Libertarian Socialism

[The Grand Nudger]

Until folks directly decide to own slaves - and then someone has to step in and say "Nope, sorry, not happening", eh?

including loss of private property and wealth, into becoming community profit, and everything should be regarded with having the prespective of having community as the priority over self interests.

Except that if they can't directly-democratically decide to own private property, wealth - against community "profit" and for their own self interests we're not actually talking about a direct democracy (if what they can directly democratically vote yay or nay for is limited in any way..say, by a constitution..we've left the field of "direct democracy" and gone on to other things). I think it's pretty well established that people do tend to vote yay for these things given the chance, btw. IMO, a better compromise is a system that protects those things and allows for them - but that also allows for people to -at the social or cultural level- not pursue them. That leaves the field open and amounts to more liberty. The fewer things that are specifically not allowed under a system the better. Doesn't mean that everything has to be permissible, or that the list of things not permissible can't be obscenely long, but every item on that list better have a damned good reason for being there, and if it doesn't -need- to be there it has no business being on the list.

I'm biased, I admit that fully..lol.

[Dystopia]

Direct democracy is the best idea ever, it's just very hard to obtain.
The flaws of democracy most of the time can be adressed, but it's in the interest of the system to perpetuate things as they are, and allienate people on politics and on having more community "sense". The thing is, the ones that "could" do something are the ones that exactly act against it, our political and financial elites.

A lot of ideas are the best ideas ever, but many are hard to obtain. I'm not going to adress utopias, it is completely useless. I don't accept the argument of My political ideology is correct if people behaved like this - If your idea doesn't fit reality, it is useless.

Obviously, in a direct democracy, people should be well educated and "configurated" into having real sense of community and taking decisions for the best of the community instead of only self-interest, which would require several things including loss of private property and wealth, into becoming community profit, and everything should be regarded with having the prespective of having community as the priority over self interests.

1 - Not everyone can have a good education, some people will prefer just the basics, others will finish highschool, some will drop of, we can't demand that all people excel, and even if most people were in fact educated that doesn't make them fit to take political decisions. If I had a degree in agriculture, that wouldn't give me the skills to make decisions when it comes to fishing.

2 - A good balance between sense of community and self-interest/wealth/private property is the most moderate choice and it leaves us with a good equilibrium. If I generate wealth, I am entitled to keep my part, as well as my property, Man likes owning patrimony, and takes better care of what belongs to him. I don't even think community goals are above self-interest, maybe because I'm a narcissistic person. And don't forget if all wealth was for the community, then probably few people would want to supply it - Free riding would happen a lot. I wouldn't be studying so hard if I couldn't, in the future, keep most of my wealth (and I'm doing pretty good)

People aren't inherently capitalistic or with lack of community sense, with too much selfishness and individualism, it's the system, greed, shortages and opportunity to do it that are some of the main reasons for why some people become so selfish and corruptible.

A-ham - Capitalism doesn't equal a lack of community sense, I'm a capitalist and I'm always worried about the society I live in - I'm not selfish either, just narcissistic but that's a personal trait. People aren't inherently anything, it's the social environment you are raised in that makes you the way you are - Maybe I'm a capitalist and pro-private property because I've seen my government fucking up too many times and I've had overall better experiences with private services, but others could argue the opposite. Individualism is what makes every one of us unique and it's essential, that's why there are individual rights - Without the individual, there is no society, so the individual person has value from the beginning.

That's why some ideologies try to adress a transition into a direct democracy, because we'll for sure need eventually a transition from our capitalistic ways in order to survive and not overpopulate nor waste resources on this little planet.

We need sustainable development for sure, but direct democracy would be a total failure. I prefer to propose measures or alternatives that would actually work at least minimally right now instead of sayingIf things were X, then Y would work.

Rythm - When it comes to small local communities maybe a little bit of direct democracy would be good, as long as the people doing it were competent - But I'm talking about national governments here.

[The Grand Nudger]

If I had a degree in agriculture, that wouldn't give me the skills to make decisions when it comes to fishing.

Or- for that matter, agriculture. Experts make poor policy decisions all the damned time - even within their own area of expertise.

I agree, that at a very small scale - probably not even on the "local" level but on the neighborhood or city block lvl (gotta remember, some "localities" have 2.5 million people in them.....) some direct democracy would be nice. It would have to be incredibly limited in it's scope though (and to my mind, limited by a national government). Also, as soon as we say "if they are competent" it's not direct democracy anymore. Direct democracy allows "the incompetent" to have a say and potentially, for that say to be the final word- it must (and this is the easiest and quickest criticism of the idea, on practical grounds and others). When we slim down the pool of possible voters along those lines we're talking about a different arrangement.

[Minimalist]

I'm still trying to understand how is there a connection between socialism and less government intervention,

Oh, that's very simple. When banker scumbags trashed the economy they went running to the government for a bailout. This is considered "freedom."


When grandma has to eat cat food because these cocksucking corporate criminals have slashed her food stamps that is considered to be an example of "socialism."

Fuck every last one of these sorry sons of bitches.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and that....is how grannies get eaten by their cats. Y'all know I grew up in Florida so this is an important connection that I think people ought to pay more attention to.

[stonedape]

This is generally called tribalism; and, yes, it's worse in many ways to the society we have now.

There's nothing wrong with peaceful, co-operative, secular tribalism. The silk road is a good example. They brought silk all the way from China to Europe. This wouldn't have worked if they maintained the convert or die attitude. Of course there were road bandits to bust up the peace. Eventually they just settled on collecting taxes. Much more lucrative in the long run. You can only raid and murder somebody once. It's all about repeat business. Eventually the road bandits are justified to keep the road bandits out.

Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" speech is the focus humans should have if we want to extend our species ride.

Yes we should. We should also read Guns, Germs and Steel. I'd argue that theory is more important than the theory of evolution. Co-existence is the destination of our social evolution. We need to achieve this end peacefully. Starting by respecting individuals.

I do not identify myself as an atheist. I am a humanist. People used to think god was necessary to result in good behavior. Now people only believe the state is necessary to promote good behavior. Good behavior is necessary to promote good behavior. Not some fabricated authority.

[The Grand Nudger]

Jared Diamond fan, have you read Collapse yet?

I can't imagine why anyone would think that the state was necessarry to promote good behavior. It simply protects us against bad behavior. It can provide a rewarding environment for good behavior, so I guess it could be argued...but I think I'm with you on that count.

[stonedape]

Jared Diamond fan, have you read Collapse yet?

I can't imagine why anyone would think that the state was necessarry to promote good behavior. It simply protects us against bad behavior. It can provide a rewarding environment for good behavior, so I guess it could be argued...but I think I'm with you on that count.

Not yet. Here's Diamond's Collapse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdBSWjxKJOE
Here's another Collapse. Michael Rupert is a little too alarmist to be taken seriously. But that doesn't mean he's wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdO2Xh51Q-U

[TaraJo]

This is generally called tribalism; and, yes, it's worse in many ways to the society we have now.

There's nothing wrong with peaceful, co-operative, secular tribalism. The silk road is a good example. They brought silk all the way from China to Europe. This wouldn't have worked if they maintained the convert or die attitude. Of course there were road bandits to bust up the peace. Eventually they just settled on collecting taxes. Much more lucrative in the long run. You can only raid and murder somebody once. It's all about repeat business. Eventually the road bandits are justified to keep the road bandits out.

Peaceful tribalism rarely happens and when it does, it usually ends when another "tribe" decides they want to be in charge. Which, again, is kinda what ended the silk road: Arabian states decided not to let non-Muslims travel through their lands, essentially ending the silk road.

The overwhelming majority of the time, tribal societies consist of nearly a constant state of combat with each other, often over issues we would consider petty. Before white folks came over, North American natives were always fighting each other in spite of the fact that they had lots of land and resources to share amongst each other. Currently, tribal Somalia has been in a civil war for 20 or so years. Before recorded history, tribalism reigned and resulted in tribes always running raids against each other for resources (the resources were usually women, btw). Even now, if you look at some of the ghettos out there, where rule of law and politics are basically ignored and even police are scare to go, tribalism rules in the form of street gangs; how peaceful are those?

So, yeah, tribalism could work. But I don't see it happening. It's far more common for tribalism to result in more violence and fighting and destruction and less general progressiveness.

[stonedape]

So, yeah, tribalism could work. But I don't see it happening. It's far more common for tribalism to result in more violence and fighting and destruction and less general progressiveness.

We are getting way off subject here. I was talking about decentralized direct democracy. It would be mutually beneficial to co-operate with one another despite our differences. We could work out our differences through co-operation. That's the nature of free association.

I do recognize the strength that comes through centralization. But you gotta look at the problems that have gone unmanaged. Politicians on the right talk about the evils of the welfare state and the democrats pretend to take global warming seriously. Yet they both agree to hand out trillions of dollars in corporate welfare to coal crooks.