Libertarianism as the Handmaiden to Socialism

I think socialism and libertarianism can both be damaging to the extent that they promote the idea that government policy should be based in what is economically good, and not necessarily culturally or socially good. Maximizing average or national wealth isn't a good thing if it comes at a high cultural or social cost.

the question is what is considered culturally or socially good. one man's heaven is another man's hell and even that frankly changes with the wind. 150 years ago the American dream was 40 acres and a mule. them 100 years ago, it was the huistle and bussle of hollywood and the new york strips. 50 years ago it was a brick house and green lawn in suburbia, now? people are desperate to become nomads.

and even in terms of religion, remember when mega-preachers were talking about the evils of heavy metal and video games?
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
the question is what is considered culturally or socially good. one man's heaven is another man's hell and even that frankly changes with the wind. 150 years ago the American dream was 40 acres and a mule. them 100 years ago, it was the huistle and bussle of hollywood and the new york strips. 50 years ago it was a brick house and green lawn in suburbia, now? people are desperate to become nomads

This is more about the fact that America's gone through (many) culture shocks due to being a very young nation that developed rapidly.

Personally, I think you're confusing fads caused by economic development with actual desires.

Obviously, though, the culture and social good varies from person to person depending on their perspective on society and economic. The liberal who supports multiculturalism and identity politics will obviously have a very different view compared to the conservative who supports traditional values and the local church and family as the major social constructs upon which society is built.

But the answer, of course, is that you try to build your own cultural values around your family and community in order to benefit said family and community. This also benefits you. Too many people focus on trying to change the world when a smart, determined individual can quite possibly change a neighborhood.
 
This is more about the fact that America's gone through (many) culture shocks due to being a very young nation that developed rapidly.

Personally, I think you're confusing fads caused by economic development with actual desires.

Obviously, though, the culture and social good varies from person to person depending on their perspective on society and economic. The liberal who supports multiculturalism and identity politics will obviously have a very different view compared to the conservative who supports traditional values and the local church and family as the major social constructs upon which society is built.

But the answer, of course, is that you try to build your own cultural values around your family and community in order to benefit said family and community. This also benefits you. Too many people focus on trying to change the world when a smart, determined individual can quite possibly change a neighborhood.

the question is what do you do when each side inevitably gets in the others face?
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
the question is what do you do when each side inevitably gets in the others face?

You don't. That runs into the "you shouldn't be trying to change the world" problem.

In real life, people with common sense aren't really that confrontational about politics. There are places this isn't true (especially about certain politics), but in that case common sense tells you to leave the area.

You go to a neighborhood that is productive and has social values that largely agree with yours, and you try to reinforce those social values. Alternatively, if you really want to be a hero, you can go to a neighborhood that's 'on the line' and try to secure it.

Its all you really can do. Unless you're one of a small percentage of highly exceptional people, the odds of you managing to do more than that are quite low.
 
You don't. That runs into the "you shouldn't be trying to change the world" problem.

In real life, people with common sense aren't really that confrontational about politics. There are places this isn't true (especially about certain politics), but in that case common sense tells you to leave the area.

You go to a neighborhood that is productive and has social values that largely agree with yours, and you try to reinforce those social values. Alternatively, if you really want to be a hero, you can go to a neighborhood that's 'on the line' and try to secure it.

Its all you really can do. Unless you're one of a small percentage of highly exceptional people, the odds of you managing to do more than that are quite low.

I agree with this who heartily but this seems to be a lose art.
 

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
This is more about the fact that America's gone through (many) culture shocks due to being a very young nation that developed rapidly.

Personally, I think you're confusing fads caused by economic development with actual desires.

Obviously, though, the culture and social good varies from person to person depending on their perspective on society and economic. The liberal who supports multiculturalism and identity politics will obviously have a very different view compared to the conservative who supports traditional values and the local church and family as the major social constructs upon which society is built.

But the answer, of course, is that you try to build your own cultural values around your family and community in order to benefit said family and community. This also benefits you. Too many people focus on trying to change the world when a smart, determined individual can quite possibly change a neighborhood.

The problem is that ‘America’ isn’t actually a nation or a society at all, but an Imperial Oligarchic Republic that acts as a prison of nations, dissolving all uniqueness and culture into an ocean of plastic and media driven virtual reality. We are culture-less savages pretending to civilization drowning in a sea of numbing crass commercial excess fueled by easy credit that keeps us chained and enslaved with compound interest.

And we call it ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Any Benedict community will find themselves Waco’d unless they adopt the total passivism of the old order mennonites.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
The problem is that ‘America’ isn’t actually a nation or a society at all, but an Imperial Oligarchic Republic that acts as a prison of nations, dissolving all uniqueness and culture into an ocean of plastic and media driven virtual reality. We are culture-less savages pretending to civilization drowning in a sea of numbing crass commercial excess fueled by easy credit that keeps us chained and enslaved with compound interest.

And we call it ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Any Benedict community will find themselves Waco’d unless they adopt the total passivism of the old order mennonites.

My advice to you is to immediately disconnect from the internet and politics and spend a few weeks outside. Maybe if Covid has died down in your neighborhood get a YMCA membership or a go to a different local gym. Visit a church. Maybe do something therapeutic, like woodworking.
 

ShieldWife

Marchioness
I think socialism and libertarianism can both be damaging to the extent that they promote the idea that government policy should be based in what is economically good, and not necessarily culturally or socially good. Maximizing average or national wealth isn't a good thing if it comes at a high cultural or social cost.
I think that you’ve hit the nail on the head here. This sort of outlook, this materialism, the worship of Mammon, it is the rot at the heart of what passes for conservatism in modern America.

Don’t have too many kids, they’re expensive. Send the kids you have to college, they need a good job. Both parents need to work to get that big house and electronic gadgets. Immigrants are great, they worker harder and for less money than lazy Americans - so profits can go up. Leave your family and home town to get a job in this or that big city. Big business is great, they should be able to do what ever they want. Billionaires are great. The problem with this generation is that they don’t work hard enough. We need more economic spending and stimulus. Lower taxes on the rich and corporations. GDP is up so everything is good.

This is the paradigm where success is measured by our nation’s ability to frivolously consume, to deplete our wealth to enrich China, Jeff Bezos, and to use up landfills.

These attitudes, fully embraced by the Boomer so called conservatives have done as much or more harm to true conservatism that any wacky Social Justice propaganda has.

That is why conservatism is doomed unless conservatives ourselves can start living lives of virtue. By putting family, tradition, community, and ideology above luxuries and comforts.
 
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ParadiseLost

Well-known member
I think that you’ve hit the nail on the head here. This sort of outlook, this materialism, the worship of Mammon, it is the rot at the heart of what passes for conservatism in modern America.

Don’t have too many kids, they’re expensive. Send the kids you have to college, they need a good job. Both parents need to work to get that big house and electronic gadgets. Immigrants are great, they worker harder and for less money than lazy Americans - so profits can go up. Leave your family and home town to get a job in this or that big city. Big business is great, they should be able to do what ever they want. Billionaires are great. The problem with this generation is that they don’t work hard enough. We need more economic spending and stimulus. Lower taxes on the rich and corporations. GDP is up so everything is good.

This is the paradigm where success is measured by our nation’s ability to frivolously consume, to deplete our wealth to enrich China, Jeff Bezos, and to use up landfills.

These attitudes, fully embraced by the Boomer so called conservatives have done as much or more harm to true conservatism that any wacky Social Justice propaganda has.

That is why conservatism is doomed unless conservatives ourselves can start living lives of virtue. By putting family, tradition, community, and ideology above luxuries and comforts.

I think its important to distinguish between causes and effects, though.

To go through your list of examples:
1) I do 100% agree that "kids are expensive" is not a good reason to not want kids.
2) I don't think there's anything wrong with sending kids to college. I do think its become an unhealthy cultural norm. Not everyone needs to go to college. Additionally, there's an important 'wealth vs income' dichotomy that I'm going to address later.
3) I don't think there's anything wrong with both parents working. I don't think a family should have a big house just to show off, but there are plenty of uses for space.
4) Immigration does need to be much better controlled.
5) I think frequent moving is a major contributor to the fall of the family as a social unit. I'm skeptical of the idea that people moving to the big city are really that much better off in the long run. Again, that 'wealth vs income' dichotomy comes into play.
6) Billionaires aren't great, but they are (somewhat) useful in society as a source of concentrated capital.
7) So said Plato and the Ancient Egyptians. Again, I agree.
8) I agree that stimulus and economic planning's importance is overstated.

The problem isn't so much that people want things. It's that their wants are expressed destructively. A desire to improve your life and your kids lives financially isn't bad, its when you're sacrificing yours or their social, cultural, or spiritual well being.

Indeed, the right kind of financial development is even very good. The 'wealth vs income' dichotomy is the difference between two attitudes about goods & money.

Are you trying to create stability and firm foundations for your family (by accruing wealth), or are you trying to just endlessly increase your families lifestyle (by accruing income)?

Wealth in this case isn't about dollars or net worth. Its about the stability that comes from a firm financial footing in a neighborhood, along with strong social connections to the area. Settling down and buying a house and sending your kids to the same school from K-12, then to a relatively local college, and then them living in the area they grew up in has advantages money can't buy.

Income is about always chasing after a lifestyle. Always increasing your standard of living with an increase in paycheck, always moving to chase that new wage increase, etc. It divides families and prevents strong social structures from forming.
 

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
My advice to you is to immediately disconnect from the internet and politics and spend a few weeks outside. Maybe if Covid has died down in your neighborhood get a YMCA membership or a go to a different local gym. Visit a church. Maybe do something therapeutic, like woodworking.

My advice to you is to stop giving advice to people you don’t know.
 

Lord Sovereign

Well-known member
Again, this is ascribing points to the ideology that most of its adherents (American leftists are not liberals. Stop taking part in lefty word games) probably don't believe.

In the mind of a liberal, economic liberty serves the liberty of wider society, to make men free. A true liberal worth their salt, not a socialist playing word games, has a raging freedom boner. Now it can certainly be argued that can be harmful to tradition in ways not immediately perceivable by liberals, and it is perhaps better to marry elements of liberalism to pre-existing traditions, but that's a genuine critique of the ideology instead of "they've the same end goals of the socialists."

Having been watching Academic Agent recently, my god he has gone off the deep end. He's spent too much bloody time around Neo-reactionaries to be coming out with this kind of crap. You can disagree with liberals (I have High Tory leanings for heaven's sake), but lumping them in with socialists is disingenuous and agonizingly American.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
Again, this is ascribing points to the ideology that most of its adherents (American leftists are not liberals. Stop taking part in lefty word games) probably don't believe.

In the mind of a liberal, economic liberty serves the liberty of wider society, to make men free. A true liberal worth their salt, not a socialist playing word games, has a raging freedom boner. Now it can certainly be argued that can be harmful to tradition in ways not immediately perceivable by liberals, and it is perhaps better to marry elements of liberalism to pre-existing traditions, but that's a genuine critique of the ideology instead of "they've the same end goals of the socialists."

Having been watching Academic Agent recently, my god he has gone off the deep end. He's spent too much bloody time around Neo-reactionaries to be coming out with this kind of crap. You can disagree with liberals (I have High Tory leanings for heaven's sake), but lumping them in with socialists is disingenuous and agonizingly American.

To be fair, its primarily because there is a degrading barrier between the socialists and everyone else in the Democratic Party, and most people do not actually distinguish between the individual ideologies of a group - they just interpret it as one big ideology.

The word 'liberal' in America became completely disconnected from its origins years ago, anyway.
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
Rather more than you think sir. Robespierre is a student of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who was himself a student of John Locke. The myth of the 'Good Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment' and the 'Bad-Evil-Wrong Continental Enlightenment' is just that, a Myth, and a pernicious one at that, that disarms one from drawing the necessary conclusions. Namely that the metaphysically materialist and nominalist foundations of Liberalism and Jacobinism make them two heads of the same vulture.

Any books discussing that?
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
I think socialism and libertarianism can both be damaging to the extent that they promote the idea that government policy should be based in what is economically good, and not necessarily culturally or socially good. Maximizing average or national wealth isn't a good thing if it comes at a high cultural or social cost.
This statements shows you don't seem to understand what Libertarianism is about

Libertarians are about less government, even if it hurts the economy. It just so happens that less government helps the economy, but that isn't the main reason most libertarians believe in it. We believe that government is an answer to very few questions (how many depends on how far the libertarian goes).

Government shouldn't be dictating the culture or social welfare. Just stopping invasions and people from harming each other. It's up to the individual people to determine what is and isn't socially good.

If you want to restore classical liberalism to it's former glory, you might be on the wrong forum.
Given this forum is founded on the principle of free speech, one of the foundations of classical liberalism, I don't think so.
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
This statements shows you don't seem to understand what Libertarianism is about

Libertarians are about less government, even if it hurts the economy. It just so happens that less government helps the economy, but that isn't the main reason most libertarians believe in it. We believe that government is an answer to very few questions (how many depends on how far the libertarian goes).

Government shouldn't be dictating the culture or social welfare. Just stopping invasions and people from harming each other. It's up to the individual people to determine what is and isn't socially good.

Problem is that collective almost always wins against an individual, which means that libertarianism essentially helps remove resistance to communism.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
Problem is that collective almost always wins against an individual, which means that libertarianism essentially helps remove resistance to communism.
No, libertarianism is quite secure against socialism as it leads to prosperity (cause capitalism) and it's difficult to spur anger at the government when it isn't interfering much in everyday life. In contrast, with a government like the US, where it funds the colleges teaching students bullshit while also having government interfere with people's lives more and more, people begin to believe that salvation comes from government, not their own efforts.

Also, you assume that individualism means acting in isolation, which is also completely wrong. Companies are a part of libertarianism, and they are basically organizations that work together.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
This statements shows you don't seem to understand what Libertarianism is about

What people think their ideology is about is less important than how that ideology actually plays out in real life. Few people argue for libertarianism from a philosophical standpoint, its almost always talked about in respect of how its expected to help the economy, or sometimes society in terms of accepting people that are different (IE social libertarianism).

Libertarians are about less government, even if it hurts the economy. It just so happens that less government helps the economy, but that isn't the main reason most libertarians believe in it. We believe that government is an answer to very few questions (how many depends on how far the libertarian goes).

Government shouldn't be dictating the culture or social welfare. Just stopping invasions and people from harming each other. It's up to the individual people to determine what is and isn't socially good.

Literally no government (in the modern institution sense) has ever been limited to that and no government will likely ever be limited to that.

A government is a primarily social institution. People expect (and want) leadership. There's also a very big [understatement] gap in potential government functions between "stopping invasions and people from harming each other" and "dictating the culture or social welfare." The reality is that any government which only "stopped invasions and people from harming each other" would become immensely unpopular, and there would immediately be a push for the government to be more actively involved in society and preventing bad things from happening.

This is why in any theoretical 'libertarian' fantasy land, corporations or churches or some other entity would quickly fill the power vacuum left by the libertarian government, and you'd just have government by another name. (Sufficiently large companies tend to run into the same problems that governments do anyway, due to large bureaucracies being inefficient.)

Because power vacuums get filled. Which is why that theoretical libertarian fantasy government is just as bad as Communism* in my view, because its something that can never possibly even come close to being achieved.

*Note that I'm not saying that Libertarianism is as bad as Communism. I'm saying that trying to enforce an unrealistic hyper-libertarian government is as bad as Communism.

Given this forum is founded on the principle of free speech, one of the foundations of classical liberalism, I don't think so.

Just because the forum on average espouses one part of an ideology does not mean the whole ideology would find equal support.

No, libertarianism is quite secure against socialism as it leads to prosperity (cause capitalism) and it's difficult to spur anger at the government when it isn't interfering much in everyday life. In contrast, with a government like the US, where it funds the colleges teaching students bullshit while also having government interfere with people's lives more and more, people begin to believe that salvation comes from government, not their own efforts.

People are just as likely to get angry at someone for not interfering as they are to get angry at someone for interfering.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
What people think their ideology is about is less important than how that ideology actually plays out in real life. Few people argue for libertarianism from a philosophical standpoint, its almost always talked about in respect of how its expected to help the economy, or sometimes society in terms of accepting people that are different (IE social libertarianism).
Then those people aren't libertarians? Just because somebody agrees with somethings an ideology backs, does not make them backers of that ideology. Again, you don't seem to understand libertarianism.

Your critique of libertarianism is that "Most people only follow some parts of libertarianism, and they don't care about freedom". No duh, because they aren't libertarians. Libertarians, in contrast, are those who value freedom from government in both social and economic life.

Just because the forum on average espouses one part of an ideology does not mean the whole ideology would find equal support.
See? Here you are arguing that the average user of the forum isn't a classical liberal (true). But my response to this is that a) the forum gets one of its founding principles directly from classical liberalism, and b) all views (other than Nazis, Stalinists, and Maoists) are welcome here, so lets not tell someone that they aren't welcome.

People are just as likely to get angry at someone for not interfering as they are to get angry at someone for interfering.
Not really. If there is a consistent practice of not interfering, people don't feel entitled to help.

Literally no government (in the modern institution sense) has ever been limited to that and no government will likely ever be limited to that.

A government is a primarily social institution. People expect (and want) leadership. There's also a very big [understatement] gap in potential government functions between "stopping invasions and people from harming each other" and "dictating the culture or social welfare." The reality is that any government which only "stopped invasions and people from harming each other" would become immensely unpopular, and there would immediately be a push for the government to be more actively involved in society and preventing bad things from happening.

This is why in any theoretical 'libertarian' fantasy land, corporations or churches or some other entity would quickly fill the power vacuum left by the libertarian government, and you'd just have government by another name. (Sufficiently large companies tend to run into the same problems that governments do anyway, due to large bureaucracies being inefficient.)

Because power vacuums get filled. Which is why that theoretical libertarian fantasy government is just as bad as Communism* in my view, because its something that can never possibly even come close to being achieved.

*Note that I'm not saying that Libertarianism is as bad as Communism. I'm saying that trying to enforce an unrealistic hyper-libertarian government is as bad as Communism.
So first, the federal government in the 1800s was actually pretty limited, and if slavery wasn't a thing, it would have likely stayed that way.

Second, the filling the gap thing you talk about. The reason that it's not a problem when a non-government entity fills a gap is because a) competition exists, so people have choices to choose what they want, b) people are free to leave if they don't like it, and c) they don't need to last for the civilization to endure, so many collapse and die or shrink and become irrelevant. With competitors, coorporations lose most of their power (but not their profit). Basically, they become less able to fix prices and conditions on people as competitors appear, and they get disrupted. What stops competition? Usually government.
 

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