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>government policy of using the police and security services to [...] protect company profits and the status quo If anyone needed more evidence that we are liv

by ue_ 10y ago

>government policy of using the police and security services to [...] protect company profits and the status quo If anyone needed more evidence that we are living in a bourgeois democracy rather than a people's democracy, look no further than this government policy enforced by their thugs.

sametmax 10y ago
Oligarchy is the word you are looking for.
BearGoesChirp 10y ago
Given how easy a group can be swayed and controlled given our current centralization of media/culture, our technology, and our understanding of psychology, is it possible for there to ever again be a people's democracy? Giving the vote to the people seems to be inherently giving the vote to those who control the information being fed to the people, be that an oligarchy or the government.
- ue_ 10y ago
  This is partly why I am an anarcho-Communist, in favour of decentralised planning or to a lesser extent market Socialism. I'm not sure what to do about giving the vote to people; arguably democracy is very good, but I would rather have per-commune direct democracy (with instantly recallable delegates or without) rather than a representative democracy. In short, I want to do away with voting for masters, as it will be unjustified authority no matter which way it's taken. Edit: can people please explain why they are downvoting? It would be nice to know so I can improve the quality of my posts in future.
  - snowpanda 10y ago
    > This is partly why I am an anarcho-Communist You believe in an oxymoron?
    - washadjeffmad 10y ago
      "Ideologically, Republicans are as liberal as they come, outside of the Libertarians." This statement is true in the same way 'Anarcho-Communist' is. Care to guess how?
    - ue_ 10y ago
      Anarcho-Communism is not an oxymoron; Communism is by definition a stateless and indeed classless society, as described by Marx and Engels.
      - BearGoesChirp 10y ago
        While I feel this is deviating from the topic at hand, I have always had some questions about how a society could be classless. Even a kindergarten was made into a class society based solely on eye color after the teacher mentioned that eye colors meant certain things about a person. In a communist society, even if wealth were equal, there are many inherent factors that differ between people due to their unique genetics and life histories. Consider just charisma and attractiveness. Someone who was rich in both would still be in a vastly superior position compared to someone who lacked both, and would be able to secure themselves an overall better life (at least on average). The only way I could see full equality of outcomes would be with some power in charge directing it, and even then the one heading that power would still be superior. Consider something else, reproduction. While not all people want to have children, it is a major desire of many people. How do we ensure equal opportunity of reproduction to all who wish to have children?
        anigbrowl 10y ago
        Well, this is the basic problem. Marx and Engels had a vision of society governed by the better angels of our nature, not to mention a relatively simple economic understanding of the world due to the technological limitations of their day. Karl Marx died in 1883 so while he was probably able to make guesses about how steam engines would be deployed in the future he never lived to see an actual automobile. Adam Smith's economic insights were likewise somewhat limited by the technology of his day; one has to be careful not to attribute knowledge that we only enjoy with hindsight to economic theorists of earlier eras.
  - callinyouin 10y ago
    You're being downvoted on the basis of your ideology, which I imagine is somewhat unpopular here. Your posts are of otherwise good quality. It would be nice if people started a dialog instead of silently downvoting, but I guess that would take more effort...
  - 52-6F-62 10y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the traditional nomenclature is anarcho-syndicalist. Or are you marking a difference in your beliefs from those. Am I just hung up on semantics, or are you espousing there will somehow be no competition between communes/factions without some central oversight body. I would wager that's highly unlikely.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Anarcho-syndicalism is not the same thing as anarcho-communism, though they overlap significantly both in terms of ideological content and as non-exclusive identities.
  - grzm 10y ago
    Please don't take discussions further into general ideological territory. This rarely begets good discussion and is strongly discouraged on HN.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      Submissions are mostly discouraged, but a civil discussion has no reason to be. It can easily go off the rails, but a lot of that is also based on how it's originally framed. This seems fairly open to discussion in a positive way, so I take the stance the mods seem to lately, which is "wait and see". We all have the tools to try to suppress the flames (or fan them, but that's where a little personal responsibility comes in) as needed.
- balthamael 10y ago
  The only viable forms of government i see now is a benevolent enlightened dictator or a scientocracy. The only way to remove manipulation is to remove emotion from politics. So you either need someone who knows what needs to be done and can't be influenced otherwise, or a system that is not easy to influence, like one based on facts and evidence. Enlightened dictator is a high risk high reward type of deal though, even if he is awesome then there are no guarantees afterwards. Basically rolling dice. Of course you need to do other things too, like restricting the influence of money in politics, but even with decent politicians the masses are vulnerable to manipulation by various interests. That really is the Achilles heel of democracy. So the system needs to be transparent and based on the scientific method. It really is the only way to remain impartial and objective. We have a long way to get there however, so I think a short term solution is to invest in education. I know it's kind of a platitude and also imperfect, but history and research has shown that education really is the defining factor between the good and the bad. A democracy needs an educated populace, monarchy was fine and natural for certain times because it pretty much the only thing that could have worked when 95% of the populace was illiterate and relatively stupid. Sudden democracy in the Middle Ages would have been a disaster. Unfortunately there seems to be a trend of anti-intellectualism recently is certain places like the UK and US. Make no mistake, whether it is deliberate or not, it is exactly what many interests want. Dumb people are much easier to manipulate.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    > The only way to remove manipulation is to remove emotion from politics. I don't think that's the only way. At least, I think there's a few things to try first. If information dissemination is being exploited due to new technology, first we should try to fix that in various ways. There are various other problems that might or might not have full or partial solutions as well. When you have a hole in the henhouse that lets a fox in, the first step is to try to close the hole and possibly trap or kill the fox, not to stop raising chickens. Even if new holes are occasionally dug, as long as it's still worth it to grow chickens, you don't just give up.
    - balthamael 10y ago

by ue_ 10y ago

sametmax 10y ago

Oligarchy is the word you are looking for.

BearGoesChirp 10y ago

Given how easy a group can be swayed and controlled given our current centralization of media/culture, our technology, and our understanding of psychology, is it possible for there to ever again be a people's democracy? Giving the vote to the people seems to be inherently giving the vote to those who control the information being fed to the people, be that an oligarchy or the government.

ue_ 10y ago
This is partly why I am an anarcho-Communist, in favour of decentralised planning or to a lesser extent market Socialism. I'm not sure what to do about giving the vote to people; arguably democracy is very good, but I would rather have per-commune direct democracy (with instantly recallable delegates or without) rather than a representative democracy. In short, I want to do away with voting for masters, as it will be unjustified authority no matter which way it's taken. Edit: can people please explain why they are downvoting? It would be nice to know so I can improve the quality of my posts in future.
- snowpanda 10y ago
  > This is partly why I am an anarcho-Communist You believe in an oxymoron?
  - washadjeffmad 10y ago
    "Ideologically, Republicans are as liberal as they come, outside of the Libertarians." This statement is true in the same way 'Anarcho-Communist' is. Care to guess how?
  - ue_ 10y ago
    Anarcho-Communism is not an oxymoron; Communism is by definition a stateless and indeed classless society, as described by Marx and Engels.
    - BearGoesChirp 10y ago
      While I feel this is deviating from the topic at hand, I have always had some questions about how a society could be classless. Even a kindergarten was made into a class society based solely on eye color after the teacher mentioned that eye colors meant certain things about a person. In a communist society, even if wealth were equal, there are many inherent factors that differ between people due to their unique genetics and life histories. Consider just charisma and attractiveness. Someone who was rich in both would still be in a vastly superior position compared to someone who lacked both, and would be able to secure themselves an overall better life (at least on average). The only way I could see full equality of outcomes would be with some power in charge directing it, and even then the one heading that power would still be superior. Consider something else, reproduction. While not all people want to have children, it is a major desire of many people. How do we ensure equal opportunity of reproduction to all who wish to have children?
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
        Well, this is the basic problem. Marx and Engels had a vision of society governed by the better angels of our nature, not to mention a relatively simple economic understanding of the world due to the technological limitations of their day. Karl Marx died in 1883 so while he was probably able to make guesses about how steam engines would be deployed in the future he never lived to see an actual automobile. Adam Smith's economic insights were likewise somewhat limited by the technology of his day; one has to be careful not to attribute knowledge that we only enjoy with hindsight to economic theorists of earlier eras.
- callinyouin 10y ago
  You're being downvoted on the basis of your ideology, which I imagine is somewhat unpopular here. Your posts are of otherwise good quality. It would be nice if people started a dialog instead of silently downvoting, but I guess that would take more effort...
- 52-6F-62 10y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the traditional nomenclature is anarcho-syndicalist. Or are you marking a difference in your beliefs from those. Am I just hung up on semantics, or are you espousing there will somehow be no competition between communes/factions without some central oversight body. I would wager that's highly unlikely.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Anarcho-syndicalism is not the same thing as anarcho-communism, though they overlap significantly both in terms of ideological content and as non-exclusive identities.
- grzm 10y ago
  Please don't take discussions further into general ideological territory. This rarely begets good discussion and is strongly discouraged on HN.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    Submissions are mostly discouraged, but a civil discussion has no reason to be. It can easily go off the rails, but a lot of that is also based on how it's originally framed. This seems fairly open to discussion in a positive way, so I take the stance the mods seem to lately, which is "wait and see". We all have the tools to try to suppress the flames (or fan them, but that's where a little personal responsibility comes in) as needed.
balthamael 10y ago
The only viable forms of government i see now is a benevolent enlightened dictator or a scientocracy. The only way to remove manipulation is to remove emotion from politics. So you either need someone who knows what needs to be done and can't be influenced otherwise, or a system that is not easy to influence, like one based on facts and evidence. Enlightened dictator is a high risk high reward type of deal though, even if he is awesome then there are no guarantees afterwards. Basically rolling dice. Of course you need to do other things too, like restricting the influence of money in politics, but even with decent politicians the masses are vulnerable to manipulation by various interests. That really is the Achilles heel of democracy. So the system needs to be transparent and based on the scientific method. It really is the only way to remain impartial and objective. We have a long way to get there however, so I think a short term solution is to invest in education. I know it's kind of a platitude and also imperfect, but history and research has shown that education really is the defining factor between the good and the bad. A democracy needs an educated populace, monarchy was fine and natural for certain times because it pretty much the only thing that could have worked when 95% of the populace was illiterate and relatively stupid. Sudden democracy in the Middle Ages would have been a disaster. Unfortunately there seems to be a trend of anti-intellectualism recently is certain places like the UK and US. Make no mistake, whether it is deliberate or not, it is exactly what many interests want. Dumb people are much easier to manipulate.
- kbenson 10y ago
  > The only way to remove manipulation is to remove emotion from politics. I don't think that's the only way. At least, I think there's a few things to try first. If information dissemination is being exploited due to new technology, first we should try to fix that in various ways. There are various other problems that might or might not have full or partial solutions as well. When you have a hole in the henhouse that lets a fox in, the first step is to try to close the hole and possibly trap or kill the fox, not to stop raising chickens. Even if new holes are occasionally dug, as long as it's still worth it to grow chickens, you don't just give up.
  - balthamael 10y ago