Libertarianism (was Re: torrent software)
Whoops. In error I responded to Michael alone rather than the list.. ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: Libertarianism (was Re: [luv-talk] torrent software) From: "Lev Lafayette" <lev@levlafayette.com> Date: Fri, April 10, 2015 9:56 am To: "Michael Verrenkamp" <jabjabs@fastmail.com.au> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Thu, April 9, 2015 8:43 pm, Michael Verrenkamp wrote:
" Not sure you can be "a bit" of a libertarian. Either you are, or you
aren't. If you support some regulation, then you're probably not a libertarian. Essentially, what you're saying is that you only like the laws that you like. "
Sounds like me :P I like the broad concept of libertarians but I don't actually think it would be a great overall system. We should limit governments powers but libertarians can go a little too far at times. I also could be talking total crap right now.
Of course one of the big political changes from the 1970s was the ability of neoliberals to co-opt the word 'libertarian' which historically, and on a continuing basis, was associated with anarcho-socialists. a) The first person to identify as a libertarian in the political sense was Joseph Dejacque, an anarcho-communist and signatory to the First International. b) The first periodical to identify with libertarian politics was "Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement social" which was a hot-bed of anarchist, socialist and communist thought. c) To this day even in the United States, the first political organisation to use the named is the Libertarian Book Club, which distributes anarcho-syndalist and council communist texts. d) In the UK, the avowedly socialist Common Wealth Party had the journal; "The Libertarian" and so it goes on. The Anarchist FAQ provides an interesting combination. http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQ-PDF
From the FAQ
While the Greek words anarchos and anarchia are often taken to mean "having no government" or "being without a government," as can be seen, the strict, original meaning of anarchism was not simply "no government." "An-archy" means "without a ruler," or more generally, "without authority," and it is in this sense that anarchists have continually used the word. For example, we find Kropotkin arguing that anarchism "attacks not only capital, but also the main sources of the power of capitalism: law, authority, and the State." [Op. Cit., p. 150] For anarchists, anarchy means "not necessarily absence of order, as is generally supposed, but an absence of rule." ... In such a [anarchist] society the whole conception of government would change. The economic structure would come to replace the traditional government apparatus. The need for government in the tradition sense would disappear, to be replaced by the planning and administration of trade and industry. The government of people would be replaced by the administration of things. There would be no need for democracy. The administrators would be appointed on the basis of their professional competence. Considering definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary, we find: LIBERTARIAN: one who believes in freedom of action and thought; one who believes in free will. SOCIALISM: a social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods. Just taking those two first definitions and fusing them yields: LIBERTARIAN SOCIALISM: a social system which believes in freedom of action and thought and free will, in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods. However, due to the creation of the Libertarian Party in the USA, many people now consider the idea of "libertarian socialism" to be a contradiction in terms. Indeed, many "Libertarians" think anarchists are just attempting to associate the "anti-libertarian" ideas of "socialism" (as Libertarians conceive it) with Libertarian ideology in order to make those "socialist" ideas more "acceptable" -- in other words, trying to steal the "libertarian" label from its rightful possessors. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anarchists have been using the term "libertarian" to describe themselves and their ideas since the 1850's. According to anarchist historian Max Nettlau, the revolutionary anarchist Joseph Dejacque published Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social in New York between 1858 and 1861 while the use of the term "libertarian communism" dates from November, 1880 when a French anarchist congress adopted it. [Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, p. 75 and p. 145] The use of the term "Libertarian" by anarchists became more popular from the 1890s onward after it was used in France in an attempt to get round anti-anarchist laws and to avoid the negative associations of the word "anarchy" in the popular mind (Sebastien Faure and Louise Michel published the paper Le Libertaire -- The Libertarian -- in France in 1895, for example). Since then, particularly outside America, it has always been associated with anarchist ideas and movements. Taking a more recent example, in the USA, anarchists organised "The Libertarian League" in July 1954, which had staunch anarcho-syndicalist principles and lasted until 1965. The US-based "Libertarian" Party, on the other hand has only existed since the early 1970's, well over 100 years after anarchists first used the term to describe their political ideas (and 90 years after the expression "libertarian communism" was first adopted). It is that party, not the anarchists, who have "stolen" the word. Later, in Section B, we will discuss why the idea of a "libertarian" capitalism (as desired by the Libertarian Party) is a contradiction in terms. Hope this helps, -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech Mngmnt) (Chifley) mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech Mngmnt) (Chifley) mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt
Lev Lafayette wrote (possibly still citing the Anarchist FAQ):
Indeed, many "Libertarians" think anarchists are just attempting to associate the "anti-libertarian" ideas of "socialism" (as Libertarians conceive it) with Libertarian ideology in order to make those "socialist" ideas more "acceptable" -- in other words, trying to steal the "libertarian" label from its rightful possessors.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Anarchists have been using the term "libertarian" to describe themselves and their ideas since the 1850's.
Lev, this makes me wonder: when it comes to linguistics, do you favour prescription or description? ;-)
Quoting Trent W. Buck (trentbuck@gmail.com):
Lev, this makes me wonder: when it comes to linguistics, do you favour prescription or description? ;-)
Ah yes! One of the favourite shibboleths of the 1990s. http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#prescriptivist Prescriptivist / Descriptivist Code phrase meaning "I don't understand grammar, punctuation, or usage, but want to have an opinion on the matter anyway." Copyediting is all about clarity, and avoidance of (unintended) ambiguity, in written prose. Good usage is clear, as precise as intended, and difficult to mis-read. It is helped in that by good punctuation, which "fences off" possible misinterpretations and misparsings, while at the same time avoiding calling attention to itself. Editing professionals know those things intuitively, and tweak prose accordingly -- not wasting time on irrelevant ideological battles or dumb question-begging about whether our always-evolving language(s) should be "allowed to change". Used in lexicography, the terms have some meaning in theory, but in practice tend to be just name-calling phrases meaning "I don't like these people's policies."
Rick Moen wrote:
Quoting Trent W. Buck (trentbuck@gmail.com):
Lev, this makes me wonder: when it comes to linguistics, do you favour prescription or description? ;-)
Ah yes! One of the favourite shibboleths of the 1990s.
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#prescriptivist
Prescriptivist / Descriptivist
Code phrase meaning "I don't understand grammar, punctuation, or usage, but want to have an opinion on the matter anyway." [...] Used in lexicography, the terms have some meaning in theory, but in practice tend to be just name-calling phrases meaning "I don't like these people's policies."
Ah, well, my understanding of it was "you're wrong because <appeal to authority>!!1!" versus "people do whatever, and we take notes". Or more seriously, schoolteachers prescribe & linguists describe. I didn't have internet in the 90s; if it was "a thing", I didn't know. I'm reading Fowler (1st ed, of course) and his attitude seems to boil down to "<usage> is etymologically wrong, but trying to 'fix' it won't work and will just make things worse." Which is what I was thinking about when reading Lev's post. IMO Americans use "libertarian" in a silly way, but since "socialist" and "anarchist" are sufficient for most discussion, it's not worth getting upset about. It'd be like trying to make the British use "public school" correctly.
Quoting Trent W. Buck (trentbuck@gmail.com):
Ah, well, my understanding of it was "you're wrong because <appeal to authority>!!1!" versus "people do whatever, and we take notes". Or more seriously, schoolteachers prescribe & linguists describe. I didn't have internet in the 90s; if it was "a thing", I didn't know.
That's indeed a fair description of the alleged difference -- but my point is that, in practice, this is all just meaningless rhetorical posturing and is just what you call people when you decide you don't like what they've said. I confess to having little patience for lexicographers of the more extreme of the 'people do whatever, and we take notes' school of thought. (As I said in the linked passage, in _lexicography_, there is some meaning to the discussed distinction, unlike in general discussion where it's just bullshit posturing.) I really have little respect for a dictionary writer so spineless and lacking in professional self-esteem that he/she literally makes a dictionary say that infer and imply are interchangeable in meaning because some bunch of people think they are. (Please see also the mail included at the bottom that I once wrote to a favourite radio programme host, to inform him of inadvertent humour concerning the word 'enormity'.)
IMO Americans use "libertarian" in a silly way,
Well, to paraphrase Graham Chapman's King Arthur, it is a silly place.
It'd be like trying to make the British use "public school" correctly.
Yes, quite. I've actually been at a loss to explain to Britons, in terms they will correctly understand, the nature of my elementary school in British Hong Kong in the 1960s. The place was called Peak School (it being near the top of Victoria Peak, a couple of blocks from the Peak Tram terminus), and at that time it was run by some agency of the British government. My sister and I were two of the three non-Britons permitted admission. The school still exists (and has a Web site!), but the organisation is entirely different (obviously), and the student population a great deal more diverse. But I'm at a loss to find the correct term for what the school _was_ at the time I attended it. 'Public school' is what Yanks call such a place, but Brits reserve that term for something else. 'Comprehensive school' might be the right term, but I probably am missing nuances of meaning. -- Rick M. From rick Tue May 4 15:49:16 2004 Date: Tue, 4 May 2004 15:49:16 -0700 To: kusc@kusc.org Subject: Arnold Bax and "enormity" X-Mas: Bah humbug. User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.5.1+cvs20040105i [Kind folks at KUSC: Would you be kind enough to pass this along to Jim Svejda? Thank you.] Dear Mr. Svejda: A couple of weeks ago, I was enjoying "The Record Shelf" on one of my local public radio stations (KALW), and you went into an engaging set of anecdotes about Arnold Bax. Speaking of the initially unnamed composer, you made reference to the "enormity of his output". Oh dear. "Enormity", you see, does not mean hugeness. It denotes the quality of being greatly and infamously wicked: You might therefore speak of the enormity of the Third Reich's crimes, but the word has no obvious application in musicology beyond, say, the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Which reminds me: I once heard a special broadcast of The Record Shelf in which you reached for enormity and managed instead to be endearing and hilarious: It was a (2-hour?) pastiche of clips of wildly incompatible pieces from various operas, one of which I remember was from Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov", in which I think you'd stitched together some unlikely plot a la "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" I used to keep several off-the-air cassette tapes of it in my car, but the risk to other drivers from bouts of helpless mirth was too great. Thank you! -- Cheers, Founding member of the Hyphenation Society, a grassroots-based, Rick Moen not-for-profit, locally-owned-and-operated, cooperatively-managed, rick@linuxmafia.com modern-American-English-usage-improvement association.
On Sat, April 11, 2015 8:14 pm, Trent W. Buck wrote:
Lev, this makes me wonder: when it comes to linguistics, do you favour prescription or description? ;-)
I think prescriptive rules inspire description and description informs prescription. Take this discussion of the ownership of the word "libertarian". A pure descriptive approach would say that the use of the word has become associated with a sort of radical individualism combined with a particular model to economic ownership and exchange. But the problem with the descriptive approach is that it cedes the ground of meaning far too readily, losing the etymological trajectory by which we can understand the narrative of history. When the meaning of a word changes, that change will (a) be contested but also (b) result in either more or less precision or more or less moral rights (e.g., the 'change' of meaning to the word 'marriage'). Because there is a historical and continuing association with the word 'libertarianism' with politics associated with socialistic economic models, it is hardly surprising that advocates will attempt to discourage appropriation of the term to an opposite economic model. But for the purposes of greater precision and clarity, perhaps it would be best for some who are describing themselves as "libertarianism" that they more accurately describe such ideas as "propertarian". -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech Mngmnt) (Chifley) mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt
participants (3)
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Lev Lafayette -
Rick Moen -
Trent W. Buck