Why political labels in modern discourse are useless.

Political labels are seemingly meaningless in a modern political dialogue. First, not only do people misuse the terms... but people who follow these labels lie all the time about what they say they're for or not for. For a shift in thought to occur about how to correct this- the labels should be used in their original form... not their convoluted form that they are today. That would require a lot of persuasion from those in denial about the use of those labels. I'm not saying that labels are all meaningless. I am a classical liberal myself. Ideas however- are more important than the labels behind them. Let me explain briefly what I mean about the labels being meaningless in a modern political dialogue first.

My five main points:

(1) The term reactionary is useless. Reactionary used to refer to someone who was well I'll just say it- a bigot... (batr.org...). Couldn't you also say that modern liberals are reactionaries too? Their economic policies seem to show that they don't want to let go of the past. Modern conservatives also have their own form of economic intervention too.

(2) Conservatives in the past used to hate freedom and progress. I'm not trolling conservatives here. Conservatives have always against Democracies. That is- traditional conservatives. Most of the people who think they're conservatives (except the whacky religious right) really aren't. They're not elitists. They're not aristocrats. They may have not hated freedom and progress- but they certainly didn't want progress. One such staunch conservative was Edmund Burke (en.wikipedia.org...)- a strong opponent of the French revolution. He wanted no change. People who go around saying everything fine- the "whacky conservatives" follow his philosophy. People who advocate for less economic intervention- are really just suckers... because they vote for a political party which doesn't really want that. They want it for the corporations. They're corporatists.

They want big government for the people they like (http://w(ww.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/corporatism.htm).

(3) Liberals today say they're for freedom and equality. The programs they create are all about systems of control. What Modern Democrats advocate for is something like total information awareness of all economic transactions. They may not want to control everything but they sure don't hide the fact that they want control. Modern liberals are proponents of a central banking system that is which creates disasters time and time again and modern liberals will never realize that the system they're proposing is very much like statism(www.thefreedictionary.com...). People will deny that we live in a statist society. They will say we have free-markets all they can. However, manipulating the markets via the federal reserve via interest rates is akin to a centrally planned economy. A centrally planned economy... is certainly the one modern liberals are advocating for when they call for more regulations on the economy to slow "capitalism down". Which brings me to another point. They may be right that they're for equality. Advocating for a centrally planned economy- is something different (that's not freedom). This is just more proof about how misused the labels are these days.

(4) Capitalism is widely misunderstood. So is socialism. People think of socialism- well modern librealsperhaps think socialism is something that will lead to equality. They think socialism is good- that it will lead to collective equality (www.worldsocialism.org...). However if put into practice socialism would probably always lead to a totalitarian form of government. On the other hand, people think capitalism is evil because that's what Republicans always say. They think that capitalism is for redistribution of wealth and for the few to rule over the many. That may have some truth to it but there is some difference between what capitalism is typically understood for today and what it really is.

Our economy runs on a system essentially of Keynisian economics- where we're always lead to believe that the federal reserve will help the economy, and, that booms and bust are the natural faults of capitalism (which they very well may be). However, what people think is that because the free-market has faults, that, the government must step into rescue it. The federal reserve is very much involved in creating these problems... and also if a market were to correct itself naturally it must do so without outside intervention. Capitalism is a system where people trade freely and people can interact with each other freely. Capitalism isn't itself evil. You'll find evil people in socialism and in capitalism. The capitalism or laissez-fair ideology aren't necessarily evil.

(5) The two political parties call themselves Democrats or Republicans. An economic modern liberal is hardly for a Democracy- in the free sense, that is, they don't want people to have too much freedom. While at the other hand on the spectrum you have your Republicans who say they're for limited government like what John Locke proposed (en.wikipedia.org...). It's laughable how far the terms have shifted from their original meaning really. Democrats can say they're for Democracy all they want. Republicans can say they're for limited government all they want. Or that they're for a Republican form of government and that they follow the constitution. That doesn't make it true. Just because you say something over and over doesn't mean that it's true. I thought they should have learned that by now.

I think ideas have went too far from their original meaning. People need to start using the words with how they traditionally meant to mean. People shouldn't just use words to smear one another. Rather I encourage rational thinking about different ideas and putting together different thoughts about different theories that different people put forth. People- just don't want to let go of these labels. They would rather be a sheep than to think for themselves. Labels have gotten so far from their original meaning that I would recommend to those that insist on misusing these labels to stop using them. It's unhealthy to keep attaching labels to meanings when they contradict each other so much of the time that they don't make much logical sense when you think things through a bit.



[edit on 10-10-2009 by Frankidealist35]

Sorry...you lost me at "people think Capitalism is the redistribution of wealth".

#4 I believe

who the hell do you run with? I've NEVER heard that. Thats a socialist tenet.

edit to add...Republicans say capitalism is evil? Now you're just yankin our chain right?

[edit on 10/10/2009 by Remixtup]

reply to post by Remixtup


One of the most common criticisms of capitalism is that it forces a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich via government tax policies. People know this isn't laissez-fair economics yet they will say it is all the time. That's really all I was referring to.

Oh and

I meant to say that Republicans say they're for capitalism but that they don't really advocate capitalist policies.



Thanks for pointing out my mistake.

[edit on 10-10-2009 by Frankidealist35]

To quote Eduard Limonov (founder of the National Bolheviks) :

"There is no longer any left and right; there is the System and the enemies of the System."

those are all political terms and the whole point of a political term in the modern era of spin is that it should be imprecise and fuzzy. once you start using these terms accurately, in a way that's generally understood, politicians will be forced to be principled and honest, and where would we be then?