Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

It didn't save Europe in an absolute sense obviously. But it did check Bolshevism. That was the "salvation", and as of the writing of the book, was an accurate assessment.

I don't see where there's material for disagreement in my final statement. Communism throws out centuries of economic theory and insight into human behavior in a tantrum over collusion and subjectivity. There is absolutely no room for economic liberalization under an ideology that purports to do away with the very foundations of economics and interpersonal relation.

As far as who has the (current) final word between Communism and Fascism, I would submit that the current organization of Russia and China points quite convincingly to Fascism, otherwise known as "State Capitalism", "Corporatism", etc. Russia is more obvious politically with its "strong leader" as opposed to the mostly faceless Chinese bureaucracy, but China is much more economically obvious.

 

[Einherjar86]

It didn't save Europe in an absolute sense obviously. But it did check Bolshevism. That was the "salvation", and as of the writing of the book, was an accurate assessment.

This is horrifying thinking, and it's exactly the libertarian mentality that exposes its dangerous kernel. The fact that, in the end, fascism presents itself as superior to Bolshevism; that's the most ridiculous notion. I'm not trying to save Bolshevism from anything, it was a catastrophic humanitarian disaster. But to rationalize fascism as providing the necessary check to Bolshevism is a logic I can't even begin to sympathize with.

I don't see where there's material for disagreement in my final statement. Communism throws out centuries of economic theory and insight into human behavior in a tantrum over collusion and subjectivity. There is absolutely no room for economic liberalization under an ideology that purports to do away with the very foundations of economics and interpersonal relation.

You don't see any material because your definition and understanding of freedom and liberation is narrow and conditioned. For argument's sake, it's obviously there; but according to your approach, the material I would cite doesn't qualify as liberal enough.

 

[Dak]

This is horrifying thinking, and it's exactly the libertarian mentality that exposes its dangerous kernel. The fact that, in the end, fascism presents itself as superior to Bolshevism; that's the most ridiculous notion. I'm not trying to save Bolshevism from anything, it was a catastrophic humanitarian disaster. But to rationalize fascism as providing the necessary check to Bolshevism is a logic I can't even begin to sympathize with.

Yes, humanitarian concerns are such a dangerous kernel of libertarianism .

Your horror is slightly perplexing. I can only reason three potential sources:

1. You are not remaining in context: Communism or Fascism. We are stuck making a relative judgment limited between these two systems and only these two systems.

2. Judging between these system using some irrelevant metric or ignorance of the differences in the two important metrics:
A. Body Counts: Whether limited to the 1927> world, or the 1987> world, Fascism looks angelic in body count comparisons, both directly and indirectly. "Indirectly" brings us to the second metric:
B. Standard of Living (for those escaping the body counts): Again, Fascism wins this contest with Communism easily. A large portion of the total body count attributable to Communism comes from starvation/lack of basic necessities/"work camp" conditions. Compared only to Communism, Fascism offered a substantially better standard of living - to the many more people left living.

3. Your horror is purely politically ideological (as opposed to a general humanistic ideology) and humanitarian comparisons are irrelevant in light of the need for REVOLUTION! IE: You have an antihumanistic, anti-humanitarian "horror": Not as many would die (relatively speaking) if Fascism were supported over Communism - which is absolutely or most likely necessary and automatically good as it comes with that which is good (again, relative to Fascism).

The fact that I assume you can stay within context, and your practically sterilized treatment of Communist history via "humanitarian disaster" leads me to think you are falling under 3.

You don't see any material because your definition and understanding of freedom and liberation is narrow and conditioned. For argument's sake, it's obviously there; but according to your approach, the material I would cite doesn't qualify as liberal enough.

What isn't narrow and conditioned once you delve into it? "Liberal enough" or "Liberal at all?" Libertarianism isn't "liberal enough" on an objective scale so it depends on your scale.

 

[Einherjar86]

Yes, humanitarian concerns are such a dangerous kernel of libertarianism .

I won't call Mises a humanitarian. I'll call him an ideologue dressed in libertarian clothing.

Your horror is slightly perplexing. I can only reason three potential sources:

1. You are not remaining in context: Communism or Fascism. We are stuck making a relative judgment limited between these two systems and only these two systems.

2. Judging between these system using some irrelevant metric or ignorance of the differences in the two important metrics:
A. Body Counts: Whether limited to the 1927> world, or the 1987> world, Fascism looks angelic in body count comparisons, both directly and indirectly. "Indirectly" brings us to the second metric:
B. Standard of Living (for those escaping the body counts): Again, Fascism wins this contest with Communism easily. A large portion of the total body count attributable to Communism comes from starvation/lack of basic necessities/"work camp" conditions. Compared only to Communism, Fascism offered a substantially better standard of living - to the many more people left living.

3. Your horror is purely politically ideological (as opposed to a general humanistic ideology) and humanitarian comparisons are irrelevant in light of the need for REVOLUTION! IE: You have an antihumanistic, anti-humanitarian "horror": Not as many would die (relatively speaking) if Fascism were supported over Communism - which is absolutely or most likely necessary and automatically good as it comes with that which is good (again, relative to Fascism).

The fact that I assume you can stay within context, and your practically sterilized treatment of Communist history via "humanitarian disaster" leads me to think you are falling under 3.

1. No we aren't; we are saying that fascism provides the only political check to communism and thus earns its keep as a form of political objection. This is totally false and a truly moronic position to take, and it's what Mises is saying. The idea that we need fascism to politically oppose communism is appallingly bad logic.

2.

A: Russia had a larger population than Germany.

B: Russia had a larger population than Germany.

3. My horror derives from the pure perception of these as the only two choices by Mises own account. I reject that these are the choices! Jesus Christ, you hail him as a revolutionary, but this compromise on ideals is the absolute opposite of revolution. Walter Benjamin was a revolutionary; he died in France being pursued by the fascists.

Reducing the entire political schema to a choice between fascism and communism is false in the first place. Mises isn't making any kind of progressive or logical statement. He was admitting an admiration for the ideology of fascism, even if it doesn't present itself as a solution.

What isn't narrow and conditioned once you delve into it? "Liberal enough" or "Liberal at all?" Libertarianism isn't "liberal enough" on an objective scale so it depends on your scale.

All I'm doing is commenting on the fact that you won't admit any of the materials I might suggest as offering an argument against your position.

 

[Dak]

I won't call Mises a humanitarian. I'll call him an ideologue dressed in libertarian clothing.

Libertarianism and anarchocapitalism are quite humanitarian ideologies, despite misinformed or ill-conceived arguments to the contrary.

1. No we aren't; we are saying that fascism provides the only political check to communism and thus earns its keep as a form of political objection. This is totally false and a truly moronic position to take, and it's what Mises is saying. The idea that we need fascism to politically oppose communism is appallingly bad logic.

That's simply an incorrect understanding of what Mises is saying in that critique, and of the historical reality of the times. Fascism and Bolshevism were sweeping Europe at the time - and Austria was especially pinned. Acknowledging the political reality of the situation in the process of critiquing and arguing against that reality as ultimately good is not "blameworthy". Fascism was not necessary/needed objectively - but nothing else afoot was offering any successful resistance at the time. I don't understand why this isn't readily obvious in a historicist sense. Fascism was not "necessary", it merely "was", and only for a time "unless it liberalized".

2.
A: Russia had a larger population than Germany.

B: Russia had a larger population than Germany.

So? Fascism as a whole simply didn't purge. Hitler purged Jews specifically, and a relatively few amount of "party insiders" (and this isn't specific to any government system). Secondly, the production issue: Standard of living related deaths. Even compared in ratios Communism doesn't have a leg to stand. Particularly in <1927. We already knew the Bolshevik approach. Hitler was still a nobody.

3. My horror derives from the pure perception of these as the only two choices by Mises own account. I reject that these are the choices! Jesus Christ, you hail him as a revolutionary, but this compromise on ideals is the absolute opposite of revolution. Walter Benjamin was a revolutionary; he died in France being pursued by the fascists.

And Mises barely escaped Europe while being pursued by Fascists- your point? I already responded to the political reality of late 1920s Europe (particularly in a country sandwiched between Italy and Germany). It was no "compromise" for a non-Anarchist to acknowledge the reality of the times and judge one thing relatively better than the other.

Reducing the entire political schema to a choice between fascism and communism is false in the first place. Mises isn't making any kind of progressive or logical statement. He was admitting an admiration for the ideology of fascism, even if it doesn't present itself as a solution.

Of course is a false dichotomy in the course of philosophical thinking. But just as we have no option to vote in America in most places outside "Republican" or "Democrat", if you are going to vote you have to pick one. Mises was not quite an Anarchist. Which left him picking a lesser of evils and hoping to change it. Obviously that attempt failed miserably.

All I'm doing is commenting on the fact that you won't admit any of the materials I might suggest as offering an argument against your position.

My position that there are no economically liberal communistic positions? As a foundation the individual and property is denied so it doesn't/wouldn't fit the definition.

 

[Einherjar86]

Libertarianism and anarchocapitalism are quite humanitarian ideologies, despite misinformed or ill-conceived arguments to the contrary.

Fine, have fun thinking that.

That's simply an incorrect understanding of what Mises is saying in that critique, and of the historical reality of the times.

I'm not going to argue with denial.

So? Fascism as a whole simply didn't purge. Hitler purged Jews specifically, and a relatively few amount of "party insiders" (and this isn't specific to any government system). Secondly, the production issue: Standard of living related deaths. Even compared in ratios Communism doesn't have a leg to stand. Particularly in <1927. We already knew the Bolshevik approach. Hitler was still a nobody.

Bolshevism had a leg to stand on; specifically, the legs that allowed it to last about forty years beyond fascism. Fascism provided for its people because it was an economy based on two things:

1. The targeted annihilation of an entire people;

2. Militaristic imperialism.

You're not making a good case.

And Mises barely escaped Europe while being pursued by Fascists- your point? I already responded to the political reality of late 1920s Europe (particularly in a country sandwiched between Italy and Germany). It was no "compromise" for a non-Anarchist to acknowledge the reality of the times and judge one thing relatively better than the other.

Fair, that was a quick judgment on my part.

Of course is a false dichotomy in the course of philosophical thinking. But just as we have no option to vote in America in most places outside "Republican" or "Democrat", if you are going to vote you have to pick one. Mises was not quite an Anarchist. Which left him picking a lesser of evils and hoping to change it. Obviously that attempt failed miserably.

My position that there are no economically liberal communistic positions? As a foundation the individual and property is denied so it doesn't/wouldn't fit the definition.

Unless you don't believe the individual and property to be the necessary foundation of a successful society. Both are constructed values, not essential or original ideals.

 

[Dak]

I'm not going to argue with denial.

That can cut both ways

I guess then, as suggested in the one link, Marx was therefore a capitalist sympathizer.

Bolshevism had a leg to stand on; specifically, the legs that allowed it to last about forty years beyond fascism. Fascism provided for its people because it was an economy based on two things:

1. The targeted annihilation of an entire people;

2. Militaristic imperialism.

You're not making a good case.

Communism had it's ass saved from Fascistic takeover by the rest of the Allies. No Western Front and no Pacific War means a Swastika over Moscow and the Rising Sun over Beijing (and thusly no Maoist rise). Without Russia and China to prop up client states, the liklihood of the South American butchery is lessened(at least internal butchery anyway). And finally, as a submitted before: Both Russia and China look more like Fascism post-communism than anything else.

Fascism itself did not target "entire peoples". Hitler targeted Jews. Obviously Fascism is/was expansionist, not necessarily imperialist. There is a difference, and all ideologies/political systems are expansionist, including Communism (and of course Democracy).

Unless you don't believe the individual and property to be the necessary foundation of a successful society. Both are constructed values, not essential or original ideals.

But they are defined as liberal essentials/ideals. I'm saying other constructions are not liberal, regardless of "successful society" estimations.

Regarding a "successful society" rather than a "liberal society", that is of course a subjective determination. Naziism was quite "successful" if you want a society devoid of Jews. Chinese State Capitalism is "successful" if you want people living 24 hours a day at work, etc. Democracy is successful if you think a ballot box is the way to make decisions for the collective, etc.

 

[Einherjar86]

Of course it cuts both ways. This is a pointless discussion.

Marx was a capitalist sympathizer. This argument would have been unnecessary if you'd just admitted Mises was a fascist sympathizer instead of maintaining that it's a "counterfactual claim."

Hitler targeted Jews; Hitler's fascism targeted Jews. Fascism is imperialist, not merely expansionist.

Communism is not imperialist, nor is it expansionist.

As far as deconstructing values and ideals go, you're just making shit up. Other constructions are "not liberal" is total bullshit; "liberal" itself is a construction. You see, this can go on forever. And I'm not going to argue subjective determinations of success either, but mainly because I really just don't want to. I'm more interested in how absolute and universal you think certain things are, while you're more than willing to disregard others are "constructed" or "subjective"...

 

[Dak]

Of course it cuts both ways. This is a pointless discussion.

Marx was a capitalist sympathizer. This argument would have been unnecessary if you'd just admitted Mises was a fascist sympathizer instead of maintaining that it's a "counterfactual claim."

Because I don't use sympathizer in a relative sense, or in a partial sense. I sympathize with Republicans and Democrats on certain things - doesn't mean I vote for them. But my lack of support also doesn't mean I cut off all communication with people I know who are party members and active voters. Hell, I sympathize with Marxian critiques of [corporatism] to a degree. This doesn't make me a sympathizer of Communism or Marxism. Sympathizing with objections is not the same thing as sympathizing with prescriptions.
Your position is the equivalent of claiming someone who thought Germany got shafted in Versailles is a "Nazi sympathizer".

Hitler targeted Jews; Hitler's fascism targeted Jews. Fascism is imperialist, not merely expansionist.

Italy's fascism was pretty agreeably imperialist, but it didn't target anyone. So "Fascism" doesn't target, but Hitler's verion did. Despite general opinion, I don't think Germany was imperialist - given the history of the region. Germany wasn't colonizing, it was undoing the Treaty of Versailles and redrawing the lines more or less in agreement with linguistics. Only after WWII was declared did they have to roam far outside the pre-Versailles boundaries. May as well call the Confederacy imperialist because of the Gettysburg campaign.

Communism is not...... expansionist.

Um, what?

As far as deconstructing values and ideals go, you're just making shit up. Other constructions are "not liberal" is total bullshit; "liberal" itself is a construction. You see, this can go on forever. And I'm not going to argue subjective determinations of success either, but mainly because I really just don't want to. I'm more interested in how absolute and universal you think certain things are, while you're more than willing to disregard others are "constructed" or "subjective"...

What am I making up? Classical liberalism is built on the individual and private property. Of course liberality is a construction. I don't see how that somehow disproves that other constructions are not it - it being liberal.

The value of these constructions are dependent on subjective valuations. Is the individual valuable? Is the ballot box valuable? Is the state valuable? Is a particular arrangement of hierarchy valuable? Is no property division valuable? Etc.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm too impatient to go at all this. Most of it is asinine, the rest is just inconsequential to me.

But I do have to comment on just one thing:

Um, what?

That isn't expansionism. Are you serious? Expansionism is a policy of specific governments or states; it is not simply the spread of communism.

 

[Dak]

I'm too impatient to go at all this. Most of it is asinine, the rest is just inconsequential to me.

As you wish.

That isn't expansionism. Are you serious? Expansionism is a policy of specific governments or states; it is not simply the spread of communism.

So Russia and China were not actively engaging leadership or opposition forces in other countries and supplying funding/arms/men/training, or sending their own military forces into other territories? I mean, Afghanistan and Vietnam alone nullify this position.

 

[Einherjar86]

Communism isn't expansionist. The only fascist states to ever have existed were founded on imperialist principles. Not the case with communist countries.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Smoked some wizzle and read Eins Aliens Among Us: a Casual Stroll through Harvard's Natural History Museum. Enjoyed the shit out of that dude, well done.

 

[Dak]

Communism isn't expansionist. The only fascist states to ever have existed were founded on imperialist principles. Not the case with communist countries.

(c)ommunism doesn't preach the liberation of the proletariat everywhere?

Even if it theoretically didn't, (C)ommunism has never been demonstrated as anything other than expansionist and empirically much more expansionist than German or Italian 20th century fascism.

I think maybe we are, again, attributing different meaning to the term expansionist. I am not using it interchangeably with imperialist.

On a different note:

 

[Einherjar86]

Smoked some wizzle and read Eins Aliens Among Us: a Casual Stroll through Harvard's Natural History Museum. Enjoyed the shit out of that dude, well done.

Thanks man.

(c)ommunism doesn't preach the liberation of the proletariat everywhere?

Even if it theoretically didn't, (C)ommunism has never been demonstrated as anything other than expansionist and empirically much more expansionist than German or Italian 20th century fascism.

I think maybe we are, again, attributing different meaning to the term expansionist. I am not using it interchangeably with imperialist.

Well, I personally don't think that expansionism can be separated from imperialism, to be honest. And even if it can, the vast majority of communist states in existence still don't practice expansionism. Expansionism and imperialism, almost by definition, can only be carried out by states with strong economic infrastructures; hence quasi- if not ultra-capitalist (in the politico-economic sense) states.

This is, of course, the paradox again; that communistic states almost always end up in economic ruin or at least peril, preventing expansion. Meanwhile, capitalistic states are capable of expansion and go about doing so in ways that are, more often than not, devastatingly imperialistic. Not only are they capable of expansion; expansion is necessitated by the internal demands of the economic system.

On a different note:

Makes sense.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Zizek for the win.

 

[Dak]

 

[Einherjar86]

Zizek for the win.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4WAXQJyxCo

Yeah, he's doing a "sequel" to The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. The trailer for the new movie is ridiculous; he just reiterates the word "ideology" way too much:

 

[Dak]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/28/4771164/the-next-agent-orange-why-burn-pits-are-making-soldiers-sick

But when Le Roy arrived at Balad in the summer of 2007, the first thing he noticed was the smell. A noxious, overwhelming stench reminiscent of burning rubber. "I was like, &#8216;Wow, that is something really bad, really really bad,&#8217;" he recalls. Soon, he also noticed the smoke: plumes of it curling into the air at all hours of the day, sometimes lingering over the base as dark, foreboding clouds. That smoke, Le Roy soon learned, was coming from the same place as the stench that had first grabbed him: Balad&#8217;s open-air burn pit.
PLASTIC, STYROFOAM, ELECTRONICS, METAL CANS, RUBBER TIRES, EXPLOSIVES, HUMAN FECES, ANIMAL CARCASSES, ASBESTOS INSULATION, AND HUMAN BODY PARTS
The pit, a shallow excavation measuring a gargantuan 10 acres, was used to incinerate every single piece of refuse generated by Balad&#8217;s thousands of residents. That meant seemingly innocuous items, like food scraps or paper. But it also meant plastic, styrofoam, electronics, metal cans, rubber tires, ammunition, explosives, human feces, animal carcasses, lithium batteries, asbestos insulation, and human body parts &#8212; all of it doused in jet fuel and lit on fire. The pit wasn&#8217;t unique to Balad: open-air burn pits, operated either by servicemembers or contractors, were used to dispose of trash at bases all across Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is no joke or exaggeration. I immediately saw this problem with the burn pits where I was stationed. Fortunately my job mostly kept me away from these things, but as mentioned, the dust storms and all the dust we kicked up on patrol certainly exposed me to this and worse. I checked off the equivalent of "fine" on my post deployment surveys (truthfully), except for burnpit exposure. That was the most "Evil" smelling shit I've ever smelt. Like burnt rubber + burnt electronics + shit.

 

[Einherjar86]

I did not know about that. It's awful.