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.”
Isn’t “classical liberalism” a euphemism, as in “don’t call me a Nazi/fascist/authoritarian/monarchist, I’m a classical liberal”?
As a non-denominational leftist, liberalism is poison and leads to fascism without intervention. So yeah this tracks
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
coherent liberalism must also oppose capitalism, and capitalism is inherently non-democratic
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
@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.
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
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!
Classic liberalism never implied democracy. Classic liberals were always terrified of democracy. Classic liberalism was about giving more rights to the capitalist class. Not to the people. Classic liberalism just wanted to make the oligarchy a little bit bigger.
Arguable whether a “capitalist class” existed in classical times.
We’re not talking about classical times at all. We’re talking about the Age of Enlightenment and a little after. But as for those classical liberals at that proper time? They’re some of the first real capitalists.
TIL “classical liberalism” has absolutely nothing to do with the “classical” part, great, who the fuck decided to name it that?
Oh no it’s just when you say classical time period that means something different than the word classical in different contexts. Classical music isn’t referring to the Greeks and Romans either.
and “classical music” was a retrospective label for reactionary purposes too
Kids these days with their newfangled romanticism and their fortepianos. No respect for the sonata form.
it’s almost as if we’ve culturally deluded ourselves away from seeing that nostalgia is a toxic impulse and clinging to the past is self-imprisonment*
*in particular I thought it was cool to enjoy classic rock in high school because it was non-mainstream, not seeing the irony that I was just enjoying a mainstream from decades ago, making me even more mainstream
mainedstream
It’s “classical” in the sense that the columns on courthouses in Confederate states are, i.e., in ennobling an arbitrarily inequitable order.
@V0ldek @sneerclub The people who decided that they liked 18th & 19th century “liberals” a whole lot more than the modern ones. Basically Libertarians.
And yet they use humanism as a slur. Interesting, that.
i.e. their nobly high-minded philosophical forebears are periwigged slaveholders.
@V0ldek @sneerclub There was definitely a proto-capitalist class in late Republican & Imperial Rome.
The pervasive existence of slavery made the economic systems very different from ours, and even different from our most recent flavors of slavery. One could argue that EVERY slaveholder was a de facto capitalist.
Sure, as a historical tradition, classical liberalism has its share of anti-democratic figures. The point of the paper is to show that classical liberalism, as a body of coherent philosophy, actually implies democracy. Most classical liberals, historically, have been defenders of capitalism. Showing the ideology that usually capitalism apologists adhere to actually implies anti-capitalism is a powerful critique
They want a government that they own
Two classical liberals engaged in high-minded philosophical discussion:
