DBratton: Two people in a power relationship are not equals - that's what power relationship means.
Two people in a power relationship are not equals - that's what power relationship means.
I think you are wrong here, let's take the example of a monopoly. A monopoly can arise in a free market, if they manage to provide the best service at the lowest price. However, they do not have any power relationship with the consumers, because under a free market new firms are free to enter the industry and compete. Thus, what matters is not the current status of the monopolist dominating the market, but whether there exists the potential for new competitors to enter the industry. The same can be said of any other consensual (so-called) power relationships - as long as all parties can withdraw from it, or change it at will, then they have equality of rights.
DBratton: Some political power does not stem from privilege and is perfectly legitimate. Liberalism is about the abatement of non-consensual political power and is not primarily about equality.
Some political power does not stem from privilege and is perfectly legitimate. Liberalism is about the abatement of non-consensual political power and is not primarily about equality.
I disagree here too. If political power can be legitimate (and hence consensual), then it was conferred from one party to another. Any power thus conferred is a privilege, and privileges can always be taken away, and thus implies that the party consenting to this political power has equal rights. Rights then, are a potential that people can exercise. If they consent to political power, they bestow privileges upon someone else and so cease exercising some of their rights, but they can still potentially use them, to revoke such privileges. So in this way, can it not be said that even under asymmetrical (but consensual) power relations, rights can be equal?
If you try to trick the market, it will get its revenge.
Solreyus
nazgulnarsil: DBratton:I think that's true, but I don't think it's a legitimate yardstick. I would be a libertarian even if it were not the path to prosperity. Libertarianism ought to be about freedom first. Order is a prerequisite to freedom, otherwise you'd just go live in the woods.
DBratton:I think that's true, but I don't think it's a legitimate yardstick. I would be a libertarian even if it were not the path to prosperity. Libertarianism ought to be about freedom first.
Order is a prerequisite to freedom, otherwise you'd just go live in the woods.
Proudhon:Liberty is not the daughter but the mother of order
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Brainpolice: Stranger: Even rights are unequal. A child cannot have the same rights as an adult. I disagree. A child has the same rights as an adult; they just dont have the same privileges.
Stranger: Even rights are unequal. A child cannot have the same rights as an adult.
Even rights are unequal. A child cannot have the same rights as an adult.
I disagree. A child has the same rights as an adult; they just dont have the same privileges.
No, they don't, a child is not capable of rational argumentation. Ergo, they don't have a complete right to liberty.
I don't get the point of trying to claim egalitarianism for liberterianism. Yes it is correct if you use it in the sense of equal rights (although if we were all completely enslaved, we'd have equal rights) but nobody regards it in that way. It makes no sense to adopt a term that can mean equality in authority and equality and in material possessions. The fact is, neither are possible.
The state by it's very nature is egalitarian in the widest sense of the word, it punishes the capable and rewards the mediocre. If you ask me the left libertarians are very keen to adopt the term so they can move from the idea of equality in authority to equality in the more widely understood sense of the word.
GilesStratton:No, they don't, a child is not capable of rational argumentation. Ergo, they don't have a complete right to liberty.
only in the loosest sense. that is that socialists often want to abdicate personal responsibility by claiming that people don't have free will. Of course any libertarian style society assumes free will as one of its justifications.
DBratton:Do you have a job? Is it consensual? Do you have to do what you are told ?
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
GilesStratton: I don't get the point of trying to claim egalitarianism for liberterianism. Yes it is correct if you use it in the sense of equal rights (although if we were all completely enslaved, we'd have equal rights) but nobody regards it in that way. It makes no sense to adopt a term that can mean equality in authority and equality and in material possessions. The fact is, neither are possible. The state by it's very nature is egalitarian in the widest sense of the word, it punishes the capable and rewards the mediocre. If you ask me the left libertarians are very keen to adopt the term so they can move from the idea of equality in authority to equality in the more widely understood sense of the word.
The state is egalitarian? You are conflating distribution according to need or some other non-merit based criterion with egalitarianism. That is a specific egalitarian principle of distributive justice, but it is contradictory when enforced by a state, because think about what is necessary for distributing according to need. What is necessary is a strong state with a powerful ruling elite, who have a far greater amount of power than the rest of the citizens. Thus such principles are not egalitarian in that in order to institute some egalitarian outcome they create vast inequality. The means that the state uses contradict their own wishes for an egalitarian outcome.
http://aestheticbend.blogspot.com/
aestheticbend:You are conflating distribution according to need or some other non-merit based criterion with egalitarianism.
Punishing the capable to reward the less capable is egalitarian.
aestheticbend:The means that the state uses contradict their own wishes for an egalitarian outcome.
So, all that means is that material equality is impossible. It still doesn't follow that we should adopt the title of egalitarians.
Libertine Joseph: GilesStratton:No, they don't, a child is not capable of rational argumentation. Ergo, they don't have a complete right to liberty. That is a matter of personal opinion.
No, it isn't.
Children don't have that ability.
Juan: DBratton:Do you have a job? Is it consensual? Do you have to do what you are told ? You don't have to. You do what you're told because you think doing so is in your self-interest. A job is a purely voluntary relationship.
Yes it is consensual. But it is also a power relationship.
Juan:That's right. It's not an opinion, it is a fact that children have 'human' rights, like adults, and so their parents' arbitrary authority over them is at odds with libertarian principles.
You may very well be the example of a child capable of rational argumentation, though, intellectual honesty is beyond you.
Yeah, and let's not forget that freedom is slavery and all that.
Erm, working for a firm is a consentual power relation. Joining a club is a consentual power relation. Etc. Insofar as all these institutions have hierarchies whose decision-making processes one submits to, they are consentual power relations.
To darkness I condemn you...
GilesStratton: Punishing the capable to reward the less capable is egalitarian.
Firstly, the definition you gave constitutes a Rawlsian interpretation of equality or "democratic equality", but not equality qua equality.
Secondly, are you implying that the distribution that flows from the free market is in some sense in line with a principle of moral desert?
GilesStratton: So, all that means is that material equality is impossible. It still doesn't follow that we should adopt the title of egalitarians.
In order to recognize an individual's rights to liberty one must presuppose a relative equality among men in terms of potential for particular capacities, otherwise paternalism is justified. Recognizing that all humans have the capacity for rationality means that one recognizes them as an equal in that sense.
So? It's still a hierarchy, i.e, a power relation.
GilesStratton:You may very well be the example of a child capable of rational argumentation, though, intellectual honesty is beyond you.
Jon Irenicus:So? It's still a hierarchy, i.e, a power relation.
Again with this newsspeak nonsense. Here, have a look at the dictionary definition. There's quite a few senses in which power is the cognate of hierarchy.In fact, if anything, I see no proof that the two are not linked, hence why Nock could distinguish between political and social power and Rand between economic and political power.
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