4 ms·

Thank you. This is exactly what I got from the article. I think Bernie Sanders went too far in some of his policy proposal, but I wouldn't characterize him, or

Thank you. This is exactly what I got from the article. I think Bernie Sanders went too far in some of his policy proposal, but I wouldn't characterize him, or progressives in general, as promoting a utopian Marxist vision. I think this kind of intellectual laziness, where people project every political position out into some cartoonish slippery slope instead of tackling the complexity and nuance of public policy, is one of the most detrimental and pervasive logical fallacies in our political discourse.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>I think Bernie Sanders went too far in some of his policy proposal, but I wouldn't characterize him, or progressives in general, as promoting a utopian Marxist vision. Very much agreed. From the point of view of actual radical leftists (for instance, the ones I grab beer with once or twice a month), Bernie Sanders is very much a moderate, even a kind of conservative. In trying to expand the sphere of public goods back towards where it has previously been (in some places and times) and a bit past that, he's just trying to turn our market society[1] back into a market economy subservient to a democratic society. Correspondingly, we also need to consider the degree to which, while we don't live in Friedrich von Hayek's or Milton Friedman's ideal society, their ideas now exercise far, far more influence over our society than they did at the inauguration of the Mont Pelerin Society[2]. These men plotted utopia, and to a great degree, they've achieved it, exactly insofar as the social democrats whose hegemony they wanted to destroy are now seen as unthinkable radicals dreaming of utopia. [1] -- http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/03/q-a-with-michael-sandel-from-market-economy-to-market-society.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/03/q-a-with-mi... [2] -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society
- rayiner 10y ago
  > Correspondingly, we also need to consider the degree to which, while we don't live in Friedrich von Hayek's or Milton Friedman's ideal society, their ideas now exercise far, far more influence over our society than they did at the inauguration of the Mont Pelerin Society[2]. This is very true. It's a very interesting exercise to go back and read old copies of the Congressional Reports and compare them to ones from today. Back in the 1940s, Republicans would say things as lip service to prevailing views about labor that democrats wouldn't say today. Big sweeping appeals to the public interest in the way today people make narrow pointed arguments about efficiency and cost-benefit analysis.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    Surprisingly, the "American Experience" bio of George HW Bush does a workman's job of explaining this. But it was really the demise of Nelson Rockefeller that ended the Liberal and Moderate Republican as a thing. After all, he was divorced. Topologically, the Left pulled farther and faster, and there was also a reaction to that. Industry became fragmented, and that's much harder to organize into unions. It was different when there were a small number of large monolithic firms.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
I think the best description of Sanders is "the last New Dealer". This being said, Progressivism has a checkered past. The bleeding edge is a fickle hellcat, full of bad normative assumptions. A devout New England Abolitionist would have thought nothing of beating the Irish in his employ severely. Stuff like that.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>I think Bernie Sanders went too far in some of his policy proposal, but I wouldn't characterize him, or progressives in general, as promoting a utopian Marxist vision. Very much agreed. From the point of view of actual radical leftists (for instance, the ones I grab beer with once or twice a month), Bernie Sanders is very much a moderate, even a kind of conservative. In trying to expand the sphere of public goods back towards where it has previously been (in some places and times) and a bit past that, he's just trying to turn our market society[1] back into a market economy subservient to a democratic society. Correspondingly, we also need to consider the degree to which, while we don't live in Friedrich von Hayek's or Milton Friedman's ideal society, their ideas now exercise far, far more influence over our society than they did at the inauguration of the Mont Pelerin Society[2]. These men plotted utopia, and to a great degree, they've achieved it, exactly insofar as the social democrats whose hegemony they wanted to destroy are now seen as unthinkable radicals dreaming of utopia. [1] -- http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/03/q-a-with-michael-sandel-from-market-economy-to-market-society.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/03/q-a-with-mi... [2] -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society

rayiner 10y ago
> Correspondingly, we also need to consider the degree to which, while we don't live in Friedrich von Hayek's or Milton Friedman's ideal society, their ideas now exercise far, far more influence over our society than they did at the inauguration of the Mont Pelerin Society[2]. This is very true. It's a very interesting exercise to go back and read old copies of the Congressional Reports and compare them to ones from today. Back in the 1940s, Republicans would say things as lip service to prevailing views about labor that democrats wouldn't say today. Big sweeping appeals to the public interest in the way today people make narrow pointed arguments about efficiency and cost-benefit analysis.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Surprisingly, the "American Experience" bio of George HW Bush does a workman's job of explaining this. But it was really the demise of Nelson Rockefeller that ended the Liberal and Moderate Republican as a thing. After all, he was divorced. Topologically, the Left pulled farther and faster, and there was also a reaction to that. Industry became fragmented, and that's much harder to organize into unions. It was different when there were a small number of large monolithic firms.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

I think the best description of Sanders is "the last New Dealer". This being said, Progressivism has a checkered past. The bleeding edge is a fickle hellcat, full of bad normative assumptions. A devout New England Abolitionist would have thought nothing of beating the Irish in his employ severely. Stuff like that.