Beat'cha with Nietzsche

Er … I haven’t  studied Libertarianism - my understanding is largely gleaned from this and that. I don’t recognize this definition of libertarianism at all.

It seems that the writer equates the positive of “building” with the state (?) and finds a logical negative (in an ideology that deems the state aberrant and inherently antagonistic to individual liberties) and so libertarianism can’t build anything?.  huh?

If that’s what is being proposed, it would be to construe a protestant (anti state) libertarianism as a conceptual unit apart from a stateless society (which I believe is a more correct characterization of their vision) which I believe IS purported by libertarians to be capable of positively building civilization.  If I am just ignorant of some terms here, forgive me. What interests me though is this:

I think idealistic libertarians and marxists share a classical utopian ideal where individuals and associations all work together in moral harmony, (anarchy) and there is no need for any authoritarian entity. The means of achieving this is where the groups go separate ways. And in any event, I’m not sure there is any contemporary Marxist praxis that is actually attempting to find a feasible route.  

Western civilization is in a socialist cul de sac for now; though global conservatives are desperately trying to narrate the current economic difficulties as the failure of the welfare state. See Krugman’s rebuttal of this in todays paper. Even the United States (as “freemarket” as it want’s-ta-be) has deep socialist traditions that don’t really need to be called out, they’re so obvious. 

I think the fundamental utility of marxism right now, though, is critical political and economic theory without which capitalism would have no bona fide dialectical counterpoint.

For the present the state is the only bulwark of justice against the voracious tyranny of corporatism … and sadly, the corporations have largely won the game of making government (in the US anyway) it’s handmaiden rather than it’s referee. 

This November will be a telling demonstration of America’s collective comprehension (or lack thereof) of it’s real threats.  Unfortunately voters will likely only vote against the atrociousness of the specific GOP candidates, and not comprehensively against the fraud which is actually their ideological platform (and the reason (fraud) no one can succeed selling it).

sinidentidades:

logicallypositive:

the thing that, lately, has stricken me as curiously odd about libertarianism is that it is an ideology, a political philosophy, that strives not to achieve a goal, to work towards creating something, but to restore a lack of something, to return to a…