In Europe anti-fascists basically are fascists, at least when it comes to their tactics and their relationship to the authorities who often look the other way while they do their thing (which is the use of violence and extortion to attack right wing organizations and individuals known to support them).
In Ireland, antifa is pretty small, but seems to be closely associated with radical republicanism—which has a specific meaning in Irish politics: Sinn Féin and other more millitant nationalist groups, generally left-leaning (or appearing to be to gain popular working-class approval) and often anti-British.
This leads to the odd situation where antifa is closely correlated with nationalism.
From a communications clarity point of view, I like that there is a word for certain failure modes of far-right ideology, in the same way that I like that there is a word for certain failure modes of far-left ideology. Using the far-right failure mode label for those on the far left confuses this distinction.
To me, the defining feature of fascism (or communism) is not use of private, politically motivated violence with the tolerance of the authorities. That’s bad, but it’s not the reasons that I think fascism is bad.
It’s similar to the problem of saying that Nazism is bad because it is socialist (“National Socialism” in the name). Nazism is bad, and socialism (as those speakers intend the term) is bad, but Nazism != socialism.
To me, the defining feature of fascism (or communism) is not use of private, politically motivated violence with the tolerance of the authorities. That’s bad, but it’s not the reasons that I think fascism is bad.
And what are those reasons? Since I really don’t see the distinction you’re trying to make.
To speak more carefully—violence for the purpose of influencing the “center of mass” of political opinion in a country, when the government is not uniformly in favor of the political position of those executing the violence—is not the same thing as fascism. More colloquially, tactics similar to voter intimidation have been used by fascists, but not only fascists.
My main point was that an ideological label that applies to both FARC and AUC is not a particularly informative label. If fascism is restricted to the usage I suggested, then it is more informative than that.
Fascists seem to believe that there once was a society that lived perfectly. Some of us can become these “Ideal Men” if we are spiritually pure enough (or maybe we can only set things up so that our descendents can be this way). Further, the importance of this spiritual purity justifies any violence in service of reaching this goal.
Fascists are wrong because the imagined past never occurred (like the country song that complains that Coke is a slang shortening for Cocaine—as if there was ever a time when Coke was not a reference to Cocaine).
Communists have the same belief in an “Ideal Man,” but they think that no one has ever lived that way. With sufficient mental purity, we might be able to become “Ideal” (again, we might only be able to cause this for our descendents). Once we are all ideal, we will be able distribute resources “fairly” and avoid the social problems we face today. Again, achieving that ideal justifies any violence.
Communists are wrong because the existence of scarcity guarantees that schemes of wealth distribution cannot solve every social problem.
Transhumanist look forward, not backwards. But they don’t say that all social problems will go away. Only that technology will make us so rich that all our current problems will be gone. There’s the joke of the person revived from suspended animation in the distant future who asks if there was still poverty, disease, hunger, wars or crime and is told that no, those problems were solved long ago. Then he asks, then why doess everybody seem so nervous? “Well, you see—we have REAL problems.”
There’s no such thing as being “basically” fascists: either you are a fascist or you aren’t. Totalitarian, violent extremists, maybe. But that’s a strange “general truth” you’re stating here. The anti-fascists I know (basically, everyone) are radically averse to violence. In fact, being anti-fascist is the one single thing everyone agrees on, even the parties branded as “fascist” by everyone else! Is this violence the case in your country, or are you generalizing from fringe groups?
Well, it could look like hypocrisy if you fail to understand that the points I oulined aren’t principles or goals in and of themsleves. They are simply measures taken to avoid the rebirth of fascism or anything like it, mere means to an end. The top priority remains anti-fascism in and of itself, and the repression of anything that could promote it, looks like it could promote it, or could be made to look like it could promote it. Hence why Mein Kampf is banned, and people in Belgium have gone to prison for reading The Protocols of the Sages of Zion in the subway. Really, it all boils down to Hitler: bad in mainland Europe, and Civil War: bad in Spain (which is probably why they abhor violent methods so much).
Obviously the dilemma anti-fascism faces is the danger of becoming so repressive in its efforts to stop fascism from raising again that it creates a new totalitarianism of its own, but so far they seem to be pulling along fine.
Against intellectual censorship and police states, for freedom of expression.
...
If anyone disagrees with any of these points, they had better not say it out loud
So for you and your friends, freedom of expression doesn’t extend to letting people say things you don’t like, and it isn’t censorship if you stop them doing it.
Certainly not: they are allowed to say them, the same way they’re allowed to say, for example, that they’re sexually attracted to small children: sharing this information about their state of mind will brand them as dangerous, repulsive, and immoral, they will be subject to suspicion and strong scrutiny, people will be wary of letting power in their hands, of associating with them in public… but no-one would tell them to shut up. In fact, people would want them to speak up, so that they can be identified and tagged.
So, we’re fully in favour of letting them say things we don’t like, we’re actually enthusiastically in favour of them saying them. When I say “they had better not say it out loud”, I mean that it would not be in their best interests to signal that state of mind, and that they would, as a matter of pure self-interest, censor themselves, without any input from us, and to our great regret.
For a moment I was going to say that I had misinterpreted you, but on reflection, I don’t think I did at all.
You just compared being against your favoured constellation of political ideas to child molesting, and called those who are against them dangerous, repulsive, and immoral. You want them subject to suspicion and strong scrutiny; they must be identified and tagged. Of course, you’re not going to personally suppress them, but—nudge nudge, wink wink—they’d better take care if they know what’s good for them, eh?
Now, imagine someone had read only that comment, but not its ancestors. What might they conjecture that this constellation of political ideas might be?
The manifest destiny of the Aryan race? Missionary Christianity? The white man’s burden of ruling the lesser peoples? Pan-Islamism? No, “liberal democracy”. (That was just the third of your five bullet points, but “liberal democracy” includes the other four already.)
Of course, you’re not going to personally suppress them, but—nudge nudge, wink wink—they’d better take care if they know what’s good for them, eh?
I’m not nudging, I’m not winking, and I’m not jocular or joyous: I’m dead serious, and state this as a matter of fact. Not as a threat or a warning, but as a statement of common sense. In fact, I like it better when they do not show this much common sense, so we can discuss their ideas in the open, and expose them for what they are.
You just compared being against your favoured constellation of political ideas to child molesting, and called those who are against them dangerous, repulsive, and immoral.
I chose paedophilia (not child molesting, I never said anything about actually having ever laid a hand on an actual child) because it’s something people get panicky about on a gut level, but is contingent to the local region of space and time one occupies. You may replace it with “racism”, “military expansionism/imperialism”, “support for the Death Penalty”, “support for banning guns”, “support for Cryonics and/or Transhumanism”, or “support for gay marriage”, depending on the social environment you’re moving in.
BTW, have you come across Mencius Moldbug?
I have. I am fairly unimpressed. Some interesting, daring, and refreshing new ideas, but I don’t know if it’s “rehearsing arguments”, “one argument against a thousand”, and so on and so forth, but I find his arguments un-satisfactory, ultimately.
The manifest destiny of the Aryan race? Missionary Christianity? The white man’s burden of ruling the lesser peoples? Pan-Islamism?
I find it telling that you conflate all of these and put them on the same level. In particular, you seem to be confused as to what missionary Christianity and Pan-islamism entail, respectively, by themselves.
I’m not nudging, I’m not winking, and I’m not jocular or joyous: I’m dead serious, and state this as a matter of fact. Not as a threat or a warning, but as a statement of common sense.
A statement of “common sense” that they will be seen as dangerous, repulsive, and immoral, and all the rest. If not by you, and not by them, then by whom?
I find it telling
I wish people who use this expression would go on to say what it tells them.
Those were just some examples of ideologies that have taken this attitude to their opponents. (Ok, maybe not all manifestations of missionary Christianity deserve to be in that list; consider it replaced by Stalinism or the Chinese Cultural Revolution.)
For “liberal democracy” to take that attitude doesn’t sound very liberal.
Er, yes, I have turned it into a draft at the behest of some readers who told me to reformat it in a way that would make it a proper top-level post, rather than a mere recapitulation/contextualization of the discussion so far. I’ll warn you as soon as it’s done.
If your regret over the consequences of punishing them for expressing their actual state is great enough, you might consider not punishing them. Conversely, if after considering it you decide to continue to punish them, you might want to calibrate your estimate of your regret more precisely.
No, no, I regret that they won’t speak up so we can’t identify them, I don’t regret the treatment they are given once they are identified. This is especially annoying when they start to act out on the opposites of these ideas as policies without announcing themselves, and in fact vehemently denying any type of association with the typical opponents of those ideas. It makes working to stop them harder.
You seem to have a fundamental confusion between “person is going to be punished for expressing beliefs outisde the Overton Window”, and “person is going to suffer negative consequences once it is publically known that they have beliefs outside the Overton Window”. The first would be institutionally enforced censorship, and wrong. The second would be simple social dynamics at work, and inevitable. If you can’t tell the difference, I suggest you live in a country like the one where I was born, where the very circulation of certain ideas can be paid with your own life.
That link doesn’t work for me. Do you have a preferred expression for people indicating that they are no longer interested in discussing a particular subject with you?
How about “I have lost interest in closing this discussion”, or even not answering at all? Anyway, that’s not what you indicated, you indicated that I had “won”, somehow. I’m not interested in winning arguments, I’m interested in finding out the truth. “(You have satisfactorily proven that) my (implcit) accusations were precipitated/groundless/undeserved. I now see where you are coming from (even though I disagree with your conclusions).” would have been my preferred outcome, “You are clearly insane and not worth talking to” would have been my least preferred.
Now, me, Richard and Nier have gone into a tangent where I have shown some very poor grasp of both social and rational skills, and allowed myself to snap at my comrades in an entirely unseemly manner, under externally-induced stress and time pressures, that I should have known better than to let get the better of me. The posts I have fathered have shamed me, but I shall keep them up as an example of what not to do.
I’ll try here to adress their points more intelligently, pertinently, and courteously.
So for you and your friends, freedom of expression doesn’t extend to letting people say things you don’t like, and it isn’t censorship if you stop them doing it.
This statement got me very very angry. The conclusion you jumped to, Richard, is an understandable extrapolation, but I would have liked it if you had been more cautious about embracing it, because I have said nothing of the sort. My guess is that you are committing the “Politics is the Mind-Killer” mistake of trying to fit me into preexisting categories, groups, and roles, in your narrative. You should know, by now, that trying to do that with a Less Wronger is like trying to catch water, except water doesn’t get pissed off. Abstain from doing that in the future.
Now, I don’t know about my “friends” (I’ll ask them… both of them… when I get the chance, though I think they’ll agree with what I’m going to argue), but I for one think that people should be allowed to say what they want, regardless of whether I like or I don’t like it. If there is any merit to their ideas, sharing them with the public will represent an improvement to the pool of collective knowledge. If there isn’t, having them submitted to be de-constructed and exposed as worthless is also an improvement.
At least, that’s my kind, idealistic, forgiving, past self. After having spent some time with /b/tards and goons, I have found that there is such a thing as a harmful, dangerous, or cruel abuse of freedom of speech.:
There is the promotion of the discriminating of minorities.
There is the promotion of violence.
There is the promotion of sexual and psychological abuse, and of the oppression of one gender by another, of one age group by another.
There is the promotion of one group using lethal force on another to, well, force them to undertake certain actions, or cede certain advantages, for the sake of the group that is most effective in its use of violence.
There is the promotion of totalitarian regimes.
There is the systematic aggression by certain self-appointed standard enforcers, against any opinions that go enough outside the mainstream that they attract any attention at all. (Hypocrisy? Wait up!)
There is the promotion of not giving a fair trial to people (lynching, purging, and so on), mostly by presenting their guilt as being beyond doubt (regardless of evidence), and that what they did was so heinous they must be punished as soon as possible, as harshly as possible, without getting a chance to defend themselves.
With some correlation to the last one, there is the promotion of the idea that said extremely heinous criminals should not even have the right to live on.
There is the promotion of the idea that strikes are an illegitimate form of protest, heck, that any form of protest at all in the workplace is illegitimate, save for job-quitting, if that.
Analogically, that protests against the actions of the government are illegitimate, no matter how non-violent.
I’ll leave the question of how these (ab?)uses of freedom of expression should be dealt with, and whether there should be consequences for those who make use of their freedom in such a way, and what those consequences should be, as an exercise to the reader.
When I said
If anyone disagrees with any of these points, they had better not say it out loud, regardless of what they actually end up doing.
I had this sort of guy in mind. A fascist in a liberal democracy, he keeps his mouth shut (well, at least he tries, but his burning, endless love for the kind Fuhrer cannot be contained), and bides his time. Because he fears… what? In what I conceive of liberal democracy, he’d have the right to hold on to his ideas, even to speak them out. As long as he doesn’t actively advocate finishing the Holocaust or oppressing black people or that kind of thing, the Law would leave him alone. He would be allowed to discuss his anti-democratic, fascist opinions in public places and media… and have them be ridiculed and soundly refuted. His immediate environment may or may not care: they may very well file him off as an inoffensive cuckoo (he’s anything but: he almost gunned the protagonists down, and then blew up a theatre at their behest… long story). He’s poor, unambitious. incompetent, and keeps to himself. No-one will bother to obstruct him or get in his way.
Now suppose that someone who was in favour of wars of conquest, in favour of strict government censorship, in favour of ideological totalitarianism and one-party rule, in favour of lynchings, trial by ordeal, “adminsitrative detainment”, summary execution, extermination camps, prohibition of any form of protest in the workplace or against the government… suppose that this someone was smart, rich, capable, pragmatic, competent, and ambitious. Suppose that, and I know this is hard, given the previous attributes, suppose that they publicly announced holding this set of beliefs.
Would you not expect them to meet with a spontaneously generated slew of obstacles and hindrances of every kind?. And I haven’t said anything about their opinions on race or gender or social inequality. Just the institutions of liberal democracy.
Would it not be right, and good, and proper that they are subjected to this kind of obstruction, if not outright legal action?
But, see, that’s why that hypothesis was hard to swallow. Someone like that, smart and capable and pragmatic, would keep their mouth shut. They would bide their time. And then, when you expect it the least, they might pull this kind of shit. Or this other kind of shit.
Are you still going to pretend that this is just a matter of what “me and my friends” “like” or don’t “like”, Richard?
Now, see, I regret that, out of self preservation, and/or for the sake of bringing their plans to fruition, that kind of people will keep quiet, and only share and discuss these opinions with like-minded people. I regret that they do not feel that they can share their opinions in public, and expect them to win out by their own merit. I regret that they might, in fact, not want to submit their opinions to public scrutiny, because somewhere, deep inside, they know them to be evil or false. There is an idealistic part of me that wants to believe that, were these people given a chance to express themselves, to communicate freely and civilly with others, they would either change their beliefs as a result of the bayesian update, change everyone else’s beliefs, and/or, if it’s a matter of “personal” or “irrational” sensibility, make peace with the fact that they live in a world where the majority does not share their point of view, and that they cannot force their opinions, least of all their policies, unto them.
There is another, more cynical and ruthless side of me, that believes that the sort of people who are dangerously violent because of their ideology are not the sort of people who would benefit in any way from publicly debating their ideas, nor would anyone benefit from arguing with them. This aspect of me posits that sometimes, defending the freedoms of the most means stopping others from promoting the idea that said freedoms should be partly or fully, but permanently, waived, as well as infringing on the freedoms of these others should they show that they are willing and able to destroy these freedoms, and that this is perfectly okay.
To give you an example, you can’t accuse of hypocrisy someone who claims to want to preserve life, because they kill a few select individuals, that have proven that killing them was the only way of incapacitating them (or that you can’t try to incapacitate them without at least risking, and sometimes accidentally achieving, killing them).
You can’t accuse liberal democracy of “not being very liberal” if its institutions, official and unofficial, actively work to hinder, by any means necessary (and ideally by the least harsh means necessary), any and all efforts to make it less liberal. This democracy is, in fact, in a constant equilibrium of being as liberal as it can sustainably be.
The problem with censorship is that it inevitably expands to far. For example, your list of “abuses of free speech” includes both promotion of ideas that really are heinous and promotion of ideas that are perfectly reasonable. For example:
There is the promotion of the idea that strikes are an illegitimate form of protest, heck, that any form of protest at all in the workplace is illegitimate, save for job-quitting, if that.
Depending on what you mean by strike. But I think it’s a perfectly reasonable idea that you shouldn’t be able to refuse to do your job whenever you feel like expressing a “grievance” with no consequences except possibly loss of pay for the period of time when you don’t work.
But I think it’s a perfectly reasonable idea that you shouldn’t be able to refuse to do your job whenever you feel like expressing a “grievance” with no consequences except possibly loss of pay for the period of time when you don’t work.
Wrong emphasis. Society depends on people*, doing their jobs.
Let’s taboo some words:
Society: a sufficiently large group of individuals. Are we assuming a shared final goals? A power structure? A distribution of labour?
depends on: requires for its continued… What? Existence? Prosperity? What aspect of society depends on “people doing their jobs”? What does society depend on “people doing their jobs” for? For now, I’ll assume you’re using “depends on X” in the sense of “expects X to happen”… but that’s kind of weak.
people: individual sentient beings, not machines or tools, with needs other than being kept in optimal condition for the performance in the functions they perform, and existences that do not necessarily revolve around performing said functions.
doing their jobs: performing the functions that they have promised to perform reliably and within certain sufficient quality and quantity parameters
Again, given that it’s people we are talking about, they will only want to do their jobs in exchange for a reliable retribution in advantages in the shape of wealth and status in sufficient quality and quantity that have a utility to the people that is equivalent or superior to costs that “doing their job” entails for them. They will only be able to do their jobs if the compensation is sufficient to keep them alive so they can come back the next day.
Now, let’s use some basic economic theory: let’s assume work is a commodity, that is, let us do away with the “people” part and suppose the job-performers are emotionless, non-sentient machines, tools that will simply go irreversibly out of order if they are given insufficient resources for a long enough period of time, beings that exist only and purely to do their jobs, whose downtime is either spent in maintenance (and can be shortened or lengthened depending on where the optimal total productivity point between maximum duration and maximum instant output lies). Let’s also assume that their work capacity is distributed in an ideal free market, and that the machines are programmed to ask for as many resources as you are willing to give them. There’s a very close real-life equivalent to said machines: cattle.
Finally, let us assume that there is a steady influx of new machines, but that the work that the society needs to get done fluctuates.
This situation automatically results, thanks the to wonderful “Invisible Hand” that guides the self-regulating ideal market, into the jobholders being given *exactly as many resources as they need to work and keep functioning the next day, maintaining exactly the population that can provide the necessary amount of labour needed for getting the amount of job that society demands done.
Now, in the XIXth century, that is often what actually happened, except with people, specifically unqualified labour (heck, look at the very term: “unqualified labour”, as if labour was everything they are). And that was just unplanned market fuckery. The Nazis would actually planify killings by giving workers rations that were exactly calculated so that they would die soon upon completion of the project they were assigned to.
Why did this happen? Because those workers were powerless to make the people who had the right to set the conditions of the job agreement give them anything more than what ensured what was strictly needed for them to perform their task, which was basically them being alive for as long as they were needed and useful, and not an instant more. Which was what they ended up actually getting, because a free market ensures that’s where the Nash Equlibrium lies: they are locked in a prisoner’s dilemma in which if any single one of them refused to agree to work under those conditions, they would simply be replaced by another, willing person, and then die.
This is why as long as we assume that job-performers are people, more than tools to be used and thrown away, that their existence has value beyond the utility derived from them performing their jobs, and that it should not be entirely miserable, it is absolutely vital that job-performers have a form of power over those who set the conditions of the work agreement, that will allow them to protect themselves from being reduced, by the sheer strategic necessity, to the status of tools.
Now, strikes are a horrible way of achieving this: they are self-regulating too, in that, performing them is at the immediate cost of the job-performers (of course, since they are paid less than what their job-performing is actually worth, this costs whoever profits from their job even more) and risks the cessation of the demand for the job itself being performed. So, game-theory wise, it works, ideally resulting in the job-performers being assigned just under the amount of resources that would make the net utility of the job being performed inferior to that of it not being performed.
If you have suggestions for alternate ways in which job-performers can protect themselves from becoming cattle or machinery, I would love to hear them. I say this in all sinceirty: strikes are ugly. If you can additionally justify why people should not have the right to strikes, given those alternatives existing, I would love to hear that too
The Nazis would actually planify killings by giving workers rations that were exactly calculated so that they would die soon upon completion of the project they were assigned to.
Why did this happen?
Because the Nazis put industry under state control so that people had no choice but to work for companies guided by the state’s economic policy.
If you have suggestions for alternate ways in which job-performers can protect themselves from becoming cattle or machinery, I would love to hear them.
Sure, don’t centralize the hiring process under the guise of “economic planning” or maintaining an “economic policy” so much that hiring effectively becomes a monopsony.
The first point would be more of an issue in terms of that particular state’s particular economic policies: in a democratic state, economic policies that would not result in such an outcome would win out.
The second point… do you mean to say that, were there to be many job-assigning institutions competing to get the same job performed at the least possible cost, the equilibrium would fall into job-performers being given more resources than what they would receive were they to be considered disposable cattle? That only works if the work-performers are scarce, in which case it doesn’t matter whether there is one or many institutions competing. And if the work-performers are abundant, the equilibrium will fall into them being given exactly as many resources as they physically need to perform their job.
In a perfect market, centralizing or decentralizing doesn’t achieve anything: what matters is simply offer and demand.
Also, why do you put scare quotes around “economic planning” and “economic policy”?
The first point would be more of an issue in terms of that particular state’s particular economic policies: in a democratic state, economic policies that would not result in such an outcome would win out.
No, my point is that by and large states don’t need and shouldn’t have “economic policies”.
The second point… do you mean to say that, were there to be many job-assigning institutions competing to get the same job performed at the least possible cost, the equilibrium would fall into job-performers being given more resources than what they would receive were they to be considered disposable cattle? That only works if the work-performers are scarce, in which case it doesn’t matter whether there is one or many institutions competing. And if the work-performers are abundant, the equilibrium will fall into them being given exactly as many resources as they physically need to perform their job.
Are you trying to argue that monopsony power doesn’t exist? Without monopsony power an employer who pays low wages will have a hard time attracting employees. Whereas a monopsony employer can set wages arbitrarily low, his only limit is his own conscience and that at some point potential employees will prefer not to work. It’s possible to state the above more mathematically, for example here (Note: that article talks about monopoly rather than monopsony but the principal is the same).
In a perfect market, centralizing or decentralizing doesn’t achieve anything: what matters is simply offer and demand.
Except that centralizing destroys the perfect market.
No, my point is that by and large states don’t need and shouldn’t have “economic policies”.
You haven’t established that point to my satisfaction. Don’t try to: it’s not that I don’t expect you to succeed, it’s that, at this point in time, I am compelled away by urgent priorities.
Except that centralizing destroys the perfect market.
I now know that we are falling for red herrings, both of us. I also acknowledge that I am out of my depth, and that I will have to leave this sort of conversation for when my understanding of economics and game theory are sufficient to tackle it with ease. I advise you to do the same: I have the feeling that there is much cached wisdom and pre-rehearsed arguments in what you say, as I will acknowledge there is in mine.
Then you will abstain from going swimming: if you don’t, it will be at your own risk and peril. Though bad working conditions in this case is more likely to cause people to quit, and a scarcity of appliants (which means you’ll have to take unqualified people or close the swimming area for longer periods of time): it certainly won’t be a manner of being overexploited by abusive leadership. Overexploiting a lifeguard by assigning to them a larger area than they can effectively cover simply means they will fail at their jobs and people will die, so that’s not an option either.
The exception puts the rule to the test, and, as I have shown, lifeguards are an exception in more ways than one.
But, as a general rule, and given the way power dynamics function in the modern workplace, I would argue that the right to strike is an absolutely vital part of the checks and balances of a healthy economy.
Not to say unions can’t act petty or spoiled at some points, but that attitude is self-defeating, and the existing counterpowers will stop them soon enough. That’s what checks and balances are for: selfishness keeping itself in check.
Not to say unions can’t act petty or spoiled at some points, but that attitude is self-defeating, and the existing counterpowers will stop them soon enough.
Assuming the rest of society is functional, i.e., capitalist. Unions in industries that are enforced monopolies, e.g., government workers, are a problem. For example, here in the United States, teachers’ unions are probably the biggest obstacle to fixing the education system.
The idea that education is an enforced government monopoly in the United States Of America of all places makes me question whether you are aware of the importance of private education in that country relative to public education. The idea that a society being functional equals it being capitalist simply makes me question what you mean by capitalism and functionality: try to taboo those words? Finally, the idea that teachers’ unions would get in the way of the improvement of public education strikes me as odd and unexpected, and I would like you to develop that point: what do you mean by “fixing” and why are they “obstacles” to it?
The idea that education is an enforced government monopoly in the United States Of America of all places makes me question whether you are aware of the importance of private education in that country relative to public education.
It’s not quite an enforced government monopoly, although people choosing private school have to pay twice (pay for the public schools through their taxes and tuition for the private school). There are various attempts, e.g., school vouchers, charter schools, to fix this but the teachers’ unions have been fighting them tooth and nail.
The idea that a society being functional equals it being capitalist simply makes me question what you mean by capitalism and functionality: try to taboo those words?
By capitalist I mean free market. By functional I mean provides effective services. Note: my claim is not that societies can’t have both functional and non-capitalist elements, rather that for the most part the functional elements will be capitalist and the non-functional ones will be non-capitalist.
Finally, the idea that teachers’ unions would get in the way of the improvement of public education strikes me as odd and unexpected,
This doesn’t surprise me given the filters you likely get your news through.
and I would like you to develop that point: what do you mean by “fixing” and why are they “obstacles” to it?
By “fixing” I mean making it so that students come out of the schools having actually learned basic math and English skills. A specific reform is making it possible to get rid of incompetent teachers.
When is effectiveness, and when can a service be qualified as effective?
for the most part the functional elements will be capitalist and the non-functional ones will be non-capitalist
Depending on your definitions of effective and free-market, the existence of Sweden, at the very least, might make you want to question that reasoning.
the filters you likely get your news through
I don’t select the media from which I get my news. While the press in general does operate a selection on what information they release to the public, I do not think favouring teachers’ unions is one of their priorities.
A specific reform is making it possible to get rid of incompetent teachers.
Well, in the end the institutions are made of people, and applying game theory oversimplifies many factors. Such as public backlash: I cannot imagine teachers being stupid enough to risk the public backlash that opposing such a reform would cause (supposing that reform is exactly what it says on the tin, rather than making it possible to fire teachers for other, less avowable reasons. Unless teachers in the USA already had such a low social image that they would not care about degrading it further.
EDIT: You know, someone keeps down-voting both of us, and I don’t know why.
Or rather they have such a high social image that the people who aren’t paying attention react the same way you just did.
By all accounts, teachers in the USA are the dregs of society: very badly paid, subjected to unreasonable demands of moral upstanding, and powerless in front of the students, the administration, and the parents.
I just read whatever information falls in my lap while browsing my favourite sites: Less Wrong and Tv Tropes. I don’t get out much, Internet-wise. I don’t go out of my way for sources that agree with me, nor do I actively refuse sources that don’t. A selection bias still happens, because I only read news provided to me by tropers and rationalists.
I was talking more about various street level anti-fascist organizations like say this one and other more recent “antifa” groups across Europe, not the average person who would describe themselves as against fascism or “anti-fascist”. Also I meant fascist in the sense of using fascist tactics and mode of operation. Fascism before takeover was basically street level political violence and intimidation with good ol boys sympathetic to their causes in the law enforcement and the court system helping them get off with minimal penalties.
Well, that’s what happens when you try to fight fascist gangs on their own terms: you become a mirror image! Ethical injunction, he who fights monsters, and so on and so forth.
Why yes, absolutely. I do not know if this is lucky or unlucky, but I don’t know (personally and outside of the internet) anyone who isn’t a pacifist in some capacity when it comes to foreign policy, and in full capacity when it comes to domestic struggles. It just isn’t done. Symbolic violence such as flag-burning or, if it comes to that, car burning, is perfectly okay. So is strong language… as long as said language doesn’t appeal to violence. We don’t joke about being violent to our opposition, unlike, say, American pundits and talk show hosts. Again, it just isn’t done.
Just to clarify: do you mean to restrict the scope of discussion to voicing support for large-scale/political violence? Or do you also mean to say that you are all radically averse to violence in your personal lives?
Well, both, clearly. Violence is bad. Unless it’s in a ring and strictly for sport, then it’s seen as slightly less disgusting and may even gain a “bad ass” edge. But otherwise, violence, personal or political, is just… bad. It’s dangerous to all parties involved, it hurts, and it doesn’t achieve anything. Of course, under extreme circumstances, and I do say extreme, someone snaps. But even then, it’s never justified unless it’s in self-defence, and it’s always a shameful display: the common understanding is that you should have been smart enough, civil enough, to defuse the situation without getting physical.
It’s dangerous to all parties involved, it hurts, and it doesn’t achieve anything.
This just isn’t true. Violence achieves all sorts of things. (I would also dispute “dangerous to all parties involved”.)
But even then, it’s never justified unless it’s in self-defence
This isn’t true either (but at least is somewhat subjective).
, and it’s always a shameful display: the common understanding is that you should have been smart enough, civil enough, to defuse the situation without getting physical.
Also false. I disprove of narrow-minded overgeneralizations almost as much as I disapprove of violence.
Well, you are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I am simply sharing with you the general attitude towards violence in my social environment, not arguing in their name. Nevertheless, if you’re going to go so far as to pick those memes apart, instead of simply saying “thank you for the clarification, now I understand how you people think”, I’d suggest you actually go through with it and lay down your argument in full. Saying “I’d say you are wrong” and then leaving it at that tends to leave a bad taste in your interlocutor’s mouth.
I’d suggest you actually go through with it and lay down your argument in full.
OK:
[violence} doesn’t achieve anything.
Yes it does. For example if you beat someone up you can take their stuff. Or thwart their political designs. If you beat up enough people well enough you can execute social change. In fact the vast majority of positive social change (and even more negative social change) that has occurred in the history of mankind has relied on violence.
Violence is the crudest form of power we have. Power does stuff. Pretending violence doesn’t achieve anything is gross self delusion.
Don’t let your pacifist politics corrupt your very model of reality. Instead, understand what violence does and does not achieve and then act on your preference for non-violence.
Ah, well, yes, violence will get you what you want in the short term, but unless you exterminate your enemies, they’ll still be a liability: violence doesn’t convince anyone, it just makes them more tractable. Heck, even verbal combat, that is, argument, doesn’t usually serve any purpose but convince both parties that they are right.
So, yes, “violence (and rudeness, for that matter) achieves nothing” is a gross simplification. “Violence brings very flawed achievements and has lots of terrible drawbacks” would be much more accurate.
Ah, well, yes, violence will get you what you want in the short term, but unless you exterminate your enemies, they’ll still be a liability: violence doesn’t convince anyone, it just makes them more tractable.
Let’s frame it as comparing two options against each other (not one option against some unspecified ideal outcome). Based on a quantum event, in one branch of the multiverse you use violence, in another you refrain from violence. Is your long-term utility in the first branch necessarily lower than in the second branch?
Your enemies are not a homogenous group. Some of them are very convinced and eager to act, but others just like to join the existing group and be an anonymous part of the mob. Destroy the former, and you don’t have to worry so much about the latter.
A short-term advantage can sometimes be used as a leverage for long-term advantage. If you happen to rule a country, you can change education and media to include your propaganda. This increases the number of your followers in long term. (Back to typical LW topics: If you are an AI capable of recursive self-improvement, paralysing your opponents for a week may be all you need to conquer the universe.)
Depending on specific circumstances… for example, your enemies may be popular because they have an aura of invincibility. Beat them once and you have ruined the aura, which may remove many of their followers.
(Disclaimer: I don’t suggest using violence, I just say that sometimes is may be the better choice, so the “violence doesn’t achieve anything” is untrue.)
Hm. Very true, I’m afraid. Anyway, “violence achieves nothing” is a useful heuristic, and in times of extreme need the use for violence will still impose itself: the meme simply puts up a mental “barrier of potential” that makes sure you really think hard of alternatives before resorting to it.
I tend to distrust ideas whose usefulness depend on not being too compellingly expressed.
If what I actually believe is that there are usually more valuable alternatives than violence, I endorse saying that as compellingly as possible, rather than saying that violence is never valuable no more compellingly than appropriate.
But even then, [violence is] never justified unless it’s in self-defence
This isn’t true either (but at least is somewhat subjective).
I strongly agree with your general point, but could you explain what you mean by this comment, because it looks problematic for any reasonable understanding of self-defense (which I would expand to include defense of others).
In Europe anti-fascists basically are fascists, at least when it comes to their tactics and their relationship to the authorities who often look the other way while they do their thing (which is the use of violence and extortion to attack right wing organizations and individuals known to support them).
Note: Possibly Mindkilling
In Ireland, antifa is pretty small, but seems to be closely associated with radical republicanism—which has a specific meaning in Irish politics: Sinn Féin and other more millitant nationalist groups, generally left-leaning (or appearing to be to gain popular working-class approval) and often anti-British.
This leads to the odd situation where antifa is closely correlated with nationalism.
From a communications clarity point of view, I like that there is a word for certain failure modes of far-right ideology, in the same way that I like that there is a word for certain failure modes of far-left ideology. Using the far-right failure mode label for those on the far left confuses this distinction.
To me, the defining feature of fascism (or communism) is not use of private, politically motivated violence with the tolerance of the authorities. That’s bad, but it’s not the reasons that I think fascism is bad.
It’s similar to the problem of saying that Nazism is bad because it is socialist (“National Socialism” in the name). Nazism is bad, and socialism (as those speakers intend the term) is bad, but Nazism != socialism.
And what are those reasons? Since I really don’t see the distinction you’re trying to make.
To speak more carefully—violence for the purpose of influencing the “center of mass” of political opinion in a country, when the government is not uniformly in favor of the political position of those executing the violence—is not the same thing as fascism. More colloquially, tactics similar to voter intimidation have been used by fascists, but not only fascists.
My main point was that an ideological label that applies to both FARC and AUC is not a particularly informative label. If fascism is restricted to the usage I suggested, then it is more informative than that.
You didn’t answer my question. Let me state it more explicitly. What do you mean by “fascism”?
Fascists seem to believe that there once was a society that lived perfectly. Some of us can become these “Ideal Men” if we are spiritually pure enough (or maybe we can only set things up so that our descendents can be this way). Further, the importance of this spiritual purity justifies any violence in service of reaching this goal.
Fascists are wrong because the imagined past never occurred (like the country song that complains that Coke is a slang shortening for Cocaine—as if there was ever a time when Coke was not a reference to Cocaine).
Communists have the same belief in an “Ideal Man,” but they think that no one has ever lived that way. With sufficient mental purity, we might be able to become “Ideal” (again, we might only be able to cause this for our descendents). Once we are all ideal, we will be able distribute resources “fairly” and avoid the social problems we face today. Again, achieving that ideal justifies any violence.
Communists are wrong because the existence of scarcity guarantees that schemes of wealth distribution cannot solve every social problem.
Transhumanist look forward, not backwards. But they don’t say that all social problems will go away. Only that technology will make us so rich that all our current problems will be gone. There’s the joke of the person revived from suspended animation in the distant future who asks if there was still poverty, disease, hunger, wars or crime and is told that no, those problems were solved long ago. Then he asks, then why doess everybody seem so nervous? “Well, you see—we have REAL problems.”
Who do you have in mind? ETA?
There’s no such thing as being “basically” fascists: either you are a fascist or you aren’t. Totalitarian, violent extremists, maybe. But that’s a strange “general truth” you’re stating here. The anti-fascists I know (basically, everyone) are radically averse to violence. In fact, being anti-fascist is the one single thing everyone agrees on, even the parties branded as “fascist” by everyone else! Is this violence the case in your country, or are you generalizing from fringe groups?
That’s because in today’s Europe anti-facism is an applause light not an ideology.
Unless you mean it’s become such a widespread ideology that it’s isometric to a tautology in the minds of the public, I don’t see what you mean.
I mean someone calling themselves “anti-facist” doesn’t have any semantic content.
It sure does. It’s vague and nebulous, because “fascism” itself is vague and nebulous by design, but usually it boils down to:
Against wars of conquest and even against gunboat diplomacy.
Against intellectual censorship and police states, for freedom of expression.
In favour of liberal democracy.
In favour of the right of all to a fair trial, against death penalty.
In favour of the right to unionise, to make strikes, to pacific and non-violent demonstrations.
If anyone disagrees with any of these points, they had better not say it out loud, regardless of what they actually end up doing.
Unless, of course, the people you’re censoring are themselves fascist or can be accused of facism or “hate speech” then it’s ok.
Well, it could look like hypocrisy if you fail to understand that the points I oulined aren’t principles or goals in and of themsleves. They are simply measures taken to avoid the rebirth of fascism or anything like it, mere means to an end. The top priority remains anti-fascism in and of itself, and the repression of anything that could promote it, looks like it could promote it, or could be made to look like it could promote it. Hence why Mein Kampf is banned, and people in Belgium have gone to prison for reading The Protocols of the Sages of Zion in the subway. Really, it all boils down to Hitler: bad in mainland Europe, and Civil War: bad in Spain (which is probably why they abhor violent methods so much).
Obviously the dilemma anti-fascism faces is the danger of becoming so repressive in its efforts to stop fascism from raising again that it creates a new totalitarianism of its own, but so far they seem to be pulling along fine.
...
So for you and your friends, freedom of expression doesn’t extend to letting people say things you don’t like, and it isn’t censorship if you stop them doing it.
Certainly not: they are allowed to say them, the same way they’re allowed to say, for example, that they’re sexually attracted to small children: sharing this information about their state of mind will brand them as dangerous, repulsive, and immoral, they will be subject to suspicion and strong scrutiny, people will be wary of letting power in their hands, of associating with them in public… but no-one would tell them to shut up. In fact, people would want them to speak up, so that they can be identified and tagged.
So, we’re fully in favour of letting them say things we don’t like, we’re actually enthusiastically in favour of them saying them. When I say “they had better not say it out loud”, I mean that it would not be in their best interests to signal that state of mind, and that they would, as a matter of pure self-interest, censor themselves, without any input from us, and to our great regret.
For a moment I was going to say that I had misinterpreted you, but on reflection, I don’t think I did at all.
You just compared being against your favoured constellation of political ideas to child molesting, and called those who are against them dangerous, repulsive, and immoral. You want them subject to suspicion and strong scrutiny; they must be identified and tagged. Of course, you’re not going to personally suppress them, but—nudge nudge, wink wink—they’d better take care if they know what’s good for them, eh?
Now, imagine someone had read only that comment, but not its ancestors. What might they conjecture that this constellation of political ideas might be?
The manifest destiny of the Aryan race? Missionary Christianity? The white man’s burden of ruling the lesser peoples? Pan-Islamism? No, “liberal democracy”. (That was just the third of your five bullet points, but “liberal democracy” includes the other four already.)
BTW, have you come across Mencius Moldbug?
I’m not nudging, I’m not winking, and I’m not jocular or joyous: I’m dead serious, and state this as a matter of fact. Not as a threat or a warning, but as a statement of common sense. In fact, I like it better when they do not show this much common sense, so we can discuss their ideas in the open, and expose them for what they are.
I chose paedophilia (not child molesting, I never said anything about actually having ever laid a hand on an actual child) because it’s something people get panicky about on a gut level, but is contingent to the local region of space and time one occupies. You may replace it with “racism”, “military expansionism/imperialism”, “support for the Death Penalty”, “support for banning guns”, “support for Cryonics and/or Transhumanism”, or “support for gay marriage”, depending on the social environment you’re moving in.
I have. I am fairly unimpressed. Some interesting, daring, and refreshing new ideas, but I don’t know if it’s “rehearsing arguments”, “one argument against a thousand”, and so on and so forth, but I find his arguments un-satisfactory, ultimately.
I find it telling that you conflate all of these and put them on the same level. In particular, you seem to be confused as to what missionary Christianity and Pan-islamism entail, respectively, by themselves.
A statement of “common sense” that they will be seen as dangerous, repulsive, and immoral, and all the rest. If not by you, and not by them, then by whom?
I wish people who use this expression would go on to say what it tells them.
Those were just some examples of ideologies that have taken this attitude to their opponents. (Ok, maybe not all manifestations of missionary Christianity deserve to be in that list; consider it replaced by Stalinism or the Chinese Cultural Revolution.)
For “liberal democracy” to take that attitude doesn’t sound very liberal.
Please see here.
I don’t have access to the link. Is it an unpublished draft?
Er, yes, I have turned it into a draft at the behest of some readers who told me to reformat it in a way that would make it a proper top-level post, rather than a mere recapitulation/contextualization of the discussion so far. I’ll warn you as soon as it’s done.
If your regret over the consequences of punishing them for expressing their actual state is great enough, you might consider not punishing them. Conversely, if after considering it you decide to continue to punish them, you might want to calibrate your estimate of your regret more precisely.
No, no, I regret that they won’t speak up so we can’t identify them, I don’t regret the treatment they are given once they are identified. This is especially annoying when they start to act out on the opposites of these ideas as policies without announcing themselves, and in fact vehemently denying any type of association with the typical opponents of those ideas. It makes working to stop them harder.
You seem to have a fundamental confusion between “person is going to be punished for expressing beliefs outisde the Overton Window”, and “person is going to suffer negative consequences once it is publically known that they have beliefs outside the Overton Window”. The first would be institutionally enforced censorship, and wrong. The second would be simple social dynamics at work, and inevitable. If you can’t tell the difference, I suggest you live in a country like the one where I was born, where the very circulation of certain ideas can be paid with your own life.
Tapping out.
Please see here. This is not a fight, and I’m not trying to knock you out.
That link doesn’t work for me.
Do you have a preferred expression for people indicating that they are no longer interested in discussing a particular subject with you?
How about “I have lost interest in closing this discussion”, or even not answering at all? Anyway, that’s not what you indicated, you indicated that I had “won”, somehow. I’m not interested in winning arguments, I’m interested in finding out the truth. “(You have satisfactorily proven that) my (implcit) accusations were precipitated/groundless/undeserved. I now see where you are coming from (even though I disagree with your conclusions).” would have been my preferred outcome, “You are clearly insane and not worth talking to” would have been my least preferred.
Now, me, Richard and Nier have gone into a tangent where I have shown some very poor grasp of both social and rational skills, and allowed myself to snap at my comrades in an entirely unseemly manner, under externally-induced stress and time pressures, that I should have known better than to let get the better of me. The posts I have fathered have shamed me, but I shall keep them up as an example of what not to do.
I’ll try here to adress their points more intelligently, pertinently, and courteously.
This statement got me very very angry. The conclusion you jumped to, Richard, is an understandable extrapolation, but I would have liked it if you had been more cautious about embracing it, because I have said nothing of the sort. My guess is that you are committing the “Politics is the Mind-Killer” mistake of trying to fit me into preexisting categories, groups, and roles, in your narrative. You should know, by now, that trying to do that with a Less Wronger is like trying to catch water, except water doesn’t get pissed off. Abstain from doing that in the future.
Now, I don’t know about my “friends” (I’ll ask them… both of them… when I get the chance, though I think they’ll agree with what I’m going to argue), but I for one think that people should be allowed to say what they want, regardless of whether I like or I don’t like it. If there is any merit to their ideas, sharing them with the public will represent an improvement to the pool of collective knowledge. If there isn’t, having them submitted to be de-constructed and exposed as worthless is also an improvement.
At least, that’s my kind, idealistic, forgiving, past self. After having spent some time with /b/tards and goons, I have found that there is such a thing as a harmful, dangerous, or cruel abuse of freedom of speech.:
There is the promotion of the discriminating of minorities.
There is the promotion of violence.
There is the promotion of sexual and psychological abuse, and of the oppression of one gender by another, of one age group by another.
There is the promotion of one group using lethal force on another to, well, force them to undertake certain actions, or cede certain advantages, for the sake of the group that is most effective in its use of violence.
There is the promotion of totalitarian regimes.
There is the systematic aggression by certain self-appointed standard enforcers, against any opinions that go enough outside the mainstream that they attract any attention at all. (Hypocrisy? Wait up!)
There is the promotion of not giving a fair trial to people (lynching, purging, and so on), mostly by presenting their guilt as being beyond doubt (regardless of evidence), and that what they did was so heinous they must be punished as soon as possible, as harshly as possible, without getting a chance to defend themselves.
With some correlation to the last one, there is the promotion of the idea that said extremely heinous criminals should not even have the right to live on.
There is the promotion of the idea that strikes are an illegitimate form of protest, heck, that any form of protest at all in the workplace is illegitimate, save for job-quitting, if that.
Analogically, that protests against the actions of the government are illegitimate, no matter how non-violent.
I’ll leave the question of how these (ab?)uses of freedom of expression should be dealt with, and whether there should be consequences for those who make use of their freedom in such a way, and what those consequences should be, as an exercise to the reader.
When I said
I had this sort of guy in mind. A fascist in a liberal democracy, he keeps his mouth shut (well, at least he tries, but his burning, endless love for the kind Fuhrer cannot be contained), and bides his time. Because he fears… what? In what I conceive of liberal democracy, he’d have the right to hold on to his ideas, even to speak them out. As long as he doesn’t actively advocate finishing the Holocaust or oppressing black people or that kind of thing, the Law would leave him alone. He would be allowed to discuss his anti-democratic, fascist opinions in public places and media… and have them be ridiculed and soundly refuted. His immediate environment may or may not care: they may very well file him off as an inoffensive cuckoo (he’s anything but: he almost gunned the protagonists down, and then blew up a theatre at their behest… long story). He’s poor, unambitious. incompetent, and keeps to himself. No-one will bother to obstruct him or get in his way.
Now suppose that someone who was in favour of wars of conquest, in favour of strict government censorship, in favour of ideological totalitarianism and one-party rule, in favour of lynchings, trial by ordeal, “adminsitrative detainment”, summary execution, extermination camps, prohibition of any form of protest in the workplace or against the government… suppose that this someone was smart, rich, capable, pragmatic, competent, and ambitious. Suppose that, and I know this is hard, given the previous attributes, suppose that they publicly announced holding this set of beliefs.
Would you not expect them to meet with a spontaneously generated slew of obstacles and hindrances of every kind?. And I haven’t said anything about their opinions on race or gender or social inequality. Just the institutions of liberal democracy.
Would it not be right, and good, and proper that they are subjected to this kind of obstruction, if not outright legal action?
But, see, that’s why that hypothesis was hard to swallow. Someone like that, smart and capable and pragmatic, would keep their mouth shut. They would bide their time. And then, when you expect it the least, they might pull this kind of shit. Or this other kind of shit.
Are you still going to pretend that this is just a matter of what “me and my friends” “like” or don’t “like”, Richard?
Now, see, I regret that, out of self preservation, and/or for the sake of bringing their plans to fruition, that kind of people will keep quiet, and only share and discuss these opinions with like-minded people. I regret that they do not feel that they can share their opinions in public, and expect them to win out by their own merit. I regret that they might, in fact, not want to submit their opinions to public scrutiny, because somewhere, deep inside, they know them to be evil or false. There is an idealistic part of me that wants to believe that, were these people given a chance to express themselves, to communicate freely and civilly with others, they would either change their beliefs as a result of the bayesian update, change everyone else’s beliefs, and/or, if it’s a matter of “personal” or “irrational” sensibility, make peace with the fact that they live in a world where the majority does not share their point of view, and that they cannot force their opinions, least of all their policies, unto them.
There is another, more cynical and ruthless side of me, that believes that the sort of people who are dangerously violent because of their ideology are not the sort of people who would benefit in any way from publicly debating their ideas, nor would anyone benefit from arguing with them. This aspect of me posits that sometimes, defending the freedoms of the most means stopping others from promoting the idea that said freedoms should be partly or fully, but permanently, waived, as well as infringing on the freedoms of these others should they show that they are willing and able to destroy these freedoms, and that this is perfectly okay.
To give you an example, you can’t accuse of hypocrisy someone who claims to want to preserve life, because they kill a few select individuals, that have proven that killing them was the only way of incapacitating them (or that you can’t try to incapacitate them without at least risking, and sometimes accidentally achieving, killing them).
You can’t accuse liberal democracy of “not being very liberal” if its institutions, official and unofficial, actively work to hinder, by any means necessary (and ideally by the least harsh means necessary), any and all efforts to make it less liberal. This democracy is, in fact, in a constant equilibrium of being as liberal as it can sustainably be.
The problem with censorship is that it inevitably expands to far. For example, your list of “abuses of free speech” includes both promotion of ideas that really are heinous and promotion of ideas that are perfectly reasonable. For example:
Depending on what you mean by strike. But I think it’s a perfectly reasonable idea that you shouldn’t be able to refuse to do your job whenever you feel like expressing a “grievance” with no consequences except possibly loss of pay for the period of time when you don’t work.
Why in the world would that be a reasonable idea?
Because society depends on people doing their jobs in order to function.
Wrong emphasis. Society depends on people*, doing their jobs.
Let’s taboo some words:
Society: a sufficiently large group of individuals. Are we assuming a shared final goals? A power structure? A distribution of labour?
depends on: requires for its continued… What? Existence? Prosperity? What aspect of society depends on “people doing their jobs”? What does society depend on “people doing their jobs” for? For now, I’ll assume you’re using “depends on X” in the sense of “expects X to happen”… but that’s kind of weak.
people: individual sentient beings, not machines or tools, with needs other than being kept in optimal condition for the performance in the functions they perform, and existences that do not necessarily revolve around performing said functions.
doing their jobs: performing the functions that they have promised to perform reliably and within certain sufficient quality and quantity parameters
Again, given that it’s people we are talking about, they will only want to do their jobs in exchange for a reliable retribution in advantages in the shape of wealth and status in sufficient quality and quantity that have a utility to the people that is equivalent or superior to costs that “doing their job” entails for them. They will only be able to do their jobs if the compensation is sufficient to keep them alive so they can come back the next day.
Now, let’s use some basic economic theory: let’s assume work is a commodity, that is, let us do away with the “people” part and suppose the job-performers are emotionless, non-sentient machines, tools that will simply go irreversibly out of order if they are given insufficient resources for a long enough period of time, beings that exist only and purely to do their jobs, whose downtime is either spent in maintenance (and can be shortened or lengthened depending on where the optimal total productivity point between maximum duration and maximum instant output lies). Let’s also assume that their work capacity is distributed in an ideal free market, and that the machines are programmed to ask for as many resources as you are willing to give them. There’s a very close real-life equivalent to said machines: cattle.
Finally, let us assume that there is a steady influx of new machines, but that the work that the society needs to get done fluctuates.
This situation automatically results, thanks the to wonderful “Invisible Hand” that guides the self-regulating ideal market, into the jobholders being given *exactly as many resources as they need to work and keep functioning the next day, maintaining exactly the population that can provide the necessary amount of labour needed for getting the amount of job that society demands done.
Now, in the XIXth century, that is often what actually happened, except with people, specifically unqualified labour (heck, look at the very term: “unqualified labour”, as if labour was everything they are). And that was just unplanned market fuckery. The Nazis would actually planify killings by giving workers rations that were exactly calculated so that they would die soon upon completion of the project they were assigned to.
Why did this happen? Because those workers were powerless to make the people who had the right to set the conditions of the job agreement give them anything more than what ensured what was strictly needed for them to perform their task, which was basically them being alive for as long as they were needed and useful, and not an instant more. Which was what they ended up actually getting, because a free market ensures that’s where the Nash Equlibrium lies: they are locked in a prisoner’s dilemma in which if any single one of them refused to agree to work under those conditions, they would simply be replaced by another, willing person, and then die.
This is why as long as we assume that job-performers are people, more than tools to be used and thrown away, that their existence has value beyond the utility derived from them performing their jobs, and that it should not be entirely miserable, it is absolutely vital that job-performers have a form of power over those who set the conditions of the work agreement, that will allow them to protect themselves from being reduced, by the sheer strategic necessity, to the status of tools.
Now, strikes are a horrible way of achieving this: they are self-regulating too, in that, performing them is at the immediate cost of the job-performers (of course, since they are paid less than what their job-performing is actually worth, this costs whoever profits from their job even more) and risks the cessation of the demand for the job itself being performed. So, game-theory wise, it works, ideally resulting in the job-performers being assigned just under the amount of resources that would make the net utility of the job being performed inferior to that of it not being performed.
If you have suggestions for alternate ways in which job-performers can protect themselves from becoming cattle or machinery, I would love to hear them. I say this in all sinceirty: strikes are ugly. If you can additionally justify why people should not have the right to strikes, given those alternatives existing, I would love to hear that too
Because the Nazis put industry under state control so that people had no choice but to work for companies guided by the state’s economic policy.
Sure, don’t centralize the hiring process under the guise of “economic planning” or maintaining an “economic policy” so much that hiring effectively becomes a monopsony.
The first point would be more of an issue in terms of that particular state’s particular economic policies: in a democratic state, economic policies that would not result in such an outcome would win out.
The second point… do you mean to say that, were there to be many job-assigning institutions competing to get the same job performed at the least possible cost, the equilibrium would fall into job-performers being given more resources than what they would receive were they to be considered disposable cattle? That only works if the work-performers are scarce, in which case it doesn’t matter whether there is one or many institutions competing. And if the work-performers are abundant, the equilibrium will fall into them being given exactly as many resources as they physically need to perform their job.
In a perfect market, centralizing or decentralizing doesn’t achieve anything: what matters is simply offer and demand.
Also, why do you put scare quotes around “economic planning” and “economic policy”?
No, my point is that by and large states don’t need and shouldn’t have “economic policies”.
Are you trying to argue that monopsony power doesn’t exist? Without monopsony power an employer who pays low wages will have a hard time attracting employees. Whereas a monopsony employer can set wages arbitrarily low, his only limit is his own conscience and that at some point potential employees will prefer not to work. It’s possible to state the above more mathematically, for example here (Note: that article talks about monopoly rather than monopsony but the principal is the same).
Except that centralizing destroys the perfect market.
You haven’t established that point to my satisfaction. Don’t try to: it’s not that I don’t expect you to succeed, it’s that, at this point in time, I am compelled away by urgent priorities.
I now know that we are falling for red herrings, both of us. I also acknowledge that I am out of my depth, and that I will have to leave this sort of conversation for when my understanding of economics and game theory are sufficient to tackle it with ease. I advise you to do the same: I have the feeling that there is much cached wisdom and pre-rehearsed arguments in what you say, as I will acknowledge there is in mine.
Lifeguards.
Then you will abstain from going swimming: if you don’t, it will be at your own risk and peril. Though bad working conditions in this case is more likely to cause people to quit, and a scarcity of appliants (which means you’ll have to take unqualified people or close the swimming area for longer periods of time): it certainly won’t be a manner of being overexploited by abusive leadership. Overexploiting a lifeguard by assigning to them a larger area than they can effectively cover simply means they will fail at their jobs and people will die, so that’s not an option either.
The exception puts the rule to the test, and, as I have shown, lifeguards are an exception in more ways than one.
But, as a general rule, and given the way power dynamics function in the modern workplace, I would argue that the right to strike is an absolutely vital part of the checks and balances of a healthy economy.
Not to say unions can’t act petty or spoiled at some points, but that attitude is self-defeating, and the existing counterpowers will stop them soon enough. That’s what checks and balances are for: selfishness keeping itself in check.
Assuming the rest of society is functional, i.e., capitalist. Unions in industries that are enforced monopolies, e.g., government workers, are a problem. For example, here in the United States, teachers’ unions are probably the biggest obstacle to fixing the education system.
The idea that education is an enforced government monopoly in the United States Of America of all places makes me question whether you are aware of the importance of private education in that country relative to public education. The idea that a society being functional equals it being capitalist simply makes me question what you mean by capitalism and functionality: try to taboo those words? Finally, the idea that teachers’ unions would get in the way of the improvement of public education strikes me as odd and unexpected, and I would like you to develop that point: what do you mean by “fixing” and why are they “obstacles” to it?
It’s not quite an enforced government monopoly, although people choosing private school have to pay twice (pay for the public schools through their taxes and tuition for the private school). There are various attempts, e.g., school vouchers, charter schools, to fix this but the teachers’ unions have been fighting them tooth and nail.
By capitalist I mean free market. By functional I mean provides effective services. Note: my claim is not that societies can’t have both functional and non-capitalist elements, rather that for the most part the functional elements will be capitalist and the non-functional ones will be non-capitalist.
This doesn’t surprise me given the filters you likely get your news through.
By “fixing” I mean making it so that students come out of the schools having actually learned basic math and English skills. A specific reform is making it possible to get rid of incompetent teachers.
What do you mean by free market, exactly?
When is effectiveness, and when can a service be qualified as effective?
Depending on your definitions of effective and free-market, the existence of Sweden, at the very least, might make you want to question that reasoning.
I don’t select the media from which I get my news. While the press in general does operate a selection on what information they release to the public, I do not think favouring teachers’ unions is one of their priorities.
Well, in the end the institutions are made of people, and applying game theory oversimplifies many factors. Such as public backlash: I cannot imagine teachers being stupid enough to risk the public backlash that opposing such a reform would cause (supposing that reform is exactly what it says on the tin, rather than making it possible to fire teachers for other, less avowable reasons. Unless teachers in the USA already had such a low social image that they would not care about degrading it further.
EDIT: You know, someone keeps down-voting both of us, and I don’t know why.
Well, adjust you’re priors appropriately.
Or rather they have such a high social image that the people who aren’t paying much attention react the same way you just did.
By all accounts, teachers in the USA are the dregs of society: very badly paid, subjected to unreasonable demands of moral upstanding, and powerless in front of the students, the administration, and the parents.
How do you manage that? Does someone else select it for you?
Wait, you’re on the internet, that can’t be right.
I just read whatever information falls in my lap while browsing my favourite sites: Less Wrong and Tv Tropes. I don’t get out much, Internet-wise. I don’t go out of my way for sources that agree with me, nor do I actively refuse sources that don’t. A selection bias still happens, because I only read news provided to me by tropers and rationalists.
I was talking more about various street level anti-fascist organizations like say this one and other more recent “antifa” groups across Europe, not the average person who would describe themselves as against fascism or “anti-fascist”. Also I meant fascist in the sense of using fascist tactics and mode of operation. Fascism before takeover was basically street level political violence and intimidation with good ol boys sympathetic to their causes in the law enforcement and the court system helping them get off with minimal penalties.
Well, that’s what happens when you try to fight fascist gangs on their own terms: you become a mirror image! Ethical injunction, he who fights monsters, and so on and so forth.
It seems to follow from this statement that everyone you know is radically averse to violence.
Is that actually what you meant?
Why yes, absolutely. I do not know if this is lucky or unlucky, but I don’t know (personally and outside of the internet) anyone who isn’t a pacifist in some capacity when it comes to foreign policy, and in full capacity when it comes to domestic struggles. It just isn’t done. Symbolic violence such as flag-burning or, if it comes to that, car burning, is perfectly okay. So is strong language… as long as said language doesn’t appeal to violence. We don’t joke about being violent to our opposition, unlike, say, American pundits and talk show hosts. Again, it just isn’t done.
Just to clarify: do you mean to restrict the scope of discussion to voicing support for large-scale/political violence? Or do you also mean to say that you are all radically averse to violence in your personal lives?
Well, both, clearly. Violence is bad. Unless it’s in a ring and strictly for sport, then it’s seen as slightly less disgusting and may even gain a “bad ass” edge. But otherwise, violence, personal or political, is just… bad. It’s dangerous to all parties involved, it hurts, and it doesn’t achieve anything. Of course, under extreme circumstances, and I do say extreme, someone snaps. But even then, it’s never justified unless it’s in self-defence, and it’s always a shameful display: the common understanding is that you should have been smart enough, civil enough, to defuse the situation without getting physical.
This just isn’t true. Violence achieves all sorts of things. (I would also dispute “dangerous to all parties involved”.)
This isn’t true either (but at least is somewhat subjective).
Also false. I disprove of narrow-minded overgeneralizations almost as much as I disapprove of violence.
Well, you are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I am simply sharing with you the general attitude towards violence in my social environment, not arguing in their name. Nevertheless, if you’re going to go so far as to pick those memes apart, instead of simply saying “thank you for the clarification, now I understand how you people think”, I’d suggest you actually go through with it and lay down your argument in full. Saying “I’d say you are wrong” and then leaving it at that tends to leave a bad taste in your interlocutor’s mouth.
OK:
Yes it does. For example if you beat someone up you can take their stuff. Or thwart their political designs. If you beat up enough people well enough you can execute social change. In fact the vast majority of positive social change (and even more negative social change) that has occurred in the history of mankind has relied on violence.
Violence is the crudest form of power we have. Power does stuff. Pretending violence doesn’t achieve anything is gross self delusion.
Don’t let your pacifist politics corrupt your very model of reality. Instead, understand what violence does and does not achieve and then act on your preference for non-violence.
Ah, well, yes, violence will get you what you want in the short term, but unless you exterminate your enemies, they’ll still be a liability: violence doesn’t convince anyone, it just makes them more tractable. Heck, even verbal combat, that is, argument, doesn’t usually serve any purpose but convince both parties that they are right.
So, yes, “violence (and rudeness, for that matter) achieves nothing” is a gross simplification. “Violence brings very flawed achievements and has lots of terrible drawbacks” would be much more accurate.
Let’s frame it as comparing two options against each other (not one option against some unspecified ideal outcome). Based on a quantum event, in one branch of the multiverse you use violence, in another you refrain from violence. Is your long-term utility in the first branch necessarily lower than in the second branch?
Your enemies are not a homogenous group. Some of them are very convinced and eager to act, but others just like to join the existing group and be an anonymous part of the mob. Destroy the former, and you don’t have to worry so much about the latter.
A short-term advantage can sometimes be used as a leverage for long-term advantage. If you happen to rule a country, you can change education and media to include your propaganda. This increases the number of your followers in long term. (Back to typical LW topics: If you are an AI capable of recursive self-improvement, paralysing your opponents for a week may be all you need to conquer the universe.)
Depending on specific circumstances… for example, your enemies may be popular because they have an aura of invincibility. Beat them once and you have ruined the aura, which may remove many of their followers.
(Disclaimer: I don’t suggest using violence, I just say that sometimes is may be the better choice, so the “violence doesn’t achieve anything” is untrue.)
Hm. Very true, I’m afraid. Anyway, “violence achieves nothing” is a useful heuristic, and in times of extreme need the use for violence will still impose itself: the meme simply puts up a mental “barrier of potential” that makes sure you really think hard of alternatives before resorting to it.
I tend to distrust ideas whose usefulness depend on not being too compellingly expressed.
If what I actually believe is that there are usually more valuable alternatives than violence, I endorse saying that as compellingly as possible, rather than saying that violence is never valuable no more compellingly than appropriate.
I strongly agree with your general point, but could you explain what you mean by this comment, because it looks problematic for any reasonable understanding of self-defense (which I would expand to include defense of others).
OK. Thanks for clarifying.