what is a free-market?
vegaskidd
+Roger Schooneveld A free market, is giving you the choice to negotiate your trade so that you can survive. Its the freedom that you can quit your job anytime, and you could choose to work for or with someone at anytime. Think of it like love, it takes 2 (or more) people to fall in love, its their choice, gay straight, whatever, now apply that same concept economically, economical relationships are polygamous, many people you may buy from and many people you may produce for. Because it doesn't matter how rich someone gets, because you can always create your own wealth and establish your own economical relationships with society...does that make sense?
scorchedearthdj
A fantasy economic arrangement that has never existed in history.
vegaskidd
+scorchedearthdj Yah, how dare people deal with themselves on their own terms?! You must be against homosexuality....
scorchedearthdj
+vegaskidd Economics and homosexuality are only peripherally related. Ever hear of Perfect Competition?
vegaskidd
+scorchedearthdj There doesn't have to be perfect competition, what are you talking about? My point is that if you are supporting homosexuality being free to be who they are, then you support individualism, what 2 people do on their own time is their own business (except of course its *actual business*) LOL..... I dont give a shit what people do, whether it be fucking or business.....
scorchedearthdj
+vegaskidd It's a model taught in econ 101 and the ideal against which 'free markets' are measured. Take a class.
vegaskidd
+scorchedearthdj You dont have to go deep into terms to understand the basics in which humans can deal with each other....People should be free to make whatever deals they want.....period...
scorchedearthdj
+vegaskidd To discuss economics in any meaningful way requires background knowledge. Please acquire some.
Trick Baby
A myth
vegaskidd
+Trick Baby just like free speech is a myth..... oh wait...
Trick Baby
Free market is a social economic system and free speech is a human right, so no not like free speech.
vegaskidd
+Trick Baby People should be free to say what they want, and people should be free to trade what they want, whether they trade goods or they trade words..... freedom is freedom no matter how you put it...... Are you also against gay people? Or do you believe people should be FREE to do what ever they want?
Trick Baby
You clearly see no difference between a social economic system and the rights with in that system.
Also you accuse me of having a bias against homo-sexuality. You, with out knowing me or anything about me attempted to label me.
Free market is as impossible as a full functional communist state. I need not call you any names or belittle you.
I offer this as evidence for my position...
Free Markets require deregulation.
DEREGULATION along with irresponsible at best and fraudulent at worst practices directly lead to the financial collapse of 2007-2008.
Free Market is a tired, dead and old idea. Fruitful for few and detrimental for most.
If you want a solution read about anarcho-syndicalist Barcelona Spain 1936. They offer a fictional model that we can develop.
vegaskidd
+Trick Baby "Also you accuse me of having a bias against homo-sexuality. "
Yes, because you are being inconsistent....What TWO PEOPLE do between themselves is their OWN BUSINESS.....INCLUDING BUSINESS......
"DEREGULATION along with irresponsible at best and fraudulent at worst practices directly lead to the financial collapse of 2007-2008."
BULLSHIT, ever heard of "freddie mac and fannie mae"?
Banking is one of the MOST REGULATED INDUSTRIES, and you think it isnt "regulated" enough?
You clearly are bad at math, you CANT micromanage the world. typical socialistic thinking....
Trick Baby
+vegaskidd
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weissman/deregulation-and-the-fina_b_82639.html?
I have nothing against homosexuality.
vegaskidd
+Trick Baby So why are you okay with two people doing whatever they want in their own time unless if its business? You are okay with 2 guys fucking, but if they make a business deal to their terms, how dare they? Thats what you are saying? Explain that....
Soto Zen
+Roger Schooneveld Voluntary exchange of goods and services. As opposed to the state taking your money under gunpoint and give it to someone else.
Trick Baby
+Soto Zen I recommend you read Public Opinion, a Seminal Work in Political Science, by Walter Lippmann
bapyou
+Soto Zen " As opposed to the state taking your money under gunpoint and give it to someone else." By someone else, of course, you mean the large corporations and wealthy who organize economies -- with the coercive power of the state (i.e. "gunpoint") -- so that wealth is funneled to THEM. If this is the "someone else" you've mentioned, then you're in agreement with Noam Chomsky. If, however, by "someone else" you mean the mass of taxpayers and everyday working people (clearly 'good and services' are not being distributed to them by any stretch of the imagination), you're a deluded apologist for the elite wealthy who have the system organized for THEIR benefit. Roll over Milton Friedman. Tell Bill O'Reilly the news.
deathtokoalas
i'm going to go with it being an orwellian contradiction in terms that is used by the state to describe state intervention into the economy, and by their brainwashed minions to describe an escapist utopian fantasy centered on the relationship the state defines, but without it's perceived negative qualities.
Cam Mackay
+vegaskidd You are making the mistake of assuming that the public has no right to involve itself in the unaccountable actions of private interest, for example - a private business transaction between members of the public. That is not how democracy works.
In a democracy, the public is formed by individuals formulated together with elected representatives to regulate the consequences by those actions between private citizens. The public then decides on what issues its elected representatives and its organizing body - which is the state - will interfere into in regards to the affairs of its citizens. This is where it is perfectly reasonable to have inconsistency on issues which the state will intervene. When democracy works well the state - guided by the will of the public through its elected representatives who can be held accountable for their actions and policies - will not intervene on one issue (homosexuality) but will on another (business transactions).
There is good reason for the state to intervene (either to promote or hinder) free enterprise. This is because the consequences of the actions between individuals impact upon those who were not directly involved in that direct transaction. When people realize these consequences affect the wider community they establish a system to recreate those consequences or to prevent them from occurring again. This system is the one I described above - representative and accountable democracy.
vegaskidd
+Cameron Mackay So you believe in majority rule no matter what? Most the public isn't gay, should the majority be able to make laws against gays since the gov is "elected representatives to represent the public"....
deathtokoalas
+Cameron Mackay this is a good point. another way to make this argument is to look at the concept of charity/philanthropy. a lot of wealthy people will argue against taxation on the argument that they'd rather focus on the interests important to them. they claim they'll donate generously, they just want control over their donations - and they claim it's undemocratic for the public to intrude in such a process. but, this gives the wealthy person a disproportionate amount of power in society, and the ability to shape it in ways that are fundamentally undemocratic. you could - and often do - see that money go into organizations and causes that are drastically unrepresentative of the popular will.
i don't like currency as a basis for an economy. but it necessitates certain structures to act as balancing mechanisms. otherwise, what we call market economies will inevitably collapse into feudalistic relations, with a ruling class of wealthy elites dictating their aims to an impoverished population. which is exactly what it was meant to abolish.
vegaskidd
+deathtokoalas no one forces you to buy anything you don't want to buy, you are lacking creativity in what humans can build........ There is no "elites", its a "fantasy" in your brain....
Trick Baby
you are definitely really smart, can you please define Plutocracy?
vegaskidd
+Trick Baby who are you referring to?
Trick Baby
I recommend you read, Crisis of Democracy by Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki
Also that comment of there being no elites what in the world can you possibly site to back that comment up?
vegaskidd
+Trick Baby You haven't used your math properly.... There are no "elites", no one controls how I act, who I want to fuck, etc.....
Let me explain in simple terms, you only have humans and the tools they build in this world, in order for one to PROFIT from trading a product and or service one must be LIABLE, to calling people the "rich" is INACCURATE, they should be called the rich AND liable... The point is that 99.9% of what you use ISNT made by YOU, you are already spoiled to begin with.......
You didnt do your math, I CANT talk to everyone to know what they want, that alone in the US for 1 min per a person would take over 600 years!
So the ONLY THING I can do to help people is build a "highly reusable product/tool that can service MANY people at once".... etc a building, a bus, website, etc......
But those tools NEED to be MAINTAINED, so ANYTHING I BUILD for people to use can HELP people AND give me power of them......
You don't understand the concept of "power" is relative NOT an absolute......
deathtokoalas
+vegaskidd i don't see any use in debating with somebody in a point of such extreme delusion that they deny the existence of class.
Cam Mackay
+vegaskidd Yes i do! Because majority rule democracy is the closest way to achieving and preserving individual freedom and preventing unaccountable tyranny in any society. It isn't perfect because democracy has to impose a tyranny of its own but it differs from other tyranny because it is the imposition of the general will of the people.
But to have a democracy work effectively you must have a public which is educated and who can communicate with each other, this is the public defense of libertarian-ism. With this the public have the sufficient tools to hold their public representatives to account and through the power vested in those representatives and its organizing body of the state, guide society in socially beneficial ways not harmful ones, say the 'criminalization' of homosexuality.
These ideas are not mine although I do believe in them. They are John Dewey's. He details them in, 'The public and its problems' 1927. He was regarded as the pre-eminent political theorist of the early 20th century.
deathtokoalas
+Trick Baby i recommend you learn to think for yourself.
vegaskidd
+deathtokoalas Why does class matter if you are not destined to stay in them?
vegaskidd
+Cameron Mackay you're not actually describing anything, you're just describing feeling, when you say "educated", how do you define what to educate the public about? Politics is relative not absolute...
deathtokoalas
+vegaskidd i'll tell you what the difference is between you and i, vegaskidd. you expect everybody to work together for some kind of common good - because you're what's called a right-wing collectivist. i don't give a fuck. i want to sit around and smoke pot and play guitar, and if the world falls apart around me, it's just a reason to applaud. climbing ladders and escalating hierarchy sounds absolutely fucking boring to me. if i'm not having fun, i see no point. i'd rather throw myself off a bridge than waste my life at a high paying job.
so, it's not that you're wrong. it's that you're presenting an argument from a viewpoint that is irrelevant to anybody in the anarchist spectrum.
i don't want to work really hard to get ahead. i want to tear the structure down so nobody can get ahead - so that nobody else can tell anybody else what to do.
so, what is a market, in that sense? it's an excuse for you to tell me to get a job. and, you'll have to excuse me for telling you to fuck off.
vegaskidd
+deathtokoalas "i'll tell you what the difference is between you and i, vegaskidd. you expect everybody to work together for some kind of common good - because you're what's called a right-wing collectivist. i don't give a fuck. i want to sit around and smoke pot and play guitar, and if the world falls apart around me, it's just a reason to applaud. "
I dont want you to be collectivist, where the fuck did I say that? You want to smoke pot, go ahead, but you MUST TRADE something for peoples labor, you cant expect people to give you everything for free...
Do what you want but OWN youre own consequences, go ahead and smoke pot, but if you become a bum, don't be mad when I dont give you change on my way to work....
Cam Mackay
+vegaskidd that just completely not true. I have described much more than nothing, and much more than a feeling. I have described a political theory of democracy that places the average person as the highest sovereign power in a political system. This is opposed to the belief that ultimate individual freedom can be achieved through unrestrained market activity which is in theory is nice but in practice creates unaccountable private tyranny in the hands of a few to the detriment of the many.
Your absolutely right that politics is relative, it is the discourse of social power organization in society and this can take any number of forms both in theory and in practice. But virtually the entire global community at least claims to live in democratic political systems which they more or less live up to at certain times. One of the key requirements of a strong democracy is education. How do you define what to educate a public about? You educate not to a set curriculum which is transported from place to place. People and culture change in geographically distinct locations. What suits one place would not suit somewhere else. So you educate people in a way that gives them a personal way to critically evaluate their world. To understand past and present and future and their place in it. You give people the understanding that they are the power in society and together share both the power and the responsibility to recreate a responsible political system - culturally, environmentally and economically.
vegaskidd
+Cameron Mackay "I have described a political theory of democracy that places the average person as the highest sovereign power in a political system"
What is an "average" person technically speaking? What is the difference between the average person and non-average person?
"This is opposed to the belief that ultimate individual freedom can be achieved through unrestrained market activity which is in theory is nice but in practice creates unaccountable private tyranny in the hands of a few to the detriment of the many. "
You don't understand power...... If I become a doctor is that a good thing? What if I cure aids? That would give me LOTS of power of people, you call that tyranny, I call that providing value to other people....... How can someone be in "tyranny" in a free market?
deathtokoalas
+vegaskidd you don't get it. markets are inherently collectivist, because they subsume the individual within the group identity - the individual's labour becomes meaningless within the framework of the market's drive to distribute goods "fairly". the market dictates the nature of the individual's labour through the contrivance of "supply" and "demand", reducing us all to slaves of each other. we cannot carry out our goals and dreams within a market, we can only "contribute to society". that's collectivism.
it's calvinism, really.
i will not participate in the exchange of goods, and the only thing you have to stop me from disrupting your system of coercion is the violence that you're threatening me with to fall into line in the first place.
i don't want you to give me your change, i want to smash up your property rights.
Cam Mackay
+vegaskidd The average person is opposed to the elite in society. They make up the majority of a society. Whereas elites are the minority. They also have the resources to circumvent the due political process subjected to the average citizen and can largely act without consequences for their actions. This is also how you can have tyranny in a free market.
Free markets don't mean freedom for everyone. They mean freedom from state intervention (although as this Noam Chomsky lecture makes very clear, the state intervenes even in 'free markets' but usually only to ensure the elites - those who are not the average citizen - do not have to face market discipline).
As for becoming a doctor in society, is that a good thing. Well, yes it is. And no I wouldn't and have not called that tyranny. If that doctor were to amass enough money that they could virtually write state policy in their interest for which the average citizen cannot hold him or her to account, then yes the doctor possesses tyrannical power. But not because he or she is a doctor, but because he or she has enough wealth to influence the public representatives who write public policy. The mechanism that the super rich use their wealth to influence policy is through lobby groups. This is how power works in the real world, at least for the moment.
vegaskidd
+Cameron Mackay "The average person is opposed to the elite in society. They make up the majority of a society. Whereas elites are the minority"
So in your eyes are the average americans the elite?........
MOST people in the world do not live NEAR as rich as the US does....
"But not because he or she is a doctor, but because he or she has enough wealth to influence the public representatives who write public policy"
How do you decide what is "good public policy"? What is your logic here? Lets the doctor makes the gov subsidize a hospital, is that bad or good...... it could help people, but it will make the doctor wealthier....
deathtokoalas
+Cameron Mackay while chomsky is right in practice, the average market advocate would suggest this is "socialism" and that the government shouldn't be "picking winners and losers". they're at least consistent on the point. the error is not recognizing the nature of the way firms behave on a market.
they want to throw these models of perfect competition at you. it's not even a question of the models being imperfect, it's just a fundamental misunderstanding of what self-interest is, in context. self-interest for firms on a market is to avoid competition, because it decreases profit. so, you get collusion rather than competition. the equilibrium point that markets settle in is one of cartelization - oligopolies that work together to inflate prices and that seek to merge at every opportunity. and, this isn't some obscure anti-establishment reading of markets, either. it's economics 101, nowadays. without state intervention, markets always settle into oligopolies. and those cartels always seek to "capture" regulatory bodies to prevent state intervention - or skew it to their benefits.
this class of capitalist elites is consequently inseparable from the idea of capitalism, itself. the best balancing point we can hope for is in truth largely naive to expect, realistically. you need intervention to make the system work as it's meant to, but regulatory agencies are doomed to capture.
i'm arguing from a sort of post-leftist perspective that is about avoidance. it's this idea that organized revolution is impossible in the current economic reality. that's actually just a logical conclusion of the marxist idea of perpetual struggle - if there's no way out, why bother? why not just focus on enjoying yourself?
but i think this is short term. it's a recognition of the futility of struggle in capitalism's highest point of power, but it's setting in only at the point that capitalism is beginning to enter it's dying stages. by the time the futility of struggle is widely understood, struggle will no longer be futile. there's a synthesis of this dialectic that leads to rebuilding, but we won't see it in our lifetimes. rather, it's the next generation that is likely going to need to deal with a level of collapse that capitalism hasn't yet had to deal with.
in the meantime, there's no real answer. struggle is useless, even while the system collapses. i'd recommend boycott and avoidance to the largest extent possible, while putting certain ideas into the dialogue for future contemplation.
to put it another way...
if you integrate the state, you end up with cartels controlling the regulatory bodies. if you eliminate the state, you end up with cartels controlling the market. it's the same thing - the state becomes a pointless level of bureaucracy in the cartelization of the market, which is a neo-feudal arrangement of property ownership.
the concept of a "free market" becomes a purely intellectual, utopian fantasy used to justify that neo-feudal arrangement. it's purely orwellian language, as i initially pointed out.
whatever arrangement we wish society to have (and, as an artist i have different priorities than workers or property owners), we must acknowledge that "free markets" are not feasible in practice.
vegaskidd
+deathtokoalas Love is a free market..... Free markets are the only solution..... Free speech, free trade, free markets......
How is 2 people volunteering working together fucking you?
"and, as an artist i have different priorities than workers or property owners"
You are a HUMAN FUCKING BEING, you have the SAME NEEDS as everyone else, what you are referring to are "wants".....
deathtokoalas
+vegaskidd i've been over this far too many times with far too many people...
if you're legitimately happy to work for society in exchange for the fulfilment of your needs, i'll never be able to get through to you - although i might suggest you'd be happier living in china. some of us want more out of life and view the market requirements that you see as "contributing" as merely a type of modern enslavement.
voluntary association is a valid goal. but, it's impossible so long as we have property rights forcing us into involuntary ones. markets are incompatible with true voluntarism. if you want truly voluntary relations, it's imperative to get out of the market economy. but, you'll never see that perspective because you're a collectivist to the core.
Cam Mackay
+vegaskidd No I never said the average american is the elite. That has nothing to do with my answer to your question about what defines an average person compared to a elite person. It doesn't matter whether you're American or not, if you are disposes-ed in a society even if that society is richer than most other societies you are still the average person. It is relative.
As for the doctor, I think you are saying if he or she could do public good through private vices - that is the doctor helps people and also enriches himself/herself - that's not a bad thing, win win right? This probably does happen in a free market, personal gain through social good. Unfortunately, what also happens is that private vices are often created through socially negatives means too. If you just look at democratic countries that have abandoned market regulation you can see this.
To talk about doctors take this as an example: Vioxx is a anti pain medication introduced in America in 1999 recommended mainly for arthritis and sold by pharmaceutical company Merck. Merck knew the drug was dangerous even before they started selling it and when it started killing people they just kept selling it. Doctors who made money of it continued to sell it. The one man who tried to get to congress to tell them of the harms of the drug was continually harassed and discredited by Merck. When he finally got to congress and Vioxx was recalled it had killed more Americans than had died in the Vietnam War, anywhere between 55,000 to 500,000 deaths have been attributed to Vioxx though they only paid out a couple of thousand.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/us/46535/when-half-million-americans-died-and-nobody-noticed
vegaskidd
+Cameron Mackay "Merck knew the drug was dangerous even before they started selling it and when it started killing people they just kept selling it. Doctors who made money of it continued to sell it."
We don't have free market healthcare, its subsidized, which allows doctors to get paid thru recommending drugs, and also you cant prevent companies from doing bad things, but you CAN DO is have a market in which they can be sued...... How did that company have money from before? Clearly they must have done something right?
"t doesn't matter whether you're American or not, if you are disposes-ed in a society even if that society is richer than most other societies you are still the average person"
You are NOT disposed! You have more spending power WITHOUT liability than anywhere else!
deathtokoalas
+vegaskidd you know, you state that like some kind of motivational speaker - as though you perceive the issue to be one of self-confidence, rather than a system based on violence and theft.
vegaskidd
+deathtokoalas No, I base it on math and logic.... We only have humans and the things we build, to help each other we trade things, IF we want to, but you CANT use other peoples labor for free, you MUST trade something.....
deathtokoalas
+vegaskidd again: you're incoherent. i suspect you're a randian. unfortunate.
but, surely, you're aware that profit is mathematically defined using the idea of surplus value; that is, that it is the difference between what a commodity sells for on the market and the cost of labour. private property, of which markets depend upon, is precisely the theft of labour.
to truly abolish this theft of labour, we consequently need to abolish private property.
i don't like throwing books around, but this is properly explained in engels' socialism: utopian and scientific. of course, there's nothing actually scientific in his description. but, it does a good job of explaining why individual ownership of labour is impossible in an economy based on socialized production (that is, in an industrial economy), and why social ownership of the means of production is necessary to avoid the otherwise inherent capitalist exploitation of labour.
vegaskidd
+deathtokoalas "but, surely, you're aware that profit is mathematically defined using the idea of surplus value; that is, that it is the difference between what a commodity sells for on the market and the cost of labour. private property, of which markets depend upon, is precisely the theft of labour."
NO, because you DONT KNOW if there WILL BE profit it at all! Just because I can pay you take make pies DOES NOT mean the pies are worth anything, you DIDNT take the risk to put up YOUR MONEY, now if you want to make your own business and use your own labor, you are FREE TO DO THAT.....
"to truly abolish this theft of labour, we consequently need to abolish private property."
You classically dumb, you DIDNT did your math! You CANT group work because there are TOO MANY decisions to make and at the END OF THE DAY, who has final rule? If you don't have private property, why would anyone build anything? Since you cant protect them having it....
deathtokoalas
+vegaskidd just read the book, kid. it's actually a pamphlet. not that long.
vegaskidd
+deathtokoalas why do you act as if labor is so valuable? Every fucking human being is born with the ability to do labor...... education and tools are what is of value....
deathtokoalas
+vegaskidd if you have a boss, you're subject to capitalist expropriation. education will not get you out of that situation. it's a fundamental characteristic of market exchange.
or did you think profits grow on trees?
Soto Zen
Is it morally right to take, what a person have created be their own effort (a sculpture, money, a house), by force?
No.
So the state is an immoral institution?
Yes.
What constitutes any institution?
People.
So people are prone to immorality?
Yes.
What will happen if we remove all immoral institutions?
It will be a free for all to become the next immoral institution (i.e. the state), the one with monopoly on violence.
Any member of the Sicilian mafia knows this.
deathtokoalas
+Soto Zen again: read the engels.
it is impossible for an individual to create anything "by their own effort" in a modern, industrial economy. your argument is incoherent at any point past the year 1800.
how many hand made houses are out there?
in a socialized economy (which is a technological idea, not a social one), you're either sharing or you're stealing. the theft works in the other direction: markets are based on the theft of labour by property owners.
the government isn't really the problem. it's more or less a propaganda tool by capital. at the end of the day, the government is run by property owners - who are exactly the same people that would make the rules if there wasn't a government.
abolishing the state means abolishing the relationship of private property, which is the idea that allows markets to steal labour.
Soto Zen
+deathtokoalas "Sharing" as a concept must have its roots in "dividing this cake between people". The "cake" can be "this pile of money". But how do you divide it? By dividing the effort that goes into making the pile of money.
If not, I will just chill while you do all the work, since I still get the same share. How you like that? Not at all. So you find means to force me to contribute my share of the effort. Now we have fulfilled the definition of Slavery.
deathtokoalas
+Soto Zen there is no way to perform this operation in a socialized economy. consider a doctor and a janitor. it seems obvious that doctors are more important. but, sanitation is a necessity in a hospital. attempting to separate these tasks is pointless; in a functional sense, they are equally important in order to have a hospital that helps sick people.
regardless, realize that if you take your idea to it's conclusion then it does not follow that taxes ought to be abolished but that the capitalist class ought to be abolished - because it is idle and exists on the theft of labour. it makes some sense, if you're talking about the idle classes. and, i agree with you on that point. kill the bankers. sure.
in general, though, you're speaking of a type of accounting that cannot be calculated, and that in our existing society is grossly distorted by coercive power relations on the open market.
KevZen2000
+Roger Schooneveld Any economic activity without the Government being involved in any way, which basically does not exist in a statist society. The closest thing to free trade is IT and the Internet, excluding maybe the taxes collected, Intellectual Property rights, etc. That is all it is.
deathtokoalas
+KevZen2000 if there's no government, who enforces property rights?
KevZen2000
+deathtokoalas
1. It depends on what you mean by property rights? This is the first step to know what is required in regards how to protect it, and if it should be protected, because not all definitions demand protection, as they are a means to limit competition, which is bad. There are many definitions, and we have to define them properly.
2. How do you defend your right to have property, when the Government does not protect you, such as living in the middle of nowhere, where police cannot be there before 20 minutes, and the criminals can come into your house, and steal the majority of your stuff. Did the Government protect your rights then?
I know you can seek to have justice done by a police service, but your property was not protected.
Majority of the time we are left to protect our own property, because mainly only we can excluding installing a home defense system,
fences, pets to help guard, firearms, etc, although we can seek outside assistance for justice.
3. No Government does not mean chaos, or lack of rules and order, but it is a lack of rulers as in the
sense of a centralized group of people who run society, not a decentralized market, which can help protect your property, but ultimately you need to have prevention methods from loosing property in the first place, such as security, etc.
The main difference is with Government it is a centralized authority with no major competition, and with
decentralization there are many competitors. Even with Government, we have to rely upon many decentralized authorities in order to supplement, so it is logical to assume that a decentralized model can run society as a whole. If people are willing to help pay for a central authority which is far less efficient, and more expensive, why can't they pay less and get a better model for how society should be ran?
deathtokoalas
+KevZen2000 property rights refer to ownership rights over productive forces like factories and farms, not personal items. so, i ask again: if there is no state, who protects property rights?
Sergio Díaz Nila
+vegaskidd a simulation still exists outside of reality, only tells you if there isn't contradiction between your assumptions, it doesn't tell you if the assumptions are real, or enough, or if the cover all the aspects related. Astrology made a lot of sense to "scientists" 500 years ago, it isn't about making sense or math. It is about fitting in the REAL WORLD not in the FANTASY of your own Ivory tower.
Many of the externalities ignored by the model of free market, apparently don't have meaning or importance. But they do, like climate change. When you put a business a factory and put it to work, you think you are doing it under your own right, but if you are polluting the environment, eventually you are going to create damage to your own health and the health of others, that is a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle.
The way free-market resolves this, is based on the assumption that an entrepreneur will identify this issue and will arise to solve this issue, creating a competing business that solves that externality. But under the free-market WHO WILL PAY for the research to understand the climate change? no-one, because on a first approximation, it has no economical advantage.
Or like happend in London, until people were dying of respiratory diseases you would understand, I wont have workers or customers, dahh, we need to research wats going on.
One great example of the Fantasy of the free market is Blackwater, a private security company (a private army) hired by the US gov, then went rogue and now is killing people just for sport. In a Free Market society, how a private security company (police and/or army replacement) will behave. Do you really naively think they will respect you if you don't pay on time? Do you really think they will resort to marketing if they want to make more clients and business, guess what, those private security companies do exists, and are called Mafia and Gangs, they will charge you to protect you from themselves. Drug Dealing and all this organized crime will go rogue, they won't have to hide anymore.
Since you like simulations and experiments, think about Kurosawa's 7 Samurai in the movie the history goes at this village of peasants that just wanted to live their lives and trade freely, were raided constantly by a gang of thieves. Then the peasants hired 7 samurai to protect them. The 7 Samurai said we can't, but we can train you. And they learned to defend themselves, against bows and arrows. Blackwater has military training and equipment. So will you stop your daily production activities to do military training to protect your business? or will you hire a security company, that might protect you, or just rob you?
Yeah, another security company will appear, leaded by an entrepreneur who wants to help people and fight the rogue security company, and in the meanwhile, violence.
And i know about the Spanish case, it was awesome, but some differences there,
1. Spanish anarchism was socialist (democracy in the workplace, workers in control of the means of production, not the owners), not capitalist (owners in control in a vertical and totalitarian structure.)
2. They prepared themselves for decades before going for the shot.
3. Organized crime wasn't as present as it is today.
4. they were in the middle of a civil war, which they lose and the dictator Franco won, thanks to the militar training and the pacifism of the anarchists there.
Sergio Díaz Nila
+vegaskidd your understanding of socialism is absolutely poor and a result of the cold-war propaganda from us-gov and ussr-gov
deathtokoalas
+Sergio Díaz Nila i just want to point out that franco was helped substantially by the hitler/mussolini axis and that while the soviets helped the republicans (which the syndicalists eventually aligned uneasily with), his meddling in ensuring that the resistance was staffed by soviet sympathizers rather than based on a popular front was ultimately disastrous.
Sergio Díaz Nila
+deathtokoalas Franco was also helped by the US, no government want the people to know that anarchism is possible.
Johann Popper
+Sergio Díaz Nila U.S. citizens also volunteered to fight against Franco. If a form of governance cannot withstand minor help from foreign entities, it is emphatically not actually possible.
deathtokoalas
+Johann Popper it's actually inaccurate to suggest there was american involvement. the united states, united kingdom and france all had a neutrality position and actually implemented an arms embargo. the dominant actors were germany and italy on the nationalist side and the ussr on the republican side.
the anarchists were not actually a direct party to the conflict and avoided taking part in it as long as they could. the republicans were democratically elected, and there was a coup by the fascists to reverse the results of the election. the anarchists arose in that vacuum and really didn't want anything to do with it. they only eventually took the side of the republicans when it became clear that the fascists were going to win, and this remains a contentious position amongst anarchists. by this time, the republican position had been taken over by stalinists, and the truth is that the spanish were faced with a choice between francoism and stalinism - which is a lose-lose proposition. it's hard to tell how the conflict would have turned out had the anti-fascists been fighting on a less cynical proposition.
on some level you are indeed correct - any political system requires the majority of the population to adhere to it's basic principles. anarchism is only viable if the population chooses to identify as anarchists. but, if you're to apply your argument directly, it's actually an argument against republican democracy, rather than an argument against anarchism.
Sergio Díaz Nila
Well, it isn't because they "couldn't" it is they wouldn't. They knew the perfect strategies to win, but they were already sick of the war. They choose to stop fighting.
Besides your logic is totally broken, because that would mean if a monarchy falls, conquered by another country, it would mean is not actually possible. And monarchy has being around for millennia. And the same goes for any other form of existing governance.
The Spanish example was a prototype, wasn't complete, needed more resources and people willing to continue fighting, actual soldiers and not just workers turned soldiers over night.
In Mexico, we suffer a lot from Druglords and organized crime, in particular one state, Michoacan, had a criminal group who called themselves Templar knights, where overthrown by citizens army called Self-defense group (Autodefensas). When Michoacan's governor arranged a disarming and disbanding deal with the Autodefensas, they dropped the guns, to give a chance to the institutions and shit, and then the governor executed the leaders, and has systematically executing the members without any trials. Nobody talks about this in the national media.
If anything is proven by the Spanish anarchists, isn't that anarchism isn't possible, it only proof a revolutionary group shouldn't stop fighting, just because it wants immediate peace, they are sacrificing a long term benefit and goal, for a short term and so much smaller benefit. And cases like the Autodefensas in Michoacan, prove the same, you got to fight until you have established your dominance and stability.
The Bolsheviks fought for 15 years before getting a stable government, the Spanish civil war lasted 3 years.
deathtokoalas
+Sergio Díaz Nila the idea that they gave up is not true, either. once the anarchists finally chose to align with the stalinists, they were systematically dismantled by them - partially due to defection at the top of the anarchist "leadership". it was not franco that defeated the anarchists, it was stalin. there were massacres. it was horrific. franco then defeated the stalinists.
the big thing to learn from the spanish civil war is that anarchists cannot trust marxist-lenninst-maoists and are fools to think they represent a common front. the mlms will stick their knives in at the first opportunity.
Sergio Díaz Nila
yeah, that's right and they should known better, after all Marxism has authoritarian elements. The dictatorship of the proletariat as described by Marx is just violent vengeance, which will only perpetuate the class struggle it seeks to stop.
deathtokoalas
+Sergio Díaz Nila well, that's the debate. should they have known better? i mean, franco was carrying out massacres, too. it seemed like the stalinists were a lesser evil. but, in the end, they were just as horrific - perhaps more so. i mean, it was the stalinists that carried out the decisive slaughter. and, then does franco almost seem like a lesser evil?
and, it wasn't just in this authoritarian marxist sense. they actually opposed the land reforms. they didn't act significantly different than a capitalist power, and didn't really seem to have a desired end beyond the restoration of a bourgeois democracy. but, i mean, stalin is a mind that it's better to try and stay out of.
so, you've got this workers movement, and it's legitimately making progress in redistributing land, running factories, etc. but there's a war going on between fascists and stalinists, and there's not really an option but to take a side or shut up. which would you choose - fascists or stalinists? they both want to kill you. and, there's an arms embargo in place that makes fighting back virtually impossible.
it's easy to suggest that they should have made their own guns. but, it's easier said than gotten to. coming out of centuries of catholic rule (and there's historical reasons why the papacy would have wanted germany, spain and italy united), spain was somewhat backwards at the time, and arguably still is. it's not so easy to just run off weapons that can compete against german artillery. another ten years...who knows...
sadly, they kept the delusion that the british would lift the embargo until the bitter end. and, had they done so, it might have made a big difference. but, that was never likely for a variety of reasons...
the forces aligned against them were just too powerful to think they could have stood a chance. you can't just reduce the failure to the system. they were outgunned, embargoed and ultimately outsmarted.
Johann Popper
+deathtokoalas Indeed. Indirectly, of course, the Allied victory against totalitarianism in the west left Spain as something of an anachronistic absurdity.
deathtokoalas
+Johann Popper stalin is a complex character, and people will be trying to unravel him for centuries. for all his crimes, he's also directly responsible for defeating hitler. which, is actually not what the west would have preferred. the primary reason they stayed out of hitler's way in spain (and in general) is that they were hoping he would take stalin out. when the americans finally did move into europe, it wasn't to defeat hitler. hitler had already been defeated. it was to stop stalin from plowing through france and finishing the job in spain - which would have launched the entirety of europe into a stalinist dictatorship that could have had dramatic global consequences for capitalism (as we understand it).
realize this: a russian invasion of britain would have given them nominal control over india, which they'd been angling for for centuries. and, combined with the maoist insurgency in china and what seemed like an inevitable russian invasion of japan, it seemed like the entire old world was falling under soviet sway.
Johann Popper
+deathtokoalas Yes, and also revolutions in the Americas meant the entire world, old and new, was falling under totalitarian sway. I do not draw a significant distinction between Stalin and Hitler or between any forms of totalitarianism. They are the same: the attempt to concentrate wealth and military power in a single apparatus, and in the meantime, as few apparatuses as possible.
deathtokoalas
+Johann Popper fascism was generally more tolerant of an independent financial sector; hitler never tried to nationalize the banks or abolish the bourgeois class. insofar as it centralized industry, it did so under the control of cartels (which were then integrated into government) rather than under the direction of the state.
one way to think of the difference is like this: fascism is when industry controls the state, whereas stalinism is when the state controls industry. there's a syncretism in both cases, but who is in charge can make a big difference. and, it was the defining factor in the west's initial support of hitler & mussolini over stalin.
Johann Popper
+deathtokoalas Agreed about the definitions. My point is that a change in management does not constitute a structural change. That the old managers would oppose being replaced =/= a statement of opposition against totalitarian governance. Totalitarianism was already established, and still is in many crucial sectors. Economically, World War 2 merely attempted to settle who would manage that structure. But there are more important considerations besides structure and management: namely, values -- for the Jews, etc, survival, etc. Similar value-based considerations were the main thrust of both anti-Communist or anti-Fascist sentiment because there was no serious expectation of structural change. What concerned most ordinary people at the time, as opposed to what concerned theorists, was what sort of religious system each side would uphold in law. Leninism explicitly rejects objective moral truth outright. Thus, it is a 'lesser of two evils' scenario. Initial tolerance of Hitler and Mussolini for use as a tool against Soviet expansion was not necessarily a statement in support exclusively of an independent financial sector, but every relevant cultural valuation in the overall conflict. At the time, a majority Christian European population was neither going to support, nor tolerate, total domination by an explicitly atheistic government located far beyond the eastern limit of the sphere of classical civilization from which the west derives its cultural memory. A Marxist theorist might attempt to reduce all motivations to hidden economic forces totally unlike such expressions, but is evident that the conscious thoughts of the actual agents involved were everywhere concerned with the moral destiny of humanity. Western Communists couldn't even escape from moral rhetoric when justifying revolution of one class against another. Amoral thinking and speaking is impossible. I don't think people ever war over structure as such and management personally, but over the metaphysical character of the law under which they will be structured and managed.
deathtokoalas
well, russia is arguably the pinnacle of roman civilization, being the direct successor of the roman/byzantine state. the west, on the other hand, is based on the anarchy created by a bunch of warring pagan tribes. england doesn't even have a codified law, or a constitution. and i don't think that polling from the period would uphold your claim that europeans in the middle part of the twentieth century were any more religious than they are today. the "cultural memory" you speak of was burned down by a popular uprising in the french revolution and (thankfully) never reasserted itself. socialism was not an alien concept to europeans during this period, it was directly at the center of their lives - and that included the atheistic and utopian aspects of it. your analysis is way out in right field, and sounds like it was written by somebody in new england that desires to project history out of religious belief and has little actual concept of reality.
if europe was ever a christian continent, it certainly wasn't in the 1940s.
Johann Popper
+deathtokoalas No. You're wrong, and my analysis is the orthodox position. There was not a single political speech by any anti-Soviet leader of the era that did not rely on the 'upholding Classical & Christian civilization' angle against the Marxist states, and indeed against Germany/Prussia, which the French were traditionally inclined to regard as barbarian for obvious reasons. Eastern and northern Europe never had a strong cultural foundation in Rome, and no mainstream scholar regards the Byzantine Empire's cultural contributions to eastern Europe and beyond as the equivalent of Rome's contribution to France, Spain, England, etc. Furthermore, I am not talking about genuine strong religious belief, but receptivity to rhetoric via cultural memory. Regardless of whether England has a codified constitution or system of government based on a Roman model, nonetheless, its culture was decidedly Roman after being reasserted by the culturally French Normans, and the early modern era, which was in every respect a conscious cultural shift throughout Europe to emulate classical forms. The pre-revolutionary Russian regime declared itself "Third Rome", but that was certainly an idiosyncratic piece of propaganda more than an appreciation of historical fact. The entire western European parliamentary system was firmly rooted in the Roman senatorial tradition. Everywhere republicanism (and imperialism) flourished in western Europe, Rome was the explicit model. Post-revolution of 1917 in Russia, Marxism was the model. In the Post-Soviet era... well, nobody knows what Russia is now, not even Russians. Russia copied western Europe more than it organically received from a loosely organized church loosely associated with a dead empire long-conquered by an alien culture, itself only loosely associated with the ancient Roman west. England was a prominent province of Rome. Russia had no such association with Rome or Constantinople. They share no language, legends, art, architecture, music, and so on. As for the notion that the first French Revolution permanently wiped out western Christian-Roman culture, I almost feel like quoting Mark Twain. In fact, after the first revolution failed, God and king, so to speak, were restored and destroyed and restored again, and I don't see an end to it. France at present has even less of an identity than Russia. A population bubble of laborers raised outside of their ancestors' cultural sphere doesn't mean much at the current low levels of population growth. If memes have no where to go, they cannot represent a trend. I expect another terrible war or sustained series of crises this century will effect a reaction in the opposite direction.
deathtokoalas
+Johann Popper i believe that it's you that is flat out wrong ("orthodox" or not), and that you're relying on flatly idiotic, burkean concepts of history that nobody takes seriously any more.
you claim that the elites cared about theory and the masses cared about religion, then cite speeches by political leaders. but, political leaders do not represent the masses, they represent the elite. in fact, while the elite were talking about religion (which is a tool of oppression used by the elites to control the masses), the masses were organizing against them - and that necessitates the neutralization and rejection of religion, as it is the first line of control.
history is written by the elite and reflects it's privilege.
it is western europe that does not have a strong cultural foundation in roman history - to suggest as much reduces to christian propaganda. the pre-eminent roman church is not the papacy, it is the orthodox church. this was centered in the capital of the empire, which was not rome but constantinople. upon the collapse of the empire (in 1453, not 476), this institution (along with large swaths of the roman ruling class) relocated to russia, where it recreated the roman empire. tsar is caesar. russia is the new rome.
western traditions of freedom and democracy, on the other hand, are in direct contradiction to christian and roman tradition, which is rooted in slavery and feudalism. the "cultural memory", here, is german - the frankish confederation, the free peoples, the common law, the tribal unit. western legislative bodies are not based on roman senatorial models but on the german model, called the "thing" that met in times of crises. the history of europe from before 476 to 1806 is the slow destruction of roman civilization and it's replacement with german civilization. that process accelerated with the reformation and ended with the french revolution.
europe has never been christian, and it was only roman by roman decree. europe is - and always has been - german/"barbaric"/pagan in culture. it's institutions are pagan, not roman. it's legal and moral values are pagan, not roman. it has merely had a roman ruling class. to suggest otherwise is to present a false narrative that pushes a political agenda that is concocted by that class for the purposes of justifying it's own power.
Johann Popper
+deathtokoalas
Nope. All incorrect.
1. "you claim that the elites cared about theory and the masses cared about religion, then cite speeches by political leaders. but, political leaders do not represent the masses, they represent the elite. in fact, while the elite were talking about religion (which is a tool of oppression used by the elites to control the masses), the masses were organizing against them - and that necessitates the neutralization and rejection of religion, as it is the first line of control."
In western liberal democracies, elites appeal to the masses through the rhetoric that they care about. This is why American (by which I mean the United States) leaders continue to utilize Christian religion in their rhetoric. This is precisely what happened during the World Wars in every western country. You seem to be under the impression that revolution like that which took place in 1917 Russia was ubiquitous. That is not the case. It is precisely because no revolution took place in western Europe that there was a Cold War. On the contrary, the western European and American masses did not organize and revolt against western European and American elites. On the contrary, particularly in America, religion was strengthened in reaction against Communist atheism. Similar reactions occurred elsewhere in the world where Communism was introduced into a culture of ingrained metaphysics that conflict with the Marxist interpretation of history that aims to serve as justification for a totalitarian reorganization of the state.
You cannot have it both ways. If religion is a tool of control of the masses, then it must appeal to the organically masses. A brand new religion that is against every popular sentiment cannot be newly imposed on the masses. For the rhetoric and control to work, the masses must be receptive. If the masses were not receptive in 1939, there could not have been a popularly supported total war against Hitler and Stalin, and then against Hitler, but thereafter conscious resistance of Soviet hegemony. And once again, particularly in America, the entire anti-Communist movement rested squarely on religious principles. If the masses were much concerned with revolting against religious elites, the parties would nominate atheists and win elections. Exactly the opposite is still the case 25 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the word 'elite' almost has no meaning in today's rhetoric, since the situation is exactly the opposite of what you describe. In western Europe and in the United States, the richest and most powerful non-elected officials and heads of industry are almost all invariably atheists and some type of socialist with very few exceptions in America, and even less in western Europe. If the people who actually hold the reins are not 'elite', then the word has no meaning. Thus, again, particularly in the U.S., the political landscape shows an elite culture that is 'atheistic' (basically, the heads of every major school & research university and industry, from biotech to mass media news & entertainment) -- that is, anti-Judeo-Christian -- and yet the masses still poll as a majority religious population that would be more likely to stage a pro-religion revolt against anti-religion elites than the other way around.
2. "history is written by the elite and reflects it's privilege."
Not since the dawn of the information age. Now everyone writes history, especially the losers.
3. "it is western europe that does not have a strong cultural foundation in roman history - to suggest as much reduces to christian propaganda. the pre-eminent roman church is not the papacy, it is the orthodox church. this was centered in the capital of the empire, which was not rome but constantinople. upon the collapse of the empire (in 1453, not 476), this institution (along with large swaths of the roman ruling class) relocated to russia, where it recreated the roman empire. tsar is caesar. russia is the new rome."
You must be Russian or an Orthodox Christian or both. I do not need to address this because it is so far from scholarly consensus. Suffice it to rhetorically ask, are there any Roman ruins in Russia? Was any part of Russia ever a province of Rome? Did the citizens of the Byzantine Empire speak Latin? Can you name specific Romans that moved to Russia?
On the other hand, I can tell you that a few Orthodox Church monk refugees made a claim of tenuous Imperial succession for Ivan III, prince of Moscow. Neither his family, nor any of his subjects, had the slightest connection to classical civilization, as opposed the entire make-up of southern and western Europe, whose unrecorded non-Roman cultures were completely swept away by Rome and Roman Church and lost to history.
4. "western traditions of freedom and democracy, on the other hand, are in direct contradiction to christian and roman tradition, which is rooted in slavery and feudalism."
So false as to be just the opposite. Feudalism was essentially a German invention that evolved out of the decentralization of the old empire, and, essentially, the privatization of the cavalry in the absence of a bureaucracy and amid territorial instability. German tradition had no concept of civil institution or organization, and instead was based around the dominion, or fredum, of warlords over lawless, hereditary territories populated by subjects. Quite different from the Roman concept of civilization being a universal justice system, cities, free travel and trade, elected administration, a strong centralized bureaucracy, law inhering in territory, as opposed to inhering in the tribal chief, and so on. Furthermore, Christian Rome had abolished classical slavery, and slavery remained unknown in Europe until the Renaissance. Far from there being a contradiction between the Roman and Christian traditions and western freedom and democracy, the latter exist only because of the former.
5. "the 'cultural memory', here, is german - the frankish confederation, the free peoples, the common law, the tribal unit. western legislative bodies are not based on roman senatorial models but on the german model, called the 'thing' that met in times of crises. the history of europe from before 476 to 1806 is the slow destruction of roman civilization and it's replacement with german civilization. that process accelerated with the reformation and ended with the french revolution."
I would have expected to read this in a late-19th century book on German Nationalism. As it is, the notion that a illiterate tribal people transmitted a secular parliamentary tradition to their descendants is certainly false. Let us go by the actual primary sources (as opposed to baseless speculation) to interpret history. Contemporary Western Europeans exclusively claim the Roman tradition as their inspiration for parliamentary proceedings, as continually modeled from the classical era by the Roman Church's curia. England's common law has no bearing whatsoever on the Roman Law of southern Europe, but even then, its codification emerged as an explicit conscious attempt to Romanize it after the Norman conquest and subsequent slow rise of modernity. There is a reason why history labels this era a rebirth of classical civilization, as opposed to the birth of German civilization. Again, I'd have expected your interpretation in a German nationalist book of the late 19th century, but such fantasies have since gone the way phrenology.
The Protestant Reformation attempted to define itself in these terms in reaction against the Catholic Church to the extent that it sought to denigrate the entire Roman tradition as demonic, etc, but no serious historian nowadays regards this narrative as anything other than innovative religious propaganda that evolved into pro-northern European racist propaganda by the late-19th century. And as I mentioned before, the first French Revolution was obviously not decisive, so I wonder why you regard it as a finality.
6. "europe has never been christian, and it was only roman by roman decree. europe is - and always has been - german/'barbaric'/pagan in culture. it's institutions are pagan, not roman. it's legal and moral values are pagan, not roman. it has merely had a roman ruling class. to suggest otherwise is to present a false narrative that pushes a political agenda that is concocted by that class for the purposes of justifying it's own power."
What nonsense. You're writing in modified Latin right now. Ancient German culture is almost nonexistent. They were illiterate. They transmitted nothing of their religion or philosophy to us. All western European political progress is based on territorial law, as opposed to tribal law, and this was a uniquely Roman notion. Its institutions, from religion to government, were largely Roman and remain so, if not more so today. Furthermore, the idea that a continent full of cathedrals, chapels, universities, hospitals, legislative chambers, separate judicial systems, all thinking and writing in modified Latin, all going to school to learn about the Plato and the Caesars (not Ivan III), is not Roman and traditionally Christian, but pagan (whatever that means), is utterly preposterous to the highest degree imaginable. It's like going to China today, and saying theirs is a German-Jewish culture because the current ruling party is Marxist, then dismissing all the traditional Chinese remains, the architecture, the language, the literature, etc, as mere vestiges of a lying and irrelevant elite. Well, I don't know how to even pretend to be more wrong than that. Your narrative is the limit case of fiction. Only if you imagine that there has not been a population explosion in the last century, and thereby envision hundreds of millions of people in, say, 900 A.D., could you begin to paint a reasonable picture of an elite forcing its worldview on the mass-media educated masses, but that is a sheer anachronism. German pagan culture (we are not talking about Roman pagan culture, which is indeed part of the foundation of western civilization) did not have schools or writing. More than the victors, history was written by the literate. How can you say Europeans today remember what was never recorded? You don't know a thing about the theology of Woden, and no one does because nothing was recorded. The German people themselves don't even enter history till the Romans write about them. 'History' itself, for Europeans, is a Roman invention.
One last thing to address, the notion that western European moral and legal values are pagan is incorrect for the reasons already discussed, but I'd like to reiterate: western European morals were derived almost entirely from Christian morals layered above pagan Roman morals. From the structure of family to the proper conduct of soldiers in war to proper behavior of a priesthood and the manner of religious practice, there was left not a thread of non-Roman pagan influence in the fabric of our current order and those of the last 1600 years. No human sacrifice, the nuclear biological family, discouragement of divorce, separation of church and state, just war theory, the chivalric code, organized charity, the university system, the scientific methods... the structure is too vast to appreciate all at once, yet none of it resembles the social structure and behaviors of pagan Germans or pagan Celts. Superficial superstitions are not defining aspects of a culture, especially when their origins are obscure to the point that they have lost their original meaning, or when their meanings have been totally replaced by a new worldview, as is the case in western Europe -- for example, the replacement of Saturnalia with Christmas. Everybody knows at least something about Jesus, but nothing about the theology of Saturn or the religious practices of their cult. And we know even less about ancient German deities. That's how distant we are from being a pagan German culture.
Lastly, there is no need to put 'barbaric' in scare quotes. It is not entirely a classist or imperialist term. It's meaning is quite clear in the context in which it was most often used, apart from any elite definition. It simply means people who have no civilization, no writing, no systematic transmission of ideas of any permanence, and a consequent way of life that depends on warfare, theft, and perpetual migration to those ends. In contrast, Rome typically did not war and steal without establishing permanent apparatuses for the continual exploitation of the conquered. This latter way of life is the only known basis for what we call civilization. This method in practice today is why we are talking on a computer network right now, reclining on the wage-slavery of foreign laborers. In short, civilization is the only organization ever discovered by which mankind can build an infrastructure capable of bringing about mass production and the stability required for the mass bourgeois speculation in which you and I are engaged right now. In a word, pagan (or rather, pre-Roman) Germans had no 'politics'. For that matter, they had no schools of art. No scientific methods. No civil organization. No productive labor. No law. Not a written word. Ergo, the motivations of ancient western European elites are simply irrelevant. Whether they were trying to justify their power or not, their memes, so to speak, were the only transmittable worldview. And so it was.
P.S. Thank you for the conversation.
deathtokoalas
+Johann Popper
"In western liberal democracies, elites appeal to the masses through the rhetoric that they care about."
i tend to lean more towards a gramscian concept of elite dominance pushed from the top down. manufacturing consent, and what not.
"This is why American (by which I mean the United States) leaders continue to utilize Christian religion in their rhetoric. This is precisely what happened during the World Wars in every western country."
actually, both france and germany were experiencing the beginnings of a socialist revolution - as was spain. german socialists fought hard against hitler, and were completely disowned by both sides after the war. there were general strikes across north america. canada was also on the brink of a revolution, brought out largely by opposition to conscription. there was a large strike in winnipeg that threatened to boil over. this is not in the high school history texts, but it's readily available to look up.
"You seem to be under the impression that revolution like that which took place in 1917 Russia was ubiquitous. That is not the case."
actually, it mostly was. the first thing the americans did in both occupations was stamp out socialist groups in continental europe.
"It is precisely because no revolution took place in western Europe that there was a Cold War."
the first thing the british did after the second world war was elect a socialist government that dismantled the empire. britain was unlike the other major european counties, in that it had a functioning and stable democracy - it's about as close to a revolution as you can get without firing shots. and, there were new deal reforms leading up to the war in america. as mentioned, the americans stamped out socialist movements elsewhere under it's occupation.
"On the contrary, the western European and American masses did not organize and revolt against western European and American elites."
they did, on their own terms. but, they were suppressed. sometimes bloodily.
"On the contrary, particularly in America, religion was strengthened in reaction against Communist atheism. "
in fact, non-belief in europe flourished after the second world war.
"If the masses were not receptive in 1939, there could not have been a popularly supported total war against Hitler and Stalin, and then against Hitler, but thereafter conscious resistance of Soviet hegemony."
the second world war was never a "popularly supported war". it was fueled by conscripts who had the choice to fight or be shot. desertion was rampant on all sides. the first world war was even less popular, and had even more desertion. there were large protests movements in europe during both wars. and, hitler himself was never particularly unpopular in america.
nor was religion ever a dominant factor in any of the propaganda or any of the state literature. it is easy to understand why a capitalist class would oppose a communist revolution. but, the propaganda was about "saving democracy", not saving christianity.
america is admittedly somewhat of an exception in this discussion, but i was not talking about america. i will acknowledge that america is still struggling with enlightenment principles that have been established in europe for centuries.
"Suffice it to rhetorically ask, are there any Roman ruins in Russia?"
less than in palestine, but it's a foolish line of thinking.
"Was any part of Russia ever a province of Rome?"
yes, quite a bit of it was under byzantine control.
"Did the citizens of the Byzantine Empire speak Latin?"
the dominant language for most of rome's history was greek, not latin. christianity is a fundamentally greek system of thought.
"Can you name specific Romans that moved to Russia?"
there was widespread intermarrying between the russian and byzantine aristocracy, and widespread movement around the fall of constantinople. you can look that up yourself.
and, this is something that is widely agreed upon in the areas that are culturally descended from the eastern empire.
"So false as to be just the opposite. Feudalism was essentially a German invention that evolved out of the decentralization of the old empire, and, essentially, the privatization of the cavalry in the absence of a bureaucracy and amid territorial instability."
this is just nonsense. feudalism largely came out of the church's attempts to reassert control over the formerly roman dominions; it arose in the vacuum that came out of the fall of the empire, and that the church walked into. the pope was at the top of all feudal hierarchies.
"German tradition had no concept of civil institution or organization, and instead was based around the dominion, or fredum, of warlords over lawless, hereditary territories populated by subjects. Quite different from the Roman concept of civilization being a universal justice system, cities, free travel and trade, elected administration, a strong centralized bureaucracy, law inhering in territory, as opposed to inhering in the tribal chief, and so on. "
it's less that you're wrong, and more that you're confused about the nature of europe over the last 1500 years, and the system of laws and the culture that we have in place. the existing legal codes are all based on the rights of the individual in opposition to the centralized roman bureaucracy. liberalism, capitalism and (initially) socialism all arose out of this focus on the individual in opposition to the state. conforming, collectivist, statist christianity was spread with the sword over an individualistic and anarchistic population that never fully adopted it's ideals. our cultural memory, as europeans, is fighting the colonialism of the southern church - and we did win this battle, in the end.
"Furthermore, Christian Rome had abolished classical slavery, and slavery remained unknown in Europe until the Renaissance."
the slavs were enslaved throughout this period; it's the origin of the name. but, if you wish to deny that a serf is a slave (and deny the class of "free men" of any meaning), i don't wish to follow you in splitting hairs.
"Far from there being a contradiction between the Roman and Christian traditions and western freedom and democracy, the latter exist only because of the former. "
again, the history is of individualist germans fighting the colonial oppression and imperial control of the church. their ideals came from their own traditions, not from aristotle or aquinas - neither of whom were particularly guiding influences on the church' actual behaviour, anyways.
"I would have expected to read this in a late-19th century book on German Nationalism."
it's the flat reality that the british parliament developed out of the local german traditions, not out of enforced roman ones. the norman kings were themselves illiterate scandinavians and neither had any interest in reconstructing, or any understanding of, italian civilization.
"England's common law has no bearing whatsoever on the Roman Law of southern Europe, but even then, its codification emerged as an explicit conscious attempt to Romanize it after the Norman conquest and subsequent slow rise of modernity."
the common law is not codified and has never been attempted to be codified. it runs on judicial precedent.
"There is a reason why history labels this era a rebirth of classical civilization, as opposed to the birth of German civilization."
are you referring to the christian dark ages or the renaissance to a pre-christian era?
"What nonsense. You're writing in modified Latin right now."
english is a german language, initially close to dutch.
"Ancient German culture is almost nonexistent."
in fact, german memes and narratives dominate every aspect of our culture, from our concept of santa claus to most of shakespeare's writings to our musical traditions to virtually every fantasy film and tv show ever made.
"They were illiterate."
this is actually a contentious statement.
"They transmitted nothing of their religion or philosophy to us."
in fact, western christianity is deeply syncretic, and most of it's traditions are pagan in origin. on a day-to-day basis, we're governed by german concepts of individualism, rather than christian concepts of supreme morality - and always have been.
"All western European political progress is based on territorial law, as opposed to tribal law, and this was a uniquely Roman notion."
again, this is inaccurate on both counts - there were pre-christian german states and there are tribal concepts in our political tradition.
we don't live in a world defined by loving our brothers. we live in a world defined by smiting our enemies. it's barbaric. we were never civilized. we didn't want to be. we remain the anarchistic, freedom-loving, bureaucratic despising germans that we've always been.
there's a history written by geoffrey of malaterra that discusses indigenous norman democratic traditions, as they were observed during the norman pillaging of italy. you can see the basis of the kind of social organization that led to the magna carta in that text.
Johann Popper
+deathtokoalas What a wonderfully thorough reply! Thank you! However, I must celebrate the holiday tonight, since I am in Boston. I will reply soon enough.
By the way, why do you hate koalas? They are such adorable creatures.
deathtokoalas
it was actually a hurried response as i was rendering a mix, and i mostly focused on inaccuracies. rather than get lost in side details and go back and forth forever, i'm just going to clarify the point that seems to have been misunderstood.
" well, russia is arguably the pinnacle of roman civilization, being the direct successor of the roman/byzantine state."
what i was getting at was that the russian adoption of communism was the next logical step forwards for an actual christian civilization. communism is atheistic in detail, but religious in spirit. in theory, it upholds christian values far more effectively than capitalism ever could or would ever want to. and, this is something that socialist writers have always understood; the idea is that communism is the evolution of christianity into a "scientific" system, rather than the antithesis of it.
you reacted by doubling down on the claim that russia is not roman derived. but, this is bluntly absurd. i didn't provide much of an argument, because it really doesn't require one. but, russia's relationship (and that of the slavs in general) with the christian church was very similar to germany's, with the difference that it was more effective because it allowed for greater autonomy and the creation of an independent identity. constantinople used it as a civilizing tool, and a colonizing force - just like rome. now, the geopolitical realities of eastern europe are different than the ones in the west. the pope could station an army in france and be reasonably sure to secure it. the emperor could do no such thing in russia, as the landscape was open to perpetual raids of conquering tribes. what constantinople could - and did - do was run the area like a federation, which included manipulating the tribes against each other and collecting tribute from them when they were settled. the imperial borders did not expand much further than ukraine, but their tax base spread deep into the steppes.
at the end of the day, the reality is that the wide swath of land from poland to the caspian was under continual byzantine domination from the time of the huns until the appearance of the turks. tribe after tribe was romanized through christianity and assimilated into roman culture. the geographical difference played a factor in the longevity of the empire, but not in the christianizing effect of it's religion.
every conceivable aspect of russian culture is byzantine, from the religion to the alphabet to the architecture. russia as we know it would simply not exist without this byzantine influence. that cannot be said for western europe. the western empire was constantly in revolt, and many of these revolts in france and spain and britain had indigenous, celtic flavours to them. that dynamic makes no sense in the east. further, when constantinople did fall, moscow became the dominant player in orthodox christianity, and carried on this legacy of byzantine civilization.
there is nothing unorthodox about this. but it isn't the point.
the point was that one would expect a mature christian culture to embrace communism, not reject it. yet, the rulers of western europe emphatically rejected it, and aligned instead with the moral depravity and utter barbarism of colonialism, naked imperialism and market capitalism - much as the church itself did, ironically. but, one would expect this from looking closely at the history; western europe has always struggled against christianity.
i hope the point is clearer, so that discussions over the motives of the norman ruling class or the linguistic classification of english are not necessary to trudge through.