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It feels kinda ironic to find this kind of article in The Nation. I mean if it were Reason, sure. But The Nation is a leftist publication, endorsing Sanders. Of
by smsm42 2y ago
It feels kinda ironic to find this kind of article in The Nation. I mean if it were Reason, sure. But The Nation is a leftist publication, endorsing Sanders. Of all regimes that I could find myself in, I'd expect to be the least amount of left alone in the socialist paradise they are ultimately rooting for. Nothing is left alone in a true socialist country, The Will of The People is in everything and everything is subject to it. That's kinda the point of collectivism - everything is everybody's common business.
Transparency is vital for regulation and control (see e.g. Seeing like a State) and the more opaque humans are, the harder is to control them, plan their actions, reason about their future behavior. How can you make a five-year plan for the whole country if you don't even know anything about anybody? Opacity is not going to work here. You would need a ton of very, very detailed information.
That's why China is introducing more and more measures to defy privacy - this is the only way their model can hope to work, it it impossible in the opaque-person world where no information about the person can be created. The article argues that privacy is not property, but the concept of privacy can not but lead to the concept of property - if you can have private thoughts, can you have private expressions? If you can have private expressions, can you have their material embodiment? If you can have the material embodiment, can you exercise control over it and limit the control of others over it? Oops, you just created private property.
- justin66 2y agoPerhaps these particular leftists want what they say they want, rather than what you've been led to believe they want.
- smsm42 2y ago> want what they say they want Which is what? Pretty much all leftist state models require strong state, which leaves very little space to privacy. Somebody who holds both leftist or collectivist political beliefs and hopes for privacy is contradicting oneself. If they were anarchists or libertarians, that'd be a different business, but it's surprising to find libertarians in The Nation.
- justin66 2y ago> Somebody who holds both leftist or collectivist political beliefs and hopes for privacy is contradicting oneself. I believe that's the core obviously wrong idea we're not going to agree about.
- concerndc1tizen 2y agoIt's important to remember that the communist states were in a cold war with the US, and were being sabotaged from within, so they had to aggressively monitor for internal threats. We don't know what the world would look like if the US hadn't destroyed communism, and hadn't actively supported tyrannical leaders. But in an ironic twist, the US will now be destroyed by the same dark forces they created.
- keybored 2y agoWe do know what happened to socialist projects that weren’t authoritarian. They got crushed by the US and other capitalist states.[1] That all socialist projects that were successful for some time were authoritarian is, well, those were the ones who could survive in that world (in this current world). I think there’s a word for that. :) [1] Capitalist nations violently interfering in other nations is not called authoritarian.
- BLKNSLVR 2y agoI think you're joining together a bunch of dots from different pictures. None of these things necessarily imply any of the others.
- keybored 2y agoThe Nation is writing about the existing reality. I feel I would need a subscription to Reason: Monthly Review to understand what you are imagining.
- concerndc1tizen 2y agoThat's not true. I've seen it firsthand. They built infrastructure that was free for public use. It is significantly better than privatized tourism, because private tourism is frequently taken over by organized crime who destroy the nature to build hotels. Public service tourism usually doesn't care about profit, but rather about reducing public spending, so it is generally more efficient, has a smaller foot print, is shared, educative, and respectful. I'm not an expert so I can't give you references, but ask your neighborly LLM: > The USSR promoted the idea of "democratic tourism" — affordable and accessible to everyone. Unlike Western commercial tourism, Soviet tourism aimed to educate and unite people. The Tourist Union (Туристско-спортивный союз) and other state organizations built networks of tourist bases, campgrounds, hiking routes, and equipment rental centers.