I don’t follow your analogy. It’s more like packing that ordnance in foam, to keep it from being set off.
But galen’s original point was that we have never had the chance to see a communist system develop without fierce opposition, embargoes, etc., from capitalist powers. The Soviet bloc as a whole was constantly under siege from the West throughout its existence. But you’re talking about Poland vs. Russia as nations, not about communism vs. capitalism as systems. You still lose.
Not that I’m defending the Stalinist model of communism as a system; I’m only saying that galen has a valid point – under the real historical circumstances, its failure is not necessarily a conclusive test of its value.
Liberal (or anyone), can I get an answer on the difference between the essence of Liberataria and Anarchism? If mutual consent is the defining characteristic, I don’t see the difference.
While I’m asking, I’d love some examples of previous conceptions of non-Capitalist Libertarian ideology.
There are so many different kinds of anarchism that it’s hard to say. Not to mention the different flavors of libertarianism. However this, from the libertarian link, seems to sum it up fairly well:
“Big-L” just means members of the Libertarian Party. And I guess that an “Anarchy Party” would be an oxymoron, no?
Anarchism as such has an ideological history heavily influenced by Marxism – class struggle, smashing capitalism, and all of that.
Anarchism grows out of the experiences and politics of continental Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Libertarianism is a distinctly Anglo-American ideology, rooted in the small-l libertarian traditions of the political cultures of the English-speaking world, that owes nothing to Marx or Proudhon and much to John Stuart Mill and Thomas Jefferson.
Anarcho-Syndicalism is a branch which envisions the factories, etc., being owned and operated by trade unions, or by workers’ soviets, rather than by capitalists or by the state. (Its flag combines communist red with anarchist black.) I’ve never known a professed Libertarian to tout or envision that kind of socioeconomic system.
Anarchists were the leading force behind the short-lived Spanish Revolution during the Spanish Civil War.
“I already told you, we’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune! We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week . . .”
Thanks, guys, but I really wasn’t asking for a history of Anarchism, or how it differs from Libertarianism. I know all that already (did nobody read the Anarchy thread a while back?).
What I wanted to know was how Liberal’s idea of what is really at the heart of Liberataria - free association/consent - differs from (no-adjective) Anarchism.
But Liberal said
I just want him to back it up with a cite or detailed explanation. I’ve not come across non-Capitalist Libertarianis either, it’s always been tied to distinctly Capitalistic frameworks, which would make it the very antithesis of proper Anarchism. But Lib’s statements made me ponder…
Oh, and this…
Do yourecall where Marx sat as he wrote his masterwork Capital*? The idea that Anarchism and the worker’s struggle is a Continental movement is a little too pat, IMO. Lots of Americans and Englishmen paid blood for that red flag (or the red part of the red/black one). May Day is Worker’s Day the world over - except the USA. Where did it originate? The USA, that’s where.
I do get what you’re trying to say, BG, but it’s starting to veer into “National Character”-type arguments that I don’t buy into. Not saying that’s what you said, but I think you sell Anglo-American Anarchism a little short, and puff the Continental influence up a bit much in trying to distinguish Libertarianism from Anarchism.
*The Reading Room of the British Museum in London, that’s where. He’s also buried in London.
Government is the usual mechanism by which the sheep turn wolf (e.g. a bunch of Germans decided that the Jooos were at fault for their problems, so they elected a government that would get rid of them).
It’s the usual method because government ( hopefully ) prevents most of the others. Eliminating or weakening government control doesn’t hurt the wolves in the slightest; it just means they can eliminate the step where they co-opt or avoid the government, and go straight to preying upon the sheep.
That’s precisely what happens when the government decides to look the other way, for one reason or another. If the government decides to ignore the lynching of blacks or the selling of fake medical treatments; people don’t come up with a non-governmental solution, the “wolves” run wild until the government changes it’s collective mind.
I’m not trying to be snarky, but that wasn’t what you asked for in the post I was responding to. It didn’t read that way, at any rate.
Yeah, but it was a repeat of an earlier question with a specific context:
I wasn’t dissing your & **BG’**s replies, BTW, nor saying you were wrong on the differences, just saying it wasn’t what I was asking.
I feel you’re naive about political reality. It’s true that America is currently in a low period of our foreign relations. But in China, for example, our current situation would be considered typical - China has invaded several neighbouring countries and has stated it has further plans for expansion. And there’s no popular opposition there as there is in this country - although in China, popular opposition to the government is generally restricted anyway.
from my friend John mace’s post:
A society in which governmental enforcement of building and fire codes would be viewed as “constraints imposed by the state on persons or their property (if applicable), beyond the need to penalize infringement of one’s rights by another, as a violation of liberty” would turn most rental property into death traps. Even buying a home would be unsafe. Many government functions, seen by libertarians as constraints are neccesary.
Apart from Taiwan (and whether a PRC takeover there would count as “expansion” is debatable), what territories has China expressed an intention to acquire?
However, those also depend on government (e.g. the Klan sympathizers who controlled post-Reconstruction governments noticed what a bitch it is to clean blood out of white sheets, and responded by enacting some gun-control Black Codes).
No, they don’t; “wolves” do just fine in a society without laws; they, after all, are the ones who get anything they want. Guns don’t help the “sheep” much, because the “wolves”, by their nature, tend to shoot first.
As we’ve seen in Iraq, where a heavily armed populace has proven (1) before the war, insufficient to resist the government, and (2) since the war, insufficient to keep order.
Missed this earlier. I believe so. A good writer, even if I don’t like his political philosophy ( or at least what his characters in the Darwin’s Children series believe ).
China is heavily involved in the dispute over ownership of various islands in the South China Sea. China disputes the Japanese ownership of the Senkaku Islands and the Indian ownership of the “South Tibet” region. China has also made claims, based on historical ownership, of territory currently part of Russia and Mongolia. I believe there are also similar claims made about territory belonging to Bhutan, Kazkhstan, Nepal, and North Korea. In fact, I think China has a border dispute with literally every country that it shares a border with. Some official Chinese maps show all of these disputed areas as part of China being held under temporary foreign occupation.
!!! They don’t have enough trouble trying to govern restive non-Han populations?!