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Actually, I think I understand what the root issue of this semantic disparity may be. Some dictionary definitions of politics relegate it to government / stat
by parasubvert 13y ago
Actually, I think I understand what the root issue of this semantic disparity may be. Some dictionary definitions of politics relegate it to government / state organization.
Others, particularly political scientists, view it as the universal process of resolving power interrelationships among individuals.
To an anarcho-capitalist, most (all?) individual interactions that involve transfer of power are voluntary market exchanges. That implies a social structure that is non-political in the sense that no state need be involved in society. But to a political scientist it is just one of many potential political systems to be debated and evaluated, with its own power structures, etc.
Communists didn't feel their preferred system was political either but rather a scientific inevitability. This is often why some half-joke that Libertarianism is the Marxism of the rich...
- baddox 13y agoAs I understand it, the field of political science deals almost exclusively with the state. The fact that political scientists can often provide useful insights to other organizations like companies is obvious, but I would call that an inevitable extension of the field rather than a primary concern.
- parasubvert 13y agoThere is a significant branch of study in political science (often overlapping with economics, history, and philosophy) called political theory or philosophy that is not specific to the study of the state. It is this area where academics inquire into political first principles that don't necessarily presume a state. John Rawls and Robert Nozick's works, or Edmund Burke, and MIchael Oakeshott fall into this area of inquiry, along with some of the works of Peter Drucker, Murray Rothbard, Fredric Bastiat, etc.
- dragonwriter 13y agoRawls works are largely about the ends of the state rather than the means by which states achieve those ends.
- baddox 13y agoYes, I have mentioned this before in this thread. Of course the ideas of refraining from political action are relevant to the field that studies political workings, in the same way that atheism and other forms of religious skepticism are relevant to religious studies.
- parasubvert 13y agoWe are going in circles. There is a big difference between rejecting the definition of a word and rejecting an entire field of inquiry.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> As I understand it, the field of political science deals almost exclusively with the state. The fact that political scientists can often provide useful insights to other organizations like companies is obvious, but I would call that an inevitable extension of the field rather than a primary concern. Corporations are exercises of state power, as well as being structurally somewhat similar to "ministates", so I wouldn't exactly see insight from political science (if viewed as being "the study of the state") into corporations as outside of the primary concern.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoWhat do you mean, joke? That's what's actually going on. Proprietarianism is Marxism seen from the side of the bourgeoisie.
- parasubvert 13y agoI attempting to be polite.