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SF was liberal decades before it was rich. Makes you wonder about possible causality.
by drfuchs 11y ago
SF was liberal decades before it was rich. Makes you wonder about possible causality.
- pron 11y agoI don't think Thomas Frank would view the kind of rich SF is as a positive. It is more unequal than rich -- unequal with a peculiarly liberal flavor -- and I believe he would agree to causality (relating to the "new kind" of liberalism).
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago"Liberal" has always been a word so loaded with ambiguity it's practically meaningless. Socially liberal is not the same as economically liberal is not the same as politically liberal is not the same as anti-authoritarian is not the same as Democrat. (And so on.) In fact I think the argument comes down to four positions: I want as much as possible and I don't see why I should care about anyone or anything else I want as much as possible but I suppose I have to care a little about other people because otherwise the non-winners will kill me and eat me Exploiting other people is morally wrong Exploiting other people creates economically and politically disastrous network effects so it's important to allow people the economic freedom to move beyond exploitation They should be clearly distinct. But in the US they're all tinged with rhetoric of crusading personal heroism and slightly manic social signalling, so it can be paradoxically hard to tell them apart.
- ktRolster 11y agoSocialism is another of those words. If you say, "that country is socialist" no one has any idea what you're talking about, you have to explain it. So better to use a different word in the first place.