Democracy as the ultimate political virtue?

[z1235]

@Aristophanes

I’m familiar with Hoppe. I’ll check out that other one, although I am not pumped about paying for it…

Here’s the first chapter (free pdf). Some links to articles about it and interviews with the authors.

The book is $0.99 on Kindle (free Kindle app download for any device).

[bloomj31]

How does one determine the “virtue” of any given system?

What is virtue?

@Neodoxy

The market will always give people what they really want, as an end, the product which they desire.

Is that what all people want in life? Products? Stuff?

Is that all you want? Stuff?

[Johnny_Doe]

@bloomj31

How does one determine the “virtue” of any given system?

What is virtue?

@Neodoxy

The market will always give people what they really want, as an end, the product which they desire.

Is that what all people want in life? Products? Stuff?

Is that all you want? Stuff?

Or whatever they want, whatever that might be.

[bloomj31]

@JohnnyDoe

Or whatever they want, whatever that might be.

How much money do I need to have to be able to play by a different set of rules than everyone else in a market?

[Caley_McKibbin]

People are told to look towards democracy because it makes them feel like their opinion and input in the political process is equal to everyone else

I can’t imagine anything other than such ego stroking being the basis for its popularity. I’ve always been too elitist to like the idea of anyone else having a say in my life. The idea that everyone could have a say in my life is about as horrific as I can imagine.

[Aristophan3s]

I can’t imagine anything other than such ego stroking being the basis for its popularity.

I totally agree. Although, I don’t think people who support democracy think that. haha

[Aristippus]

Bloom:

Liberalism is a doctrine directed entirely towards the conduct of men in this
world. In the last analysis, it has nothing else in view than the advancement of their
outward, material welfare and does not concern itself directly with their inner,
spiritual and metaphysical needs. It does not promise men happiness and
contentment, but only the most abundant possible satisfaction of all those desires
that can be satisfied by the things of the outer world.
Liberalism has often been reproached for this purely external and materialistic
attitude toward what is earthly and transitory. The life of man, it is said, does not
consist in eating and drinking. There are higher and more important needs than food
and drink, shelter and clothing. Even the greatest earthly riches cannot give man
happiness; they leave his inner self, his soul, unsatisfied and empty. The most
serious error of liberalism has been that it has had nothing to offer man’s deeper and
nobler aspirations.

But the critics who speak in this vein show only that they have a very imperfect
and materialistic conception of these higher and nobler needs. Social policy, with
the means that are at its disposal, can make men rich or poor, but it can never
succeed in making them happy or in satisfying their inmost yearnings. Here all
external expedients fail. All that social policy can do is to remove the outer causes
of pain and suffering; it can further a system that feeds the hungry, clothes the
naked, and houses the homeless. Happiness and contentment do not depend on
food, clothing, and shelter, but, above all, on what a man cherishes within himself It
is not from a disdain of spiritual goods that liberalism concerns itself exclusively
with man’s material well-being, but from a conviction that what is highest and
deepest in man cannot be touched by any outward regulation. It seeks to produce
only outer well-being because it knows that inner, spiritual riches cannot come to
man from without, but only from within his own heart. It does not aim at creating
anything but the outward preconditions for the development of the inner life. And there can be no
doubt that the relatively prosperous individual of the twentieth century can more
readily satisfy his spiritual needs than, say, the individual of the tenth century, who
was given no respite from anxiety over the problem of eking out barely enough for
survival or from the dangers that threatened him from his enemies.

To be sure, to those who, like the followers of many Asiatic and medieval
Christian sects, accept the doctrine of complete asceticism and who take as the ideal
of human life the poverty and freedom from want of the birds of the forest and the
fish of the sea, we can make no reply when they reproach liberalism for its
materialistic attitude. We can only ask them to let us go our way undisturbed, just
as we do not hinder them from getting to heaven in their own fashion. Let them
shut themselves up in their cells, away from men and the world, in peace.
The overwhelming majority of our contemporaries cannot understand the ascetic
ideal. But once one rejects the principle of the ascetic conduct of life; one cannot
reproach liberalism for aiming at outer well-being.

Mises, Liberalism.

[Centinel]

@Aristophanes

I posted this on a thread a few weeks ago – pretty funny stuff. I challenged the anarchist on this forum to a wager that the list of higher order democracies I provided would not fight a war in the next decade.

No challengers were forthcoming.

The bet was for $1000.00 plus interest – there are numerous impartial brokers for this kind of wager.

If you are adamant about the failure of democratic peace theory perhaps you or anyone else would like to double your money plus a respectable interest income in the next 10 years.

Enjoy:

When are we going to stop citing RJ Rummel?

Democratic peace theory is on a sound logical and empirical foundation. The notion that he inflates some figures does nothing to discount the fact that it is a virtual impossibilty that any of the following higher order democracies will ever engage in conflict: ### FREE 1.0 Andorra Australia Austria Bahamas Barbados Belgium Canada Cape Verde Chile Costa Rica Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Dominica Estonia Finland France Germany Hungary Iceland Ireland Kiribati Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxem…

[Johnny_Doe]

@bloomj31

@JohnnyDoe

Or whatever they want, whatever that might be.

How much money do I need to have to be able to play by a different set of rules than everyone else in a market?

You wouldn`t be able to aquire a large enough buying power to control/influence to a large extent the free market, in a free market.

[bloomj31]

@JohnnyDoe

You wouldn`t be able to aquire a large enough buying power to control/influence to a large extent the free market, in a free market.

Exactly.

[Caley_McKibbin]

Bloomj31, aspiring Palpatine?

[bloomj31]

If only acquiring power were as simple as moving to Korriban and learning to shoot lightning from one’s hands. Le sigh.