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Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Sephyr posted:

This reminds me of some recent apologists for colonialism (Niall Fergusson? Possibly some other jerks as well. It was trendy among a hawkish subsect in the late oughts) claiming that India had nothing to complain about because it was more populous when the british left than when they arrived.

It's wrong and outright evil in several ways (it distorts data over a long period of occupation/rule, disregards the appearance of modern germ theory and antibiotics during that time, etc), but also hypocritical to a level that...wow. No one sane would say that the USSR was good for Ukraine because it had more people in 1990, when the soviets left, than when they irst swallowed the country.

Cingulate, you are also very much ignoring/glossing over the fact that private actors can and do define 'acceptable' roles and places (geographical placas, too) for other groups, and are quite willing to employ violence and wipe them out if they stray from that convenient niche. Ask the Boers or native brazilians about how non-totalitarian systems cared for their well-being and rights, once someone more powerful needed to expand their turf.

One could even call it a special evil because it will claim that the downtrodden and the oppressed are a self-selecting group, and thus the favored caste/race is fully justified in grinding their boots on their faces. The killers don't even need to lose sleep over it, since the corpses were just headed for the grave anyway. Let's bring up an example of someone of no consequence or importance in our current model...

"Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should." Alan Greenspan, in a sloppy blowjob to Ayn Rand.

So basically, radical ethnically-minded autocracy (nazis) will methodically wipe out their pet hatreds. Modern capitalist/libertarian actors will disenfranchise them, banish them off coveted land/resources, allocate as little support as possible to them, excuse casual violence against them, shrug when that model causes them to die by the hundreds of thousands, and shoot them if they get uppity. There's your shiny trophy for that shelf of yours, I guess.

P.S- also, kinda cute that you minimize the Irish famine body count of 'only' a million dead because so many left. They left because the one fortune the country had was being close to a major sea trade lane. Those who could flee did so, or they'd also have died. "See guys, my gulag is not so bad, it's located next to a river that lots of prisoners used to escape!"
What point exactly do you perceive me as making? Because you indeed seem to be arguing against essentially Niall Fergusson's Empire, rather than what I was going for.

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Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth
You don't actually seem to have a point, which is the problem.

Grace Baiting
Jul 20, 2012

Audi famam illius;
Cucurrit quaeque
Tetigit destruens.



The (view)point from nowhere

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Cingulate posted:

What point exactly do you perceive me as making? Because you indeed seem to be arguing against essentially Niall Fergusson's Empire, rather than what I was going for.

Your assertion that a libertarian country/system would be better than any existing one, based on the dubious argument that it would not be quite as awful as balls-out Nazi rule. If that is what you are trying to get across, that is. It's a bit hard to tell, and people have a proud history of contrarianism in this forum, with results good and bad.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Sephyr posted:

Your assertion that a libertarian country/system would be better than any existing one
Hm ... first, just let me make clear up-front that this is certainly not what I think; I think a libertarian order would most likely be worse than the social democracies we have right now. I'm not saying they're the best we can do, but currently, something between Norway and the coastal states in the US seems to be the best we've come up with yet, from what I can tell.
But now I really want to know, what of what I posted did you read as actually indicating I would consider a libertarian order better than what we have right now?

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?

Cingulate posted:

"What's at the moment salient to me is that while there has probably never been a large-scale, stable, by-the-book socialist/communist or libertarian society, we can see (not to speak for now of fascist) multiple attempts at creating the former - people who, we have all reason to believe, were truly trying to create a socialist utopia - with well-known results. And we don't really have that with libertarian societies for some reason."

One possible reason is that the libertarian ideal isn't actually compelling enough to get enough people to fight for it such that there haven't actually even been "libertarian societies."

Has anyone mentioned Hayek on Pinochet yet, though?

Stinky_Pete
Aug 16, 2015

Stinkier than your average bear
Lipstick Apathy

VitalSigns posted:

If you want me to believe that work camps exist in North Korea, you need to show me the evidence.

And I don't mean CIA-fabricated "evidence" like eyewitness testimonies from defectors or satellite images or written records any of that.

And I don't mean evidence that could be planted in my brain by CIA mind control, like an offer to personally fly me to North Korea, see the camps for myself, and talk to the people there.

I mean real evidence.

What if I told you... I saw a video where there was a slight shimmer near the DPRK's Dear Leader's ear, which is proof positive of reptilian shapeshifting, meaning that he's part of a conspiracy to send the CIA's political prisoners to labor camps

Caros
May 14, 2008

Cingulate posted:

"What's at the moment salient to me is that while there has probably never been a large-scale, stable, by-the-book socialist/communist or libertarian society, we can see (not to speak for now of fascist) multiple attempts at creating the former - people who, we have all reason to believe, were truly trying to create a socialist utopia - with well-known results. And we don't really have that with libertarian societies for some reason."

It isn't just for 'some reason'.

The lack of libertarian societies, in particular when compared to the attempts at full on socialism, is pretty easily explained by the fact that socialism appeals to a lot of people, whereas libertarianism appeals to almost no one. A lot has been made in this thread about the fact that libertarian demographics skew 67% male, 90% white and 78% middle aged. These numbers are important because they show the genera demographics of libertarianism and tell us factually what is apparent to the casual observer, libertarianism appeals to middle class white men who feel their place in society slipping away.

I mean, there really shouldn't be any surprise that you see overlap with Dark Enlightenment/MRA/Conspiracy Theorists/Freeman on the land/whatever in this day and age. All of those things appeal in the same fashion as any cult, they promise to tell you what is wrong with the world. They offer secret knowledge and easily understood solutions that seem on their face to make sense. Libertarianism appeals to people who feel that they were promised the world and are growing up to find that things aren't ever going to be as good as they were promised they would be.

The reason that we don't have, and likely never will have, a libertarian society in the world is because of who it appeals to. A small subset of the middle class are not the ones who are going to start the revolution. Socialism appeals to the masses, it says "Hey it is the rich people's fault and things can be better if we all work together and eat the rich!" Libertarianism only appeals to a minute number with a message of "Everyone else is holding you down!"

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

GunnerJ posted:

One possible reason is that the libertarian ideal isn't actually compelling enough to get enough people to fight for it such that there haven't actually even been "libertarian societies."

Has anyone mentioned Hayek on Pinochet yet, though?
It's of course entirely possible if libertarians somehow managed to convince some masses to support their revolution, they'd give totalitarians a run for their money.
But on Pinochet; and now, I'm actually deliberately playing devil's advocate.
1. it may be that here, Hayek was insufficiently Hayek, not too much Hayek.
2. Pinochet was of course bad, but if that is as bad as neoliberalism gets, then the worst of neoliberalism seems to beat the median of socialism.

So here, we don't see much indication that they'd be worse, or even remotely as bad.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Caros posted:

It isn't just for 'some reason'.

The lack of libertarian societies, in particular when compared to the attempts at full on socialism, is pretty easily explained by the fact that socialism appeals to a lot of people, whereas libertarianism appeals to almost no one. A lot has been made in this thread about the fact that libertarian demographics skew 67% male, 90% white and 78% middle aged. These numbers are important because they show the genera demographics of libertarianism and tell us factually what is apparent to the casual observer, libertarianism appeals to middle class white men who feel their place in society slipping away.

...

The reason that we don't have, and likely never will have, a libertarian society in the world is because of who it appeals to. A small subset of the middle class are not the ones who are going to start the revolution. Socialism appeals to the masses, it says "Hey it is the rich people's fault and things can be better if we all work together and eat the rich!" Libertarianism only appeals to a minute number with a message of "Everyone else is holding you down!"
Maybe that's too optimistic. As Trump shows, if you just turn up the nationalism and authoritarian charisma a bit, you can motivate a lot of (admittedly still mostly white, male) people, the rest of your politics be damned. And Hispanic Americans and Black Americans can be just as nationalist and chauvinistic as Whites.

And: the middle paragraph I omitted delineates the mentioned groups from ... what other kind of group, exactly?

Goon Danton
May 24, 2012

Don't forget to show my shitposts to the people. They're well worth seeing.

Debate & Discussion > Libertarian/Jrodefeld thread: Pinochet was of course bad, but

Cingulate posted:

It's of course entirely possible if libertarians somehow managed to convince some masses to support their revolution, they'd give totalitarians a run for their money.
But on Pinochet; and now, I'm actually deliberately playing devil's advocate.
1. it may be that here, Hayek was insufficiently Hayek, not too much Hayek.
2. Pinochet was of course bad, but if that is as bad as neoliberalism gets, then the worst of neoliberalism seems to beat the median of socialism.

So here, we don't see much indication that they'd be worse, or even remotely as bad.

(1) is literally what Marxists say about failed communist countries. If libertarians get a pass when they gently caress up, socialists should get it too. As for (2), Pinochet isn't "as bad as it gets," it's the only plausible example of a libertarian order, meaning they're 1-for-1 on humanitarian travesties. And "neoliberalism" is not the same as "libertarianism" is not the same as "capitalism."

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Goon Danton posted:

Debate & Discussion > Libertarian/Jrodefeld thread: Pinochet was of course bad, but


(1) is literally what Marxists say about failed communist countries. If libertarians get a pass when they gently caress up, socialists should get it too. As for (2), Pinochet isn't "as bad as it gets," it's the only plausible example of a libertarian order, meaning they're 1-for-1 on humanitarian travesties. And "neoliberalism" is not the same as "libertarianism" is not the same as "capitalism."
I think it would be wrong to make this categorical - "has there been a violation of human rights or now?" - because that literally puts everyone on the same side as Hitler. Proportions are important. Pol Pot or King Leopold killed something like one in 3 people. Pinochet killed 3000 people.
Democracy, after all, is also not a good society, just the best one we've seen so far.

Would you really say Pinochet is a, and the only, example for a libertarian society? Because I neither think it was very libertarian, nor do I think it was more libertarian than all other societies.

Okay, Marxists would say that. And do you think that's a credible argument, if used by Marxists?

Corvinus
Aug 21, 2006
Cingulate's posting is so tediously mealy mouthed that I genuinely prefer fishmech. It takes effort to be that bad of a poster.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Cingulate posted:

But now I really want to know, what of what I posted did you read as actually indicating I would consider a libertarian order better than what we have right now?

"A society fundamentally inspired by any branch of Libertarianism is untested. I don't, however, think we have realistic cause to believe they'd approach the limits of the horrors of of what we've seen in the past. "

I did get things mixed up, and I apologize. I read that you were comparing this potential libertarian regime to the current paradigm instead of regime 60-100 years past. In my defense, my molar is a knot of red-hot barbed wire in my mouth right now, and I am facing the fun choice of visiting the dentist OR buying my course study books for the semester.

That said, your assertion that a libertarian-informed society would not do is also very much unsupported. Instead, there is no reason to believe that they would not pursue policies of persecution, societal callousness and division, and oppression, given how they support such ideals even in our current system, and excuse even the worst instances of those in the past (when done by capitalist factions, of course). It's not even just Hans Herman Hoppe and bloodthirsty reddit racists. Even the newfangled cryonics loons of the app economy will go on at length about how we dirty untermensch just need to die out and stop cramping their search for eternal life after a good freezing.

For all of the alleged hatred the libertarian IT crowd has for nazism, they sure borrow a lot from the worst aspects of Futurism.

theshim
May 1, 2012

You think you can defeat ME, Ephraimcopter?!?

You couldn't even beat Assassincopter!!!

Sephyr posted:

I did get things mixed up, and I apologize. I read that you were comparing this potential libertarian regime to the current paradigm instead of regime 60-100 years past. In my defense, my molar is a knot of red-hot barbed wire in my mouth right now, and I am facing the fun choice of visiting the dentist OR buying my course study books for the semester.
gently caress. Go to the dentist, man. I've been there. Just had surgery yesterday!

:smith:

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Corvinus posted:

Cingulate's posting is so tediously mealy mouthed that I genuinely prefer fishmech. It takes effort to be that bad of a poster.
Trust me, I hold nothing back. I say precisely what I mean. If you think I'm hiding some fascist ideas or whatever: no. I'm saying exactly what I believe. (Which is not much.)

Sephyr posted:

"A society fundamentally inspired by any branch of Libertarianism is untested. I don't, however, think we have realistic cause to believe they'd approach the limits of the horrors of of what we've seen in the past. "

I did get things mixed up, and I apologize. I read that you were comparing this potential libertarian regime to the current paradigm instead of regime 60-100 years past. In my defense, my molar is a knot of red-hot barbed wire in my mouth right now, and I am facing the fun choice of visiting the dentist OR buying my course study books for the semester.

That said, your assertion that a libertarian-informed society would not do is also very much unsupported. Instead, there is no reason to believe that they would not pursue policies of persecution, societal callousness and division, and oppression, given how they support such ideals even in our current system, and excuse even the worst instances of those in the past (when done by capitalist factions, of course). It's not even just Hans Herman Hoppe and bloodthirsty reddit racists. Even the newfangled cryonics loons of the app economy will go on at length about how we dirty untermensch just need to die out and stop cramping their search for eternal life after a good freezing.

For all of the alleged hatred the libertarian IT crowd has for nazism, they sure borrow a lot from the worst aspects of Futurism.
No need to apologize, I've been told repeatedly I'm easy to misunderstand.

I think it really depends on what brand of libertarianism you subscribe to. In the examples you mention, one can see how libertarians can readily approach fascist aspects, if they look at e.g. Rand. But at the core of somebody like Nozick is the idea that state must be restricted, and it seems you can't really get into the genocide top 10 without having a lot of state. I would think somebody utterly determined by Anarchy, Utopia and the State would at worst lead to a society where the poorest starve in the streets, but not quite to one with Gulags or concentration camps.
The history of the 20th century shows us that to really get going with the genocide, you need a lot of state. Now you might argue that it also shows that to get anything, including a healthy civilization with general welfare, incredibly scientific progress, and any hopes of not wrecking the climate going, one needs plenty of state, too. And I do believe so. But, and while this is pretty close to "at least they're not as bad as literally Hitler", I think credit should be given to anyone implementing a worst-case line as low as this.

Maybe one can learn a few small ideas from others even if their ideals as a whole are wrong.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

theshim posted:

gently caress. Go to the dentist, man. I've been there. Just had surgery yesterday!

:smith:
Speaking of which, maybe I'd be more scared of Libertarians if I was not European. The idea that you guys are fighting wars over something as simple as Obamacare is bewildering.

Caros
May 14, 2008

Cingulate posted:

Maybe that's too optimistic. As Trump shows, if you just turn up the nationalism and authoritarian charisma a bit, you can motivate a lot of (admittedly still mostly white, male) people, the rest of your politics be damned. And Hispanic Americans and Black Americans can be just as nationalist and chauvinistic as Whites.

And: the middle paragraph I omitted delineates the mentioned groups from ... what other kind of group, exactly?

You are comparing two different things. What Trump is doing is bog standard populism that isn't all that distinct from the Reaganism in the 1980's, or any other political movement in normal american politics for that matter. Riling up a bunch of middle class folks to vote for a primary candidate is in no way similar to suggesting that those same people would support the sort of radical upheaval of basic social norms that would be required to bring libertarianism into being, or that they would be successful in the face of overwhelming negative opinion if they tried.

To be more specific, the reason there are no libertarian societies, and will never be no libertarian societies is that such a society is profoundly unpopular to the great mass of people. Libertarianism appeals to a subset of a subset of the population, and while those people might certainly be fantatical, its lack of general acceptance means that it is unable to get off the ground in terms of a popular vote or revolt, and the nature of libertarianism doesn't lend itself to a dictatorial 'free market', cutting off the two main avenues that such a society might erupt from.

Sephyr posted:

In my defense, my molar is a knot of red-hot barbed wire in my mouth right now, and I am facing the fun choice of visiting the dentist OR buying my course study books for the semester.

See the loving dentist Sephyr. Or at least go to a doctor and get yourself some antibiotics so you don't die please.

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

Cingulate posted:

Trust me, I hold nothing back. I say precisely what I mean. If you think I'm hiding some fascist ideas or whatever: no. I'm saying exactly what I believe. (Which is not much.)

No need to apologize, I've been told repeatedly I'm easy to misunderstand.

I think it really depends on what brand of libertarianism you subscribe to. In the examples you mention, one can see how libertarians can readily approach fascist aspects, if they look at e.g. Rand. But at the core of somebody like Nozick is the idea that state must be restricted, and it seems you can't really get into the genocide top 10 without having a lot of state.

[...]

The history of the 20th century shows us that to really get going with the genocide, you need a lot of state.


Correlation isn't causation, though. Simply because the most recent examples of genocide have involved a state does not mean that only a state can cause a genocide, much less that you need one of sufficient size. Although what you actually mean by "a lot of state" is anybody's guess and I sincerely doubt anyone will be able to get a succinct answer out of you so I'm not even going to try.

quote:

I would think somebody utterly determined by Anarchy, Utopia and the State would at worst lead to a society where the poorest starve in the streets, but not quite to one with Gulags or concentration camps.

So? The victims are still dead whether they're in the gutter or in a prison work camp. I'm not sure why you think Libertarian societies couldn't or wouldn't produce those, either, considering we already have a private prison industry and many libertarians endorse this and wish to see it expanded in their ideal societies. And considering the human rights abuses those prisons have now it only stands to reason that they would be significantly worse when you take away any means of oversight over them.

Caros
May 14, 2008

Cingulate posted:

Trust me, I hold nothing back. I say precisely what I mean. If you think I'm hiding some fascist ideas or whatever: no. I'm saying exactly what I believe. (Which is not much.)

No need to apologize, I've been told repeatedly I'm easy to misunderstand.

I think it really depends on what brand of libertarianism you subscribe to. In the examples you mention, one can see how libertarians can readily approach fascist aspects, if they look at e.g. Rand. But at the core of somebody like Nozick is the idea that state must be restricted, and it seems you can't really get into the genocide top 10 without having a lot of state. I would think somebody utterly determined by Anarchy, Utopia and the State would at worst lead to a society where the poorest starve in the streets, but not quite to one with Gulags or concentration camps.
The history of the 20th century shows us that to really get going with the genocide, you need a lot of state. Now you might argue that it also shows that to get anything, including a healthy civilization with general welfare, incredibly scientific progress, and any hopes of not wrecking the climate going, one needs plenty of state, too. And I do believe so. But, and while this is pretty close to "at least they're not as bad as literally Hitler", I think credit should be given to anyone implementing a worst-case line as low as this.

Maybe one can learn a few small ideas from others even if their ideals as a whole are wrong.

Genghis Khan had a body count of roughly forty million people and I don't think anyone can argue with a straight face that he had "A lot of state". A lot of military, certainly, but there is absolutely nothing about libertarianism apart from pearl clutching appeals to the NAP that excludes the idea of one man or a group of men gathering a large amount of military power and using it against their neighbours. While one can certainly claim that it goes against the spirit and ideals of libertarianism for someone to do this, it is equally as simple to argue that seizing power, outlawing political opponents, starting pointless wars and engaging of genocide is against the spirit and ideals of democracy.

I'm assuming you have read some or all of this thread, and as such you've probably come across the topic of DRO's. A sufficiently large DRO is no different from a modern day military, and it is frankly absurd to suggest that there could never be gulags or concentration camps simply because it is known under another name and there are high minded ideals suggesting that it would never do anything so bad.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
Good points. Before I respond (might be a while), can you perhaps clarify what you are referring to here:

Caros posted:

t is equally as simple to argue that seizing power, outlawing political opponents, starting pointless wars and engaging of genocide is against the spirit and ideals of democracy.

I don't get what this is about.

Goon Danton
May 24, 2012

Don't forget to show my shitposts to the people. They're well worth seeing.

Cingulate posted:

I think it would be wrong to make this categorical - "has there been a violation of human rights or now?" - because that literally puts everyone on the same side as Hitler. Proportions are important. Pol Pot or King Leopold killed something like one in 3 people. Pinochet killed 3000 people.
Democracy, after all, is also not a good society, just the best one we've seen so far.

Would you really say Pinochet is a, and the only, example for a libertarian society? Because I neither think it was very libertarian, nor do I think it was more libertarian than all other societies.

Okay, Marxists would say that. And do you think that's a credible argument, if used by Marxists?

I'm going to go ahead and take the bold stance that democracy is, in fact, good. Team Rawls :colbert:

As for Pinochet, yeah, his regime is the only one I'm aware of that was explicitly trying to implement a libertarian vision. Do you have other examples? Because if you don't, then he's the one we have to work with.

And yeah, the "cannot fail, can only be failed" argument is weaselly regardless of who uses it. Bear in mind that we're not all Marxists here! Team Rawls :colbert:

Caros
May 14, 2008

Cingulate posted:

Good points. Before I respond (might be a while), can you perhaps clarify what you are referring to here:


I don't get what this is about.

It is about Hitler. Hitler lost his election to Hindenburg but managed to manoeuvre his way into the Chancellorship through back-room dealings (along with the good old looming threat of a military coup). Once there the Reichstag just happened to burn down because of some 'communists', and Hitler was granted emergency powers that allowed him to effectively outlaw liberals, socialists, communists and other political opponents. He'd eventually go on to win in the next election based in large part on brownshirts literally beating his opponent's supporters in the streets.

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?

Cingulate posted:

It's of course entirely possible if libertarians somehow managed to convince some masses to support their revolution, they'd give totalitarians a run for their money.
But on Pinochet; and now, I'm actually deliberately playing devil's advocate.
1. it may be that here, Hayek was insufficiently Hayek, not too much Hayek.
2. Pinochet was of course bad, but if that is as bad as neoliberalism gets, then the worst of neoliberalism seems to beat the median of socialism.

So here, we don't see much indication that they'd be worse, or even remotely as bad.

Why are you shifting from "libertarianism" to "neoliberalism"?

Anyway, that was not actually a comparison of Pinochet's Chile to any Communist country! The point was to consider the significance of the fact that a guy can write a book called The Road to Serfdom about how any government planning of an economy is the first step to Hitler and then say "Hey, you know, it's fine that this Pinochet guy is a dictator who denies his subjects political rights because he respects private property and free markets, and that's preferable to a democratic government with full political rights and no private property," a thing he actually said (along with "No one I talked to in Chile said there were any human rights abuses at all," which is interesting in the context of discussing Grover Furr). This is a line - that political rights for all is at best unimportant and at worst dangerous - that is very common in libertarian circles and is yet another strange correspondence to a concept in radical socialism (I'm pretty sure Hayek himself threw shade on the claim of some socialists that political rights don't matter without economic equality). The significance to me is that it pushes the speculation in your first line from "entirely possible" to "almost certain."

But on the subject of "managing to convince the masses to support their revolution," let's talk about Lenin. You keep hedging about Leninist influence in 20th century Communist countries: They all "explicitly refer to Marx, and most to Lenin." Most? What's the counterexample? As far as I know all (I'm willing to be more confident about "nearly all") the Communist regimes of the 20th century had an ideology that descended from Leninism, which was an adaptation of Marx to making revolution in a country where the people supposedly aren't politically conscious enough to support a revolution without the example of a dedicated cadre of professional revolutionaries leading as a party. Do you suppose there is any significance to this? In terms of how these Communist revolutions played out? Especially when the other Marxist road led to labor parties and social democracy? Considering all the other conceptual cribbing of Marxism and radical socialism libertarians get up to, it is not hard to conceive of a vanguard libertarian revolutionary ideology.

GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Apr 8, 2016

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?

Cingulate posted:

Okay, Marxists would say that. And do you think that's a credible argument, if used by Marxists?

It's a credible argument by anyone who can show their work and make a good case for it. You're just spitballing.

Aeolius
Jul 16, 2003

Simon Templeman Fanclub

DeusExMachinima posted:

e: still not clear on how preventing people from selling potatoes to Ireland indicts capitalism whereas reeducating the counterrevolutionaries isn't a deal killer for communism.

Offhand, I'd hazard: "Reeducation" is a fairly broad category, with the potential to vary greatly in implementation. Interpreting the above dichotomy generously, I'd take sensitivity training over starvation any old time. Worth mentioning also is that even in its less-palatable forms, this much can still be said for reeducation: However one feels about its specific content, its form is rehabilitative rather than punitive.

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?
The reason "reeducating the counterrevolutionaries isn't a deal killer for communism" is because reeducating counterrevolutionaries isn't inherent to communism, it's inherent to revolutions, which do not get to succeed if they don't suppress the old guard's opposition. Much like the status quo doesn't get to persist without suppressing challenges to it. This is a question of tactics and methods, not ideals.

Aeolius
Jul 16, 2003

Simon Templeman Fanclub
That too!

Stinky_Pete
Aug 16, 2015

Stinkier than your average bear
Lipstick Apathy

Sephyr posted:

Even the newfangled cryonics loons of the app economy will go on at length about how we dirty untermensch just need to die out and stop cramping their search for eternal life after a good freezing.

For all of the alleged hatred the libertarian IT crowd has for nazism, they sure borrow a lot from the worst aspects of Futurism.

I used to be into cryonics from afar, but reading that article from The Baffler on it was very illuminating. Also thanks to whoever introduced me to The Baffler, it is now the first national publication I give money to. I will say though, if you have millions of dollars, cryonics is an essentially risk-free bet to make, as far as feeling the cost (unless your utility function sees defeating the immortality of poverty as a good thing).

Futurism has a rad aesthetic going for it, too. Not to say there's nothing wrong with it.

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?

Caros posted:

To be more specific, the reason there are no libertarian societies, and will never be no libertarian societies is that such a society is profoundly unpopular to the great mass of people. Libertarianism appeals to a subset of a subset of the population, and while those people might certainly be fantatical, its lack of general acceptance means that it is unable to get off the ground in terms of a popular vote or revolt, and the nature of libertarianism doesn't lend itself to a dictatorial 'free market', cutting off the two main avenues that such a society might erupt from.

I kind of agree and disagree in the sense that I don't actually think "statelessness" or "minimal state" is really what defines the libertarian project. They are more than happy to discard these ideals when necessary so long as the real issue - protection of private property and maximum discretion for those who have it - is addressed. (This is why I have a hard time deciding whether libertarianism is really feudalism or really fascism, but I guess I'd say the idea is neofeudal but the execution would have to be fascist). Whether you want to call that "really libertarian" or not I can't say. I will say that it seems plausible that they could have their revolutionary dictatorship so long as they called it a bunch of DROs working together to eradicate the State and punish Statists in revolutionary tribunals for which they will be billed before being reduced to penal servitude on the open labor market.

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?

Goon Danton posted:

As for Pinochet, yeah, his regime is the only one I'm aware of that was explicitly trying to implement a libertarian vision.

I'm not actually sure this is the case. Hayek saw the potential for the regime to be such a thing and influenced the regime a great deal but I don't think that adds up to Pinochet being anything but a bog-standard right wing anti-socialist dictator. I could be wrong, though.

Goon Danton
May 24, 2012

Don't forget to show my shitposts to the people. They're well worth seeing.

GunnerJ posted:

I'm not actually sure this is the case. Hayek saw the potential for the regime to be such a thing and influenced the regime a great deal but I don't think that adds up to Pinochet being anything but a bog-standard right wing anti-socialist dictator. I could be wrong, though.

Looking into it, you're probably right. Standard dictatorship that farmed their economic policy out to some dude. Puts them on the same level as Dollfuss, so I'm going to update my stance to "there have never been explicitly libertarian governments."

DeusExMachinima
Sep 2, 2012

:siren:This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!:siren:

Put this loser on ignore immediately!

GunnerJ posted:

The reason "reeducating the counterrevolutionaries isn't a deal killer for communism" is because reeducating counterrevolutionaries isn't inherent to communism, it's inherent to revolutions, which do not get to succeed if they don't suppress the old guard's opposition. Much like the status quo doesn't get to persist without suppressing challenges to it. This is a question of tactics and methods, not ideals.

One-party rule and putting intellectuals in camps are not inherent to revolutions. Communist revolutions, on the other hand, consistently do such a thing and it's ridiculous to say ideals aren't involved in deciding what tactics and methods will be used.

Aeolius posted:

Offhand, I'd hazard: "Reeducation" is a fairly broad category, with the potential to vary greatly in implementation. Interpreting the above dichotomy generously, I'd take sensitivity training over starvation any old time. Worth mentioning also is that even in its less-palatable forms, this much can still be said for reeducation: However one feels about its specific content, its form is rehabilitative rather than punitive.

I should've put "reeducating" in quotes to make my sarcasm clear because what I specifically had in mind was gulags and purges. Those are pretty consistent across hardcore communist states, especially during the last century.

DeusExMachinima fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Apr 8, 2016

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?

DeusExMachinima posted:

One-party rule and putting intellectuals in camps are not inherent to revolutions. Communist revolutions, on the other hand, consistently do such a thing and it's ridiculous to say ideals aren't involved in deciding what tactics and methods will be used.


Not really sure why you're throwing "one party rule" in there, but narrowing your focus in response to someone broadening the point is not really a winning play! The point is that "reeducating counterrevolutionaries" is a method of opposing counter-revolution, which is something all revolutions will have to engage in. Unless you think there is something special about reeducation as a method of opposing counter-revolution and can actually show by something other than coincidence that it is inherent to communism, you're not really countering the argument.

By the way, I totally agree that "it's ridiculous to say ideals aren't involved in deciding what tactics and methods will be used," so I guess it's fortunate that I never did.

eta:

quote:

I should've put "reeducating" in quotes to make my sarcasm clear because what I specifically had in mind was gulags and purges.

Yeah, that probably would have been a good play since unironic reeducation, i.e., coerced indoctrination into revolutionary ideology, was a thing actually practiced.

GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Apr 8, 2016

DeusExMachinima
Sep 2, 2012

:siren:This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!:siren:

Put this loser on ignore immediately!

GunnerJ posted:

Not really sure why you're throwing "one party rule" in there, but narrowing your focus in response to someone broadening the point is not really a winning play! The point is that "reeducating counterrevolutionaries" is a method of opposing counter-revolution, which is something all revolutions will have to engage in. Unless you think there is something special about reeducation as a method of opposing counter-revolution and can actually show by something other than coincidence that it is inherent to communism, you're not really countering the argument.

I didn't narrow my focus. As I said in my last post, when I mentioned reeducation I was being a little more sarcastic than just saying someone who wanted to civilly fill the opposition in on the winning side's POV after the war was over. Whether or not communist revolutions can avoid this in some hypothetical world we want to theorycraft about, historically they haven't.

quote:

By the way, I totally agree that "it's ridiculous to say ideals aren't involved in deciding what tactics and methods will be used," so I guess it's fortunate that I never did.

quote:

This is a question of tactics and methods, not ideals.

Call it what you want, you tried to disassociate what is closely associated in this case.

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?

DeusExMachinima posted:

I didn't narrow my focus. As I said in my last post, when I mentioned reeducation I was being a little more sarcastic than just saying someone who wanted to civilly fill the opposition in on the winning side's POV after the war was over.

I only noticed that afterward because it wasn't in response to me, and edited my post accordingly: I am not sugar-coating what reeducation consists of, but it's also not a clear cipher for things other than reeducation, because reeducation is something actually practiced. If that's not what you meant, you shouldn't have used that term.

quote:

Whether or not communist revolutions can avoid this in what hypothetical world you want to construct,

Since my point is that what you're talking about are tactics for opposing counter-revolution, I suspect that any revolution, communist or otherwise, will only avoid it to the extent that they deal with counter-revolution in other ways. No methods of doing so are pleasant but I also don't see what is special about whatever you actually mean by "reeducation" in comparison to other unpleasant methods such that it's interesting and meaningful to expect communist revolutions to answer for it.

quote:

Call it what you want, you tried to disassociate what is closely associated in this case.

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and continue calling it "not claiming that ideals aren't involved in deciding what tactics and methods will be used," because that's not what it is. :)

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

Sedge and Bee posted:

Das Kapital. Don't be obtuse.

And for all Cingulate's contrariness, I do think there is truth to the idea that if almost every revolutionary project generated by communism (Leninism, which is the first ideology to try and put communism into practice) and its offshoot ideologies descended into totalitarianism, waving it away as always unrepresentative of communism is disingenuous. I do find the premise that capitalism and communism represent opposite ideologies faulty thought. Societies that haves been termed capitalist vary so widely that trying to use the fact that ideologies very focused on antiqued industrial age understandings of production failed to overcome "capitalism " and usher in utopia as vindication for (American) capitalism is a pretty stretch.

I also think that Marxist scholarship had evolved enough since that time so that treating it as analogous to Leninism also betrays ignorance of what is being talked about. Revolutionary socialism and historical materialism are actually distinct thought related concepts.

Most successful revolutions replace one autocracy with another autocracy, so it's not surprising that communist revolutions suffer from that same pitfall. It takes a lot of serious effort and talented people in order to circumvent that outcome. Even many Americans were like "we did all of this work fighting a war against the British, we have a Congress to represent us... gently caress it, I want King Washington to rule over us."

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

Caros posted:

You are comparing two different things. What Trump is doing is bog standard populism that isn't all that distinct from the Reaganism in the 1980's, or any other political movement in normal american politics for that matter. Riling up a bunch of middle class folks to vote for a primary candidate is in no way similar to suggesting that those same people would support the sort of radical upheaval of basic social norms that would be required to bring libertarianism into being, or that they would be successful in the face of overwhelming negative opinion if they tried.

To be more specific, the reason there are no libertarian societies, and will never be no libertarian societies is that such a society is profoundly unpopular to the great mass of people. Libertarianism appeals to a subset of a subset of the population, and while those people might certainly be fantatical, its lack of general acceptance means that it is unable to get off the ground in terms of a popular vote or revolt, and the nature of libertarianism doesn't lend itself to a dictatorial 'free market', cutting off the two main avenues that such a society might erupt from.

As an example of this, see the "Ron Paul Revolution" of 2012 and 2008, which completely flubbed despite basically doing what Donald Trump is doing, but with libertarianism. Libertarianism is unpopular.

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?

QuarkJets posted:

As an example of this, see the "Ron Paul Revolution" of 2012 and 2008, which completely flubbed despite basically doing what Donald Trump is doing, but with libertarianism. Libertarianism is unpopular.

An alternate possible conclusion is that libertarians need to stop trying to hide or obfuscate the racist implications of their ideas and make them central.

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Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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GunnerJ posted:

An alternate possible conclusion is that libertarians need to stop trying to hide or obfuscate the racist implications of their ideas and make them central.
I actually don't think that's going to work out, because the more or less pure form of what we can call racial resentment - which is what Trump is doing - is getting a plurality of the Republican primary audience.

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