The People's Romance

[Carinthium]

http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_10_1_1_klein.pdf

Since this is a leftist site and clearly has a degree of the trend described in the argument as 'TPR', I'd be curious to know what the people here think of it's moral claims and of it's factual claims.

The basic argument (for those who can't be bothered reading it) is that there is a bias towards Statism coming from the idea that keeping 'The People' united is a good thing in and of itself regardless of practical policy effects. The implicit moral argument appears to be that this is a bad thing as it constrains individual liberty and property rights.

[Johonebesus]

Well you see, there is a difference between full blown communism and a touch of socialism. Individual freedom must be constrained in order to have a functioning society. Every single law limits your personal freedom. The question isn't whether the state must take away some personal freedom for the good of society, but rather how much freedom should be sacrificed. Liberals do tend to feel that it is acceptable to place a limit on how much wealth can be accumulated, because with wealth comes power. When the disparity of wealth becomes too great, the rich élite effectively enslaves the masses. Absolute freedom for all will lead to a tyranny of the rich in which most people have little real freedom.

[Carinthium]

That doesn't adress the factual issue, however- which is whether a bias towards the idea of societal unity as a good for it's own sake affects the amount of statism most people advocate.

Also, wealth does not necessarily lead to political power. A hypothetical system with well-made constitutional safeguards against the wealthy influencing politicians could deal with most of the problems in that regard. Finally, there is the question of whether there are ways people can live that do not fit under your definition of 'functioning society'.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Also, wealth does not necessarily lead to political power. A hypothetical system with well-made constitutional safeguards against the wealthy influencing politicians could deal with most of the problems in that regard.

And it could lead to world peace, a world without poverty, and free puppies for everyone too. Except that we don't live in some perfect, undefined hypothetical system, we are stuck in the real world where the wealthy always have more power.

Finally, there is the question of whether there are ways people can live that do not fit under your definition of 'functioning society'.

Certainly. They are just miserable, have little or no freedom and don't live as long. Somalia being an example.

[Simon_Jester]

Well you see, there is a difference between full blown communism and a touch of socialism. Individual freedom must be constrained in order to have a functioning society. Every single law limits your personal freedom. The question isn't whether the state must take away some personal freedom for the good of society, but rather how much freedom should be sacrificed. Liberals do tend to feel that it is acceptable to place a limit on how much wealth can be accumulated, because with wealth comes power. When the disparity of wealth becomes too great, the rich élite effectively enslaves the masses. Absolute freedom for all will lead to a tyranny of the rich in which most people have little real freedom.

Though that process is reversed in societies that do not effectively enforce prohibitions against violence.

When the state limits itself to preventing outright violence and robbery against its citizens, but nothing else, you're liable to wind up with the rich accumulating all power. When the state fails to do that, you wind up with the powerful accumulating all the wealth- insofar as there's any wealth to accumulate.

[bobalot]

Can anybody name a single society in history, that didn't have large government intervention in the economy and society, that wasn't dominated by rich people?

You can talk about theory all you want, reality is the real test of any ideology.

[Carinthium]

bobalot posted after me. I'll deal with his next.

Out of curiousity, I would like to know how many people have actually read the PDF. Also, what do you think of the claim that social contract theory originated as a rationalisation in the face of government power?

Well you see, there is a difference between full blown communism and a touch of socialism. Individual freedom must be constrained in order to have a functioning society. Every single law limits your personal freedom. The question isn't whether the state must take away some personal freedom for the good of society, but rather how much freedom should be sacrificed. Liberals do tend to feel that it is acceptable to place a limit on how much wealth can be accumulated, because with wealth comes power. When the disparity of wealth becomes too great, the rich élite effectively enslaves the masses. Absolute freedom for all will lead to a tyranny of the rich in which most people have little real freedom.

Mostly refuted in the reply to LTA. You also haven't refuted the claim (made often enough to be worth considering, if not one I believe myself) that to limit freedom is morally wrong regardless of such things.

I should also point out that depending on the nature of the system and culture, effective enslavement will not necesarily occur even without safeguards. A system, for example, where the majority of the population are small land-holders forbbiden by law and tradition to sell their land and the comparatively ultra-rich are trading magnates without armies able to stand up to the government, for example, cannot lead to effective enslavement or otherwise.

Since I suspect we disagree on what counts as 'effective enslavement', I would ask you to say where you draw the line.

Also, wealth does not necessarily lead to political power. A hypothetical system with well-made constitutional safeguards against the wealthy influencing politicians could deal with most of the problems in that regard.

And it could lead to world peace, a world without poverty, and free puppies for everyone too. Except that we don't live in some perfect, undefined hypothetical system, we are stuck in the real world where the wealthy always have more power.

Finally, there is the question of whether there are ways people can live that do not fit under your definition of 'functioning society'.

Certainly. They are just miserable, have little or no freedom and don't live as long. Somalia being an example.

1-
The rich will always have more economic power almost by definition. The question in dispute here is whether the rich will always have more political power, even with checks and balances to constrain them. The obvious question is- why do you believe that a government limited by checks and balances is more trustworthy than individuals limited by checks and balances? Government corruption, although still existant, is far less than in ancient times in the modern West.

I'm no lawyer, but ideas based on what I do know include: (NOTE: There are downsides to some of these proposals, but I'm speaking purely from the perspective of constraining the power of the rich whilst letting them keep their wealth, excluding measures that defeat the point such as spending caps)
i- It is constitutionally illegal to run for or hold elected office without having registered as a 'politician' (which would be a legal term under this system)
ii- Politicians are forbidden from communicating with representatives of corporations or individuals with more than a certain amount of wealth (adjusted for inflation) in private directly or indirectly- they can communicate, but everything they 'say' to each other (including written notes, spoken language, typed notes etc) must be disclosed to the public on pain of deposal from office, a jail term, and forfeit of assets.
iii- All people must register the amount of wealth they have with the government- civil libertarians might consider this an infringement of liberties, but that stage was already passed once the government kept track of income.
iv- Freely published and easy-to-acess totals of amounts of political advertising to all political parties.
v- The punishment for breaking these rules includes the forfeit of a large percentage of a person or corporation's wealth- losing 80% of one's assets as a detterent will reduce the number of people willing to risk it. (If the drafters can't find an effective way to define 80%, the amount could be increased to 100% or penalties such as exile or death instituted)
vi- An independent, democratically elected Office of Public Prosecution with it's own internal investigator service
vii- Political parties are allowed to investigate each other (within limits comparable to actual police searches at the moment) to ensure compliance with the law. The desire for risky donations will thus be outweighed by the incentive to undermine one's opponents.
viii- Massive state subsidies for political parties prominent enough to have at least one person elected to a sufficently high office, with lesser subsidies for those with members elected to minor office.

It is also worth noting that unlike most Constitutions, these rules could easily be drafted to a complexity equivilant to modern legislation or greater. These are also the measures I could think of single-handedly- more people could probably improve upon them.

If one is willing to pay the price of such, then one could add in a rule that person could only hold office (that is, any democratically elected office) for a period of one year. Another possibility is for the rich and corporations to forfeit their right to privacy (if one is willing to pay the price).

In order to create a system that comes close to truely certain, one could go further (although at a price in good governance)- all holders of senior offices are kept in confinement within the same building for a long political term (thus putting them out of touch with the realities of politics), with only a single publically monitored computer for simple typed communication. This makes political donations nearly impossible once they're there, allowing most of the relevant investigative bodies to spy on the rich to prevent them contacting prospective politicians.

Most of these measures would be very difficult to introduce, but windows of opportunity exist (especially if one is willing to use the gradual approach of increasing support from intellectuals that gave ideas such as democracy and nationalism such prominence). The easiest way, of course, would be to add these onto the constitution of a newly democratic Third World country (along with measures fitting it's circumstances at the time of course)- this is clearly close enough to feasible to be worth considering.

2- The Somalian example is one way to get around society within the limitations of human nature- there are others. Possible examples (named by me. Some of these could only exist in specific social, political and economic circumstances , admittedly)- 'kibutzism' (various voluntary societies exist with constitutionally limited land areas, but the harshest punishment is exile- there are also large amounts of anarchic lands kept avaliable to allow for a real alternative), 'mass land avaliability' (a variant on the previous one- so much land is avaliable, and the technological blueprints sufficently easy to acess, that a person can easily move and set up somewhere else), 'solitary confinement' (self-explanatory), and 'anarchic idealism' (a small group of cultic fanatics with Al-Queda level devotion isolated from the outside world can make political models sustainable which otherwise wouldn't be).

Additionally, whilst living standards are generally far lower under such systems people are not necessarily miserable- wealth doesn't correlate to happiness as much as many people believe. In many of the systems mentioned, people would have large amounts of freedom.

Though that process is reversed in societies that do not effectively enforce prohibitions against violence.

When the state limits itself to preventing outright violence and robbery against its citizens, but nothing else, you're liable to wind up with the rich accumulating all power. When the state fails to do that, you wind up with the powerful accumulating all the wealth- insofar as there's any wealth to accumulate.

I agree that the powerful tend to accumuluate all the wealth when there are no prohibitions against violence, so nothing to argue about here. There are arguments (although I'm not sure about them) that in unique circumstances this might not be the case, but as a general rule it holds.

[Carinthium]

Can anybody name a single society in history, that didn't have large government intervention in the economy and society, that wasn't dominated by rich people?

You can talk about theory all you want, reality is the real test of any ideology.

1- That argument could have been used against democracy and nationalism before they actually occured. The three cases have something in common as they can all draw upon a powerful human emotion- the desire for equality, the desire for fraternity, and jealousy of the wealthy (not as strong, but it exists).
2- I'm not talking about restricting the economic power of the rich- I'm talking about restricting their political power.

There are also plenty of examples of the political power of the rich being limited or very little- societies with a large amount of centralisation but little we would call intervention in society (Louis XIV's France), societies with a plebian class able to resort to force (Republican Rome), societies where some other power elite displaces the rich (modern day tin-pot dictatorships), or societies where large amounts of effort must go into dealing with day-to-day problems or an outside threat (tribal societies, some of the early American colonies).

[bobalot]

1- That argument could have been used against democracy and nationalism before they actually occured.

Has it ever occurred to you that there maybe a reason that in thousands of years of human civilization, libertarianism has never been once been seriously considered or implemented on a significant scale? Even communism had enough wide spread appeal to inspire tens of thousands of average people to lay down their lives for it.

Libertarianism is almost universally the preserve of pampered rich white guys in first world countries. Most Filipinos or Indians would laugh at the idea that somehow the political system could be structured that the rich wouldn't have disproportional influence. They live in the real world and understand all too well how much power massive wealth yields. In practice, this unlimited wealth makes a mockery of law and law enforcement. Poor judges can be bribed, police can be bought off, politicians can be bought off or even eliminated, entire villages intimidated by literal militias or small armies formed by companies or rich families.

Only massive government intervention by elected government representatives has been able to curb their power. Even then, the wealthy still manage to get preferential treatment and regularly corrupt the political process.

The three cases have something in common as they can all draw upon a powerful human emotion- the desire for equality, the desire for fraternity, and jealousy of the wealthy (not as strong, but it exists).

Irrelevant musings with little evidence for these claims.

2- I'm not talking about restricting the economic power of the rich- I'm talking about restricting their political power.

There are also plenty of examples of the political power of the rich being limited or very little- societies with a large amount of centralisation but little we would call intervention in society (Louis XIV's France), societies with a plebian class able to resort to force (Republican Rome), societies where some other power elite displaces the rich (modern day tin-pot dictatorships), or societies where large amounts of effort must go into dealing with day-to-day problems or an outside threat (tribal societies, some of the early American colonies).

If these are your examples, your knowledge of history is quite poor. These societies were dominated by the economic elites.

Name a example of a society were people with disproportional economic power who did not have disproportionate political power. A relatively modern example in the last hundred years would be great.

[Carinthium]

1- Massive funding for the legal arms of the state doesn't necessarily mean massive funding elsewhere- to that extent, a comparatively small government without corruption is still possible.
2- It should be obvious how the emotion of jealousy of the wealthy could be harnessed to make checks and balances on them easier- democratic rhethoric ensures that the common people support it, ensuring popular outrage whenever somebody is caught breaking the rules, reducing the chances of them getting away with it, reducing the cost/benefit ratio to break the rules.
3- Since you talk about evidence, perhaps you could site sources, documents etc? I'd be particularly curious to see examples of tribal societies in which wealth is used to dominate in terms of political power- that is influence on laws and decisions of the formal government bodies.

EDIT: It's also worth pointing out that most medieval peasants would have laughed at the idea of modern democracy, modern technology etc. Uneducated people aren't usually reliable judges of what can be achieved through ideology or science.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I should also point out that depending on the nature of the system and culture, effective enslavement will not necesarily occur even without safeguards. A system, for example, where the majority of the population are small land-holders forbbiden by law and tradition to sell their land and the comparatively ultra-rich are trading magnates without armies able to stand up to the government, for example, cannot lead to effective enslavement or otherwise.

Say what? Such a system would guarantee "effective enslavement". The government in such a scenario doesn't matter, it will do what it is told by the wealthy since there are no safeguards against corruption. And the general public will do as they are told if they want to work. What you think forbidding the buying and selling of land will accomplish I don't know.

The rich will always have more economic power almost by definition. The question in dispute here is whether the rich will always have more political power, even with checks and balances to constrain them. The obvious question is- why do you believe that a government limited by checks and balances is more trustworthy than individuals limited by checks and balances?

Because the government IS the "checks and balances" on those individuals. It doesn't matter what hypothetical "checks and balances" you impose on individuals, something has to enforce them. And that something is government.

As for your crazy government ideas, I fail to see how they'd do any good. A society where the rich are allowed to control an ever larger portion of its wealth without restraint will inevitably become dominated by them. Assuming that such a bizarre set up could even function which I seriously doubt. And I note that you are making the typical libertarian error of assuming that the government is the only threat to freedom; if the government isn't willing to actively stop them, the rich don't need to corrupt government to have power over the common people, it's just a convenient method.

Additionally, whilst living standards are generally far lower under such systems people are not necessarily miserable- wealth doesn't correlate to happiness as much as many people believe. In many of the systems mentioned, people would have large amounts of freedom.

Nonsense. Being severely impoverished means you have little freedom; everything you do is driven by survival needs, not choice.

2- It should be obvious how the emotion of jealousy of the wealthy could be harnessed to make checks and balances on them easier- democratic rhethoric ensures that the common people support it, ensuring popular outrage whenever somebody is caught breaking the rules, reducing the chances of them getting away with it, reducing the cost/benefit ratio to break the rules.

All meaningless if the government isn't willing and able to step in with force. What makes you think the wealthy won't simply ignore the rules and the opinion of the common people?

[bobalot]

1- Massive funding for the legal arms of the state doesn't necessarily mean massive funding elsewhere- to that extent, a comparatively small government without corruption is still possible.

Except you have failed to show where this occurred in the last 2000 years of human history outside anything greater than a village.

2- It should be obvious how the emotion of jealousy of the wealthy could be harnessed to make checks and balances on them easier- democratic rhethoric ensures that the common people support it, ensuring popular outrage whenever somebody is caught breaking the rules, reducing the chances of them getting away with it, reducing the cost/benefit ratio to break the rules.

Show that it is jealousy.

3- Since you talk about evidence, perhaps you could site sources, documents etc? I'd be particularly curious to see examples of tribal societies in which wealth is used to dominate in terms of political power- that is influence on laws and decisions of the formal government bodies.

You are making the claim that massive economic power didn't translate into massive political power in the societies you listed.

EDIT: It's also worth pointing out that most medieval peasants would have laughed at the idea of modern democracy, modern technology etc. Uneducated people aren't usually reliable judges of what can be achieved through ideology or science.

Nice attempted derail. The point I made was that Indians and Filipinos regularly see the immense and corrosive power of massive wealth on their societies, which is why they would laugh a political system that supposedly could separate political power and economic power without government intervention.