Is Conservatism just NeoTraditionalism these days?

[Immanuel Can]

Capitalism is great if u are adept at using its advantages, as morally questionable as they might be.

Why would free markets be "morally questionable"?

All marxism is in its most essential and incorrupt form is an effort to point out the fact that if workers just got rid of middle men and collectively owned and managed the means with which they produced, they would profit more from their own labor.

Well, Marxism has never been "pure," at all, and Marx was himself a grifter, an egotist and a sponge, who got practically everything wrong...but let that be. Let us suppose he actually said something sensible, something people could at least "purify" in future, even if it's never been "pure."

The more important point is that all the Marxist regimes in the world's history have proved to be economic disaster zones, and zones of the most egregious sorts of oppression and human rights violations. So whatever we imagine "pure" Marxism to be, it's very clear that whenever that ideology comes into contact with actual human beings, it fails...and most disastrously.

It's not about ak-47s, famines and gulags.

And yet, that's exactly what it's always proved to be about. So how do you explain that?

[promethean75]

Pends on what you're lookin at tho. If you're just lookin for dirt on Mao you'll note only the economic disaster of the cultural leap forward and not things like literacy rates and life expectancy goin off the charts in China. And u won't mention that zee raashins were zee first in space when Joe was in charge.

Pends on what you're lookin at and what your purposes are. If you're a christian conservative, you'll want and have only criticism.

And all that not even considering the fact that those regimes deviated from the genuine marxist article quite a bit. An industrial working class never collectively owned and controlled the means of production in either country. They answered to a centralized vanguard party of lenninists who controlled the state and its functions, creating the first state capitalism models of economy to exist in countries rapidly industrializing themselves.

So while there's a connection between them, there's still a difference; what happens when claimed marxists are in control of a country, and what marxism is in its most basic premises.

U can do the same thing with Christianity. I can point at hypocrite christians somewhere and say 'see, christianity is bad becuz look at what those christians are doing over there' and you'd be like 'nuh uh that's not genuine christianity, what he's doing'.

[promethean75]

"Why would free markets be "morally questionable"?"

Not even mentioning the sweat shops, do u have any idea how many state interventions and regulations are happening right now to prevent companies from selling u garbage that doesn't work? And how much oversight is given to health care so u don't get cheated or killed by your doctor?

In a real anarcho-capitalist market.. not this pansy ass nanny state capitalist market... none of this regulation and oversight would exist and the economy would be like the wild west.

That's another one of the four great ironies of today's political atmosphere. Defenders of the free market who are in love with how it works are actually praising socialist government... that it guarantees the success of the market becuz of having oversight and creating heavy regulation.

[Immanuel Can]

Pends on what you're lookin at tho. If you're just lookin for dirt on Mao you'll note only the economic disaster of the cultural leap forward and not things like literacy rates and life expectancy goin off the charts in China.

You don't know much about China, if you think it's an even trade. China's now the ultimate Communist nightmare: a total-surveilance police state, where human life is worthless. But that's what Marxism has produced in 100% of the cases.

So now I ask you again, why? Why is Communism NEVER successful, no matter how many times it's tried?

And all that not even considering the fact that those regimes deviated from the genuine marxist article quite a bit.

Ah. So now you're saying the Russians, the Chinese, the Cubans, the Zimbabweans, the Congolese, the Romanians, the Albanians, the Vietnamese, the North Koreans...all of them were just too stupid to know what "purified" Marxism was?

But now, you say that YOU DO? Because if you don't, then you'd have no way of making a statement like that. So those millions of people must all be wrong, and you're the sole right interpreter of "pure" Marxism?

The degree of self-confidence you're exhibiting is...well, substantial.

[Skepdick]

Why would free markets be "morally questionable"?

For exactly the same reason free will is morally questionable.

It doesn't guarantee moral outcomes.

[Immanuel Can]

"Why would free markets be "morally questionable"?"

Not even mentioning the sweat shops,

Sweat shops are, by any account, slave labour, obviously. I'm asking about free markets.

...none of this regulation and oversight would exist and the economy would be like the wild west.

Actually not. When markets are free, people transact by choice. If you don't like the offered wage, you get to take your labour to the next guy. If you do, you agree to work. If you add value, you have money. If you lie about and offer nothing, you don't.

That's another one of the four great ironies of today's political atmosphere. Defenders of the free market who are in love with how it works are actually praising socialist government... that it guarantees the success of the market becuz of having oversight and creating heavy regulation.

Well, these aren't "defenders of the free market," obviously. They're defenders of Socialist management of the market. But here's the real irony of recent days: big government, big business and big media have stopped fighting with each other and decided to co-operate. Their common target is the ordinary citizen. You'll notice that the allegedly "more Socialist" side of government is now really cozy with the biggest multinationals, and the media refuses to criticize either in any serious way. And all of them are telling you that "Socialism is better."

Wonder why?

What's turned out to be the case is that a Socialism-for-thee-but-freedom-for-me strategy has become the strategy of choice. Big business wants money; big government wants power; big media wants influence; and it's turned out, as they've discovered, that all of them can get more of it by never fighting or trying to control each other, but by co-ordinating their attacks on the ordinary citizen. So it's not by accident that it's big business, big government and big media that all mass at things like the climate conferences or the WEF: they're devising common strategy for "mass managing" all the ordinary citizens, in the interest of this triadic cabal. So Socialism is the main tool by which the three "bigs" intend to cripple you and me: we have to hand over all our possessions, and they get to keep theirs...and ours. And big tech makes it all possible.

Welcome to the 21st Century, and the next phase of Socialism.

[Immanuel Can]

Why would free markets be "morally questionable"?

For exactly the same reason free will is morally questionable.

It doesn't guarantee moral outcomes.

So everything that doesn't "guarantee moral outcomes" is "morally questionable"?

Since practically nothing in the world ever "guarantees moral outcomes," that means evyerthing is "morally questionable." And Socialism, above all, clearly has never succeeded even once in "guaranteeing moral outcomes," so it must be really, really wicked...

[Skepdick]

Why would free markets be "morally questionable"?

For exactly the same reason free will is morally questionable.

It doesn't guarantee moral outcomes.

So everything that doesn't "guarantee moral outcomes" is "morally questionable"?

Obviously. That's why we morally question!

Since practically nothing in the world ever "guarantees moral outcomes," that means evyerthing is "morally questionable." And Socialism, above all, clearly has never succeeded even once in "guaranteeing moral outcomes," so it must be really, really wicked...

Welcome to the suck!

[Immanuel Can]

For exactly the same reason free will is morally questionable.

It doesn't guarantee moral outcomes.

So everything that doesn't "guarantee moral outcomes" is "morally questionable"?

Obviously. That's why we morally question!

Well, then by "morally questionable," you can't mean anything close to "wrong." All you can mean is that we can "ask the questions," not that free will or free markets are bad.

And since we can always "ask questions," it's not really a magnificently cutting response, is it? In fact, it's hardly an observation worth making at all, if that's all you mean.

[Skepdick]

Well, then by "morally questionable," you can't mean anything close to "wrong."

I can't mean anything close to "right" either.

All you can mean is that we can "ask the questions," not that free will or free markets are bad.

They can be bad. They can be good. They aren't always good. They aren't always bad.

And since we can always "ask questions," it's not really a magnificently cutting response, is it? In fact, it's hardly an observation worth making at all, if that's all you mean.

It's about as cutting as your opening assertion. Was it worth making your observation?

[Immanuel Can]

Well, then by "morally questionable," you can't mean anything close to "wrong."

I can't mean anything close to "right" either.

No, you're right: it just means there's a fair chance of it being right or wrong, depending on what the person does. But that's not remarkable: all of life is like that. When you start a football game, you don't know that the best team will end up winning every time. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. But football isn't, for that reason, "morally questionable." It's just how life works: there are wins and losses, and you work to make your wins greater than your losses, with no absolute guarantees in advance.

In fact, if somebody offers you a guaranteed win, they've simply lied to you, or else they've rigged the game.

That's Socialism: a lie that a rigged 'game' will work out better for everybody than a free one.

[Skepdick]

No, you're right: it just means there's a fair chance of it being right or wrong, depending on what the person does. But that's not remarkable: all of life is like that. When you start a football game, you don't know that the best team will end up winning every time. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. But football isn't, for that reason, "morally questionable." It's just how life works: there are wins and losses, and you work to make your wins greater than your losses, with no absolute guarantees in advance.

In fact, if somebody offers you a guaranteed win, they've simply lied to you, or else they've rigged the game.

That's Socialism: a lie that a rigged 'game' will work out better for everybody than a free one.

The same with the "free" market. Sometimes it needs to be less free than it really is. And sometimes it needs to be more free.

[Harbal]

It seems to me that one of the basic principles of Conservatism is to hold on to your own advantages and privileges, at the expense of everyone who isn't in your club.

[Skepdick]

It seems to me that one of the basic principles of Conservatism is to hold on to your own advantages and privileges, at the expense of everyone who isn't in your club.

And the basic principle of Progressivism is to establish new clubs with new advantages and privileges, at the expense of everyone who isn't in your club.

New money becomes old money.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... us/373139/

[promethean75]

Well in what u describe i don't see any 'attack on the citizen' other than mask mandates, vaccines, higher taxes for Obama care type stuff and gun regulations. It's the conservatives who really fuck with personal liberties and restrict everybody.

But what u describe and call socialism there looks to me lika giant globalist techocorporatocracy where government and business merge to control the economy more directly. Far fewer private businesses and more yuge companies like amazon that monopolize entire markets and are subsidized, backed, by the government.

Everybody will still have a job, but wages would flatten out becuz there was no competitors for these government corporations that employed everybody. Neither would the working class control any more of its circumstances than it does now as a wage worker. New boss same as the old boss. Working too long for too little in return.

What u described is certainly no 'socialism' unless by that u mean only that there's a lotta socializing going on.