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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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This is a big part of the problem tbh, left-right is the economic distinction, authoritarian or libertarian is the top to bottom axis which is more apt to apply to "culture."
If you want to control people through force of government you're on the authoritarian side, if you want people to be free to live their lives so long as they don't actively harm others you're on the libertarian side. If you prefer collectivist economics you're on the left side, and if you prefer capitalism in some form you're on the right side. Put those together to get a slightly more accurate picture of a person you're interacting with.
So a guy who prefers individualist free market economy and is socially apathetic or progressive would be bottom right, a guy who prefers more market control but still capitalism and is socially conservative would be center right, a guy who prefers monarchy with much market control and very conservative socially is top right, stalinists would be top left as they're authoritarian and not necessarily progressive and collectivist as all hell, liberals would be center left more progressive but still authoritarian and still collectivists, and left libertarians would be bottom left, collectivist and progressive but as long as you aren't hurting people live and let live, like bottom right. Of course most people fall somewhere on the middle of the graph or their quadrant rather than in a corner of it, but it is still more helpful than only having one axis to base things on.
Well, this "political compass" you are referring to does have some merits, but any effort to reduce political stances into scales is of course a simplification. For that sake one could argue that adding arbitrary more dimensions to the representation makes it more accurate, but I think that ultimately defeats the purpose of the simplification. There is no canonical way to express these concepts, hence it depends on context which simplification (if any) is useful.
One particular issue I see with auth-lib is that it IMO has a bias in that most only consider the government as an authority in this setting. However if one say defines autority as
it should be clear that under some economical systems there are definitely authorities besides the state. Personally I would argue that money translates to power and hence authority. If this power is unchecked and of great importance, which I think it largely is, I would also argue that it forms a basis of authoritarian rule.
I see money as more a necessary thing, as it is much easier to operate a society that way over no money. You could replace money with barter but that does complicate things.
I think you might have misunderstood the point I was making. What I implied was that for a society to be free from authoritarianism and under democratic control, there also has to be some limits to the power wielded by the rich. Of course one could try to limit the power of money, but I think the most important thing one should do is limit the mechanics of the economy that allow for unlimited accumulation of wealth (i.e. read taxes and worker collectives).
Well good luck with that. Anyone been convicted in connection with that whole Epstein Fiasco? Hell at least sometimes rich guys do get fucked like Madoff but not one government employee has had to answer for their involvement with Epstein, they won't even release the log.
The wealth in essence isn't the issue, one can be wealthy and a good person, it is theoretically possible, I'd be hard pressed to think of an example while I'm shitting rn but nonetheless it is something that can happen. The issue comes in with letting those people get away with crimes because of their wealth, if we just stopped doing that your issue would be solved.
Problem is, both of these things are equally likely to occur, which is to say not very. The ruling elite consists of both the government and the corporations propped up by them, but even the most ardent revolutionaries on both sides of the economic spectrum only hate 1/2 of this ruling elite, nothing will ever be solved because neither side can see this. You're more likely to come back to this with "yeah it's both but it is really the corpos" than you are to actually see the issue is both.
Just to be on the same page I am not from the US. Also, I think the US government is essentially composed of and works for the bourgeoisie class, hence there is no distinction of my critique of the capitalists and the people in government due to them being the same groups.
Furthermore, this makes the Epstein case a further demonstration of the corrupting effects of money. I am really sorry for the state of the US democracy and where I am from we use it as a staple of what we don't want our society to look like.
Lastly, there is an issue with hoarding wealth and being a good person. This is twofold: First there is the issue of where the money is taken from and second there is the issue of how it could be better spent. I think a good person would not overcharge for their products nor underpay their workers. However that is essentially how you get rich, along with other scummy actions. Lastly, after hoarding exorbitant amounts of wealth, I think a good person would also use this for something good rather than themselves.
You can have no money AND not barter. See: gift economy. People just giving each other stuff all the time.
What dimension do you live in? I've been looking for a new one to move to.