The derogatory use of the word ''Liberals''

[RalofTyr]

Being a liberal is like being a Jedi under Palpatine's rule. You have vast knowledge and you know what's right, but it's a threat to the established powers and their self-interests.

 

[Traitorfish]

Being a liberal is like being a Jedi under Palpatine's rule. You have vast knowledge and you know what's right, but it's a threat to the established powers and their self-interests.

Also, you have a stupid ponytail, wear silly clothes and spend most of your time making imprecise and often self-contradictory assertions?

(Joking, of course... I'm a lefty too (if not, by British standards, a liberal), just engaging in some good old fashioned self-depreciation. )

 

[Cutlass]

So....being liberal is having the power to drop an atomic bomb (twice) on a foreign nation?

Wow. I never realized that.

If it needs to be done.

 

[GenMarshall]

So....being liberal is having the power to drop an atomic bomb (twice) on a foreign nation?

Wow. I never realized that.

Not all of us are gun control, tree hugging, peacenik freaks .

 

[Quintillus]

Calling somebody a liberal has been seen as a derogatory term since the Reagan era in the US

Really? Somehow I never heard of that. Granted I first started paying attention to politics in the Clinton era, but still I'm surprised I missed that. Now "bleeding heart liberal", that I've heard used as a derogatory term, but not plain old "liberal". Though to be honest it doesn't surprise me, since I know quite a few people, myself not excluded, who might consider "conservative" derogatory in some political contexts. So perhaps it depends more on one's politics as to whether "liberal" or "conservative" is seen as derogatory?

'Course, "nonpatriotic" and "un-American" are the big derogatory political terms of the Bush era. Just like the McCarthy era. But that doesn't mean that everyone minds being called those terms...that's another topic though.

 

[Richard Cribb]

How long run are you talking about here?

Probably not in my lifetime. But some of you might be a part of it.

It's been 160 years (on the dot, in fact) since the Communist Manifesto was first published and Capitalism in Britain has been chugging along since at least the 16th century.

Societal changes takes time, just see how long the preceding systems lasted. 160 years is not so long in a historical perspective.Admittedly we have less time now, due to the special character of capitalism, but there is no reasons to be an alarmist, the world is not going under tomorrow.

Yet no significant areas of the world run by purely socialistic governance,

That is true.
On the other hand organized labour, mainly basing their struggle on socialist ideas, has gained not modest victories in the class struggle during its time of existence. Some of these ideas have been successfully implemented in the capitalist societies and might very well form a basis for the further process.
Admittedly the 80s and particulary the 90s - one of those lost decades - saw a counter-revolution, but I doubt that this is more than a temporal setback.
However I also think we see the contures of police states in the more advanced capitalist societies, and history shows us that the ruling class will stop short of virtually nothing to consolidate their privileged position. This can't be taken too seriously, and is why I think that we are facing said choice.

and the most capitalist states have steadfastly avoided barbarism.

I think that is largely untrue and that it really takes an ivory tower mentality to keep such an opinion. It is barbarism even if it doesn't happen to you and me.
Capitalist states built up and are keeping their dominant positions through domestic and foreign exploitation, and if what measures taken by the bourgeoisie in the late 30s to save the system was not barbarism, then I don't know what one could call barbarism.
As I mentioned somewher before, I think one might call capitalism a continuation of feudalism with other means, where the privileged center might be regarded as a global Versailles.

The 'Long Run' may be very long indeed.

One could think so.
However since capitalism is unique among exploitative systems in that it also have the power to destroy the basis for our future existence, the question is if not people will realize that measures have to be taken fairly quickly.

 

[aelf]

Feudalism had lasted far longer than capitalism has so far.

That is true.
On the other hand organized labour, mainly basing their struggle on socialist ideas, has gained not modest victories in the class struggle during its time of existence. Some of these ideas have been successfully implemented in the capitalist societies and might very well form a basis for the further process.
Admittedly the 80s and particulary the 90s - one of those lost decades - saw a counter-revolution, but I doubt that this is more than a temporal setback.
However I also think we see the contures of police states in the more advanced capitalist societies, and history shows us that the ruling class will stop short of virtually nothing to consolidate their privileged position. This can't be taken too seriously, and is why I think that we are facing said choice.

I would be a bit more positive about socialist development in Western Europe so far. However, that seems to be under threat right now from notions of competitiveness in the face of large countries with virtual corporatist systems. And it is a real threat. At least for some time it makes the socialist position difficult in the global market as the corporatist systems can really undercut it at significant social costs, while enforcing the order with police state measures as you pointed out.

I guess there would indeed have to be some sort of a worldwide revolution for socialism to emerge victorious. But, then again, perhaps these trials serve to keep the socialist movements lean and keep them from deviating such as incumbent systems tend to do.

 

[Alassius]

Oh yes, that is something we really need.

Anybody who lumps Adam Smith and Milton Friedman together must have:
a) not read both nor any of them
b) not understood both nor any of them
c) both a and b


No it isn't.


Yes it does.


Of course. But that is not very relevant.

... That's little more than simple assertions. I'm afraid I do not know how to reason with it except by saying "you are wrong".

Sig-worthy.

Oh, let me give you something more sig-worthy:

"... In spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose ... be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society."

Now that I've shown it's not just my lunatic view of the world, I think I have also demonstrated that the above point is so counterintuitive that some people would ridicule the idea before even thinking about it.

Only uncle Milt. Adam Smith was quite a competent philosopher, and judging from his work and life he would have been quite horrified by the Chicago boys.

Care to elaborate?

Except that they have no right to call themselves libertarians, but this has been addressed many times before.
I suggest propretarians or my own invention walletarians.

How exactly are the "walletarians" different from "libertarians"?

Do they? I was under the impression that they were pretty much pro-business in theory also. Didn't even Dennis Kucinich the most decent of the whole lot, want to "save capitalism"?

That is evident. But most capitalis are way to smart to take those mock-libertarians seriously, they know how important the government and the state is for keeping up their privilegies.

That's right. If you give power to the government, it will be abused. Republicans and democrats simply abuse that power in different ways.

What is needed is a restriction on what kind of power the government can have. The Americans already have an extraordinary piece: the Bill of Rights. Notice the difference in wording between the Bill and other parts of the Constitution? The other parts say "the State shall...". The Bill says "the State shall not...".

Adam Smith, well-known moral philosopher, wanted a society based on equality. He claimed that basic tenets of human character embraced such as sympathy, solidarity,
the right to control one's work.

Like you said, Adam Smith advocated the right to control one's work. He wanted a society based on equality in the sense that everyone is free from coercion. But he did not advocate "to whom according to his need", did he? I found it amusing that you are trying to make fun of "anybody who lumps Adam Smith and Milton Friedman together", while your difference from either of them is quite a bit larger than the difference between them.

It is true that he was a protagonist of the free market, but this must be seen in its historical context. I would probably done the same myself if I had lived in his time.

Oh yes, it's so readily apparent that selfishness can be a good thing isn't it? Especially after centuries of Christian teaching that profiteering was a sin? I'm amazed at your confidence of your foresight. I for one am certain that I would not have understood Adam Smith if I was born in his age.

 

[Alassius]

Now, since you mention "malls" in your argument, it just goes to show that you have no idea what I'm talking about. Furthermore, no liberal in the USA or social democrat in Europe is against private retailers.

I'm lost. Aren't private retailers evil corporations too? Like, I don't know, Wal-Mart? What exactly makes private retailers good again?

No. I'm sorry, but private property is just as intrusive as any law. And it's the property regime that entitles the few over the many, and thus creating inequality if left unregulated by democratic government. Public regulation of private activities is important because it's the only realistic way for the working class to restrain the excesses of concentrated private wealth.

This is the usual libertarian fallacy: contractual agreements are always supposedly consensual and voluntary no matter how vast the disparity of wealth and power between the two enacting sides in the agreement. An unregulated property regime privileges the few to the degree that it’s irrelevant whether contractual agreements are functionally voluntary because the rabble will work for them no matter what and accept diminishing wages and nonexistent work security.

You're making quite a few assumptions here:

1. The "rabble" are willing to work for diminishing wages. For that, either:

1.1 They just like it. Incidentally, this would apply to you too, unless you happen to be a filthy capitalist. Or,
1.2 They have no choice.

2. For the "rabble" to have no choice, it is necessary that:

2.1 There is only one single employer offering jobs, across every existing industry, so they can't even switch to a different type of job. Or,
2.2 All employers offer exactly same wage compensation and have same policy regarding to anything that might affect your choice of job, even if it's as remote as environmentalism.

3. For all employers to offer exactly same wage compensation, it is necessary that:
3.1 They have agreement with each other to offer same level of wage in order to prevent workers from demanding higher wage.

But what if someone want a higher profit by hiring smarter people with higher productivity?

4.1 There is no reason to break the agreement, i.e. any amount of increase of productivity is not enough to offset the tiniest increase of wage. Or,
4.2 The agreement is a law and every corporation is automatically bound by it.

Do you see where this is getting at? 2.1 and 4.2 were not found in free market countries, but - surprise! They were found in the greatest human endeavour to cure these supposed ailment of free market. Isn't it a bit ironic that what you are accusing of capitalism only happened in the opposite of capitalism?

They can always buy the services of totally unregulated PR-mills and think tanks (intellectual mercenaries).

Last time I heard, Rupert Murdoch totally owned every single newspaper, TV network, website, everything you could ever possibly get news from!

Oh wait, he didn't. He merely owned a third or so of American media. Was he too lazy? Nah, I think you rather overestimated the power of private enterprise. No corporation has ever managed anything resembling a monoply on news media, simply because people want to hear different things and they'll pay for what they want to hear. Now, history quiz: who had managed to absolutely control the media in a country?

Well, no. The democrats (at least in theory) support public intervention in markets for the benefit of the working class, the republicans do so to support the privileged and big business at the expense of the working class. The libertarian solution, “let’s be pretend that the working class and business are really equal” is more favourite of big business, because the workers and the people who fire them, are not equal.

Yeah. When I got this job I was totally privileged that my company offered me a higher-than-average salary. This so not happens to anyone else. Every other company are such mean bastards who tries to pay minimal wage to everyone regardless of their skill and experience. Wage negotiation is so totally a fairy story. Right?

Of course, that'd happen if you simply ignore the fact that business also needs the workers to actually make money. And smarter workers can still bring more productivity than they are compensated even given a higher pay. It's not just the workers who are trying to find a job. Corporations also try very hard to find the right person to do the job. They are willing to pay a lot for it.

No, there’s no “natural” way to do anything. Grass-roots campaigning and consumer activity is a very inefficient way of keeping companies accountable.

As opposed to write to your senator? That surely is more efficient!

Competition is absolutely not profitable. Therefore the companies avoid it.

And they have absolutely done it! If they could just.... Wait, did they ever managed to avoid competition in the past?

Yeah, right. Not when the bad guys can provide cheap goods with child slaves and polluting factories.

So, you want to regulate the bad guys. The result? No cheap goods, and everyone has to pay more. Now, why don't you just buy expensive goods yourself? Oh, you can, but you don't trust everyone else would, right? In other words, you'd rather artifically increase other people's living expense for moral reasons. But wait, weren't you supposed to care for the poor people who can't afford the more expensive organic ethical goods?

Milton Friedman was a late 20th century intellectual so he’s not what I was referring to. Adam on the other hand, advocates various social democratic programs, including public education and pro-labour policies.

Perhaps you can elaborate on Smith's such programs?

 

[holy king]

How long run are you talking about here?

It's been 160 years (on the dot, in fact) since the Communist Manifesto was first published and Capitalism in Britain has been chugging along since at least the 16th century. Yet no significant areas of the world run by purely socialistic governance, and the most capitalist states have steadfastly avoided barbarism. The 'Long Run' may be very long indeed.

hm... isnt "capitalism will lead even the most barbaric nations into civilization" a quote from said communist manifesto?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

So....being liberal is having the power to drop an atomic bomb (twice) on a foreign nation?

Wow. I never realized that.

You can't drop an atomic bomb twice.

 

[Princeps]

So, you want to regulate the bad guys. The result? No cheap goods,

No slave goods. So yes.

Human decency should be reflected in the price as well. If not, well, then we can just return to full scale slavery.