the neoliberal vision of the future

[littlebabyjesus]

He seems to belong to a Norwegian ultraliberalistic microparty, but he's pretty much an unknown figure in Norway. Likely his association with the ''Tea Party'' is opportunistic narcissism, to gain attention for himself outside of Norway.

He also wrote a book about how to discuss with irrational people. Seeing his discussion activity and level here, I wouldn't buy that book ...

But we shouldn't waste much more time on him. He thrives on discussions with “irrational people” and won't change his mind

He's a deluded loon. But then we've known that since his very first post.

 

[invisibleplanet]

I only got involved in this discussion because of his failure/unwillingness to provide references for his illegitimate historical revisionism. This alone is enough to discredit him in my opinion, and one might ask him what exempts him from the responsibility of such an honest and basic departure for rational discourse.

 

[Idris2002]

Anyone remember Jared Lee Loughner?

FFS, this guy's a clown. You're feeding him oxygen. Starve the fucker, he'll leave if people just ignore him. Look at yourselves, he's got you all wound up. I bet he's pissing his pants laughing.

Well, I was sort of writing half in jest, but you are of course right. Unless he posts about how the voices told him to stay at home today and clean his guns. . .

 

[invisibleplanet]

Perhaps this thread should be renamed 'the neoultraliberalistic microparty vision of the past'

 

[Idris2002]

Did you even read anything of what I wrote? People were starving, not due to the potato blight, but due to a) huge areas of fertile Ireland NOT being farmed and b) much of the food grown was EXPORTED to England. And why on earth would not all of Ireland be farmed when it was so fertile? Because of the feudal property rights that robbed the farmers of their private property.

onarchy, there are lots of Irish people and people from an Irish background on this board. Are you sure you want to debate Irish history with them? I for one have never, ever, heard the claim that Ireland in 1845 possessed huge areas of fertile but unfarmed land. What's your source for that claim? Or do you not have one?

 

[Kizmet]

This is a fair question. Let's start by comparing the alternatives. What is the difference between Dubai and the proposed Free State? Also, what is the difference between the Free State and most European welfare states for immigrants?

In a land with limited natural resources... how do you propose funding for the infrastructure?

 

[Kizmet]

onarchy, there are lots of Irish people and people from an Irish background on this board. Are you sure you want to debate Irish history with them? I for one have never, ever, heard the claim that Ireland in 1845 possessed huge areas of fertile but unfarmed land. What's your source for that claim? Or do you not have one?

I had heard something like that. I was also under the impression that 'land-issues' were also the reason that the economy (as such) relied so heavily on the potato. And thus was particularly affected by the potato blight that turned a shortage into a famine and tipped an already poor people over the edge.

Like Chile, Ireland had circumstantial preconditions that mean it can't really be used as an example except how the people who messed thing up helped tidy up the mess a bit. Except that this time they didn't even help that much.

 

[Kizmet]

Fortunately thanks to communism we have something very close to a social experiment in what socialism does to a society vs something akin to capitalism, namely East-Berlin vs West-Berlin, Hong Kong vs Mao's China, South Korea vs North Korea, Eastern Europe vs Western Europe, the communist states vs the Western states. So we do know what the effects of socialism are, and they are devastating.

In which of these conflicts was there no outside intervention from supposed world powers?

 

[invisibleplanet]

.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Dubai vs the Free State
------------------------
1) Immigrtion to Dubai requires a work permit, and it is only temporary (3 years) and needs to be renewed. The Free State offers permanent residence to peaceful immigrants.
2) In Dubai in order to get a work permit you need to have a job offer from an employer. In the Free State you need a *voucher* which ensures the payment of legal fees in case you are a criminal and the cost of flying you back to your home country in case you are expelled due to criminal activity. The voucher does NOT have to be your employer. It can be anyone, even yourself. You then put a certain amount of money in a locked bank account to be able to pay for the mentioned expenses. If you leave the Free State you are of course allowed to take that money with you. Typical vouchers will be employers, airlines and insurance companies.
3) In Dubai there are only certain economic free zones. All of the Free State will be one gigantic free trade zone, with close to zero taxes. Thus, the scale of economic activity can be much greater in the Free State.
4) In Dubai governance is not that good. Property rights are not secure due to severe influence by the monarchs, and corruption is significant. Therefore workers' ability to enforce a contract is not so good. In the Free State this will be a major improvement since the whole point of the Free State is to have good governance and proper enforcement of contracts.
5) in Dubai a foreign worker cannot own property. He is essentially a serf. In the Free State an immigrant worker can own property. This land can be bought, and even homesteaded.

So you – or your employer – has to pay a bond.

Indentured labour in other words.

How lovely.

 

[krtek a houby]

Yes, I read it and it's nothing less than historical revisionism. Nice try but no cigar.

I think Fergal Keane mentions something about the exporting of food to England in The Story of Ireland... not sure about vast areas of fertile land...

 

[Idris2002]

I had heard something like that. I was also under the impression that 'land-issues' were also the reason that the economy (as such) relied so heavily on the potato. And thus was particularly affected by the potato blight that turned a shortage into a famine and tipped an already poor people over the edge.

Like Chile, Ireland had circumstantial preconditions that mean it can't really be used as an example except how the people who messed thing up helped tidy up the mess a bit. Except that this time they didn't even help that much.

The point is that after the harvest failed in 1845, there could still have been effective relief efforts. If these had been attempted, they might have stopped people resorting to eating their reserves of seed potato in 1846/47, leading to the catastrophic intensification of the crisis in 1847, 'Black 47' as it was known at the time and after. Why did the government of the day not implement effective relief efforts? Because the laissez-faire ideology of the time specifically prohibited any government interference in the free market.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think Fergal Keane mentions something about the exporting of food to England in The Story of Ireland... not sure about vast areas of fertile land...

Wheat was being exported to England right through the famine. It's a sorry tale indeed, but not for the reasons Onan gives.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think it's fair to say that different elements of anti-semetism existed within many tiers of french society. Surely the fact that Blum was Jewish shows how deeply it must have been embedded?

Semitism. Pertaining to Semites, not Semetes.

 

[Kizmet]

Perhaps this thread should be renamed 'the neoliberal vision of the past'

It's funny how the thread is entitled neo-liberalists view of the future and here is one of the semi-mythical, elusive neo-liberals... and no-one gives a stuff what he thinks...

 

[Kizmet]

No, absolutely not. If you look at e.g. the kind of hyperinflation Allende caused (printing money as crazy) and the gross violations he did my nationalizing an enormous amount of private business. These actions alone brought Chile to the brink of civil war, and ultimately led to the kind of military intervention that Pinochet orchestrated. Allende was a criminal and it is no wander that a lot of people were pissed off when he stole their property. You can say that it was the economic warfare against Chile that caused the problems, but thats really a little bit like saying that it is the rape victim's fault that she reacts the way she does to a rape. What Allende did was to rape the country, and large parts of the people reacted to this rape with outrage and preparing for civil war. The United States reacted by coming to the aid of the rape victim by boicotting the offender.

Are you saying *categorically* that the US had no politically motivated reason for the sanctions?

 

[butchersapron]

It's funny how the thread is entitled neo-liberalists view of the future and here is one of the semi-mythical, elusive neo-liberals... and no-one gives a stuff what he thinks...

They're not semi-mythical or elusive -they're real. This loon isn't one of them. The real ones were talked about at the start of the thread.

 

[Kizmet]

It's a reasonable interpretation of what I said. As for how it is that we dispute the origins and meaning of that cartoon, the point is that we dispute onarchy's confident labelling of that cartoon as the work of 'FRENCH SOCIALISTS'. He labels it thus so that he can spin a tale in which the democratic socialism of the SFIO and similar parties shared an ideological overlap with the NSDAP and its ideological cognates. This insinuation is inconsistent with the evolution of French socialism from the Dreyfus affair onwards, and is inconsistent with key facts concerning the leadership of the SFIO in the 1920s and 1930s. As for your sentence here:




What on earth are you trying to say? Do you mean that the fact that Leon Blum was Jewish demonstrates the deep embeddedness of antisemitism in French socialism? How on earth does the latter follow from the former?

It is a reasonable interpretation. But it is just an interpretation... and not significantly more reasonable than Onarchy's. What I was surprised at was how sure you were of it given the paucity of information and the knowledge that anti-semetism was rife within large swathes of Europe at the time.

Jewish people often held high office in countries that were broadly anti-semetic... it can be theorized that this in itself fueled the flames.

I don't see a reason for either your or Onarchy's confidence on this subject... but given the context of the cartoon itself I can only conclude that it represents an element of anti-capitalist and anti-semetic propaganda in France at that time.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's not what he said.

What part of (post # 838)...
"2. You posted a deeply foul anti-semitic cartoon dating from 1920s France, and said that it was the work of French socialists. The major French socialist party at that time, the SFIO, was led by Leon Blum, who was Jewish. This party did not identify capitalism with Jews, Judaism, or anything else of a semitic nature. You're a fucking liar." (my emphasis)
...don't you understand?

So how is it that you dispute its origins or meaning?

I dispute Onarchy's attribution, because it doesn't accord to any of the historical analysis of that cartoon. I made clear in a previous post that neither I or anyone else knows the origin for certain. However, one can make educated guesses based on the available scholarship. Onarchy's attribution accords with none of them.

As for it's meaning, Onarchy's attributions don't accord to either a flat or a contextual translation of the language of the poster. He's attempting to shape the evidence to fit his thesis.

if only you were half as sharp as you believe yourself to be....







....you might be more amusing than tragic.

 

[invisibleplanet]

They're not semi-mythical or elusive -they're real. This loon isn't one of them. The real ones were talked about at the start of the thread.

*nods*

 

[Idris2002]

Jewish people often held high office in countries that were broadly anti-semetic... it can be theorized that this in itself fueled the flames.

Is it possible that Kismet doesn't understand the difference between a 'high office of state' and 'leadership of a political party'?

 

[Kizmet]

dp

 

[onarchy]

In a land with limited natural resources... how do you propose funding for the infrastructure?

I don't see what limited natural resources has got to do with it. There's limited natural resources in Singapore too, and they managed to build lots of infrastructure. The key lesson of the enlightenment is that PEOPLE are the most important resource if human ingenuity is allowed to be free.

But if you're asking very concretely how anything in the Free State will be financed the answer is by export. Most things cannot be produced in the Free State and must be imported. Everything that is imported must be paid for by export.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Explain to me exactly how I was wrong. A debater (I forget which one) claimed that rights cannot exist without duties, and there was great agreement about this among the other socialists on this forum. I simply pointed out that the concept of rights in exchange for duties is precisely feudum, the property right on which feudalism got its name from. So, everyone in here who claims that rights MUST exist together with duties are by definition feudalists, i.e. adherents of feudum. How is that a strawman? Exactly what is wrong about this conclusion? Are you saying that I *can* have certain inalienable rights that I don't need to pay for with duties?

You've fundamentally missed the point here. No one is suggesting that in order to have a right one must carry out certain duties. The point is that a right holder cannot exist without a correlative duty holder otherwise rights are just a metaphysical abstraction. Rights are meaningless unless there is somebody to enforce them against. This is not analysis that rests on feudal assumptions, it is a basic axiom of modern jurisprudence.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I for one find Onarchy's arguments 100% convincing and see where I was going wrong by being a murderous socialist who wants to put guns to peoples' heads or something. Thanks for showing me the light Onarchy, you truly are a giant among men.

Which begs the question, a giant what?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Are you saying *categorically* that the US had no politically motivated reason for the sanctions?

It's not even open to discussion, I linked to the specific National Security Directives and other documents later released under the FOA, showing the Kissinger instituted and enforced a campaign of economic warfare and that the CIA actively organised assorted murders and a coup in order to overthrow Allende because and I quote Kissinger here

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." (source above)

These are simply matters of record.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I mean jesus, look at this ...

"It is the firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup"

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch05-01.htm

 

[Kizmet]

What part of (post # 838)...
"2. You posted a deeply foul anti-semitic cartoon dating from 1920s France, and said that it was the work of French socialists. The major French socialist party at that time, the SFIO, was led by Leon Blum, who was Jewish. This party did not identify capitalism with Jews, Judaism, or anything else of a semitic nature. You're a fucking liar." (my emphasis)
...don't you understand?

Why you chose only that particular quote. I don't recall Onar mentioning any particular party.

I dispute Onarchy's attribution, because it doesn't accord to any of the historical analysis of that cartoon. I made clear in a previous post that neither I or anyone else knows the origin for certain. However, one can make educated guesses based on the available scholarship. Onarchy's attribution accords with none of them.

As for it's meaning, Onarchy's attributions don't accord to either a flat or a contextual translation of the language of the poster. He's attempting to shape the evidence to fit his thesis.

if only you were half as sharp as you believe yourself to be....







....you might be more amusing than tragic.

Dispute away, but know that bluster rarely serves as a convincing argument.

Fact is - you don't know but are acting like you do.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well, DUH! Fascism/Nazism and communism were political *competitors*. They were so similar that they were competing for the same voters.

Strange how repeated analyses, from Evelyn Anderson's in the 1940s to Annika Mombauer's in the 1990s, with Mason in-between (the three exemplars of a wide swathe of analyses, IMO) say almost entirely the opposite - that the class composition of the NSDAP and Communist votes barely overlapped in any of the years before Hitler snuffed the Weimar republic.

For a person who believes himself a scholar, your scholarship is poor.

This is really not that different from protestants warring with catholics in Northern Ireland, or the Sunni vs Shia Muslims. From the outside they all look the same. They are so similar that we have huge problems as outsiders to see any differences. That's exactly how it is with communism vs nazism. They were twin ideologies that to an outsider (e.g. a liberal) seems identical.

The falsity of your opening claim renders the above just so much verbiage.

I don't understand why you cannot respect this. We liberals have a worldview that is so different from the collectivists that we really don't see the difference between nazism and communism. To us they are the same only with different hats. If nazism and communism seems like polar opposites to you, maybe it is because you are so close to them that you don't see the similarity?

Or perhaps it's because you construct your thesis from such flimsy and easily rebutted "scholarship"?

 

[Idris2002]

Why you chose only that particular quote. I don't recall Onar mentioning any particular party.



Dispute away, but know that bluster rarely serves as a convincing argument.

Fact is - you don't know but are acting like you do.

We know enough to know that onarchy's attribution of that cartoon to French socialists (or rather FRENCH SOCIALISTS, to quote the Norwegian loon) was mistaken at best, and actively mendacious at worst. How likely is it that a party with a Jewish leader would lend itself to that kind of thing?