyalists believe that they themselves are rational, then they should also believe that they are innocent.* Therefore, society should be perceived as hypocritical, and the institutions the loyalists served should be perceived as traitorous which means that the loyalists still have work to do in the way of purifying corruption.

*Innocence is possible even if the loyalists support a law which is being crossed. Laws are created for reasons, and if enforcement of a law conflicts with why a law was formed in the first place, then the loyalists should campaign for pardons as a way of refining the government and society they live within. In the case that pardons are not possible, the loyalists should resist the state up to the point where it becomes absurd to continue (according to personal subjective evaluation which might or might not coincide with an objective benchmark such as Nash Equilibrium).

Fostering duplicity as the grounding for a moral system is highly questionable and a notorious strategem associated with authoritarian rule. Plato's 'myth of the metals' is the penultimate example of this concept.

Btw, I'd consider fanatical loyalism to be irrational behavior and thus your example doesn't actually provide a rational justification for an aggressive approach to the usage of violence or as a 'default option'. Your example requires the unnaturally imposed conditions of duplicity of purpose and a rationally held 'irrationality' in order to provide the desired conclusion.

Thus I reject this 'loyalists' example as entirely unrealistic.

As for moral endurance, some statesman bear more philosophical expertise or moral character or even sadistic hedonism than others. Others do not. Those who do can pursue a larger slice of the world's power more confidently while those who don't must remain content with their own corners of the world in order to optimally allocate their resources and exist within their environments. The more you can control via hard power (or influence via soft power), the less dangers you have to worry about in the future for your security, but if you can't afford to control (or influence) the world, then you should prepare yourself to await the impending threat whenever it might arrive. If nothing else, defenders have to prepare for other aggressors who are attempting to hoard as much of the world's finite natural resources for their own consumption, and defenders should preempt such hoarding by engaging in hoarding themselves. There are alternatives such as technological and cultural refinement, but preemptive hoarding is the bear minimum counter preemptive measure.
1. This is predicated upon a 'zero-sum' calculation of power. I don't think that's realistic since it is 'relative' differences in power that humans react to, not absolute ones.

2. Ultimately, hoarding is not a rational long term strategy as it only encourages the others to develop alternatives that will tend in the long term to make your hoard worthless (and thus, all the effort put into hoarding it turn into wasted effort). Hoarding is only rational if it is a 'short term' strategy. The longer the game goes on, the less rational it is for the 'hoarder'.

Just to note, I'm not a big fan of privatized advertising. That and legal counsel are the two services which I most strongly feel should be absolutely monopolized by the State. The government is supposed to act as a mediating bridge between firms and households which streamlines decision making, so if anyone's going to distribute information about product performance, it should be the State functioning as a neutral third party, not producers, distributors, or retailers who are just trying to con consumers and waste public resources in the process of brand name competition.
This is rather surprising.

Why should the state bother to serve as pimp for private enterprise? Seriously? Doesn't the state have better things to do? And wouldn't this just produce the same state of affairs as the present where private corporations are increasingly finding it more profitable to invest in 'politics' than in new products?

As for legal counsel, that makes more sense, I have no substantial disagreement there as long as it was not a mandatory state monopoly.

Anyway, I think you've misinterpreted what I'm saying regarding autonomous entrepreneurism (although to be honest, I thought you were playing a sarcastic devil's advocate when I first read through what you wrote). Entrepreneurs are not complacent, and everyone has some potential to contribute. However, I don't find it moral to perpetuate stupidity, laziness, foolhardiness, or disability. This isn't to say that those who suffer should be exterminated, but individuals should be left to their own devices to make their own best possible decisions. Yes, everyone deserves to live decently, but this isn't something that should be covered by the state since it would imply that everyone has a duty in accordance with a social contract. Social contracts are agreed upon from interests, not obligations, so it wouldn't make sense to agree to a social contract where someone else is burdening you with an obligation you didn't have to fulfill beforehand and are not being satisfactorily compensated for, satisfaction as defined by your own beliefs, values, etc.
My point about "fostering entrepreneurialism" is that it is only something the state can facilitate 'negatively' by removing barriers and whatnot. It is not something that can be fostered 'positively' without the state becoming a venture capitalist - or an authoritarian moral crusader.

Thus I object vehemently against 'positive' acts to foster entrepreneurialism. Removing barriers against it, I'm all in favor of as that is condusive to human liberty.

Furthermore, I am NOT saying that entrepreneurism should be encouraged by the state. Such would imply a bureaucratic corporatist or syndicalist approach towards labor relations which completely dismisses the purpose of entrepreneurism in the first place - that entrepreneurs innovate to support lifestyles which they approve of through intuitive innovation. State planning here would not only demand that entrepreneurs innovate to support lifestyles which they do not approve of, but it would also demand empirical evidence for strong entrepreneurs to innovate while weak entrepreneurs could innovate on the whim of a dream, a discrepancy which would exist in the name of social democratic equality.

Entrepreneurialism and bureaucratism are mutually exclusive categories of organizational principle.

One doesn't need to create arguments to explain the obvious fact that entrepreneurs and bureaucrats won't function together as an organization. The animosity exists by definition.

*Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth*
The purpose of what I'm saying here is not that the feeble should be beaten or punished, but rather that nobody should be FORCED to care for the feeble. Charity cannot be coerced, and while you're right in saying that tending to the weak is one of the ultimate tests for civility, the default consequence of neglect must always be on the table. If a safety net is put in place, then goodwill will never be exhibited because the goodwilling will always be able to count on that safety net to pick up the slack.

Why can't charity be coerced?

That model seems to work pretty well so far - tax the community as a whole and use the money to provide state charity (social services) to the old, the sick and the poor. That's exactly what we do now (generally speaking).

I admit the model is not perfect, but it sure works better than the old system of nothing more than random-private altruism and/or religious alms.

Daktoria

May 19th 2009, 09:06 PM

I disagree about the "goal" of free markets being the same for both.

For neoliberalism, free markets appears to be a goal in itself. Neoliberals seem to assert that liberty for capital is the ultimate goal and that liberty for individuals usually follows from this.

For classical liberalism, free markets are only desirable as a means to an end. Free markets are good in so far as they advance human liberty, but are not good if they constrain human liberty.

The reverse appears to be true for democracy. Neoliberals seem to like democracy only in so far as it advances liberty for capital. When democracy doesn't give liberty to capital, neoliberals tend to see the democratic process as problematic.

Classical liberals on the other hand hold democracy as an end in itself as the goal of liberty.

This is probably the reason that neoliberals believe that democracy can be imposed by force - since it is only just a tool to a greater end. Classical liberals are always skeptical about the imposition of democracy because they understand it to be functional only when it is an aspiration and aspirations cannot be imposed (by force or otherwise).

Aspirations can only be encouraged or fostered, never commanded.

I've never heard of a description of classical liberalism which did not centralize around negative liberty, property rights, free markets, and individual autonomy, so you'll have to excuse me as to how I don't understand where you're grounding your opinion of it in. I likewise don't see where you're coming up with the opinion that classical liberals believe that democracy is the bottom line for humanity's liberation since classical liberalism opposes convoluted and/or overbearing government that allows third parties to intervene in agreements between voluntary parties. Public goods should be managed by government sponsored enterprises, but these ventures still need to be voluntarily acceded to via social contracts in order to satisfy classical liberalism:

http://www.radicalacademy.com/philclassliberalism.htm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/#ClaLib
http://www.belmont.edu/lockesmith/liberalism_essay/index.html
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/what-is-classical-liberalism
http://www.conservapedia.com/Classical_liberal

What makes "free markets" so special is that they don't really exist at all (anymore than the constraints which they are opposed to when "free markets" are in place); that is to say that a political passivist in a classical liberal world wouldn't even recognize the existence of free markets because he would take the opportunity to exchange products among independent actors for granted. If an obstacle did come to rise, he would only recognize the existence of "free markets" as a semantic (similarly to how nihilists only recognize "nothingness" as a semantic).

Also, neoliberalism is to free markets as neoconservatism is to democracy. Neoliberals do NOT feel that DEMOCRACY can be IMPOSED, but that FREE MARKETS PURIFY corruption by REVEALING potential opportunities to non-bureaucrats. It's possible that such revelation results in democracy, but it's also possible that individual entrepreneurs vie to escape populist conformity and demand individual autonomy instead through the rule of law instead of the rule of men (a republican rather than a democratic virtue). In politics, this is often viewed as naive because host country (domestic) advocates of neoliberalism want to get out from under the thumb of a society viewed as tyrannical (whether it's through careless tyranny of the masses or oligarchical brainwashing) while home country (foreign) advocates want to make said society more transparent (whether it's for selfless reform or self-interested market interests). As such, entrepreneurs are only paid respect to in hindsight when popular consent finally overcomes its stupidity (yes, stupidity, not ignorance) through recognition of marginal exploitation (such as mass starvation, epidemics, conscription, abuse, etc.).

Related to the nature of independent entrepreneurs, consider the opening passage of Ch. 16 from Machiavelli's The Prince:COMMENCING then with the first of the above-named characteristics, I say that it would be well to be reputed liberal. Nevertheless, liberality exercised in a way that does not bring you the reputation for it, injures you; for if one exercises it honestly and as it should be exercised, it may not become known, and you will not avoid the reproach of its opposite. Therefore, any one wishing to maintain among men the name of liberal is obliged to avoid no attribute of magnificence; so that a prince thus inclined will consume in such acts all his property, and will be compelled in the end, if he wish to maintain the name of liberal, to unduly weigh down his people, and tax them, and do everything he can to get money. This will soon make him odious to his subjects, and becoming poor he will be little valued by any one; thus, with his liberality, having offended many and rewarded few, he is affected by the very first trouble and imperilled by whatever may be the first danger; recognizing this himself, and wishing to draw back from it, he runs at once into the reproach of being miserly.
Related to the nature of bureaucracies appeasing their subjects, consider the opening passage of Ch. 17:COMING now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed. Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only.
The first passage refers to liberalism as a lifestyle more than as a philosophy, but it would be useless to support liberty that is never allowed, encouraged, or practiced. Such would obligate a constituency to defend romantic ideals that a rivaling nation could actually practice and exploit to develop strengths which could be used to conquer and suppress the liberal romantics. If no such strengths could be derived, then it would be absurd to consider such "liberties" as deserving defense. Remembering that entrepreneurs innovate because they want to contribute to lifestyles that they approve of (either directly through the innovations themselves or indirectly through compensation, for either personal or commutative use), it would be absurd for an entrepreneur to defend civil liberties which are only going to impede his contribution due to exploitation by domestic political and social rivals. Likewise, it would be absurd for rivals to support economic liberties which allow entrepreneurs to contribute to lifestyles which will detract from those rivals' societal comparative advantage (even if absolute advantage is enhanced).

The second passage refers to fear and love as reputations by which bureaucrats can appease constituents while preventing entrepreneurs from engaging in societal upheaval or cultural revolution. Ultimately, Machiavelli concludes by advising that, "Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted." As such, it doesn't matter if he employs cruelty or clemency to secure his rule, as long as he isn't embarrassed by those who are granted too much mercy or shamed by those who are granted too little. Part of this includes not supporting the villains society envies, so if bureaucrats condone too much entrepreneurship, inequality will result in popular dissent.

Fostering duplicity as the grounding for a moral system is highly questionable and a notorious strategem associated with authoritarian rule. Plato's 'myth of the metals' is the penultimate example of this concept.

Btw, I'd consider fanatical loyalism to be irrational behavior and thus your example doesn't actually provide a rational justification for an aggressive approach to the usage of violence or as a 'default option'. Your example requires the unnaturally imposed conditions of duplicity of purpose and a rationally held 'irrationality' in order to provide the desired conclusion.

Thus I reject this 'loyalists' example as entirely unrealistic.The loyalists in the example are citizen-entrepreneurs, not hierarchial bureaucrats. Regardless, fanaticism is just the expectation that the social contract loyalists agree to will be fully and totally enforced all the time. Otherwise, social contracts should never be agreed upon at all or they should be treated as dynamic manipulative tools that are used to exploit the weak and oblivious. If social contracts are trustworthy apparatuses, then the enlightened despotic/aristocratic noble lie is a defense mechanism against immature adherents to social contracts who expect more than what is supplied and contribute less than what is demanded. If social contracts are manipulative tools on the other hand, then the noble lie is a national narrative that contributes to national integrity by further implicitly complicating society's identity. Different individuals bear different ulterior motives when agreeing to social contracts, and the garnishment of national pride unifies these ulterior motives by providing logically fallacious reductio ad absurdum incentives for civil participation.

Considering that you're a fan of Grant and Nietzsche (despite being an opponent of Strauss), I feel that pages 21-24 of Gregory Butler's essay, Leo Strauss, George Grant, and Historicism (http://www.mmisi.org/ir/31_01/butler.pdf) represent an accurate description of what I'm describing (but the excerpt is far too long to be feasibly presented here).

1. This is predicated upon a 'zero-sum' calculation of power. I don't think that's realistic since it is 'relative' differences in power that humans react to, not absolute ones.Humans have certain fundamental requirements for sustenance which require respect for certain absolute natural conditions if we are going to continue to exist within and experience reality. Even over the long-run, civilization needs to sophisticate in order to take advantage of economies of scale and specialization of labor in order to optimally allocate resources. As such, absolute benchmarks do come into play in defining the limits of comparative advantage. Furthermore, a cooperative society (or a sole individual) that is motivated primarily by the resolve provided from information's discovery instead of the power provided from the environment's control has no reason to care about comparative advantage at all. To take a neorealist perspective here, interaction with other groups, organizations, and societies wouldn't be focused on rational decision models where dominance is the objective. Instead, other groups, organizations, and societies would be treated as natural resources that have to be interacted with efficiently in order to derive the desired result.

2. Ultimately, hoarding is not a rational long term strategy as it only encourages the others to develop alternatives that will tend in the long term to make your hoard worthless (and thus, all the effort put into hoarding it turn into wasted effort). Hoarding is only rational if it is a 'short term' strategy. The longer the game goes on, the less rational it is for the 'hoarder'.You're absolutely right. The problem is that resources and personnel are not globally distributed equally (if you've ever played Civilization, you know exactly what I'm talking about here). While it's possible that society A and society B might be shortchanging themselves by engaging in a perpetual security dilemma (that sidetracks them from engaging in technological and cultural pursuits and defending themselves from third parties), neither A nor B is aware of what third party relationships exist. Furthermore, peaceful solidarity would only be possible through mutual gambling since unilateral gambling would result in the counterparty having an inherent resource advantage over the initiator (since peacemaking resources would be wasted and set the initiator behind in the security race).

In line with what you said about relative power before, the only way A and B could rationally unify is if one, they mutually identified an external threat that could only be opposed successfully in union, and two, they showed each other that they were their own best managers of the resources they controlled. If the first condition isn't satisfied, then A and B should continue competing since neither has other threat to worry about. If the second condition isn't satisfied, then the unsatisfied party would believe that the counterparty was an inefficient wielder of resources and would prefer conquest of the counterparty instead of unification (such as Quebec's adherence to Canadian Confederation instead of independence or unification with the United States, unification modeled after false perceptions about Louisiana).

This is rather surprising.

Why should the state bother to serve as pimp for private enterprise? Seriously? Doesn't the state have better things to do? And wouldn't this just produce the same state of affairs as the present where private corporations are increasingly finding it more profitable to invest in 'politics' than in new products?

As for legal counsel, that makes more sense, I have no substantial disagreement there as long as it was not a mandatory state monopoly.The state would function as a consumer advocacy organization/customs union that neutrally evaluated products in order to accurately inform consumers, not a political machine that favored corrupt business interests. Such would reinforce the public's interest in responsible governance and fulfill the contingency for the degree of civil participation required to establish effective public outcry for informal (and possibly even formal) referendums of no confidence.

Why can't charity be coerced?

That model seems to work pretty well so far - tax the community as a whole and use the money to provide state charity (social services) to the old, the sick and the poor. That's exactly what we do now (generally speaking).

I admit the model is not perfect, but it sure works better than the old system of nothing more than random-private altruism and/or religious alms.Public goods are a different story since the employment of a natural monopoly through a government state enterprise isn't charity, it's work. Regardless, (remembering that entrepreneurs innovate because they care about certain lifestyles) you already answered your own question:

Aspirations can only be encouraged or fostered, never commanded.

My point about "fostering entrepreneurialism" is that it is only something the state can facilitate 'negatively' by removing barriers and whatnot. It is not something that can be fostered 'positively' without the state becoming a venture capitalist - or an authoritarian moral crusader.

Thus I object vehemently against 'positive' acts to foster entrepreneurialism. Removing barriers against it, I'm all in favor of as that is condusive to human liberty.
Even so, the answer is in the definition of goodwill - intentions and effort exerted willingly for making the world a better place without expectation of compensation. Coercion, therefore, is just like torture. The subject responds not out of honesty, but out of fear and he will do whatever you demand of him. The exception, of course, is in the way resistance, resistance which takes place in two phases. In the beginning of coercion (or torture), the resister resists because he feels that he can outlast the coercer (or torturer) given his stockpiled endurance. In the end, the resister resists because he feels that death is better than slavery and that martyrdom is more worthwhile than subordination. Only during the middle can willing cooperation be extracted, and even then it will not be at 100% performance because the subject will be traumatized, demoralized, and exhausted from his experiences. In order to perform, he must adjust his mindset to deal with the circumstances at hand, but if his beliefs prior of coercion were honest, they will be resurrected as a result of pure character. However, if the subject was dishonest, then the end phase of resistance might never occur because the subject will honestly expose himself to brainwashing and bear the flag of his new culture and ideology.

Michael

May 20th 2009, 09:17 PM

I've never heard of a description of classical liberalism which did not centralize around negative liberty, property rights, free markets, and individual autonomy, so you'll have to excuse me as to how I don't understand where you're grounding your opinion of it in. I likewise don't see where you're coming up with the opinion that classical liberals believe that democracy is the bottom line for humanity's liberation since classical liberalism opposes convoluted and/or overbearing government that allows third parties to intervene in agreements between voluntary parties. Public goods should be managed by government sponsored enterprises, but these ventures still need to be voluntarily acceded to via social contracts in order to satisfy classical liberalism:

http://www.radicalacademy.com/philclassliberalism.htm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/#ClaLib
http://www.belmont.edu/lockesmith/liberalism_essay/index.html
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/what-is-classical-liberalism
http://www.conservapedia.com/Classical_liberal

The dot-edu links are usually the best references in my opinion. ;)

Stanford's are particularly good. :)

And yes, I have to admit that democracy is not a core principle of classical liberalism (as much as it breaks my heart). I've always know that of course, just sometimes my rhetoric gets ahead of my argument. ;)

Allow me to rephrase my statement - I personally assert that democracy is the best system for classical liberal principles and vice versa - that classical liberalism is the best approach to the various potential problems of democracy. ;)

What makes "free markets" so special is that they don't really exist at all (anymore than the constraints which they are opposed to when "free markets" are in place); that is to say that a political passivist in a classical liberal world wouldn't even recognize the existence of free markets because he would take the opportunity to exchange products among independent actors for granted. If an obstacle did come to rise, he would only recognize the existence of "free markets" as a semantic (similarly to how nihilists only recognize "nothingness" as a semantic).
Agreed.

Also, neoliberalism is to free markets as neoconservatism is to democracy. Neoliberals do NOT feel that DEMOCRACY can be IMPOSED, but that FREE MARKETS PURIFY corruption by REVEALING potential opportunities to non-bureaucrats. It's possible that such revelation results in democracy, but it's also possible that individual entrepreneurs vie to escape populist conformity and demand individual autonomy instead through the rule of law instead of the rule of men (a republican rather than a democratic virtue). In politics, this is often viewed as naive because host country (domestic) advocates of neoliberalism want to get out from under the thumb of a society viewed as tyrannical (whether it's through careless tyranny of the masses or oligarchical brainwashing) while home country (foreign) advocates want to make said society more transparent (whether it's for selfless reform or self-interested market interests). As such, entrepreneurs are only paid respect to in hindsight when popular consent finally overcomes its stupidity (yes, stupidity, not ignorance) through recognition of marginal exploitation (such as mass starvation, epidemics, conscription, abuse, etc.).
Now we have a taxonomy problem again. Neoliberalism co-relates to neo-conservativism in political reality.

It is always difficult to use these terms with the 'pop-political' applications conflicting with the 'strict-academic' definitions of the same terms.

And I just don't see how the idea that free markets tend to 'purify' corruption is somehow a 'neoliberal' concept. Sure 'neoliberals' use the argument, but the argument is pure 'classical liberalism' to begin with. It is not a point of distinction other than perhaps emphasis.

With regard to entrepreneurs, I'm just not that enamored of the conservative cause to agree with your point. I agree with the general reasoning of your argument, but I disagree about the values placed on the outcomes.

For me, economics is just a means to an end, not the end itself. The end is liberty, economic theory is only a tool.

Related to the nature of independent entrepreneurs, consider the opening passage of Ch. 16 from Machiavelli's The Prince:COMMENCING then with the first of the above-named characteristics, I say that it would be well to be reputed liberal. Nevertheless, liberality exercised in a way that does not bring you the reputation for it, injures you; for if one exercises it honestly and as it should be exercised, it may not become known, and you will not avoid the reproach of its opposite. Therefore, any one wishing to maintain among men the name of liberal is obliged to avoid no attribute of magnificence; so that a prince thus inclined will consume in such acts all his property, and will be compelled in the end, if he wish to maintain the name of liberal, to unduly weigh down his people, and tax them, and do everything he can to get money. This will soon make him odious to his subjects, and becoming poor he will be little valued by any one; thus, with his liberality, having offended many and rewarded few, he is affected by the very first trouble and imperilled by whatever may be the first danger; recognizing this himself, and wishing to draw back from it, he runs at once into the reproach of being miserly.
Related to the nature of bureaucracies appeasing their subjects, consider the opening passage of Ch. 17:COMING now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed. Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only.

With Machiavelli and modernity, one has to take care to realize that Machiavelli's advice is to a tyrant, not a democrat.

Secondly, I'd add that Machiavelli more often than not advised that one ought to appear cruel, not necessarily that one ought to be cruel. Likewise with liberalism - one ought to appear liberal, not necessarily be liberal.

The first passage refers to liberalism as a lifestyle more than as a philosophy, but it would be useless to support liberty that is never allowed, encouraged, or practiced. Such would obligate a constituency to defend romantic ideals that a rivaling nation could actually practice and exploit to develop strengths which could be used to conquer and suppress the liberal romantics. If no such strengths could be derived, then it would be absurd to consider such "liberties" as deserving defense. Remembering that entrepreneurs innovate because they want to contribute to lifestyles that they approve of (either directly through the innovations themselves or indirectly through compensation, for either personal or commutative use), it would be absurd for an entrepreneur to defend civil liberties which are only going to impede his contribution due to exploitation by domestic political and social rivals. Likewise, it would be absurd for rivals to support economic liberties which allow entrepreneurs to contribute to lifestyles which will detract from those rivals' societal comparative advantage (even if absolute advantage is enhanced).
Bolding is mine.

I disagree about your characterization of motive for entrepreneurs as primarily driven by morality or gain. I think that is simplistic (or idealistic) as it omits a wide variety of other alternative or likely motives.

I'd suggest that a 'will to innovate' itself may certainly drive some entrepeneurs entirely who themselves might be entirely ignorant of all that they are 'rebelling' against. One must also recognize the 'will to rebel' as a similar driving motive of entrepreneurialism (of both kinds).

And lastly, I'd like to take note that Machiavelli's usage of the term of entrepeneur is somewhat different than our modern usage of the term, since it is focused upon the idea of a 'social entrepreneur' (which behavior was often constrained in his day), not specifically a 'economic' one.

The second passage refers to fear and love as reputations by which bureaucrats can appease constituents while preventing entrepreneurs from engaging in societal upheaval or cultural revolution. Ultimately, Machiavelli concludes by advising that, "Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted." As such, it doesn't matter if he employs cruelty or clemency to secure his rule, as long as he isn't embarrassed by those who are granted too much mercy or shamed by those who are granted too little. Part of this includes not supporting the villains society envies, so if bureaucrats condone too much entrepreneurship, inequality will result in popular dissent.
As noted above, Machiavelli speaks of 'entrepreneurs' in a socio-political sense who are innovators of new behavior, new actions, new rules, not necessarily about economic innovators of new gadgets, commodities and services. This complicates the issue for me.

I must ask which type of 'entrepeneur' are you referencing in your argument (social or economic)? Or do you claim them one and the same?

The loyalists in the example are citizen-entrepreneurs, not hierarchial bureaucrats. Regardless, fanaticism is just the expectation that the social contract loyalists agree to will be fully and totally enforced all the time. Otherwise, social contracts should never be agreed upon at all or they should be treated as dynamic manipulative tools that are used to exploit the weak and oblivious. If social contracts are trustworthy apparatuses, then the enlightened despotic/aristocratic noble lie is a defense mechanism against immature adherents to social contracts who expect more than what is supplied and contribute less than what is demanded. If social contracts are manipulative tools on the other hand, then the noble lie is a national narrative that contributes to national integrity by further implicitly complicating society's identity. Different individuals bear different ulterior motives when agreeing to social contracts, and the garnishment of national pride unifies these ulterior motives by providing logically fallacious reductio ad absurdum incentives for civil participation.
Well, I generally agree with your reasoning here, however...

I don't claim to know what the 'social contract' is (or which version is correct), but I do know that there is no such thing in the real world. It is just manufactured artifice or a theoretical conjecture. I'm not much of a fan of it being used as anything other than as a casual 'euphemism'. :D

Interestingly enough, we are now hitting the area of my core interest in this topic. My rejection of 'social contract theory' is integral to understanding my primary theoretical interest in political philosophy.

Which of course, appropriately enough, brings us to Nietzsche... :)

Considering that you're a fan of Grant and Nietzsche (despite being an opponent of Strauss), I feel that pages 21-24 of Gregory Butler's essay, Leo Strauss, George Grant, and Historicism (http://www.mmisi.org/ir/31_01/butler.pdf) represent an accurate description of what I'm describing (but the excerpt is far too long to be feasibly presented here).
I had the honor of being taught by a student of Grant - my favorite professor in fact. I'm also a big fan of Charles Taylor as well - who's name must be included with Grant as one of the greatest of Canadian thinkers.

Indeed, I'm a huge fan of Grant and Nietzsche and an opponent of Strauss. That's exactly it. You've nailed my political philosophy viewpoint better than any person ever has - heck, that's a better explanation of where I'm at than any I've ever been able to construct! :eek:

And that should make life a bit easier for you to figure out my perspective here (at a deeper level than just talking about liberalism) and why I get confused about definitions when the questions get serious - I'm used to working with multiple definitions of complex words - I'm not used to discussions with OTHER people who can do the same thing!

As for Strauss, we definitely need a thread for that - especially now that we've identified a clear line of distinction in our politics. It is always important to understand where the other is coming from.

I definitely do go further than Grant and fully reject the idea of 'natural right' as non-functional. I also reject Grant's suggestion of 'going back' as inherently impossible (pandora's box can't be closed).

Btw, Dostoyevsky makes almost the same argument of 'going back' and takes a religious conclusion - another alternative for the anti-moderns.

And no matter how much I admire the classical Greeks, and dearly would love to 'go back', I admit that we are modern and we can't go back. Time is a one-way proposition for us humans.

Humans have certain fundamental requirements for sustenance which require respect for certain absolute natural conditions if we are going to continue to exist within and experience reality. Even over the long-run, civilization needs to sophisticate in order to take advantage of economies of scale and specialization of labor in order to optimally allocate resources. As such, absolute benchmarks do come into play in defining the limits of comparative advantage. Furthermore, a cooperative society (or a sole individual) that is motivated primarily by the resolve provided from information's discovery instead of the power provided from the environment's control has no reason to care about comparative advantage at all. To take a neorealist perspective here, interaction with other groups, organizations, and societies wouldn't be focused on rational decision models where dominance is the objective. Instead, other groups, organizations, and societies would be treated as natural resources that have to be interacted with efficiently in order to derive the desired result.
That's a damn good argument for the importance or utility of 'absolute' terms of reference.

That of course doesn't actually prove that such limits exist, only that they are useful conceptions to have.

As for the second half, I'll disagree about the 'singularity' of motive asserted and the corresponding 'singularity' of outcome. I take a much baser view of human motives (sex, food, beer & fame/shame) being the drivers of behavior rather than singular assertions of some other purpose, such as knowledge or altruism. I suppose that's just my own personal bias of analysis.

Note: I'll reply to the latter half of your post later on. I've run out of time right now. :)

Michael

May 30th 2009, 10:03 AM

Continued...

Humans have certain fundamental requirements for sustenance which require respect for certain absolute natural conditions if we are going to continue to exist within and experience reality. Even over the long-run, civilization needs to sophisticate in order to take advantage of economies of scale and specialization of labor in order to optimally allocate resources. As such, absolute benchmarks do come into play in defining the limits of comparative advantage. Furthermore, a cooperative society (or a sole individual) that is motivated primarily by the resolve provided from information's discovery instead of the power provided from the environment's control has no reason to care about comparative advantage at all. To take a neorealist perspective here, interaction with other groups, organizations, and societies wouldn't be focused on rational decision models where dominance is the objective. Instead, other groups, organizations, and societies would be treated as natural resources that have to be interacted with efficiently in order to derive the desired result.
I'll agree that absolute levels of resources and whatnot are ultimately important given that these provide limits and limits are important to deal with.

I disagree with your point about the realist being more interested in 'absolute' measures of power than 'relative' measures. Realism is relativism.

You're absolutely right. The problem is that resources and personnel are not globally distributed equally (if you've ever played Civilization, you know exactly what I'm talking about here). While it's possible that society A and society B might be shortchanging themselves by engaging in a perpetual security dilemma (that sidetracks them from engaging in technological and cultural pursuits and defending themselves from third parties), neither A nor B is aware of what third party relationships exist. Furthermore, peaceful solidarity would only be possible through mutual gambling since unilateral gambling would result in the counterparty having an inherent resource advantage over the initiator (since peacemaking resources would be wasted and set the initiator behind in the security race).
Civ II is my all-time favorite computer game. SimCity3k is my second! :)

I disagree however that "neither A nor B is aware of what third party relationships exist". That is a function of the abstraction, not reality. In reality, state actors tend to intently observe other state actors (and spy on them). And alliances are quite public things.

In line with what you said about relative power before, the only way A and B could rationally unify is if one, they mutually identified an external threat that could only be opposed successfully in union, and two, they showed each other that they were their own best managers of the resources they controlled. If the first condition isn't satisfied, then A and B should continue competing since neither has other threat to worry about. If the second condition isn't satisfied, then the unsatisfied party would believe that the counterparty was an inefficient wielder of resources and would prefer conquest of the counterparty instead of unification (such as Quebec's adherence to Canadian Confederation instead of independence or unification with the United States, unification modeled after false perceptions about Louisiana).
The confederation of Canada falls under 'the first condition' since the initiative orginates in London. The 'second condition' has never been fulfilled and is indeed at the heart of Quebec dissatisfaction.

However, Quebec's "choice" to adhere to Canadian confederation or independence or unification with US is a moot point because Quebec never had these options available on the table. French Canada was ultimately conquered in 1759 by the British and made a part of the British North American territories. From that point onwards, scarlet tunic soldiers have garrisoned the citadel at Quebec city. Quebec is not sovereign. Quebec seccession could (theoretically) result in a Canadian civil war no different than the US Southern seccession in 1861.

The state would function as a consumer advocacy organization/customs union that neutrally evaluated products in order to accurately inform consumers, not a political machine that favored corrupt business interests. Such would reinforce the public's interest in responsible governance and fulfill the contingency for the degree of civil participation required to establish effective public outcry for informal (and possibly even formal) referendums of no confidence.
Your faith in the neutrality, rationality and altruism of a political process can only be described as irrational.

Any political system is going to be subject to the trepidations of interested parties to some degree. The bigger the private stakes, the bigger the private interest in the art of government. Your suggestion creates MASSIVE private stakes in the art of government - ergo, it will be massively and aggressively influenced by private interests. Indeed, the present US political system shows signs of this already - even without the allegedly neutral consumer products information board having a monopoly on commercial advertising.

I might also add that concentrating a monopoly on propaganda in the government's hands is extremely dangerous policy.

Public goods are a different story since the employment of a natural monopoly through a government state enterprise isn't charity, it's work. Regardless, (remembering that entrepreneurs innovate because they care about certain lifestyles) you already answered your own question:

Even so, the answer is in the definition of goodwill - intentions and effort exerted willingly for making the world a better place without expectation of compensation. Coercion, therefore, is just like torture. The subject responds not out of honesty, but out of fear and he will do whatever you demand of him. The exception, of course, is in the way resistance, resistance which takes place in two phases. In the beginning of coercion (or torture), the resister resists because he feels that he can outlast the coercer (or torturer) given his stockpiled endurance. In the end, the resister resists because he feels that death is better than slavery and that martyrdom is more worthwhile than subordination. Only during the middle can willing cooperation be extracted, and even then it will not be at 100% performance because the subject will be traumatized, demoralized, and exhausted from his experiences. In order to perform, he must adjust his mindset to deal with the circumstances at hand, but if his beliefs prior of coercion were honest, they will be resurrected as a result of pure character. However, if the subject was dishonest, then the end phase of resistance might never occur because the subject will honestly expose himself to brainwashing and bear the flag of his new culture and ideology.

The issue here is the state provision of social services by imposition of a general tax. Your reply here seems be entirely predicated upon the imposition of violence (tax collecting) on the citizen, being equated with a degree of torture.

I don't consider taxation to be theft per se. That argument is as arbitrary as the argument that it isn't.

My point about raising the issue is to observe that IF taxation is considered acceptable for some purposes, then it is quite rational and logical for it to be used for the purpose of providing general social services - this is predicated upon the utility of those who need the services.

If you are more concerned about the 'coercion' of taxation than the provision of general 'charity-services' to those in need, that's fine, but don't tell me that's it is for the moral good of those who need/lack the services when your argument clearly ignores their need entirely and only addresses 'your' willingness to pay for it.

Daktoria

Jun 3rd 2009, 05:50 PM

Same thing as the torture thread, I'm gunna cut the fat down here to make the discussion manageable.

Now we have a taxonomy problem again. Neoliberalism co-relates to neo-conservativism in political reality.

It is always difficult to use these terms with the 'pop-political' applications conflicting with the 'strict-academic' definitions of the same terms.

And I just don't see how the idea that free markets tend to 'purify' corruption is somehow a 'neoliberal' concept. Sure 'neoliberals' use the argument, but the argument is pure 'classical liberalism' to begin with. It is not a point of distinction other than perhaps emphasis.

This is becoming a matter of semantics, so I'm just gunna leave it be.

With regard to entrepreneurs, I'm just not that enamored of the conservative cause to agree with your point. I agree with the general reasoning of your argument, but I disagree about the values placed on the outcomes.

For me, economics is just a means to an end, not the end itself. The end is liberty, economic theory is only a tool.

I agree with what you're saying about economics not being an end unto itself, but if the ends don't justify the means, then it wouldn't be justified to elevate the poor by robbing the rich.

The ultimate point for me here is that fair trade detracts from the meaning of entrepreneurship ("entrepreneurism" sounds funny, heh) since entrepreneurs don't want to be enslaved to the masses or to the government. We want to be free to innovate for our own purposes, and if the government steals from us just to maximize the welfare of the people, we'd be better off not wasting our energy to innovate at all.

Regarding corporate oppression, I always found that argument to be nonsense since consumer sovereignty and collective bargaining give the people enough power due to how consumers and workers have to make the first move for financiers to earn money. Ergo, if a culture concedes to cosmopolitan, compulsive, complacent consumption via groupthink, political correctness, information overload, etc., it just sucks to be them.

With Machiavelli and modernity, one has to take care to realize that Machiavelli's advice is to a tyrant, not a democrat.

Secondly, I'd add that Machiavelli more often than not advised that one ought to appear cruel, not necessarily that one ought to be cruel. Likewise with liberalism - one ought to appear liberal, not necessarily be liberal.Forgetting how mob justice is still a form of tyranny, the point is to show how entrepreneurs need to negotiate with tyrants in order to avoid becoming enslaved by the masses without unleashing violence upon them.

As for keeping up appearances, that's exactly what the noble lie is all about, and the noble lie's sole purpose is to procure power, not justice, regardless of if it's used to make the people love or fear rulers.

Bolding is mine.

I disagree about your characterization of motive for entrepreneurs as primarily driven by morality or gain. I think that is simplistic (or idealistic) as it omits a wide variety of other alternative or likely motives.

I'd suggest that a 'will to innovate' itself may certainly drive some entrepeneurs entirely who themselves might be entirely ignorant of all that they are 'rebelling' against. One must also recognize the 'will to rebel' as a similar driving motive of entrepreneurialism (of both kinds).

And lastly, I'd like to take note that Machiavelli's usage of the term of entrepeneur is somewhat different than our modern usage of the term, since it is focused upon the idea of a 'social entrepreneur' (which behavior was often constrained in his day), not specifically a 'economic' one....

...As noted above, Machiavelli speaks of 'entrepreneurs' in a socio-political sense who are innovators of new behavior, new actions, new rules, not necessarily about economic innovators of new gadgets, commodities and services. This complicates the issue for me.

I must ask which type of 'entrepeneur' are you referencing in your argument (social or economic)? Or do you claim them one and the same?How I respond here depends on how far you're willing to define morality.

If we define morality as only a set of principles, I would claim that even the most hedonic and malevolent entrepreneurs still consider morality important albeit an "evil" form of morality.

If we define morality as a set of justified principles, I would claim that entrepreneurially approvable "lifestyles" are not limited to moral intentions even if the most successful entrepreneurs are those who behave justifiably.

As far as entrepreneur's definition goes, it doesn't seem to me that there isn't a real distinction between the social and economic varieties beyond the entrepreneur's own perspective on the world. Social entrepreneurs innovate to impact culture whereas economic entrepreneurs innovate to garnish wealth, but both sets of entrepreneurs innovate to pursue approvable lifestyles via the exertion of humanity.

However, my position does focus on the economic variety and the preservation of their motive to innovate without using information overload or political correctness to deceive them into submission.

Well, I generally agree with your reasoning here, however...

I don't claim to know what the 'social contract' is (or which version is correct), but I do know that there is no such thing in the real world. It is just manufactured artifice or a theoretical conjecture. I'm not much of a fan of it being used as anything other than as a casual 'euphemism'. :D

Interestingly enough, we are now hitting the area of my core interest in this topic. My rejection of 'social contract theory' is integral to understanding my primary theoretical interest in political philosophy.

Which of course, appropriately enough, brings us to Nietzsche... :)This is a pet peeve of mine since every example of a common law jurisdiction where citizens are able to move to and fro freely represents a social contract. Law in such cases is guided via the culture of inhabitants which define concepts such as reasonability, conscionability, and merchantability ESPECIALLY when positive rights are in consideration, guidance which is a prime example of citizens recognizing a politicized obligation to the rest of society.

I had the honor of being taught by a student of Grant - my favorite professor in fact. I'm also a big fan of Charles Taylor as well - who's name must be included with Grant as one of the greatest of Canadian thinkers.

Indeed, I'm a huge fan of Grant and Nietzsche and an opponent of Strauss. That's exactly it. You've nailed my political philosophy viewpoint better than any person ever has - heck, that's a better explanation of where I'm at than any I've ever been able to construct! :eek:

And that should make life a bit easier for you to figure out my perspective here (at a deeper level than just talking about liberalism) and why I get confused about definitions when the questions get serious - I'm used to working with multiple definitions of complex words - I'm not used to discussions with OTHER people who can do the same thing!

As for Strauss, we definitely need a thread for that - especially now that we've identified a clear line of distinction in our politics. It is always important to understand where the other is coming from.

I definitely do go further than Grant and fully reject the idea of 'natural right' as non-functional. I also reject Grant's suggestion of 'going back' as inherently impossible (pandora's box can't be closed).

Btw, Dostoyevsky makes almost the same argument of 'going back' and takes a religious conclusion - another alternative for the anti-moderns.

And no matter how much I admire the classical Greeks, and dearly would love to 'go back', I admit that we are modern and we can't go back. Time is a one-way proposition for us humans.Alright, I'll engage this in the Strauss thread then.

That's a damn good argument for the importance or utility of 'absolute' terms of reference.

That of course doesn't actually prove that such limits exist, only that they are useful conceptions to have.

As for the second half, I'll disagree about the 'singularity' of motive asserted and the corresponding 'singularity' of outcome. I take a much baser view of human motives (sex, food, beer & fame/shame) being the drivers of behavior rather than singular assertions of some other purpose, such as knowledge or altruism. I suppose that's just my own personal bias of analysis.Bleh, it doesn't make sense to me how you can be critical of the lack of proof for utility limits when you're willing to take a "baser view of human motives" grounded upon materialist desires. Even if the proof doesn't exist, criticism of the lack there of would undermine your own belief that materialist desires are the fundamental influence on human decisions and actions.

I'll agree that absolute levels of resources and whatnot are ultimately important given that these provide limits and limits are important to deal with.

I disagree with your point about the realist being more interested in 'absolute' measures of power than 'relative' measures. Realism is relativism.I've never heard of a realist train of thought in international relations that believes in relativism (although realists do care about relative power parity) since recognizing reality's absolute nature is part of the justification for why power is considered the bottom line for all motivations.

Civ II is my all-time favorite computer game. SimCity3k is my second! :)

I disagree however that "neither A nor B is aware of what third party relationships exist". That is a function of the abstraction, not reality. In reality, state actors tend to intently observe other state actors (and spy on them). And alliances are quite public things.This implies perfect information flow which isn't realistic due to the existence of conspiracies, ulterior motives, and the sheer secretive nature of diplomatic negotiations in statecraft.

The confederation of Canada falls under 'the first condition' since the initiative orginates in London. The 'second condition' has never been fulfilled and is indeed at the heart of Quebec dissatisfaction.

However, Quebec's "choice" to adhere to Canadian confederation or independence or unification with US is a moot point because Quebec never had these options available on the table. French Canada was ultimately conquered in 1759 by the British and made a part of the British North American territories. From that point onwards, scarlet tunic soldiers have garrisoned the citadel at Quebec city. Quebec is not sovereign. Quebec seccession could (theoretically) result in a Canadian civil war no different than the US Southern seccession in 1861.This implies Canadian confederation to be pointless since Quebec (or any of the other colonies) received no benefits from placing themselves below Dominion recognition.

Your faith in the neutrality, rationality and altruism of a political process can only be described as irrational.

Any political system is going to be subject to the trepidations of interested parties to some degree. The bigger the private stakes, the bigger the private interest in the art of government. Your suggestion creates MASSIVE private stakes in the art of government - ergo, it will be massively and aggressively influenced by private interests. Indeed, the present US political system shows signs of this already - even without the allegedly neutral consumer products information board having a monopoly on commercial advertising.

I might also add that concentrating a monopoly on propaganda in the government's hands is extremely dangerous policy. Bleh, I don't really wanna talk about the violation of good and mature entrepreneurs and financiers due to the obligations of the State and how it confuses such with evil entrepreneurs and financiers and immature entrepreneurs and financiers due to an addiction to moral relativism (that's imposed from the rebound of political correctness and information overload upon the masses which demand more and more in order to be sedated, sedation which leads to the resurrection of mob justice through progressive ideals either through social democracy or progressive conservatism).

Another time, I need a break from this (something I've realized on other political forums in the mean time, heh).

The issue here is the state provision of social services by imposition of a general tax. Your reply here seems be entirely predicated upon the imposition of violence (tax collecting) on the citizen, being equated with a degree of torture.

I don't consider taxation to be theft per se. That argument is as arbitrary as the argument that it isn't.Taxation is theft if it goes towards causes that you don't care about, and if an entrepreneur believes that the government is horrible at everything, then every cause is an occurrence of theft. Even police and defense are theft at some level because they wouldn't be necessary if people naturally respected property rights (similarly to how the mob would extort people for "protection"). However, property rights are only necessary for justice's presupposition, justice which only exists artificially in the minds of those who believe cooperation among parties with asymmetrical interests can be beneficial.

Ergo, the "justification" of taxes and the State in general are circular (despite how the "rationalization" of taxes and the State in general are not). States demand taxes in exchange for the propagation of justice, but the violation of justice wouldn't happen if people were respectful of property in the first place. Hence, why should entrepreneurs belong to a State where his neighbors (the people) are not respectful of the premise which motivates entrepreneurs to innovate?

Bleh, this sounds sloppy. I wish I could organize it better, but it's just becoming a pain to communicate right now. I'd cite Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy or Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed, but flipping through notes and rereading what I haven't been tightly familiar with are hassles I don't particularly care to do right now.

My point about raising the issue is to observe that IF taxation is considered acceptable for some purposes, then it is quite rational and logical for it to be used for the purpose of providing general social services - this is predicated upon the utility of those who need the services.

If you are more concerned about the 'coercion' of taxation than the provision of general 'charity-services' to those in need, that's fine, but don't tell me that's it is for the moral good of those who need/lack the services when your argument clearly ignores their need entirely and only addresses 'your' willingness to pay for it.I dunno if we talked about spirituality and charity yet, but I do believe that the disabled and less fortunate should be supported. They just aren't entitled to support via "Robin Hood"-esque coercion of the wealthy, and any entrepreneur who is coerced would be better off retaliating against his coercer and liberating the disabled such that the disabled aren't stuck behind arbitrary bureaucrats who have no reason to be around. If he can't exert sufficient violence, then he's stuck appeasing his coercer, and such appeasement shows how the sheer existence of bureaucrats isn't justified at all.

Michael

Jun 7th 2009, 11:52 AM

I agree with what you're saying about economics not being an end unto itself, but if the ends don't justify the means, then it wouldn't be justified to elevate the poor by robbing the rich.

The ultimate point for me here is that fair trade detracts from the meaning of entrepreneurship ("entrepreneurism" sounds funny, heh) since entrepreneurs don't want to be enslaved to the masses or to the government. We want to be free to innovate for our own purposes, and if the government steals from us just to maximize the welfare of the people, we'd be better off not wasting our energy to innovate at all.

Regarding corporate oppression, I always found that argument to be nonsense since consumer sovereignty and collective bargaining give the people enough power due to how consumers and workers have to make the first move for financiers to earn money. Ergo, if a culture concedes to cosmopolitan, compulsive, complacent consumption via groupthink, political correctness, information overload, etc., it just sucks to be them.

Yes, it is a fine line between 'entrepreneur' and 'criminal'. Society has always had a hard time with that issue. This is similar to the fine line between 'genius' and 'idiot'. :D

And I would also say that modern taxation to support charity social services is a policy that originate with the middle class and is electorally supported by the middle class. The poor ain't robbing anyone here.

Voting records in every western country show that the higher your economic status, the higher the probability that you actually do vote. Low economic status people have the lowest voter turnout of all socio-economic groups.

Forgetting how mob justice is still a form of tyranny, the point is to show how entrepreneurs need to negotiate with tyrants in order to avoid becoming enslaved by the masses without unleashing violence upon them.

As for keeping up appearances, that's exactly what the noble lie is all about, and the noble lie's sole purpose is to procure power, not justice, regardless of if it's used to make the people love or fear rulers.

I have no problems with entrepreneurs - they are a natural and dynamic part of civil society (both social and economic variety). The only real problem with entrepreneurs is the hereditary thing that comes after it. Dynamic innovators are impressive. Their empowered and entitled children and grandchildren are not.

How I respond here depends on how far you're willing to define morality.

If we define morality as only a set of principles, I would claim that even the most hedonic and malevolent entrepreneurs still consider morality important albeit an "evil" form of morality.

If we define morality as a set of justified principles, I would claim that entrepreneurially approvable "lifestyles" are not limited to moral intentions even if the most successful entrepreneurs are those who behave justifiably.

As far as entrepreneur's definition goes, it doesn't seem to me that there isn't a real distinction between the social and economic varieties beyond the entrepreneur's own perspective on the world. Social entrepreneurs innovate to impact culture whereas economic entrepreneurs innovate to garnish wealth, but both sets of entrepreneurs innovate to pursue approvable lifestyles via the exertion of humanity.

However, my position does focus on the economic variety and the preservation of their motive to innovate without using information overload or political correctness to deceive them into submission.
Like I said, I believe that entrepreneuralism is a good thing and a necessary component of civil society. Entrepenurialism is dynamic and society must grow/adapt to stay alive (assuming that society itself is similar to a living creature).

And because entrepreneurs always seek 'new ways' of doing things, they are always going to be challenging the status quo, and thus will always be accused of immorality. This is quite predictable and to be expected. I don't see how one can or ought to avoid it - though it can and should be limited or mitigated where possible - if it is possible at all.

This is a pet peeve of mine since every example of a common law jurisdiction where citizens are able to move to and fro freely represents a social contract. Law in such cases is guided via the culture of inhabitants which define concepts such as reasonability, conscionability, and merchantability ESPECIALLY when positive rights are in consideration, guidance which is a prime example of citizens recognizing a politicized obligation to the rest of society.

The idea of the implied social contract makes sense from a legal perspective. It is very useful way to interpret the data of tradition and customary usage of the majority. The common law system is built on this concept.

This same implied social contract is also built on the concept of the parable of 'Adam & Eve' being cast out of paradise.

There is an assumption here that human beings are absolutely and fundamentally pure individuals (endowed with souls and free will) who associate with each other only according to their needs and personal benefit and they have all rationally choosen to live together in a society because it is directly and specifically beneficial for them to do so. We like to symbolically pretend that every individual is theoretically responsible to make this decision for themselves - to choose to become a part of society by accepting some hypothetically implied 'social contract'. I think this is nonsense.

I say that that humans have been living in tightly knit societies of other humans ever since we first climbed out the trees and started walking upright. Lone individual humans have never been anything more than dinner for the large cat family. Humans live in social groups. That is a fundamental characteristic of human beings. Humans who live as actual reclusive hermits are one of the weirdest and rarest examples of human lifestyle choices.

Ergo, it is absurd to speak of individual human beings making a 'choice' about accepting any social contract. It is built into our genes and our mother's milk for a human to seek and adapt to the company of our fellow human beings in the form of a collective group. It just is.

Certainly some humans like to rebel against the group and that's fine too. It is part of the dynamic that makes up human society.

Bottom line is that the social contract isn't a 'choice' and never was. For humans to deny society is to deny one's humanity.

Alright, I'll engage this in the Strauss thread then.
:rofl:

No hurry. Take a week, a month or a year. The thread won't go away - the forum and I will still be here. :)

Bleh, it doesn't make sense to me how you can be critical of the lack of proof for utility limits when you're willing to take a "baser view of human motives" grounded upon materialist desires. Even if the proof doesn't exist, criticism of the lack there of would undermine your own belief that materialist desires are the fundamental influence on human decisions and actions.
My position is consistent with skepticism on both points. :)

I accept that the idea of limits has great utility to all human enterprise, I just don't accept the 'proof' that these limits are absolute limits.

Likewise, I accept that some humans do act altruistically and/or for thoughtful or beneficial reasons, or even sometimes with rationality, but I am skeptical that this is a very big number, let alone a majority of cases. More often than not, humans tend to show 'base' motivations. Exceptions here tend to be wonderful elements of human celebration (which proves the rule).

I've never heard of a realist train of thought in international relations that believes in relativism (although realists do care about relative power parity) since recognizing reality's absolute nature is part of the justification for why power is considered the bottom line for all motivations.
I don't consider the principle of 'realism' to be limited to a specific interpretation in the particular field of IR. For me, realism is a general principle that elements 'on the ground' define the dynamic, not 'theory above'. In this, I'm with Marx in opposition to Hegel - and the associated issue of material determinism.

And relativism comes into play because, with relativism, "everything is relative" and this tends to affect everything. All power is relative. All analysis of any international event is relative and subjective. Realism just means accepting things as they are - and that's always a subjective thing.

This implies perfect information flow which isn't realistic due to the existence of conspiracies, ulterior motives, and the sheer secretive nature of diplomatic negotiations in statecraft.
You are trying to force a dichotomy here where there is none.

Your first point implied 'blindness' of information and I objected that states do spy on and watch each other which means they are not blind.

Now you are taking that as an assertion of absolute perfect information and I'm going to object to that on the grounds that spying and watching other states doesn't supply perfect information at all - just some information.

With IR, as with most situations, it is not rational or reasonable to assume an even distribution of perfect information or an even distribution of no-information. Or an even distribution of wrong information. It think the distributions of these will always be haphazard and one has to be cautious and 'realistic' with ones assumptions.

This implies Canadian confederation to be pointless since Quebec (or any of the other colonies) received no benefits from placing themselves below Dominion recognition.
Not technically true. You may perhaps be confusing the process of Canada's confederation with the American one involving 'theoretically sovereign' states. They are slightly different.

The British Crown held Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) in one semi-unified block already (essentially, Canada). The British Crown also held territories in the Maritimes and vast territories in the west and north. Confederation involved the Maritime provinces joining up with Upper & Lower Canada into one country.

Quebec was not a sovereign state given the choice to join or not join at that time. Basically, the British Crown 'suggested' that the Maritimes 'ought' to consider joining Canada (meaning Upper & Lower Canada) which already had many joint government institutions operating.

In all manner of speaking, Canadian confederation consists of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island choosing to join the existing 'federation' of Canada (which was Upper & Lower Canada). None of the parties were technically independent sovereign parties to that agreement as was the case with the US 13 Colonies declaring sovereign independence.

Bleh, I don't really wanna talk about the violation of good and mature entrepreneurs and financiers due to the obligations of the State and how it confuses such with evil entrepreneurs and financiers and immature entrepreneurs and financiers due to an addiction to moral relativism (that's imposed from the rebound of political correctness and information overload upon the masses which demand more and more in order to be sedated, sedation which leads to the resurrection of mob justice through progressive ideals either through social democracy or progressive conservatism).

Another time, I need a break from this (something I've realized on other political forums in the mean time, heh).
As I said above, I consider entrepreneurialism to be an integral and necessary component of civil society. This does tend to cause issues of moral conflict, but that's not something I'm too worried about. It just is.

Taxation is theft if it goes towards causes that you don't care about, and if an entrepreneur believes that the government is horrible at everything, then every cause is an occurrence of theft. Even police and defense are theft at some level because they wouldn't be necessary if people naturally respected property rights (similarly to how the mob would extort people for "protection"). However, property rights are only necessary for justice's presupposition, justice which only exists artificially in the minds of those who believe cooperation among parties with asymmetrical interests can be beneficial.

Ergo, the "justification" of taxes and the State in general are circular (despite how the "rationalization" of taxes and the State in general are not). States demand taxes in exchange for the propagation of justice, but the violation of justice wouldn't happen if people were respectful of property in the first place. Hence, why should entrepreneurs belong to a State where his neighbors (the people) are not respectful of the premise which motivates entrepreneurs to innovate?

Bleh, this sounds sloppy. I wish I could organize it better, but it's just becoming a pain to communicate right now. I'd cite Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy or Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed, but flipping through notes and rereading what I haven't been tightly familiar with are hassles I don't particularly care to do right now.

Well, your opening line confirms my point. The argument that taxation is theft is as arbitrary (and subjective) as the argument that it is not.

I generally go with the principle of majority rule here. Historically speaking, the whole history of the rise of our political system of rule by 'representative assembly' as been one of authority over the issue of taxation. Its not like our governments don't vote on taxes or endlessly talk about the need to raise or lower them. One might be forgiven for thinking this the only thing our governments actually do.

Indeed, the history and origin of the United States itself as a sovereign state affirms that taxation is legitimate - "no taxation without representation" is the fundamental justification of the US rebellion against the British Crown and this directly implies that 'taxation WITH representation' is right and proper.

I dunno if we talked about spirituality and charity yet, but I do believe that the disabled and less fortunate should be supported. They just aren't entitled to support via "Robin Hood"-esque coercion of the wealthy, and any entrepreneur who is coerced would be better off retaliating against his coercer and liberating the disabled such that the disabled aren't stuck behind arbitrary bureaucrats who have no reason to be around. If he can't exert sufficient violence, then he's stuck appeasing his coercer, and such appeasement shows how the sheer existence of bureaucrats isn't justified at all.
The provision of public social services funded by general taxation isn't a policy of the "poor robbing the rich". As I noted above, this policy originates with the middle class and is electorally supported by the middle class. The poor generally don't bother to vote very often and the poor certainly don't have the 'special interest' lobby power to get legislation favoring their interests passed by western governments.

Middle class people voting to collectively share the burden of providing for the poor/sick/old is a far better and more accurate analogy of taxation than "poor robbing the rich".

Daktoria

Jun 8th 2009, 04:32 AM

Yes, it is a fine line between 'entrepreneur' and 'criminal'. Society has always had a hard time with that issue. This is similar to the fine line between 'genius' and 'idiot'. :D

TBH, I don't think that there's a difference between them (in either case) anymore. Justice is a subjective value as much as any other (including genius) and it's only appreciated out of mutual "honest" (wth that means anymore) interests which forge a "rule of law" out of what's defined as politically correct. If the world doesn't want to believe in right and wrong as absolute values that go beyond popular consent (possibly aimed at the maximization of popular utility), then I won't be fooled as an entrepreneur that's going to be imprisoned out of convenience.

And I would also say that modern taxation to support charity social services is a policy that originate with the middle class and is electorally supported by the middle class. The poor ain't robbing anyone here.

Voting records in every western country show that the higher your economic status, the higher the probability that you actually do vote. Low economic status people have the lowest voter turnout of all socio-economic groups.Meh, it's not anyone else's fault that the poor don't go to the polls that the poor themselves. The rich have already been watered down to the poor's equals under democracy, and there are already plenty more poor people out there who are outvoting rich people even if a smaller proportion votes. If the middle class sees otherwise, then the rich would be foolhardy not to suppress them as well.

TBH though, I really don't like your class construct here in part because I don't believe in class warfare or stratification, both of which are paradigms that are detrimental to charitable motives. If you do happen to be rich (which I'm not as a member of a lower-middle class household), then you should be focused on intuitive cultural refinement while dismissing all empirical demands for class-based models since rich people should be focused on supporting lifestyles that they honestly believe in, not supporting "socially responsible" dreams (due to uncheckable potential conflicts of interest).

I have no problems with entrepreneurs - they are a natural and dynamic part of civil society (both social and economic variety). The only real problem with entrepreneurs is the hereditary thing that comes after it. Dynamic innovators are impressive. Their empowered and entitled children and grandchildren are not.Meh, if I'm an entrepreneur and I can't determine who inherits my wealth, I'd rather destroy it all to prevent it from falling into what I believe to be the wrong hands or invest it in an army of organized crime or resistance to fight the State which suppresses me. If I know that I'll be sabotaged from doing so, I'd rather not work at developing any wealth at all. If the wool is dragged over my eyes, then the society I live in is unjustified.

Like I said, I believe that entrepreneuralism is a good thing and a necessary component of civil society. Entrepenurialism is dynamic and society must grow/adapt to stay alive (assuming that society itself is similar to a living creature).

And because entrepreneurs always seek 'new ways' of doing things, they are always going to be challenging the status quo, and thus will always be accused of immorality. This is quite predictable and to be expected. I don't see how one can or ought to avoid it - though it can and should be limited or mitigated where possible - if it is possible at all.Hmmm.... (http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3440110#3440110)

This deserves a new thread (in about a year or two).

The idea of the implied social contract makes sense from a legal perspective. It is very useful way to interpret the data of tradition and customary usage of the majority. The common law system is built on this concept.

This same implied social contract is also built on the concept of the parable of 'Adam & Eve' being cast out of paradise.

There is an assumption here that human beings are absolutely and fundamentally pure individuals (endowed with souls and free will) who associate with each other only according to their needs and personal benefit and they have all rationally choosen to live together in a society because it is directly and specifically beneficial for them to do so. We like to symbolically pretend that every individual is theoretically responsible to make this decision for themselves - to choose to become a part of society by accepting some hypothetically implied 'social contract'. I think this is nonsense.

I say that that humans have been living in tightly knit societies of other humans ever since we first climbed out the trees and started walking upright. Lone individual humans have never been anything more than dinner for the large cat family. Humans live in social groups. That is a fundamental characteristic of human beings. Humans who live as actual reclusive hermits are one of the weirdest and rarest examples of human lifestyle choices.

Ergo, it is absurd to speak of individual human beings making a 'choice' about accepting any social contract. It is built into our genes and our mother's milk for a human to seek and adapt to the company of our fellow human beings in the form of a collective group. It just is.

Certainly some humans like to rebel against the group and that's fine too. It is part of the dynamic that makes up human society.

Bottom line is that the social contract isn't a 'choice' and never was. For humans to deny society is to deny one's humanity. Collective consciousness doesn't exist. I'm sorry, but there's no such thing as a telekinetic hivemind that guides us all, and when people are in touch, it's because they're on the same page, not because they've developed some special link. If you're talking about environmental influence, I don't see how justice can exist or matter for the decent treatment of individuals if free will doesn't exist or if individual free will doesn't exist. FURTHERMORE, if free will exists on a spectrum rather than as a discrete value, then I don't see how justice is just a manipulation of might makes right.

As for the social contract, it's not made to protect the rights of newcomers. In liberal democracies, they conveniently do, but the number one priority of social contracts are to honor natives and those who are grandfathered by native founder requests. Such is why porous emigration borders are vital for the demonstration of social contract existence.

--------------------

Bleh, it doesn't make sense to me how you can be critical of the lack of proof for utility limits when you're willing to take a "baser view of human motives" grounded upon materialist desires. Even if the proof doesn't exist, criticism of the lack there of would undermine your own belief that materialist desires are the fundamental influence on human decisions and actions.My position is consistent with skepticism on both points. :)

I accept that the idea of limits has great utility to all human enterprise, I just don't accept the 'proof' that these limits are absolute limits.

Likewise, I accept that some humans do act altruistically and/or for thoughtful or beneficial reasons, or even sometimes with rationality, but I am skeptical that this is a very big number, let alone a majority of cases. More often than not, humans tend to show 'base' motivations. Exceptions here tend to be wonderful elements of human celebration (which proves the rule).
You're not getting what I'm saying here. I'm saying that you can't blame me for not proving utility limits exist when you believe in materialist desires being the ultimate motivation (since such belief acknowledges their existence even under relativist description as you've noted above)...:

That's a damn good argument for the importance or utility of 'absolute' terms of reference.

That of course doesn't actually prove that such limits exist, only that they are useful conceptions to have.

As for the second half, I'll disagree about the 'singularity' of motive asserted and the corresponding 'singularity' of outcome. I take a much baser view of human motives (sex, food, beer & fame/shame) being the drivers of behavior rather than singular assertions of some other purpose, such as knowledge or altruism. I suppose that's just my own personal bias of analysis.

...and the reason that relativist limits doesn't matter is because I'm referring to naturally occurring, not humanly imposed, circumstances:

Humans have certain fundamental requirements for sustenance which require respect for certain absolute natural conditions if we are going to continue to exist within and experience reality. Even over the long-run, civilization needs to sophisticate in order to take advantage of economies of scale and specialization of labor in order to optimally allocate resources. As such, absolute benchmarks do come into play in defining the limits of comparative advantage. Furthermore, a cooperative society (or a sole individual) that is motivated primarily by the resolve provided from information's discovery instead of the power provided from the environment's control has no reason to care about comparative advantage at all. To take a neorealist perspective here, interaction with other groups, organizations, and societies wouldn't be focused on rational decision models where dominance is the objective. Instead, other groups, organizations, and societies would be treated as natural resources that have to be interacted with efficiently in order to derive the desired result.Denying this would entail the denial of reality's absolute existence which would be, no offense, nothing short of delusional.

--------------------

I don't consider the principle of 'realism' to be limited to a specific interpretation in the particular field of IR. For me, realism is a general principle that elements 'on the ground' define the dynamic, not 'theory above'. In this, I'm with Marx in opposition to Hegel - and the associated issue of material determinism.

And relativism comes into play because, with relativism, "everything is relative" and this tends to affect everything. All power is relative. All analysis of any international event is relative and subjective. Realism just means accepting things as they are - and that's always a subjective thing.I don't like this answer, and it's not because of Marx's opposition to God and religion. Rather because it puts me in quite a bind as to how to appreciate what you just said.

If I give you the benefit of the doubt of not subscribing to realism in international affairs, then I can excuse you for not realizing that you just admitted justice doesn't exist and that everything boils down to power in the end (which means that taxation of the rich and entrepreneurial is in deed manipulative under your "theory of justice").

Likewise, if I give you the benefit of the doubt of not subscribing to realism in philosophy, then I can excuse you for not being a solipsist.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any other forms of realism (except for art), so I can't excuse you from both.

You are trying to force a dichotomy here where there is none.

Your first point implied 'blindness' of information and I objected that states do spy on and watch each other which means they are not blind.

Now you are taking that as an assertion of absolute perfect information and I'm going to object to that on the grounds that spying and watching other states doesn't supply perfect information at all - just some information.

With IR, as with most situations, it is not rational or reasonable to assume an even distribution of perfect information or an even distribution of no-information. Or an even distribution of wrong information. It think the distributions of these will always be haphazard and one has to be cautious and 'realistic' with ones assumptions.Right, but realism doesn't assert that information correctness is equally distributed. Only that information is used for the procurement of power.

As a reminder, in terms of our discussion (which has been going on for over 3 weeks), this is one of the pillars of proving that the hypothetical I proposed is correct since third party relationships are not universally transparent, a hypothetical that challenges your repudiation of violence based upon classical liberalism being sound.

Not technically true. You may perhaps be confusing the process of Canada's confederation with the American one involving 'theoretically sovereign' states. They are slightly different.

The British Crown held Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) in one semi-unified block already (essentially, Canada). The British Crown also held territories in the Maritimes and vast territories in the west and north. Confederation involved the Maritime provinces joining up with Upper & Lower Canada into one country.

Quebec was not a sovereign state given the choice to join or not join at that time. Basically, the British Crown 'suggested' that the Maritimes 'ought' to consider joining Canada (meaning Upper & Lower Canada) which already had many joint government institutions operating.

In all manner of speaking, Canadian confederation consists of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island choosing to join the existing 'federation' of Canada (which was Upper & Lower Canada). None of the parties were technically independent sovereign parties to that agreement as was the case with the US 13 Colonies declaring sovereign independence.OK, since Quebec was never sovereign and never had the chance to reject membership in Canada, this was a poor example since "A" and "B" in the hypothetical are presumed to autonomous with respect to "C". I tried to come up with something applicable to Canadian history, but oh well. However, we could use the unification of the 13 colonies as an example as well as any other unification movement (such as 19th century German and Italian unification and 15th century Spanish unification as well as plenty of others).

This is the second pillar for the hypothesis.

Well, your opening line confirms my point. The argument that taxation is theft is as arbitrary (and subjective) as the argument that it is not.

I generally go with the principle of majority rule here. Historically speaking, the whole history of the rise of our political system of rule by 'representative assembly' as been one of authority over the issue of taxation. Its not like our governments don't vote on taxes or endlessly talk about the need to raise or lower them. One might be forgiven for thinking this the only thing our governments actually do.

Indeed, the history and origin of the United States itself as a sovereign state affirms that taxation is legitimate - "no taxation without representation" is the fundamental justification of the US rebellion against the British Crown and this directly implies that 'taxation WITH representation' is right and proper. The third pillar, representation =/= consensus. In order for a State to be thoroughly justified, it has to compensate those who oppose public good development according to market prices. Yes, majority rule works for all practical intentions, but we're talking about ideology here, ideology which can't accept might makes right even if it comes from democratic original position. History might be loaded with a smorgasbord of successful examples put into practice of democratic rule, but that doesn't make democracy the ideal model we should be aiming to improve towards.

The provision of public social services funded by general taxation isn't a policy of the "poor robbing the rich". As I noted above, this policy originates with the middle class and is electorally supported by the middle class. The poor generally don't bother to vote very often and the poor certainly don't have the 'special interest' lobby power to get legislation favoring their interests passed by western governments.

Middle class people voting to collectively share the burden of providing for the poor/sick/old is a far better and more accurate analogy of taxation than "poor robbing the rich". Not a pillar, but a matter of whether or not neoliberalism is utopian based upon whether or not technology is required to ensure that entrepreneurs behave charitably (odd because I sympathize with those like Fukuyama who believe that technology will bring about the end of mankind since we will become gluttonous and dependent upon it such that consumers will only support scientific progress as long as it reciprocates entertainment).

This still Sounds like mob justice to me even if the middle class is acting honorably in the name of "the public" since there's no reason for elites to remain loyal to the State when they know that they are being colluded against. Such is especially true when elites can afford to exert opposition without being backstabbed by fellow elites who stand to lose more as well from also being overwhelmed by the public.

Michael

Jun 17th 2009, 07:57 PM

TBH, I don't think that there's a difference between them (in either case) anymore. Justice is a subjective value as much as any other (including genius) and it's only appreciated out of mutual "honest" (wth that means anymore) interests which forge a "rule of law" out of what's defined as politically correct. If the world doesn't want to believe in right and wrong as absolute values that go beyond popular consent (possibly aimed at the maximization of popular utility), then I won't be fooled as an entrepreneur that's going to be imprisoned out of convenience.
I don't think relativism is a matter of choice, or just some ideology.

As such, it isn't something one can object to or choose to ignore. Just because it might be nice if values had absolute values to them, that doesn't mean we can put 'Humpty Dumpty' back together again.

That being said, prudence is usually a good policy.

Meh, it's not anyone else's fault that the poor don't go to the polls that the poor themselves. The rich have already been watered down to the poor's equals under democracy, and there are already plenty more poor people out there who are outvoting rich people even if a smaller proportion votes. If the middle class sees otherwise, then the rich would be foolhardy not to suppress them as well.
I strongly disagree that democracy makes for equality between rich and poor. That may make sense in a purely theoretical sense, but in reality, the rich are able to game the system in their favor most of the time (not always, but more often than not - especially with political systems like that of the USA).

TBH though, I really don't like your class construct here in part because I don't believe in class warfare or stratification, both of which are paradigms that are detrimental to charitable motives. If you do happen to be rich (which I'm not as a member of a lower-middle class household), then you should be focused on intuitive cultural refinement while dismissing all empirical demands for class-based models since rich people should be focused on supporting lifestyles that they honestly believe in, not supporting "socially responsible" dreams (due to uncheckable potential conflicts of interest).
First of all, I'm no fan of social class systems at all. But as an analyst of politics and economics, I'd be a fool to ignore it because it is definitely out there. Indeed, as a 'tool' of analysis, I consider it to be a very useful one - better for analysis than religion or economic status (for example).

Please note that I tend to use an older definition of social class, not the modern American pseudo-definitions of social class based on income status. Lets just say that for me, a working class factory worker doesn't become middle class just because his/her income jumped from $12 per hour to $30 per hour. At those wage levels, by the usual American socio-economic classification, that's exactly what that factory worker just did - moved social classes. For me, that factor worker probably was working class to start with and in all likelihood will go to his grave as working class. Social class isn't that easy to change (but it certainly can be done).

Btw, the USA used to have the record for being the easiest place to actually move up your social class (by any definition) - but not any more - even using the watered down US definition, the USA is far less egalitarian and has less social mobility than most other western nations.

I'll stop analyzing politics in terms of social classes when politics stops functioning according to social class rules.

Secondly, I see no reason that any rich person "ought" to support any given lifestyle except the one that suits themselves. Indeed, given the 'lottery' distribution of wealth, I see no reason to expect rich people to be any more competent or capable of anything than the average.

First generation wealth makers tend to be impressive people, capable of above average actions, or acting outside the norm. Not so with those who inherit their wealth or status. On the whole, those are no better than average and quite likely to become less so over time and requiring special tax loopholes and laws to protect the wealth that they are not capable of generating. If rich people were half as competent and capable as those who created the wealth, then the inherited rich wouldn't need to be coddled so much (and wouldn't have to invest so much money in politics to buy that protection).

Meh, if I'm an entrepreneur and I can't determine who inherits my wealth, I'd rather destroy it all to prevent it from falling into what I believe to be the wrong hands or invest it in an army of organized crime or resistance to fight the State which suppresses me. If I know that I'll be sabotaged from doing so, I'd rather not work at developing any wealth at all. If the wool is dragged over my eyes, then the society I live in is unjustified.
Suit yourself. That's what liberty is all about isn't it? I'll use the pseudo-Randian self-interest argument in reply. :D

Hmmm.... (http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3440110#3440110)

This deserves a new thread (in about a year or two).
I have a membership there (though I like that forum even less than PF or PCF for various different reasons). I notice no replies to your thread. ;)

Btw, I'll take up that argument any time you like - its highly related to this one. :D

Collective consciousness doesn't exist. I'm sorry, but there's no such thing as a telekinetic hivemind that guides us all, and when people are in touch, it's because they're on the same page, not because they've developed some special link. If you're talking about environmental influence, I don't see how justice can exist or matter for the decent treatment of individuals if free will doesn't exist or if individual free will doesn't exist. FURTHERMORE, if free will exists on a spectrum rather than as a discrete value, then I don't see how justice is just a manipulation of might makes right.
I never said or suggested anything of the sort. I'm a liberal remember? I believe in individual human liberty is the best general strategy for human society.

And as a general rule, I consider the issue of 'freewill' to be the ultimate philosophic quagmire discussion that never goes anywhere except in circles - especially with the modern assertions about brain chemistry.

And I really think you've misinterpreted my statement about the nature of the social contract. As far as I'm concerned, the social contract doesn't exist. For it to actually exist as it is used in philosophic or economic theory, that is indeed suggestive of a collective consciousness that you quite rightly reject.

If you believe in the social contract as anything more than a theoretical construct (or thought experiment) useful for philosophy, economics, politics and legal theory (and nothing more than that), then fine, but the social contract as defined by Rousseau or Hobbes is definitely of the 'hive' type and I'll have no part of that.

I admit that my point here about social contracts is a very difficult one to grasp. As I noted above, the concept is closely related to my attempt to build an argument in reply to Nietzsche, which is another topic entirely. I only mentioned it because the issue was touched upon in our discussion here and I couldn't resist since the issue is central to my interest in political philosophy. My argument about the social contract is given here only as a brief outline to explain my interest. The issue is not necessary to this topic discussion. :)

As for the social contract, it's not made to protect the rights of newcomers. In liberal democracies, they conveniently do, but the number one priority of social contracts are to honor natives and those who are grandfathered by native founder requests. Such is why porous emigration borders are vital for the demonstration of social contract existence.
I don't recall Hobbes or Rousseau mentioning these concepts in any way as pertaining to the theoretical basis of social contract thinking.

I certainly agree that 'porous borders' are extremely useful (possibly even necessary) for actual demonstrations of social contract theory.

You're not getting what I'm saying here. I'm saying that you can't blame me for not proving utility limits exist when you believe in materialist desires being the ultimate motivation (since such belief acknowledges their existence even under relativist description as you've noted above)...:

...and the reason that relativist limits doesn't matter is because I'm referring to naturally occurring, not humanly imposed, circumstances:

Denying this would entail the denial of reality's absolute existence which would be, no offense, nothing short of delusional.
Sure, I see your point. But I think you are taking an untypical example and making it the rule for all here and that's not justified.

Sure there are absolute physical limits to caloric intake for human sustanance. Fall below a certain level for a certain number of days and you will die. But I respectfully submit that this 'absolute' definition of hunger is mostly meaningless in North American society where hunger is defined with a much more relative standard.

And that's my point. Sure a few 'absolute' limits may appear to exist. But science in the future may ultimately impact some of them, thus I'm hesitant to accept the 'absolute' label because 'absolute' must hold true to infinity of time. It is not rational to project present 'facts' of human knowledge as 'absolute facts'.

Human science may eventually stumble onto something that might change the level of human caloric intake (for example). That would make the present 'factual limit' of human caloric requirements subect to relativism.

I don't like this answer, and it's not because of Marx's opposition to God and religion. Rather because it puts me in quite a bind as to how to appreciate what you just said.

If I give you the benefit of the doubt of not subscribing to realism in international affairs, then I can excuse you for not realizing that you just admitted justice doesn't exist and that everything boils down to power in the end (which means that taxation of the rich and entrepreneurial is in deed manipulative under your "theory of justice").

Likewise, if I give you the benefit of the doubt of not subscribing to realism in philosophy, then I can excuse you for not being a solipsist.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any other forms of realism (except for art), so I can't excuse you from both.
What a delightfully colorful answer! :rofl:

The trouble may be that you appear to be projecting various ideas onto my words when I've been trying to explain that (in some cases) I may be engaging in original thinking on these topics and NOT representing any existing school of ideology. I'm a philosopher, not necessarily a strict student of philosophy. I'm quite well aware of the difference, though I may not be very clear about making it known when I'm doing one or the other. :)

I'm not trying to claim that my views are identical to that known as 'realism' in academic IR politics or 'realism' in art. I'm specifically using the term in a very conventional or common usage here (as I noted).

My passion for 'realpolitique' comes from Catherine de Medici's reign as Queen of France. That was 'realpolitique' the way I understand the term. I believe that 'realism' in political IR circles can be as ideologically loaded as any other political ideology and 'realism' in art is as silly as the way art historians throw around all kinds of terms like 'modern', 'post-modern', etc.

Indeed, to tie this particular line of thought back to the topic of this thread, I would say that the term 'realism' has only gained favor recently due to the bizarre phenomenum of neoconservatives in the Bush Administration apparently believing in some kind of 'alternate reality' where the Iraqis were thrown rose petals at the feet of American liberators. People who reject that kind of interpretation have been known to call themselves members of the "reality-based community" (I believe Jon Stewart may have coined the phrase).

Right, but realism doesn't assert that information correctness is equally distributed. Only that information is used for the procurement of power.
I don't believe that all information is used for the procurement of power.

Sure, a lot of it certainly is, but lots of people do things for irrational reasons (as I keep saying). Thus, even if information is meant to be used only for procurement of power, humans being prone to err, still might manage to screw that up and use the information for some other purpose.

As a reminder, in terms of our discussion (which has been going on for over 3 weeks), this is one of the pillars of proving that the hypothetical I proposed is correct since third party relationships are not universally transparent, a hypothetical that challenges your repudiation of violence based upon classical liberalism being sound.
As I noted previously, asserting that third party relationships are not universally transparent does not mean that they are universally opaque.

As I argued, reality is somewhere between those two views. Assuming one state or the other would be foolish.

Ergo, your pillar is still wobbly. :D

OK, since Quebec was never sovereign and never had the chance to reject membership in Canada, this was a poor example since "A" and "B" in the hypothetical are presumed to autonomous with respect to "C". I tried to come up with something applicable to Canadian history, but oh well. However, we could use the unification of the 13 colonies as an example as well as any other unification movement (such as 19th century German and Italian unification and 15th century Spanish unification as well as plenty of others).

This is the second pillar for the hypothesis.
Yes, some of the other examples might work better. Probably only the US 13 are a true case though. The others all have various issues pertaining to their lengthy political histories that complicate such a calculation.

The third pillar, representation =/= consensus. In order for a State to be thoroughly justified, it has to compensate those who oppose public good development according to market prices. Yes, majority rule works for all practical intentions, but we're talking about ideology here, ideology which can't accept might makes right even if it comes from democratic original position. History might be loaded with a smorgasbord of successful examples put into practice of democratic rule, but that doesn't make democracy the ideal model we should be aiming to improve towards.

Why must a state be thoroughly justified? Where does that requirement come from?

Does Louis XIV's famous statement of "the state is me" have any bearing here?

And I respectfully submit that justice very much is amendable to majority rule (because it is not absolute). The nature of humans to follow their leaders can make this a reality.

Not a pillar, but a matter of whether or not neoliberalism is utopian based upon whether or not technology is required to ensure that entrepreneurs behave charitably (odd because I sympathize with those like Fukuyama who believe that technology will bring about the end of mankind since we will become gluttonous and dependent upon it such that consumers will only support scientific progress as long as it reciprocates entertainment).

According to my interpretation of Marx's theory of history, capitalism most certainly will work towards flooding the planet with gluttony and entertainment after all possible normal 'needs' are met. That's what capitalism is very good at doing - so long as the game is a profitable one.

This is also a necessary condition for the advancement of a true communist society which is ONLY possible after capitalism creates a new mode of production that will replace capitalism. This will likely only actually occur at a time when people are gluttonous and overloaded with entertainment.

That does look like "now" by the way. ;)

This still Sounds like mob justice to me even if the middle class is acting honorably in the name of "the public" since there's no reason for elites to remain loyal to the State when they know that they are being colluded against. Such is especially true when elites can afford to exert opposition without being backstabbed by fellow elites who stand to lose more as well from also being overwhelmed by the public.
I don't deny it is mob justice. Middle classes can create mobs. Humans are pretty good at doing the 'mob' thing. Seems fairly natural.

As for the elites fearing collusion, you should look up the ancient Athenian concept of "ostracism" - where the demos voted the most prominent citizen out of the city on an annual basis. Yet ancient Athens represents the veritable 'birth' of capitalism. Interesting that far from fearing the politics of collusion against them, Athenian entrepreneurs rose to whole new heights of wealth creation.

Daktoria

Jun 23rd 2009, 07:23 PM

I don't think relativism is a matter of choice, or just some ideology.

As such, it isn't something one can object to or choose to ignore. Just because it might be nice if values had absolute values to them, that doesn't mean we can put 'Humpty Dumpty' back together again.

That being said, prudence is usually a good policy.

Eh, sounds like you just tripped over the typical absolute axiom of whether or not absolutes exist. You're recognizing the existence of "values" which bear their own absolute definitions yet then claiming that absolute values can't be applied.

Do values exist?

Yes, but not absolutely.

But "yes" is an absolute value.

No it's not.

:ummm:

Either values exist or they don't. Law of excluded middle, principle of explosion.

The matter of subjectivity is another story, and it isn't one I'll dispute because I agree that individuals (and mankind as a whole) are limited to subjective perspectives.

I strongly disagree that democracy makes for equality between rich and poor. That may make sense in a purely theoretical sense, but in reality, the rich are able to game the system in their favor most of the time (not always, but more often than not - especially with political systems like that of the USA).OK, but I still don't see why the middle class is justified to campaign for taxes assessed against the rich to take care of the poor. It might be rational to pursue political pressure, but I don't see why exertion of pressure is intrinsically justified when it infringes upon the property rights of a minority, property rights which were promised in exchange for citizen status under the State.

Suit yourself. That's what liberty is all about isn't it? I'll use the pseudo-Randian self-interest argument in reply. No no no no no. I'm not gunna let you off easy here because we're talking about justice, not strategy. As rational as such entrepreneurial self-destructive rectification might be, that doesn't justify the original system of redistributive wealth acquisition.

Sure, I see your point. But I think you are taking an untypical example and making it the rule for all here and that's not justified.

Sure there are absolute physical limits to caloric intake for human sustanance. Fall below a certain level for a certain number of days and you will die. But I respectfully submit that this 'absolute' definition of hunger is mostly meaningless in North American society where hunger is defined with a much more relative standard.

And that's my point. Sure a few 'absolute' limits may appear to exist. But science in the future may ultimately impact some of them, thus I'm hesitant to accept the 'absolute' label because 'absolute' must hold true to infinity of time. It is not rational to project present 'facts' of human knowledge as 'absolute facts'.

Human science may eventually stumble onto something that might change the level of human caloric intake (for example). That would make the present 'factual limit' of human caloric requirements subect to relativism.No, it wouldn't make it relativist because scientific progress and nutritional management for different lifestyles would be bound by natural physical limits as well. Even the influences required to shape taste in for different lifestyles are bound by physical limitations.

Also, subjectivity =/= relativism; objectivity =/= absolutism. Even if human knowledge is not set in stone, that doesn't mean reality goes along the same path (which permits my position of subjective [dynamic] absolutism).

I'm not trying to claim that my views are identical to that known as 'realism' in academic IR politics or 'realism' in art. I'm specifically using the term in a very conventional or common usage here (as I noted).This still seems odd because of your earlier hint at prudence. Coincidentally, IR Realism recognizes that states cannot stand up for morality or legality or perfect individual liberty due to the utmost prerequisite of State survival through the pursuit of power. As such, I still don't see how your ideology is distinguished from it.

In any case, if I consider a practical/existential/phenomenal form of "realism" instead, I don't see how a relativ(ist) reality can exist...

Humans have certain fundamental requirements for sustenance which require respect for certain absolute natural conditions if we are going to continue to exist within and experience reality. Even over the long-run, civilization needs to sophisticate in order to take advantage of economies of scale and specialization of labor in order to optimally allocate resources. As such, absolute benchmarks do come into play in defining the limits of comparative advantage. Furthermore, a cooperative society (or a sole individual) that is motivated primarily by the resolve provided from information's discovery instead of the power provided from the environment's control has no reason to care about comparative advantage at all. To take a neorealist perspective here, interaction with other groups, organizations, and societies wouldn't be focused on rational decision models where dominance is the objective. Instead, other groups, organizations, and societies would be treated as natural resources that have to be interacted with efficiently in order to derive the desired result.

I'll agree that absolute levels of resources and whatnot are ultimately important given that these provide limits and limits are important to deal with.

I disagree with your point about the realist being more interested in 'absolute' measures of power than 'relative' measures. Realism is relativism.

...since it's axiomatically dependent upon absolutism (again):

Is the world relative?

Yes.

Eh, but that's an absolute value. :ummm:

I don't believe that all information is used for the procurement of power.

Sure, a lot of it certainly is, but lots of people do things for irrational reasons (as I keep saying). Thus, even if information is meant to be used only for procurement of power, humans being prone to err, still might manage to screw that up and use the information for some other purpose.mmhmm

Just because we're human doesn't mean we know brain surgery. Likewise, just because we use information for certain goals doesn't mean we understand the internal processes of such pursuits and how failure is a result of power not being resolved at prerequisite levels. Even if we don't consciously recognize how power is being pursued, that doesn't mean it isn't happening or that we're doing it (similarly to how a sleepwalker doesn't know he's doing something while he's not awake).* Besides, how isn't changing one's mind (in response to newly revealed and appreciated information) to adjust one's pursuits a rational action?

*Yes, just to be clear, I'd rather be a sleepwalker (such as Cato in Dante's Divine Comedy's purgatory) than a puppet (such as... whomever in... well whatever utopia you can imagine, bleh I should read more [theater]) lest I become disillusioned and tortured for an eternity out of hysterical euphoria. Sounds crazy, but I'd go nuts recognizing the absurdity of not surrendering to a greater entity that provides optimal utility (and happiness). Ignorance is bliss though, so that shouldn't be unexpected. :cool:

As I noted previously, asserting that third party relationships are not universally transparent does not mean that they are universally opaque.

As I argued, reality is somewhere between those two views. Assuming one state or the other would be foolish.

Ergo, your pillar is still wobbly. :DThat doesn't matter though. As long as there is some detail which is uncertain or questionable, insurance still has an incentive to be drawn upon in a security dilemma. Without total understanding, the only way unifications can take place is through mutual, honest, and spontaneous gambling, something which primarily requires character and only secondarily institutions (if they're required at all).

Why must a state be thoroughly justified? Where does that requirement come from?

Does Louis XIV's famous statement of "the state is me" have any bearing here?

And I respectfully submit that justice very much is amendable to majority rule (because it is not absolute). The nature of humans to follow their leaders can make this a reality.Well we're constructing a theory of justice here. Imperfection is fine in practice (as long as there is focused intent for refinement in the future), but the goal being pursued should be flawless.

Regarding justice, no, I'd say that legal codes, police forces, etc. are amendable to majority rule, but the rule of law is not the same as the rule of man. If you're a utilitarian, sure, utility can equate to justice, but this is predicated on the maxim that utility grants opportunities for whatever purpose, something which isn't justified because optimal utility generation requires neutral ethical stances within finite time periods in order to encourage growth through abdication of power.

In other words, there's no reason for utility to exist at all if it's not going to be handled by whoever's appreciating and cultivating it (especially if there's no guarantee that it's going to be exercised towards the handler's goals or even confidence it's going to be indefinitely eventually exercised towards general goodwill).

The rule of law is based upon axiomatic consistency for the sake of cohesion, resolution, goodwill, etc., not upon tolerance for hypocrisy just to make everyone happy, satisfied, peaceful, etc. Happiness, satisfaction, peace, etc. are acceptable marginal symptomatic maxims, but they are not justified ends in themselves since they don't encapsulate how humanity is worthwhile and dexterous.

According to my interpretation of Marx's theory of history, capitalism most certainly will work towards flooding the planet with gluttony and entertainment after all possible normal 'needs' are met. That's what capitalism is very good at doing - so long as the game is a profitable one.

This is also a necessary condition for the advancement of a true communist society which is ONLY possible after capitalism creates a new mode of production that will replace capitalism. This will likely only actually occur at a time when people are gluttonous and overloaded with entertainment.

That does look like "now" by the way. ;)

Yes, well Marx also claimed that induction is logical; just because his theories of history seem half fulfilled doesn't mean he didn't strike upon coincidence.

For every market producer, there must be a consumer, and just because crap exists on the bargaining table doesn't mean it has to be picked up. However, as long as the public allows politicians and salesmen to delude itself into forfeiting consumer and credit sovereignty, entrepreneurship will decay, and no, I don't believe that it's easy or likely to prevent this from happening. Heck, there is no systematic approach from preventing it (ultimately determined by the physical limits of human ingenuity and intellect), but rather it comes down to character and faith guiding power in the right direction. Yes, we can debate here all we want over whether or not entrepreneurship and the pure rule of law matter, but even if they're theoretically legitimatized, that doesn't mean they're going to be practically preserved since division of labor and information dispersion will always cater to the whims of the masses and the charismatically ambitious who whip them for ulterior motives.

I don't deny it is mob justice. Middle classes can create mobs. Humans are pretty good at doing the 'mob' thing. Seems fairly natural.

As for the elites fearing collusion, you should look up the ancient Athenian concept of "ostracism" - where the demos voted the most prominent citizen out of the city on an annual basis. Yet ancient Athens represents the veritable 'birth' of capitalism. Interesting that far from fearing the politics of collusion against them, Athenian entrepreneurs rose to whole new heights of wealth creation.

Odd that you reference Athens here considering that Thucydides is the father of realism. :)

I'm not familiar with Greek history or politics that much, but I can see why ostracizing insignificant amounts of citizens is useful for a city-state with limited global goals that's primarily focused on stoic discovery and bears a relatively intelligent public that's on the same page (since the public is made up of wisemen who generate genuine wisdom instead of just random moderation).

Still, this doesn't make it non-tyrannical no matter how good it feels (whether it's from the utility, security, or peace of mind garnished from it).

Michael

Jul 12th 2009, 01:49 PM

Eh, sounds like you just tripped over the typical absolute axiom of whether or not absolutes exist. You're recognizing the existence of "values" which bear their own absolute definitions yet then claiming that absolute values can't be applied.
I don't think so.

I just stated one of the challenges of relativism (in a peculiar way!). Humpty Dumpty can't be put together again. Humpty Dumpty represents the idea of absolute values. Relativism pushes H-D off the wall and H-D can't be put back together again once the line of relativism is crossed.

Either values exist or they don't. Law of excluded middle, principle of explosion.
No. That is nothing more than a semantic game.

Of course values exist. Everyone has them, every makes them, everyone chooses some (and ignores others). Absolute values do not exist, but subjective ones certainly do. Ergo, lots of values do exist and that doesn't contradict relativism at all.

The world is not black and white. Choosing to define absolutes doesn't wipe out the middle ground (it tends only to ignore it).

The matter of subjectivity is another story, and it isn't one I'll dispute because I agree that individuals (and mankind as a whole) are limited to subjective perspectives.
This is good. That puts us on the same page of epistemology here.

So I must ask, if you admit the above, how can you assert the existence of absolute values? As a subjective human being, how could you know or identify them? That is categorically impossible from that epistemological position.

This is precisely the ground upon which the idea of absolute values crashes into the hard rocks of epistemology. This is the argument that has forced me to adopt the perspective of relativism in all matters - and to completely reject all assertions of absolute values as nothing more than mystical superstition.

OK, but I still don't see why the middle class is justified to campaign for taxes assessed against the rich to take care of the poor. It might be rational to pursue political pressure, but I don't see why exertion of pressure is intrinsically justified when it infringes upon the property rights of a minority, property rights which were promised in exchange for citizen status under the State.
1. Justification is irrelevant here. Whether or not the middle class is 'justified' or not, matters not. Fact is, they do it.

2. Any action by any person or group inherently infringes upon someone else's liberty. To preclude ALL possible violations of ALL possible liberties is to preclude ALL possible actions.

3. The rights of private property are a function of the collective, and exist only because of the collective. Without the collective principle of property rights, the individual right of property does not exist. (i.e. courts, contracts, law, crown & sheriff, etc, are all necessary for private property to exist)

4. Democracy is not an ideal or perfect system. It is indeed messy and sometimes quite inefficient. The only argument in its favor is that it is less nasty, less brutal, more prosperous and grants more liberty than any other known system of governance.

No no no no no. I'm not gunna let you off easy here because we're talking about justice, not strategy. As rational as such entrepreneurial self-destructive rectification might be, that doesn't justify the original system of redistributive wealth acquisition.
But justice doesn't exist as an absolute value. It is a relative thing that varies from place to place, person to person.

And what "original system of redistributive wealth" are you referring to here?

Private property doesn't exist prior to state property. State or Crown property is the true historical origin of the institution of private property.

No, it wouldn't make it relativist because scientific progress and nutritional management for different lifestyles would be bound by natural physical limits as well. Even the influences required to shape taste in for different lifestyles are bound by physical limitations.

You are making the Church's error against Copernicus here.

Just because all common sense and all known or existing scientific theory says that there are specific natural limits for human nutrition (or that the sun revolves around the earth), that doesn't mean that this is absolutely true or always must be true. It just might not be true at all (the earth just might revolve around the sun instead).

The best consensus of scientific thought tends to evolve over time. That which was scientifically 'true' one hundred years ago, is no longer 'true' now.

That is to say, those "physical limitations" that you speak of are not actually 'absolute' limitations - only temporally defined ones that appear to be absolute.

Our modern science never asserts that a fact is "true" or "not true". That is not epistemologically possible. Instead, scientists say, that a fact is 'true' to the best of our collective knowledge, according to our present theories of understanding, at this given time, in this context.

Also, subjectivity =/= relativism; objectivity =/= absolutism. Even if human knowledge is not set in stone, that doesn't mean reality goes along the same path (which permits my position of subjective [dynamic] absolutism).
Actually, subjectivity definitely does equal relativism. I cannot fathom how you can assert otherwise.

I'll agree that objectivity doesn't equal absolutism, but epistemology requires that the existence of absolute truth requires objective knowledge and objective knowledge is ultimately impossible for human beings. Ergo, from a human perspective, all assertions of 'absolute truth' or 'absolute knowledge' are nothing more than mystical superstition.

This still seems odd because of your earlier hint at prudence. Coincidentally, IR Realism recognizes that states cannot stand up for morality or legality or perfect individual liberty due to the utmost prerequisite of State survival through the pursuit of power. As such, I still don't see how your ideology is distinguished from it.

Yes, I recognize that States themselves pursue power for their own sake. That is realism certainly. States don't do things to be nice, or to look bad. They do things that suit their own interests.

I don't see how one can assert otherwise. My analysis of international affairs always is in accord with this general perspective and I don't think I've asserted otherwise.

Hence my general opposition to the idea of 'liberal humanitarian' school of international affairs. I like the UN Charter as it stands - and that defines 'liberal humanitarian war' as illegal war.

In any case, if I consider a practical/existential/phenomenal form of "realism" instead, I don't see how a relativ(ist) reality can exist...
My reality certainly exists. ;)

You are convinced your reality exists. It all comes down to the credibilty of judgement for practical assessment of any given relative fact.

Just because humans can't actually know/prove absolute values or absolute facts with any absolute knowledge, that doesn't mean that humans are not obsessed with assertions about knowing or proving values or facts.

...since it's axiomatically dependent upon absolutism (again):

Is the world relative?

Yes.

Eh, but that's an absolute value. :ummm:

mmhmm
You are getting yourself caught up in a cutsie catechism here that is indeed, paradoxical. The world is filled with paradoxes. If anything, where paradoxes exist, they tend to point at deeper or hidden meanings about important things.

Here, let me play the same game...

"At this moment the time is 12:15 pm, EST, on Sunday, July 12th, 2009"

This statement appeared to be absolutely 'true' when I typed it, but it is no longer 'true' when I read it. How can this statement be true and not true at the same time? If it was true, but now is false, was it ever 'really true' in the first instance when I wrote it? Seems rather paradoxical doesn't it?

Just because we're human doesn't mean we know brain surgery. Likewise, just because we use information for certain goals doesn't mean we understand the internal processes of such pursuits and how failure is a result of power not being resolved at prerequisite levels. Even if we don't consciously recognize how power is being pursued, that doesn't mean it isn't happening or that we're doing it (similarly to how a sleepwalker doesn't know he's doing something while he's not awake).* Besides, how isn't changing one's mind (in response to newly revealed and appreciated information) to adjust one's pursuits a rational action?
I think it is quite possible to change one's mind if one rejects the notion of 'absolute' truth or 'absolute' knowledge or 'absolute' values.

If one is obsessed with 'absolutes' then the idea of changing one's mind becomes problematic - with every person or statement, it is always judged either a) perfect, or b) error. Everything is always one or the other. That's a perfect black and white world. I think that's nonsense since perfect knowledge of absolutes is not humanly possible.

Well we're constructing a theory of justice here. Imperfection is fine in practice (as long as there is focused intent for refinement in the future), but the goal being pursued should be flawless.
I disagree. Absolute justice is a concept that is beyond human understanding by definition.

Human society is imperfect by definition and can never be anything but. Striving for perfect is okay, but only if the definition of perfection is a loose and/or relatively or subjectively defined one. Precisely defined rules of perfection to serve as a goal is a recipe for authoritarianism.

Regarding justice, no, I'd say that legal codes, police forces, etc. are amendable to majority rule, but the rule of law is not the same as the rule of man. If you're a utilitarian, sure, utility can equate to justice, but this is predicated on the maxim that utility grants opportunities for whatever purpose, something which isn't justified because optimal utility generation requires neutral ethical stances within finite time periods in order to encourage growth through abdication of power.
The rule of a man is arbitrary and capricious. That's why rule by majority is better - by mixing larger numbers, moderate and reasonable policies tend to result.

In other words, there's no reason for utility to exist at all if it's not going to be handled by whoever's appreciating and cultivating it (especially if there's no guarantee that it's going to be exercised towards the handler's goals or even confidence it's going to be indefinitely eventually exercised towards general goodwill).

The rule of law is based upon axiomatic consistency for the sake of cohesion, resolution, goodwill, etc., not upon tolerance for hypocrisy just to make everyone happy, satisfied, peaceful, etc. Happiness, satisfaction, peace, etc. are acceptable marginal symptomatic maxims, but they are not justified ends in themselves since they don't encapsulate how humanity is worthwhile and dexterous.
Human happiness, satisfaction and peace, etc, are the actual 'goals' of most human enterprises. Laws are only 'instruments' used to support that.

Fair laws that are based upon axiomatic consistency for the sake of cohesion, resolution, goodwill, etc., are favored because they are believed to be instrumental in achieving increased human happiness, satisfaction and peace.

Yes, well Marx also claimed that induction is logical; just because his theories of history seem half fulfilled doesn't mean he didn't strike upon coincidence.

For every market producer, there must be a consumer, and just because crap exists on the bargaining table doesn't mean it has to be picked up. However, as long as the public allows politicians and salesmen to delude itself into forfeiting consumer and credit sovereignty, entrepreneurship will decay, and no, I don't believe that it's easy or likely to prevent this from happening. Heck, there is no systematic approach from preventing it (ultimately determined by the physical limits of human ingenuity and intellect), but rather it comes down to character and faith guiding power in the right direction. Yes, we can debate here all we want over whether or not entrepreneurship and the pure rule of law matter, but even if they're theoretically legitimatized, that doesn't mean they're going to be practically preserved since division of labor and information dispersion will always cater to the whims of the masses and the charismatically ambitious who whip them for ulterior motives.

The key to understanding Marx is to separate his general theories into the core component parts. Some of those component parts are weak arguments or faith assertions. The theories based on those weak parts should be ignored. However, some of the core component ideas are very strong arguments and thus the theories based on these elements tend to be powerful, explanatory and predictive. The key is to know which is which. :)

Odd that you reference Athens here considering that Thucydides is the father of realism. :)

The classical Greeks are the 'fathers' of everything.

I'm not familiar with Greek history or politics that much, but I can see why ostracizing insignificant amounts of citizens is useful for a city-state with limited global goals that's primarily focused on stoic discovery and bears a relatively intelligent public that's on the same page (since the public is made up of wisemen who generate genuine wisdom instead of just random moderation).

Still, this doesn't make it non-tyrannical no matter how good it feels (whether it's from the utility, security, or peace of mind garnished from it).
I never said the Athenian democracy was non-tyrannical. That would be absurd. I was pointing out that it was a remarkably complex institution that had some important cultural components to make it work. This particular practice is interesting in that is shows recognition that 'uppity entrepeneurs' are inherently dangerous creatures. ;)

Secondly, the Athenian democracy is significant to history because it actually was a demos - ruled by almost all the male citizens who were not slaves. The lower economic strata of citizens certainly did have a political voice (quite unlike later 'pseudo-democratic' type regimes like Roman Republic or pre-20th century western nations). The Athenian demos was not a stoic collection of wise and educated men. They were a crude mass of the citizenry, barbers and fishmongers, butchers and shoemakers.

Daktoria

Jul 14th 2009, 02:59 PM

Like the idealism thread, I'm going to answer out of order for clarity's sake since it seems like some reconstruction and reorganization is in order.

This is good. That puts us on the same page of epistemology here.

So I must ask, if you admit the above, how can you assert the existence of absolute values? As a subjective human being, how could you know or identify them? That is categorically impossible from that epistemological position.

This is precisely the ground upon which the idea of absolute values crashes into the hard rocks of epistemology. This is the argument that has forced me to adopt the perspective of relativism in all matters - and to completely reject all assertions of absolute values as nothing more than mystical superstition.

Just because absolute values exist doesn't mean we have to know specifically what they are. For example, it would be possible for me to not know where THE strike zone is in baseball despite how there is, in fact, a strike zone. Similarly, if I was tied down in a chair with the perspective of only half a balloon, it would be impossible for me to know what the other half of the balloon looked like despite how it does, in fact, appear a certain way. Further similarly, I don't know the grammatical rules for German, but German still has certain rules for grammar.

I don't think so.

I just stated one of the challenges of relativism (in a peculiar way!). Humpty Dumpty can't be put together again. Humpty Dumpty represents the idea of absolute values. Relativism pushes H-D off the wall and H-D can't be put back together again once the line of relativism is crossed....

...No. That is nothing more than a semantic game.

Of course values exist. Everyone has them, every makes them, everyone chooses some (and ignores others). Absolute values do not exist, but subjective ones certainly do. Ergo, lots of values do exist and that doesn't contradict relativism at all.

The world is not black and white. Choosing to define absolutes doesn't wipe out the middle ground (it tends only to ignore it)....

...You are getting yourself caught up in a cutsie catechism here that is indeed, paradoxical. The world is filled with paradoxes. If anything, where paradoxes exist, they tend to point at deeper or hidden meanings about important things.

Here, let me play the same game...

"At this moment the time is 12:15 pm, EST, on Sunday, July 12th, 2009"

This statement appeared to be absolutely 'true' when I typed it, but it is no longer 'true' when I read it. How can this statement be true and not true at the same time? If it was true, but now is false, was it ever 'really true' in the first instance when I wrote it? Seems rather paradoxical doesn't it?

You can call it a semantic game all you want, I still don't see how a relativist world can be demonstrated without being axiomatically disproven. Even the existence of language disproves relativism's legitimacy because language's existence is predicated upon the existence of universal qualifiers; if said qualifiers had relativist characteristics, language could not be used reliably for communication since language would not be regularly dependable.

Note that this doesn't mean language can't exist in a dynamic ebb and flow though (subject to changing connotative equilibriums). :-)

Regarding paradoxes, paradoxes might be tolerated for the sake of temporary pragmatism, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be investigated and addressed since that's what discovery is all about anyway - recognizing contradictions in order to uncover and resolve the premises which impose confusion.

For example in consideration of your statement, one reason it seems paradoxical is because we're trying to reconcile it from multiple perspectives simultaneously, but the statement wasn't written for the purpose of serving multiple perspectives simultaneously. Ergo, it seems paradoxical because we're interpreting it for the wrong function.

I think it is quite possible to change one's mind if one rejects the notion of 'absolute' truth or 'absolute' knowledge or 'absolute' values.

If one is obsessed with 'absolutes' then the idea of changing one's mind becomes problematic - with every person or statement, it is always judged either a) perfect, or b) error. Everything is always one or the other. That's a perfect black and white world. I think that's nonsense since perfect knowledge of absolutes is not humanly possible....

...I disagree. Absolute justice is a concept that is beyond human understanding by definition.

Human society is imperfect by definition and can never be anything but. Striving for perfect is okay, but only if the definition of perfection is a loose and/or relatively or subjectively defined one. Precisely defined rules of perfection to serve as a goal is a recipe for authoritarianism....

...The rule of a man is arbitrary and capricious. That's why rule by majority is better - by mixing larger numbers, moderate and reasonable policies tend to result....

...Human happiness, satisfaction and peace, etc, are the actual 'goals' of most human enterprises. Laws are only 'instruments' used to support that.

Fair laws that are based upon axiomatic consistency for the sake of cohesion, resolution, goodwill, etc., are favored because they are believed to be instrumental in achieving increased human happiness, satisfaction and peace.Yes, I agree that obsession with absolutes is problematic since it would undermine why absolutes are cared about in the first place, to make the world a better place through human experience. Therefore, if experience is dedicated to studying absolutes, life's purpose becomes paradoxical through vain self-consumption and frustrated self-destruction. Such is the role of entertainment, to provide venues of rejuvenation such that we as individuals do not go mad.

However, I don't see what's wrong for checking between perfection and error as long as it isn't done all the time. As human beings, we have to recognize as an absolute that we are both imperfect and finitely physically bound (even if we can't prove it [despite abundant empirical and metaphysical evidence]), so in order for us to optimally engage in discovery, we require rejuvenation for biological sustenance and psychological satisfaction. Likewise, we require disciplined investigation for biological improvement, and psychological motivation.

No, everyone doesn't have the personality of a problem solver (or an entrepreneur), but everyone does have talents that can be dedicated towards curiosity. Even the least imaginative care about something beyond what meets the eye at a particular moment. If they didn't, they would be petrified in a state of aggravated self-destruction due to complete resistance to change which is a paradoxical impossibility. Some insane and traumatized people do become comatose, but just because we don't know how to cure such comas doesn't mean cures don't exist or that the comas were not induced from internal vanity or external coercion, neither of which is excusable since both are forms of manipulation.

Extended to your proposed political system here, I'm actually surprised by what you've said since it entails a significant degree of selfish hedonism only on behalf of the majority (or "ruling class") instead of the individual. Such reflects the cynical and nihilist realpolitik I was proposing earlier as a negative utilitarian defense against coercion. However, I'm condemning utilitarianism as a theory of justice here because utilitarianism is predicated on how rationality is not a foundation for justice since that's no different from might makes right (which is an inefficient redundancy of utility anyway)....

...and on top of that, you believe that human beings are NOT fundamentally rational creatures which leads me to believe you're proposing a system based on the wisdom of the majority due to the resulting moderate policies (as you've happened to describe).

Well no doubt you've heard of concepts such as groupthink, peer pressure, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, Condorcet's Paradox, etc, no?

And why is moderation inherently justifiable? Sure, human beings are imperfect so moderation improves the chances of our mistakes balancing out compared to extremism, but what about discipline and consistency? What about dynamic equilibrium through rejuvenation and taking our time through slow and steady progress? Isn't that what tradition is supposed to be about anyway, using heuristics in order to satisfy natural compulsions while distinguishing productive processes in order to prevent them from becoming vulnerable?

Can tradition work? Yes, but only when it's thoroughly appreciated and not simply given the benefit of the doubt for being grounded in the seemingly magical wisdom of the ancients. Otherwise, it's only a matter of time before the libertine circus comes to town and takes over town hall with its political machine.

1. Justification is irrelevant here. Whether or not the middle class is 'justified' or not, matters not. Fact is, they do it.

2. Any action by any person or group inherently infringes upon someone else's liberty. To preclude ALL possible violations of ALL possible liberties is to preclude ALL possible actions.

3. The rights of private property are a function of the collective, and exist only because of the collective. Without the collective principle of property rights, the individual right of property does not exist. (i.e. courts, contracts, law, crown & sheriff, etc, are all necessary for private property to exist)

4. Democracy is not an ideal or perfect system. It is indeed messy and sometimes quite inefficient. The only argument in its favor is that it is less nasty, less brutal, more prosperous and grants more liberty than any other known system of governance.Below is a quote pyramid showing how this train of thought reverts back to classical liberalism (and beyond what's quoted reverts back to the difference between neoliberalism and classical liberalism. What you've described in the above four points however is quintessential positive liberalism instead: I disagree about the "goal" of free markets being the same for both.

For neoliberalism, free markets appears to be a goal in itself. Neoliberals seem to assert that liberty for capital is the ultimate goal and that liberty for individuals usually follows from this.

For classical liberalism, free markets are only desirable as a means to an end. Free markets are good in so far as they advance human liberty, but are not good if they constrain human liberty.

The reverse appears to be true for democracy. Neoliberals seem to like democracy only in so far as it advances liberty for capital. When democracy doesn't give liberty to capital, neoliberals tend to see the democratic process as problematic.

Classical liberals on the other hand hold democracy as an end in itself as the goal of liberty.

This is probably the reason that neoliberals believe that democracy can be imposed by force - since it is only just a tool to a greater end. Classical liberals are always skeptical about the imposition of democracy because they understand it to be functional only when it is an aspiration and aspirations cannot be imposed (by force or otherwise).

Aspirations can only be encouraged or fostered, never commanded.Also, neoliberalism is to free markets as neoconservatism is to democracy. Neoliberals do NOT feel that DEMOCRACY can be IMPOSED, but that FREE MARKETS PURIFY corruption by REVEALING potential opportunities to non-bureaucrats. It's possible that such revelation results in democracy, but it's also possible that individual entrepreneurs vie to escape populist conformity and demand individual autonomy instead through the rule of law instead of the rule of men (a republican rather than a democratic virtue). In politics, this is often viewed as naive because host country (domestic) advocates of neoliberalism want to get out from under the thumb of a society viewed as tyrannical (whether it's through careless tyranny of the masses or oligarchical brainwashing) while home country (foreign) advocates want to make said society more transparent (whether it's for selfless reform or self-interested market interests). As such, entrepreneurs are only paid respect to in hindsight when popular consent finally overcomes its stupidity (yes, stupidity, not ignorance) through recognition of marginal exploitation (such as mass starvation, epidemics, conscription, abuse, etc.).With regard to entrepreneurs, I'm just not that enamored of the conservative cause to agree with your point. I agree with the general reasoning of your argument, but I disagree about the values placed on the outcomes.

For me, economics is just a means to an end, not the end itself. The end is liberty, economic theory is only a tool.I agree with what you're saying about economics not being an end unto itself, but if the ends don't justify the means, then it wouldn't be justified to elevate the poor by robbing the rich.

The ultimate point for me here is that fair trade detracts from the meaning of entrepreneurship ("entrepreneurism" sounds funny, heh) since entrepreneurs don't want to be enslaved to the masses or to the government. We want to be free to innovate for our own purposes, and if the government steals from us just to maximize the welfare of the people, we'd be better off not wasting our energy to innovate at all.

Regarding corporate oppression, I always found that argument to be nonsense since consumer sovereignty and collective bargaining give the people enough power due to how consumers and workers have to make the first move for financiers to earn money. Ergo, if a culture concedes to cosmopolitan, compulsive, complacent consumption via groupthink, political correctness, information overload, etc., it just sucks to be them.And I would also say that modern taxation to support charity social services is a policy that originate with the middle class and is electorally supported by the middle class. The poor ain't robbing anyone here.

Voting records in every western country show that the higher your economic status, the higher the probability that you actually do vote. Low economic status people have the lowest voter turnout of all socio-economic groups.
Meh, it's not anyone else's fault that the poor don't go to the polls that the poor themselves. The rich have already been watered down to the poor's equals under democracy, and there are already plenty more poor people out there who are outvoting rich people even if a smaller proportion votes. If the middle class sees otherwise, then the rich would be foolhardy not to suppress them as well.I strongly disagree that democracy makes for equality between rich and poor. That may make sense in a purely theoretical sense, but in reality, the rich are able to game the system in their favor most of the time (not always, but more often than not - especially with political systems like that of the USA).
OK, but I still don't see why the middle class is justified to campaign for taxes assessed against the rich to take care of the poor. It might be rational to pursue political pressure, but I don't see why exertion of pressure is intrinsically justified when it infringes upon the property rights of a minority, property rights which were promised in exchange for citizen status under the State.
1. Justification is irrelevant here. Whether or not the middle class is 'justified' or not, matters not. Fact is, they do it.

2. Any action by any person or group inherently infringes upon someone else's liberty. To preclude ALL possible violations of ALL possible liberties is to preclude ALL possible actions.

3. The rights of private property are a function of the collective, and exist only because of the collective. Without the collective principle of property rights, the individual right of property does not exist. (i.e. courts, contracts, law, crown & sheriff, etc, are all necessary for private property to exist)

4. Democracy is not an ideal or perfect system. It is indeed messy and sometimes quite inefficient. The only argument in its favor is that it is less nasty, less brutal, more prosperous and grants more liberty than any other known system of governance.
With the above available, I can now ask you, "What are you still defending?"

If this seems vague, consider the following responses to your four points:

1. Without justice, classical liberalism has no purpose since it otherwise only impedes a state's ability to pursue national interests in the war of all against all.

2. How would a state provide welfare without coercion if entrepreneurs never joined them out of fear from political retribution?

3. Slavery is worse than death because there is no worse torture than to exist for someone else's sake without receiving appreciative compensation (whether it's economic or not). As such, if the collective is entitled to priority, I see no difference between being a citizen under the State raised for the political machine and being an animal on a farm raised for the slaughterhouse.

4. Churchill might have been right about democracy (with respect to Hobbes temperament about human life in the state of nature), but why should we remain content with a flawed model (nevermind why is democracy the preferable direction after the republic)?

But justice doesn't exist as an absolute value. It is a relative thing that varies from place to place, person to person.

And what "original system of redistributive wealth" are you referring to here?

Private property doesn't exist prior to state property. State or Crown property is the true historical origin of the institution of private property....I'm referring to the idea that the middle class is entitled to tax whoever it wants (such as entrepreneurs) in order to provide "charitable" social services for the poor. Theft is coercion no matter how or why it occurs, and the only legitimate taxes are those the taxes accede to. Why else would "No taxation without representation," be justified?

...You are making the Church's error against Copernicus here.

Just because all common sense and all known or existing scientific theory says that there are specific natural limits for human nutrition (or that the sun revolves around the earth), that doesn't mean that this is absolutely true or always must be true. It just might not be true at all (the earth just might revolve around the sun instead).

The best consensus of scientific thought tends to evolve over time. That which was scientifically 'true' one hundred years ago, is no longer 'true' now.

That is to say, those "physical limitations" that you speak of are not actually 'absolute' limitations - only temporally defined ones that appear to be absolute.

Our modern science never asserts that a fact is "true" or "not true". That is not epistemologically possible. Instead, scientists say, that a fact is 'true' to the best of our collective knowledge, according to our present theories of understanding, at this given time, in this context.OK, just because certain conditions (such as defense of property rights and physical nutritional options) are dynamic doesn't mean they aren't absolute since things still exist even if things change. The ultimate criteria for relativism is that multiple realities can exist simultaneously, but it's just not possible for multiple pegs to fit through the same hole at the same time. Reality might evolve over time such that one peg can fit through a hole after another, but change entails work no matter what perspective is used.

Actually, even a change of perspective requires work at some level. :-/

Boiled down to the discovery of truth, we surrender to relativism as a heuristic when communication differences make certain values appear incommensurable and when perspective differences make certain adjustments seem unaffordable (and given our earlier agreement on how obsession over absolutes is problematic, this should make sense).

However, this doesn't mean relativism is the actual nature of ideology, morality, etc. Rather it is only a temporary crutch that should only be used to support us when we've reached the practical limits of intuition (and actually, if it's ever totally discarded, we'll inhibit mercy and entertainment as rejuvenation was previously described).

Actually, subjectivity definitely does equal relativism. I cannot fathom how you can assert otherwise.

I'll agree that objectivity doesn't equal absolutism, but epistemology requires that the existence of absolute truth requires objective knowledge and objective knowledge is ultimately impossible for human beings. Ergo, from a human perspective, all assertions of 'absolute truth' or 'absolute knowledge' are nothing more than mystical superstition.W/e, I'll keep this simple.

I'm tied to one chair and can only see half of a balloon. You're tied to another chair and can only see the other half. Do either of us know what the entire balloon looks like? No. Do both of us have independent perspectives on the balloon? Yes. Does the balloon definitely exist? Yes.

Design any Gettier problem you can imagine, just because reality definitely exists doesn't mean we're going to have complete portrayals of its existence. At first this might just seem like a form of imperfect objectivity, but details are not the only things that can be incomplete. Structure can also be incomplete such that entire dimensions can be absent or twisted in our systems and models, and such deformation will prevent us from viewing reality in itself.

My reality certainly exists. ;)

You are convinced your reality exists. It all comes down to the credibilty of judgement for practical assessment of any given relative fact.

Just because humans can't actually know/prove absolute values or absolute facts with any absolute knowledge, that doesn't mean that humans are not obsessed with assertions about knowing or proving values or facts.:)

There is no "your reality" or "my reality" but only "the reality". We may have difference perspectives on reality, but reality exists definitely no matter what (since even if all "living" things died tomorrow, reality would still go on).

I also agree with your position on unity theories because it's rational to want to organize our minds efficiently. Like relativism though, pluralism is a temporary crutch to be used for the sake of tolerance when amends cannot presently be made.

I never said the Athenian democracy was non-tyrannical. That would be absurd. I was pointing out that it was a remarkably complex institution that had some important cultural components to make it work. This particular practice is interesting in that is shows recognition that 'uppity entrepeneurs' are inherently dangerous creatures. ;)

Secondly, the Athenian democracy is significant to history because it actually was a demos - ruled by almost all the male citizens who were not slaves. The lower economic strata of citizens certainly did have a political voice (quite unlike later 'pseudo-democratic' type regimes like Roman Republic or pre-20th century western nations). The Athenian demos was not a stoic collection of wise and educated men. They were a crude mass of the citizenry, barbers and fishmongers, butchers and shoemakers.Hmmm.

Do you believe tyranny is inevitable? I mean if political equilibrium is only possible among laymen since ambition for discovery leads to conflict, then nobody should ever strive to become intelligent or sophisticated, but what good is liberty if ambition is not allowed?

Michael

Jul 14th 2009, 03:25 PM

Just because absolute values exist doesn't mean we have to know specifically what they are. For example, it would be possible for me to not know where THE strike zone is in baseball despite how there is, in fact, a strike zone. Similarly, if I was tied down in a chair with the perspective of only half a balloon, it would be impossible for me to know what the other half of the balloon looked like despite how it does, in fact, appear a certain way. Further similarly, I don't know the grammatical rules for German, but German still has certain rules for grammar.
You are apparently missing the key epistemological argument here.

I'm not asserting that absolute values don't or can't exist. That's absurd.

I'm stating that no human being can possibly claim to have any knowledge of such absolutes, regardless if they exist or not.

Ergo, ALL human claims of absolute knowledge are spurious.

I'll address the other points later, but this point is just too important not to address right away.

Michael

Sep 24th 2009, 11:33 PM

First of all, let me state that this particular post of yours is truly impressive. Glad you reminded me to come back to it. :)

Just because absolute values exist doesn't mean we have to know specifically what they are. For example, it would be possible for me to not know where THE strike zone is in baseball despite how there is, in fact, a strike zone. Similarly, if I was tied down in a chair with the perspective of only half a balloon, it would be impossible for me to know what the other half of the balloon looked like despite how it does, in fact, appear a certain way. Further similarly, I don't know the grammatical rules for German, but German still has certain rules for grammar.
Strike zones, chairs, balloons, German language and German grammar are all distinctly human created and defined things - none of them are "absolute" in any way.

How does that justify a claim for the existence of absolute values or absolute knowledge or absolute anything?

Are you suggesting that humans are the source or 'font' of absolute values?

Or are you suggesting that some supernatural source is the 'font' of absolute values?

If absolute values exist, they ought ot have some source or origin...

You can call it a semantic game all you want, I still don't see how a relativist world can be demonstrated without being axiomatically disproven. Even the existence of language disproves relativism's legitimacy because language's existence is predicated upon the existence of universal qualifiers; if said qualifiers had relativist characteristics, language could not be used reliably for communication since language would not be regularly dependable.

Note that this doesn't mean language can't exist in a dynamic ebb and flow though (subject to changing connotative equilibriums). :-)

Regarding paradoxes, paradoxes might be tolerated for the sake of temporary pragmatism, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be investigated and addressed since that's what discovery is all about anyway - recognizing contradictions in order to uncover and resolve the premises which impose confusion.

For example in consideration of your statement, one reason it seems paradoxical is because we're trying to reconcile it from multiple perspectives simultaneously, but the statement wasn't written for the purpose of serving multiple perspectives simultaneously. Ergo, it seems paradoxical because we're interpreting it for the wrong function.
It is a semantic game because all knowledge (or claims of knowledge by human beings) is relative to human beings. Human beings are the limit of all claims of knowledge.

All human beings have limited perspectives, limited lifespans and subjective perceptions. We have no 'non-human' source of knowledge readily available to confirm our own human-centric claims of knowledge.

And yes, some paradoxes appear to be worthy of deeper consideration and thought. Paradoxes also tend to demonstrate the limits of human thought.

As for my time statement, I assure you, I made that statement specifically because it served multiple perspectives simultaneously. That was my reason for using precisely that type of example. The time stated was a true statement when I posted it but only for those who shared my timezone - other people (living in Australia for example) could reasonably argue that the time statement was incorrect from their perspective. Our measurement of time itself is relative from a human perspective of geographic location.

Yes, I agree that obsession with absolutes is problematic since it would undermine why absolutes are cared about in the first place, to make the world a better place through human experience. Therefore, if experience is dedicated to studying absolutes, life's purpose becomes paradoxical through vain self-consumption and frustrated self-destruction. Such is the role of entertainment, to provide venues of rejuvenation such that we as individuals do not go mad.
So you admit that absolutes are problematic because of human limitations (going mad or frustrated self-destruction or whatever) and the need to adapt to human experience?

How can any "absolute" thing be anything but "absolute" always and at all times and never really changing?

As I noted in my previous post in this thread...

I'm not asserting that absolute values don't or can't exist. That's absurd.

I'm stating that no human being can possibly claim to have any knowledge of such absolutes, regardless if they exist or not.

That's the key point. Whether absolutes truly exist or not is not really provable or knowable from a human perspective. They are like "God" - one may take them on faith, or not.

However, I don't see what's wrong for checking between perfection and error as long as it isn't done all the time. As human beings, we have to recognize as an absolute that we are both imperfect and finitely physically bound (even if we can't prove it [despite abundant empirical and metaphysical evidence]), so in order for us to optimally engage in discovery, we require rejuvenation for biological sustenance and psychological satisfaction. Likewise, we require disciplined investigation for biological improvement, and psychological motivation.
Whatever else this argument says, it certainly is an appeal to the merits of moderation. I don't object to that, but later on in your post you did. ;)

Extended to your proposed political system here, I'm actually surprised by what you've said since it entails a significant degree of selfish hedonism only on behalf of the majority (or "ruling class") instead of the individual. Such reflects the cynical and nihilist realpolitik I was proposing earlier as a negative utilitarian defense against coercion. However, I'm condemning utilitarianism as a theory of justice here because utilitarianism is predicated on how rationality is not a foundation for justice since that's no different from might makes right (which is an inefficient redundancy of utility anyway)....
Yes, I agree that utilitarianism fails as a perfect theory of justice.

I don't see how that is relevant since every theoretical system will fail as a perfect theory of justice because there is no such thing as a perfect theory of justice. :shrug:

...and on top of that, you believe that human beings are NOT fundamentally rational creatures which leads me to believe you're proposing a system based on the wisdom of the majority due to the resulting moderate policies (as you've happened to describe).
Yes, that's pretty much it. I think that humans are a mixture of rational and irrational elements. We're also social animals (Rousseau) and political animals (Aristotle) and productive animals (Marx) and moral animals (Nietzsche).

And yes, the rational principle of moderation is probably one of the better ways of dealing with the various irrational passions that humans are inclined towards.

Well no doubt you've heard of concepts such as groupthink, peer pressure, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, Condorcet's Paradox, etc, no?
Yes, certainly. Also the Peter Principle, propaganda, PR theory, and Marx's infamous theory of the fetishization of commodities. :)

Humans are such curious animals.

And why is moderation inherently justifiable? Sure, human beings are imperfect so moderation improves the chances of our mistakes balancing out compared to extremism, but what about discipline and consistency? What about dynamic equilibrium through rejuvenation and taking our time through slow and steady progress? Isn't that what tradition is supposed to be about anyway, using heuristics in order to satisfy natural compulsions while distinguishing productive processes in order to prevent them from becoming vulnerable?
See above for your own appeal to the virtue of moderation. ;)

Can tradition work? Yes, but only when it's thoroughly appreciated and not simply given the benefit of the doubt for being grounded in the seemingly magical wisdom of the ancients. Otherwise, it's only a matter of time before the libertine circus comes to town and takes over town hall with its political machine.
Ah yes... conservativism defined as 'fear' of change.

What is so weird about that is conservatives seem to want to enact lots of radical changes in society... :ummm:

Below is a quote pyramid showing how this train of thought reverts back to classical liberalism (and beyond what's quoted reverts back to the difference between neoliberalism and classical liberalism. What you've described in the above four points however is quintessential positive liberalism instead:

<big nested quote omitted>

With the above available, I can now ask you, "What are you still defending?"

The principle of human liberty and dignity. :shrug:

I admit, I my arguments here have strayed beyond the core essential theory of classical liberalism. On that basis I cannot honestly claim that my political principles expressed are true to those of classical liberalism.

(You get to officially claim you scored a point off me here!)

That being said, I don't believe that 'purity' of my arguments to 19th century classical liberalism is a failure of my argument here.

If this seems vague, consider the following responses to your four points:

1. Without justice, classical liberalism has no purpose since it otherwise only impedes a state's ability to pursue national interests in the war of all against all.

2. How would a state provide welfare without coercion if entrepreneurs never joined them out of fear from political retribution?

3. Slavery is worse than death because there is no worse torture than to exist for someone else's sake without receiving appreciative compensation (whether it's economic or not). As such, if the collective is entitled to priority, I see no difference between being a citizen under the State raised for the political machine and being an animal on a farm raised for the slaughterhouse.

4. Churchill might have been right about democracy (with respect to Hobbes temperament about human life in the state of nature), but why should we remain content with a flawed model (nevermind why is democracy the preferable direction after the republic)?
1. That is a feature not a bug. The principle of liberalism is liberty. The will of the state sometimes ought to be impeded.

2. I've addressed this point previously. It is a non-argument. How can any state provide any function without claiming a monopoly of force and/or coercion of taxation?

3. We've argued this point to death. Your assertion is 100% subjective. History is replete with examples of millions of human beings submitting to slavery as an alternative to death.

4. No one is ultimately happy with a flawed model. If you can come up with a non-flawed model, let us know. I'm sure lots of people would love a better political system than the game we presently call 'democracy' but isn't really all that democratic. I'm certainly no fan of the present system of rule by elites with the tacit permission of the governed.

I'm referring to the idea that the middle class is entitled to tax whoever it wants (such as entrepreneurs) in order to provide "charitable" social services for the poor. Theft is coercion no matter how or why it occurs, and the only legitimate taxes are those the taxes accede to. Why else would "No taxation without representation," be justified?
No taxation without representation is justified because government and tax collection are one and the same. If one isn't represented, on isn't giving consent and thus it is nothing more than blatant coercion.

But if consent is granted by majority election and proper legal form, coercion of taxation is held to be justified. This is just a popular convention of course - nothing intrinsic about it.

OK, just because certain conditions (such as defense of property rights and physical nutritional options) are dynamic doesn't mean they aren't absolute since things still exist even if things change. The ultimate criteria for relativism is that multiple realities can exist simultaneously, but it's just not possible for multiple pegs to fit through the same hole at the same time. Reality might evolve over time such that one peg can fit through a hole after another, but change entails work no matter what perspective is used.

Actually, even a change of perspective requires work at some level. :-/

Boiled down to the discovery of truth, we surrender to relativism as a heuristic when communication differences make certain values appear incommensurable and when perspective differences make certain adjustments seem unaffordable (and given our earlier agreement on how obsession over absolutes is problematic, this should make sense).

However, this doesn't mean relativism is the actual nature of ideology, morality, etc. Rather it is only a temporary crutch that should only be used to support us when we've reached the practical limits of intuition (and actually, if it's ever totally discarded, we'll inhibit mercy and entertainment as rejuvenation was previously described).
Castro wiped the rules of private property off the map of Cuba.

If things change over time, they are not absolute. Absolute things are perfect and don't change.

W/e, I'll keep this simple.

I'm tied to one chair and can only see half of a balloon. You're tied to another chair and can only see the other half. Do either of us know what the entire balloon looks like? No. Do both of us have independent perspectives on the balloon? Yes. Does the balloon definitely exist? Yes.
This requires acknowledgement of the limits of human epistemology and the role of faith.

Design any Gettier problem you can imagine, just because reality definitely exists doesn't mean we're going to have complete portrayals of its existence. At first this might just seem like a form of imperfect objectivity, but details are not the only things that can be incomplete. Structure can also be incomplete such that entire dimensions can be absent or twisted in our systems and models, and such deformation will prevent us from viewing reality in itself.
And this proves absolute knowledge how?

Sounds more like an admission that human knowledge is inherently limited.

:)

There is no "your reality" or "my reality" but only "the reality". We may have difference perspectives on reality, but reality exists definitely no matter what (since even if all "living" things died tomorrow, reality would still go on).
That is an assertion of subjective faith.

One can't know that the sun will rise tomorrow, one can only reasonably expect it. ;)

I also agree with your position on unity theories because it's rational to want to organize our minds efficiently. Like relativism though, pluralism is a temporary crutch to be used for the sake of tolerance when amends cannot presently be made.
I don't see this as viable argument.

Hmmm.

Do you believe tyranny is inevitable? I mean if political equilibrium is only possible among laymen since ambition for discovery leads to conflict, then nobody should ever strive to become intelligent or sophisticated, but what good is liberty if ambition is not allowed?
I don't believe that tyranny is inevitable at all. I just think it likely because of the reactionary rightwing (Plato's ghost).

Socrates proved that the reactionary rightwing would rather die a martyr's death than submit to democracy.

(Everything always comes down to Plato or Nietzsche!)

Daktoria

Sep 27th 2009, 02:24 PM

After reading through your post a few times now, I still don't know how to respond to most of it because of these two sections which I will respond to here:

The principle of human liberty and dignity.

I admit, I my arguments here have strayed beyond the core essential theory of classical liberalism. On that basis I cannot honestly claim that my political principles expressed are true to those of classical liberalism.

(You get to officially claim you scored a point off me here!)

That being said, I don't believe that 'purity' of my arguments to 19th century classical liberalism is a failure of my argument here.

From my perspective, the failure of your argument is that you're assigning liberty and dignity relativist definitions that have no purpose beyond the eye of the beholder unless we're talking about political competition such that realpolitik is the bottomline. I mean you haven't really described why liberty and dignity are important to your beliefs or model(s), and the best I can get out of you is that everything comes down to moderation and pragmatism, neither of which are liberal beliefs at all since forced (whether internal or external) equality is still coercion.

More or less, I'd say you're stuck somewhere between libertarian socialism and Red Tory/ paleoconservative traditionalism. It's a great platform for political campaigning because it finds the short term middle ground in a constituency very easily, but from a (transcendental) moral perspective, it just doesn't mean anything because it's so wish washy. Populism's nice, but it gets boring after a while since anxiety builds up from a lack of variety that results from conformity in order to remain politically competitive (or at least compatible).

You could stick to morality being an artificial construct created by people, but if that's the case, then nothing is ever really defended at all (which confirms that liberalism really is a facade for power politics, at the very least at the psychological level for disguising vanity and romance). In the end, it all comes down to physiological feelings forged by environmental influences, and even if free will still exists, it might as well just be suspended in a world of nothingness kinda like an astronaut floating in space with no ability to either create or impact a world around him.

No taxation without representation is justified because government and tax collection are one and the same. If one isn't represented, on isn't giving consent and thus it is nothing more than blatant coercion.

But if consent is granted by majority election and proper legal form, coercion of taxation is held to be justified. This is just a popular convention of course - nothing intrinsic about it.

I was originally going to respond to the section of 4 questions before this, but this section instead seems to both grant more insight on your position and have more potential for not going around in circles.

Social contracts and democracy might be used to procure peace for the sake of survival, but if survival comes from coercion, why is it justified?

Let's say we have a bunch of farmers and craftsman who live along a river delta that gets regularly flooded from a monsoon. In order for the community to survive over the long run and preserve its livelihoods from getting destroyed, it has to cooperate. However, some minority, one way or another, will end up getting its livelihoods sacrificed anyway because bulwarks, dams, irrigation, etc. will divert water flow in such a way that some property gets destroyed no matter what. At the end of the monsoon season, there is a net gain in resources and standard of living, but the minority will inevitably struggle to rebuild.

Monsoon season is approaching, and finally, a recognizable majority in the community has become organized such that it has the ability to divert water flow and preserve the community. Those outside of the majority are aware of this though and also understand that they don't have the power to stop their livelihoods from getting destroyed one way or another. Furthermore, they also recognize that their reimbursement for damages will be entirely determined by the majority which has a monopoly on provisions. For example, it doesn't matter if the waterworks are constructed on minority land or not such that minority members benefit from a water flow diversion windfall because the majority can expropriate and redistribute property from minority members to majority members at will. Perhaps it does this through "legal" redistribution (backed by the majority for the sake of popular utility) or perhaps it does this through cartel price fixing. Either way, it can be done.

I have two questions here. One, "What, if any, alternative methods of democratic governance for public choice can be explained through macroscopic policy alone, such that the minority isn't doomed to lose all it has in vain?" Two, "If the minority is doomed, why shouldn't it spite the community, relocate from the community, or panic by indulging in gluttonous consumption of its livelihoods which are only going to be destroyed anyway (all of which will reduce the resources the community has to work with in protecting itself from the flood)?"

Michael

Oct 4th 2009, 12:44 PM

From my perspective, the failure of your argument is that you're assigning liberty and dignity relativist definitions that have no purpose beyond the eye of the beholder unless we're talking about political competition such that realpolitik is the bottomline. I mean you haven't really described why liberty and dignity are important to your beliefs or model(s), and the best I can get out of you is that everything comes down to moderation and pragmatism, neither of which are liberal beliefs at all since forced (whether internal or external) equality is still coercion.

More or less, I'd say you're stuck somewhere between libertarian socialism and Red Tory/ paleoconservative traditionalism. It's a great platform for political campaigning because it finds the short term middle ground in a constituency very easily, but from a (transcendental) moral perspective, it just doesn't mean anything because it's so wish washy. Populism's nice, but it gets boring after a while since anxiety builds up from a lack of variety that results from conformity in order to remain politically competitive (or at least compatible).

You could stick to morality being an artificial construct created by people, but if that's the case, then nothing is ever really defended at all (which confirms that liberalism really is a facade for power politics, at the very least at the psychological level for disguising vanity and romance). In the end, it all comes down to physiological feelings forged by environmental influences, and even if free will still exists, it might as well just be suspended in a world of nothingness kinda like an astronaut floating in space with no ability to either create or impact a world around him.
First of all, I think it is important to take note of distinctions between my own subjective preferences, and my analysis of how human governance may actually function best. I consider these to be two somewhat different topics. :shrug:

In the case of my own subjective preference, moderation and pragmatism are the values I personally rely upon for my own political preferences (and life choices generally).

In the case of the analysis of human governance, that's where 'liberty and dignity' come into play as social values. Yes, these terms are generally relative to the subjective multitude, but the subjectivity is about 'how' to achieve the generally shared goal of 'liberty and dignity', not the goal itself.

Liberalism is a political ideology that holds 'liberty and dignity for all' as values or social goals. As a general rule, liberalism favors the democratic principle of governance as being the best route to achieve these collective social goals.

And yes, liberalism (or classical liberalism) certainly is Red Tory. Blue Tory is all about 'god, king & country' (traditional conservativism).

But that is not the whole of liberalism. Liberalism can also be progressivism. Liberalism is a 'big tent' that covers a wide spectrum of debate about how far to use the power of the state/collective to achieve/support the ideal goal of 'liberty and dignity' for all.

I personally use 'moderation and pragmatism' to choose where I draw that line. Your choice about where to draw that line might be different. But we both agree that a line ought to be drawn. :shrug:

The bottom line here is that democracy is a system that presumes to aggregate the will of the people as defined by elections and voting majorities. This principle appears to be tacitly accepted by a substantial majority of people all over the globe.

If you are looking for somewhere to invest your morality beyond your own petty selfish interests, I'll be happy to introduce you to my theory about how 'the law' is ultimately 'codified morality'. Government by 'the rule of law' has replaced Religion as the institutional mechanism whereby morality is codified and propagated in our modern society. :)

And to anticipate your reply upon that point, let me say that one can choose to accept the will of the majority is a moral principle. One can also maintain conscientious objection - but you will always feel the pressure of the mob to conform! That's because this is how morality is ultimately defined. Our modern legal system is merely a system for codifying and modifying collective and social morality. Real morality is usually expressed as personal emotion.

I was originally going to respond to the section of 4 questions before this, but this section instead seems to both grant more insight on your position and have more potential for not going around in circles.

Social contracts and democracy might be used to procure peace for the sake of survival, but if survival comes from coercion, why is it justified?

Let's say we have a bunch of farmers and craftsman who live along a river delta that gets regularly flooded from a monsoon. In order for the community to survive over the long run and preserve its livelihoods from getting destroyed, it has to cooperate. However, some minority, one way or another, will end up getting its livelihoods sacrificed anyway because bulwarks, dams, irrigation, etc. will divert water flow in such a way that some property gets destroyed no matter what. At the end of the monsoon season, there is a net gain in resources and standard of living, but the minority will inevitably struggle to rebuild.

Monsoon season is approaching, and finally, a recognizable majority in the community has become organized such that it has the ability to divert water flow and preserve the community. Those outside of the majority are aware of this though and also understand that they don't have the power to stop their livelihoods from getting destroyed one way or another. Furthermore, they also recognize that their reimbursement for damages will be entirely determined by the majority which has a monopoly on provisions. For example, it doesn't matter if the waterworks are constructed on minority land or not such that minority members benefit from a water flow diversion windfall because the majority can expropriate and redistribute property from minority members to majority members at will. Perhaps it does this through "legal" redistribution (backed by the majority for the sake of popular utility) or perhaps it does this through cartel price fixing. Either way, it can be done.

I always have a problem with hypothetical 'thought experiments' like this one because they always seem to include/require/assume some conditions of perfect knowledge where nothing of the sort is going to be present in reality.

For example, how can you assume perfect certainty that all of the landowners will all suffer equally from the monsoon season, or even if the monsoons are going to cause any serious damage at all? These assumptions of perfect knowledge are entirely and absurdly unrealistic of normal human conditions - especially those involving weather/disasters.

I have two questions here. One, "What, if any, alternative methods of democratic governance for public choice can be explained through macroscopic policy alone, such that the minority isn't doomed to lose all it has in vain?" Two, "If the minority is doomed, why shouldn't it spite the community, relocate from the community, or panic by indulging in gluttonous consumption of its livelihoods which are only going to be destroyed anyway (all of which will reduce the resources the community has to work with in protecting itself from the flood)?"

The modern principle of democracy is predicated upon the principle of majority rule, but it is also structured for protection of minority rights under majority rules. This feature is unique to the modern or contemporary form of democracy (it was absent in the ancient Athenian model).

Modern democratic theory holds that any given voter may be in the majority on some issues and yet find themselves in the minority on some other issues. On the general assumption of general rationality, majorities thus have a rationally vested interest in not violating minority rights 'cart-blanche'. Equality before the law is the ruling order. This applies to minorities as well as majorities. (As noted above, this is very different than the ancient Athenian model where majorities could legally violate minority rights).

Daktoria

Oct 5th 2009, 01:13 AM

First of all, I think it is important to take note of distinctions between my own subjective preferences, and my analysis of how human governance may actually function best. I consider these to be two somewhat different topics.

In the case of my own subjective preference, moderation and pragmatism are the values I personally rely upon for my own political preferences (and life choices generally).

In the case of the analysis of human governance, that's where 'liberty and dignity' come into play as social values. Yes, these terms are generally relative to the subjective multitude, but the subjectivity is about 'how' to achieve the generally shared goal of 'liberty and dignity', not the goal itself.

Liberalism is a political ideology that holds 'liberty and dignity for all' as values or social goals. As a general rule, liberalism favors the democratic principle of governance as being the best route to achieve these collective social goals.

And yes, liberalism (or classical liberalism) certainly is Red Tory. Blue Tory is all about 'god, king & country' (traditional conservativism).

But that is not the whole of liberalism. Liberalism can also be progressivism. Liberalism is a 'big tent' that covers a wide spectrum of debate about how far to use the power of the state/collective to achieve/support the ideal goal of 'liberty and dignity' for all.

I personally use 'moderation and pragmatism' to choose where I draw that line. Your choice about where to draw that line might be different. But we both agree that a line ought to be drawn.

The bottom line here is that democracy is a system that presumes to aggregate the will of the people as defined by elections and voting majorities. This principle appears to be tacitly accepted by a substantial majority of people all over the globe.

If you are looking for somewhere to invest your morality beyond your own petty selfish interests, I'll be happy to introduce you to my theory about how 'the law' is ultimately 'codified morality'. Government by 'the rule of law' has replaced Religion as the institutional mechanism whereby morality is codified and propagated in our modern society.

And to anticipate your reply upon that point, let me say that one can choose to accept the will of the majority is a moral principle. One can also maintain conscientious objection - but you will always feel the pressure of the mob to conform! That's because this is how morality is ultimately defined. Our modern legal system is merely a system for codifying and modifying collective and social morality. Real morality is usually expressed as personal emotion.

If popular movements are what forge morality and the course of civilization then, what's the difference between liberalism and realism? Similarly, how is progressivism shielded from mutating into neoconservatism? Social welfare is an infinite demand that can be supported by internal supplies for only finite amounts of time (especially if that society is growing or at least evolving), so it's only a matter of time before progressivism directs its attention to expansion in order to satisfy its own existence at supposedly commonsensical standards of decency.

I always have a problem with hypothetical 'thought experiments' like this one because they always seem to include/require/assume some conditions of perfect knowledge where nothing of the sort is going to be present in reality.

For example, how can you assume perfect certainty that all of the landowners will all suffer equally from the monsoon season, or even if the monsoons are going to cause any serious damage at all? These assumptions of perfect knowledge are entirely and absurdly unrealistic of normal human conditions - especially those involving weather/disasters.

I'm trying to make it easy by taking an external perspective that has perfect information. Sure, we could take an internal and asymmetrical perspective instead, but the goal in the experiment is to eliminate personal preference for the sake of democratic umpiring, not to figure out how a participant could politically handle the situation (which is a more advanced concept :)).

The modern principle of democracy is predicated upon the principle of majority rule, but it is also structured for protection of minority rights under majority rules. This feature is unique to the modern or contemporary form of democracy (it was absent in the ancient Athenian model).

Modern democratic theory holds that any given voter may be in the majority on some issues and yet find themselves in the minority on some other issues. On the general assumption of general rationality, majorities thus have a rationally vested interest in not violating minority rights 'cart-blanche'. Equality before the law is the ruling order. This applies to minorities as well as majorities. (As noted above, this is very different than the ancient Athenian model where majorities could legally violate minority rights).

OK, so explicitly speaking (in the experiment), what are those rights?