I think that is a fair observation. You are right on with the mentality of social compacts in terms of individuals thinking that the government owns the land from Maine to Alaska. It is always fun to ask which piece of legislation actually established the government as a property owner.
Well do you still think bourgeois values still exist because if one were to look at say 1950’s culture and 2000’s culture then you can see a liberalization of behavior and a reduction of social taboos. Religious attendance has declined, atavism perhaps not much. I think family structures have change since the women’s liberation movement. I think largely bourgeois culture is dead.
Being half asian, I am aware of numerous east asian cultural taboos, religion, localism and family cultural norms, which are many factors stronger and more oppressive than west European cultural norms
I never meant to indicate otherwise. Certainly the bourgeoisie are not the only people with negative cultural elements, nor are they all bad. They are, rather, real people and not manichean demons.
If they are voluntary, isn’t that just a personal value preference you’re expressing?
I am arguing that there is a connection, such as existed between anti-semitism and anti-capitalism.
So you’re saying that the state is a result of these cultural norms, but also that the state created these norms? Which came first?
As I said earlier, they are reciprocal influences. They are both elements of the actions and values of real existing people, not hermetically sealed or mechanical elements. Certainly you would not deny that the state generates negative cultural norms that are counter-productive to maintaining an ideology and society of free individuals? I simply argue that this is true of many things taken for granted by cultural conservatives.
I also want to make it clear, in case there was some confusion, that I am not anti-property nor anti-‘capitalist’ in the narrower, Misesian sense. But I am not a propertarian in the sense that I believe real, enforced property claims are justifiable even in the case of no overt force; since the force of the state is behind every title, deed and deal in existence.
This is why I too think the left is considered less extreme. Not to mention how people have a natural love of equality and so are more inclined to see leftism in a good light.
when one eats because one is hungry it is not seen as immoderate -the love of equality has become as second-nature as the need for food.
Ok, it’s just you were very specific with western european, and I wanted to clarify that position.
Who are the bourgeoisie?
I’m not sure I would phrase it like that. I think the states skews incentives. I think negative cultural norms can be subsidized via the state. They may be counter-productive to my liberty, but I’m not interested in maintaining any particular “ideology” or concept of a “society of free individuals”.
So you’re basically arguing that it is not possible to achieve voluntary exchange under the state, and thus all of our actions without exception are in some manner or another, coerced?
Well, one should always be careful when using ‘class’ designations. But generally I mean the church-child-and-work oriented European middle class and its associated cultural norms. They are not, of course, some homogenous mass or dogmatic party.
I’m not sure I would phrase it like that. I think the states skews incentives. I think negative cultural norms can be subsidized via the state.
And I think that cultural norms can morally subsidize the state, by lowering barriers to resistance of authoritarian and state-generated outcomes by rationalizing them or making them taboo subjects.
So you’re basically arguing that it is not possible to achieve voluntary exchange under the state, and thus all of our actions without exception are in some manner or another, coerced?
No, I am saying that even voluntary actions are horrendously distorted by the existence of the state, often rebounding to its benefit. I would certainly rather someone advocate church donations than advocate tax hikes, but I think the ideology of an authoritarian paranoid god who instates people as absolute paternal rulers over their offspring is of no help when trying to get people to think and act for themselves, which I hold as an essential ingrediant to a free society developing and sustaining itself.
not to take away the general jist and compliment of what you were trying to say AJ, but please refrain in the heavy use of “we” as you did in that post. thanks.[Y]
Htut I think you would really take an interest in Roderick Long’s seminar on the ethics of a libertarian society. If you are interest, I can send you the link.
I am a property holder as are you, and both of us are subject to the state. Let us not make statements so sweeping and broad that they will lead us into error.
Agreed, and agreed. Although your definition is very different than the definition most commonly used. Everyone has to work, and we need children to continue the species, so the only unique aspect seems to be theism.
I agree. I’m just not sure we settled if culture produces the state, or the state produces culture. That there is a synergy, can’t be denied, but clearly in the west, the state has continued to grow at a faster pace as the bourgeois culture has diminished.
But that is what I was asking you. You said that the state influences all property claims, so I asked you if it was possible to make any valid free exchanges under that paradigm. If no free exchanges (by your property standard) are made, then it seems to be a theory, at least consistent with itself. But if we can have any free exchanges, then that would undermine the premise that the state invalidates all property, unless we will agree that all exchanges are also invalid.
I would recommend particular attention at Culture and Liberty because I see a lot of what you are saying as reflecting Long’s argument that libertarianism [ anarchism ] involves more then just the premise of the non-aggression principle. There needs to be a distinction about what behavior promotes or prohibits the realization of a free society.
Everyone has to work, and we need children to continue the species, so the only unique aspect seems to be theism.
But not everyone has to raise their children with specific social, heirarchical and lifestyle norms that one would associate with the Victorian middle-class. Likewise, not everyone has to view work in itself as desireable. Work is the downside of any action.
That there is a synergy, can’t be denied, but clearly in the west, the state has continued to grow at a faster pace as the bourgeois culture has diminished.
Bourgeois culture has both negative and positive elements in it. I would argue that many attitudes and modes of conduct within it contributed to the downfall of its more positive aspects and ultimate defeat as the middle-class gave way to the alliance of the have-nots and the have-lots.
You said that the state influences all property claims, so I asked you if it was possible to make any valid free exchanges under that paradigm.
Yes, but I would not claim that any particular exchange made on legally recognized property claims is valid. It is rather real justice that must be called into question, which is rarely done even by avowed libertarians in the case of billions of tiny transactions that take place every day.
If people are taught to be obedient, they will be obeyers. If people are taught to be exclusionary and accusative toward those who violate cultural standards, they will be exclusionary and accusative toward those who violate bad cultural standards (such as drug users). If people are taught to believe that most things people want to do are ‘evil’, they will tend to hate and want to suppress ‘evil-doers’, i.e. the voluntary choices of billions of other human beings. If people are taught that children need to be inculcated with popular norms and are to be punished for questioning or violating them, they will inculcate their children with negative cultural norms which will almost never be questioned. This applies, of course, to state-leftism as well - and I abhor it equally.
For me this is not purely a political question, nor a mere ‘preference’. It is a statement about what consideration individuals in their bodies and thoughts are to be given, and how such treatment will influence and be influenced by political society. Just because racism should not be punished by the police does not mean it is morally acceptable to be a racist, nor that one should just act like it’s a preference in ice cream. It is, so to speak, bad for moral business. One bad apple ruins to whole bunch, etc.
I don’t think that was ever claimed. Also not sure about this fixation on western european anarchronisms. I haven’t been to the pac nw in a decade or so, but I don’t recall seeing many Victorian institutions or cultural artifices.
I think you’ll find, I don’t tend to speak in absolutes like “this is unhealthy for the group” or “this is why you should have kids”. So not everyone has to view work in any particular way, only that without production of some manner and magnitude we starve, and people generally will do what they can, not to starve. Whether they like that work or not, praxeology informs us, they like to work, as opposed to the consequences of not working when they choose to do so. And thus, it is not the downside of any action, but the upside of two ordinal choices.
Not sure you addressed my statement here. In the west, there is more liberalization than anywhere else in the world, and the governments are larger and more onerous than the countries which have more of the cultural norms you consider (from my perception of your position only) unhealthy. So the correlation between religion, localism etc seems to be in an inverse proportion to the size of the state, or at least it is not consistent enough to make any generalizations about the trend.
You’ve completely lost me. If the state undermines all “legal” property titles, then are you saying it is not possible that any exchange could be voluntary, and coincidentally legal at the same time?