Yes, but nothing I didn’t say before.

Right-libertarians are skeptical about government power, but embrace other authoritarian power structures as long as they arise through markets. They believe that people will generally do the right thing viz. creating profit incentives that enable socially positive outcomes, as long as there isn’t an external authority standing in the way. There’s a good argument for right libertarianism to be either optimistic or cynical about people, because their attitude is different depending on who holds power and how they obtained it.

Libertarian socialism is comprehensively anti-authoritarian, including authority that arises through capital and labor markets.

There’s a difference between anti-authoritarianism and democratism, even if the outcome may be the same.

Something I've remembered about the history of liberalism: there's actually a very prominent strain of liberalism that is deeply pessimistic about human nature. For those thinkers, the question of politics and society is how do you develop a system which is able to harness the viciousness of human beings, such that you can turn a profit on it (both in a literal sense, but also in the figurative moral sense). In whatever varied contexts it comes up in our own culture, its when he's discussing this that Adam Smith talks about the invisible hand in the Wealth of Nations: somehow, when people pursue their own self-interests, however debased or morally repugnant, it seems to have a benevolent effect on the rest of society (as if by an invisible hand). For some liberals, there's a kind of inherent harmony that exists amongst peers.

Arguably “invisible hand” reveals Smith’s undirected optimism, since it basically amounted to “and manufacturers won’t relocate to the cheapest place because that would be bad and I don’t want them to do it”.

Anyway, I think that speaks to the point of my original response, which is that it’s not productive to attribute traits like “optimistic” or “pessimistic” to political movements, because you can probably argue for and find examples of each regardless of where you look.

There are a bunch of socialists who basically just want Star Trek. Not literally in a nerdy sense, but they think people can direct themselves well enough, and a “fully automated luxury gay space communism” would let humanity reach its peak philosophically, morally, and in all other senses. It’s a perspective that is loaded in a lot of ways, but mostly by an optimism about human nature. To these people, pursuit of wealth is itself an atavistic force that drives people to commit evil, rather than the natural outcome of such impulses when there is no force to counter it (whether effective regulation or guillotines).

But that doesn’t change the fact that socialism is rooted in the belief that greedy ****s gonna greedy ****.

Eh... It's one of the fundamental axes on which there's disagreement amongst political philosophers. It's especially relevant, I suppose, when you're considering philosophers' views on things such as pre-political state of nature, which is really just a way of thinking about what the individual is prior to their association with others -- a pretty fundamental question, and a lot hinges on it.

But yeah, of course I agree with you that there are disagreements between people who claim the same labels and belong to the same traditions. I thought I was pretty clear that I was writing at a level of generality.

Yeeeeaaahh... but socialism is also based on an assumption about the mutability of human nature, and the capacity for human beings to be fundamentally transformed by the larger socio-economic systems in which they live.

I feel socialism is more cynical than capitalism

To hear liberals tell it. You won’t find many policy-oriented socialists who agree with you.

That sounds more like some kind of Soviet theory / communism.

Many socialists movements have this sort of aspiration. The socialist factions within the Zionist movement of the first half the 20th century, for instance, did.

I don’t know anything about Zionist socialism so I can’t comment about that.

The overriding concern of socialism has been developing economic systems that are both complete and self-regulating. These efforts are conducted under a framework of neoclassical economics, and the preferred tools are incentives and rational self-interest. Not crossed fingers and pixie dust.

more like "fingers chopped off"

socialism = ISIS

Isn't this dismissing the Cold War period, when the Soviet Union provided an planned economy economic model that many developing states followed?

The Soviet Union achieved what Lenin and Engels termed the “final stage of capitalism”, state capitalism: a capitalist economy where all of the productive capital is acquired by a single agent, which controls and allocates that capital in a non-participatory way for its own profit. The pre-October Revolution belief was that state capitalism offered the tools for dismantling capitalism and instituting communism, but they were either wrong or never got a chance to do it. Before Lenin died in the early 1920s, the Soviets had realized that state capitalism was a destructive failure and intended to introduce market reforms, basically backing down into socialism. This never happened. Lenin died, then Stalin eventually seized power and had the socialist reformists killed.

Stalinist state capitalism is a mixed blessing. Brutal beyond words, but highly efficient for industrialization and economic growth. This made the Soviet system an easy sell for developing nations, who otherwise would have needed foreign investment in order to develop economically (and therefore foreign ownership of businesses, which is both slow to build and a permanent lien upon the labors of the people of the country). Many developing nations considered this arrangement preferable to becoming a branch plant economy for the United States (at best).

Basically, though, I’m not dismissing it. I just don’t see why a market socialist should have to answer for some communists who created a dictatorship to institute communism and didn’t realize communism doesn’t work until it was too late to stop their takeover by MechaBezos, Uber CEO.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/392756-poll-kim-jong-un-has-higher-approval-among-republicans-than-pelosi

I wonder if someone will write an op ed defending conservatives here.

End the gerontocracy

I don't know to my mind the big news here is that Pelosi's favorability rating is 17% among Republicans. I would've assumed it was lower.

Curious. Anybody done a study on how lifetime lead exposure affects dementia?

We could be dealing with an entire generation of superpredators in the voting booth, lol.

My suspicion is that, poor people are both more likely to be left wing and more likely to die younger. People don't become more conservative, they just live longer because they have money.

Though tbf I wouldn't be surprised if they all have lead poisoning.

It’s too bad the Democrats are spineless and complicit, because it would be hilarious to see some firebrand remind everybody that following orders isn’t an effective legal defense.

I think "skimming" would be too generous for what I just did of the last few posts but I thought most of the immigration re: children stuff in the media lately was shown to be either things that happened under obama or faked by democrats.

That's true! Just like Sandy Hook...

It didn’t happen under Obama and it’s not fake.

but people also thought the holocaust was a lugenpresse lie so at least you’re in good company ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(It just occurred to me that the above post would fall flat if the reader is also a holocaust denier.)

This line of thinking just reminds me of the whole "the Holocaust never happened, but I'm sure glad that it did" retort.



https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/was-law-separate-families-passed-1997/

Well, there was a photo circulated that was faked by democrats and then there was the detention center photo that was under obama. I'm sure there is some real drama now as well, I'm just saying that it probably isn't exclusive to the current administration. Haven't looked into the issue yet though.

One time I saw a video on Youtube where a guy went to a Nazi concentration camp and measured it for cyanide levels, and apparently they weren't high enough for the Holocaust to be real.

Haven't looked into the issue yet, but I thought I'd pass this along anyway.

You should. You always struck me as a pretty down to earth family man so you’d probably find this situation at least as outraging as, for example, the Southern Baptists who are debating a split from the GOP over their treatment of the children, or the Catholic Church which is weighing excommunication for American catholics involved. It’s kind of a big deal.

Fox News has been lying about it. Trump administration is responsible for the policies of both separating the families and depriving them of physical contact and adequate care. The Trump administration said so, in a brief today at the very least. Specific Trump admin officials have put their name on it and have acknowledged that it is happening. This is a new policy that the Trump administration has created to gain political leverage over congressional Democrats, by their own claims. This is not an Obama/Democratic era policy nor are they crisis actors, per the Trump admin, despite what Fox has reported.

Fox is lying to you to trick you into being complacent about the US government building literal concentration camps on US soil.

To Jon:

I'm not kidding when I say I don't follow the news so when you say "Fox is lying to you" I'm not seeing that. Now I do see snippets from other sources that specifically showed things I alluded to above however I take everything at face value. Now, Beck did make a huge deal about literal concentration camps well before trump was elected so I get that. If you have a reference for me to look at please post it.

Maybe Beck was talking about the FEMA death camps.

Watch out Wookie, if Obama ever get's back in power he might throw you in an internment camp.

edit: nm, that link sucks

Sorry, no, this is what I was thinking of.

Oh, I know. It didn't support your opinion.

Don't blame me that Glenn Beck has said more crazy things than I can keep straight.

To Beck's credit, he recanted the whole FEMA camp thing, and apparently even hosted a fact checking expert to debunk the conspiracy theory.

You really aren't in a position to criticize people for saying crazy things! :p

That's actually quite noble of him. And I don't doubt for a second that both political parties are complicit in the inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants.

That... might be fair? IDK, Glenn Beck has a track record of having said some pretty nutty things over the years. He's kind of a goofball, though, and he seems to have no problem coming around to the truth and changing his mind on big things (like the Iraq War), which is really admirable IMO.

You’re getting your information from someone. They are either lying to you or repeating lies.

Here’s a good start. If it’s a Democratic scheme, I would imagine that George W. Bush’s wife wouldn’t be in on it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/laura-bush-separating-children-from-their-parents-at-the-border-breaks-my-heart/2018/06/17/f2df517a-7287-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html

(Two guesses why she had to write it for WaPo instead of a respectable fair and balanced outlet.)

or FT’s summary on the situation:

https://www.ft.com/content/f4d87c2e-72df-11e8-b6ad-3823e4384287

or Rolling Stone’s (bonus summary of how Fox News is gaslighting their viewers):

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/trumps-family-separation-policy-w521619

The policy was originally advanced by John Kelly last year as one method to discourage asylum seekers (i.e. they won’t come to the US if it is a lawless hellhole. Bold strategy.)

http://www.businessinsider.com/kelly-proposed-family-separation-to-deter-illegal-immigration-in-2017-2018-6

(Others have taken credit too. Some would be funny but for the circumstances. One, Steve Miller, takes credit for convincing Trump to actually do it through the power of his racism. He is a descendant of Holocaust survivors. Apparently his family believes the Trump administration has done it, and they aren’t happy with him right now.)

The president of the American Association of Pediatrics made a CNN appearance after touring one of the faculties, and described what she saw as child abuse. You can look that up for yourself.

Jeff Sessions claimed the Bible supports what they’re doing. Christian conservatives are pissed.

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/18/17475892/white-house-migrant-families-biblical-franklin-graham-sbc-catholic-bishops

I'm a big fan of the Financial Times.

But you're going to need to tell Wookie the title of the article so he can Google it in order to get around the paywall.

Wookie, you can get through the paywall if you google its URL and click on it there.