USA Politics

I'm ok with the government existing, as long as it doesn't infringe on personal property rights. I do admit my earlier post was confusing.
So you're socially Conservative and possibly anti-Socialist yet identify as part of the so-called Punk community. It seems odd to me, but then again John Lydon is a facist now.
 
So you're socially Conservative

Nothing he said suggests this is the case. Economically conservative, sure, but socially?

He sounds libertarian to me, which isn't that far removed, in principle, from anarchism, which has always been a central theme in the punk movement. There are socialist punk movements as well, but they're not the entire punk movement.
 
I know that Punks are supposed to be anarchists but I have no idea what libertarianism is.

Libertarianism advocates small government and respect of individual freedoms. Economic model is variable and creates sub-movements within libertarianism. Left-libertarians support a producer-driven economy without state interference or "middle men" such as banks. Right-libertarians support a free-market economy. They have the "no government interference on economy" principle in common.

Anarchism is more of a philosophy than it is a political ideology. It opposes authority and rules imposed by a high power. In that sense it becomes anti-government by its nature. So they have that in common with libertarians. As such, it's possible for a libertarian to be an anarchist, which would fall in line with the punk movement. At least in some sense.
 
Anarchism is more of a philosophy than it is a political ideology.

I know some Anarchists who would strongly disagree with you on that. Then you'd point out that the absence of authority is essentially the absence of politics, especially if you consider Anarchists by their own definition (though not necessarily in practice) are the exact opposite of the Aristotelian zōon politikon and for the absence of politics it cannot be a political idea, and then they'd say, "woah, dude..." Judging by my very own personal experience, of course.
 
Right-libertarians support a free-market economy.
You'll often see this brought forth in support of the so-called "Austrian School" of economic thought. I consider myself to be fairly liberal on social freedoms, but I'm certainly a democratic socialist on economics. The free market does not impress me.
 
The free market is fine as long as there's a safety net for innocent victims, such as people who lost their jobs because a major company went bust and such. This is where Liberalism and myself part ways.
 
I agree with the social safety net. Especially for situations where the company has behaved immorally. Classical Liberalism assumes that companies always act in their own best interest, when in reality they are constructs of humanity; corruption exists, and without something to check corruption, things can get bad.

There's a series of economic papers on the classic liberalism of the Eve Online economic system, and how massive financial structures are occasionally destroyed or absconded with by corrupt actors. It's glorious, and a reminder that an unchecked free market economy doesn't create perfect businesses but would herald instead a return to a robber baron-run oligarchy.
 
Although - to be fair - Communism has a very similar opinion of the human being. Both view the value of a person as stemming from their economic productivity. They just differ in what they think the right incentive for maximising productivity is.
 
This is why I need my regular fix of Star Trek. Just to reassure myself that there are other people out there who think that there is no such thing as totalist economics.
 
This is why I need my regular fix of Star Trek. Just to reassure myself that there are other people out there who think that there is no such thing as totalist economics.
Let's just go watch every episode of Star Trek.
 
Back
Top