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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Basically, imagine the American who would say "I'm as liberal as they come, but..." Can we motivate those people to action, or is their ideology incompatible with real change? American liberalism as an ideology seems like an unshaking defense of the status quo expressed in terms best calculated to appeal to whatever audience is listening, so those people are not just incompatible with real change but without realising actively opposed to it Like they're onboard with progress and change right up until it seems like it might actually cost them something Neeksy posted:I think a part of what makes it difficult is that they really don't understand their own ideology very well, to the point that admitting even having one at all is akin to taboo. The "economic conservative, social liberal" canard is less a statement of what they actually believe in terms of policy outcomes or desired society, but rather a projection of an ideal identity that appears to be unique and discerning; they want to appear like their beliefs are put together like a shopping list that they carefully put together by weighing the merits of each idea. They want to look like a smart shopper rather than a slave to branding. It's a form of political atheism where they look upon people who buy in to an existing ideological framework as true-believer dupes that allow dogma to define their worldview for them. The reality is that these self-imagined snowflakes have no idea what many of these political terms even mean, nor how politics and civic society intersect. The road to hell is paved with leftists quibbling over slight variations in their polsci terms
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Jan 19, 2017 07:48
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Higsian posted:I think the individualism and worthiness are the aspects of American liberalism that are incompatible with real change. I'm not a fan of capitalism but I think it could be workable if income was seen as a benefit from society and capitalists were seen as managers of societal wealth rather than owners of wealth. Basically if capitalism was seen as the means of determining where labour and resources are used for society rather than as a way to enrich the individual. So... Capitalism would work if it wasn't capitalism, but instead something completely different?
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Jan 19, 2017 07:51
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Higsian posted:Eh, no. I'm not saying anything would change in the mechanism of capitalism. Capitalists would still control the means of production and individuals would still gain income by serving capitalists. But capitalists would be restricted from actually using all their wealth for themselves. Capitalism only requires that capitalists control the means of production, not that they get to use it for themselves. That part comes from liberalism. You could have a communal capitalist society. We could require capitalists to live like monks and still call our system capitalism. This seems like stretching the word capitalists to its breaking point, though. I mean at the point where capitalists are required to live like monks you're so far removed from the system that is described by the word that you may as well refer to it as monakism or turblefish or something? It also seems like a stretch to say that liberalism is to blame for the owners of the means of production hoarding all the capital, that's capitalism working as intended? How do you figure that particular logic? e: Tiny Brontosaurus posted:I legit think this is interesting but speculation about alternatives to/modifications of capitalism definitely deserves its own thread. I'd read it! Didn't see this, I'll drop this until someone starts that thread since it's pretty far from the stated topic. So, those liberals! Two degrees to the left in the good times, ten degrees to the right when it affects them personally, am I right?
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Jan 19, 2017 08:15
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