>Socially degenerate as the libs, economically out of touch as the Neo-cons
>the literal worst of both worlds
Still, why did libertarianism become strangely popular among various types of popular media figures, like comedians, filmmakers, and actors?
>>2212888What year was this report from? Because if it's after the 1960s, it's probably bullshit. Most Native American academics are people deeply ashamed of actual current Native American culture, i.e., it being no different from white or black rural American culture, and so they make up bullshit about how ancient wisdom is still present
On the other hand, the guys like the actor you mentioned, who is really no different from rural American white people, but ones who liberals fetishize, and they are well aware of that and exploit it
>>2229409proves how libertarianism is historically regressive
>what if we were just left alonenot in a global economy, bub.
>>2215005Hedonism does have inherent degenerative tendencies.
Something is degenerate if it has a tendency to degenerate.
>>2212941>I don't like libertarianism at all, but before the 1960s, the term was tied to Jeffersonian democracy, a sort of populist agrarianism. Current libertarianism emerged in the 1960s and 1970sJefferson's "ideal" form of society was a town-sized republic where everyone owns their own plot of land and labors for themselves, and a quilt of these petty republics would spread across the land. And since everyone would own land (well unless they were slaves or indentured servants but *whistles while pretending to ignore them*) then nobody would be beholden to the whims of political rulers, since thanks to private property, the individual can restrict such power. But a lot of the nuance, ambiguity and historical context around that has evaporated with modern-day libertarians treating such founding-era historical figures as more like scriptural figures than historical ones (i.e. the blind veneration of a semi-mythic, purer past before the degenerates showed up to ruin everything).
>>2229468>economic libertarianism is self-defeating once one recognizes that actual free markets require a strong state to breakup if not nationalize industries to prevent corporate consolidation and monopolization and subsequent rent seeking. this current strand of libertarianism is the unironic love child of a generation or two of milton-reaganite public relations brainwashing to confuse retards on what capitalism isIt's the libertarian's central dilemma. On the one hand they ardently champion capitalism, but on the other they don't actually want to live in modern capitalist society with its large-scale production, complicated infrastructure, and standing armies. The maintenance of roads and things like that are generally unprofitable to operate, so they see that as "socialism." When you ask a typical libertarian to describe their ideal capitalist society, it's an "American Dream" where you either inherit a small business and continue the family tradition, or you work conscientiously for your boss until you too can open up a small business and live in a bucolic suburban community or farmland. They don't really analyze society beyond that restricted vantage point. (Of course you also have libertarians who envision a sci-fi dystopia with themselves as a freakish human/cyborg hybrid ruling over half the globe.)
>>2229468We see it here as well, the guerrilla myth has always been retarded. However it's not just Vietnam, it’s a mix of misconceptions about Vietnam, the American Revolutionary War and Afghanistan. These conflicts had wildly different circumstances, levels of technology, opponents, and backers.
>The Minutemen lost most of their battles against the British, with the exception of the Deep South, where the Northern Loyalists and British weren’t accustomed to the heat and diseases. Their job was to buy time until a Continental Army could be formed (with aid and training from France). The Continental Army was ultimately the one that won the war.>In Vietnam, there was an organized state that was being funded and armed by the Soviets and Chinese, which allowed them to mobilize hundreds of thousands of men. South Vietnam on the other hand, was a corrupt mess, with different families and factions in constant open conflict, often outright coup attempts against each other and never ending in-fighting >In the two Afghan wars, the Soviets won every major battle but still lost the war due to the massive financial problems it caused for their failing economy. Even after that, the Socialist Afghan state lasted three more years without any world aid because they still had a strong functioning state. Then came the American Afghan War, where the US installed a democracy that was never going to work in Afghan society. As soon as they left, it collapsed within a week, compounded by the fact that the Taliban were being helped and funded by a major US ally, Pakistan, that was openly undermining the USLibertarians have never bothered to do any research on the wars they use as their main political thesis for why they won't end up in tyranny
>>2231286even if you stretch the definition of left wing to include european social democracy the demonkkkkrats can't even institute a basic government run heallthcare service
they are right wing
>>2229468>>2231277Guerrilla warfare is really costly, but I think something like "gumption" and "superior spirit" is really important. What we're really talking about is motivation and determination. It's one of the most important factors in war, if not the most important. In numerous wars, the losing side lost the motivation to fight (if they ever had it). American lost the motivation to keep fighting in Afghanistan, and the Afghan army we were training had no motivation. The Syrian army lost its motivation and collapsed within a week.
The U.S. went into Iraq and Afghanistan with motivation because of the 9/11 attacks. But once we got there, we started to wonder whether our reason for being there had anything to do with 9/11 (we're kind of slow and it takes us time to learn things). This creates problems for motivation of soldiers. Anyways, you have to ask how many of these libertarians are willing to wage an armed struggle for decades in which most of them will be killed in the process. That takes a lot of motivation, and I think that has both subjective and objective factors going into it. The subjective factors include the motivation that comes from within and building of a disciplined army, but also objective factors like extreme oppression, and a large population of young people who are more willing to take risks (and risk their lives) compared to older people.
Another factor in guerrilla warfare is that it's weak vs. the strong. But one thing about fighting weak enemies is that you can come to believe that they're not real enemies. Like in a game where you just dab on children, you lose your motivation. When you fight a weak opponent, you become weak. But when you fight a strong opponent, you can become strong.
>>2212978There's a very weird element in Canadian academia right now where because elite institutions are all declaring themselves systemically racist against FIrst Nations, they will give you quite substantial favouritism to hiring you if you're indigenous. So this means all the people who've got a drop of indigenous blood (which if your family history goes back far enough in Canada, means everyone) comes out of the woodwork. This also means it is the most white-passing people who get the most righteously outraged that people would fake indigenous status (but not them, they're the good guys!)
I remember seeing a CBC article which verged on self-parody with all these (totally not white!) professors denouncing the fakers
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/queens-professor-indigenous-identity-claim-questioned-1.6067594 >>2231468If you also made this post:
>>2231277I think you are really onto something.
I did once make the point that if the US wanted to have a military victory in Vietnam it always had the option of full nuclear annihilation.
However it would be a purely military victory, at the cost of a few nukes and at the very most zero economic, diplomatic, etc. gains.
Fact of the matter is as you say, it could not reliably take on an enemy that had a well trained & disciplined army abd massive economic military assistance from two huge countries with advanced militaries of their own
>>2233225Not sure anyone's taking that guy particularly seriously, he's one of those 90s North American anarchists from AJODA and those types of post-left publications.
I font know if you've noticed but that period of history, seen most explicitly in the USA, is over. Class war is very much back on the menu.
>>2231981>old westdamn it im mad at this fucking image again
>most crime was in the cities where ALL THE FUCKING PEOPLE WEREno way!
>most violence was done during the ONGOING GENOCIDE no way!
>>2233225Sounds about right.
I've seen it many times where non-ancom anarchists characterize a historical example that is bassically "local militia + tribal council" as statelessness (in the sense of lack of government).
In other words, what ever other political ideology recognizes as defacto informal government, these kinds of anarchists try desperately to characterize as historical validation that what they desire can exist (even its extremely obvious they would hate to live in such kinds of societies and would scream "STATIST" when the tribal council punishes them for for not contributing a portion of the spoils of a hunt or running around naked high on mushrooms in the village center in broad daylight)
>>2231350Been meaning to watch this.
We should make a /leftypol/ movie list.
>>2239088There's a whole website dedicated to the subject
https://pretendians.comMany of the claimants are professional activists and/or academics. The latter were so widespread and unchallenged for decades, even though their claims would quickly be thrown in the trash if anyone bothered to do a little research.
>>2231981I can't speak for other regions, but the Wild West is interesting because it wasn't anywhere as "wild" as it is portrayed in the media. The main source of violence weren't "outlaws", but mostly organized violence in range wars also called cattle wars, where wealthy cattle barons would hire thugs and employees to steal or rob their competitors' cattle, or simply kill the cattle so their competitors would make less profit. These organized groups would then have violent shootouts with each other. That's where the spark of the Wild West comes from. It wasn't particularly wild/lawless though then the frontiers of any nation at the time and it ended pretty quickly within a generation.
It was actually Buffalo Bill and his circus act that popularized the myth of the gunfighter. He was a master of trick shooting and created a kind of carnival show that traveled from town to town, with plays about cowboys and indians combined with horse and gun tricks. It was enormously popular and we probably still feel its influence today with the idea of the cowboy is part of the American identity, even though the vast majority of Frontier men and women were just trying to make a living and find a long-term opportunity that wasn’t available in the city, and were mostly just farmers.
>>2272153put your gay nazi flag on so you can keep
normalizing colonialv violence as natural
>>2272153This makes a lot of sense. Most of the time,the greatest enemy of a given bourgeois entity is another bourgeois entity.
Its only in moments pf deep crisis that this changes and the proletariat becomes a greater threat; whether or not the bourgeois state can actually repress them is another issue.
>>2212788Libertarianism is just American-style fascism.
Some may believe the basic American nationalist mythology of America being founded by a bunch of rugged individualists who built the greatest country in the world with moxy, gumption and a love of freedom and they didn't want any tyrannical government getting in their way. Now everything is bad because the state stepped in and started going taxes and regulations which is limiting freedom and thus causing a bottleneck on moxy and gumption. This is still based heavily on American nationalism, but is still basic bitch neoliberalism in the end.
However, for a significant number of people, it goes quite a bit deeper than that. By their reckoning, the reason why the white race rose to dominance over the world was a commitment to liberty and what they figure to be various primordial forms of capitalism stretching back to the state of nature. What's more, capitalism itself is this primordial force which, if properly followed, will sort all peoples, systems and ideas into their proper place. Which is to say: white supremacist conservatism with aristocratic decadence characteristics. It's essentially a way of achieving fascist ends "naturally" through non-state means.
Conversely, non-whites and various other undesirables are seen as wards of the state. They are a people who have risen above their station through the artificial ploys of liberal intervention into the capitalist market's way of sorting all peoples into their natural place. Communists are the arch enemies of this natural order and anything which seems wildly out of place and in contradiction to that supposed natural order is essentially a form of communism to this sort of person.
Now, it's not just self-professed Libertarians who believe this ideology. This is essentially the core of modern American conservative ideology in a nutshell. But the Libertarians absolutely embody it, at least outside of a couple of grillpill dopes they tricked into thinking they were moderate because they offer a sort of "third way."
>>2308372Same anon here, I also wanted to address these posts:
>>2229409 >>2231981One of the things you'll notice about nearly all "anarchist" societies claimed by Libertarians and ancaps is that they were all fucking slave societies. Meaning that they could not possibly have been truly stateless or the slaves would have just revolted and left. Medieval Iceland was a great example of this. It was a loose confederation of petty barons who ran their own petty fiefdoms centered around slave farms where they routinely worked their slaves to death in the fields so they wouldn't have to feed them over the winter. That's the Libertarian and Ancap idea of "anarchy."
>>2308308I think the difference for that kind of anarchist is mostly the formality of the greek polis disqualified it, if not pure vibes.
I can't say for sure though, because their way of thinking (AND feeling AND ethics too I might add) is deeply alien to me
>>2212788Liberarianism is a fan fiction where you pretend you're going to be more economically successful than the people you hate and rule them by denying them resources. It's not a serious ideology. No country is libertarian except countries in a perpetual state of civil war like Pakistan.
Even corporations want to exist in a country with basic socialist policy. See public education, government funded infrastructure like road, power, water, etc. Basic laws to make things like putting lead in the air illegal.
It also ignores that the free market often has toxic externalized costs & bad game theory for society as a whole. Take pollution for instance. If everyone is playing a game, you can take from the middle of the table and get a free resource. Why wouldn't they do so? That's how you get rivers that are so polluted they literally start on fire, because the optimal move in that game is to take from that centralized resource by polluting.
>>2308393No one said that Libertarians follow the actual ideology of the Manifest Destiny period. They simply idealize the Old West as essentially a functional Libertarian society regardless of if that is actually true.
Like I said, these same people prop up medieval Iceland as an example of functional anarchy even though it was a society of petty slaver barons.
>>2343091I am not at all surprised to hear people abandoned unplanned, spontaneous settler towns in favour of government planned towns.
Yet another libertarian masturbation fantasy destroyed.
>>2343263They were a faction within the party, but not always well-liked, and they knew it. There is a whole book about their alleged discrimination within the party.
>We are in favor of: guns, drugs, fast cars, free love, a sound dollar, and a strong military with spiffy uniforms.This did not go down well with the Christian elements, the Moralists and even the Nationalists
>>2351502Personally I am disgusted with "free sex" and I have ditched half-way quite many books which I would have otherwise enjoyed (Larsson, Heinlein, Ayn Rand, whatever) when I stumbled upon such tropes. It's like worshipping monkeys in a rut to me; thank you very much. But I don't have the slightest intention nor the inclination to forbid willing individuals in engaging in it - as long as you don't try to have "free sex" with me kek.
It's like - you can establish as many communes as you want as long as I am out of it. I will join you in crushing any attempts trying to forbid you from establishing communes (or having free sex) but I will try to crush YOU if try to force others into these activities.
>>2352113Basically you are kind of degeneracy enabler.
But, hey fair to you, I openly hate freedom, and in exactly the way you mean it. I think its one of the most disgusting concepts man has ever come up with.
I am truly your totalitarian enemy.
>>2212788Just resonates with a lot of Americans.
For one, the basic read that the American government is corrupt, does nothing to benefit the people, and just extracts rent from them while giving nothing in return, is factually correct. The average American would probably benefit, overall, if the government was dissolved tomorrow, as would humanity as a whole. So the small government position is not incorrect either.
But the usual American response to 'why not make something good, instead?' is that they can't, or it wouldn't work, even when other nations have done it. This arises from American's culture of laziness and sloth, as well as pride, a belief that they are above serving or working with others. This just reflects a broad culture of amorality, which is why the socially degenerate angle appeals to them, too.
I think Libertarianism in America is really nearing its end though, as the only people who can survive without the state in the US currently are parasitic rent extractors, so an ideology premised on getting rid of rent extractors rings hollow. Increasingly, it's just being replaced by nothingness, reverence for the nothingness which money itself embodies.
>>2354427this is such cope
the american government benefits the american people. the american middle class holds proportionally the most wealth vs the 1% and bottom 50%
this is why libertarianism is a fringe position in the US - normal americans understand that libertarians are retarded
>>2354510Ok, I will tell you the economic reasons for our preference of the "muh gdp" approach over leftist policies of immediate transfer of wealth to "the poor". It's about compound interest: with the rate of growth of mere 7% per annum, after 10 years the value of equity doubles. This means that in a healthy (capitalist - not to be confused with currently prevailing "welfare states") economy the real _wages_ would double every 10 years. After 20 years all the wages will be 4 times higher. Your average worker making $50k per year will be making $200k; this would be the new "poverty threshold". 20 years is not that long, your kids will be just leaving your household, you will be free again. That's assuming that you won't even get any promotions in a meantime - with minimal career progression an individual making 50k now would make 300k within 20 years. Compound interest (based on proper reinvestments of profits) is that strong.
Leftists can give you like 30% raise now but their anti-capitalist policies basically guarantee that the economic growth will be much slower - three times as slow is giving them credit. With a growth of 2% per annum (again - leftists would be delighted if they achieve that) and even 30% bigger initial investment you will get only half as much after 20 years.
Technically it boils down to the so called time preference - you will be much better of if you can wait a bit. If you are after instant gratification (the gist of all leftist policies - as well as so called "uyghur lifestyle") it will quickly cost you dearly.
The economic reasons aren't even our primary concern, we chose freedom because we consider it moral. I just so happens that moral policies also generate prosperity.
>>2355999First point: The feldman-mahalanobis model is a part basis of Soviet economic strategy and did indeed produce rapid growth.
However you mischaracterize it: Its not about investing profits or even increasing investment by cutting consumption in absolute terms.
Its about allocating a relatively greater proportion of investment towards investment goods producing industries compared to consumer goods industries, with a feedback loop and spillover which results in more rapidly increasing the absolute level of consumption over time (because investment goods are what physically expand production capacities).
—
Second point: Even according to the low maddison estimates, compound real gdp growth per capita was around 3% per year during the Stalin era; The number rises to around 3.6% if one excludes the 4 war years.
The USSR's economic slowdown begins with Khrushchev era breaking the Stalin model of economy, but it is really hampered the subsequent Kosygin-Liberman reform's long term effects. Essentially the latter reintroduced capitalistic relations in the state sector (having enterprises retain way more profit, make their own investment decisions, choose and contract with suppliers, switched away from piece rate wages, etc. They even engaged in advertising). See book uploaded and following lecture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb7uPNwUY3oEven with those deformations, from 1928 to 1987, compound per capita real gdp growth was 2.75% (again google angus maddison 1990 tables), which is higher than the world average.
(And new evidence suggests that the research which said that productivity growth slowed in the 70s-80s despite rapid capital accumulation is faulty for two main reasons: 1. A significant part of investment expenditure was actually increasing hidden military spending; 2. When western economics recalculated eastern gdp and adjusted it they did not do the same for capital investment figures; It turns out what was driving the whatever 80s growth existed was almost exclusively productivity growth with capital expenditures having declined on a per capita basis; Theory suggests this might be due to a kind of soft Latin American debt style crisis, despite low debt to gdp ratios because of hard currency constraints)
—
As an aside, among the many foundational irreconcilable differences between us, dear libertarian enemy, one thing to note is that our very conception of capitalism is divergent.
For you, as far as I can tell (and again its difficult for me as your totalitarian enemy because your morals, emotions and entire way of thinking are fundamentally alien to me), capitalism is defined as a system in which there is voluntary exchange, with voluntary conceived of in terms of consent by people directly involved in the exchange.
For us Marxists, capitalist is an economy defined by the logic of competition between entities for relative individual profit and/or market share of the whole economy.
—
Still, I am glad that you admitted that your prime concern is a moral one about freedom as you define it, not whether the economy happens grow faster (or if most people have a higher material std. of living for that matter).
As I quickly demonstrated here, the USSR's economy did grow quickly, and faster than the world average over a large time span (and its similar for eastern europe and China in the post war as well, although not as rapid as the USSR).
Once again though, I think its honest and commendable of you to admit that what your real concern is about freedom. I remember reading a text over a decade ago, which I think was by Hayek (But I am not 100% certain; It could be another famous libertarian) where he basically admitted the same thing.
I do not value freedom generally, so your moral argument simply cannot reach me, because I do not share its fundamental premise. We are thus a near platonic ideal of true enemies.
>>2356035Yeah that was wierd. Perhaps the libertarian degenerate is arguing with himself; Posting a version of what he thinks we believe and then posting his prepared "refutation" of it (That he suggests that out primary concern is distribution of income/wealth shows he has basically no idea about what Marxists believe)
Or maybe there is something about libertarian degenerates that attracts social-liberal degenerates and vice versa; They then argue endlessly within their somewhat shared paradigm and proceed to project it onto all other ideologies and schools of thought.
>>2356351lol
>you see, in a healthy system, the CAPITALists will simply choose to not hoard as much wealth and worker wages will increaseGotta be the most idealistic, naive take I have ever seen even from a Libertarian.
>>2356351You are factually wrong. Consistently, about 80% of all profits generated in western economies are immediately paid in form of wages; despite said economies already risen manyfold.
The "capitalists" would sure LOVE to pay their workers less but market competition does not let them do that. You see, you mongoloid, the market competition goes AGAINST the wishes of business owners.
>>2356416
>Consistently, about 80% of all profits generated in western economies are immediately paid in form of wages;Logically unsound.
P1. By definition: Profit = Revenue - Expenses
P2. By definition: Wages are a component of expenses.
C. Therefore profit cannot be paid out in the form of wages, as profit already excludes wages.
>>2356416
>The "capitalists" would sure LOVE to pay their workers less but market competition does not let them do that. You see, you mongoloid, the market competition goes AGAINST the wishes of business owners.In most of the world, for most people, wages and incomes are extremely low.
The reason they aren't so low in the western imperial centers is because of combination of: Government restrictions on inward migration, social welfare redistribution, greater state investment in infrastructure relative technological oligopoly, relative knowledge/skill oligopoly, along with more direct imperialist coercion.
>>2356447Market competition in most world pushes wages & incomes quite low (we are talking pretty meagre subsistence), especially where state capacity is weak.
But yours is a red herring even on the more narrow issue of income in the west, since I didn't even mention minimum wages.
Consider: All those who draw income from unemployment insurance, disability pensions, maternity leave, etc.
Further consider transfer payments in the form of subsidized education, health, housing (more limited), transit or even food in some cases.
And nevermind wages and salaries directly paid by government or government corporations.
To say that incomes in western economies are wholly dependent on market competition and not government largess is empirically false.
And even for the more narrow issue of wages, I gave a whole host of factors as to why are higher in the west that are not market competition related.
Market competition in the absence of any barriers or rents would push incomes of the common worker down to their opportunity cost (which would be what they could earn begging on the street or gathering/hunting in the forest, assuming that the former isn't illegal and the latter is option not foreclosed by complete private ownership of all land).
Something closer to this is in fact what prevails in most of the world (although no country on earth is completely devoid of any form of welfare system, however limited).
>>2356461>Market competition in the absence of any barriers or rents would push incomes of the common worker down to their opportunity cost the opposite is true; competition among _business owners_ leads to higher wages AND lower prices of goods and services they provide. Competition directly cuts into business profits.
A single, monopolistic provider would have the least incentives to lower prices and increase wages and only HE would, in fact, be only constrained by opportunity costs. (I think that you may need Capital volume 2 and, particularly, volume 3 for confirmation but don't take my word for that).
There is quite lot of different forms of income in modern economies; Direct wages make about 80%, direct profits of business owners 10% and the remaining 10% are hard to qualify - some of it, like government benefits or earned interest may be earned by workers or businessmen alike. The proportions of 80% wages 10% profits are steady.
>>2356516Once again, you are ignoring the entire rest of the world, where incomes are much closer to bare subsistence for most people (sometimes below it), although even there government intervention provides some (modest) welfare usually.
Migrations restrictions, capital flow restrictions, state provided infrastructure, technological & skill oligopoly, etc, etc, etc. are all barriers that prevent wages from going to mere subsistence in the west.
Further you are treating the 80% of the economy as a kind of monolith. But incomes here are not at all equal, and are in fact taxed and redistributed (and some of them are directly paid for by government like in the case of military, police, courts, etc. but also teachers, doctors, etc. in many countries)
Some of that takes the form of the government directly employing people. A lot of it is transfer payments downwards as I mentioned (healthcare, education, transit, housing, etc. subsidies or direct cash payments like unemployment & disability).
>>2356543>Once again, you are ignoring the entire rest of the world, where incomes are much closer to bare subsistence for most people (sometimes below it), although even there government intervention provides some (modest) welfare usually. The more feudal the relations are (with government-protected rent seekers, landowners etc) the worse the conditions are for common people. Current relations in the Western countries, while better than average, are far from ideal too. We say that there should be more business competition (and less government regulations) because competition is something that the current "elites" always hate. It is them who write the regulations and restrict competition in order to benefit from it.
The West is "more capitalists" and thus, better - you seem to reinforce this point.
>Further you are treating the 80% of the economy as a kind of monolith. But incomes here are not at all equal, and are in fact taxed and redistributed (and some of them are directly paid for by government like in the case of military, police, courts, etc. but also teachers, doctors, etc. in many countries)We don't want this "taxed and redistributed" crap for reasons I stated before. Wages earned by people employed by the state are still wages and belong to the 80%. It wouldn't change anything from this perspective if they were being paid directly by business owners - people need teachers and doctors so private business enterprises would hire them. Or they would become self-employed.
>>2356628I live in Pakistan and it is clearly not a complete tribal war zone, but the way that business and social issues are handled is essentially anarchistic, the police are underfunded and deeply corrupt, and communities are therefore dependent on themselves for their own law enforcement. That sounds good, expect that those laws will be judged by what the community considers to be Islamic, and that local Imams will have a lot of power. And if the mullah says that God has ordered a local hospital to be burned down, then all the young men in the community will burn it down. If someone is accused of insulting Islma, they will kill them. This is against the guidelines of the state and much of Pakistan and the third world is run this way. Of course, there is law here in theory, but there is no regulation. People screw each other in a thousand different ways, and again there is no law, no security, no public works, those get established under dictatorships.
>>2357087Precisely.
What our resident libertarian degenerate ideologue does not understand is that it is precisely the strength of government, by various means which is what makes conditions in the west better for the median person, despite the mode of production being capitalist in both instances.
Strip away (or significantly reduce) law, infrastructure, industrial policy, welfare measures, migrations controls & of course imperialism and the conditions of life for a much larger proportion of westerners would look like those of the median Pakistani.
My sympathies to you by the way. I have heard things have deteriorated a bit recently in Pakistan. I hope you are getting by.
>>2358453>>2358485Happy to hear you are doing (relatively) okay.
One thing that might interest you that has recently absorbed my attention is the issue of unitary vs. federal states & civil vs. common vs. customary law.
The way you describe things, it seems like Pakistan suffers from both the devolved power inherent to federal states & significant remnants of customary (that is very informal, diffuse & personality dependent) law.
Though the reasons he gives are lacking in my opinion, in The Prince Machiavelli even mentions that the more stable & better governed states are those with formally appointed ministers that derive their power from the center (as opposed to those with barons/feudal lords with own powerbase).
Its why I am not at all surprised that you say that some of the better areas to live in your country are those strongly supervized by the central military or very closely associated groups; This because the military tends to be most unitary, formalized, hierarchical (as opposed to heterarchical), rules/procedures based institutions in most countries.
This means rules/policies/procedures are relatively clear, lines of authority and responsibility are as well, enforcement mechanisms exist & are carried out by relatively trained personnel, etc, etc, etc.
In fact, among the most intellectually serious marxists, one of main problems with capitalism is precisely its inherently heterarchical nature; In other words the problem is that capitalism is insufficiently "centralized" & moreover inherently incapable of becoming so.
>>2358453> Because of these experiences, I sincerely believe that Authoritarianism, whether Communist, Ba'athist or Bonapartist are necessary for the Third World and our material and social development.Listen, it's not rocket science - people need to have a choice among plenty of well-paid jobs for material development of a country. Africa is poor because no one fucking does anything there. People are lying under the palms all day long - what "development" you expect from that. When Western business left Africa during decolonization, deindustrialization followed. For jobs to be well-paid they must must involve using plenty of (previously accumulated) capital. It's (even) Marxism 101. A corollary is that jobs in well capitalized industries will be relatively pleasant and easy - we talk about pushing the buttons in 10,000HP machines (or in computer keyboards) versus swinging the shovels. Also, business must have opportunities first for job opportunities to arrive.
Gaberments give you none of this. They could but they never do because it's against the interest of the ruling caste. Rulers don't want social mobility of a meritocratic market because it endangers their privileged position, simple as that. They are not able to _efficiently_ capitalize the economy and, as I hear from you, they are barely even able to provide basic security to their "citizens" (kek).
Also
>Better than most people here. Drink some champagne for us. With your local junta representative.
You have to give the Libertarians a bit of band-handed credit for having largely hamstrung the right by being the delusional true believers in the neoliberal order. I would argue that a significant portion of why Trump's administration is as retarded and incompetent as it is can be laid directly at Libertarianism's feet. It has convinced large sections of the right that there is no need for nation-building or extensive, large-scale and long-term social projects. Socially conservative, low-key de facto ethnic-supremacist neoliberal capitalism is the natural and inevitable order that will simply assert itself as a flawless, harmonious society once the bad actors and artificial interventions and regulations have been removed. Remove this regulation, abolish this tax, return to this archaic monetary system and the toothpaste will just slide right back into the tube!
No plan for industrialization? No need! Factories just sprout from the earth in the presence of late 18th century economic environments. Deporting all the farmhands with no plan to replace them? No need to worry! The market will fix it, probably. After all, it used to be that migrants didn't make up the vast majority of farmhands, and the right and natural order will simply re-assert itself overnight. And, as always, there's no need for "New Deal" type policies to get the economy back on its feet. Economic miracles are always just one more big tax cut away! And if reality doesn't seem to match what the neoliberal economists told you was supposed to happen, it's reality that's wrong for not stepping up to match their models.
>>2359080There is indeed a certain good fortune when the imperial core countries adopt libertarian policy prescriptions wholeheartedly.
A good strategy for an emerging socialist country might indeed encourage their enemies down the libertarian path. "Please dear enemy go ahead & cut everything indiscriminately, deregulate, privatize &liberalize it all! And especially legalize all drugs and remove all restrictions on the ability to buy and sell them!"
>>2358453Having though about it more, I wanted say explicitly that your intuition that a "strong "authoritarian government" is best for economic & social development does in fact have some validity, but in my opinion might refinement in terms of what this "authoritarianism" means specifically.
This was in the back of my mind when I typed up my reply here:
>>2359039I want to add that a strong centralized unitary government with clear central leader (or very small ruling clique/family) does have a very strong incentive to purse a clear rules based administrative system with promotion based on qualifications & deed based merits, as well as keeping social peace & engaging in long term & large scale projects.
This is because illegality, disorder, corruption, social injustice threaten their power whereas large scale & long term development benefits it. Since they are the ultimate owners/controllers of everything, there are no competitors that have to be undermined or avoid cooperation with (in order to at least not fall behind in the competition, whether its war or the economy).
The key is though to maintain a clear system of rules & adminstrative methods precisely to ensure all these goals can be met (& to prevent the emergence of any significant antagonistic power blocks). This is no quick or easy set of tasks to be sure, but they are necessary to achieve.
Historically, there are some antecedents in Pharaonic Egypt and especially post-Qin China, among others. In fact, ancient China had a philosophical school develop precisely around these issues called legalism. Have a look at some point as I think it would interest you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy) >>2359251I am so sorry, I just looke at the wiki page that I linked and it appears to have been exploded and is practically unusable now. Here are some better links at least for now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_Yanghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Lord_Shanghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_FeiziI swear the original article wasn't like this a few years ago. Not that wikipedia is a great source to be begin with to be fair, but at least it could give coherent introduction before whenever the current mess was pushed through.
>>2212788That's easy:
Because the independently wealthy like the idea of being able to do whatever they want with said wealth.
T. libertarian
>>2360098With wealth or without it. The "aristocracy" historically had the most freedom and they did pretty much whatever they wanted. Libertarians acknowledge that all people have the same inherent freedom.
There is a difference between modern leftist and libertarian approach to equality. Everybody generally agrees nowadays that people are more or less equal; leftist strive to achieve practical equality by reducing aristocracy to the level of peasants - libertarians say that everybody can live with as little restrains as aristocrats. (as long as they don't directly exploit others ofc - this is what differentiate libertarians from some traditionalists)
>>2360098>>2360231>>2360368I am reminded of Chesterton's quote about the degenerate/anarchic tendencies amongst the wealthy.
Always seeking ways put of being restrained by formal government law (the only law for them as close as they can get to the 'law of jungle' or worse).
Their elimination as actually existing social categories is necessary for the very perpetuation of mankind (in sense of both basic survival & expansion across the universe).
>>2359271I appreciate the compliment; I am indeed from a western country (though my values tend very much hostile to typical contemporary western ones, "left" or "right")
As far as Marxism goes I am actually a third-worldist, so I try to understand what goes in third-world countries, at least in trying to work out some basic patterns, and weak and dysfunctional government is pretty universal and obvious as a problem (although some of the specifics of how this manifests changes from country to country).
Not that first-world governments cannot be dysfunctional, but they are certainly not weak, and a lot of problems are papered over by the spoils of imperialism & colonialism,among other things I listed earlier in the thread.
After all, capitalism as a system tends to generate its own dysfunctions, and no government overseeing a capitalist economy will be immune from such; Hell even socialist states subject to the world market are not entirely immune.
>>2360698As an intellectual current in Marxism it certainly does exist.
Parties usually don't use it as self identifier, because, especially in third world itself, the basic theses are obviously true:
The idea that exploitation in the Marxist sense is far greater in the third-world & the proportion of the population that is bourgeois, petty-bourgeois & labour aristocrat is far smaller in the third world; These are painfully obvious.
That the std. of living there makes revolution is less unlikely to take place there compared to the "imperial core" countries also is, again, pretty obvious.
In fact, if it weren't for many first word communists & organizations and their chauvinism, the term third-worldism wouldn't be necessary at all, because all the basic theoretical building blocks already exist in Marxism, expanded upon a bit in Leninism & Maoism.
>>2360706>As an intellectual current in Marxism it certainly does exist.a current perhaps but certainly not intellectual. and it exists as widely rejected one by real parties
>Parties usually don't use it as self identifier, because, especially in third world itself, the basic theses are obviously trueso parties don't identify as it but they have appointed you as their representative to make it clear that they agree with it so much it doesn't even have to be stated? and of course you don't post any proof, not even one speech or book when you claim to be talking about the majority of parties in the third world
I live in the third world, I'm part of a marxist party here, maybe the biggest one in the country, and part of the formative literature for cadres are refutations of the unequal exchange theory. you are straight up lying
>>2360708>>2360709Hey I am open to read any refutations you can share (though I was never that impressed by Αργύρη's argument to be fair, despite our common ethnic heritage); Please do post them.
Generally though, the argument used is that workers in higher productivity sectors are exploited similarly because the wages they earn (in labour time equivalent) are inferior to the socially necessary labour time of the commodities they produce (that is to say the average labour time required to produce the commodity across the entire industry).
I think this argument is inconsistent with Marx, and can be illustrated using a ground rent.
But it seems, as I was writing this post I may have triggered you basly emotionally in some way (wasn't my intention either), that goes far beyond the confines of political economy.
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>Everyone here and most of the world is racist in some way.This is not even what I was referring to with my chauvinism comment (Its that they often ignore the rest of the world, thinking things are the same, or that imperialism/colonialism offers little in benefit to the first world populations, etc.)
Xenophobia of course exists in the third world, and its not even racist (in the sense of based on race): Its usually tribalist or clan based (and religion plays too)
For example, people in the same country will get enormous favoritism in hiring on the basis of their tribal/clan background, even when its explicitly illegal.
>Local politics are practical, but can be bloody and violent and may require men with certain criminal or militaristic tendencies.>There is chaos, civil war, and under those conditions the strong and the populists usually win.I don't disagree with any of this, and I don't see how agreeing with the thesis of third world countries being exploited more (in the labour time sense) or being less unlikely to have a revolution invalidates that.
Historically socialist revolutions occured nearly exclusively in "less developed countries" (Russia, China being the biggest examples)
Without a militaristic, dare I say, "totalitarian" outlook and structure, not only will a revolution fail, but if the economy and society is not organized along the lines of a "single elegant machine", the revolution won't be sustained (kosygin-liberman reform comed to mind as dooming the USSR).
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Finally, a note about practicality & my third-worldism:
A full time ordinary (factory, shop, service, etc.) worker in west Africa earns the exchange rate equivalent of some 50-80 usd a month (if he is lucky to have full time formal employment at all). Its likely somewhat higher in Pakistan but likely not by more than 2x is my guess.
In the first world, even a minimum wage worker is earning easily 15x that, maybe not even working full time.
Ergo, if one wants to finance the operations of communist party, where will a $ spent have greater effect?
There is a strategic/tactical opportunity here.
>>2360734As I see it, Third Worlders are just self-hating Westerners living vicariously through irrelevant Third World groups. They are helped in these assumptions by local intellectuals who are also irrelevant in their own countries and are very Westernized culturally. The thing is, instead of even thinking the least bit critically that maybe Marx was wrong in military matters and that it's not feasible to achieve a communist revolution in an industrialized developed nation with a Competent army. They went into another pathetic delusion that
>"actually, it's because the entitled First World proletariat don't revolt, because they're comfortable in their position in the supply chainand they sought even more retarded to justify these positions
In reality, it comes down to the difference between strong and weak states Example, Leftist revolutionaries in Imperial Russia at the end of WW1 faced a military that had been gutted by Imperial Germany for years and would make a much easier opponent, this is not the case for modern America, where even a relatively moderate movement like Occupy Wall Street quickly had the NYPD trucking people into their camp and getting infiltrated, To use another example, Venezuela, in 1992 then Colonel Hugo Chavez was able to organize over 2300 soldiers to almost succeed in a coup against the Venezuelan government, In the United States this would not happen due to the overwhelming capture of the United States military by politically rightwing actors. An actual leftist would never make it to Colonel let alone General and even if they did, if they attempted a coup against the United States Government, they would most likely be detected while organizing their soldiers and that's assuming they could find any soldiers to follow their orders.
TL;DR: Proletariat in Western Europe and the US don't instigate leftist revolutions not because they're parasites fat off the blood of third world workers but because organizing a leftist revolution in a country with a strong government with a united military and competent surveillance infrastructure is Nightmare Difficulty compared to some weak South American or African government that can be seriously challenged by organized peasants with AK 47s.
>>2360749What does it matter that the state is strong if firstoids don't even try in the first place?
Yhey don't try because they're comfortable, simple as
>>2360749I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. In fact they seem to me to be complimentary (maybe even mutually reinforcing)
Those state that gain the benefits of imperialism & (neo)colonial arrangements can afford both greater welfare and a stronger security apparatus to repress threats. Its kind of like double jeopardy in terms of game theoretical incentives (for revolution). Revolution is a collective action problem after all.
In fact, there is a reason I used the term "less unlikely"; Because revolution is unlikely to begin with, everywhere.
Things really do have to break down quite severely to reach that point. People en masse have to be brought the brink (usually war or famine, but maybe some kind of pandemic might do it). This most likely to happen where poverty is already greatest; And before that people will be more receptive to ideas of radical redistribution when they already have trouble keeping their kids healthy (so its easier to build a party base before the breakdowns)
>>2360757Man, you have no idea of my experience with third world organizations, hehehe…
Let's just say that, in my experience, what you describe us optimistic.
That people in revolutionary organizations in the third world are even fully literate and are given even Mao quotes is already a rare luxury.
Did you think I honestly believed that for example the average Ghanian is reading Nkrumah?
People have to fucking hussle constantly just to survive. They don't have time for even reading the bible or quran, much less reflect on the intricacies of value theory.
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>>2360749
>self-hating WesternersJust wanted to say, hey you caught me! Hahaha!
I don't need third-worldism to hate the west, not at all i faxt. I don't even need Marxism for that.
I often like to put it this way: People are fucking disgusting and degenerate everywhere.
If the west is different in any way, its only that degeneracies and sicknesses here are more complicated, more advanced, more developed!
The parasited wealth is only an enabling factor, and not the only one.
>>2360747I missed this reply. You are right: I actually meant to type "not even mainly racist" and didn't catch it in my reread before posting.
If you are a privileged area of Pakistan, it actually makes sense that you would witness skin color based discrimination/mockery/violence, because there are enough people there who can work indoors most of the day and have lighter skin.
Almost certain outside those areas its definitely "my microsect of Islam with local village leader vs. yours", or "my village vs. yours "or my tribe/clan/family vs. yours" because skin colour isn't as a much if differentiation factor (In much of Africa it basically doesn't exist except amongst the extremely wealthy elite that can afford expensive & dangerous skin treatments)
>>2360368I think that's an over-simplification. My understanding of socialist/Marxist ideology is the idea that by organizing major functions of society under a centralized state authority a prosperous & harmonious society can be explicitly described and engineered (DotP being an example of this idea). Whereas libertarianism supposes that a prosperous & harmonious society is in the collective interest and that individuals will generally act to move society in this direction. As such the state needs merely protect the people from abuses of their freedom from internal and external entities, and limit violent/destructive forms of conflict resolution among society's constituent individuals and institutions.
>>2360631Libertarianism is a pretty broad field of thought and unfortunately there are many who simply decide they ought to be able to do whatever they please and think no further. It is obvious to me that a society needs means of mitigating destructive individual behavior. However it is preferable that as few of these means as possible are in the hands of the sovereign state, as it it the state itself that is generally the greatest threat to the society it protects.
>>2361152I don't care that a bunch of grift-tubers moved on to another grift after their previous one became less profitable.
And yes, many people are introduced to libertarian ideas because of our general stance on recreation drugs. It is easy to intuit the state's insidious desire for control when you can't get high on weekends because Pres. Nixon said it was communist 60 years ago.
>>2361152>But the fact is that "do whatever I want" (including drugs, sex, and filth) You don't libertarianism for that, mainstream parties already offer you endless opportunities in this regard. To say nothing about infinitely better financial possibilities for would be politicians - no successful businessman will "lobby" you to de-regulate his industry (as it would be losing twice for him) but all of them will gladly contribute their time and money to push some "reasonable" "regulations" kek.
Even communism is a better proposition for would be rulers - chances of winning in developed countries are small but potential gains measured in power and influence are tremendous. It's a high-risk high-reward option. Libertarianism is clearly the very bottom of the barrel here: a political party trying to disarm political parties? kek
>>2361931btw, when Americans banksters were doing their last push for establishing the Central Bank in America (the ultimate regulation of the banking sector) they literally bribed 100,000 journalists across the United States to praise the supposed benefits of central banking. The best investment in the history of mankind.
File rel. doesn't go into the conspiratorial part of these shenanigans but should be of interest for everybody as it clearly exposes the fraudulent characteristic of "modern banking". Complex topics described in simple terms - it was evidently intended to be read by the members of congress who aren't known to be the sharpest tools in the drawer kek.
Serious libertarians (I am not talking about 14yo "libertarians" here) are concerned with much more important stuff than "drugs and filth".
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