Libertarianism as the Handmaiden to Socialism

ShieldWife

Marchioness
I don’t want to see libertarians and paleo-cons being at odds with one another. Elves and dwarves may have their differences, but when a Balrog is coming, they put those differences aside until that problem is solved. Though it may be true, and might bear repeating, that the dwarves dug too greedily and too deep.

There are two broad ways at coming at libertarianism. One is to say that everything is fine as long as it follows NAP and people have no moral obligations to each other. The other is to say that people do have moral obligations and that you can follow the NAP and still be acting badly, but that the government can’t or shouldn’t force such moral obligations on people. The later is better than the former in my not so humble opinion.

Conservative values are a prerequisite for libertarian policies. If you have a society that widely practices conservative values and morals, then you don’t need laws against drugs, prostitution, promiscuity, or anything like that because the percentage of the population who engages in such is very small and they receive social stigma for it. In the 19th century you could buy morphine or cocaine over the counter and there were addicts, but we had a mostly moral society and addiction didn’t bring civilization crashing down. Often in the past prostitution was legal in far more sexually conservative societies than the modern USA where it’s almost entirely illegal.

I would say that the converse is true too, in a society devoid of conservative values, it doesn’t matter what you outlaw, people will find ways to engage in their vices even if you create a police state to stop them.

I believe that ultimately if enough people in a society have lives full of vices and lacking in virtues, then it is only a short matter of time before they have their hands out asking for help from society to mitigate the consequences of their misbehavior. Those hands out aren’t just open hands, they are hands holding guns demanding the violence of the state be used to extract money to help them out of the problems they have created through indulging in their vices.
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
Second, that you think megacorporations are more dangerous than the USSR which killed millions and tortured millions more shows how little perspective you have.

Or it shows how your thinking is limited to short-term only. The very fact that USSR killed millions means that it was less dangerous, because it was obviously evil. Nazism is less dangerous than Communism because it was so obviously evil - it was evil and it did not hide it. Communism is less dangerous than Progressivism because, while it hid its evil behind the rhetoric, that was the only thing it did.

The greatest danger in the world is evil which pretends to be good. And that is what Progressivism is. Make no mistake, it will kill millions in the end - but nobody will understand how it happened, what exactly happened, how we got there... and most may not even realize that it is Progressivism which is guilty, which means somebody else may try again, because, utopia.

And speaking of which, the idea that you can have a utopia in the first place is, in and of itself, evil.

EDIT:
The major conflict of the second half of the twentieth century was a disagreement about economic policy, so that simply isn't true.

And this shows why the hiding evil is dangerous - it is so easy to misunderstand. Communism is lot more than just economic policy, because if it was that, there would be no difference between Communism and Nazism at all - both are, after all, socialist ideologies. But Communism is a holistic ideology, seeking to transform the entire society, not just economic relationships (even though economic relationships are a basis of Communism, they are merely the foundation of its point of view, and do not form the entire structure of the ideology).
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
Yeah, to the degree people like abhorsen represent mainstream libertarian/liberal thought, its fairly handmainly to socialism.

Abhorsen, you were actually one of the people that came to mind initially when I was firat watching the videos. My sense of you is that on your moral principles your a lefty, which suggests that whenever your rationalist libertarian side comes into conflict with your moral intuitions, your more likely than not going to side with leftism.

@ShieldWife , I guess one of the things I'm trying to figure out is at what level the divergence is. There's a big difference for example between elf/dwarf alliance and an elf/goblin alliance.

Neither the dwarf or goblin King might be fully on the level the elves are (and even there, Elvin treachery is not unheard of) but i be much more careful about an agreement with a goblin king than Dwarf. A dwarf betraying us betrays his principles, while a goblin betraying us lives up to his.

Thus, for libertarian I'm wondering if the handmaiden ness is a corruption of libertarianism, and thus something to be saved, or a core part of the belief structure, and thus should always be looked at with suspicion, since its nature is leftist, and will side with that side in thr end.
 

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
Thus, for libertarian I'm wondering if the handmaiden ness is a corruption of libertarianism, and thus something to be saved, or a core part of the belief structure, and thus should always be looked at with suspicion, since its nature is leftist, and will side with that side in thr end.

Marx himself maintained that the historical dialectic required bourgeoisie merchant liberalism to destroy and replace the feudal ancien regime before the dictatorship of the proletariat could do the same in turn. We must remember that it wasn't Bolsheviks forced the Tsar to abdicate, it was constitutional market liberal 'conservatives', who then where themselves purged by radicals in a leftwing purity spiral. To my view not only are liberals of any sort not capable of fighting the pernicious moral premises of radicalism, they are ultimately on the same side, no matter the amount of bleating about 'muh individualism'.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
You think the Cold War was about economic policy?

Yup, I'm pretty much convinced; at the very least, your brand of libertarianism is a handmaiden to socialism.
Yes. The thing is that the economic policy of communism is fundamental to everything in the Cold War. Command and control economies combined with redistribution for imagined equity added onto any form of non-post-scarcity government through any means will result in a totalitarian dictatorship with all the evils involved. Because to keep people working when there is no incentive to do so will involve some sort of slavery, and to keep people from complaining about that will require speech laws, and so on and so forth. The USSR could not help being totalitarians even if Stalin was an angel.

Or it shows how your thinking is limited to short-term only. The very fact that USSR killed millions means that it was less dangerous, because it was obviously evil. Nazism is less dangerous than Communism because it was so obviously evil - it was evil and it did not hide it. Communism is less dangerous than Progressivism because, while it hid its evil behind the rhetoric, that was the only thing it did.

The greatest danger in the world is evil which pretends to be good. And that is what Progressivism is. Make no mistake, it will kill millions in the end - but nobody will understand how it happened, what exactly happened, how we got there... and most may not even realize that it is Progressivism which is guilty, which means somebody else may try again, because, utopia.

And speaking of which, the idea that you can have a utopia in the first place is, in and of itself, evil.
I misread your statement, and sorta agreed with you on progressivism in regards to danger to the US, but I do think that modern progressivism is in large part because of the USSR, and so it should get credit for much of progressivism's dangers.

As for utopias being evil, not really. It's more that Utopian thinking causes evil. I'm fully aware that a libertarian society will have societal problems, just less ones than the current US.

And this shows why the hiding evil is dangerous - it is so easy to misunderstand. Communism is lot more than just economic policy, because if it was that, there would be no difference between Communism and Nazism at all - both are, after all, socialist ideologies. But Communism is a holistic ideology, seeking to transform the entire society, not just economic relationships (even though economic relationships are a basis of Communism, they are merely the foundation of its point of view, and do not form the entire structure of the ideology).
Yes, communism is more than just an economic policy. But its core is it's economic policy, which was the cause of much of its problems and evil. Part of hiding evil is that people pretend that they can just use the economic policy without the totalitarianism of communism, but the two are linked. Yes, you might end up with a different type of totalitarianism, but it's still hell on earth.
eah, to the degree people like abhorsen represent mainstream libertarian/liberal thought, its fairly handmainly to socialism.

Abhorsen, you were actually one of the people that came to mind initially when I was firat watching the videos. My sense of you is that on your moral principles your a lefty, which suggests that whenever your rationalist libertarian side comes into conflict with your moral intuitions, your more likely than not going to side with leftism.
Um, no? Where did you get the idea that I'd side with leftism? What leftist, non-libertarian things do I advocate? The thing that's most likely to override my libertarianism is my civic nationalism.

In contrast, I actually side with libertarianism legally, even when it contradicts with my moral values. This includes letting lefties speak, my disagreement with antidiscrimination laws (I think it's morally wrong to not sell someone generic items based on their race, religion, sex, orientation, politics, etc, but I don't believe the law should say that).
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
I misread your statement, and sorta agreed with you on progressivism in regards to danger to the US, but I do think that modern progressivism is in large part because of the USSR, and so it should get credit for much of progressivism's dangers.

Yeah, it does appear we are in agreement.

Yes, communism is more than just an economic policy. But its core is it's economic policy, which was the cause of much of its problems and evil. Part of hiding evil is that people pretend that they can just use the economic policy without the totalitarianism of communism, but the two are linked. Yes, you might end up with a different type of totalitarianism, but it's still hell on earth.

Agreed. In fact, while Communism is a lot more than economic policy, everything else does come from its economic policy, or at least the type of thinking that is based around the idea that humans are fundamentally Homo Oeconomicus, and that all other aspects of human life are determined by the economic forces.
 

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
Agreed. In fact, while Communism is a lot more than economic policy, everything else does come from its economic policy, or at least the type of thinking that is based around the idea that humans are fundamentally Homo Oeconomicus, and that all other aspects of human life are determined by the economic forces.

Specifically, that the Justification of Communism is Economic Hedonism; that following Communist Economic and Productive Dogma, leads to material prosperity. More than anything, it was the failure of Soviet Communism to provide this material abundance that discredited it in the eyes of even those in charge of enforcing that dogma. Which is why the old Guard were swept away in the 90s with only half hearted and token resistance.
 

Prince Ire

Section XIII
Mega-corporations may not have killed as many people as the USSR, but the corporate death toll is probably a lot higher than most people imagine. It’s not like corporations kill people by sending soldiers flying an Exxon flag. It’s American soldiers who kill and die for corporate interests.
They did back when they could get away with it. See the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
Hm, I was resistant to calling it a disagreement over over economics, because I thought that really makes into a much more academic issue than it really is.

But, thinking on it, a disagreement over physics would be quite a fundamental disagreement about how the world works, which seems to actually be getting about as deep as one needs to get to properly explain what rhe fight really is about.

I would generally describe it as a fight over what humans should be disguised as an economics fight, basically a fight over values disguised as a fight over material claims.

Then again, value claims basically by necessity grow out of positive/"material" claims about the world. They are not something independent of reality, hopefully.

Economics is supposed to be something of a science, explaining how the world works. Different explanations of how the world works of course would produce wild divergent understanding of how one should operate in the world.

So, its possible my resistance to refering to calling the communist issue a disagreement over economics is just being protective of economics as an institution to even grant the communists the benefit of the doubt that their even actually trying to do economics.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
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Osaul
Economics is supposed to be something of a science, explaining how the world works. Different explanations of how the world works of course would produce wild divergent understanding of how one should operate in the world.

So, its possible my resistance to refering to calling the communist issue a disagreement over economics is just being protective of economics as an institution to even grant the communists the benefit of the doubt that their even actually trying to do economics.
You very much have a point here. Communism differs on a few levels. First, communism is a collectivist ideology, that doesn't value individual rights, and moreover can't value individual rights. This is the best way to debate a communist: say that communism is economic rape based on a lack of consent, while capitalism is by definition consensual.

The fruitless way to debate a communist (though it makes complete logical sense) is to note that because of economics, communism ends in starvation and misery. It never works because they don't accept your examples as communism, or say "this time it will work". Don't bother, use the economic rape argument.
 

Navarro

Well-known member
You very much have a point here. Communism differs on a few levels. First, communism is a collectivist ideology, that doesn't value individual rights, and moreover can't value individual rights. This is the best way to debate a communist: say that communism is economic rape based on a lack of consent, while capitalism is by definition consensual.

The fruitless way to debate a communist (though it makes complete logical sense) is to note that because of economics, communism ends in starvation and misery. It never works because they don't accept your examples as communism, or say "this time it will work". Don't bother, use the economic rape argument.

Attacking the historical record of the USSR or Venezuela, say, isn't as important as attacking the theoretical basis for communism.
 

Doomsought

Well-known member
The problem with Libertarianism is not directly from its philosophy.
The problem is that any political movement that is critical of drug laws attracts pot head like flies to shit.
Then the pot heads just ruin everything because they are stupid.

Pot-heads are what happened to the libertarian party.
 

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
The problem with Libertarianism is not directly from its philosophy.
The problem is that any political movement that is critical of drug laws attracts pot head like flies to shit.
Then the pot heads just ruin everything because they are stupid.

Pot-heads are what happened to the libertarian party.

Except here's the thing, the Lolbertarian agrees with the Communist that man is "fundamentally Homo Oeconomicus, and that all other aspects of human life are determined by the economic forces."

The explicit justification of all liberalism is also economic hedonism, that utilitarian calculation leads to 'happiness' which is defined as sating the appetites with external things.

This is a philosophical disfigurement of the human person from first principles. Muh Individualism and Muh Collectivism are entirely beside the point.
 

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
Individualism vs. collectivism is entirely the point. Just as the point of this thread is just to conflate two ideologies you don't like, rather like the regressive left calling everything they don't like fascist.

Or, maybe we have entirely different metaphysical starting points and will never agree about what reality fundamentally is. If we accepted your premises, we would naturally share your conclusions, unless of course the syllogisms of your system are themselves invalid.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
Individualism vs. collectivism is entirely the point. Just as the point of this thread is just to conflate two ideologies you don't like, rather like the regressive left calling everything they don't like fascist.

Is it though? Like, what is the individual vs collectivism divide on families being good?

What's the individualism vs collectivism of equality?

It's a consideration, but I'm not sure its the consideration, or even a particularly important one.
 

Abhorsen

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Osaul
Except here's the thing, the Lolbertarian agrees with the Communist that man is "fundamentally Homo Oeconomicus, and that all other aspects of human life are determined by the economic forces."

The explicit justification of all liberalism is also economic hedonism, that utilitarian calculation leads to 'happiness' which is defined as sating the appetites with external things.

This is a philosophical disfigurement of the human person from first principles. Muh Individualism and Muh Collectivism are entirely beside the point.
... You don't seem to understand libertarianism, again. Libertarians in no way require humans to act like homo Economicus. It comes from respecting individual freedoms. It just so happens that the individual freedoms lead to outcomes that are good by capitalism.

Is it though? Like, what is the individual vs collectivism divide on families being good?

What's the individualism vs collectivism of equality?

It's a consideration, but I'm not sure its the consideration, or even a particularly important one.
Individualism is entirely the point of Libertarianism. On families, it says it's up to you if you want to create a family, if you value families, and if you want kids. On equality, it values equality before what little of the law there is, and that's it.

LIbertarianism is basically saying don't hurt people, and don't take there stuff. Communism is about hurting people and taking their stuff to ensure some sort of equality of outcome.
 

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
You don't seem to understand libertarianism, again. Libertarians in no way require humans to act like homo Economicus.

Doesn’t matter that there’s prescriptive claim, what matters is that homo economicus is assumed. It is the premise of the system, the justification for why all culture, authority, and hierarchy, and duty and collective identity and common good is to be done away with and replaced by contracts between strangers.

The res publicae, the public things are substituted by the agora.
 

Abhorsen

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Osaul
Doesn’t matter that there’s prescriptive claim, what matters is that homo economicus is assumed. It is the premise of the system, the justification for why all culture, authority, and hierarchy, and duty and collective identity and common good is to be done away with and replaced by contracts between strangers.

The res publicae, the public things are substituted by the agora.
... But it isn't the basis for the system. At all. The basis of the morality system is the NAP. That's about it. Also, Libertarianism also doesn't call for getting rid of culture either, or authority that people decide to follow. All it says is that people have the right not to submit to unjust authority. So you don't seem to know what your are talking about.

Also, capitalism needing perfectly rational humans to work is a lie based on a misunderstanding of what homo economicus really is. Humans do act mostly rationally, according to their own, possibly irrational, desires. A homo economicus model (and note the word model, it isn't supposed to be perfect), doesn't ask for rationality in what people want or desire, just in the manner in which they want something.
 

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