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zacb
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04 Oct 2013, 7:34 pm

What I mean is that while we have the AOC, it is the better of them. It seems advocating anything below that (or nothing) is politically or socially suicidal. I agree in all honesty there is no perfect solution, but either way you advocate it, it seems you are screwed. Advocate direct action on this, and you are labelled a pedo, same for political action. Heck, people warn me to not advocate against the states involvement of the state in marriage, since I tend to criticize gay marriage, since it is the issue of the day, in the sense they should be able to form legal contracts, but the government should not advocate any relations, queer, poly, straight, or otherwise. I think that is a good point about the infantilizing of youth. It is kind of like the less we expect of youth (not allowing them to work or contract), the less they will achieve.

I will take one issue with a common maxim of feminism. I think that the nuclear family is an ideal environment, although I don't think it should be legislated. So to some up , I wonder why society must have so many restraints, and why people can't figure out for themselves. I imagine some intervention that prevents them from feeling the cost of their actions (through charity, government, etc.) has an effect. But never thought of the infantilizing effect in that way.



zacb
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04 Oct 2013, 7:40 pm

My state of mind when I posted this was I was watching Pirate Radio, and so I guess here is another thing I was thinking: why aren't there more revolutionary things out there? Things like pirate radio, sit ins, wood stock, Loompanic, anti tax movement, etc. ? It seems like like revolutionary movements, outside Occupy, Paulian, etc. are kinda dead. Perhaps it had to do with 9/11 ? I remember reading about the anti-tax movement going underground after 9/11 .



puddingmouse
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04 Oct 2013, 8:15 pm

Politics has become ossified. Political debate has been confined to:

relative social conservatism with mostly free markets and some welfare (the current 'right') vs. relative (but compromised) social liberalism with a balance of free markets and slightly more comprehensive welfare (the current 'left')

On the sides you have:
'Libertarians' who favour liberty mainly for rich people and think poor people's collective power should be crushed, but are socially liberal
'Socialists' who are moderately socially liberal but believe in fairly large amounts of state control

On the extreme fringes you have:
Old school quasi-fascist 'conservatives' who are both economically and socially very conservative
Old school communists who are, well, Marxist-Leninist

And then you have libertarian Marxists like me.

I believe that both capitalism (consumerism) and welfarist socialism are infantilising. So I think you are right about government and charity shielding people from the effects of their actions having an infantilising effect. I believe consumerism has an even bigger infantilising effect, though. Under the current (mainly consumerist with some welfare provision) system:
People have desires, some natural and some created, but always mediated through the values of the system, then they perform meaningless tasks which we call 'work' but isn't really work in a personally or socially meaningful sense in order to 'fulfil' these desires, but since they're alienated from their true sense, they aren't satisfied and they process starts over. If they make a bad decision, they're forced sometimes to seek government or charitable assistance because otherwise they won't be able to maintain health, safety or sanity. If people were empowered in the first place then this cycle wouldn't repeat and they wouldn't need the sticking plaster of welfare or charity. I mean granted, disasters do happen, so people will sometimes need help, which should and would be provided because humans are social animals and function collectively to a surprising degree (despite current propaganda from 'libertarians'.) If someone's house burns down after a lightning strike, helping them out isn't infantilising them, it's normal human behaviour. Charity as the preferred sticking-plaster of conservatives though, is infantilising, especially with its religious overtones and sense of moral superiority.

The reason we lack revolutionary voices in contemporary society is because people are no longer analysing exactly what the current political consensus is doing to them as individuals - they are too busy trying to get on with life. For revolutionary movements to thrive, people either have to be rather comfortably well-off (as they were in the 60s - this leads to fairly peaceful revolutions mainly focused on social issues) or extremely desperate (as they were in most violent revolutions - these revolutions tend to be primarily economic with social change coming from the radical changes that are made to the class structure) At present, most people range from slightly well-off and wanting to do better to slightly desperate and trying to keep their head above water. Some people are extremely, decadently comfortable and they are the elites that benefit from the current system. As this system decays and we slowly become more desperate due to resource depletion, people will look to rearrange society more as an answer.


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zacb
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04 Oct 2013, 9:00 pm

puddingmouse wrote:
Politics has become ossified. Political debate has been confined to:

relative social conservatism with mostly free markets and some welfare (the current 'right') vs. relative (but compromised) social liberalism with a balance of free markets and slightly more comprehensive welfare (the current 'left')

On the sides you have:
'Libertarians' who favour liberty mainly for rich people and think poor people's collective power should be crushed, but are socially liberal
'Socialists' who are moderately socially liberal but believe in fairly large amounts of state control

On the extreme fringes you have:
Old school quasi-fascist 'conservatives' who are both economically and socially very conservative
Old school communists who are, well, Marxist-Leninist

And then you have libertarian Marxists like me.

I believe that both capitalism (consumerism) and welfarist socialism are infantilising. So I think you are right about government and charity shielding people from the effects of their actions having an infantilising effect. I believe consumerism has an even bigger infantilising effect, though. Under the current (mainly consumerist with some welfare provision) system:
People have desires, some natural and some created, but always mediated through the values of the system, then they perform meaningless tasks which we call 'work' but isn't really work in a personally or socially meaningful sense in order to 'fulfil' these desires, but since they're alienated from their true sense, they aren't satisfied and they process starts over. If they make a bad decision, they're forced sometimes to seek government or charitable assistance because otherwise they won't be able to maintain health, safety or sanity. If people were empowered in the first place then this cycle wouldn't repeat and they wouldn't need the sticking plaster of welfare or charity. I mean granted, disasters do happen, so people will sometimes need help, which should and would be provided because humans are social animals and function collectively to a surprising degree (despite current propaganda from 'libertarians'.) If someone's house burns down after a lightning strike, helping them out isn't infantilising them, it's normal human behaviour. Charity as the preferred sticking-plaster of conservatives though, is infantilising, especially with its religious overtones and sense of moral superiority.

The reason we lack revolutionary voices in contemporary society is because people are no longer analysing exactly what the current political consensus is doing to them as individuals - they are too busy trying to get on with life. For revolutionary movements to thrive, people either have to be rather comfortably well-off (as they were in the 60s - this leads to fairly peaceful revolutions mainly focused on social issues) or extremely desperate (as they were in most violent revolutions - these revolutions tend to be primarily economic with social change coming from the radical changes that are made to the class structure) At present, most people range from slightly well-off and wanting to do better to slightly desperate and trying to keep their head above water. Some people are extremely, decadently comfortable and they are the elites that benefit from the current system. As this system decays and we slowly become more desperate due to resource depletion, people will look to rearrange society more as an answer.


I think you are right. That was one possibility I came to in my head. As far as consumerism, I agree, but for different reasons. I think IP and brand glorification (see Apple) as well as fiat currency are an issue. You know, the more i think about it, the currency issue between marketist and socialist maybe be bridge with gold and solver, since to both they are a currency and a means of exchange.

As far as my political status, I tend to align with panarchist and agorist. I think all of the anarchism's have flaws, thus all must be allowed. I have been rethinking the whole justice system within an anarchist system after the Silk Road incident. I am wondering what model makes the most sense. I am not actually sure what I would do. Arbitration would not work, yet violence does not help anarchist and anti statist.

As a side note, it is nice to talk with someone without all the abstractions and sectarianism. :D



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04 Oct 2013, 9:23 pm

I'm thinking in a post-apocalyptic future, you could have various types of anarchism in operation simultaneously. It is kind of hard to imagine, though but widespread anarchism is hard to imagine, anyway, since anarchist societies have tended to be isolated incidents since civilisation happened. I do believe it works and is possible; it's just that nothing short of ecological disaster will make it happen.

In the meantime, it's just an ideology.


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zacb
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04 Oct 2013, 9:31 pm

Well, in the liberal sense, Iceland, Ireland, the American Indians , the internet, and most notably Spain,among others, have been ideal centers for anarchy. The Articles of Confederation was an interesting hybrid, and I think some voluntary aspects can be pulled from that, even though it is political.

IDK if you know much about agorism, but there are some digital realms based on that idea (bitcoins, tor) . I have been mixed on mixed action and how we need to go from here. I am kinda pulled between defensive voting (like voting against eminent domain, which would directly affect me), agorism, and the Perpetual Traveler idea, which i find quite a bit of merit in. I imagine our likes and dislikes would be slightly different (I lean towards right anarchism, but I personally find agorism and panarchism more feasible and likely to reach the goal).