Finally, proof libertarians are really marxists

kuwisdelu · Aug 31, 2014

Don said:
Critiques of both liberalism and conservatism have no problem dealing with the journey along that line, while critiques of libertarianism (by both liberals and conservatives) focus immediately on the pre-supposed ultimate destination.

Apparently it's possible to have a society that's a little more conservative, or a little more liberal, but not one that's a little more libertarian or a little more authoritarian. The power of the state is not to be questioned; only which team should hold the reins of power.

I think the issue there is that "liberalism" and "conservatism" have become such broad, catch-all terms that it's more difficult to define or dismiss them. You have to figure out what someone actually means by liberal or conservative.

Heck, a liberal in one country can be a conservative in another.

There is certainly still a large degree of diversity in libertarianism and Marxism, but they are a bit more consistent.

Edit: Or are you talking about that Cartesian plot with an axis for statism?

Michael Wolfe · Aug 31, 2014

kuwisdelu said:
There is certainly still a large degree of diversity in libertarianism and Marxism, but they are a bit more consistent.

I agree, up to a point. Personally I do find the myriad variations to be a little hard to keep a handle on. Marxism has a somewhat unique difficulty, imo, because some like to define it in relation to the ideas of a particular person (Marx). Yet we all know that the idea of Marxism has developed and evolved quite a bit after Marx's death.

Hanson · Aug 31, 2014

Amadan said:
I've always thought libertarians and Marxists are very much alike. They are both devoted to marvelous theoretical models which might work beautifully in toy societies with a population of no more than a few hundred, and turn into dystopian hellholes if applied on a larger scale.

Poor aul Marx.

Misquoted and misinterpreted so often, and mostly by his devoted 'adherents'.

ah well. Maybe in time...say another few centuries.

i do wonder though if his work was also purposely misrepresented and smeared - I suppose it was as Lenin and Co (deemed, incorrectly, to be accurate interpreters) were seen as the devil incarnate by owners of industry, and therefore, almost inevitably, by their respective churches.

Hanson · Aug 31, 2014

Amadan said:
It's been my experience that Marxists and libertarians are the ones more likely to invoke No True Scotsman - if you point out all the ways in which their ideologies have failed in past experiments, they will be quick to point out that the failed models weren't practicing "true" Marxism or pure libertarianism, etc.

Marxists/socialists who aren't satisfied with this, since a society that is only "partly" socialist or "partly" libertarian is not really socialist or libertarian.

Ah, I see we're already there.

I do not view Marx as a 'socialist'. I see him as a philosopher, who pondered on the meaning of 'value' across the board. However, because dramatic changes in human activity, (ie the ind rev,) were occurring as he pondered, he turned his thoughts that direction. What was an analysis of meaning, was seen as an assault on capitalism and nothing else.

eta Erich Fromm offer a nice synopsis in line with my own thinking.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch06.htm

the full treatise here https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/index.htm

benbradley · Aug 31, 2014

kuwisdelu said:
...
Edit: Or are you talking about that Cartesian plot with an axis for statism?

Don, I think you're actually making progress here (and that's not a pun on progressives) - we have yet another realization that political position might have more than one dimension.

And yeah, there's that perhaps-infamous quiz that shows one's position on a plane - googling what little I remembered about it, shortest political quiz, got me to it.

kuwisdelu · Aug 31, 2014

benbradley said:
Don, I think you're actually making progress here (and that's not a pun on progressives) - we have yet another realization that political position might have more than one dimension.

The two dimensional thing is just as inadequate as one dimension.

I prefer to think of political positions as pocket universes.

And incidentally, I'd seen the 2D version long before it was posted on AW.

Come to think of it, I think I first saw it in 8th grade history. (Our teacher was a bit of a radical.)

Don · Sep 1, 2014

kuwisdelu said:
The two dimensional thing is just inadequate as one dimension.

Almost everything that's two dimensional is inadequate as one dimension.

[/pedantry]

(See, that's how it's done.)

RichardGarfinkle · Sep 1, 2014

Don said:
Almost everything that's two dimensional is inadequate as one dimension.

[/pedantry]

(See, that's how it's done.)

And almost nothing is merely two dimensional. The laying out of political positions on issues in any finite-dimensional space is going to be wrong. It's also not going to fit the mind of any particular person.

kuwisdelu · Sep 1, 2014

Don said:
Almost everything that's two dimensional is inadequate as one dimension.

[/pedantry]

(See, that's how it's done.)

Usually, but not always. That's what dimension reduction is for.

Sometimes a projection is all you need.

benbradley · Sep 1, 2014

RichardGarfinkle said:
And almost nothing is merely two dimensional.

This is true - even a sheet of paper is three-dimensional, though we pretend they're two-dimensional when reading printed materials.

The laying out of political positions on issues in any finite-dimensional space is going to be wrong.

Then everything we know is wrong.

(geez, that feels like being back in AA)

kuwisdelu · Sep 1, 2014

benbradley said:
Then everything we know is wrong.

Only if politics is all you know.

Zoombie · Sep 1, 2014

Amadan said:
I've always thought libertarians and Marxists are very much alike. They are both devoted to marvelous theoretical models which might work beautifully in toy societies with a population of no more than a few hundred, and turn into dystopian hellholes if applied on a larger scale.

...I just realized why so many libertarian sci-fi authors set their stories in tiny asteroid habitats.

blacbird · Sep 1, 2014

My experience of PWLCTLs* is that they fall into two distinct camps:

1. You ain't never gonna take my guns.

2. Aren't unicorns pretty? And endangered?

caw

*People Who Like to Call Themselves Libertatians

Don · Sep 2, 2014

blacbird said:
My experience of PWLCTLs* is that they fall into two distinct camps:

1. You ain't never gonna take my guns.

2. Aren't unicorns pretty? And endangered?

caw

*People Who Like to Call Themselves Libertatians

Given the trends in the US (or most countries for that matter) when it comes to property rights, civil liberties, privacy, finance, education, healthcare, well-you-name-it, and a massive list of broken promises to the extent people expect their politicians to lie to them on a regular basis?

I'd say the ones pursuing unicorns are the ones debating whether the imperialist one-percenter nanny bought by the corporations in the red tie will be a better "leader" than the imperialist one-percenter nanny bought by the corporations in the blue tie.

Of course we know the libertarian state would not be a perfect world, but it not at all unreasonable to assume the world around us would be a hella lot better off with a hella lot fewer people giving orders... and a hella lot fewer people following them.

And we know that trend's not gonna reverse as long as we stay focused on our choices of red tie vs. blue tie. Whichever empty tie gets elected, there will be more people giving more orders and screwing up more of society four years from now... it's just the way the state rolls.

YMMV, of course.

Amadan · Sep 2, 2014

Don said:
Of course we know the libertarian state would not be a perfect world, but it not at all unreasonable to assume the world around us would be a hella lot better off with a hella lot fewer people giving orders... and a hella lot fewer people following them.

Yes, it is unreasonable to assume that. We might hope that, but knowing what the philosophy of most libertarians is like, I have no faith that their world would be a better one. This does not equate to my believing that the present system is anywhere within shooting distance of ideal.

Xelebes · Sep 2, 2014

No system will be shooting range of ideal. The only question that matters is whether or not most people are getting their needs met. One of the biggest problems with any ideology is whether or not that ideology will provide the needs of most people and as is common with ideologies, they are designed to provide for the needs of a few and not most.

Stalin had to move the Soviet Union away from the idealised notion of communism towards the transformational nation-building, which meant that he had to kill off ethnic minorities (Ukrainians, Tatars, etc.) to get the state where he wanted it.

Diana Hignutt · Sep 2, 2014

blacbird said:
My experience of PWLCTLs* is that they fall into two distinct camps:

1. You ain't never gonna take my guns.

2. Aren't unicorns pretty? And endangered?

caw

*People Who Like to Call Themselves Libertatians

To me this seems like an end-around the RYFW rule...but YMMV...

Don · Sep 2, 2014

Diana Hignutt said:
To me this seems like an end-around the RYFW rule...but YMMV...

Nah. I don't know any libertatians.

Free the spuds!!!

Romantic Heretic · Sep 6, 2014

Amadan said:
I've always thought libertarians and Marxists are very much alike. They are both devoted to marvelous theoretical models which might work beautifully in toy societies with a population of no more than a few hundred, and turn into dystopian hellholes if applied on a larger scale.

My interpretation of that central theologian of libertarianism, Ayn Rand, is that she is a Marxist, or more correctly the Marxist version of a Satanist. She accepted the theology but inverted it so that bad becomes good and good becomes bad.

I'll state yet again that libertarianism is just a marketing strategy. Since its central tenet is that no one has any authority over an individual save the individual the philosophy is actually anarchism. But by renaming it 'libertarianism' the philosophy is cut off from its history, and it makes it appear that by arguing against the philosophy is arguing against the very idea of liberty itself.

Like all marketing strategies it is fundamentally dishonest.

William Haskins · Sep 6, 2014

a well-written post and a stinging indictment of libertarianism. but the philosophy is distinguishable from anarchy. you would have a case with minarchism, but anarchism is an overreach.

robjvargas · Sep 6, 2014

Romantic Heretic said:
I'll state yet again that libertarianism is just a marketing strategy. Since its central tenet is that no one has any authority over an individual save the individual the philosophy is actually anarchism. But by renaming it 'libertarianism' the philosophy is cut off from its history, and it makes it appear that by arguing against the philosophy is arguing against the very idea of liberty itself.

Like all marketing strategies it is fundamentally dishonest.

If that were even approximately true, then it would be accurate.

But it's not even close to true. For one example, I'll bring the base philosophy of the Libertarian Party in:

Libertarians believe the answer to America's political problems is the same commitment to freedom that earned America its greatness: a free-market economy and the abundance and prosperity it brings; a dedication to civil liberties and personal freedom; and a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade as prescribed by America's founders.

Marxism has no interest in a free-market economy. Nor does anarchism. The same for civil liberties.

That doesn't encompass libertarianism fully, but it illustrates a valid role for a central government, which has no place in an anarchy, while espousing decentralized market dynamics, which contradicts marxism.

Certainly, the LP is not the be-all, end-all of the definition of libertarianism. But it does show more than "only" marketing.

Don · Sep 7, 2014

It would take a massive Venn diagram to illustrate the overlaps between libertarianism, marxism, anarchism and even statism (minarchism has a small component of statism, marxism a huge component prior to the never-occurring "withering; anarchism has none.).

Frex, we agorists (who fall under both the libertarian and anarchism Venn circles) believe there's a lot to be said for marxist class theory. His biggest failures were the misidentification of the ruling class, which we recognize are actually the politically-connected, and his desperate clinging to the already-discredited labor theory of value, which made all his economic analysis indigestible.

In that Venn diagram, anarchism is a big tent. You'll find many, many anarchists in support of civil liberties, and an entire wing of anarchistic thought that encompasses free markets, in direct opposition to the crony capitolist system we have today that often (intentionally and maliciously, imo) gets conflated with free markets.

In both cases, the argument is that the biggest violator of civil liberties and free markets is the state, not the individual.

Look around you at today's societies and it's not hard at all to see the validity of that argument.

Minarchists believe it's necessary to have a state to protect civil liberties and free markets, and in all other areas stand down. There are minarchists that argue that the Constitution was essentially a minarchist document. A simple review of the growth of the state in the US shows that minarchism devolves over time into foxes guarding the henhouse. Lysander Spooner noticed that over 150 years ago.

Lysander Spooner said:
But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

ETA: And calling Ayn Rand the central theologian of libertarianism is laughable. She has been quoted time and time again as considering libertarians nothing more than libertines. Ayn Rand also believed in interventionism. She's more a poster child for conservative interventionist minarchism than a libertarian.

Michael Wolfe · Sep 7, 2014

Romantic Heretic said:
I'll state yet again that libertarianism is just a marketing strategy. Since its central tenet is that no one has any authority over an individual save the individual the philosophy is actually anarchism. But by renaming it 'libertarianism' the philosophy is cut off from its history, and it makes it appear that by arguing against the philosophy is arguing against the very idea of liberty itself.

Like all marketing strategies it is fundamentally dishonest.

Certainly anarcho-capitalism could be considered related to libertarianism, but for the most part I think William is right--libertarianism is not exactly a re-branded form of anarchism. Many anarchists are collectivists who advocate the abolition of private property, for example (very different from libertarianism).

Is the word libertarian a marketing strategy? I suppose so. But of course that's pretty common fare in politics, not a unique feature of libertarianism.

kuwisdelu · Sep 7, 2014

Aren't all political labels essentially marketing strategies?

robeiae · Sep 7, 2014

One could say that about pretty much any label, no?

Finally, proof libertarians are really marxists

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