You seem to be comfortable with criticising dialectical/historical materialism while at the same time asserting that Marxism tries to return man to a "state of nature". Should I be surprised that you don't see the inconsistency?
The idea of a return to an idealised past is simply inconsistent with Hegelian dialectics. There's really nothing more that needs to be said about that. As I've always said, you may have read Marx but you don't seem to understand what you read anyway.
Not "return", more like ascending to something that resembles the good parts of the state of nature, for example innocence, but doesn't have the bad parts, for example starvation. The ultimate system is superior to both the original state of nature, and the various systems based on private property. How is that not Hegel?
In that case, neither is appealing in contrast with known alternatives.
True, but the context here is whether the autocrats would do better or worse in absence of western arms sale, so the comparison is still interesting. My argument is that without the sales, those autocracies would just manage their people in the same way it has always been done. With economic integration, however, western hypocrisy at least make them do something nice once in a while. American generals for example played a part in preventing the Egyptian army from opening fire on their people.
Afraid I don't agree. I think people in modern Arab autocracies are much better off in almost every way, compared to peasants in a typical medieval kingdom. Keep in mind that most Arab countries have an HDI higher than world average. Think about the kind of things people are protesting about: corruption, lack of democracy, and unemployment. How often do you think a medieval peasant would complain about those? They'd just accept it as life.
Things that cannot eat tend to starve.
(Let alone reproduce)
Are you saying without western arms sale, those despots would have no other way to get tools of oppression, hence "starve"?
Except that greedy people can have a vested interest in helping others to give to them through negotiation, coercion, and other measures. Make a person greedy enough, and the lives of others are of no concern. Greed encourages the accumulation of power. It does not disperse it as you seem to think.
Greedy people want to accumulate power, but greed does not by itself create power. Power is generally a zero-sum game. You can't create power for someone without diminishing power for some others. Encouraging everyone to accumulate power means, paradoxically, everyone gets a smaller share.
Interesting read, what do you mean by negative liberties?
Nobody should be allowed to bomb your home, for example.
