The anti-capitalistic mentality

[mmm....shiney!]

Well it seems to me that regardless of core principles, they have all devolved into centralised hierarchical control structures over time.

I'm drawing the conclusion that all ideologies are fundamentally flawed because they tend to define discrete systems, while reality is a complex and dynamic environment that is always deviant from idealised definitions. So, a named ideology by fact of definition is, ultimately, a failed ideology.

This becomes evident when one considered that although society has been at this for eons, working through the different "isms", we are not living a utopian existence, but one that currently appears to be dominated by a parasitic rentier class competing for their monopolisation over the resources of the planet and a professional political class that facilitates and obfuscates that monopolisation.

That is why an adherence to voluntarism/libertarianism/anarchism is the most suitable or "most perfect" system. Such a system has the narrowest set of definitions guiding human behaviour out of all the "isms" ie don't hurt other people or their property. A guiding principle as remotely removed from a centralised hierarchical structure as can exist, whilst still maintaining the liberty of the individual.

 

[CriticalSilver]

@CriticalSilver: I'll try to give short responses rather than essays

Well it seems to me that regardless of core principles, they have all devolved into centralised hierarchical control structures over time.

Backing up a bit, this side discussion started with your comment that "Perhaps we need a new "ism" that explicitly recognises the corruption of humans motivated by greed and power."

If your problem with any given political philosophy (or "ism") is that they have devolved into centralised hierarchical control structures, then presumably a better "ism" is one that says that centralised hierarchical control structures are invalid - ie they are explicitly not part of the philosophy. Hence, my response about the various anarchist philosophies. That indeed is their point. Classical Liberalism identified the problem of granting privileges and authority to any individual and hence advocated for separation of powers, audit institutions and the like (such as we in the English-speaking world enjoy). It also advocated a strong rule of law. However, for various reasons, it maintained a centralised monopolistic institution whereby politicians had the power to override the separation of powers, could ignore the audit institutions and could make laws that pertained to the citizens but which it itself did not have to follow. Consequently it has a cancer at its heart because although it explicitly recognised that humans motivated by greed and power can cause great ills, it left intact an ability for such humans to cause damage. The anarchist philosophies do away with the centralised institution as well.

I think you make my argument better than I do, but the point is missed. That is that it is not possible to have utopian ideologies that deny or ignore those that seek power and control. They will, as you show so well, have out.

I'm drawing the conclusion that all ideologies are fundamentally flawed because they tend to define discrete systems, while reality is a complex and dynamic environment that is always deviant from idealised definitions. So, a named ideology by fact of definition is, ultimately, a failed ideology.

This is too extremist a position for my liking. The key thing to remember is that people learn. And the best way to learn is often to try out different ideas and run with them. The history of humans has been learning about ideas and institutions that work (with the occasional set-backs and standard intergenerational forgetfulness) and in terms of political philosophy this is no different. The Westminster System built upon the ideas of Lockean liberty was a very large step change in trying out a new system of governance. As history has shown, compared to pretty much any other system tried since it did a fantastic job of granting freedoms and prosperity to the masses.

Is it perfect? Of course not. It is arguable however, that the reasons why it is not "perfect" (in a dynamic general sense not in terms of some "utopian perfection") is because when it was birthed from the system it made a handful of major compromises. The Americans experimented with fixing some of the compromises and did extremely well (indeed was arguably the most successful in human history) but gave birth to new bad institutions that also act as cancers within itself. So I'd argue that it is a problem with the compromises rather than the underlying "ism" per se.

It may well be considered extreme, but I am thinking it might actually be more balanced in so far as acknowledging that there is no perfect ideology and not getting carried away with unrealistic hopes. The greedy will corrupt and usurp, the lazy will demand a share, the egalitarians will provide it at the expense of others, the pragmatists will compromise against virtue, the self-reliant who want to be left alone will be disappointed, the abusive will enforce and the theorists will theorise.

This becomes evident when one considered that although society has been at this for eons, working through the different "isms", we are not living a utopian existence, but one that currently appears to be dominated by a parasitic rentier class competing for their monopolisation over the resources of the planet and a professional political class that facilitates and obfuscates that monopolisation.

I'm not really following what this is about. Sounds like an attack on immoral privileges granted by an illegitimate authority to me. If so, I'd agree with that.

Again, I'm just illustrating how things have devolved. As you illustrate so well, the integrity of institutions and the consistent rule of law that was the backbone of the geo-political success of the British empire and the starting point of the American Republic have been undermined.

That's not to say that ideologies don't have relative benefits over each other, depending on one's subjective position, but to acknowledge that those benefits are relative and not absolute.

Largely agree with the sentiment. Different aspects of life will generally be better or worse under different ideologies. I'd disagree that there isn't any absolute benefit between different political philosophies however (eg people's lives under Maoism, Stalinism, Fascism etc versus English derived Liberal Democracies).

I do agree. But suspect the benefits are not enduring and the ideological starting points are not where things remain.

 

[bordsilver]

Corruption will occur. Immoral people (or people who act immorally) will still exist and seek to do bad things by others. Sheeple will jump onto bandwagons, disregarding the longer term consequences of doing so. As per the discussions in the opening few posts, the best way of dealing with such people/situations is to have healthy competition across all institutions especially ones of governance, policing, justice etc. If we didn't have a monopolist semi-immune from the rule of law at the heart of each nation then I strongly believe that we'd be seeing far more creative destruction within the roles currently serviced by local, state and federal governments. Entities would be naturally smaller and accountable via the power of the sovereign consumer.

 

[mmm....shiney!]

As James Ostrowski argues in a link I put up on the "Beyond Democracy" thread, Utopian ideologies are self-contradictory. They fail to understand the reality of humans and human behaviour:

One of the premises of utopianism is that there is a political solution for every human problem. This is why utopians insist that advocates of self-government detail how self-government will solve every conceivable social problem. On the contrary, not only is there not a political solution for most human problems, there is not an earthly solution of any kind for many human problems. Similarly, it is typical for utopians to require a complete blueprint for the future which provides for all contingencies. Statists who could not guarantee that on September 11 the US would not suffer a devastating attack insist that advocates of self-government set forth every detail of how a decentralized, privatized justice system would work. This is folly. All that can be done and that needs to be done is to set forth the essential logic of the system and to show that all competing systems of justice have failed. Self-government will work, or not work, according to the nature and character of the people in a given society. Should we continue to operate under a system that has failed and whose failure was inevitable given its contradictions and never find out if there is a workable alternative? Is it possible there will be problems under a regime of self-government? Yes, and what else is new? The relevant question is will problems under self-government be worse than the problems of the state monopoly system? It is difficult to see how they could be.