Best Political Ideology

What, in your opinion, is the best political ideology to adopt in order to achieve a strong, fair, free, prosperous and relatively problem-free state for people to live in? It can be tricky to differentiate between the best forms of government and best forms of economic systems to uphold, but I am interested to see what suggestions people come up. Maybe you can suggest a good combination of social and economic systems that complement each other well.

I personally do not know which is the best system to ensure a free, fair and prosperous society, which is why I am asking for input from others. It seems the vast majority of political ideologies have some type of weakness which detracts from their overall usefulness, but some are less weak than others.

Below you will find a list of some of the major political ideologies that have been adopted or proposed throughout history. Feel free to discuss any that might not appear below if you feel they would be of particular benefit:

* Anarchism
* Authoritarianism
* Communalism
* Communism
* Conservatism
* Environmentalism
* Gender equality
* Globalisation
* Liberalism
* Libertarianism
* Monarchism
* Nationalism
* Religious ideologies
* Progressivism
* Socialism

Wikipedia article on Political Ideologies

Libertarianism. Capitalism. Minarchism. Constitutionalism. (US)

That is all.

a reply to: Dark Ghost
i want someone who understands economic growth
i want someone who doesnt need their fingers in 30 different pies
i want someone who understands the difference between offense and defense
i want someone who can hear the whir of prosperity but can separate themselves from big bankers
i want someone with balls who will stand up for the people
i want the impossible...but i want it all the same

I think restricting oneself to any one system is unwise. As such, i would likely pick bits and pieces from multiple systems and apply them where needed.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Compassion for others especially those who are not as privileged.

A desire to share the resources of the Earth to the individual, not to groups.

Concern that the law has been misapplied to oppress rather than protect.

A desire to increase the happiness of people rather than support their acquisition of 'stuff'.

Those sorts of things

Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I'd still have to bum rides off people.

- Ferris Bueller, 1986

a reply to: Dark Ghost

To not get involved in politics

a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

Libertarianism. Capitalism. Minarchism. Constitutionalism. (US) That is all.

Capitalism is an economic system...

a reply to: Dark Ghost
Of course I'm going to nominate Conservatism in the European sense- taking care to preserve whatever is good about an existing system, while allowing cautious change.
The American version of conservatism seems to be too gun-obsessed for the needs of safety and stability in a state.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: Dark Ghost
Of course I'm going to nominate Conservatism in the European sense- taking care to preserve whatever is good about an existing system, while allowing cautious change.
The American version of conservatism seems to be too gun-obsessed for the needs of safety and stability in a state.

the meme that Americans are somehow 'gun obsessed' is one generated by those who seek to eliminate them from society. The anti-gun crowd is a modern one for the most part as most people that are lawful firearm owners do not differ from any other person's set of morals and lifestyles. The media portrays lawful firearm owners as kooks just as other parts of society say members of this forum are kooks however, just being here does not make it necessarily so.

I have often railed against any label that simply allows for one or the other type selections as it forces people to conform to the narrow views of the majority in order to fit in. I do not fit in nor do I identify with any group in total, there are things I like and respect in some so called conservative groups just as I like and respect some views of the so called liberal groups. What that makes me is apparently a free thinker as I am able to make my own decisions on many different matters without the desire to relegate myself to any one group. Unfortunately for many countries around the world, most people feel the need to belong to a group in order to feel connected to each other. This is a shame.

If more people would just think for themselves and not need to follow the pack, maybe the planet would take a time out and say why are we fighting about such nonsense all the time....

Probably not and I probably am wasting my time trying to teach critical thinking to anyone these days as it seems to be an art form lost in time....

originally posted by: notmyrealname
the meme that Americans are somehow 'gun obsessed' is one generated by those who seek to eliminate them from society.

In my case, the idea was acquired entirely from reading posts on ATS, which struck me as gun-obsessed.

Totalitarian/communist is the "fairest" to the people. No one prospers, no one gets ahead, wages stay low, living conditions stay low and the government embezzles all the money.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Laissez-faire.

primitive confederacy..

I want to just go back to the basics...

Confucianism and Taoism

originally posted by: Dark Ghost

I personally do not know which is the best system to ensure a free, fair and prosperous society,

For a start, getting rid of all the ideologies that end with "ism"

The only system that would work is complete decentralisation; a form of local self determination.

I am advocating the complete opposite of globalism. If the world had hundreds of local systems (in some cases local could mean national level), it would provide the basis for comparison and the opportunity to learn from other countries/provinces.

For example , one country could have hardly any tax on its citizens and yet have a good welfare system. That could be possible where say oil income is ploughed back into the community. Perhaps with a benevolent dictator in power. Other could learn from it. Yet this particular country can learn form others and adopt some of the ideology that could work for it.

Some countries could have no such thing as sales taxes and yet prosper. That would give other countries a chance to see a working model and abolish their sales tax.

Unfortunately, there is presently colusion between national governments . For example Sales tax (called VAT in UK, TVA in France,MwSt in Germany, etc) is around 20% in most of Europe. Germany 19%, UK 20%, Ireland 23%. Even countries that never had sales (eg Thailand ) now have it and soon the rate will rise to European stardards through coersion by IMF, World bank . Once every country has sales tax, it will be impossible for someone to stand up and say :"Look at that country. They have no sales tax , low income tax but have best welfare than anybody else and no poor people living in terrible conditions". Globalism is the greatest evil. It kills diversity and the opportunity of seeing better alternative economic and legal systems in action.

My Utopia therefore is decentralisation , where the needs of the community are cared for. Diversity and different systems is healthy. It also promotes co-operation between countries/states. They can also unite against common threats

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Conservatism. It's the most rational political philosophy. Through conservatism, we attempt to conserve the knowledge, customs and institutions that have prevailed naturally through spontaneous human interaction and millennia of experimentation, in favor over the abstract reasoning of human intellectuals, who seek only idealistic dreamworlds. It is the only political philosophy that respects the shared inheritance between those who have died before us, and those who are not yet born.

Every political philosophy that has attempted to disrupt this lineage for the purposes of manipulating the natural order towards some abstract model of it, has utterly failed at the cost of many deaths, and I fear more failures will need occur before people have the required data to realize otherwise.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Theocratic because we are all guided by our core beliefs.

...even if you don't believe in God, your civility should fair better being with equally willed people / people of equal core beliefs.

Politics is another form of Diplomacy that addresses what the Masses will tolerate. In any particular situation, in respect to any particular population.

Generally we like to think that libertarian-ism or anarchy are the way to go. However, we often forget this...

If there were ten of us on an Island and we all stuck to anarchy...we'd be fine for a while, maybe a good long while, then one of us would get sick...some of us would say screw him and just let him die, but some of the rest of us would pool our resources together and help him out. Then some of us would vote and say why don't we pool some of our resources to have a cache for emergencies like that in the future? But again, some of us would say no...and some of us would. What kind of government would we be then...a little bit liberal, fractured, democratic, libertarian, socialist?

Then we get attacked and we all pool our resources together to fight off the invaders. What are we then?

what if we all voted to put put in wood for spears for weapons and food to help the weakest get stronger...that's a tax. what are we then?