Discussion of Capitalism, Socialism, Liberalism, Democracy, Communism, the UN, ...

[Holiday20310401]

Being in Canada I live in a Constitutional Monarchy, a fancy term for a Democracy with an unofficial queen that Canada donates money to each year for know good reason.

Life's pretty good, and I realize that its for the downfall of others. China, no way it could have as many assets without its labour force, immoral as it is. So its not really fair. Western society should not be living so much better in the many ways it does, generally.

But I'm wondering if the lifestyle has anything to do with the current state of the system in place for the nation. Instead of just assuming that resources are the only contributors to the gain of the dollar, it should also be impacted by the way the economic system works. The political system would have implications on human rights given that in a totalitarian regime the public will have fewer rights or less chance of a sort of proletarian revolt than that of a democracy, and universal suffrage. And human rights must in some way correlate to the potential of the dollar. Thats ultimately what we'd want right? A political system where the government doesn't provide rights for the sake of stability and continuance of power, but for the people when wanting them; the government just there for censorship, to connect ethics to laws.

So far I've gathered that...

• Democracy = the people have the say, either directly or through representatives.
• Communism = system when the ownerships of the nation of not held individually? The absence of the government in one form, in another form of communism it is social organization through a totalitarian state
• Socialism = collective, property and decisions made by the government
• Liberalism = freedom from authority, advocates individualism

Marxist said that we would evolve into communism but I just can't see us evolving without progress. I mean, did Marxist not support individualism? There's no liberty in giving the government more control in socialism, and not having a government is something we aren't ready for. Perhaps the government may be done for if people get the idea that capitalism is bad, but capitalism's flaws are pronounced through the corporations, right?

So is western society better off as democracy, or as communism? I don't see how socialism would help the economy, its not going to cause a free market, giving the authority for the government to plan is already in place, and corporations have control over employment through globalization, wages, etc.

Does corporations mixed with an end result of communism seem like the opening of a totalitarian state because if no government is in place then the corporate world would power over production no the nation's people as a whole. And industrialization and corporations did not come with capitalism but through liberative thought, right? A lot of stuff to get sorted in my head just yet.

The UN promotes peace and works through international agreements, so what side would it take? Western's or Eastern's in the end. Just as a side note, what is the UN up to right now?

Any thoughts, redefinitions, pertaining to the terms and differentiating between western and Eastern societies is the topic I guess, its open for a lot.

[Arjen]

Holiday,

I would first like to say that I think this is a great opening post. It is very accesable and offers many routes for the topic to evolve by.

I think for you yourself it would be best to start at the workings, or evolution of corporations and/or state. As of there we could investigate further. I am quite sure some terms will come to bearing in this topic and, if needed, we could choose to open more topics so as to explore a more wide range of subjects to ensure a full understanding of what is going on in the world around us.

I think the first thing one must get a clear grasp of is the fact that at one point several humans were alive and interacting. These interactions can be categorised under the term 'social contract'. John Locke was the first to busy the term, but the most famous for it are Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In my opinion a study of the subject would best be served by studying Rousseau's work. The books Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right are works I can recommend personally.

The reason I am bringing this to the discussion is because at a certain point humans did start to work together in a voluntary manner. A great mammoth would take the cooperation of many men to slay, and slain they were. In that sense there was a point were humans chose to work together because it would be mutual beneficial. This voluntary cooperation is called the social contract. Although at times humas would choose not to cooperate it is the interaction; the posing of the choice of you will, which embodies the spirit of the social contract. From this social contract several theories of cooperation were spurred.

One is the absolute freedom of anarchy, where just the social contract exists. Another is the body of men working together as a giant Leviathan under the guidance of a monarch and a third might be a cooperation under a chosen leader. The last two perhaps lean more towards a constitutional setup, but in the social contract theories the difference between the contract itself and the laws influencing it are not always set out clearly. Society seperates two forms of cooperations: the state and the company, forgetting about the spirit of the social contract in the sense of the absolute freedom to engage or disengage in specific interactions, but rather choosing a formal contract to seal the pact and to bind all concerned to the cooperation in a 'legal' manner.

The two forms of cooperations are alike in the sense that a group of men work together towards an end, under the guidance of one or a few, with a sealed formal contract. The difference between the two consists in the end that is worked to; the cooperation being clear that a personal gain is the end and a state claiming to work to the betterment of all men in equal manner in the form of a legislative 'force' (thereby effectively denouncing the social contract because force implies the lack of freedom to choose (to interact)).

Anyway, the two forms are nearly the same in the sense that states operate as companies, with the addition that a circulation of wealth (economic workings) can also be seen amonst its members, instead of merely a pay of wages; in that sense showing a different structure.

I think that an important part of your opening post is about which structure has what effect and what effect do we desire, if any? I am going to leave it at this for a moment, so I can see what your take on this is and where you want to go next in this discussion, Holiday. I think we can work up a whole lot more between us.

[Aedes]

Holiday, as I'm sure you know these political terms are much different in practice than in theory. Nearly all democracies in the world have elements of socialism, capitalism, and even communism. What makes the US and Canada not true, pure socialist states is that private enterprise is still central to the operation of the economy. But in a place like Canada, with nationally subsidized education and health care, there is a strong move towards socialism.

I also don't quite agree with your definition of liberalism. What you're describing is more like libertarianism. Liberalism over the last century or so (at least in the US) has been very interested in formal protections for people, including labor / wage / safety standards, education, civil rights, universal suffrage, and rights for various other disenfranchised groups (like the disabled). Because many of the regulations that facilitate these standards are opposed by big business, it has happened that environmentalism has become part of the liberal movement (even though Teddy Roosevelt, who was one of the major conservationists in US History, was pretty conservative in most other respects).

[Didymos Thomas]

Holiday's definition of liberalism sounds about right to me - libertarians are, after all, liberals. Libertarians are classical liberals; they focus on opposing government coercion as a way to promote individual liberty. American liberals tend to be social liberals, which is the sort of liberalism Aedes describes.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

Holiday's definition of liberalism sounds about right to me - libertarians are, after all, liberals.

Modern liberals since at least FDR (but perhaps all the way back to abolitionism) have been vastly different than libertarians.

Libertarianism is one of the most conservative of all American political schools -- it regards the Constitution nearly as religious dogma and rejects any modern reinterpretation of Constitutional provisions; it rejects federalism (remember THAT debate from the Constitutional convention??); it rejects any sort of federal regulatory authority, including taxation; and some still favor local militias rather than a national military. It's a political school that's still living in the Adams administration.

[Didymos Thomas]

Right - but we have to understand that, despite the liberal vs conservative narrative in the US, both the GOP and DNC espouse liberal doctrine. It's just two different kinds of liberalism.

Liberalism is, most basically, advocating individual liberty. The different ways of going about this have evolved into various schools of thought which aggressively oppose one another. Libertarians make their arguments from the basis of individual liberty; even if they are classified as conservative on the modern American political spectrum, they are still, essentially, liberals.

Consider - Mike Gravel is, last I checked, seeking the Libertarian nomination to run for President.

[Aedes]

But we're not talking about Republicans versus Democrats, whose policies are not strictly speaking synonymous with political or economic or social conservatism versus liberalism.

I think we have to be careful with using terms like "liberal", though, and we have to define whether we're talking about historical use of the word, or if we're comparing to contemporaries. But if we're going to use the word "liberal" to describe both radical socialists and libertarians, who are in actuality complete political opposites, then we're being uselessly imprecise with the word.

[Didymos Thomas]

I think we have to be careful with using terms like "liberal", though, and we have to define whether we're talking about historical use of the word, or if we're comparing to contemporaries. But if we're going to use the word "liberal" to describe both radical socialists and libertarians, who are in actuality complete political opposites, then we're being uselessly imprecise with the word.

Not really - both are in agreement that individual liberty is the most significant issue in politics.

But I do think that if we are going to talk about liberalism we should account for the variety of liberals. All this takes is a willingness to use more terminology, like libertarian and socialist to further describe a particular liberal/liberal movement.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

Not really - both are in agreement that individual liberty is the most significant issue in politics.

"Individual liberty" is also imprecisely defined. Nearly EVERYONE believes in individual liberty. But individual liberty is defined completely differently by different movements. I mean Marx and Lenin saw themselves as champions of individual liberty as well. So does individual liberty mean that there are social protections set in place by government? Does it mean that the government completely stays out of individual life? Does it mean that the government protects people from harm with things like domestic surveillance and militarism? You can rationalize any reasonable political theory (other than monarchy) into advocacy for individual liberty. Problem is that the term itself only means what you make out of it.

That said, libertarianism and socialism are indeed complete and total opposites when it comes to social policy, economic policy, role of government, and interpretation of law. So how can they both have liberal economic policy? How can they both have liberal social policy? They can't -- and the libertarian positions on all these issues are very conservative.

[Holiday20310401]

I'll be replying shortly as an edit to this post so don't think I'm ignoring this, I've a lot to add. And this is great stuff.