From: kharin (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Tue Apr 16 2002 - 04:00:22 MDT
Note: http://www.politicalcompass.org/ has an interesting methodology for gauging political affiliation (in case there was any doubt, I come out as very slightly inclining to the right, and strongly inclining towards libertarianism). But back to the original topic:
[quote] I think for a long time Marx was actually a huge weight around the necks of socialist campaigners everywhere. [/quote]
Tony Blair certainly thought so. How interesting to find you in agreement with him.
[quote]I\'m sure
Jesus (if he existed) would be appaled(sic) at the christian religion if he was
around today[/quote]
Given that he did not exist, this is not something we need detain ourselves with for too long. However, hypothetically speaking, I consider it unlikely that anyone prepared to speak of coming with a sword to set brother against brother can really be regarded as a great exponent of liberty and fraternity.
[quote]
30% Socialist
30% Libertarian
20% Hedonist
20% Anarchist
[/quote]
Of which, numbers one, two and four would all appear to be less than compatible, i.e. socialism typically assumes the presence of a large state founded upon interventionist principles, which can conduct redistribution of wealth via taxation (i.e. the state acts as the guarantor of equality of incone). Conversely, anarchism typically assumes that all institutions are inherently debilitating (something they may have a point over in the case of socialist states). For anarchism, the state corrupts even the most selfless revolutionary instead of simply \'withering away\' as certain early Marxists had it. The only thing that both creeds have in common is a view that capitalism has the effect of commodifying human relationships, which says a great deal about what they are against, but little regarding what they are for. Otherwise, the idea that Marx and Bakunin could lay down like the lion and the lamb seems rather far fetched.
As for socialism and libertarianism, the discrepancy is even more glaring. Socialism regards the liberty of the citizen as something that is subject to abuse and an invitation for one citizen to triumph over another; the state must therefore intervene. Conversely, if libertarianism can be described as possessing any core tenet (as it can be a very diffuse philosophy) it is surely that the state may not regard the indvidual as it personal property - while for Marxism the individual is as nothing - which is how socialism was able to trample over its peoples wherever it became established. The needs of the individual were never important, only the imagined needs of the society, which conveniently happened to be identical to the needs of the state.
Finally, anarchism and libertariaism are probably the closest of the three, although libertarianism has certainly been most fully developed in capitalist liberal democracies wherein the liberty of the citizen is underpinned by economic rights, and particularly property rights; i.e. those of the kind that anarchism has always been hostile to (i.e. the view that liberty of that kind is meaningless without economic equality since it is only deemed to be available to the moneyed classes). The other problem is that rights and liberties conflict; for JS Mill or Madison, the state has a role in contending between these differing interests, while for someone like Bakunin;
[quote]liberty of each individual which, far from halting as at a boundary before the liberty of others, finds there its confirmation and its extension to infinity; the illimitable liberty of each through the liberty of all[/quote]
Which is ultimately the point at which anarchism and fascism meet, since in those circumstances chaos assuredly leads to crushing order. All of which leads me to wonder if most of these philosophies have anything in common other than a siege mentality regarding to capitalism.
---- This message was posted by kharin to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=24851>
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