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Old 08-24-2016, 05:51 PM
maskedmelon maskedmelon is offline
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Oh, so corporations are able to purchase the same amounts of power from the City of Butte, Montana as they can from United States of America? Why don't they just work with Butte then? Fewer people to deal with.
I read your post wrong when I wrote the Nibs. You said "whether purchase through government or not," so this analogy would not apply.

My last post still applies though^^
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Old 08-24-2016, 04:55 PM
entruil entruil is offline
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Good governments should be large enough to safeguard its citizenship from the greed of capitalism.
Hi.

This is from RP on Feb.26,2002.

"Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism! "

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Old 08-24-2016, 05:08 PM
Nibblewitz Nibblewitz is offline
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Aspects of unfettered capitalism exist in society and have terrible implications. Speculative investment and the destruction of international trade barriers come to mind.

P.S. I don't want to have a philosophical debate about Marxism; it is an interesting theory and has some explanatory power, but I have no intention of shoving it down anyone's throats. It is a classical concept and worth mentioning when discussing the intersections of economics and politics.
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Old 08-24-2016, 05:15 PM
entruil entruil is offline
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intersections of economics and politics.
I just want to leave this here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School
Last edited by entruil; 08-24-2016 at 05:19 PM.. Reason: stuff
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Old 08-24-2016, 05:43 PM
maskedmelon maskedmelon is offline
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Originally Posted by Nibblewitz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Aspects of unfettered capitalism exist in society and have terrible implications. Speculative investment and the destruction of international trade barriers come to mind.

P.S. I don't want to have a philosophical debate about Marxism; it is an interesting theory and has some explanatory power, but I have no intention of shoving it down anyone's throats. It is a classical concept and worth mentioning when discussing the intersections of economics and politics.
Yeah, I'm not arguing for the virtues of unfettered capitalism. I am just identifying the danger of large government in such an environment. You contend government should restrain capitalism, which I agree with. The danger that I see is when you have a large government that does not do that, which is necessarily the case such an environment. Put another way, restraining capitalism moves things to the left, so you no longer have a large government on the right.
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Old 08-24-2016, 01:19 PM
Nihilist_santa Nihilist_santa is offline
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Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
As most of you know, I am somewhat politically confused with a mix of views from different points along the left-right continuum and have expressed (or maybe not?) somewhat dissonant views on various topics. Most of this I've attributed to differences in reasoned understandings and preferences.

Well, yesterday I was struck most gently with revelation. It occurred to me that my preference for limited government is strongly correlated with combatting some of the nastier aspects rightist individualism while my understanding of the necessity for a strongly authoritarian state to advance man is strongly correlated with tempering less palatable aspects of leftist collectivism.

This epiphany helped me better understand why I generally identify as a moderate centrist while holding seemingly incongruent extreme views. It also led me to clearly identify the libertarian left and authoritarian right and the most deplorable realms of political ideology because the outcomes of both are necessarily stagnation or worse.

Why?

Well, limited government is necessary to minimize government corruption on the right because if the state does not control the money, the money controls the state... a condition we see increasingly today in the US.

On the left, if the state commands the resources then it is responsible for caring for its collective citizenry and determining the best use of said resources, which always should be advancing the state. Individual liberty in that setting becomes a threat to the livelihood of the state.

Currently, the US is becoming increasingly authoritarian and I actually agree with Alarti's suggestion that HRC exists in the realm of the authoritarian right, but would add while pandering to the libertarian left. The US is too caught up in social issues and abuse of government to pummel dissent. We either need less government or a massive shift to the left and if we are going to go there, it needs to be absolute.

I don't really see any practical solution and it is why I prefer things to just stay where they are, so that I can go about my life and be left alone. If we are keen on change, we either need a Vulcan overlord or the freedom to destroy one another.

I need to give more thought to what this means as we move to the center though, which is where I sit. Is the plot of 'ideal government' from left to right just linear and downward sloping, or is it varied in slope?

Thoughts?
You need some Hans-Hermann Hoppe in your life. In short its libertarian minarchism with a strong emphasis on physically removing leftist subverters from society. I personally dont see that coming about though without an authoritarian period to enforce the "purge" . I was with you up until "I actually agree with Alarti". Alarti is the type that if he had any power he would be HRC.
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Old 08-24-2016, 01:51 PM
maskedmelon maskedmelon is offline
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You need some Hans-Hermann Hoppe in your life. In short its libertarian minarchism with a strong emphasis on physically removing leftist subverters from society. I personally dont see that coming about though without an authoritarian period to enforce the "purge" . I was with you up until "I actually agree with Alarti". Alarti is the type that if he had any power he would be HRC.
My point on HRC is that she is a corporatist (good or bad, that is a position on the right) and does not substantially differ from any of the republican candidates (except Trump) in that regard. It wasn't an endorsement just an acknowledgement that on an economic scale she's not very left. She is however more authoritarian than the others, because she's corrupt a hell. She has no desire to reign in banks/Wall Street (leftist policy) because she's for sale. The astonishing thing is that most on the left either don't notice or don't care.
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Old 08-24-2016, 04:52 PM
fash fash is offline
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Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
corporatist (good or bad, that is a position on the right)
It's a stretch to call corporatism a position of the right. Capitalism, sure, but not corporatism. Bank and fiat regulations that select for crony capitalism and socializing risks for too-big-to-fail banks/Wall Street fall on the left side of economic freedoms.

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No, I'd prefer things to just stay as they are actually, but in an environment of increasing authoritarianism, no, I would not want a shift further to the right because then that just results in a super corporation controlling all wealth and using the formidable arm of government to destroy opposition.
My point there was that in the context of a large government that the left can control, it's unreasonable to expect things to stay as they are. A shift toward larger government is the outcome in that context. A "massive shift to the left" is jumping out of the frying pan & into the fire.

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No it isn't ^^ I'm not talking about the American political party, I'm talking about Libertarianism as the antithesis of Authoritarianism. Here's an example of what I was talking about: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
I wasn't talking about US's Libertarian party either. I was referring to left libertarianism e.g. libertarian socialism, anarcho-communism (libertarian communism), anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-syndicalism.. any of those non-vanguardist collective doctrines or egalitarian ideologies that don't understand economics.

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Ive thought it would be interesting to have as your government a class of people who are not allowed to own property or amass wealth but have all of their needs taken care of by the state. It could be a possible hedge against the ability to buy influence. This is similar to Platos idea of the silver class of auxiliaries but not quite or some could even say party members in 1984 unlike the proles who were allowed to be degenerates.
Interesting, but does this do anything besides save you some time in a democratic government? When they want more gibs, they'll burn down cities. When they want to vote, they'll martyr for publicity and plant bombs.
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Old 08-24-2016, 05:15 PM
Nihilist_santa Nihilist_santa is offline
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Interesting, but does this do anything besides save you some time in a democratic government? When they want more gibs, they'll burn down cities. When they want to vote, they'll martyr for publicity and plant bombs.
No it just removes the power of bureaucrats to grant favors. Its just a thought I mull over from time to time. I just find it kind of self defeating that we have these "citizen" leaders. No term limits combined with the "right" to pursue your own interest as a politician is kind of bullshit. Civil service/politicians should have to enter into a system they can not rig or profit from. This would draw only those with a genuine interest in efficient and just operation of that system toward it to begin with. In Plato's version children are tested to see if they fit into this class and are then raised by a family belonging to that class so as to instill those values.

If we have to use democratic methods the way you avoid "gibs" and riots is you use a timocratic method to decide voter eligibility. Then you create a way for those who desire to do so to progress into the timocracy based on some system of merit. Heinlein the sci-fi author and libertarian had proposed limiting citizenship and its rights to only those who served in the military. So something along those lines could be adopted.
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Old 08-24-2016, 06:03 PM
Ahldagor Ahldagor is offline
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No it just removes the power of bureaucrats to grant favors. Its just a thought I mull over from time to time. I just find it kind of self defeating that we have these "citizen" leaders. No term limits combined with the "right" to pursue your own interest as a politician is kind of bullshit. Civil service/politicians should have to enter into a system they can not rig or profit from. This would draw only those with a genuine interest in efficient and just operation of that system toward it to begin with. In Plato's version children are tested to see if they fit into this class and are then raised by a family belonging to that class so as to instill those values.

If we have to use democratic methods the way you avoid "gibs" and riots is you use a timocratic method to decide voter eligibility. Then you create a way for those who desire to do so to progress into the timocracy based on some system of merit. Heinlein the sci-fi author and libertarian had proposed limiting citizenship and its rights to only those who served in the military. So something along those lines could be adopted.
The government model in Starship Troopers is an interesting format that I lean towards. Civil service for civil rewards in some fashion gives an incentive that is currently lacking in most governments. Also, I think term limits in all elected offices and courts, even appointed positions, would have a net positive on how government functions within the US.
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