Socialist States of America still not learning the lessons

sadly societies are not like that because of a basic antropologic reason, namely in social groups of animals there is hierarchy and a majority must be idiot to be manipulated and sacrificed in benefit of the continuity of the species

I don't know where you got that idea from - but it has nothing to do with anthropology (I have a degree in the subject).

[Hitman]

Your right should have probably said biological

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Hitman

I agree with with that mostly, though I'd complete it with an idea that the greeks already suggested: A democracy is only as good or as bad as the society that enforces it. If you have the average society with a majority of idiots, uneducated, irrespectful, etc, then the resulting democracy is at that level. Of course a democracy composed of a handful of intellectual and reasonable people would work marvels, but that will not happen. It won't because sadly societies are not like that because of a basic antropologic reason, namely in social groups of animals there is hierarchy and a majority must be idiot to be manipulated and sacrificed in benefit of the continuity of the species (Think of any animal species organized in communities and you will see hierarchy and some dying for the others). Nature ensures thus that there is ample supply of idiots, and the clever/powerful elite do the rest by using it for their own convenience. Giving theoretical equal power of decission to the idiots is of course a flawed way of handling things, but it seems to be the only one that will keep them happy and cheated to continue being sacrificed and working instead of mounting guillotines in he champs Eliseès.

Further (short) reading on what the greeks diagnosed already centuries ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyklos

The Greek had no illusions about democracy. They favoured a small social elite that was about 5% - maximum 15% of the total population to be allowed in assemblies to vote on issues that affected the community. These 10% must have been male, they must have been rich and materially contributing to the community, they must have believed in the gods and they must have honoured their parents and forefathers and honour the rites by which the dead forefathers got honoured. Especially the latter was very important and was called into examination not rarely when a new young man demanded access to the assembly. These people were what constittues the citizens of the community. The others - wqere of lesser social value than citizens.

In ancient Greece, the "demos" originally meant a small village, and later, the "deme" was the smallest local administration cell (surprise, surprise: again the reference to having communities as small as possible!). The "demos" was not the totality of the whole population. At that time, the governing inside the demos meant the self-governing of the "citizen". But the citizens were an elite that was discriminated against the ordinary population. the term "citizen" originally refered to an organise band of armed men - a small military unit, ion other words. Men who served under arms, were free people and were citizens, whereas unfree people - most of the population - were forbidden to carry arms or to gain access to the governing assembly.

So, where "democracy" was meant at those time sin a positive context, it meant something like the self-governing of small administrative entities like a small city, and a criterion was that from the top of the hill where the assembly met, all of the country and community being governed must have been in view, and places that laid beyond that viewing range could not be claimed to be part of this community. In these assemblies, orthodoxy and conservatism were demanded and defended to protect culture, identity and rites, and the way this elite was identified could only be described as being aristocratic.

Rahim Taghizadegan mentiones also this nice little detail: the realm of public affairs, in whose governing the citizens (the free, arms-carrying men) were not only allowed but were expected to participate and take up responsibility, was called "demosios". On the other side, there was the "idios", the sphere of privacy, private household, the non-public life behind the walls and doors of your home. This was seen in a negative, disadvantaged connotation, because the idiot was a poor dog or a fool or an unfree man who had to do the work in the household or his job and had no time and no inspiration to make an engagement for public issues, he lacked the educaiton for that as well, and finally was not allowed to do that. Thus our modern negative understanding of the term "idiot". Taghizadegan points out that this discriminatory weighing was necessary and understanding, because the private household - the "oikos" - was holy and untouchable (protected private property as well, not that carrictature of property protection we have today), whereas to safeguard the common good and a solid living basis for all the community - the "polis" -, public engagement was necessary as well. To engage yourself in the public part of the demosios was needed and encouraged and thus was seen positive, compared to somebody just withdrawing into the privacy of his own life in his home where he could not be of any use for the common good.

So, with this idea of aristocracy, there als came an udnerstanding of that the aristi8cracy had to accept the respnsibility coming with the privileged status. There also was the udnerstanding that not everybody had what it takes to be part of that elite. Those without having own investements at risk (the ordinary man, the unfree, the slaves, the poor) were excluded from decision making so that they could not make decisions that would redistrubute welkath that was not theirs into their pockets (I cut it very sort, you get the point, I hope). Also there was understanding that not every stranger of wealth could be allowed into the aristocracy if he did not accept and integrate into the cultural rules, because that would destroy the cultural identity of the whole polis. And finally there was understanding of the need that those wanting to decide needed to be of the education standards to be able to decide, while it would be a great danger if just any imbecile dumbhead, who had his intellectuality from counting flies in the streets, were allowed to effect the future of the polis. I recommend Christian Ortner's very entertaining, but precisely diagnosing "Prolokratie. Demokratisch in die Pleite" (in German) on especially this problem that is haunting modern democracies so very much: it is one of my prime arguments against a general right to vote in political elections.

The Romans followed that separation between aristocratic public life and idiotic private life, calling them "res publica" and "res privata". "SPQR" in the legions' emblems indicated the identity of the army and the senate - the citizens (free, carrying arms, male) and the political privilege to participate in governing. While senators and legionaires were not one and the same person, that the soldiers were speaking for the senate was implied. IOn modern times, some fascists argued and still argue that only those who have served in the army, are real citizens and should have full rights to civil rights and offices of political power.

You see, democracy is a highly discriminatory (and to some degree even intolerant) affair. It refers to self-governing local communities of very small size that function feudalistic-aristocratic, are hierarchically structured, and where the majority principle - that today we mistake to be the most important feature of democracy - oinly is used in the giovenrign assembly of the full citizen's elite.

In other words, today'S modern understanding of "democracy" is a distortion that has little to do with the original meaning of it. When the Greek city states grew in size and corrupotion blossomed as a side effect from that, democracy was made available to the wqide oublic, the citizenship was opened for access for more non-elitarist people, and there it all started to go down the drain. From that time on, "democracy" became synonymous with the "tyranny of the majority" , the "dictatorship of the canaille". It then was seen as something that was to be avoided, at all cost.

Max Weber's phrase "Dilettantenverwaltung durch Beutepolitiker" (=dilletantic administration by predatory politicians) describes it quite well. Why that necessarily always will be the result, both for human and practical reasons, is analysed and diagnosed by Hoppe in compelling precision and logic. If you use his model of arguments to describe the EU or the US, you will see how very very right he is in his descriptions of symptoms and predictions of what will come at the next lower level of the drain.

Originally an economist, he also has correctly predicted the reasons for and the outbreak of the financial crisis 2007/2008 - more than 10 years in advance. He also has published huge amounts of comparing studies relating capitalistic and socialistic economy models. But I have not dealt with these separate publications in detail - too specific for my needs and interests. the general summary I got in his more general essays and the democracy book serves well enough for me.

A last note by me, because it comes to my mind right now: even if the population is well-educated, that does not mean that people make decisions on the grounds of reason and ratio. Their preference will still be to value the immediate present and near future over the distant future, and the greater a group, the lower the groups' mean IQ. Psychological variables that have nothing to do with honesty, nobleness and qualification, will still determine the outcome of candidate elections in public majority votings. Hoppe even explains why in our understanding of democracy, necessarily candidates of low humane value and integrity come to power and rise in the hierarchy, while those speaking the truth and doing accordingly will remain non-influential and unimportant for the most. Where as in an feudal system or an aristocracy, you have at least the chance that somebody will get prepared well for his later duties and by chance also is an honest character, and thus will take his post as a qualified and serious commander, in our modern democracy such candidates get filtered out and it is made impossible that such people come to power in high offices - we see that in elections throughout the Western world: we always get the bigmouths, the liars, the cheaters, the blenders, at best the disappoint, but often they act really criminally and irresponsibly. And even this gets rationally explained by Hoppe as part of the logical interest that leaders must have in a modern democratic system (different to a feudal system). The system makes sure that only a certain type of character can successfully advance in the political hierarchies - and that character is described not by the noble and rational, but the low, anti-social, bad features of humanity.

Originally Posted by Hitman

Your right should have probably said biological

That would be wrong too...

[Bilge_Rat]

again Skybird, you love to make long posts, but what is the practical alternative to the liberal-democratic state?

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

again Skybird, you love to make long posts, but what is the practical alternative to the liberal-democratic state?

Hoppe's utopia, where everyone is happy - because anyone who isn't happy in Hoppe's utopia gets shot...

[Méo]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

again Skybird, you love to make long posts

The question is... is it worth the read

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Méo

The question is... is it worth the read

For the Civ 4 fans

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read.

- Pliny the Elder (when he was younger)

[u crank]

Originally Posted by AndyJWest

Hoppe's utopia, where everyone is happy - because anyone who isn't happy in Hoppe's utopia gets shot...

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by AndyJWest

Hoppe's utopia, where everyone is happy - because anyone who isn't happy in Hoppe's utopia gets shot...

Bull****. Why are people producing such quality posts when they are bored...

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

again Skybird, you love to make long posts, but what is the practical alternative to the liberal-democratic state?

I have tried to summarise some featues of his idea several times now. But better: I have posted four links (repeatedly) that lead to two English and two German collections with links to texts by him. Why do you not use them?

Due to the MBAM meltdown I am affected by, I type uncomfortably currently from a laptop and being busy with monitoring the main system's repair, so if tomorrow you still want another long text by me, you have to wait a bit until I'm done with the system here.

Keywords are: secession, local independence and seölf-governing, private law ruling people' interactions, insurance companies providing seucirty, return of real-value money instead of toilet paper, no state-no government. But that are headlines only. And for the moment I leave it to this. I gave mre details before.

[Skybird]

BilgeRat,

this 19 pages essay on security production

http://mises.org/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf

And this list with links to smaller texts by Hoppe (sometimes from his books) that you can pick and try by their headlines.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe-arch.html

And here, you can get whole complete books as pdf, free:

http://mises.org/Literature/Author/1...sHermann-Hoppe

Since it is inevitable that any better future must include a correction of our perverted concept of money (which is pretty much non-money as a matter of fact), I again also link this little gem by Rothbard on what money is, and how the government destroyed it:

http://library.mises.org/books/Murra...ur%20Money.pdf

If you think that is no answer to your question on thre future, you better think twice. Its all about money. Without money, no trade, without trade no civilization.

http://mises.org/Literature/Author/2...ray-N-Rothbard

Copy and paste the links into your browser's adress line, if the linking does not work. Possible that my settings are preventing directg linking.

Originally Posted by Skybird

this 19 pages essay on security production

http://mises.org/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf

LOL! Do away with the state, and replace it with 'insurance companies' who provide 'security'. Yup, a protection racket as an alternative form of, um, 'protection'. Some utopia... Actually, reading that article, I can't help wondering if Hoppe is perpetuating a hoax.

[Hitman]

The question is... is it worth the read

It certainly is, even if you disagree with it. His posts are always well reasoned and founded, and at least can get you thinking of new aspects of the matter you had overlooked. We will never have the absolute and perfect knowledge, but we should at least have a desire to learn and think, constantly revising and putting our own wisdom to proof.

The lengthy and detailed explanation Skybird gives about greek democracy is in fact in line with what I had said, only I have less time to post and develop the idea. When I said that greeks considered that a democracy is only as good as the people who take part in it, I meant that this is the reason why they didn't allow everybody in (BTW one aditional reasom why only wealthy people where let in is because they could respond with their wealth in case they caused damage with wrong decissions). The moment they did, it all went down because of the X reason (Make X what you deem more correct Andy ) that cause the society to have a larger amount of people unable to correctly decide what is better for the community. Like he says here:

the greater a group, the lower the groups' mean IQ

Where as in an feudal system or an aristocracy, you have at least the chance that somebody will get prepared well for his later duties and by chance also is an honest character, and thus will take his post as a qualified and serious commander, in our modern democracy such candidates get filtered out and it is made impossible that such people come to power in high offices - we see that in elections throughout the Western world

We have certainly have some examples of that in history, Marco Aurelio comes to mind for Rome. Sadly we have way more examples of the opposite, and I would risk saying that any dictatorshiop that is not inherited offsets the chances of someone like that coming up. You can have by genetic chance a good ruler; but it is almost impossible that someone who becomes a dictator by the use of force and/or politics is actually the ideal person.

"SPQR" in the legions' emblems indicated the identity of the army and the senate - the citizens (free, carrying arms, male) and the political privilege to participate in governing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Senatus Populusque Romanus" meant the alliance between senate (which essentially represented the blue blooded in the first ages) and the free citizen. It was a somehow primitive but effective "social contract" between classes long before the state and Rousseau's concept appeared. Rome was thus integrated by both, acting in alliance together.

again Skybird, you love to make long posts, but what is the practical alternative to the liberal-democratic state?

Yep, that's the million-dollar question Even if I agree with the most caustic critic of the contemporary democracy, and in particular of the vices it will necessary generate, it is hard to think of an alternative system. Of course ideally a benevolent dictatorship by the perfect, illustrated, moderate person would be the answer, but besides the problem of finding him/her ... who decides he shall rule? The population? An elite?
Again we find the problem of "electing", which means we turn full circle into the arms of the democracy vices again.

Diagnosing a problem and finding a solution are certainly very different things

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Hitman

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Senatus Populusque Romanus" meant the alliance between senate (which essentially represented the blue blooded in the first ages) and the free citizen. It was a somehow primitive but effective "social contract" between classes long before the state and Rousseau's concept appeared. Rome was thus integrated by both, acting in alliance together.

Yes. I just pointed at the origin of the meaning of the word "people" and "citizen". Originally a "people" were an organised band of free man carrying weapons - soldiers in small units, that is. Free and full-righted citizens were not just everybody.

As I said, only 5-15% of the population in an ancient Greek polis were considered to be "citizens".