Stranger: I define success as more liberty, not more libertarians. The latter enables the former, but we must not kid ourselves. There is a limit to how many people we can convince to become radicals, and that limit is nowhere near enough to beat the ruling parties at elections.
I define success as more liberty, not more libertarians. The latter enables the former, but we must not kid ourselves. There is a limit to how many people we can convince to become radicals, and that limit is nowhere near enough to beat the ruling parties at elections.
If there is a limit to how many people you can convince to become radicals, then you need to move radicalism into the mainstream.
Stranger: They are going to attempt that no matter what strategy we opt for. Do you believe that foreign powers would stand by as a miraculously-elected Libertarian president dismantled the state, just because he was elected?
They are going to attempt that no matter what strategy we opt for. Do you believe that foreign powers would stand by as a miraculously-elected Libertarian president dismantled the state, just because he was elected?
Of course not. But if you think one man is going to dismantle the state, then you're missing the point. A libertarian president increases the profile of the message, it lends it a degree of perceived legitimacy (necessary or unnecessary). It creates the opportunity for libertarian statesmen to take office and continue promoting liberty and attempting to slow and hinder rampant statism.
Stranger: The purely defensive strategy is one where incrementalism does work. If we begin by challenging only obviously unjust laws and powers, we will earn popular support to make bigger and bigger challenges. The state will have to incrementally allow us more and more liberty because we are eating away the foundations of their power and they have no choice, and this will be true no matter who is elected to office.
The purely defensive strategy is one where incrementalism does work. If we begin by challenging only obviously unjust laws and powers, we will earn popular support to make bigger and bigger challenges. The state will have to incrementally allow us more and more liberty because we are eating away the foundations of their power and they have no choice, and this will be true no matter who is elected to office.
Can you provide one example of this?
Stranger: If we build up resistance progressively, keep it non-violent, earn the sympathies of the people, and never attempt a coup against the established state, we will wear them down over time to nothing, and there will never be cause for foreigners to intervene, since such an intervention would have to be in support of the state, and the state's power would be collapsing from its foundations and not from the top.
If we build up resistance progressively, keep it non-violent, earn the sympathies of the people, and never attempt a coup against the established state, we will wear them down over time to nothing, and there will never be cause for foreigners to intervene, since such an intervention would have to be in support of the state, and the state's power would be collapsing from its foundations and not from the top.
The presumption here is that the state won't just kill or incarcerate "the resistance". That it won't co-opt the resistance by addressing the points of greatest discord, while undermining something else. That the state will be static.
I'm Canadian. If we have a popular movement to ignore the state, the American government has signed an agreement with our government that allows them to use their troops inside our country for civil disturbances.
Again, the state, all states and the status quo are not static. They not only have an imperative to grow, but an instinct to supress.
Stranger: Of course they will retaliate. A lot of us will probably be thrown into jail. But that is how the strategy works. We have to keep the moral ground. Gandhi was arrested again and again, and that's why he won.
Of course they will retaliate. A lot of us will probably be thrown into jail. But that is how the strategy works. We have to keep the moral ground. Gandhi was arrested again and again, and that's why he won.
Let's not put lipstick on a pig. People will be tortured. They will be shot. They will be kidnapped and renditioned. They will have their children taken away. They will lose their property. I have no doubt that the state will kill 1,000 leaders and use the co-opted news to inform everyone that they were terrorists, subverisves, religious fanatics etc.
I believe that progressive resistance requires having people in place where the state gives its orders, allocates it resources and divines it's strategies. Politicians may not be able to create an anarchistic utopia, but they can certainly help bring it into existence by shifting the state closer to liberty, allowing the radicals to become mainstream, and marginalizing statists.
Ego: Stranger, do you actually think that foreign governments would intervene if government officials decided to cut taxes, regulations, and spending? That doesn't make any sense to me. As long as government officials are the ones changing policy, no one is going to intervene (and, of course, no one is going to ask for help).
Stranger, do you actually think that foreign governments would intervene if government officials decided to cut taxes, regulations, and spending? That doesn't make any sense to me. As long as government officials are the ones changing policy, no one is going to intervene (and, of course, no one is going to ask for help).
Intervention takes many shapes. Sometimes intervention is just financial and organizational support, as was provided to Boris Yeltsin when he was about to be beaten by the communists. Sometimes it is just moral support, as was given to Augusto Pinochet. The Soviet-style spring of Prague repression is out of fashion. All it would take to stop a Libertarian takeover of government, in the miraculous eventuality of its realization (you don't seem to understand quite how impossible the effort necessary to achieve this is), is one unfortunate plane crash death of its leader.
If our objective is less taxation and less regulation, then a strategy of active resistance achieves this better than a strategy of government conquest. If we are succesfully resisting, then it doesn't matter who actually holds office at the time. They will have no choice but to shrink government to placate us before we destabilize their power. This is how, for example, the SPD were so successful in the second reich, even though they were never actually in command of the state, they held enough popular power that their demands had to be met.
Harry Browne wrote in How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World that relying on other people to get what you want is a trap. If we rely on the mass electorate to bring us to power, we will in all likelihood never achieve anything. If we only use our own resources to act directly against the state, we may achieve little, we may achieve a lot, or we may achieve everything, but we will get real results.
I also don't quite understand why an electoral strategy would help your plan. It would both speed up the process and cut back on the asset seizure, jailings, etc., which all discourage anyone to you.
That paragraph makes no sense to me.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Yeah, I need to start looking over my posts before I unleash them.
Don't allow leftists to play games with definitions! Some of the libertarian-leaning leftists at this forum will try to redefine "left-wing" back to its original defition (Third Estate, limited government, free-markets, laissez-faire reforms, etc.). Fine! We non-leftists can't stop them from using their own personal definitions; they can use whatever labels they want to describe any concept they want.However, they have the audacity to then use their personal definition of "left-wing" (remember, the original definition, which is no longer valid) to prove that modern leftists are more libertarian than modern rightists! They will say that libertarianism is "inherently leftist" (again, using the original, no longer valid definition), and use that to insist that we should prefer and side with modern leftists over modern rightists.
Question their motives.
liberty student: Of course not. But if you think one man is going to dismantle the state, then you're missing the point. A libertarian president increases the profile of the message, it lends it a degree of perceived legitimacy (necessary or unnecessary). It creates the opportunity for libertarian statesmen to take office and continue promoting liberty and attempting to slow and hinder rampant statism.
If that is your strategy, then it is even more impossible than I thought. It is now in the astronomically improbable range of likelihood. The sun will die out before that is achieved.
You are saying that once the "right people" are in power, that they won't use their power to exploit the people, but to evangelize the people to become libertarians, so that they will vote for more and more liberty instead of voting for the candidate that promises to use the state to exploit others in their benefit. That is quite a fantasy.
Even the British Empire, one of the most ruthless empires history has ever known, could not kill Gandhi, because their power, like anyone else's, rested on public opinion. Because Gandhi did not threaten the public, violence could not be used against him. To do so would have further marginalized British rule and made it impossible to govern. (When Gandhi was jailed during WWII and fell ill, the governor had to release him as risking his death in prison would cause outrage against the British.) Gandhi found the Empire's schwerpunkt and focused on it entirely, and the Empire collapsed into pieces.
The first objective of a rebellion is to stay alive. This means never doing anything that would give the state cause to employ overwhelming force. If they do so without cause, it will be their defeat.
We can't do an armed stand-off with the police. No rebellion can do that. We must withdraw and ambush.
This belief is pointless because it is impossible to realize. You are not going to win elections. The system is rigged to prevent that. Abandon the idea that elections can be won, immediately. They only take you for a fool.
The best you can hope for is a protest vote. That alone will not bring more liberty. Going mainstream means competing with candidates who offer to exploit minorities for the benefit of their electors, and so it means that you yourself will have to become an exploiter and become no different from the statists.
Stranger:You are saying that once the "right people" are in power, that they won't use their power to exploit the people, but to evangelize the people to become libertarians, so that they will vote for more and more liberty instead of voting for the candidate that promises to use the state to exploit others in their benefit. That is quite a fantasy.
I don't see how that is a fantasy. Isn't that what Ron Paul is doing? And it's not abour the "right people". It's about everyone and anyone. If we all ran for local office, we could take over the state immediately, and close it the next day. All it takes is people making an effort instead of sitting on the sidelines, pushaw-pushawing the idea.
Stranger:Even the British Empire, one of the most ruthless empires history has ever known, could not kill Gandhi, because their power, like anyone else's, rested on public opinion. Because Gandhi did not threaten the public, violence could not be used against him. To do so would have further marginalized British rule and made it impossible to govern. (When Gandhi was jailed during WWII and fell ill, the governor had to release him as risking his death in prison would cause outrage against the British.) Gandhi found the Empire's schwerpunkt and focused on it entirely, and the Empire collapsed into pieces.
There is a uniqueness to Gandhi's situation which makes it less useful for your purposes. The British were an occupying power, fighting a native leader in his homeland. We're not asking Americans/Canadians to resist the Chinese, the Russians or Muslims. We're asking them to resist themselves.
Not to mention that each example presented, never ends in some form of short term anarchy (say, 20 years). Gandhi may have helped collapse the British Empire, but not statism.
Stranger:The first objective of a rebellion is to stay alive. This means never doing anything that would give the state cause to employ overwhelming force. If they do so without cause, it will be their defeat. We can't do an armed stand-off with the police. No rebellion can do that. We must withdraw and ambush.
Growing a pascifist rebellion is enough for the state to use overwhelming force. Again, the state is not static. It will not allow you to build a domestic populist movement without working actively to derail it.
Stranger:This belief is pointless because it is impossible to realize. You are not going to win elections. The system is rigged to prevent that. Abandon the idea that elections can be won, immediately. They only take you for a fool. The best you can hope for is a protest vote. That alone will not bring more liberty. Going mainstream means competing with candidates who offer to exploit minorities for the benefit of their electors, and so it means that you yourself will have to become an exploiter and become no different from the statists.
Ron Paul has won elections. That former Governor of New Mexico had won election. I think a lot of this electorlal defeatist talk is based around failure and laziness.
I'm not cut out for politics myself, but I fully intend to continue supporting liberty oriented candidates as much as possible for local and higher offices.
liberty student: There is a uniqueness to Gandhi's situation which makes it less useful for your purposes. The British were an occupying power, fighting a native leader in his homeland. We're not asking Americans/Canadians to resist the Chinese, the Russians or Muslims. We're asking them to resist themselves. Not to mention that each example presented, never ends in some form of short term anarchy (say, 20 years). Gandhi may have helped collapse the British Empire, but not statism.
Why would there have been anarchy when that wasn't the objective he pursued? Gandhi followed a strategy that exploited the Empire's weaknesses and thus forced it to negotiate terms with him. He certainly didn't try to get elected to the British parliament. That would have been completely futile.
I see what your problem is. You are still intellectually bound to collectivism. That is why you believe that the state is the people, and that only through the state can liberty be achieved. There is nothing we can say that will refute this since it is doctrine of the cult of the state religion you have been brought up in.
liberty student:Growing a pascifist rebellion is enough for the state to use overwhelming force. Again, the state is not static. It will not allow you to build a domestic populist movement without working actively to derail it.
Of course it won't. We cannot avoid confrontation. We can only manoeuvre to confront the state to our advantage, and avoid disadvantageous confrontation. This is what Gandhi did, once again.
liberty student:I don't see how that is a fantasy. Isn't that what Ron Paul is doing? And it's not abour the "right people". It's about everyone and anyone. If we all ran for local office, we could take over the state immediately, and close it the next day. All it takes is people making an effort instead of sitting on the sidelines, pushaw-pushawing the idea.
liberty student:Ron Paul has won elections. That former Governor of New Mexico had won election. I think a lot of this electorlal defeatist talk is based around failure and laziness.
You cannot count on other people to get things done, then blame everyone else when you fail. That is the trap of collectivism. You can only count on yourself. What can you do, as one man, to bring liberty? Only resistance will succeed.
Ron Paul was a reluctant presidential candidate because he knew that the presidency was unattainable. He has only ever succeeded at winning a congressional seat, a protest vote that is, and never won any power.
As for the governor of New Mexico, who is he and why should we care?
Stranger:Why would there have been anarchy when that wasn't the objective he pursued? Gandhi followed a strategy that exploited the Empire's weaknesses and thus forced it to negotiate terms with him. He certainly didn't try to get elected to the British parliament. That would have been completely futile.
Stranger:I see what your problem is. You are still intellectually bound to collectivism. That is why you believe that the state is the people, and that only through the state can liberty be achieved. There is nothing we can say that will refute this since it is doctrine of the cult of the state religion you have been brought up in.
Stranger:You cannot count on other people to get things done, then blame everyone else when you fail. That is the trap of collectivism. You can only count on yourself. What can you do, as one man, to bring liberty? Only resistance will succeed.
Stranger:Ron Paul was a reluctant presidential candidate because he knew that the presidency was unattainable. He has only ever succeeded at winning a congressional seat, a protest vote that is, and never won any power.
Stranger:As for the governor of New Mexico, who is he and why should we care?
Stranger, I don't quite understand why an electoral strategy wouldn't help your plan. It would both speed up the process and cut back on the asset seizure, jailings, etc., which all discourage anyone to join you.
liberty student:Then why are you using him as an example for anarchist strategy, when he used his technique to resolve a political dispute by negotiating with the state?
Because he defeated the mightiest Empire the world had ever seen and didn't die.
liberty student:If you're going to resort to Ad Hominem, then we just as well should leave the debate and go our separate ways. Nothing productive is going to come out of name calling and accusations.
I am not accusing you of being a collectivist, I am diagnosing you as a collectivist. If you believe the people and the state are the same, I don't see how you can agree with us on anything.
Your argument is that resistance won't work because it is an attack on the people itself. You also believe that government can be used to change people to make them libertarians. That is collectivism. I am not employing it as a slur against you. You really do believe these things.
liberty student:Which is ironic, because you're strategy calls for general strikes of protest. It's just when Ron Paul acts alone, as a single man, he's somehow a failure as opposed to the anarchist who acts alone outside of the political sphere.
Once again, Ron Paul has not increased the liberty of Americans one iota. All that he has done is to recruit more libertarians, which is good in itself, but does not bring more liberty unless their energy can be focused against something.
liberty student:You should care because if you don't know who he is, how can you possibly know that he isn't someone who disproves your assertion that it's impossible to gain political power for libertarian ideals?
You did not answer the question. I don't know of anyone here ever mentioning the governor of New Mexico as a model. What's so great about him?
Ego: Stranger, I don't quite understand why an electoral strategy wouldn't help your plan. It would both speed up the process and cut back on the asset seizure, jailings, etc., which all discourage anyone to join you.
We only have limited energy and we must allocate it economically. You're not specifying what kind of electoral strategy you are in favor of. If the goal is conquering the government in order to use its power to make people libertarian, that strategy is nonsense. All of the energy employed to bring it about will be wasted. However, if the goal is to resist the government and use a political party as a disruptive, protesting voice in the center of power, then the electoral strategy exists in support of the main strategy of resistance. Its purpose is to protect the resistance and not to take over the government, and thus it will require fewer resources but also have more realistic objectives.
Stranger: Ego: Stranger, I don't quite understand why an electoral strategy wouldn't help your plan. It would both speed up the process and cut back on the asset seizure, jailings, etc., which all discourage anyone to join you. We only have limited energy and we must allocate it economically. You're not specifying what kind of electoral strategy you are in favor of. If the goal is conquering the government in order to use its power to make people libertarian, that strategy is nonsense. All of the energy employed to bring it about will be wasted. However, if the goal is to resist the government and use a political party as a disruptive, protesting voice in the center of power, then the electoral strategy exists in support of the main strategy of resistance. Its purpose is to protect the resistance and not to take over the government, and thus it will require fewer resources but also have more realistic objectives.
We could vote against candidates whose policies are the most difficult to undo.
Or, we could run moderate candidates with great rhetoric and use them as a tool to educate people about capitalism. Use all of the money raised to educate more people, etc.
For a given candidate, even if the campaign is lost (and if we run moderate candidates, they don't have to end in losses), we've exposed more people to capitalist ideas.
Stranger:Because he defeated the mightiest Empire the world had ever seen and didn't die.
Stranger:I am not accusing you of being a collectivist, I am diagnosing you as a collectivist.
Stranger:If you believe the people and the state are the same, I don't see how you can agree with us on anything.
Stranger:Your argument is that resistance won't work because it is an attack on the people itself.
Stranger:You also believe that government can be used to change people to make them libertarians.
Stranger:That is collectivism. I am not employing it as a slur against you. You really do believe these things.
Stranger:Once again, Ron Paul has not increased the liberty of Americans one iota. All that he has done is to recruit more libertarians, which is good in itself, but does not bring more liberty unless their energy can be focused against something.
liberty student:Yes, he's recruited more libertarians. That's the point isn't it? To have a mass movement which seeks liberty at the expense of the state?
No, the point is to live free, not to be part of a mass movement, a yearning for which I must again remind you is collectivist.
Is a mass movement in favor of freedom attainable? With great difficulty. Is it necessary for liberation? No.
Ego: We could vote against candidates whose policies are the most difficult to undo. Or, we could run moderate candidates with great rhetoric and use them as a tool to educate people about capitalism. Use all of the money raised to educate more people, etc. For a given candidate, even if the campaign is lost (and if we run moderate candidates, they don't have to end in losses), we've exposed more people to capitalist ideas.
After all this education, at what point do we become free?
Stranger:No, the point is to live free, not to be part of a mass movement, a yearning for which I must again remind you is collectivist.
That's the objective, one thing we don't differ upon. However, we're talking about methods.
Good thing I'm not yearning, or you would be able to call me a collectivist then? ;)
I'm wondering how a mass movement is collectivist though. Is any popular idea collectivist? Are large associations of people with a common cause collectivist?
Stranger:Is a mass movement in favor of freedom attainable? With great difficulty. Is it necessary for liberation? No.
Could you explain how freedom is attainable without a mass movement? For example, are you capable of achieving liberty in the United States, all by yourself?
liberty student:I'm wondering how a mass movement is collectivist though.
The idea that they are necessary in order to live is collectivist. You are placing your fate in the actions of other people instead of your own.
liberty student:Could you explain how freedom is attainable without a mass movement? For example, are you capable of achieving liberty in the United States, all by yourself?
Anything that makes abuses of liberty more costly and less beneficial for the ruling class achieves liberty. The marginal rebel may not add very much liberty, but his result is tangible, which is the point of this thread.
We do not know how much success a rebellion can achieve. What we do know is that liberal-democracy has been tried for the past two centuries and the result has been a constant retreat against the advance of power. I have no idea why you believe that this time it will be different. As the saying goes, [insanity] is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Isn't that the definition for insanity, not stupidity? Then again, there could be a certain insanity *in* stupidity :shrug:.
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
Stanger, you are relying that the legion of leftists who want to rob the rich, set up a national healthcare system, use the government to forcibly set wages and prices, etc. will change their minds and not crack down on you. No matter what, we are up against millions of people.
Ego: Stanger, you are relying that the legion of leftists who want to rob the rich, set up a national healthcare system, use the government to forcibly set wages and prices, etc. will change their minds and not crack down on you. No matter what, we are up against millions of people.
You have not answered the question. At what point does education make us free?
Sorry, I was responding to your point against liberty student.
Stranger: Ego: We could vote against candidates whose policies are the most difficult to undo. Or, we could run moderate candidates with great rhetoric and use them as a tool to educate people about capitalism. Use all of the money raised to educate more people, etc. For a given candidate, even if the campaign is lost (and if we run moderate candidates, they don't have to end in losses), we've exposed more people to capitalist ideas. After all this education, at what point do we become free?
Once we start electing capitalist candidates and moving the political spectrum in our direction.
Assuming of course the attempted shift of the political spectrum isn't exploited by the other parties as a means of alienation & political gain.
No matter what happens, we have our work cut out for us!
Not that the legion of rightists who want to rob the poor, set up a national surveillance system, turn the country into a gigantic prison in the name of national sovereignty, use the government to invade Iran and Venezeula, etc. are any better.
As much as education would solve problems of exposure, and attempt to battle disinformation, I can easily see the 2 parties manipulating Libertarian victories to their advantage if they had to resort to doing so. I just don't see a political victory for Libertarians being viable when you consider the propoganda machine, both offline & online,the devious Statist counter-measures concerning abusing labels, spreading disinformation, and the compromise involved in gettting electorial progress to the point where libertarian is a name only. History has shown it hasn't worked before, despite my own ocassional hopes that the political battle for victory for libertarians wouldn't harm the apolitical battle for victory.
Ego: Once we start electing capitalist candidates and moving the political spectrum in our direction.
Why would someone vote for such a candidate instead of someone proposing, say, to tax everyone else to finance their mortgage?
Let's just cut out all the politics and look at it from a raw economic perspective. Candidate A (our man) proposes that everybody play fair. Candidate B proposes that 60% of the people be able to exploit 10% of the people. How is candidate A expected to win, given what we know about human nature?
Stranger: Ego: Once we start electing capitalist candidates and moving the political spectrum in our direction. Why would someone vote for such a candidate instead of someone proposing, say, to tax everyone else to finance their mortgage? Let's just cut out all the politics and look at it from a raw economic perspective. Candidate A (our man) proposes that everybody play fair. Candidate B proposes that 60% of the people be able to exploit 10% of the people. How is candidate A expected to win, given what we know about human nature?
That's as much an argument against you as it is an argument against me, and it's why there are so many people clamoring for more government intervention into the economy (look at those Obama rallies!). No matter what, we have to educate people about markets.
Stranger: liberty student:I'm wondering how a mass movement is collectivist though.The idea that they are necessary in order to live is collectivist. You are placing your fate in the actions of other people instead of your own.
Stranger:Anything that makes abuses of liberty more costly and less beneficial for the ruling class achieves liberty. The marginal rebel may not add very much liberty, but his result is tangible, which is the point of this thread.
Stranger:We do not know how much success a rebellion can achieve. What we do know is that liberal-democracy has been tried for the past two centuries and the result has been a constant retreat against the advance of power. I have no idea why you believe that this time it will be different. As the saying goes, [insanity] is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
There is an irony to an anarchist arguing that liberal democracy doesn't work, when they choose not to participate in it. Kinda hard to be represented if you will not include yourself.
It's not ironic or hypocritical at all, as I choose not to participate precisely because it is futile and illusory. The point is that the results of people participating in the political process in a representative democracy has rather consistantly been a matter of moderate changes in who holds the positions within an oligarchy while the institution itself remains and possibly grows. Even if every single person voted, the process would still be a sham because they would not directly control the state in any real sense. At best, a numerical majority of the people (which could be as little as a few percent in theory) would indirectly determine who among a handful of prepicked rulers gains or keeps a certain position in the institution, and then those few rulers go on to directly be in control of the institution, entirely isolated from those who voted for them and those who did not alike and entirely unliable to any promises or oaths they made on the way into the position. It doesn't work by the very nature of the institution and process. The empirical record of democratic processes over the past few hundred years has not been pretty from a libertarian perspective.
Brainpolice: Not that the legion of rightists who want to rob the poor, set up a national surveillance system, turn the country into a gigantic prison in the name of national sovereignty, use the government to invade Iran and Venezeula, etc. are any better.
Those are uber statists, not rightists or leftists.
Nitroadict: As much as education would solve problems of exposure, and attempt to battle disinformation, I can easily see the 2 parties manipulating Libertarian victories to their advantage if they had to resort to doing so.
As much as education would solve problems of exposure, and attempt to battle disinformation, I can easily see the 2 parties manipulating Libertarian victories to their advantage if they had to resort to doing so.
Just co-opt their parties.
Nitroadict: I just don't see a political victory for Libertarians being viable when you consider the propoganda machine, both offline & online,the devious Statist counter-measures concerning abusing labels, spreading disinformation, and the compromise involved in gettting electorial progress to the point where libertarian is a name only. History has shown it hasn't worked before, despite my own ocassional hopes that the political battle for victory for libertarians wouldn't harm the apolitical battle for victory.
I just don't see a political victory for Libertarians being viable when you consider the propoganda machine, both offline & online,the devious Statist counter-measures concerning abusing labels, spreading disinformation, and the compromise involved in gettting electorial progress to the point where libertarian is a name only. History has shown it hasn't worked before, despite my own ocassional hopes that the political battle for victory for libertarians wouldn't harm the apolitical battle for victory.
I don't understand how people can expect any victory under any circumstances with those forces arrayed against them. Propaganda and disinfo aren't just used strictly for political purposes.
Ego: That's as much an argument against you as it is an argument against me, and it's why there are so many people clamoring for more government intervention into the economy (look at those Obama rallies!). No matter what, we have to educate people about markets.
No, it's not an argument against me, it's an argument against liberal democracy. Democracy creates the incentive to exploit minorities in favor of majorities. That's undeniably true, no matter how educated people are. Hell, it may be that the more educated people are, the more they realize that they benefit from the exploitation of minorities!
The only way to protect minorities is rebellion.
liberty student:There is an irony to an anarchist arguing that liberal democracy doesn't work, when they choose not to participate in it. Kinda hard to be represented if you will not include yourself.Liberal democracy hasn't failed overnight. It's been subverted over time. I have to believe that if it can be subverted, it can be reverted.
We did participate in it. For two hundred years we participated in it, and lost again and again, because the incentives created by democracy are aligned against freedom. You are asking us to fight against natural human incentives. You are asking this from economists.
Liberal democracy hasn't been subverted. It has become exactly what it should have been expected to become given the incentives it creates. As economists, we know this to be only logical and inevitable. As economists we must act rationally on this knowledge and ditch democracy forever.
Co-opting would not work for libertarian values at all, despite myself once thinking it would help. At best, it *might* make the 2 parties more different from each other, but that would essentially hold up the 2 party system, and end up bolstering the legitimacy for Statism. That's assuming of course the libertarians that infiltrate are able to remain true to their agenda without compromising (very unlikely, if they want to get any electoral progress), and what you would end up is something not really resembling an actual libertarian movement, in so far as opposing the state by somehow using the state as a means of political 'progress'.And no they aren't, obviously, limited to political purposes, but while operating within the state, Statist enforced propaganda and disinfo would be used on their landscape, and it would be efficient at chipping away at the political means of libertarians, as it continually has since the establishment of the Libertarian Party and further back still when the classical liberals fell to the Statists. I find apolitical means more logical since it bypasses trying to teach the state "new tricks", by effectively using the "old tricks", to somehow effect change in a landscape dominated and in fact, reinforced by Statist intentions, from public schooling to "the best jobs are at the government or with a company", to the mainstream media's complacency to mouth propaganda in exchange for access to power, the intellectuals who are also given certain power & advantage over other's when they become apologists ("The State taking care of it's own", so to speak). It's all a reinforced system that frankly is not going to give away by using the same levers built into it, run by different people; even if they manage to get into power, how long will they stay? How many will stay true to their cause and not be swayed by Statist interests? How many will compromise & compromise until again they resemble Utilitarian apologists for the Statists, as was the fate of some of the earlier classical liberals? How many will The State let wield power that is counter-intuitive to The State's interest? How long will it take for the 2 major parties to start co-opting the Libertarian platform, with the politicans from the Democrats & Republican parties each individual degree in double-talk, eventually putting on yet another show for the people to achieve their own agendas, as if they have changed? How long will it take for the very same people who voted said Libertarians into power, at any level, to be swayed by another other party, whom, wisely, have stuck their thumbs out in the wind, and caught on to this "Libertarian Product", start selling themselves accordingly, and oops, next election rolls around, and the Libertarians are no longer at the top, let alone any other gained positions throughout the local, state & national levels?The State would wage a counter-attack with a vast home field advantage. Again, I simply do not see how this is better than apolitical means.
Nitroadict: Again, I simply do not see how this is better than apolitical means.
What apolitical means? I still have yet to hear a compelling argument for how the government can be toppled through apolitical non-violent means.
Stranger: Liberal democracy hasn't been subverted. It has become exactly what it should have been expected to become given the incentives it creates. As economists, we know this to be only logical and inevitable. As economists we must act rationally on this knowledge and ditch democracy forever.
You may be ready to, or already are ditching democracy, but democracy still controls you.
Thanks for the discussion. I need to do some more research, because I feel I'm lacking in knowledge.
Nothing we've tried so far has worked. In the end, I feel that it will be a little bit of everything.
Apolitical means would consist of: Agorism (counter-economics, black & grey markets, economic secession), education & information being spread (Hoppe's anti-intellectual intellectuals, virulent memetics, culture jamming), & mass civil disobedience. I might be missing some, but those are the ones that come to mind immediately.For what it's worth though, I second what Ego says regarding ' a little bit of everything', sicne, as we've seen before, one of the best tactics of The State, regarding oppression, is dividing a minority (libertarians vs. statists) against itself. I can see the minarchists existing in the political climate as sort of playing a prime part for the spread of education & information, a gateway to the apolitical means, but anything more than that would be a bit of a waste of time and energy, & could interfere with the progress of apolitical means of change. In some cases, the minarchists & political libertarians could act as guides or semi-intellectuals towards the apolitical landscape & anti-intellectual intellectuals. I see better use of the Libertarian Party being abolished & converted into The Libertarian College or The Libertarian Institute for Public Awareness, into an institute similar to the Mises Institute.
Stranger:Let's just cut out all the politics and look at it from a raw economic perspective. Candidate A (our man) proposes that everybody play fair. Candidate B proposes that 60% of the people be able to exploit 10% of the people. How is candidate A expected to win, given what we know about human nature?
"Playing fair" IMO includes such things as an honest currency linked to gold (in a free market for money), elimination of income and other direct taxation, pardon of millions of non-violent victimless "criminals", and various other positive effects. So there is meat to sell. Now it's a marketing problem.
"He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." Edmund Burke
maxpot46: "Playing fair" IMO includes such things as an honest currency linked to gold (in a free market for money), elimination of income and other direct taxation, pardon of millions of non-violent victimless "criminals", and various other positive effects. So there is meat to sell. Now it's a marketing problem.
Even if that were done, it still wouldn't be liberty.
On second thought, nothing new to add.