“Where some has failed, more rarely succeeds.”—Aaron Haspel, Everything (2015)
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I grew up hearing again and again from all the old communists and socialists in Verdun and The Point that none of the supposedly communist countries were actually communist, and none of the supposedly socialist countries were actually socialist: “We’ve never really tried communism!”—they’d say, before pounding a fist into the table, and taking another swig of beer.
There’s some truth to claims like this. After all, we live in a complicated world wherein all theoretical constructs are forced to fall from grace when they’re put into practice. So there has never been, nor will there ever be, a perfectly communist society or a perfectly capitalist society. But does this mean that every system must be judged only with reference to its pristine Platonic ideal?
Why can’t we judge how something looks in the messy real world we live in? What’s more, isn’t there something vaguely sleazy about constantly placing your proposed system beyond reproach?
Listening to a libertarian go off on one of their anti-government rants is like listening to an American who’s convinced himself that he lives in Liberia: a country where nothing works, everything’s broken, and everyone in charge is either corrupt or incompetent. The rhetoric is so over the top and absurd. You have to visit the States from time to time to be reminded of how full of shit these people are.
Much in America works. And works very well. Libertarians talk about government and governing the way that judgy know-it-alls who don’t have kids talk about parenting. Perhaps that’s why a perverse part of me wants to see what happens when a libertarian party gets elected to a serious public office with grownup responsibilities. Because right now most of their political ideas are untested and absurdly theoretical.
Then again, even if they did get elected, I suspect libertarians would explain away all of their failures the way ideologues of all political stripes have been explaining away their failures for the last century: by saying that their panacea didn’t work because it wasn’t implemented thoroughly enough.
The perfect political system does not exist. They’re all more or less flawed, just as we are all more or less flawed. That being said, some regimes are better than others (e.g., the American republic is, at present, way better than the Saudi Arabian monarchy). The best regimes, to my mind, are constitutional democracies; especially constitutional democracies that have found creative ways to balance the two (equally sacred) fairness ideals: the fairness ideal that says we ought to link rewards to effort, and the fairness ideal that says we ought to level the playing field, share, and avoid extremes of wealth and poverty.
The ideal regime I long for does two things well:
- it provides ample opportunity for private enterprise to innovate and prosper,
- it guarantees social security so that citizens cannot be priced out of basic needs such as food, shelter, education, and leisure time.
It defends the full rights and freedoms of individuals through human rights legislation, and it rejects all forms of forced collectivism. At present, social democracy seems to be the only form of government that can reliably achieve these goals.
Libertarianism doesn’t provide an adequate economic framework for social security; democratic socialism and social conservatism inherently promote forced collectivism; communism fails to link rewards to effort; anarchism severely limits human freedoms; and far-right politics invariably lead to barbarism.
—John Faithful Hamer, The Myth of the Fuckbuddy (2016)
Much in America works. And works very well. Libertarians talk about government and governing the way that judgy know-it-alls who don’t have kids talk about parenting. Perhaps that’s why a perverse part of me wants to see what happens when a libertarian party gets elected to a serious public office with grownup responsibilities. Because right now most of their political ideas are untested and absurdly theoretical. – See more at: https://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/judgy-know-it-alls-wcz/#sthash.Wp9Vw5Yh.dpuf
jesus. this could be said directly about the liberals who’ve had their years and made absolute messes of just about everything.
You just severely contradicted yourself, but not to be a judgey anarchist that has no kids, I will let you find it yourself.
P.S. you do have Communism in America, entrenched, incorporated and it is growing. It is found in the correctional incarceration prison system. All workers are provided the same wage, have access to education and healthcare, free housing, food, and job training. Hell the DoJ has made ‘convict’ a protected class on Apr to other EEOC sectors – it is now ILLEGAL to not hire someone because of prison time.
I agree with Keith. I am a libertarian too. Believe in assisting people who cannot fend for themselves. But not millions who choose not to participate and make up excuses why they can’t. The multitude of services tripping over themselves for their own jobs. Not the poor. Themselves and their own aggrandizement. We’re a sorry lot to be sue with a selfish mentality really.
We need to remember that there are crazies of all political bents. Unfortunately, people only want to speak of the crazies in all of the parties. I’m a minor “l” libertarian. Or perhaps even just a Libertarian Realist. I believe in a strong Social Welfare system. But only one. Not the multitude of alphabet soup systems we find today. I’d scrap everything we currently call “welfare” and replace it with a guaranteed minimum income for all persons of majority age that are citizens. Period. Maybe I’d index it to a local cost of living… But maybe not. I’d start a… Read more »