tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post7817499582442086659..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Look, Ma, I'm A Capitalist!Dale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-90040654308478060482016-01-09T17:34:40.413-08:002016-01-09T17:34:40.413-08:00To reveal the socialist supports of and at one and...To reveal the socialist supports of and at one and the same time to reframe in socialist terms the broadly disseminated undercritical capitalist assumptions and aspirations of everyday people in extractive-industrial-consumer-indebted societies is, one hopes, another virtue of the sort of rhetorical exercise clumsily attempted in this post.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-37557942821176732642016-01-09T16:36:59.494-08:002016-01-09T16:36:59.494-08:00My point was less aimed towards capitalist ideolog...My point was less aimed towards capitalist ideologues and more toward the every day person and even very committed progressives tend to rely on this but the ideologues are of course worse but then i live in a country with royalty and a still existing aristocracy (though diminished).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05812503574018469872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-66957134484726739522016-01-09T15:58:27.349-08:002016-01-09T15:58:27.349-08:00That self-described capitalist ideologues are most...That self-described capitalist ideologues are mostly uncritical hypocritical self-serving ignoramuses is kinda sorta the premise of this whole piece, so of course I agree with you.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-75184385859733015002016-01-09T15:09:02.159-08:002016-01-09T15:09:02.159-08:00I do not know if in my opinion most capitalists ac...I do not know if in my opinion most capitalists actually practise what they preach as in my discussions with Libertarians and other capitalists shows none or few have ever read socialists text nor have they actually philosophically examined what is their own ideals. They rely mostly on "common sense" positions that run counter to evidence and analysis. But It might just be my own experiance off discussing things with swedish social democrats and Moderater (Moderates is the translation but that means nothing to you so quick explanation, they are like most liberals in america I think though their party leadership is now bordering on straight forward conservatism and neoliberalism)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05812503574018469872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-31727763774779596582016-01-08T18:53:39.354-08:002016-01-08T18:53:39.354-08:00It's true, my views are remarkably consistent....It's true, my views are remarkably consistent. My argument that anarcho-capitalists really are anarchists in ways that clarify my disagreements with all anarchists are indeed compatible with my argument here that actual rights, including property rights, voluntary contracts, and rule of law many self-identified capitalists claim to care about depend on public investment in and accountable administration of their material and performative affordances in the context of sustainable commonwealth in ways that mostly socialists talk about.<br /><br />That words change meanings in ways that can be both clarifying and misleading is a simple fact, whether it is dangerous or not. As someone trained in rhetoric I am too keenly aware of this truism to ignore or forget it, even when its consequences are uncomfortable.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-13121677229391603682016-01-08T18:23:43.569-08:002016-01-08T18:23:43.569-08:00I really do not know what to think of this article...I really do not know what to think of this article (Of course you have not written it for me) on the one hand I agree with most of the things you said I could quibble a bit here and there but at the same time I feel like you treading dangerous waters and it is a little bit funny that you of all people should do this. <br /><br />The reason why I think your close to it has to do with the exact the same reason you seem to think Anarcho-capitalists are anarchists and the simularities you have always criticised between the rhetorical words games of them and "left"anarchists. Of course you do not embrace the anarcho-capitalists ideas, that is also very clear in your article and some of the comments but if you would be prepared to accept the label capitalist by making the word capitalist meaningless as well as socialist then it much like how some americans still insist to say that Sweden is a socialist nation. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05812503574018469872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-54585124985750258082016-01-08T18:05:11.715-08:002016-01-08T18:05:11.715-08:00Sufficiently regulated (which is at once a constra...Sufficiently regulated (which is at once a constraining and an enabling), competition can be closer to the playing of a game in which playing the game constitutes a win that trumps even a loss in the game.<br /><br />The benefit of a post like this one, if I may say so, is that it presumably reveals and clarifies the actual contingent terms on which the institutions and norms of capitalism depend in ways that undermine dangerous errors, deceptions, and hypocrisies (eg, the pretense that plutocracy is a meritocracy, the pretense what passes for a market at present is a natural or spontaneous order), while opening up a space in which desirable but presumably unpopular democratic socialist views can be defended in presumably more popular or at any rate more prevalent capitalist, individualist, liberal (even conservative) terms. It is useful to proliferate the rhetorical strategies available for the facilitation, promotion, and defense of democratic socialism. Change the nature or the direction of a bad bandwagon enough and it might not matter so much if you're on it. Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-50291300858387075952016-01-08T17:14:02.486-08:002016-01-08T17:14:02.486-08:00Well I suppose limiting these things to the "...Well I suppose limiting these things to the "margins of society where they harm only themselves" already throws you far enough off the capitalist bandwagon to not worry me. It seems competition necessarily implies losers in some fashion or another, which is why it gets messy, and we could go further into why people find the need/desire to compete with one another, but that's for another blog post I'm sure.Ian Alan Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02154905986438150043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-90561106627624667422016-01-08T16:57:30.370-08:002016-01-08T16:57:30.370-08:00Self-expression is the ideal, I should think. I an...Self-expression is the ideal, I should think. I analogized competitive profit-seeking to extreme sports as an unhealthy and idiosyncratic activity in the very first sentence, for heaven's sake! But constrained (and as it happens enabled) by the prior commitment to the support of the host of public goods I delineated here as well, I can't see any justification for prohibiting that sort of thing, though it is hardly my cup of tea. Hell, let a bazillion flowers (including what I personally consider stink flowers) bloom. Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-8804888342865633872016-01-08T16:45:13.974-08:002016-01-08T16:45:13.974-08:00Why "competitive property-seeking" as an...Why "competitive property-seeking" as an ideal?Ian Alan Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02154905986438150043noreply@blogger.com