[Black Dog]

August 1991:

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It is too often assumed that the major debate of the past century was between the "left" and the "right". Depending on how you view this, the "left" represents the poor and weak and the "right" the rich and powerful. Or, the "left" represents socialism and the "right" capitalism. You can characterize these terms however you want.

In fact, I'd argue that the major theme of the 20th century was the dispute between "tyranny" and "freedom".

I can see the appeal in such simple bianaries, but the fact is, the real world is too complex to be shoved into such boxes.

For instance, a look back at the 20th Century includes such bianary defying events as the freedom-loving U.S.A.'s support for murderous tyrranical regimes in Latin America and the Communist Vietnamese's overthrow of the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Frankly I find terms like "freedom" and "tyrrany" to be golden examples of what Orwell called "meaningless words": that is: "words with several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another."

You cannot claim that there exists a universal definition of freedom and tyrrany, therefore such pronouncements as the one you make above.

If you wanted to be really percise, I'd say the 20th century was characterized by mass and hugely costly (in human terms) conflicts between economic systems. And in that sense, I'd say that for the vast majority of the world's population, the 20th Century was dominated by a clash of tyrranies.

[Melanie_]

The problem with words like "tyranny" and "freedom" is they are too easily misused as emotional hot buttons to manipulate people into supporting a political end. Anyone who doesn't support Bush, for example, is painted as not supporting freedom and democracy - as if his policies are the only hope of freedom and democracy for the world.

Semantics are all about the spin - the only difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is which side of the war you're on.

[August1991]

I don't think there is confusion about such terms as "tyranny" and "freedom".

A simple test of tyranny is whether a change of government only occurs through death or violence. Also, in tyrannical regimes, the government is free to exercice arbitrary power over the individual. IOW, there are no respected conventions or rules (such as our Charter of Rights) which restrict the powers of the government.

Freedom refers to the ability of an individual to choose.

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For instance, a look back at the 20th Century includes such bianary defying events as the freedom-loving U.S.A.'s support for murderous tyrranical regimes in Latin America and the Communist Vietnamese's overthrow of the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

It is impossible to consider US foreign policy between 1945-1990 without reference to the Cold War. God knows why the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, or why the Chinese invaded Vietnam.

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Frankly I find terms like "freedom" and "tyrrany" to be golden examples of what Orwell called "meaningless words": that is: "words with several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another."

You cannot claim that there exists a universal definition of freedom and tyrrany, therefore such pronouncements as the one you make above.

I have always preferred Milan Kundera's term kitsch to describe such usage. Tyranny typically removes all meaning from words. In 1984, Orwell was imagining a world made up entirely of tyrannies (dictatorships).

We suffer a minor variant now with political correctness. When there is a free market in ideas, it is not hard to define the value of words.

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If you wanted to be really percise, I'd say the 20th century was characterized by mass and hugely costly (in human terms) conflicts between economic systems.

That's the "traditional paradigm" to which I object. Typical political debates of the 20th century concerned whether communism or capitalism was right. Some argued that we should have a bit of both - the golden mean. I am suggesting that that wasn't the issue at all. It was between the freedom of the individual from a tyrannical government, religion or tradition.

As to the economic question, I would argue that the tyrant's plea for power is more seductive when it is accompanied by an apparent gift.

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The problem with words like "tyranny" and "freedom" is they are too easily misused as emotional hot buttons to manipulate people into supporting a political end. Anyone who doesn't support Bush, for example, is painted as not supporting freedom and democracy - as if his policies are the only hope of freedom and democracy for the world.

No doubt all manner of politicians use hot or cold buttons to influence opinion. Bush Jnr is no different from Winston Churchill or Adolf Hitler in this regard.

But a person such as Michael Moore would not exist in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. So I see a stark difference between Dr. Goebbels and Karl Rove.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear August1991,

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But a person such as Michael Moore would not exist in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. So I see a stark difference between Dr. Goebbels and Karl Rove.

The 'stark difference' is that Rove has his hands tied by the laws against murder in the USA. He stooped about as low as one can legally go, though, (and in fact this action was illegal, and should have been punished) when he declared the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson as 'fair game' and ostensibly had her exposed as a CIA operative, in retribution for Mr. Wilson publicly debunking the Nigerian yellowcake documents as false.

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A simple test of tyranny is whether a change of government only occurs through death or violence.

A simple test of tyranny is whether a change of government only occurs through death or violence. [QUOTE]Monarchies belie this, for they are not inherently tyrannical, though they often have been. Democratic socialists states are the theoretical anithesis of tyranny, for they purport to put equal power in the hands of everyone.

[Hugo]

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Also, in tyrannical regimes, the government is free to exercice arbitrary power over the individual.

Then all governments are tyrannical, since all require the imposition of arbitrary power. It can be seen as arbitrary because the government itself is able to break the laws of the land at will: its agents may steal, murder, kidnap, forcibly confine, trespass, and so forth under the protection of the same law that forbids such behaviour in citizens.

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I'd say the 20th century was characterized by mass and hugely costly (in human terms) conflicts between economic systems.

Hugely costly in any terms. Both in terms of human life and in economic costs, the wars of the 20th Century have been incredibly destructive.

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Democratic socialists states are the theoretical anithesis of tyranny, for they purport to put equal power in the hands of everyone.

No, they do not. What they do is give everybody a chip for a gaming table at which they play, "who gets to be the tyrant? (and therefore exercise all the power)?"

[August1991]

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Also, in tyrannical regimes, the government is free to exercice arbitrary power over the individual.

Then all governments are tyrannical, since all require the imposition of arbitrary power.

*Sigh* Not again.... I see a difference between a dictator and a politician that faces re-election. There's a difference between Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon.

Government is useful but dangerous. Like fire. (Not arson.)

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Democratic socialists states are the theoretical anithesis of tyranny, for they purport to put equal power in the hands of everyone.

No, they do not. What they do is give everybody a chip for a gaming table at which they play, "who gets to be the tyrant? (and therefore exercise all the power)?"

The evidence is that we don't get democratic socialism, or at least we don't get it for long.

Among methods of selecting a government, democracy has weaknesses. But it does tend to prevent against absolute tyranny if only because the bastards get thrown out before they can do much harm. And they can't do too much harm anyway because they have to get re-elected.

Hugo noted one weakness: everyone gets one chip. Here's another: no one has any interest in playing at the gaming table.

[Hugo]

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I see a difference between a dictator and a politician that faces re-election. There's a difference between Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon.

What difference? Both, for instance, conscripted their nation's youth against their will and sent them off to fight and die in far-away lands for causes they did not necessarily believe in (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia). The democratic process in the USA did not prevent this and could not have before over 58,000 Americans were killed.

The principal difference is that the group who allowed Brezhnev to remain in power was much smaller, but more powerful. The main result was that Nixon could expect a shorter but more guaranteed reign. Brezhnev stood to reign for longer if only he could hold on to power. In any case, the power to remove both rested in the hands not of the whole nation, but in a much smaller group within that nation. It is also the case that with both the Brezhnev and the Nixon governments, most of the nation never consented to be governed by them.

Additionally, consider Hoppe's theory that democratic governments tend to be more irresponsible than autocratic governments, especially hereditary ones, since the time-preference for government is drastically shortened i.e. the democratic government only has to worry about the results of its policies within the next few years, whereas the autocracy has to think decades into the future.

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Among methods of selecting a government, democracy has weaknesses. But it does tend to prevent against absolute tyranny if only because the bastards get thrown out before they can do much harm. And they can't do too much harm anyway because they have to get re-elected.

You assume, of course, that the democratic government won't set about assuring its own supremacy after it is elected. The Nazis came to power constitutionally and afterward set about putting the machinery of the state to work in their favour. The Federal Liberals in Canada have done much the same thing, albeit on less grand a scale (appointing Liberal-friendly senators and judges, campaign funding rules, Adscam, the CBC etc). The same thing also happens in the US: favourable judges are picked, the Federal Reserve is packed with friendly officials, and so forth. Ostensibly independent bodies become anything but. The Fed is, on paper, independent of government, but ever since FDR it has always done exactly what the President wants. Since 1865 the Federal government in the US has also progressively stripped power from the states and granted it to itself, resulting in a far more centralised government than was initially allowed for in 1789.

As Hayek pointed out, democracy where the government has control or the potential to control the economy won't last long, because such a democracy is all about raw, naked power, and the people who are attracted to stand for the leadership of such a government will tend overwhelmingly to be those interested in power. Consider the US. For the last 140 years, the government has been steadily accumulating power and influence until now, the US is more socialist than "Communist" China. No party or candidate wants to change or reverse this, the only debates that occur are about the direction in which government power should grow.

[Black Dog]

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I don't think there is confusion about such terms as "tyranny" and "freedom".

A simple test of tyranny is whether a change of government only occurs through death or violence. Also, in tyrannical regimes, the government is free to exercice arbitrary power over the individual. IOW, there are no respected conventions or rules (such as our Charter of Rights) which restrict the powers of the government.

Freedom refers to the ability of an individual to choose.

This goes back to a previous discussion we had wherein (IIRC) you argued that he simple reality of having a choice was more important than whethe rthat choice had any meaning.

The thing about choice is you need to have distinct options to choose from and those choices have to make a difference. If you look at the history of democracy, in particular in North America, its hard to argue that the political choices of the populace have led to any significant changes, no matter what political partyy they picked. There's a good reason for that and that is because, in a democracy, true decision making power is consolidated beyond the reach of the masses.

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It is impossible to consider US foreign policy between 1945-1990 without reference to the Cold War. God knows why the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, or why the Chinese invaded Vietnam.

That's my point, though. the Cold war was about competeing tyrranies. the people who were repressed by anti-Communist regimes weren't much better off than their Communist bretheren.

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*Sigh* Not again.... I see a difference between a dictator and a politician that faces re-election. There's a difference between Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon.

Government is useful but dangerous. Like fire. (Not arson.)

Elections are symbolic. They create the illusion of chocie and freedom, when in fact they are essentially meaningless. I remember when Saddam Hussein won his last "election". Western pundits and comics made light of the fact that the elections were a sham, not realizing that the main diference between their system and ours is that everyone there knows the system a sham.

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Among methods of selecting a government, democracy has weaknesses. But it does tend to prevent against absolute tyranny if only because the bastards get thrown out before they can do much harm. And they can't do too much harm anyway because they have to get re-elected.

Tyrrany, as I've maintained all along, comes in different stripes. Democracy is simply not as overt a form of maintaining tyrrany as a dictatorship. Instead, there is an elaborate and complex system designed to, as I said, give citizens the llusion of choice, even though their voices and their interests are not considered. It's interesting that every democracy is designed with mechanisms to keep the power of the "rabble" in check; to ensure that political and economic power is kept in the hands of a few.

[The Terrible Sweal]

Law is the tyranny of the weak over the strong.

[Hugo]

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Government is useful but dangerous. Like fire. (Not arson.)

I would say that government is useful but dangerous like a stick. You can poke somebody's eye out with a stick, but you can also use a stick as a tool. For every use of a stick, however, there is a better and more efficient tool available. The reason we have the stick is because the owner of the stick keeps beating us with it to make us accept it, not because it is inherently better.

[August1991]

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Elections are symbolic. They create the illusion of chocie and freedom, when in fact they are essentially meaningless. I remember when Saddam Hussein won his last "election". Western pundits and comics made light of the fact that the elections were a sham, not realizing that the main diference between their system and ours is that everyone there knows the system a sham.

ARGGGHHHHH!!!

Sorry, BD, but this is the kind of left wing nonsense that drives me around the bend. Because two political parties appear similar, one concludes there is no difference with a one-party state. Because all gasoline stations charge the same price, one concludes there is a cartel. And because cars advance when the light turns green, one concludes green lights make cars go.

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I would say that government is useful but dangerous like a stick. You can poke somebody's eye out with a stick, but you can also use a stick as a tool. For every use of a stick, however, there is a better and more efficient tool available.

I'd agree with the comparison except we have no suitable substitute for the stick.

As individuals, we use several institutions to cooperate: family, corporations, markets and government. The choice of institution depends on transaction costs. Until someone finds a better "stick" than government, we're stuck with it. And until someone finds a better way to reign in government, we're stuck with democracy.

To get back to the thread's title, if we look at the past 200 or so years of history, there's reason to be optimistic. People use appropriate institutions to cooperate much better now than before. One has only to look at the current basket case countries to see where we could be now if we hadn't got it right.

[Hugo]

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I'd agree with the comparison except we have no suitable substitute for the stick.

Sure we do! We have voluntary, noncoercive methods to do the same. We just don't exercise them (because if we did, we'd get beaten with the stick).

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As individuals, we use several institutions to cooperate: family, corporations, markets and government.

First off, family operates like a market (see Becker - again). Secondly, markets are not an institution. Institutions are monolithic and have goals. Markets are not monolithic and have no goals. Thirdly, government is apart from the others because it alone uses violence as its sole means of obtaining cooperation.

[Black Dog]

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Sorry, BD, but this is the kind of left wing nonsense that drives me around the bend. Because two political parties appear similar, one concludes there is no difference with a one-party state. Because all gasoline stations charge the same price, one concludes there is a cartel. And because cars advance when the light turns green, one concludes green lights make cars go.

Your gasoline analogy is fairly acurate, actually. There's choice, but the product and price is always going to be more or less comprable. So is the choice meaningful? That's my point: choice alone itself is not enough.

Green lights don't make the cras go, the coercive power of the state to enforce traffic laws makes cars go at the green signal.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Hugo,

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government is apart from the others because it alone uses violence as its sole means of obtaining cooperation.

If you are going to use Occam's Razor to whittle down to your theory the essence of gov't, you can't just stop there. All property ownership and rights come down to the same thing. Violence and the overwhelming use of force are the sole base factors in deciding ownership. Yes, including your own body.

I don't agree with it, but there it is.

Dear August1991,

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ARGGGHHHHH!!!

Sorry, BD, but this is the kind of left wing nonsense that drives me around the bend. Because two political parties appear similar, one concludes there is no difference with a one-party state. Because all gasoline stations charge the same price, one concludes there is a cartel. And because cars advance when the light turns green, one concludes green lights make cars go.

Not quite so simple, but not so difficult, either. Lobby groups decide the course of gov't more than politicians or voters do. Let's take Bill Clinton's promise of Universal health care in the US. Powerful pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies don't want it, and they donate millions of dollars to whomever will do as they say. That becomes whomever would like to get elected/re-elected and they who would like their re-election coffers to overflow. So, it doesn't really matter who is in power, their basic policy decisions will always reflect a main benefit to a third party on whom they depend, and it sure isn't the voter.

[Hugo]

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Violence and the overwhelming use of force are the sole base factors in deciding ownership. Yes, including your own body.

Explain how. Just because you say it does not make it so.

For instance, I go out into the unclaimed wilderness and find a nugget of gold. I pick it up and take it home. What violence was committed?

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If you are going to use Occam's Razor to whittle down to your theory the essence of gov't

The definition of a government or state is an institution which monopolizes at least the services of law enforcement/provision and justice within a given geographical area. Since monopoly can only be held using violence or the threat thereof, governments are therefore inherently violent. That is the essence of government.

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Your gasoline analogy is fairly acurate, actually. There's choice, but the product and price is always going to be more or less comprable.

The coincidence of price and product does not necessarily signal a cartel, however. With gasoline, it just so happens that gasoline is a commodity and as such is pretty much identical between providers, and the prices are very close because (after the distortions applied by various governments are applied) that is the natural market-clearing price. Minor variations are the products of minor differences within the individual providers and supplies.

In government, we have much the same thing. Very little choice, no discernable cartel. It is just the nature of government to expand, as "Cato" said almost three centuries ago, as Ibn Khaldun said about three centuries before that, and so on. So the choice being offered the electorate is basically, "By what road shall we proceed towards becoming a totalitarian, Communist welfare-warfare state?" That is where all states are destined to end up, just as in a market all prices are ultimately destined to drop towards zero.