Why capitalists are coming out against democracy - “Does classical liberalism imply democracy?”
https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Reprint-EGP-Classical-Liberalism-Democracy.pdf
“There is a fault line running through … liberalism as to whether or not democratic self- governance is a necessary part of a liberal social order. The democratic and non-democratic strains of classical liberalism are both present today. Many … libertarians … represent the non-democratic strain in their promotion of non-democratic sovereign city-states.”
I’m a leftist as well. The paper argues that the non-democratic liberals are wrong about the implications of liberal principles. It even goes further and makes an argument that coherent liberalism must also oppose capitalism, and capitalism is inherently non-democratic. By the end, the paper argues that a democratic economy controlled by workers is the only kind of economic organization compatible with liberalism. Capitalist liberalism is poison because it is incoherent
@sneerclub
Yup, and I hate that “liberal” for most people means something completely different. I self-identify as a liberal, in the sense that, for example, a rentier class of landlords existing or that any human’s existence being completely dependent on their job and income is inherently counter to liberal ideals.
I don’t know when someone decided we’ll mean something anti-liberal by the word “liberal” but they can go fuck themselves.
I don’t think democracy is inherently liberal or not, and I don’t think it really matters? This is a question of outcomes. No other political system has a history of consistently producing relatively free states (as in freedom for the people within the state). All other systems, be it oligarchies or dictatorships, even if they result in a short period of stability and freedom, almost universally deteriorate into authoritarian hellscapes over time. If we can come up with a system that is better at preventing oppressive regimes then we should rally behind it, but currently only democracy has a positive track record there.
(at a guess) that reversal in terms is probably thanks to the USA, where “Conservative” also doesn’t mean conservative, and “libertarian” has little to do with liberty
Did you read the article? It argues that democracy is necessary to meet the requirements of liberal procedural justice, so it isn’t just a matter of outcomes
@sneerclub
@V0ldek @sneerclub It happened when rich people realized that their individual liberty in a world of mostly poor people would intrinsically be constrained by proper democracy.
A government dedicated to maximizing the broadest possible freedom will, if allowed, redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, to provide the poor more opportunities & limit the dangerous “freedoms” of the ultra-wealthy to impose their own control over others.
Thanks, I have now skimmed the paper. It reads like someone trying to convert a libertarian to communism via facts and logic, which is good, though that would specifically target libertarians with strong academic foundations to their thinking. I doubt enough capitalists/libertarians are willing to reach that conclusion, even if a path is laid out in detail as it is in the paper. Why tear down a perfectly good (at least in the near term) power structure that benefits them in the name of facts and logic, when they could just continue to benefit?
All that aside, I gotta admit I was initially a little skeptical of the paper’s direct relevance to sneerclub. It’s worth mentioning that this paper talks a lot about perverse libertarian case studies like charter cities and voluntary slavery, which are definitely in our sneer purview. Thanks for sharing!