What is "leftism"?

[Borachio]

So... Both are rationalizing?

I don't know, to be honest. Unless by rationalizing you just mean thought.

I'd have thought that subscribing to an accepted dogma is the very opposite of rationality. And being idealistic just seems to be an unrealistic kind of optimism. How could that be rational?

 

[Angst]

I don't know, to be honest. Unless by rationalizing you just mean thought.

I'd have thought that subscribing to an accepted dogma is the very opposite of rationality. And being idealistic just seems to be an unrealistic kind of optimism. How could that be rational?

Rationalization is a process that attempts to legitimize something mentally, usually with a logical argument to support it. While the logical argument is usually rationally valid, it is also usually invalid when it comes to the real world.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. I get that. It's just that being ideological is perfectly possible without attempting any rationalization at all. No doubt it's possible to attempt to rationalize it, when or if challenged to justify it. But I don't see why it's at all necessary, or even usual, to do so.

 

[Angst]

I like your definitions and thoughts on the terms, don't get me wrong! I'm pretty sure I agree with you, it just seemed like you asked what rationalizing meant.

 

[Borachio]

I was just trying to work out how you were connecting "rationalizing" with "ideological" and "idealistic". I don't see much of a connection myself.

 

[Angst]

I'm of the position that having a political standpoint at all is kind of a dogmatic rationalization. It's extreme in itself, somehow, even while attempting to escape all kinds of idealisms. Useless, complicated, all that. That's me.

 

[Borachio]

I'm inclined to agree with you. I've never subscribed to any political ideology myself. And I've rather thought I was being a bit apathetic. But perhaps I'm just sensible instead (as if!). I can usually see two sides to most arguments - I don't believe the politically committed can, or rather, I don't think they want to.

 

[Oruc]

I'm inclined to agree with you. I've never subscribed to any political ideology myself. And I've rather thought I was being a bit apathetic. But perhaps I'm just sensible instead (as if!). I can usually see two sides to most arguments - I don't believe the politically committed can, or rather, I don't think they want to.

Everyone thinks that about themselves.

 

[Borachio]

Everyone thinks that about themselves.

Do they?

Explain the House of Commons to me, then.

Or, hang on a minute, maybe you have a point. Do you think you have? Or can you see you might not?

 

[Traitorfish]

No modern authors? Nothing on why capitalism might be more justifiable than forced equality?

Do you have any to recommend?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I didn't say rude. I said arrogant. As a mentality, not an attitude. I can also see why conservatives react like that to you.

I'm glad you can understand why conservatives want to be my friend.

1. I don't understand this whatsoever. There is zero argument in here.

Then I propose that you read it again. It's in pretty plain English.

2. Obviously state-directed socialism is more inefficient. Do you actually believe that it isn't?

You've missed the point. State involvement in the economy is not inherently inefficient, and neither is it socialism. Yet this textbook, endorsed by a public university (and from what I understand a fairly popularly used book) for use in an intro economics class, saw fit to characterize it as such, and then dismissively ignore it, while returning to how awesome free markets and laissez-faire are. An excellent example of how capitalist society enforces and reinforces one-dimensional thought.

No modern authors?

You asked about the foundations of liberalism. I gave an easy anecdotal example of how I had read many of them, and fairly recently. If you're expecting me to throw down names like The Road to Serfdom and Capitalism and Freedom, you're in for a bit of a wait, followed by a disappointment.

Nothing on why capitalism might be more justifiable than forced equality?

Capitalism is forced inequality. I personally know enough about that to last me a lifetime. At any rate I'm not responsible to you to disclose my entire library's contents, or my political reading repertoire.

Have you ever read anything that might suggest how cooperative enterprise might be more just than hierarchical-driven wage-slavery?

 

[Borachio]

Have you ever read anything that might suggest how cooperative enterprise might be more just than hierarchical-driven wage-slavery?

But wait. Isn't the Marxist inspired state a cooperative enterprise?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

But wait. Isn't the Marxist inspired state a cooperative enterprise?

It could theoretically be, though that's not really a model that I favor. Jack London, through the mouth of Ernest Everhard, portrays the socialist "economy" as a democratic super-monopoly, literally encompassing the entire economy and country. It's not necessarily linked to the state, though in this post-state world one might think that this giant distributive apparatus as being the closest equivalent to a "state," though it would obviously be purely economic as political structures would probably exist at the local level to handle other interactions across society.

There's not really one correct answer. The post-capitalist society will take whatever form or forms the people as a whole decide upon, for it will be wholly theirs.

 

[Borachio]

Well, I call "the emperor's new clothes". The world belongs to us all already. We just lie to ourselves, and say it belongs only to a few.

Why this is so, I do not know.

 

[Traitorfish]

That was pretty much what Marx was arguing, or at least so far as I understand him.