Progressives (Liberals)

@Olivier5,

That's not the same thing as implementing intrusive, Authoritarian elements to the government of a capitalist country, so far based on individual freedom and initiative. Trump has not done that. Indeed he has relaxed some of the intrusive, and in most cases not beneficial, even for their stated objectives, regulatory burdens that have steadily grown here over the past three decades, and which have indeed limited our economic growth and agility.

I also wouldn't characterize his policies as "anti trade", though many do indeed embody arguably protectionist motives. In the case of China he has taken action to limit the effect of truly exploitive trade policies involving requirements for the establishment of local Joint Venture companies (generally involving a an enterprise owned and operated by the Chinese government ) as a prerequisite for trade in China. He has also made an issue of their dumping and rather blatant & systematic theft of intellectual property. He has also challenged the EU, which has indeed adopted some protectionist policies in an understandable effort to promote trade within the Union, to make the respective tariffs on traded goods more equitable from our perspective. That is the ordinary stuff of trade negotiations.

I believe it would have been more accurate and relevant for you to note Trump's nationalism and skepticism with respect to many of the international organizations that have grown up in the Post Cold Wart Era. That is indeed a rather disruptive policy, but one which, in my view, is indeed needed to moderate some recent excesses.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

I do agree that the capitalist world is indeed becoming more authoritarian, involving greater government control of the administration of an expanding range of market sectors, generally overseen by bureaucracies -- all of which do indeed limit the freedom and initiative of individual citizens.

And following your formula, which are the truly free nations left standing?

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@blatham,

Those that are currently doing the most to limit the reach of the currently fast expanding and intrusive regulatory bureaucracies that are proliferating across the Western world.

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@blatham,

According to blatham's post, Kagan wrote:

In the growing confrontation between the liberal world order and its anti-liberal nationalist and authoritarian opponents, which side does Israel want to be on? The question would have been absurd even a decade ago, when Israelis still regarded themselves as members in good standing in the liberal world.

The Zionists have never been liberal. They may have liberal tendencies among themselves, like the kibbutzim movement, but their endeavor, a "homeland for the Jews," has always been based on European nationalistic ideologies of the 18th century with religious mythologies co-opted for nationalistic purposes as the justification, e.g. "Israel is our birthright." Nationalism is not liberal. Nationalism is patently rightist.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

However the policies he advocates and implements are generally far more free market & laissez faire than are the truly authoritarian bureaucratic models for government control of markets and social movements being implemented so assiduously by Liberals & Progressives across the Western World.

In the advanced economies, "free market" and "laissez faire" policies cannot be counted on to spread and share the wealth generated by the economy in a manner which doesn't increase the gap between the rich and the poor. Regulating markets and implementing social change does not necessarily have to result in authoritarian policies. Trotting out the history of "communism" anytime someone mentions the need to hold corporations accountable or advocates for socialized medicine isn't particularly helpful.

Quote:

(...)involving greater government control of the administration of an expanding range of market sectors, generally overseen by bureaucracies -- all of which do indeed limit the freedom and initiative of individual citizens.

The "freedom" of individual citizens isn't an absolute — wealthy citizens aren't "free" to exploit the poor or to monopolize sectors of the economy for their sole profit. Everyone complains about "bureaucracy" but in a democratic republic bureaucracy is the opposite of authoritarianism and the civil servants who work to implement programs and policies are not the enemies of the people.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

their endeavor, a "homeland for the Jews," has always been based on European nationalistic ideologies of the 18th century with religious mythologies co-opted for nationalistic purposes as the justification, e.g. "Israel is our birthright."

The historical fact that they are indigenous to the West Bank region and it is their ancient homeland isn't a myth.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Inter alia, he's adopted anti-trade policies and told US companies to get out of China...

Just to add a few more examples, the reworking of a trilateral trade bloc in North America, the USMCA, to replace NAFTA, on behalf of protectionist measures in regard to US labor, the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs to prop the US industries' production.

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@oralloy,

Uh-huh. It's not a historical fact. Not by a long shot.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
I do agree that the capitalist world is indeed becoming more authoritarian, involving greater government control of the administration of an expanding range of market sectors, generally overseen by bureaucracies -- all of which do indeed limit the freedom and initiative of individual citizens.
And following your formula, which are the truly free nations left standing?

There are none.

Hong Kong is the closest thing to a "truly economically free" nation, and it still gets a high ranking in various surveys but as much as China wants Hong Kong to remain a cash cow, it doesn't seem to be able to resist clamping down on associated political freedom.

Pirates are "economically free," but that is hardly a model we want the nations of the world to follow. China will, happily, have an enslaved Hong Kong act as a pirate-nation, but it will, eventually, kill the cash cow.

Next comes Singapore, an authoritarian state that comes closest in the world to the concept of a benign dictatorship. They must be doing a lot right though or there would be stories of public unrest. (They are not more tyrannical than the Chinese)

Then there are New Zealand and Switzerland.

The question is can their model work in much larger and more diverse nations. I think not.

The answer then is to break up all of the large nations in the world and allow people to gather together based on their shared values. Alas, unless Superman reveals himself and goes to work this is not going to happen prior to a devasting cataclysm.

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@Olivier5,

Sadistic, I mean.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Look, Finn, I understand how this forum is set up. But certain members continually show up to complain about content they don't like. My objection to Mr. Baldimo's criticism is that if he actually read the exchanges here, he would see that his depiction — "a bunch of grown people standing around with their fingers in their ears yelling "la la la la la la" over and over again to block out opposing opinions" — is specious.

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By "our" do you mean "progressives or liberals" (your choice)?

If a particular thread is set up to discuss "progressive" or "liberal" concerns, complaining that "conservative" issues aren't being addressed is childish. By the way, I don't describe myself as a "progressive" — I think the term (in its current sense) was coined because "liberal" had been denigrated to such an extent that people ran away from it.

Quote:

Use IGNORE

I don't mind addressing people with opposing views and calling them out from time to time. If it bothers you so much, why don't you use it and put me on IGNORE.

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

Uh-huh. It's not a historical fact. Not by a long shot.

History, archaeology, and genetics all say otherwise.

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@hightor,

You evidently have a far more favorable view of the general efficiency and effectiveness of Government bureaucracies than do I. Indeed I find the notion that they are generally protective of our freedoms, or even effective in meeting their assigned goals to be highly unrealistic and contradicted by the observable failures of most of them.

I'll readily agree that the political rhetoric attending the creation or continued operation of government bureaucracies generally does emphasize the supposed beneficial effects on public welfare or even freedom. However, serious examinations of the reality of their operations generally reveals that the opposite is usually the case. These organizations are usually venal, self-serving, occasionally seriously corrupt and usually focused on their own welfare and interests as opposed to the welfare and interests of those they nominally serve. More importantly they all limit the initiative and freedom of action of those they ostensibly serve, and vigorously resist any effort to limit the expansion of their powers.

Examples abound, however the catastrophic ongoing failures of our public schools illustrates all of these issues very well indeed.

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Governments, industries, military, unions - All agencies of society have to be in constant review and possible revision, or you get the sort of imbalances we have now. If it can't be distributed to benefit all elements of society it will degrade into either anarchy or fascism. There may be some who liken me to a chicken little, but I truly believe we have a small and shrinking window of opportunity to correct some of this. The forces with the most momentum are an increasingly destructive nature at a time when the planet itself is struggling to survive.

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@georgeob1,

"Autoritarian" is a concept that goes well beyond "state regulation of the economy". In fact, there is a historical connection between economic deregulation theories and fascism.

Mussolini was much influenced by Pareto, the first econometrician, who theorised that inequallity was a natural and healthy state of affairs. In order to come back to the 'natural' and therefore 'pure' and optimal state of affairs he advised to repel labor laws and ban labor unions. Mussolini had studied under Pareto, and Pareto welcomed Mussolini's rule as a transition to his idea of a non-interventionist state. In effect, fascism is a reaction to socialism and communism. A reaction pulling society towards an ex ante 'natural' state where the strong and dominant is strong because he's the best, and the weak has only himself to blame.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

The Zionists have never been liberal. They may have liberal tendencies among themselves, like the kibbutzim movement, but their endeavor, a "homeland for the Jews," has always been based on European nationalistic ideologies of the 18th century with religious mythologies co-opted for nationalistic purposes as the justification, e.g. "Israel is our birthright." Nationalism is not liberal. Nationalism is patently rightist.

Actially, one of the earliest Zionist (correctly, he was a precursor to what is nowadays called Zionism) was Moses (Moshe) Hess (1812 – 1875).

He belonged to the early socialists and was a mastermind of the Zionists.
With his works Hess was one of the early socialists in Germany. "Holy History of Mankind" (Die heilige Geschichte der Menschheit) was not only Hess’s first large-scale expression of socialism, but also the first expression of socialism written in Germany (1837).

Moses Hess's 1862 work "Rome and Jerusalem" (Rom und Jerusalem, argued for the Jews to settle in Palestine as a means of settling the national question.

Hess laid the foundation of the historic Jewish "labour" (sozialistichen) movements of Eastern and Central Europe.

The understanding of socialisation developed by him played a central role in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' later theory formation. His activities for the left newspaperRheinische Zeitung, the left newspaper Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung and the occasional joint work on the manuscripts Die deutsche Ideologie connected him with Marx. Hess allegedly introduced both Marx and Engels to socialism and communism.

The German Social democracy and the SPD have Jewish origins since the 1860's.

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@hightor,

Are you looking for a "safe space" here on A2K where you will be spared the discomforts associated with disagreement of opposing views of issues being discussed? I believe that is both unrealistic and likely contrary to the founding principles of the site.

I'll agree that a degree of mutual decorum and toleration is required on both sides of any issue being discussed here, and that both are far too often missing from many discussions on the site. My strong impression is that, on these political threads particularly, the failures here are fairly uniformly distributed across the political spectrum, and that on average advocates of conservative views are subject to a bit more intolerance than are their more numerous opponents (though particularly bad offenders can be found on both sides).

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

Those that are currently doing the most to limit the reach of the currently fast expanding and intrusive regulatory bureaucracies that are proliferating across the Western world.

And which countries are those beacons of hope?

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

"Autoritarian" is a concept that goes well beyond "state regulation of the economy". In fact, there is a historical connection between economic deregulation theories and fascism.

Mussolini was much influenced by Pareto, the first econometrician who theorised that inequallity was a natural and healthy state of affairs. In order to come back to the 'natural' and therefore 'pure' and optimal state of affairs he advised to repel labor laws and ban labor unions. Mussolini had studied under Pareto, and Pareto welcomed Mussolini's rule as a transition to this minimal state. In effect, fascism is a reaction to socialism and communism. A reaction pulling society towards an ex ante 'natural' state where the strong and dominant is strong because he's the best, and the weak has only himself to blame.

Interesting observations. However the examples you cite were even more stark under the (often inaccurately supposed opposite ) Socialist & Communist governments of the unlamented 20th century. Lenin wasted no time in outlawing all then existing Labor Unions in his emerging Bolshevik state. Bismarck took a more subtle, effective, and lasting approach by nationalizing the various trade unions and giving them a (limited) voice in corporate governance.

Frankly I don't see much in the way of truly significant difference between Fascism and Communism (as the two have existed so far). Both sought control over all aspects of economic and social life (though the means they used for this were a bit different). In my view the singular differences that distinguishes both from free societies is the totalitarianism noted above, coupled with the notion that the government/ state/party was a fit and empowered judge of the worth of the lives of its citizens or subjects.

I believe George Orwell illustrated this very well in his (now mostly forgotten) Book "1984", published in ~ 1949.

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Quote:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
30m
In fact, my views on Venezuela, and especially Cuba, were far stronger than those of John Bolton. He was holding me back!

I'm like WAY more of a warmongering sociopath than wimpy moustache man. He'd look great in a gingham dress. Sad!

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