Some crackpot opinions if you'll bear with me.
A tea bowl from the Joseon Dynasty of Korea, 16th century, repaired using the kintsugi technique, which involves gold powder. DADEROT/WIKIMEDIA/PUBLIC DOMAIN
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Basically, pure capitalism and pure communism are well-nigh indistinguishable - both can work pretty well with responsible people in power, but not otherwise. Vast systems with complex hierarchies and powerful leaders emerge in both. Bureaucracies thrive. The differences become more symbolic than substantive.
Pure capitalism and pure communism are similar not only in their result but in their deontological prespective. They start with a set of principles, and emerge with a set of rules, rules which they firmly believe to be in the best interests of humanity.
But here's the problem: it's all too easy in these rule-based systems for power to be captured by irresponsible people, at which point all hell breaks loose.
In practice are also fundamentally agreed in their belief that the fundamental question of human governance is economic. They simply come to diametrically opposed positions on the question of "property".
Now, many would be in accord with me when I say that the truth must lie somewhere between "everything should be property" and "nothing should be property".
But it seems a bit surprising and radical nowadays to say that it's the wrong question. I'm not sure many would agree with me on that score. But hear me out.
I suggest that the fundamental question of human governance is not economic at all, though. It is ethical. Are the people with the most influence good people, or are they selfish fools? After all history isn't written by the rule set, it is written by the people who are most adept at influencing the system that results from those rules.
"Left vs right" is simply a distraction from "right vs wrong".
The answer to the ethical question, in a given polity, seems almost perfectly orthogonal to the question of economic organization or political tribe.
There are "good kings" and "bad kings". Good mandarins and bad. Good commissars and bad. Good billionaires and bad. Good presidents and bad.
"In what system by what means did you get to power?" Perhaps it doesn't matter. History cares whether you and those around you had empathy for the world around you after you achieved it, or not.
But also, perhaps making systems *too* rule based leaves too many opportunities for sociopaths to find loopholes. I mean, there are just some things we shouldn't put up with, whether the rules successfully accounted for them or not. ===
But also, perhaps making systems *too* rule based leaves too many opportunities for sociopaths to find loopholes. I mean, there are just some things we shouldn't put up with, whether the rules successfully accounted for them or not. ===
"Whoa, whoa, what I want to know, is are you kind?" - Robert C Hunter
4 comments:
In trying to frame politics in terms of the goodness of the leaders rather than the quality of the system you side with Plato against Popper, without showing awareness of either. Don't be like those who start every discussion from first principles and so go nowhere. Read the Republic and more importantly The Open Society and its Enemies.
William, you are often suggesting you want me to read things, without suggesting why. It's not helpful - I can't devote my reading time to your reading taste any time we have a disagreement in the hopes that I will attain a eureka moment curing me of my tiresome indifference to economic thoery. You should be able to summarise.
With regard to Popper specifically, I did find this wherein he attempts to summarise on his own. https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/from-the-archives-the-open-society-and-its-enemies-revisited
I found it just as speculative as my own speculations, and with regard to two-party configurations, especially in the light of events subsequent to his summary, obviously inadequate. If he has authoritative arguments, they aren't evident.
On the other hand, it did go to the question I'm raising here, which is the nature of good vs bad government, and not to what I take to be your confusion, viz. the conflation of economic theory with a theory of how societies should be organised. It's entirely compatible with my position that the economic structure is not of first order importance, but rather is secondary to the capacity of a society to choose leaders of sound ethics and competence.
Huh. Well, welcome back. I will say that the "rules" inform the mechanisms by which leaders attain power and consequently the sorts of leaders who come to power. You wouldn't see a Trump in China nor a Putin in the U.S., at least as they're currently configured. Of course, neither man is kind.
> often suggesting you want me to read things, without suggesting why.
(a) I'm suggesting the same things, so your implication that I'm trying to overburden you is wrong.
(b) I told you why. Because you're trying to discuss things ab-initio with no awareness that these are well-considered problems.
As to summary: it is hard. These people didn't write books just because they wanted a fat publishes per-word fee; these are not airport novels. They wrote because they had things to say. Besides which: you claim to be interested in these matters. Why are you so reluctant to study?
> https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/from-the-archives-the-open-society-and-its-enemies-revisited
It was written in 2016 it appears, and he seems to have confused A's theory (http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2019/01/aristotles-politics.html) with P's.
However, it correctly tells you "From Plato to Karl Marx and beyond, the fundamental problem has always been: who should rule the state? (One of my main points will be that this problem must be replaced by a totally different one.) Plato’s answer was simple and naive: “the best” should rule." I'm not sure why you regard that as speculative. And continues with "The new problem, as distinct from the old “Who should rule?”, can be formulated as follows: how is the state to be constituted so that bad rulers can be got rid of without bloodshed, without violence?"
> the capacity of a society to choose leaders of sound ethics and competence.
You have missed the point.
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