the legitimacy of authority

[Advocate]

Government must continuously validate its legitimacy to have any. And if it doesn't or can't it's "might makes right", which is animalistic and ethically regressive.

[promethean75]

6sx24s.jpg (35.92 KiB) Viewed 1168 times

[Immanuel Can]

6sx24s.jp

Do you know what that means?

It means, "NO FREEDOM."

Happy with that?

[promethean75]

What, and make everyone's life nasty, brutish and short? Forget about it pal. That's what freedom does to people.

[Immanuel Can]

What, and make everyone's life nasty, brutish and short? Forget about it pal. That's what freedom does to people.

Hobbes was speaking of what he called "the state of nature." He wasn't speaking of, say, free democratic civilization. He didn't know of any such possibility, in fact.

However, I have never noted that Totalitarianism produces better effects that Hobbes's "state of nature". It also makes life "nasty, brutish and short," but does so with the addition of a malevolent and exploitative authority as well.

Don't be so sure "Big State" is what you want. You'll find that it's only "big" with a view to crushing you.

[promethean75]

i do rather enjoy the business freedom I've recently acquired with my self employment and for that would like to express my gratitude to mr. adam smith for his vision and contributions to economic theory.

unfortunately 4 u, the vast majority of people cannot be self-employed, and i remain a stolid marxist throughout on behalf of them. i would therefore gladly forfeit my right to own my own business if the state, as employer, could offer a competitive alternative. ergo, I'm willing to try a revolution experimentally to determine whether such a competitive alternative might be at all possible.

Although I am petite-bourgeois I still stand by the proletariat. Workers of the world unite bro.