If the constitution says you can shoot communists, then we can absolutely beat down fascists.
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Classical liberal, or neo-liberal? I’m assuming the former, rather than the latter.
Neoliberalism is basically a revival of classical liberalism (i.e. 17th/18th C liberalism, not whatever deranged crap the US right is sticking the label on now) anyway.
Locke et al were quite keen on brutalist capitalism.
He was also heavily invested in the slave trade.
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I suspect neither.
The full quote
“It’s a shame that it’s taken so long to even be a discussion,” Chomsky said. “As for support, we may recall the last major program for helping families at the level of survival was under Richard Nixon. In many respects Nixon was the last liberal president.”
I think that the term “neo liberalism” has as many definitions as it has critics, and exists largely as a straw man. Perhaps “classical liberalism” is similarly slippery.
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I don’t know about in-depth definitions, but classical liberalism as far as I remember from elementary and high school, is characterized by Laissez-faire economic policies, while the government is supposed to maintain a monopoly on coercive violence. Honestly it seemed weird to me that the USA’s permissive gun laws could coexist in the context of liberal democracy where the state is supposed to be the only violent actor.
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PREACH!!!
Uh, the Venezuelan model is much closer to that of Western Europe and even Canada than it is to Cuba or the former USSR.
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As I understand there are many capable, competent, serious people in state-level politics. But there are also a lot of people so stupid and incompetent they couldn’t hack it in the House. And when you look at the kind of brain-starved, bigoted bumblefucks that swarm in the Tea Party caucus, that becomes a rather scary thought.
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It does look that way. The Wikipedia article has greasy Koch Libertarian fingerprints on it, and never says exactly where the term comes from, but mainly credits Friedrich Hayek. (Austrian School aka neo-liberal.)
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I’m going to easily acknowledge that the list seemed wrong to me too. I’ve caught the “top” answer in Bing to be wrong a lot, to be honest: they really need to work on their algorithm.
I searched Google for a list too; with the query “Top 10 Socialist Countries” The top result on that is:
The list they gave is:
- China
- Denmark
- Finland
- Netherlands
- Canada
- Sweden
- Norway
- Ireland
- New Zealand
- Belgium
This list is completely and utterly rubbish too; which is sad for a blog with such high Marx. Most of these countries are perhaps only slightly more socialist than the United States. There’s only one Communist country on that list; the rest of the countries are either democracies or democratic monarchies.
But here’s the rub: I was more trying to point out that the presence of the word “Socialist” or “Democratic” in a countrie’s name has absolutely no bearing at all on how the country is actually governed; and Republicans should understand this because having the word “Republic” in the title of a country also does not indicate any resemblance to the Republican party.
Specifically, NAZIS WERE FASCISTS, NOT SOCIALISTS.
In other words, Republicans are unreflective and internally inconsistent and make stupid arguments. Film at 11.
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Right, so in Chomsky’s formulation, liberalism (defined, in part, by “helping families at the level of survival”) is about as far from Classical liberalism (Lochner era, the night watchman state), and neoliberalism, as you can get. But Nixon’s proteges were instrumental in neoliberalism’s ascendence-- Lewis Powell’s doctrine, Robert Bork’s antitrust theory, etc etc.
It’s not helped by the fact that (American) liberalism
is attacked from left and the right.
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Socialism and democracy are orthogonal. The former is a type of economy, the latter is a type of government.
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Wrong, on so many levels.
Oh, you’re going to correct the libsoc on what socialism is huh?
Enlighten us. I’m sure this will be fascinating and not a bunch of condescending fox talking points.
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Democracy is based on the supposition that political power should be distributed equally.
But what if disparities in economic power makes political equality meaningless?
Um, what?
I mean if you want to go that route using libertarian socialist economic policy ought to make a country more democratic.
But in any case you can setup in law socialist dictatorships and socialist democracies just fine. The economy doesn’t dictate the structure of government.
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I think considering Socialism and Democracy to share an axis at all is foolish at best. You could possibly claim that Communism and Capitalism are on the same axis; although even then it is hard.
But Socialism (to me) feels more like a government philosophy that requires the prioritization of the government support of the people and the labor class over the support of the businesses or the capitalist class. It isn’t really an economic theory, although the philosophy does have economic implications. (There is a redistribution of wealth when the distribution of wealth by the economic system does not match that required by the socialistic philosophy.)
In many ways Socialism is the opposite of Oligarchy or colonialism; where support of the people is of lesser concern than the support of the extraction of wealth for a privileged few.
Communsm is an economic theory that is more in opposition to Capitalism. This is who owns the means of production; in Communist countries the government owns and manages the means of production in the name of the workers; in Capitalist countries the capitalists own the means and manage it with regard to maximizing their profit.
Democracy is more related to who controls the government, and is more in opposition to dictatorial or feudal systems. In Republics and Democracies, governmental power is gained from the agreement of the people. In Feudal systems governmental power is granted by force or inheritance. Dictorial power is normally enforced by power.
I give these basic definitions because there are a lot of differences of opinions on what these words mean and I want to be understood when I say that Socialism and Communism are not mutually inherent to be combined and in fact rarely are. Communism seems to be like anarchy; it is inherently unstable and normally results in a dictorial and eventually feudal system replacing it. (You can really consider dictatorships and warlords to be the early phases of a monarchy.)
A Democratic Socialist Capitalistic free-market country is not impossible; in fact, it seems to be one of the more stable forms of government. (Of course, Monarchies are the most stable proven forms of government.)
How do you ensure that de facto and de jure are roughly comparable?
If the most perfect democracy ever devised has so little power that is unable to wrest power from economic or religious or racial interests, does it really matter?
Do you mean anarchy or fake anarchy ayn-caps? You definitely seem to have falsely restricted the definition of Communism to Marxism-Leninism.
Where does Rojava fit on your political scale?
Chiapas?
Fejuve?
Anarchist Catalonia and The Regional Defence Council of Aragon?
The Free Territory?
The Korean Peoples Association?
Those that failed did not fail because of instability, they failed because outside forces declaring war on them. They fought hard against them, but some didn’t succeed. Some have survived though, although they will never fulfill the UN’s requirements to be recognised as an independent state.
Your definitions of socialism and communism deny the existence of anarchist/libertarian socialism and communism, despite both being systems that have been used throughout history right up to the current day. I don’t know whose propaganda you are believing, but it is clearly wrong.
ETA:
I just realised that I might be taking IRL problems out on you. I’ll step away until I have calmed down.
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I think… no, I’m pretty certain it might be too big to fit on a motorcycle.
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