>>>My view of the political spectrum places what you would call the Far Left and Right at the same end. nazis (National "Socialists"), communists, theocracies, crony capitalism, welfare states, mixed economies, conservatism, liberalism, etc. Slide them all across the spectrum (not necessarily in that particular order) to Laizzez-faire capitalism, libertarianism, and anarchy (classic Greek definition) at the other end.<<<
The problems with this formulation are manifold, literally. That's because there are many dimensions to political differences. Your juxtapositions are badly flawed. First of all, you are not really a Libertarian, you are a conservative in practice.
Real Libertarians and Anarchists never actually exist in times of peace. This is the territory where far right and far left meet in back of the barn, but only in times of war or social chaos. That's because these are essentially destructive philosophies, and have no need to actually pencil out all the details of making things work. Which is related to why wackos of all stripes feel no compunction about selling each other guns and ammo.
These two political points are closer by far than the Nazis and the Leninist communists, which are distinguished by the question of the rights of property, upon which they are diametrical opposites. In fact, now that the Chinese communist system has converted to a system that has business and property rights, technically it is Facism. However, this is because they have turned 180 degrees on the matter of private money and property. Yet not the issues of the police state, legal rights, or democracy.
Also, they have abandoned to some extent the Marxist communist belief in the rights to work, medical care, education, food and shelter. The original manifesto/talking points list that was the mirror twin to our bill of rights, which addressed freedoms, rather than outcomes.
LF Capitalism is a slightly different case, in that it has never existed, time of war or not. Certainly there has been trade between parties in circumstances where no government protected the rights of the parties, but none of that has ever been large enough in scale of money or time to be dignified with the appellation of Capitalism. I guess you could say that the Caribbean pirates were as close as you could get. They weren't particularly productive net-net as far as the rest of us were affected, but they did do business without any nasty government interference and their bottom lines were great when they lived long enough to spend the money :-).
Capitalism requires the state. This is to protect property rights, to keep the cost of each company having it's own standing army to enforce contracts, protecting merchandise and so on from overwhelming the businesses, to provide a common currency, trustworthy banks, roads, etc ad nauseum. In fact normally individual taxpayers subsidise business. A perfect example is the highway system, crucial to most modern business, to which trucking companies contribute less than 25% of costs toward building the road and repairing the damage caused by trucks. Another is the common occurance of the US military being brought in to defend US business interests, an expensive proposition. In fact the modern democratic state was invented primarily to protect the merchant class and property from the nobility as much as to elevate the masses. More, in fact.
Now I know that some people on this thread think they are Libertarians. But by their deeds... They call ambulances, want police protection, want the army to defend the borders, drive on the roads (usually in some giant gas hog), drink the water, want the loonies off the street, and in fact 105% if the stuff everyone else wants.
They just make the leap to having a free lunch from there, in two jumps:
1. They don't want to pay for all that, believing that if it is expensive they must be getting cheated, and that that is so unusual in life that they are thus freed from any responsibility.
2. They don't want to personally be restricted in their action in any way, whatever they want done to their neighbors.
This is of course the essence of modern American conservatism, and Libertarians in practice are therefore just conservatives. Neither group would ever step out of their way to help anyone else acquire any power or freedom or other valuables, and so neither will either ever be anything but a minor periodic footdragging blip in history.
Of course that could be true of democracy as well.
Chaz |
