The Language of Looting (how the word free market became twisted)

I expect that's a game to get around the estate tax. It's probably a life insurance policy payable to the kids, rather than an actual payment to the estate. Get rid of the horrible death tax, and your "golden coffin" gambit goes away.
 
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magerette said:
And what kind of "warfare" is this?
From Surlent's article above(I don't know how accurate this perspective is in terms of economic and historical soundness--but the point it's making expresses very accurately how a lot of people feel right now):



Aren't both "classes" really being damaged here? And I thought America was designed to be a democracy, a more or less classless society...now suddenly there's accusatory rhetoric flying around of two classes who hate each other and want to destroy each other, who each want to gain an advantage by causing the other to suffer? The whole thing smells of political manipulation and makes my BS meter fly through the roof. :)

QUOTE]

Not to veer of course to much, but it is interesting to keep in mind in general that America was never meant to be a Democracy, it was based on the Democratic ideals of Greece, yet it is purely a Constitutional Republic, always was. In a Democracy the citizens directly vote for legislation etc., in a Republic their representatives do so...
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buckaroobonzai said:
Not to veer of course to much, but it is interesting to keep in mind in general that America was never meant to be a Democracy, it was based on the Democratic ideals of Greece, yet it is purely a Constitutional Republic, always was. In a Democracy the citizens directly vote for legislation etc., in a Republic their representatives do so...
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I shouldn't be surprised any more when running into this statement; it appears that it's actually taught in schools in the US or something. But it's still highly misleading, and gives a very confused picture of the concepts involved.

The statement only makes sense if you use Aristotle's original definitions for "democracy" and "republic." These referred to really existing polities in ancient Greece. Such polities, or even anything resembling them more than very superficially, no longer exist. Therefore, it's hardly surprising that the definitions we normally use -- both in regular conversation and in academic discourse -- have shifted a quite a lot.

In modern usage, "democracy" means a principle of government, and "republic" means a form of government. "Democracy" means a government that is "of, by, and for the people." "Republic" means a form of government that includes some kind of parliament and either a prime minister or president that are chosen through elections. The phrase for Aristotelian democracy -- the way it's used in your statement -- is "direct democracy," and it's more of a concept than a description of any really existing polity, even Switzerland which perhaps comes closest with its incessant plebiscites.

The two overlap, but by no means perfectly.

For example, Sweden is a democracy, because political power is vested in the parliament, which is chosen in free and fair elections, but it's not a republic, because the titular head of state is the king, which makes it a monarchy.

OTOH North Korea is a republic, but it's not a democracy: it has a prime minister and parliament, but these are chosen in elections that are anything but free and fair, which means that the electorate is effectively completely powerless.

In other words, the USA is a democratic republic, whereas the People's Republic of Korea is a non-democratic republic, and the Kingdom of Sweden is democratic without being a republic. Clear?
 
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vanedor said:
A 28 millions people country cannot train its own doctors?

Unbelievable.
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Your right that was unbelievable, so I checked up on it and it turns out they aren't required "by law" to study in America. Just the majority of them do. It's sorta a "face" thing. If they want to work in hospitals or for that matter even have patients that come back, it's better that they have some training in America or Europe.

I've gotta fact check what my g/f tells me. She assumed that all the doctors were required by law to study abroad to get their degree because she never met one that didn't have one.

Sorry Magerette for the derailment, I just wanted to add one more country to that list PJ had :)
 
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So you're saying that textbook definitions for forms of government should be tempered with their real-world implementations, rather than strict adherence to their original scope?

In that case, I think bn and I can start yelling "socialist" again. Sounds good to me.
 
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dteowner said:
So you're saying that textbook definitions for forms of government should be tempered with their real-world implementations, rather than strict adherence to their original scope?

In that case, I think bn and I can start yelling "socialist" again. Sounds good to me.
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The trouble is that socialism isn't only a theoretical concept. If you call European advanced capitalist countries socialist, then what do you call Cuba, Syria, or North Korea? By yelling "socialist" you're artificially conflating two utterly different political systems, with the express intent of tainting one with the negative connotations belonging to the other.

But if you want to do that, go right ahead. I'll just start using the term "fascist" for your variant of advanced capitalism. It's equally inaccurate and equally demeaning, so we'll be quits.

However, I don't think the use of either of these terms actually improves the quality or accuracy of our communication, nor the cogency of our arguments any. Therefore I believe that the best solution would be to drop both.

I would suggest "social democratic" for the Euro systems. That term doesn't mean what it originally meant either (it's how the original Communist parties described themselves), but it's close enough in its current usage to get the job done.
 
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What fun is it if we can't drag Hitler and Stalin into it? It's like being nice about Hillary.

@skav: No problem, this is actually Surlent's thread, but he's mostly kept his mouth shut, and we've all been off topic at least as much as usual here. :)
 
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pj said:
I would suggest "social democratic" for the Euro systems.
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I figure we were social liberalist near the end of 90's or at one point somewhere near 2000. Majority seemed more open to new ideas and generally everything. Yes, it was growth period, but still nevertheless. Now I fear Europe is becoming more and more conservative along its recession. Strange how the popular mindset reflects the state of the economy, eh? ;)

mags said:
No problem, this is actually Surlent's thread, but he's mostly kept his mouth shut,
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I'm following this thread, but I have much less to contribute than the rest of you. So I try to learn from others as much as I can. :)

We have been talking about socialism a lot in this thread. It's a hot button for sure. The point the original article wanted to make was the word "socialism" has been used out of proportion.

But so has the words "free market", what according to the article meant originally as fair market free from monopolies and vain interest payments. Instead the free market ended up being a political tool for nonregulation.
 
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Prime Junta said:
I shouldn't be surprised any more when running into this statement; it appears that it's actually taught in schools in the US or something. But it's still highly misleading, and gives a very confused picture of the concepts involved.

The statement only makes sense if you use Aristotle's original definitions for "democracy" and "republic." These referred to really existing polities in ancient Greece. Such polities, or even anything resembling them more than very superficially, no longer exist. Therefore, it's hardly surprising that the definitions we normally use -- both in regular conversation and in academic discourse -- have shifted a quite a lot.

In modern usage, "democracy" means a principle of government, and "republic" means a form of government. "Democracy" means a government that is "of, by, and for the people." "Republic" means a form of government that includes some kind of parliament and either a prime minister or president that are chosen through elections. The phrase for Aristotelian democracy -- the way it's used in your statement -- is "direct democracy," and it's more of a concept than a description of any really existing polity, even Switzerland which perhaps comes closest with its incessant plebiscites.

The two overlap, but by no means perfectly.

For example, Sweden is a democracy, because political power is vested in the parliament, which is chosen in free and fair elections, but it's not a republic, because the titular head of state is the king, which makes it a monarchy.

OTOH North Korea is a republic, but it's not a democracy: it has a prime minister and parliament, but these are chosen in elections that are anything but free and fair, which means that the electorate is effectively completely powerless.

In other words, the USA is a democratic republic, whereas the People's Republic of Korea is a non-democratic republic, and the Kingdom of Sweden is democratic without being a republic. Clear?
Click to expand...

Its cool to see you put all the historical minutiae in there! Much appreciated by all who don't have the time to either look all of that up or don't remember all that enough to post it.
But I think we know its a democratic republic, I was just saying that the technical definition is constitutional republic, I didn't mean to imply its not a demcratic republic...
 
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Yes, thanks for all the context as usual Prime J. I don't have much background in poly sci other than the usual high school stuff many years ago, so I'm unable to expound at that level.

@buckaroobonzai: In that post of mine you referred to, I was hitting more on a general theme of the American form of government being egalitarian, shaped by all kinds of various political influences, extreme ones like the abolitionists and amorphous ones like the melting pot of immigration, leading to a state of relative 'classlessness' that reflected at least some of the historical motives of the Founders in setting up an alternative to the political states of their time, rather than trying to pin things down. I really meant I don't think they envisioned a two-class state of priveleged and unpriveleged. :)

@Surlent: Glad to see you're still around. Your original article was well worth a discussion, even if we've strayed a bit far from the topic.
 
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No mention it. I'm not surprised we have had 5 pages of discussion about socialism, but I'm somewhat curious why the use of the term "free market" as political tool has been completely neglected so far?

Is it such a swear word these days? Did noone want the free markets in the first place? Or is it just to be cynically expected people high up persuade and push people around with nice sounding words? ;)
 
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Oh, it's interesting all right. Words have power. In the US, both parties have engaged in intentional attempts to shift the meanings of particular words. We owe the Democrats for "African-American," for example -- MLK and the other civil rights warriors referred to themselves as Negroes, but you can't use that in polite discourse any more. Or from the economic realm, "fair trade" is all too often used as a euphemism for protectionism (although there is a competing definition that's not protectionist).

But the Republicans have been, IMO, more successful -- thanks to them, words like "free market," "free trade," "weapons of mass destruction," and "socialism" have shifted in meaning almost beyond recognition; they've invented whole new concepts like "pro-business" and "socialized medicine" and "Islamofascist" with very strong built-in connotations. After all, how could anyone in their right mind possibly be anti-business or pro-Islamofascist?

It's Orwell's Newspeak -- controlling the way we're able to think by controlling the concepts available to us to use for the thinking. It's also entirely dishonest and rather despicable.
 
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Rather the other end of the spectrum, me thinks. At least on this side of the pond, lots of folks still like "free market" as a term and as policy in spite of the occasional wart. That means less controversy comes out of discussing it. Socialism, on the other hand, is a swear word for a majority of us (at least in the US). Particularly for those of us in a couple age groups (call it, "teens of the early 60's and mid-80's), anything remotely tied to the late USSR (socialist, marxist, communist, and a few other naughty evil words) is going to get a scowl and be lumped into a big pot of "them".
 
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dteowner said:
Rather the other end of the spectrum, me thinks. At least on this side of the pond, lots of folks still like "free market" as a term and as policy in spite of the occasional wart. That means less controversy comes out of discussing it.
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But there's the rub -- since Reagan, "free market" has meant one very specific variant of the free market, namely the deregulate-everything mess that you're seeing now. Of course people love the free market. I love the free market. I just think the variant of free market that your guys have built up over the past 30 years is a crappy one. But thanks to the Republicans, "free market" has now come to mean your particular variant of the free market, so we have to look for alternative terms if we believe that, for example, markets need to be counterbalanced by effective regulation and redistributive taxation.

Calling that system fascist is no more of a stretch than you calling us Euros socialist. One of the defining characteristics of fascism is a fusion of big capital with government power, and this is exactly what's happened in your neck of the woods since Reagan. (It's still a stretch and still unfair, of course, because fascism has a good many more, and more important, defining characteristics which your system lacks.)

Socialism, on the other hand, is a swear word for a majority of us (at least in the US). Particularly for those of us in a couple age groups (call it, "teens of the early 60's and mid-80's), anything remotely tied to the late USSR (socialist, marxist, communist, and a few other naughty evil words) is going to get a scowl and be lumped into a big pot of "them".
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Absolutely, and that's why I find it so offensive that you guys insist on using this term for countries and governments that are based on advanced capitalism rather than socialism. You've appropriated the curse word and are then using it to brand policies you don't like, never mind if they are actually socialist in the sense you're discussing at all.
 
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Prime Junta said:
Oh, it's interesting all right. Words have power. In the US, both parties have engaged in intentional attempts to shift the meanings of particular words. We owe the Democrats for "African-American," for example -- MLK and the other civil rights warriors referred to themselves as Negroes, but you can't use that in polite discourse any more. Or from the economic realm, "fair trade" is all too often used as a euphemism for protectionism (although there is a competing definition that's not protectionist).

But the Republicans have been, IMO, more successful -- thanks to them, words like "free market," "free trade," "weapons of mass destruction," and "socialism" have shifted in meaning almost beyond recognition; they've invented whole new concepts like "pro-business" and "socialized medicine" and "Islamofascist" with very strong built-in connotations. After all, how could anyone in their right mind possibly be anti-business or pro-Islamofascist?

It's Orwell's Newspeak -- controlling the way we're able to think by controlling the concepts available to us to use for the thinking. It's also entirely dishonest and rather despicable.
Click to expand...

This is all to true, but I think both parties here (I don't know if they do it around the rest of the world as much) both are to blame. Its almost once youre part of either the Democratic ro Republican parties, its -"Welcome my son, to the machine..."Pink Floyd. Then the ideologistical think-tanks churn out these little paper doll party members (almost sounds like we're talking about the commies haha) who spout out Orwellian doublespeak regurgitated from all the programming they've received from their endless politcal blogs,meetings, banquets, party fund raisers and speeches they've endured.

I don't think it's possible to think for yourself anymore as a politician and get anywhere besides you're town board. Even the voting constituencies-they vote because they are the ones who are prompted to go to the voting booths- are programmed along party lines. If you are not a Neo Conservative or Politically Correct libby in the U.S., no one will support you. Even if most of your ideas fall into moderate lines, if you want to do something like get rid of lobbyists, restrain political pork, earmarks etc. you will be swept aside by the tide of repub and demo robots whose political careers and income are fueled by lobbyists who in turn prop up their respective voting constituencies so nothing changes. It is a viscious circle.
 
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It gets even darker if you factor in that the politicians (of either party) don't really give two hoots about the general populace unless it happens to align with their personal bank account.

That sort of attitude is generally going to push you to the right. Whether you stop in Republican territory or push right on into Libertarian Land is a little more a personal choice.
 
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Still vaguely on-topic: here's an article I came across that compares the US with Europe and specifically France, and argues that there's it's no more likely that America becomes France than that France turns into America.

On-topic because of the terminology: he uses the term "social democracy" to describe European systems, and "advanced capitalist" to describe both the US and Europe. The article's worth a read anyway, IMO, but also as an example of rigorous use of terminology in the best sense of the word.

Let Us Rally to Protect the Delicate Flower of Rugged Individualism! at Crooked Timber.
 
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buckaroobonzai said:
....
I don't think it's possible to think for yourself anymore as a politician and get anywhere besides you're town board. Even the voting constituencies-they vote because they are the ones who are prompted to go to the voting booths- are programmed along party lines. If you are not a Neo Conservative or Politically Correct libby in the U.S., no one will support you. Even if most of your ideas fall into moderate lines, if you want to do something like get rid of lobbyists, restrain political pork, earmarks etc. you will be swept aside by the tide of repub and demo robots whose political careers and income are fueled by lobbyists who in turn prop up their respective voting constituencies so nothing changes. It is a viscious circle.
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Exactly. That's why I resist all attempts to label me as a Democrat. Both parties are two faces of the same beast. I'd like to think intelligent voters pick and choose as they can between the least egregrious candidates of either party, rather than fall in line with the party line of either one.

I think it's interesting that both parties now routinely use "talking points" and that the memos that come down with the programmed messages are no big deal when they come to light, yet then there's this huge disconnect, where the talking heads start spewing them out to the media, and politely everyone acts like they're expressing their own opinions in a real discourse.

Extremely frustrating. And it makes sensible governing difficult. The man on the street increasingly feels lied to by both sides, and therefore supports only what he can find to fit his self-interest.
 
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Prime Junta said:
Still vaguely on-topic: here's an article I came across that compares the US with Europe and specifically France, and argues that there's it's no more likely that America becomes France than that France turns into America.

On-topic because of the terminology: he uses the term "social democracy" to describe European systems, and "advanced capitalist" to describe both the US and Europe. The article's worth a read anyway, IMO, but also as an example of rigorous use of terminology in the best sense of the word.

Let Us Rally to Protect the Delicate Flower of Rugged Individualism! at Crooked Timber.
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I'm still in the process of giving this a read, Prime J, but just wanted to ask if by "he" you're referring to the primary author or to one of the authors whose arguments he's quoting, since the link skips to the Clive Crook commentary. (This is a very cogent article, btw--bookmarked the site)
 
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magerette said:
I'd like to think intelligent voters pick and choose as they can between the least egregrious candidates of either party, rather than fall in line with the party line of either one.
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I tend to take a more negative approach - I pick my parties on the basis of their most insane and dangerous candidates and wonder which I'd least like to have anywhere near power.
 
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