5 ms·

Demand curves are not democracy.

by rw 18y ago

gojomo 18y ago
Both democracy and demand curves are means, not ends.
- stcredzero 18y ago
  Hallelujah! Markets are great because they are a decentralized method for regulating resources that can adjust for changing conditions. One wants them in situations where there are too many factors and actors to be regulated by something as large and slow moving as a government. Markets aren't to be worshiped. They are a tool. Governments and laws are good for certain things too. I would like murder and violence to be illegal. I want human rights to be a given. Democracies aren't perfect, but they do embody a mechanism for ensuring the above. Unfortunately, they also allow their constituents to turn them into non-democracies. Democracies require constant maintenance.
  - david 18y ago
    Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century? Random individuals/groups, or Governments? If you support nonviolence, why support an organization that threatens violence if you do not follow rules have no moral basis (ie, not "don't murder" and "don't steal") that you never agreed to follow?
    - run4yourlives 18y ago
      Do you honestly believe that random individuals organized in some other fashion than government - say a corporation - are not just as able to murder and pillage on the same level as governments past? If you think that governments are some sort of special organization, and that the same problems would not occur with any other power, you sir are a fool.
      - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        Voted up, but almost didn't with the reference to corporations being as evil as governments. Haven't seen that yet, mostly due to free market influences. (There is a good reason why your neighborhood store owner is not also a flagrant lawbreaker -- it's bad for business) But substitute "armed gangs", "the mob", "terrorist organizations", etc -- works great.
        run4yourlives 18y ago
        Give corporations power and an absence of government and it does happen. Look at the industrial revolution prior to workers' rights, or even look at telecom and communications monopolies today. That law that the store owner doesn't dare break is what holds him back!
        randallsquared 18y ago
        But it didn't happen. No private organization ever produced something on the scale of the gulag or the Nazi concentration camps, even in places where government was very weak.
        DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        Corporations are government-defined entities. You can't have them without governments. Not trying to argue, but it's a non-sequitur. The industrial revolution had corporations over-taxing the body politic. It was the natural result of taking rural agricultural ethics and putting them in a mechanistic world. It led to labor reforms. trust-busting, and labor unions. Sucked a lot, and lots of folks probably died early, but it was hardly the stuff of the holocaust. You have to remember that everybody was just figuring all this stuff out as it was happening. Once it became clear where we were headed (and that we didn't want to go there) then the government, which defines corporations, defined what they could and couldn't do in a different way. Badda bing, badda boom, your democratic republic at work.
      - david 18y ago
        So your theory is that no matter how people organize themselves they will always commit mass atrocities? I can agree with this on some level, there is a lot of psychological disturbance among human beings and has been throughout history. I'm wondering if you are aware that there is ample evidence in the work of Adorno and his collegues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality), Lloyd deMause and the Institute for Psychohistory (http://www.psychohistory.com/ http://www.psychohistory.com/) and Alice Miller (http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php) that political and military disasters are not linked to something intrinsic and inevitable in human nature, but rather to childhood and even prenatal experiences that can be avoided? If you haven't, you might take a look at Lloyd deMause's book "The Emotional Life of Nations" (readable online: http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/childhod/chindex.htm http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/childhod/chindex.htm), which I think traces this ability of humans to murder and pillage to it's source and provides a plan for how it can be eliminated in the future.
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      "Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century?" Just googling around, looks like communists governments, by a long shot. Made Hitler look like a boy scout. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
Prrometheus 18y ago
And it is impossible to run an economy as prosperous as ours without "abstract institutions". By rejecting such institutions, left-wing anarchists are really rejecting modernism. Some of them understand this, but not all of them. Personally, I favor political systems which contribute to the further advancement of the human species. That's why I'm a right-wing anarchist. I have no nostalgia for tribalism.

Demand curves are not democracy.

by rw 18y ago

Demand curves are not democracy.

gojomo 18y ago

Both democracy and demand curves are means, not ends.

stcredzero 18y ago
Hallelujah! Markets are great because they are a decentralized method for regulating resources that can adjust for changing conditions. One wants them in situations where there are too many factors and actors to be regulated by something as large and slow moving as a government. Markets aren't to be worshiped. They are a tool. Governments and laws are good for certain things too. I would like murder and violence to be illegal. I want human rights to be a given. Democracies aren't perfect, but they do embody a mechanism for ensuring the above. Unfortunately, they also allow their constituents to turn them into non-democracies. Democracies require constant maintenance.
- david 18y ago
  Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century? Random individuals/groups, or Governments? If you support nonviolence, why support an organization that threatens violence if you do not follow rules have no moral basis (ie, not "don't murder" and "don't steal") that you never agreed to follow?
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    Do you honestly believe that random individuals organized in some other fashion than government - say a corporation - are not just as able to murder and pillage on the same level as governments past? If you think that governments are some sort of special organization, and that the same problems would not occur with any other power, you sir are a fool.
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      Voted up, but almost didn't with the reference to corporations being as evil as governments. Haven't seen that yet, mostly due to free market influences. (There is a good reason why your neighborhood store owner is not also a flagrant lawbreaker -- it's bad for business) But substitute "armed gangs", "the mob", "terrorist organizations", etc -- works great.
      - run4yourlives 18y ago
        Give corporations power and an absence of government and it does happen. Look at the industrial revolution prior to workers' rights, or even look at telecom and communications monopolies today. That law that the store owner doesn't dare break is what holds him back!
        randallsquared 18y ago
        But it didn't happen. No private organization ever produced something on the scale of the gulag or the Nazi concentration camps, even in places where government was very weak.
        DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        Corporations are government-defined entities. You can't have them without governments. Not trying to argue, but it's a non-sequitur. The industrial revolution had corporations over-taxing the body politic. It was the natural result of taking rural agricultural ethics and putting them in a mechanistic world. It led to labor reforms. trust-busting, and labor unions. Sucked a lot, and lots of folks probably died early, but it was hardly the stuff of the holocaust. You have to remember that everybody was just figuring all this stuff out as it was happening. Once it became clear where we were headed (and that we didn't want to go there) then the government, which defines corporations, defined what they could and couldn't do in a different way. Badda bing, badda boom, your democratic republic at work.
    - david 18y ago
      So your theory is that no matter how people organize themselves they will always commit mass atrocities? I can agree with this on some level, there is a lot of psychological disturbance among human beings and has been throughout history. I'm wondering if you are aware that there is ample evidence in the work of Adorno and his collegues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality), Lloyd deMause and the Institute for Psychohistory (http://www.psychohistory.com/ http://www.psychohistory.com/) and Alice Miller (http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php) that political and military disasters are not linked to something intrinsic and inevitable in human nature, but rather to childhood and even prenatal experiences that can be avoided? If you haven't, you might take a look at Lloyd deMause's book "The Emotional Life of Nations" (readable online: http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/childhod/chindex.htm http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/childhod/chindex.htm), which I think traces this ability of humans to murder and pillage to it's source and provides a plan for how it can be eliminated in the future.
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    "Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century?" Just googling around, looks like communists governments, by a long shot. Made Hitler look like a boy scout. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

Prrometheus 18y ago

And it is impossible to run an economy as prosperous as ours without "abstract institutions". By rejecting such institutions, left-wing anarchists are really rejecting modernism. Some of them understand this, but not all of them. Personally, I favor political systems which contribute to the further advancement of the human species. That's why I'm a right-wing anarchist. I have no nostalgia for tribalism.