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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (50852)	9/3/2006 10:00:58 AM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

That's a nice neo-marxist fantasy story you've found there, rejek. That first bit's especially funny, being printed in the Moscow Times - in a nation where opposition pols are jailed, opposition press is silenced, and the government and well-connected oligarchs are gobbling up the energy sector to use it as a political weapon against neighboring countries. Oh, and whoever came up with that graphic at the end of your post is an idiot. Fascism is NOT totalitarian capitalism. Fascism is STATE corporatism - a form of socialism - and places no value on private property or individual liberty. Private control of industry and individual economic freedom are permitted ONLY to the extent that, and ONLY so long as, they serve STATE interests. It is really no different than any other form of socialism - including communism - except that unlike the latter it admits its goals are state power and national glory rather than some egalitarian propaganda fantasy. Communism, BTW, is by necessity totalitarian. That yellow quadrant is a socio-political impossibility. You can not take away economic freedom and markets - which one must do to have a centrally planned, state-owned, from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs economy - without relying instead on coercion and authoritarian rule. Capitalism, OTOH, - better termed a market economy or market order - holds individual economic freedom and respect for private property as its core principles. And it is only really compatible with political freedom. You've been reading too much neo-Marxist, anti-neoliberalist propaganda, rejek, and the socio-economic pseudo-philosophy behind it is as full-of-crap wrongheaded as it was every other time its power hungry promoters and deluded followers have tried selling it to the masses.

To: tejek who wrote (50852)	9/7/2006 11:54:58 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Oeconomicus already handled most of my response for me. I recommend his post. I'll just quickly note that your graph places France in the exact center and covering all of the center. Nothing can claim to be centrist unless it extensively overlaps with France. All in all a rather questionable assumption both in terms of France being centrist and in terms of France being further from totalitarian than the US.