Political Theory

Re: A Marxist Argument

cab21 — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 02:33:02 GMT

a baby does not choose to be born into a society, so social enginering of society for the sake of the baby is silly.

why would a baby choose to be rich or poor, how does the baby discriminate value? "poverty" in one country is richer than the kings of the past.

Re: A Marxist Argument

Buzz Killington — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 02:18:31 GMT

John Ess:
The conservative is also apathetic or morally relativist. He thinks it is absolutely important to raise his children some arbitrary way, but usually doesn't care what the other families do. And he expects others to mind their own business.

You're conflating conservatives with libertarian individualists. If conservatives were the way you say they are then issues like gay marriage would be non-issues.

Re: A Marxist Argument

vive la insurrection — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:28:09 GMT

An unofficial but almost universally true trait of the school is that it be extremely critical of capitalism, its stability, and its efficacy.

Interseting enough, Marx was one of the biggest praisers of capitalism.

There are certain ways of seeing or thinking how Marx's logic can "work" - in so much as he is talking about a type of social inevitability, and not an "ideal" (for lack of a better term). I think both Mises and Schumpeter give him a certain type of credit for that, and it may be worth thinking about to some degree. However it is almost never worth it to talk to a frickin Marxist or radical leftist about.

Re: A Marxist Argument

Neodoxy — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 23:43:31 GMT

Marxist analyses are almost exclusively centered around class conflict as examined from an economic perspective. This follows directly from Marx's philosophies of "historical" and "dialectic" materialism. An unofficial but almost universally true trait of the school is that it be extremely critical of capitalism, its stability, and its efficacy.

I've been thinking lately about exactly how weird talking to a Marxist is when coming from a mainstream or an Austrian/libertarian perspective. They see things in such an amazingly strange light that it's sometimes hard to grasp how far off the focus of AE and ME are unless you talk to a Marxist for a period of time. I might write up a post about it later.

I think that this entire worldview might be a huge flaw in the Marxist perspective, that is to say that the entire way of thinking is fallacious (perhaps one can look back to Mises' arguments about class, methodological individualism, and polylogism), and one that leads them to singular, anti-capitalist pro-socialistic conclusions. I'll see how I feel when I look at the matter more closely.

Re: A Marxist Argument

SkepticalMetal — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:32:55 GMT

Oh, I get it. The one I came up with isn't something that would come from the point of view that the Marxist works subscribe to.

Re: A Marxist Argument

Jon Irenicus — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:29:51 GMT

Marxism is a defined school of thought based on Karl Marx's work. Not every internet or classroom "left anarchist" subscribes to Marx.

Re: A Marxist Argument

SkepticalMetal — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 20:45:16 GMT

So what do you consider to be a "Marxist argument?" Every time I try to talk with one of those left-wingers it's like talking to one of those teenage personalities that have a desire to rebel and be a contrarian for no real reason.

Re: A Marxist Argument

Neodoxy — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:31:36 GMT

This argument is poor and not very Marxist. Among all else the first part of the argument defeats the logic of the second half. A baby CANNOT agree to being born in ANY conditions. I would like to be born with superpowers, I want to be like superman, but my f***ing parents didn't have the genes for it and f***ing science doesn't have a way to make it happen.

Therefore a marxist society is in no way an answer to the problem, even if it did provide for a better standard of living. There is no answer to the problem, so either we must accept the immorality of the world itself, or disregard the problem entirely.

Anyway, the argument fails because socialism would destroy living standards, not increase them.

Re: A Marxist Argument

Jon Irenicus — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:03:11 GMT

The voluntarist charges that circumstance and justice are based on one's own decisions, actions, and agency.

No, not really. They do argue that moral behaviour is only possible when it is voluntary behaviour, but that isn't quite the same as what you stipulated.

And not those of others outside of themselves. This is how they define freedom, private property, and self-ownership. This is different in each society or ideology depending on how much each person has the same privileges from the get go, or the right to self-determination.

Voluntaryism solely consists in advocating the elimination of the initiation of aggression from human relationships. It doesn't have the utopian desire of eliminating the constraints of reality. As I said, a voluntaryist can argue that certain problems are better resolved through voluntary means. They don't deny the existence of certain "problems" but this will obviously vary from person to person.

Re: A Marxist Argument

John Ess — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:01:27 GMT

it evades the point because Marxists are not looking at the voluntarism of the act of birth, but of the problem it presents to the model of morality called 'voluntarism'. Namely that difference in birth means that there is a situation in which parents and those born into higher wealth can coerce the individual child and later as adult. But voluntarism says that everything should come down to one's agency or will, and not that of others. While ignoring particular situations outside of the usual. Including all of the circumstances.

A problem also enters because there are many cases in which people think there are morally autonomous units like the family or a corporation shielded form universality. But this doesn't square with an individualist ethics like voluntarism. It is a cognitive dissonance. There is also a problem when people's morality depends on game-like situations or metaphor instead of the reality. That is the problem of voluntarism is that it sees life as a fair game, as long as there are not some superficial restrictions, usually for themselves. They may have a different understanding of 'fair', but voluntarism is an ethic and ethics is partly a definition of the just or the fair. And the fair happens to be some regime without taxes or too many laws. But that doesn't yield what they want in reality.

It's not Molyneux or his ethics that one is apathetic about. It is more like because the family is said to be a morally autonomous unit, it is none of our business what they do. It is off limits to a discussion about ethics. So if a parent is an asshole or unethical even from an individualist perspective, who cares that's their problem not ours. Except in extreme situations like murder when the imagined autonomy bursts. This is convenient, because many do not like to go into the question of personal history. Because the 'voluntarist' model of society becomes problematic. You see situations and one's place come outside of agency or personal will. Such as individual circumstance and privileges.

The conservative is also apathetic or morally relativist. He thinks it is absolutely important to raise his children some arbitrary way, but usually doesn't care what the other families do. And he expects others to mind their own business. If the child asks him 'why?' about anything, it is 'because I said so' or because Jesus said so. So every explanation is as good as another.

Re: A Marxist Argument

Buzz Killington — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:52:26 GMT

John Ess:
This is to evade the point.

How so?

John Ess:
The voluntarist charges that circumstance and justice are based on one's own decisions, actions, and agency. And not those of others outside of themselves. This is how they define freedom, private property, and self-ownership. This is different in each society or ideology depending on how much each person has the same privileges from the get go, or the right to self-determination. But this is impossible in a regime where everyone has different parents with different skills, morality, rules, wealth, etc.

It's also impossible in a regime where everyone is born into the same exact situation, in fact, it's even more impossible.

John Ess:
The marxist opposes the nuclear family to solve this problem, but at the same time they do not believe in the voluntaristic myth anyway. They can only criticize this myth.

There is no problem to solve. Being born into any system is by definition involuntary.

John Ess:
Someone like Molyneux is a little bit closer. He supports nuclear family, but applies ethics to that situation instead of the moral relativism and apathy of most conservatives and libertarians.

LOL, rejecting whatever Molyneux says = apathy?

John Ess:
Many libertarians here are horrified by the application of ethics to anything that isn't taxes. They believe that that is the be all and end all of radical thought.

I agree with you on this one, though I'm a social conservative and I don't think that's what you had in mind.

Re: A Marxist Argument

John Ess — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:25:15 GMT

'If all birth is involuntary, then how the heck is birth in a communist system any less involuntary?'

This is to evade the point. The voluntarist charges that circumstance and justice are based on one's own decisions, actions, and agency. And not those of others outside of themselves. This is how they define freedom, private property, and self-ownership. This is different in each society or ideology depending on how much each person has the same privileges from the get go, or the right to self-determination. But this is impossible in a regime where everyone has different parents with different skills, morality, rules, wealth, etc.

The marxist opposes the nuclear family to solve this problem, but at the same time they do not believe in the voluntaristic myth anyway. They can only criticize this myth.

Someone like Molyneux is a little bit closer. He supports nuclear family, but applies ethics to that situation instead of the moral relativism and apathy of most conservatives and libertarians. Many libertarians here are horrified by the application of ethics to anything that isn't taxes. They believe that that is the be all and end all of radical thought.

Re: A Marxist Argument

Kelvin Silva — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 01:41:13 GMT

Is it possible for somethingto be Involuntary but not aggresive?

Re: A Marxist Argument

Buzz Killington — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 01:05:24 GMT

If all birth is involuntary, then how the heck is birth in a communist system any less involuntary?

Re: A Marxist Argument

SkepticalMetal — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:03:18 GMT

I'd like everyone to keep in mind that I do not endorse anything out of what I wrote. Remember - it's just a possible argument. I was just looking for possible ways to retort.