From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Tue Aug 20 2002 - 10:21:57 MDT
dehede011@aol.com wrote:
> Heaven on Earth is a short history of
> the various isms flocking under the broad term socialism.
I may get it. I like such books. One of my childhood favorites was Lin
Yu-Tang's _From Pagan to Christian_, though I skipped over the christian
portions to read his extensive (and seemingly nonjudgmental) summaries
of several eastern belief systems.
I note in the amazon page for this book (1893554457) the first reviewer
states:
<<The book is never shrill in tone and despite Muravchhik's obvious
contempt for socialism in all its manifestations, he seems almost
wistful and puzzled by how such a theory could become so popular and
widespread. Indeed he wonders how so many decent people like Clement
Atlee could be so very wrong. ***One thing Marivchik makes clear,
however, is that the kind of progressive liberalism promoted in the
United States and by the Liberal party in Britain can in no way be
considered socialism. Many on the far right consider any reform action
by the government that impacts property rights or business practices to
be socialism.*** To the contrary, such reformism, of the type promoted
by the American Labor movement under Gompers and Meany are the exact
opposite of socialism.>> [emphasis added]
And I am wondering if libertarianism concurs with the 'far right' view
as in the above emphasized sentences.
I am also concerned with the linkage between capitalism and socialism as
related by Gatto in http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/8c.htm where
he writes:
<<How to get there? [utopia - mwiik] Though Malthus and Darwin had shown
the way to intellectually devalue human life and to do with protoplasm
whatever needed to be done, the force of Western tradition, particularly
Judeo-Christian tradition, was still too strong to be brushed aside.
Into this paradox stepped socialism. It was a happy coincidence that
while one aspect of industrial imagination, the capitalist lobe, was
doing the necessary dirty work of breaking the old order and
reorganizing its parts, another, softer aspect of the same industrial
mind could sing the identical song, but in a different key and to a
different audience.
What socialists helped capitalism to teach was that the industrial
promise was true. The road to riches could be followed through coal
smoke to an eventual paradise on earth. Only the masters had to be
changed. In place of bosses would sit workers. Meanwhile, both sides
agreed (Marx is particularly eloquent on this point) that many would
have to suffer a great while, until predictable advances in social
reordering would ultimately relieve their descendants.>>
And I am interpreting this (perhaps in error) as an alliance of
capitalism and socialism against libertarianism (where libertarianism
is, as informed by "Western tradition" and "particularly Judeo-Christian
tradition", the state of society in late 18th and early 19th century
America?)
I admit my knowledge of political theory is limited but from the above
it seems libertarianism is at odds not only with socialism but with
capitalism (at least in the 'administrative/managerial utopia' sense
that Gatto discusses elsewhere in his book).
Can true libertarianism only be found by returning to small-town values
informed by Christian ideals of forgiveness, compassion and civil
behavior? Is the 'middle america' of small towns, populated by
church-going, anti-science (compared to extropianism) people the *only
remaining link* to this early american libertarian epoch? Sure, we might
get a truly free market, but, as it seems to me, we're not going to get
the kind of collective action required to (for example) construct a
human colony on Mars. This is what I'm trying to reconcile.
It seems to me that just getting government off our backs isn't
sufficient to lead to a libertarian society. We also have to undo 200
years of an evolving managerial class pushing a positivist systems-based
approach to scientific advancement (as opposed to individual ingenuity)
which (per Gatto) has spent this time indoctrinating folks to accept
their lot in life is to submit to the corporate state. Now, *if* this is
true, then it seems to me that an indirect approach is needed for a
return of libertarianism, and that this indirect approach might require
the assistance of all those groups that (at least some) extropians like
to deride, as in green activists, anti-globalists, anti-GM people,
right-wing christians etc, in a sort of *reverse enfolding* of the
conditions that led us to our present state.
Yowza.
(Pardon my U.S.-centric speech, things may be different in Europe).
Thanks,
-Mike
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