Libertarian Values

Pretty much in the middle of the green square..

Economic Left/Right: -4.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.03

Originally posted by EnlightenUp
One that has ambitions to lead quite logically has more fascist tendencies as opposed to one like Ghandi who can naturally attracts "followers" (I dislike that term in general)

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Yes...the word "followers" is unpleasant to anti-authoritarians.


As for the other stuff you said: The purple-boxer in me does not automatically associate any sort of power or influence with evil. But I´ll agree that being a "natural leader" (ghandi) is much preferable to enforcing leadership.

reply to post by jayjay744


Thats an interesting path. As a black man you first get indoctrinated into being a Democrat, and as Navy you then get indoctrinated into being a Conservative (Thesis-Antithesis). What then comes out at the other end, judging from your post, is someone so much Libertarian (Synthesis) he does not even want the label Libertarian.

[edit on 3-4-2009 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by Skyfloating


Pretty good post Sky,

This is mine:

www.theadvocates.org...

Yeah libertarian values are a cool thing but I think it's difficult for small countries to have them cause they tend to be more dense and concentrated.
In the cities the libertarian values are usually brushed aside and a socialist mindset often pervades!

For places like rural america with it's frontier-esque towns where it's more wide-ranging and vast you've got the space to breeze around and control things to your own pleasure more.

This is cool and it would be good to see more of this libertarian mentality.
People owning there own places and not selfishly having a zillion kids for the state to bail out and so on.

The cons of this are that there are people who can't be responsibe and self-sufficient often won't agree with this.

reply to post by WatchRider


Comment: I think the Diamond-Shaped graph you show is more accurate than the Box-shape I provide in my OP.

Here's my results, the other one gave the wrong side:

www.theadvocates.org...

Yeah I discovered libertarianism when I was breezing through wiki and browsed the types of government and found it.

I'm considering emigrating to either the states, canada or NZ in the near future as I can't see libertarianism ever getting anywhere in the UK. It's too entrenched in socialism and under the PTB.

That's why the constitution in the USA is such a great thing for you guys it's pretty much writing the book on libertarianism.

Great thread this by the way Sky, you ought to given applause mate!

reply to post by Skyfloating


true enough, sky. i was thinking of that while typing. i'll take the label of a Libertarian. but also feel if we had no labels and did whats right of, by, and for THE PEOPLE, we would all be Libertarians and/or we wouldn't be in this quagmire we're in today.

Economic Left/Right: -3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.10

I've always associated myself with the LP.

reply to post by WatchRider


New Zealand seems to be a good choice for those labeled Libertarian. The sheep there are real sheep and not the people. Also, since the population is lower, its easier to practice non-authoritarian politics. At least thats what some people say who live there.

Originally posted by jayjay744
true enough, sky. i was thinking of that while typing. i'll take the label of a Libertarian. but also feel if we had no labels and did whats right of, by, and for THE PEOPLE, we would all be Libertarians and/or we wouldn't be in this quagmire we're in today.

Right. Nevermind Labels. They're all artifically made-up and based on the premise of one fixed viewpoint being correct-all-the-time...

...which is nonsense.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
reply to post by WatchRider

 

New Zealand seems to be a good choice for those labeled Libertarian. The sheep there are real sheep and not the people. Also, since the population is lower, its easier to practice non-authoritarian politics. At least thats what some people say who live there.

I don't know, the story linked below seems to indicate authoritarianism. I guess everyone gets corrupted soon or later. It's even a few years old (2005).

Scoop: Nitrous Oxide Imports for Misuse Illegal

reply to post by EnlightenUp


Not necessarily talking about the Government. Governments will do what they do. As a Libertarian: Who cares what the Government does? We dont need them.

Im talking about the low-density population there...or also in Canada...where its easier to live your own semi-self-sufficient life.

So here's where I am:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/acd4e1a92b8c.png[/atsimg]

Somewhere south of Gandhi.

BUT there's a bunch of stuff here that I don't agree with. I can't remember the first question in the survey, but it was only one of a huge number of questions that I answered "under protest" if you like, because I completely disagreed with the way the question was framed.

So let's be clear-eyed about this: this is just a game that represents an extremely complex set of beliefs in a complex multi-dimensional space by reducing it to two dimensions.

Because of that, it's important to bear in mind that it's not going to tell us that much of value.

I also would say that Communism and Fascism are much, much closer than people (particularly the authors of the questonnaire) think, and this is painfully obvious right now in the discussions on ATS.

All the time I see posts where people damn Obama for being a Socialist or a Communist. This is so absurd as to be in a way unworthy of comment, but the reality is that Obama is operating in the most hypercapitalist society on earth, and to say that he's a socialist is right up there with suggesting that the Queen of England is a shapeshifting lizard.

This is something I've said in a variety of posts and I'm going to say it again here because it needs saying.

In communism the coporations are owned by the state.
In fascism the corporations own the state.

Either way, the concentration of power is devastating to the poor buggers who have to live in such conditions.

Mussonlini said "fascism should more properly be called corporatism, marking as it does the merger of state and corporate power". Remember also that Nazism was National Socialism.

What America is becoming - and the process has increased over the past decade and is continuing to do so under Obama - is much closer to fascism than to socialism. But many right wingers can't see the similarities between the two ideologies, and the structural similarities that underpin them.

The central problem faced by any government is that of corruption. That's the crucial thing. If you can devise a system that has safeguards in place to make sure that people do their job and that malign influence is excluded, you're home free. Unfortunately no-one's done it yet.

As for the idea that socialist societies are about poverty - BS. There is, for example this study that shows the American dream (defined as the ability of people to do better than their parents) is easier to achieve in the UK than the US, and easier still in the avowedly socialist Nordic countries.

If you are going to have a state, there's a minimal number of things that it might be reasonably expected to do: and provide basic necessities to keep society going is one of those things. Therefore, simple goals like a decent public transport system that gets people to work on time are a good idea. Basic free health care (with a good emphasis on preventive maintenance). The provision of power and water to households without ripping people off.

These are not things that make people dependent on society. These are things that enable a modern society to run easily and efficiently.

If you have any sense you might also restrict opportunities for people to siphon money out of the system without adding value. Years ago I used to work in the City of London, for the stock exchange there. Just one example - futures trading should be abolished, it's as simple as that. It's just not productive, it adds only illusory value. And yet vast amounts of money are sucked out of the system. When I was working there I used to think, how long can this last? I guess we know now.

In my lifetime I've watched the neoliberal dream wreck the infrastructure of the UK and reduce the people in it to corporate serfs. We're much closer to the US model now... and it's not much fun, believe me.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
reply to post by WatchRider

 

Comment: I think the Diamond-Shaped graph you show is more accurate than the Box-shape I provide in my OP.

I took the test. It's based on ten questions and it made me out to be a liberal. That's rubbish. At least the other test - the one in your OP - had a vector for anarchism.

But it did isolate where I disagree with the libertarian philosophy: whereas I'm for maximum individual liberty, "economic freedom" is usually synonymous with "let corporations do what they want". That is a recipe for disaster, and it ignores the fact that economic freedom (as practiced in countries like the US, where corporations have the rights of personhood) is antithetical to personal freedom.

What the corporations want is more power and the ability to control a compliant workforce

I mean, there are even places like the Mises institute that are clearly funded by corporations to dupe people into going for this "economic freedom" BS. One guy I knew gave me a Mises article about the California brownouts that had this utterly pie-in-the-sky nonsense about how they were caused by not enough deregulation whereas it was actually caused by the compaines getting deregulated in the first place.

An industry study showed that there was an illegal cartel in operation between the companies supplying California with power. When Gray Davis, then governor, brought a lawsuit alleging this against the major players, they got together, approached Arnie, financed the recall vote on Davis and bankrolled Arnie's campaign. Result: Arnie gets in and the lawsuit goes away.

I'm all for a free market. But there has to be a level playing field and the largest impediment to that is the personhood of corporations. This allows everyone from the CEO on down to hide behind corporate liability, and means that psychopathic behaviour is legitimised on the "it's all for the good of the shareholders" argument.

I`d like to compare this statement of yours:

Originally posted by rich23
I took the test. It's based on ten questions and it made me out to be a liberal. That's rubbish.

To this one:

"economic freedom" is usually synonymous with "let corporations do what they want". That is a recipe for disaster

There's nothing wrong with being a "liberal", but at least admit you are one

reply to post by Skyfloating


It depends on what you mean by "liberal". I find the meaning that Americans attach to that word rather inexact. Originally, liberals were the champions of laissez-faire capitalism. In Europe, liberals are centrists, rather than leftists.

Of course, this does reflect the fact that American political debate is far, far to the right of the rest of the world.

And are you arguing that letting corporations do what they want isn't a recipe for disaster? Look around. This is what late stage capitalism looks like, and it ain't pretty.

If you haven't seen The Corporation, you should give it a look.

I'm for a genuinely free market. But in order to maintain that you have to have mechanisms to counterweight the otherwise inevitable tendency for power to accumulate in very few hands. Primarily, this means never allowing corporations to become legal persons.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

- Thomas Jefferson

Well, they weren't crushed and because corporations are regarded as legal persons, they enjoy the same rights as any one person, but with infinitely greater resources and power. If you think that helps you live a free life, good luck.

I am certain I did something very similar to this when I first joined ATS.

I don't think there is much change but I would like to be able to compare them.

Pretty much where I expected to be but I think it may suprise some other people.


The Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: -7.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.67

reply to post by rich23


Yes, if operating within the laws of a country and within ethical and transparent accounting guidelines, I think corporations should be allowed to produce, buy, sell whatever they want and employ whoever they want.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Yes, if operating within the laws of a country and within ethical and transparent accounting guidelines, I think corporations should be allowed to produce, buy, sell whatever they want and employ whoever they want.

Well... in that case we don't disagree.

BUT, your conditional clause there contains a whole bunch of begged questions.

It also fails to address the fact that the very constitution of a corporation, as currently specified, has a huge contradiction, in that while the individuals within a corporation may have ethical ideas, structurally the tensions within a corporation encourage, indeed render inevitable, psychopathic behaviour on the part of the corporation itself - and indeed on the part of many employees.

Let's just look at "operating within the laws of a country" for a start.

It sounds very nice and simple. And yet... do corporations have any influence over the laws of a country? You'd have to be a fool to say no, they don't. In fact, what happens is that corporations use their vast resources to corupt individuals within the system to ensure they can do whatever they want and screw the taxpayer for corporate welfare.

What about a corporation that uses its influence within, say, the US government to persuade it to overthrow a government? Guatemala, Chile, Haiti, Iran... all these countries have had death squad democracies imposed upon them by the US in order to satisfy the needs of a corporation.

Guatemala, for example. They had a democratic election and the new president, Arbenz, wanted to make sure the peasantry had enough land to be able to farm it and feed themselves. To that end, they compulsorily purchased land from United Fruit, who immediately ran to the CIA (they didn't have to run far, as the major directors were in the US cabinet at the time) and got them to bankroll a coup, which was followed by hundreds of thousands of deaths under a hideously repressive police state.

UF said the price the Arbenz regime offered wasn't fair. But it was based on the value of the land which UF had themselves declared on their tax returns.

It's also worth noting that the land that was purchased was not even being used by UF at the time.

I guess you haven't watched The Corporation yet, otherwise you wouldn't be able to come out with that sentence with a straight face.

How many examples do you need of corporations either having the laws of a country perverted to suit their ends, or even having regimes overthrown, to dent your touching faith in their ability to operate "ethically and transparently"?

I can provide as many as you'd like. But you might find it worthwhile to watch that movie before you reply.

reply to post by rich23


No, actually I DID watch the video but it does not change my general views on free market much less viewing that as the scapegoats for societies ills.

For every example of corruption, mismanagement and psychopaths you give, I could probably give 100 examples of ethics and integrity within the business world.

So, there is no disagreement from my side that all sorts of wickedness exists...but the ideas of "THE" Corporation being somehow a bad thing I cannot see.

To put it simply: Leftists ramble on about how "power corrupts". But it is equally true that powerlessness corrupts (poverty being a major cause of crime).

Does the power of some corporations get totally out of hand and produce psychopaths and control-freaks? Yes. You've provided sufficient evidence for that. Does that change anything about the basic fundamentals of "free economy"? No. "Free economy" does not entail going maniac.

So...in accordance with the box-test we both did, our slight differences are predictable and expected.