Authoritarianism and anti-authoritarianism: do they exist?

[rotting bones]

Just because you don't trust contemporary theorists, it doesn't mean that you have to trust Marx. You could always try to come up with your own theory.

I'm a democratic socialist, not a Marxist. It's just that Marx so consistently sides with oppressed while trying to stick to the facts. At the same time, his work inspires whole systems of metaphysics. There's no one else quite like him. For example, I tried to structure the Phong prophecy as a weirdly fantastic take on dialectical materialism. I'm not a dialectical materialist myself, but what other leftist gives ideas like this?

[Ares Land]

I will trust contemporary theorists if one of them ever gives me a reason to. As far as I can tell, there are two types of contemporary theorists: those incapable of solidarity (Keynesians and those to their right) and those incapable of abstraction (socialists and those to their left). The political right is of course both.

The more I think about it, the more I find I share Raphael's distrust of theorists.

When it comes to economics, I often rely on Piketty -- who's in fact not very much of a theorist and indeed very practical and detail-obsessed.
I know he's derided in leftist circles for not being left-wing enough which strikes me as unfair.
The thing is, he doesn't sound very radical, but the reforms he suggests would be quite revolutionary if implemented.

I have trouble with the more abstract side of Marx, myself; as you say, it borders on metaphysics. I think it doesn't work as politics.

[rotting bones]

The more I think about it, the more I find I share Raphael's distrust of theorists.

When it comes to economics, I often rely on Piketty -- who's in fact not very much of a theorist and indeed very practical and detail-obsessed.
I know he's derided in leftist circles for not being left-wing enough which strikes me as unfair.
The thing is, he doesn't sound very radical, but the reforms he suggests would be quite revolutionary if implemented.

Piketty is often wrong when he ventures opinions outside economics. For example, the whole cultural theory he tries to base his economics on is historically false. Marx has higher standards of accuracy than this, albeit he was limited by the information available in his time. Then again, capitalists hadn't had time to infuse every aspect of public life with propaganda in Marx's time.

Piketty also doesn't seem to realize how the closed nature of the capitalist system entails that his proposal for higher progressive taxes can't possibly remain a stable government policy as long as capitalism is around, etc.

I have trouble with the more abstract side of Marx, myself; as you say, it borders on metaphysics. I think it doesn't work as politics.

Marx doesn't exactly promote metaphysics as a solution to the world's problems. What he says is that the way capitalism thinks of money is a metaphysical system that was objectively practiced in the real world since before he, Marx, came on the scene. What he learned from Hegel is that the way to destabilize a metaphysical system is to find its immanent contradictions. Marx argues that the business cycles, now acknowledged by all market theorists, are the inner contradictions disproving the metaphysics of monetary circulation from within by showing that it's inherently unstable. Therefore, the preconceptions of the arguments it's based on are unsound. He calls this "dialectical materialism" since the metaphysics is rooted in objective practices independent of the philosopher's mind.

Since then, many thinkers have expanded similar analyses to other systems. Thomas Nail tries to apply it to environmentalism in Theory of the Earth.

This is one aspect of dialectical materialism I agree with. His overall sketch of history is definitely more questionable.

[Raphael]

zompist and Ares Land:

I was mainly trying to think of a way to find enough farm workers for the proposals made by Torco and Ares Land, and then I thought that while I'm at it, I might as well think of other unpleasant jobs, too.

I very much do not look down on people doing unpleasant jobs, and I'm very sorry if I gave that impression. "Shitty" was referring to the jobs themselves, not the people doing them.

Ares Land: I share your distrust of mandatory service. That's why one possible way I proposed for how to bring about what I'm proposing was an intentional reshuffling of social norms. You're completely right about making it easier to switch careers.

A bit more radically, I'd suggest generally making the "standard expected life story" among people who are born into the middle classes of the Global North less universal among people who fit that description than it currently is.

Right now, the "standard expected life story" among such people seems to be

Pre-schooling Early Childhood → Primary Education → Secondary Education (in one or two or three stages, depending on the place) → Higher Education → A Career → Retirement

Or at least that was how it looked like before the current collection of accumulated crises hit; I'm less sure about now.

IMO there are some problems with that "expected" way of doing things. For instance, it takes young human beings at exactly the point in their lives when for many of them, their biological urge to go out and do things is the strongest, and makes them sit in classrooms or lecture halls all day long. I don't know what the English-language terminology is, but I suspect that among environmentally concerned German speakers, if you treat captive animals that way, it's called "nicht artgerechte Haltung".

So I'd propose making it a completely socially accepted way of life for those young people who are the most interested in actively doing things - not all young people, just the ones with that kind of preference - to take some time out from formal education, perhaps as much as the entire time from their mid-teens to their mid-twenties - for some kind of extended non-Amish version of rumspringa, where they'd enjoy themselves while supporting themselves with menial jobs. Simultaneously more fun and more responsibility and exposure to all kinds of aspects of life than many young people that age get these days.

The important part would be to make sure that people in general, and of course especially potential future employers, would not see that kind of thing as a blot on the CV.

[Torco]

Torco: One major reason why people wanted to live in towns in the past is because there was more exposure to culture. With the Internet, I'm not sure this will be an issue.

As for efficiency, the efficiency I'm worried about is not from the standpoint of production. (Honestly, I'm concerned large farms might be producing less under capitalism in order to prevent food prices from going into free fall. I know of companies buying out small farms and simply not using them.) I'm worried that the price of food will be higher for consumers without collective organization.

under current trends for capitalism, it will almost certainly keep rising as high as enough people can survive it.

as to towns and culture, I think not: i'm in the process of getting a little house in the countryside and most people I know have told me things to the effect of "oh, i couln't. no bars? no movie theaters?". I myself don't anticipate i'll care, but I think they have a point that culture is not the same as streaming video

I think you answered this yourself in your reply to Raphael: nursing isn't a shitty job. In general, caring for humans is something humans do well, and caring for old people is both laudable and something advanced countries are going to need a lot of in this century.

Ideally society should think hard about what jobs shouldn't be automated, and not automate those. And make allowances for the fact that many people do like manual work and many people hate office work.

I recall a doctor saying once-- while cleaning out my ears-- that he didn't find such things disgusting. James Herriot (a veterinarian) wrote about how much he enjoyed, well, extremely personal interventions in a cow. Again ideally, decisions about what jobs are good and bad shouldn't be made by people who only like office work.

And you do hear similar things from farmers: they don't find feeding the chickens nearly as onerous a task as cityfolks do.

I don't think there are many jobs that are inherently bad, if the job is, well, the job. i think there are bad positions, as in the job plus the status, income, and working conditions. I'd happily drive a garbage truck if it paid well enough, it came with adequate PPE, and the job was 32 hours a week. this is why

I was mainly trying to think of a way to find enough farm workers for the proposals made by Torco and Ares Land, and then I thought that while I'm at it, I might as well think of other unpleasant jobs, too.

I think if you give people land, or access to it, and make sure farming it pays well enough, you're probably going to get enough farmers. there are a loooooooot of people who would prefer growing taters than doing what they're doing right now.

[Ares Land]

Piketty is often wrong when he ventures opinions outside economics. For example, the whole cultural theory he tries to base his economics on is historically false. Marx has higher standards of accuracy than this, albeit he was limited by the information available in his time. Then again, capitalists hadn't had time to infuse every aspect of public life with propaganda in Marx's time.

I'm curious -- what cultural theory are you thinking of? I certainly missed that. As I see he doesn't really presuppose much when it comes to theoretical background.

Piketty also doesn't seem to realize how the closed nature of the capitalist system entails that his proposal for higher progressive taxes can't possibly remain a stable government policy as long as capitalism is around, etc.

The answer to that objection is, how do we get rid of capitalism? You certainly can't get rid of it in one go, so at any point in a long process, you'll have capitalism around.
One of Piketty's huge points is that quite a number of things we take for granted (the income tax; government's role in healthcare or education; not having a caste of idle rentiers) were at one stage unacceptable and revolutionary.

This is one aspect of dialectical materialism I agree with. His overall sketch of history is definitely more questionable.

But doesn't his sketch of history -- and his future predictions a sign that's there's something wrong with the underlying theory? I accept the idea of internal contradictions, and I admit it's an elegant explanation, but capitalism certainly proves a lot more resilient than anticipated.

[Ares Land]

as to towns and culture, I think not: i'm in the process of getting a little house in the countryside and most people I know have told me things to the effect of "oh, i couln't. no bars? no movie theaters?". I myself don't anticipate i'll care, but I think they have a point that culture is not the same as streaming video

I do agree that there's more to it than Internet access.
But I do think Internet access changed a lot in ways that are probably difficult to estimate right now. An important thing is that cities used to be hubs for information exchange; they probably still are but not nearly as much. Right now companies are turning away from remote work; the basic fact that many service jobs can be done remotely remains. I'd be surprised if that doesn't have any long term consequences.

[rotting bones]

under current trends for capitalism, it will almost certainly keep rising as high as enough people can survive it.

Depending on how much resistance the capitalists face, maybe. But your solution doesn't overcome the problem either.

as to towns and culture, I think not: i'm in the process of getting a little house in the countryside and most people I know have told me things to the effect of "oh, i couln't. no bars? no movie theaters?". I myself don't anticipate i'll care, but I think they have a point that culture is not the same as streaming video

I have lived in cities my whole life. These days, if you want to do something in person, they ask why you don't use the internet. In the city.

[rotting bones]

I'm curious -- what cultural theory are you thinking of? I certainly missed that. As I see he doesn't really presuppose much when it comes to theoretical background.

I mentioned it years ago:

[Piketty] argued that medieval Europe was unique in having a celibate priestly/intellectual class or something. Is that true, though? Weren't Buddhist monks supposed to be celibate too? Weren't they the intellectual class in, say, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia?

At first, I didn't realize how important this was to the cultural argument he was building up to. Marx also talks about culture. He and Engels are right that many traditional societies are communal before capitalism gets introduced.

The answer to that objection is, how do we get rid of capitalism? You certainly can't get rid of it in one go, so at any point in a long process, you'll have capitalism around.
One of Piketty's huge points is that quite a number of things we take for granted (the income tax; government's role in healthcare or education; not having a caste of idle rentiers) were at one stage unacceptable and revolutionary.

We need a mass movement that pushes for my proposal or a proposal that has economically similar enough effects. That's why I argued for it for years until keenir broke my spirit.

But doesn't his sketch of history -- and his future predictions a sign that's there's something wrong with the underlying theory? I accept the idea of internal contradictions, and I admit it's an elegant explanation, but capitalism certainly proves a lot more resilient than anticipated.

Not really. He extrapolated a graph beyond what he had data points for. The aspect of the theory I explained is obviously correct. These days, basically everyone (except libertarians) accepts it in one form or another. The sketch of history doesn't follow from it. A lot of the historical sketch is polemics.

What's weird about Marx is that a common sense idea based on real economic phenomena is presented as a philosophical theory. That's prewar Germany for you.

[Raphael]

What's weird about Marx is that a common sense idea based on real economic phenomena is presented as a philosophical theory. That's prewar Germany for you.

Great point.

[Torco]

I do agree that there's more to it than Internet access.
But I do think Internet access changed a lot in ways that are probably difficult to estimate right now. An important thing is that cities used to be hubs for information exchange; they probably still are but not nearly as much. Right now companies are turning away from remote work; the basic fact that many service jobs can be done remotely remains. I'd be surprised if that doesn't have any long term consequences.

many companies are veering away from remote, but many are going towards hybrid instead of full inperson, and many others [like mine, thank fuck] are remaining remote.

under current trends for capitalism, it will almost certainly keep rising as high as enough people can survive it.

Depending on how much resistance the capitalists face, maybe. But your solution doesn't overcome the problem either.

as to towns and culture, I think not: i'm in the process of getting a little house in the countryside and most people I know have told me things to the effect of "oh, i couln't. no bars? no movie theaters?". I myself don't anticipate i'll care, but I think they have a point that culture is not the same as streaming video

I have lived in cities my whole life. These days, if you want to do something in person, they ask why you don't use the internet. In the city.

my idea of moving away from factory farms and towards midisze farms does not fix capitalism, no, but it will reduce the environmental damage capitalism inflicts on the planet. and yeah, the value of living in a big city, while it still exists, is lower than it was, say, in 1992.

[Ares Land]

I mentioned it years ago:

[Piketty] argued that medieval Europe was unique in having a celibate priestly/intellectual class or something. Is that true, though? Weren't Buddhist monks supposed to be celibate too? Weren't they the intellectual class in, say, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia?

At first, I didn't realize how important this was to the cultural argument he was building up to. Marx also talks about culture. He and Engels are right that many traditional societies are communal before capitalism gets introduced.

Ah, yes, I see now. That part is probably the weakest of the book, indeed.

a mass movement that pushes for my proposal or a proposal that has economically similar enough effects. That's why I argued for it for years until keenir broke my spirit.

That'd be great! It's probably best to be realistic about what a mass movement can achieve. Assuming you get a mass movement in favor of socialism, in politics it translates to 25% of voters that do adhere to socialism; 26% that are willing to go along provisionally because the opposition's messed up things enough. Those 26% of voters will abandon their post, in various ways, as soon as the socialist government makes its first blunder (which will inevitably happen.) Then you have to take into account that the opposition will use all means, constitutional and otherwise to prevent the socialists from doing anything. Then you have other countries -- ditto.
You have to basically make all sorts of reforms in the first year and hope one or two of them sticks.

The method is depressing and unsatisfying, but I'd add that it's the one way that got us tangible results. (The welfare state plus paid vacations are no socialist utopia, but they're not to be neglected either.)

The other way I can think of is revolution. What happens is that you temporarily suspend democracy, hand the keys to some guy (let's call him 'Fidel Castro') with the understanding that he gives control back to the people once he's done, which somehow never happens.

Anyway, I think that slowly euthanizing capitalism (essentially what Piketty suggests) might get better results in the long run. It worked on the rentiers the first time.
Essentially: expropriate the capitalists at once will drain all of your energy, lots of thing will go unadressed, people are unhappy; the conservatives win the next election, everything is privatized back. A wealth tax, or workplace democracy are more dangerous. The conservative government will try to end these of course, but then they will have to deal with institutional inertia.

[Travis B.]

The matter with that is that, on one hand, if farming less intensively is less efficient, then that means that more land will be used for farming, and the simple act of converting land into farmland means destroying the environment, but at the same time there are aspects of intensive farming that specifically harm the environment (beyond the simple use of land itself) such as the use of pesticides that harm pollinators that need to be dealt with one way or another. Ideally farming would be as efficient as possible, as that means less land used, without harming pollinators or like.

We don't need more land, we need to eat less beef. Worldwide, 38% of crops are grown to feed livestock.

In particular I was thinking of things such as the mass conversion of rainforest to palm oil plantations*. But yes, reducing meat consumption would free up land for growing crops for humans.

* I do realize that that isn't an example of increased inefficiency resulting in more land use.

(Note, we don't all need to be vegans. You didn't say this, but historians and pundits going back to Adam Smith often get this wrong: not all land is suitable for crops, some is only suitable for pasture.)

This is true -- it would be an improvement if we limited things like raising cattle to land not suitable for growing crops for humans when feasible.

[Richard W]

Trump's deportations are causing a labor shortage for farming. Very likely this will reduce, not increase, the number of family farms. Only large industrial farms can afford mechanization or negotiating visa requirements for temporary workers.

Labour from abroad is available in the form of contractors from nominally legal labour gangs. It's not popular with the workers, partly because in practice it can all too easily approximate slavery.

[malloc]

It really does surprise me to hear the link between rurality and conservatism disputed. Pretty much everything I have read and heard over the years has emphasized that link, from election results in various countries to my own experiences. If you really do consider the correlation spurious, then what would you say is actually causing it? Furthermore, what factors would you say actually push people to the left?

[Raphael]

It really does surprise me to hear the link between rurality and conservatism disputed. Pretty much everything I have read and heard over the years has emphasized that link, from election results in various countries to my own experiences.

Well, that's because you're often way too quick to jump to conclusions based on too little data. You know, rightly, that rural people are overwhelmingly conservative in the times and places you know something about, and you conclude from that that they must always, everywhere, be overwhelmingly conservative. Which is a fallacy.

That said, you're probably right that rural people are probably usually more culturally conservative than others. To which extent this translates to political conservatism might be quite different from time to time and from place to place.

[Torco]

It really does surprise me to hear the link between rurality and conservatism disputed. Pretty much everything I have read and heard over the years has emphasized that link, from election results in various countries to my own experiences. If you really do consider the correlation spurious, then what would you say is actually causing it? Furthermore, what factors would you say actually push people to the left?

not everywhere is the states. i'm fairly sure successful socialist revolutions have had strong support from the rural estates: as in rural people taking up arms and imposing socialism. a big part of mao ze deng thought is about how the peasants are the real revolutionary force.

there's nothing inherently conservative about farmers, i suspect, other than being relatively easy targets for right-wing propaganda on account of lower density: it doesn't take that much more money to buy all three radio stations and all six churches in a town, and then you have cultural hegemony there. so sure, in healthy capitalist societies, rural people will often be more right wing, but this is a result of concrete actions by concrete people. not an expert on us history, but I wouldn't be surprised if things like the American Farm Bureau Federation what claims to be the Voice of Agriculture® (trademark sign included in their very website splash page) were relatively recent and funded by factory farm and insurance aristocrats.

[Raphael]

not everywhere is the states. i'm fairly sure successful socialist revolutions have had strong support from the rural estates: as in rural people taking up arms and imposing socialism. a big part of mao ze deng thought is about how the peasants are the real revolutionary force.

there's nothing inherently conservative about farmers, i suspect, other than being relatively easy targets for right-wing propaganda on account of lower density: it doesn't take that much more money to buy all three radio stations and all six churches in a town, and then you have cultural hegemony there. so sure, in healthy capitalist societies, rural people will often be more right wing, but this is a result of concrete actions by concrete people. not an expert on us history, but I wouldn't be surprised if things like the American Farm Bureau Federation what claims to be the Voice of Agriculture® (trademark sign included in their very website splash page) were relatively recent and funded by factory farm and insurance aristocrats.

Partly right, but you might underestimate the cultural conservatism of many rural people. That doesn't matter much in times and places where cultural issues aren't a big part of politics, but it does in times and placers where they are.

Another factor might be whether farms own their farms or are tenants on large landowners' estates.

[zompist]

It really does surprise me to hear the link between rurality and conservatism disputed. Pretty much everything I have read and heard over the years has emphasized that link, from election results in various countries to my own experiences.

Well, that's because you're often way too quick to jump to conclusions based on too little data. You know, rightly, that rural people are overwhelmingly conservative in the times and places you know something about, and you conclude from that that they must always, everywhere, be overwhelmingly conservative. Which is a fallacy.

Quite true. It's worth perusing election results from before we were born— e.g. the 1936 presidential election. Rural counties went overwhelmingly for Roosevelt. There's also, for instance, the communist revolution in China, which began in the rural areas.

[Ares Land]

It really does surprise me to hear the link between rurality and conservatism disputed. Pretty much everything I have read and heard over the years has emphasized that link, from election results in various countries to my own experiences. If you really do consider the correlation spurious, then what would you say is actually causing it? Furthermore, what factors would you say actually push people to the left?

No, I don't really dispute it.

I don't think it's set in stone though. For France, it's largely true... but historically it wasn't as strong and even today it's not a perfect correlation.

Check these maps of electoral results: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi_roug ... 9rit%C3%A9 -- there's a strong left-wing bastion visible in the Southwest -- most of these départements are very rural areas. (Red means left-wing here)
The effect is much less visible here, but it's there: https://ecpmlangues.unistra.fr/cartes/e ... 24-2-circo. The large pink electoral districts in the southern half are mostly very rural areas. (Orange, pink or red means left-wing, green means the Greens of course)

A few things to note:

• "Rural" doesn't mean "farmer". There really are very few farmers, so even in rural areas they're a minority.
• People who own organic farms, or organize communal farms aren't likely to be conservative, for obvious reasons. The environment isn't a concern of the right.
• I don't see that the conclusion is that more people should live in the cities. Of course there's no automatic effect that turns people conservative or socialist.