Like Jakob, I also wanted it to be true that people could “self-rule” themselves to a significant degree and amount. But humanity simply does not work this way, nor animals in general. Mammals, as a specie, exist socially within Hierarchies. People, and mammals, naturally look out for Alpha status in the form of leadership, expertise, nobility, and obviously the most important, Authority. People readily and willingly give away their own choice in life, when asked or demanded by an Authority. I don’t mean police officers. I don’t mean scientists. I don’t even mean family. But there is a type of Authority that exists that people wait for and internally desire. You can call it Totalitarianism …Totalit-Aryianism.
It is observed most readily in Politics (election of Trump), Religion (election of Pope), History (the "Founding Fathers), and the Military (Rank and Order, Alexander, Napolean, Hitler, Etc.). When a real Authority arrives, entire countries, societies, nations, and histories are moved by Authorities. This also coincides with the “Define God” thread. This type of Authority, is Godly. It is momentous. It is forceful. It is compelling.
It’s not merely the relationship between proletariat and bourgeois, but more symbolized between Master and Slave, Superior to Inferior, Man to Woman, Parent to Child, Teacher to Student, etc. It is a form of relationship that is intimate. Like love, people are willing to fight to defend these internal-values and relationships.
People want to be Led, far more than they want to Lead. Almost nobody wants to Lead, because of the stress, anxiety, and implications involved. If you are a Leader in life, then you are rare, and you become Self-Responsible. You become an ‘Agent’, with Agency. You forfeit your victimhood and victim-status. You are no longer a child, or a boy, but forced into the position of a Man.
Only Individuals have the potential to become Leaders. But most ‘Choose’ not to (Lead). It is more comfortable, easy, and peaceful to live a life of fellowship.
But often in life, circumstances force an Individual to choose to Lead, and fight, for whatever (Just) cause they feel necessary. This is where Justice comes into the picture.
Individuals have unique relationships with Justice, representing a noble-heart. Whether they choose good or evil, as a means to obtain their goals, is of secondary importance.
The primary importance is that the rare few (individuals) have the Choice (Free-Will), while the masses, do not.
You’re making a romantic patriarchical comic book storyline out of it, though, replete with heroes and kings and champions and shit. Leadership stopped being ‘specialized’ with the dawn of the industrial age. That old aristocratic notion of the alpha male as ruler and the need of people to be sheeple under his guidance is material for sketch comedy, not serious philosophers. Not anymore, anyway. Democracy is fully capable of replacing oligarchy… and if it was, you’d not notice the difference. Technology, communication, dissemination of information… all of this makes it now possible for an efficient and effective democracy to exist on planet earf. Fuck the king. That nigga ain’t got no clothes, bruh.
Even in a “Democracy”, the noble-heart still beats. The mind maybe lost and confused, for a time, but that time passes, Seasons change. Just because you are an individual, Prom, doesn’t mean others are, or are willing to merely drift through life without leadership or something to fight for. That is what the masses always crave; the demand is always high for it. Everybody craves Purpose in life, a meaningful life. It is the aristocracy and noble-soul that has always provided such purpose, whether they be reasons to fight, to work, to labor or love. Without such purposes, people merely live life, floating through, meaningless, uninspired, joyless.
Even alone, one is issuing commands to their own body.
The question is whether or not it is harmonious rulership - disharmony brings counteractive efforts and potentially mutiny. A group of people can function like a well-oiled machine, with all parties gaining maximum satisfaction with their role, and with no party having any reason to envy or despise any other. Envying or despising other roles is a sign of disharmony, as is any disillusion over what role is better or worse - as we see in this very thread.
The actual proportion of leaders to subordinates depends on the optimal number of subordinates per leader, and assumes a stratification that approximates to uniformality - assuming uniform competence amongst leaders relative to their required ability to fulfil their role at their particular strata of leadership.
Assuming my calculations are correct, if the minimum number of subordinates to most efficient operate under each leader is “x”, then the proportion of leaders to suborindates tends from “1/x” towards “1/x-1”, the higher the population is.
There really is no point romanticising over higher and lower strata of leadership, and over who ought to be where. The only thing that matters is if you are where you should be such that the whole unit operates with maximum effectiveness with you being maximally satisfied where you are.
Individualism is shit at this, because everyone is fighting over the top strata - even those suited to the lower strata - even moreso them, in fact.
The higher you need to climb to get the top strata, the more ferociously you fight to get there - and the most noise is made. Case in point: this forum.
Its self interest. I hate slaves. I always try to pretend they’ve got a soul (like with biguous, these are honest attempts of mine to engage him in something halfway sentient) but Im nearly always kicked in the gut for being so generous with my expectations.
Urwrong - Trump is a break with this. Few Trump voters are believers in Authority, everyone of us laughs at how quirky and human he is and how human he makes his opponents look. Whereas Obama was and is basically a God to his fans. He even had me convinced for some years at first, that he was some kind of phenomenon.
But could a government be formed that altered that fact?
Or is it really only about DNA, race, and gender?
What about a government so entrenched in early self-reliance education and training that being an adult meant graduating into a society of respectable self-governing people? That is what the British have attempted. I just don’t think they went about it quite properly.
Socialism is one form of ethical economics and capitalism another.
Socialism’s ethic is egalitarian economics, capitalism’s ethic is noncoercive economics and free competition.
The two are compatible in market socialism, but incompatible in state socialism, coercive social anarchism and an inegalitarian market.
More specifically socialism is the workers/people democratically owning and running the means of productions, whether directly through cooperatives or indirectly through unions and the state.
While theoretically this could still lead to the enormous economic disparaties we see in capitalism, practically it’s highly unlikely.
While I think more tenacious, talented and contributive people should be rewarded, I don’t think some people should be rewarded as much as capitalism does.
Capitalism has a few meanings.
One is a noncoercively competitive market, private property.
Two is the means of production (business, especially big, mechanized and stratified business) being owned and ran by one or a handful of men hiring workers to produce, what’s known as wage labor or disparagingly as wage slavery.
Again I’m a social capitalist.
What this means to me is the bigger, more mechanized and stratified business is, the more unhealthy and unsafe for its workers, consumers and the environment, the less competitors it has (cartels, conglomerates, megacorps, multinationals, oligopolies), the more it’s been subsidized by and received tax breaks from government or found tax loopholes (corporatism), the more I think it should be nationalized and unionized and/or cooperativized and/or kept private but heavily taxed and regulated.
So I’m in favoring of using socialism to mitigate what we see as the worst aspects of capitalism, rather than socializing the market completely.
This is what we do already, except we do it poorly, we let megacorps run amok while the overwhelming majority of us live in or near poverty.
Right
I believe in having a strong military, particularly to counter China, however if we save instead of spend trillions of dollars on the war for drugs and terror, stop subsidizing big business while increasing taxes on and forcing them to pay, if we cut foreign aid, especially to Israel, if we nationalize the central banks, we won’t have to tax the working/middle classes to keep funding the military at this rate.
I don’t worship the elite like you do.
While some of them are more talented, tenacious and contributive than the average pleb, some of them just got lucky or are corrupt.
A lot of capitalism is just being at the right place at the right time.
If Bill Gates hadn’t come along, one of his competitors, who may’ve been more talented and tenacious than him, working on the same or a similar thing, would’ve shortly afterward, yet to the victor goes the spoils, he’s a billionaire while they’re multimillionaires, millionaires or working class.
Bill Gates wasn’t just Bill Gates, he was Bill Gates + his colleagues, family and friends.
You could say he stood on the shoulders of society, with all its donative and state services to accomplish what he did.
It was also a team effort, yet we define property (intellectual property BTW is a contentious thing, even among some libertarians) as such that he got the spoils.
I’m not denying his monumental contributions…altho I heard there was a lot that was underhanded in what he did.
Some people do contribute a lot more than others, but capitalism can grossly exaggerate how much a person has.
We need a synthesis of private and public property.
For me, socialism and progressivism are opposite ideals.
Socialism is strictly about ethical economics, whereas progressivism is broader, it’s non-white, non-Christian and female egalitarianism at best and non-white, non-Christian and female supremacism at worst, about globalism and gun control (political supremacism), carbon taxes, which’re essentially life taxes, compulsory education and vaccination, transhumanism and transnaturalism (scientific supremacism).
Socialism is compatible with populism (which’s what I am, I could summarize all my sociopolitical, economic and even epistemic thinking as populism, and sustainability), because it’s about emancipating the working/middle classes, the majority of citizens, whereas progressivism, like elitism, is about empowering minorities, and foreigners, but unlike elitism these minorities, and foreigners are (perceived to be) marginalized rather than elevated.
Progressivism and elitism are two sides of the anti-populist coin, whereas socialism and conservatism on the one hand (authoritarian populism), and capitalism (not to be conflated with corporatism) and libertarianism on the other (free populism), are two sides of the populist coin.
In fact progressivism has been elitism in practice, and while theoretically it could be used to help women, minorities and foreigners, often it’s used just to further subjugate both them and the majority by the elite.
Elitists co-opted socialism at the turn of the 20th century and progressives at the turn of the 21st, but it’s time for conservatives, libertarians and nationalists to take it back.
Conservative values and norms are the values and norms of the majority of citizens, not the values and norms of elites, minorities or foreigners.
There are a lot of sides to modernity, anything that isn’t preindustrial and the ways of organizing society that went with it is modern.
Right, while I’m not saying luck definitely had nothing to do with it, in all likelihood whites thrived at least in part because our biology and culture better enabled us to.
For me, socialism is just as, if not more compatible with nationalism, but progressives and the new elites are in favor of globalism.
Right, socialists, and capitalists aren’t necessarily ethical, some of them are opportunists (I’m socialist as long as I’m poor, I’m capitalist as long as I’m rich), but you could say that about any ethic, ideology or religion, many devotees are just using them.
However, you can admit you’re an opportunist and still sort of be a socialist or capitalist I think, whereas you can’t be a Christian or Muslim and admit you’re an opportunist.
Socialists and capitalists can be ethical or unethical.
I think you’ve got it wrong on a central premise, Gloominary.
Socialism is not about Economics. It’s about how people ought to act toward one-another in society. In this way, yes, Progressivism is a big aspect of Socialism. To be a Socialist, in the Modern sense, is about imposing moral and ethical “rules” upon others. Calling a male who has self-castrated, by a different pronoun than He/She, etc.
This sounds like Communism.
No no, Bill Gates is not an “Elite” to me. From my perspective, Royalist, somebody who is noble in heart and mind, somebody who people look-up to, are inspired by, are Great, Virtuous, Moral, Paternal, are “Elite”. I don’t mean Rich. You have a different idea of “Elite” than me. Elite =/= Rich. Elite = Virtuouso/Great/Skilled/Noble/Paternal.
Socialism is as much ethical economics as capitalism is, they just have different ethics.
The former places equity and equality first, the latter noncoercion.
An egoist can’t be a socialist or capitalist, because they both limit what they can get away with.
State socialism is when a global or national dictatorship or democracy takes over business and runs them in the interests of everyone (the abolishment of exploitation but not equity, people who contribute more are still paid more), state capitalism is when a global or national dictatorship or democracy takes over business and runs them in the interest of itself.
Then there’s market socialism and market capitalism.
In order to prevent state socialism from devolving into state capitalism, of course you need to elect the right people in and the wrong people out.
You need a proper democracy and an armed and informed public.
Of course you want it to be as good as it can be, but It doesn’t have to be perfect, anymore than capitalism does, it just has to be better than the alternative.
Communism is the idea people will one day be sufficiently socially and technologically advanced to start behaving like eusocial insects and naked mole rats without the need for a state.
Marx thought the communist era would begin after the state socialist era ended.
Of course this is just a pipe dream and an affront to common sense, and evolutionary psychology 101, humans are not eusocial animals.
I want a mixed economy, like we have now, but with more socialism and no corporatism.
I believe some businesses should be taken over, not all.
I already went into what sort of businesses I think should be taken over.
I’m also in favor of cooperatives, syndicates and supplementary income for the working/middle classes.
I believe strong leadership can be good, if it benefits the people, which it can’t do without being tempered with democracy, liberty and reason.
This is certainly the state of things now as compared to a while ago. When companies began to focus on shareholders and short term gains and outsourcing and so on, the broke ties with workers. Workers used to be tied to companies for much longer periods of time and were committed to their companies. Shit, I’ve had jobs where I really did not give a shit in the abstract, but in situ I gave my all and came up with creative solutions for long term company well being. It doesn’t take much to make quite strongly overlapping values. But that’s been trending away. In small companies you can still find strong overlap.
Urwrong is espousing pure marxism. Marx always forgot about the most important thing, namely the value of the produced object. The crux of the whole historical dynamic. The convenience that is being produced and valued for its convenience, which translates into the positive nature of the “bourgeoisie”, which is not the slave of the capital but the justification of the whole business: the middle class.
Any sane employer and employee is aware of the degree of value of what he produces and sells, and in this is the crux of all serious economy. People are often passionate about and at the least mildly interested in what they’re doing, not in the least because there are other people interested in them doing it. Value goes around like a girl on her birthday.
Marx applies strictly to forced labour type situations, the worst jobs of the 19th century, sweatshops and stuff here and now. Where people really don’t give a shit for what they produce. Even mcdonalds is above Marxism, because people who work there will most of the time be people who occasionally eat there and thats because they like the food enough to pay for it there and not elsewhere.
So Marx forgot about the real value of industry, namely what is being produced.
Of course this is a highly boring model, about as boring as the idea of sowing plants in the spring, waiting for very long and then harvesting it months later. Completely abject for any revolutionary, as it was for the Injuns apparently, but it works for some people like people I used to know but who are now like, fucked. Because there is no middle class anymore and only proletariat vs unleashed capital.
Whats being produced now is mainly materials for idiots to talk to other idiots and horsephalluses befriending little chickens on these materials.
Its no longer middle class utility and entertainment, this is pure savagery.
The world will have to become something much greater under our hands or it will fall.