Authoritarianism and anti-authoritarianism: do they exist?

[rotting bones]

what will... small farms ? really? cause, again, we already live in a world where plenty of food is grown in small farms [see earlier posts].... soooo... you think the reason fascism is on the rise is because of that now? how come, then, fascism is most on the rise in the world capital of agribusiness ?

Peasants are small business owners:

1. The Marxist middle class video for general theory: https://youtu.be/RqESHNvmP20

2. The Farm to Taber video applying the theory to farmers: https://youtu.be/zdWrHb8b-c0

In Bengal, farm hands first supported the Communists to get them to do land redistribution. Then they supported the populists to prevent anyone from developing any of the land. Now Bengal is Nigeria. All scams, no jobs.

Unless you want an all-peasant society, this might not be the way to go. If I'm busting my balls on a small farm all the time, I will probably be tired to do anything else. There will probably be no IT personnel to keep the internet running. Everyone will really be stuck on one small plot of land surrounded by other peasants. Who will make the tractors?

I don't think most people will enjoy this life. In contrast, my plan is to let people who want to work in farming use automation and scalable techniques on government farms to reduce the cost of food. If food is cheap, even the people working on farms will have free hours in the day to work on other projects. They should be able to go into robotics if they want.

[Torco]

You don't have to belabor the counter-revolutionary potential of kulaks, tovarisch. however, you know who are also counter-revolutionary? six-guys-who-own-all-the-food.

and kulaks don't necessarily are fascists: as i understand it, china leans very much into small-farms and they're a literal five-year-plans, single-party communist regime.

[Travis B.]

My thoughts on farms is that they should be treated like other workplaces, in that they would be owned collectively by those who work at them (with larger farms being owned collectively by more people than small farms), but at the same time an effort should be made to create federations of smaller farms, where multiple farms pool equipment and collectively market the food they produce, something that already exists to an extent. I am against simply collectivizing preexisting small farms per se, as that is likely to alienate people who could be on our side (look at how collectivization turned out under Stalinism), but at the same time I am against breaking up preexisting large farms (unlike what some who want land reform might want), and instead am for treating them as large worker-owned cooperatives.

[Travis B.]

You don't have to belabor the counter-revolutionary potential of kulaks, tovarisch. however, you know who are also counter-revolutionary? six-guys-who-own-all-the-food.

and kulaks don't necessarily are fascists: as i understand it, china leans very much into small-farms and they're a literal five-year-plans, single-party communist regime.

One thing Mao has to be given credit for is not treating peasants like they are would-be reactionaries, it must be said.

[rotting bones]

My thoughts on farms is that they should be treated like other workplaces, in that they would be owned collectively by those who work at them (with larger farms being owned collectively by more people than small farms), but at the same time an effort should be made to create federations of smaller farms, where multiple farms pool equipment and collectively market the food they produce, something that already exists to an extent. I am against simply collectivizing preexisting small farms per se, as that is likely to alienate people who could be on our side (look at how collectivization turned out under Stalinism), but at the same time I am against breaking up preexisting large farms (unlike what some who want land reform might want), and instead am for treating them as large worker-owned cooperatives.

In the Soviet Union, the government would assign you a job. The job could be far away from your family. You will be forced to move there. There were far fewer options than under capitalism. (Of course, even under capitalism, we're forced to move to find jobs.) This is why the system was unpopular. I'm suggesting nothing of the kind. I don't know why you keep conflating my proposal with the Soviet model. If anything, your ideas are basically identical to the Yugoslav model.

This is not even going into all the specific problems of Soviet agriculture.

[Ares Land]

It's a complicated matter and hard to disentangle. Voters also cite crime and immigration as major motives.

Voters believe the immigrants are taking away their economic opportunities. Crime is a different matter which I have discussed in the other thread: viewtopic.php?p=103167#p103167

'Believe' is important here. A lot of the grievances are beliefs, not fact, which means perceived hardship is more of a factor than factual hardship.
This means you can improve the economic situation, and still see a right-wing surge.

I think Trump voters are on average better off than the average American.

They probably were in 2016, but definitely not in 2024.

That still seems to be the case in 2024: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/20 ... an-status/

We need theories of preventing fascism that are concrete enough to be actionable. For example, there are probably differences in the reasons why rich people and poor people vote for fascists. We need to list what those are and use it to prevent them from coming to power.

A common reason, across most income brackets, is higher education. The higher the education level, the less likely you're to vote for the far-right.
I think this gets back rather nicely to the original topic, which is authoritarian personality. Exposure to novelty (in very general terms) calms down authoritarianism, it's one point Altermeyer mentions. It doesn't have to be college education.

Also, and I agree with you on that, what we need is a reformed left.

One last point is that fascism should be made unacceptable again. That's the part I'm really pessimistic about.

Peasants are small business owners:

(...)
I don't think most people will enjoy this life. In contrast, my plan is to let people who want to work in farming use automation and scalable techniques on government farms to reduce the cost of food. If food is cheap, even the people working on farms will have free hours in the day to work on other projects. They should be able to go into robotics if they want.

To summarize my objections:

• The claim that small-scale organic farmers are far-right is surprising. It's certainly wrong in my experience.
• Common sense and an awareness that this planet isn't uniform at all are both required. It's certainly true some places need industrial development.
• Fully automated industrial farming isn't feasible. It leads to environmental disaster, epidemics, supply chain breakdown.
• At no point do I, or anyone, seriously argue for an all-farmer society. Small or small-ish scale, somewhat less industrialized farming does not mean an all-farmer society. The percentage of farmers in the West in tiny. Double a tiny percentage and you still get a tiny percentage.

Another point: you don't want state-run farms. The state, or local communities, can help but it's completely unable to run farms. Urban bureaucrats almost universally get the idea they know farming better than farmers do, they should not be able to entertain that notion.

[Ares Land]

Wow, congratulations, that's the best summary of that matter I've seen so far. I think it also played a role that so much of the Left got taken over by academics whose main interest was in advancing obscure theoretical points, and that it mostly rejected universalism and explicitly embraced particularism, which made more and more people think, "If everyone is going to be particularist now, I'll better be particularist on my own behalf!"

Thanks! Though there are probably better explanations out there.

As for the Left, well, there is a problem there, but I'm not sure I'm able to point out what it is. I'll try anyway.

There are many strands on the left right now, and it looks like just about everyone on the left is left-wing for different reasons: you have environmentalists, feminists, LGBTQIA+ activists, old-school communists, socialists, social democrats, populists, and probably more. Each of these is shooting in a different direction and is absolutely convinced they hold an absolute truth. They're also all rather more eager to attack each other than the right-wing.

Also, winning an election requires two things: rallying your own side rallying the not very convinced people that actually tip the balance in elections. The left is divided into many little strands. These strands are all correct in some way, and they're all horribly off-putting to outsiders. And now we get to the problem: they all react extremely defensively when you try to point it out to them.

[rotting bones]

'Believe' is important here. A lot of the grievances are beliefs, not fact, which means perceived hardship is more of a factor than factual hardship.
This means you can improve the economic situation, and still see a right-wing surge.

I agree they're wrong, but if they didn't have economic anxiety, they wouldn't be thinking in these terms. They don't under ordinary circumstances. Under ordinary circumstances, tribes share resources with other tribes and expect the favor to be returned in the future. This is why the far right makes other nationalities out to be inferior. The implication is that they are too weak to return favors done to them.

That still seems to be the case in 2024: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/20 ... an-status/

This is an article published in 2024. It's not data from the 2024 election. Leading up to the election, Republicans created a huge stink about how life was affordable before Biden. (Now Trump is saying the affordability agenda is a Democrat hoax.)

Exposure to novelty (in very general terms) calms down authoritarianism, it's one point Altermeyer mentions. It doesn't have to be college education.

The context of exposure matters a lot. I gave examples previously about how more exposure can lead to ethnic conflict. The incentives are misaligned in Northeast India, for example. Also, some personality types respond to other ways of life with instinctive disgust.

Also, and I agree with you on that, what we need is a reformed left.

It's a problem these days that leftist intellectuals don't think in terms of systems.

One last point is that fascism should be made unacceptable again. That's the part I'm really pessimistic about.

Unlikely unless you can defeat another fascist power in an epic war. These days, fascists find fascists from other countries sympathetic. They practically have a fascist international.

The claim that small-scale organic farmers are far-right is surprising. It's certainly wrong in my experience.

I don't agree that small scale farmers are far right. (Did you miss my epic flame war with Eddy about this?) I think their incentives make them vote for policies that push society as a whole to the far right.

Even the farmers in Bengal are not far right. They are center-left people who support welfare and the arts. Their actions are nevertheless causing society to embrace the far right. (I have already explained this in some detail.) This is why I'm skeptical of the center-left as a whole.

Fully automated industrial farming isn't feasible. It leads to environmental disaster, epidemics, supply chain breakdown.

Sure, under capitalism. I also support using genetically modified organisms, BTW. Some kinds of food processing are demonstrably harmful and should probably be discouraged, but not "processed foods" in general.

I think a major cause of the rise of the far right is that most people genuinely don't want to live in the kinds of societies leftist intellectuals offer them these days. In this context, it's significant that I'm offering a better life to everyone, even peasants, than you are.

At no point do I, or anyone, seriously argue for an all-farmer society. Small or small-ish scale, somewhat less industrialized farming does not mean an all-farmer society. The percentage of farmers in the West in tiny. Double a tiny percentage and you still get a tiny percentage.

If the percentages are minuscule, then the effects of your policies won't lead to any significant societal transformation. If they do transform society, then they will either result in fascism or an all-peasant society for the reasons I've tried to explain.

Another point: you don't want state-run farms. The state, or local communities, can help but it's completely unable to run farms. Urban bureaucrats almost universally get the idea they know farming better than farmers do, they should not be able to entertain that notion.

In the Soviet Union, agriculture was organized by the government. This is not what I'm suggesting. Loosely:

In my proposal, applicants who want farming jobs would be assigned land by the government. Then their work would be subsidized by the government as long as the people vote for it. If they mismanage the property, it will be taken away and assigned to other applicants. Jobs should be plentiful enough that they won't be left to starve.

None of this is "organized by" or "run by" the government. The government is a minimalistic entity whose job is to enact the will of the people. It upholds human rights because without those, it's impossible to know what the people want in the first place.

[Ares Land]

I don't agree that small scale farmers are far right. (Did you miss my epic flame war with Eddy about this?)

I'm afraid I missed it!

Sure, under capitalism. I also support using genetically modified organisms, BTW. Some kinds of food processing are demonstrably harmful and should probably be discouraged, but not "processed foods" in general.

I'd correct this slightly -- capitalism makes the problem worse by encouraging the wrong incentives -- it doesn't cause all risks. Mistakes about the impact of technology can be made by anyone.

I think a major cause of the rise of the far right is that most people genuinely don't want to live in the kinds of societies leftist intellectuals offer them these days.
In this context, it's significant that I'm offering a better life to everyone, even peasants, than you are.

What's 'you' here? I'm not offering anything to anyone or proposing any kind of general political agenda

I'm in favor of proposals that make things better for everyone or remediate problems that affect everyone long-term, but I'm afraid I don't have anything like a general theory of how things could work.

I should add that I would support your proposal if it were put to the vote, as long it coexists with other approaches.

At no point do I, or anyone, seriously argue for an all-farmer society. Small or small-ish scale, somewhat less industrialized farming does not mean an all-farmer society. The percentage of farmers in the West in tiny. Double a tiny percentage and you still get a tiny percentage.

If the percentages are minuscule, then the effects of your policies won't lead to any significant societal transformation. If they do transform society, then they will either result in fascism or an all-peasant society for the reasons I've tried to explain.

Ah, I see the misunderstanding here. What I suggested doesn't aim at significant societal transformation.
I'm arguing for measures that make environmental sense. But of course people not dying of mass ecosystem destruction and eating food that will not kill them in the long run technically counts as societal transformation.

In my proposal, applicants who want farming jobs would be assigned land by the government. Then their work would be subsidized by the government as long as the people vote for it. If they mismanage the property, it will be taken away and assigned to other applicants. Jobs should be plentiful enough that they won't be left to starve.

OK. That is something I'm in favor of; with more room for initiative if possible. People can locate land for themselves as well and get help buying it too.

[Torco]

In my proposal, applicants who want farming jobs would be assigned land by the government. Then their work would be subsidized by the government as long as the people vote for it. If they mismanage the property, it will be taken away and assigned to other applicants. Jobs should be plentiful enough that they won't be left to starve.

None of this is "organized by" or "run by" the government. The government is a minimalistic entity whose job is to enact the will of the people. It upholds human rights because without those, it's impossible to know what the people want in the first place.

huuuuuh... what?

I mean... i like for public institutions to manage land allocation... I don't know if the government, precisely, I'd prefer some technocratic body that's independent, keeps track of land stewardship proposals [oh, this zone has above average productivity? well, what are the methods the grantees are using there, and how are they different from those used in this other region? that kinda thing] and responsive to voters but at the same time not responsive to political interests like "oh, party A won the government. did you campaign for party B? well, prepare to change careers cause your plot is going to bobby who voted correctly" (sub party for faction or whatever) or stuff like that. maybe kind of like a central bank, or a forest preservation authority, or a municipal government. the thing is these leases should really be quite long-lasting, too, since... you know, you want to encourage farmers to be good stewards of the land (as opposed to the incentive being get one good crop and then leave the land fucked). you want them to build and maintain irrigation channels, keep the forests well coppiced, keep ecosystems fairly balanced, not hunt the deer to extinction, and not spray so much fertilizer and pesticides that you kill the whole biodiversity forever, or foster algal blooms in the nearby rivers, etcetera.

plus, a lot of the skills of farming are highly local. a farmer might not know, in general, how to best utilize any piece of land, he knows how to best utilize *this or that* piece of land. he knows that in this zone moles are a problem, and he knows which things keep mole populations down, but somewhere else the same measures might make the land less productive. he knows how to dig a good irrigation trench through the clay-rich soil of here, but the same techniques work poorly in sandy soil there. see these are the things that, in general, urban bureaucrats don't consider.

[Travis B.]

I have to agree with Torco here -- bureaucrats assigning plots of land to farm does not seem like a particularly good idea to me for the reasons he gives.

[rotting bones]

maybe kind of like a central bank, or a forest preservation authority, or a municipal government.

1. New governments bring in their own experts all the time. For example, state experts in the US are currently scrubbing all agencies with words like "transition" and "DEI" in their documents.

2. Entrenched power might be even more dangerous than party turnovers. If all government agencies have been captured by an ideology, there might be nothing voters can do to dislodge it.

This is why I'm worried about power exercised by state experts. I want to make sure such things require the consent of the voters under my system.

If you think bad things are happening, organize a think tank, pressure group or advisory board to counsel the voters. Sure, sometimes the voters will listen to mistaken counsel, but voters and governments always make mistakes. If they want, voters can appoint advisory boards they like as permanent counsels and remove the appointments they feel are unhelpful. If they want, they can also decide the issues themselves on a case by case basis after hearing expert counsel.

plus, a lot of the skills of farming are highly local.

Note that I envision most of the decision making to be done at the local level, with disputes between local and central levels being resolved through negotiation.

"oh, party A won the government. did you campaign for party B? well, prepare to change careers cause your plot is going to bobby who voted correctly" (sub party for faction or whatever) or stuff like that.

Such abuses happen all the time. In my proposal, these will be resolved through legal challenges. There should at least be general legal guidelines about what counts as "mismanagement", and reasonable evidential standards must be met before applicants can be convicted of wrongdoing.

I have said almost all of this before, BTW.

I have to agree with Torco here -- bureaucrats assigning plots of land to farm does not seem like a particularly good idea to me for the reasons he gives.

1. Normally, groups like central banks are called "bureaucrats", not political appointees.

2. Under the current system, close to 100% of the land is being mismanaged. You cannot survive in this economy without mismanaging the land.

[Torco]

I have to agree with Torco here -- bureaucrats assigning plots of land to farm does not seem like a particularly good idea to me for the reasons he gives.

This is not what i said... I'm fine with bureaucrats assigning plots in principle, it's just I can think of a million ways it can go wrong. rotting is correct that a) everything can go wrong and b) it's not like the current system works so great. I'm just saying, those bureaucrats, and the dudes coming up with the bureau rules, should probably have grown an potato in their lives.

maybe periodic land reforms work better, i don't know: people get the land, do what they want with it, and whenever it becomes too concentrated in too few hands, or owners don't grow enough food on it and dedicate it instead to tulips, or when everyone's farming it in such a way that will destroy the planet, or something like that, then we go "fuck it, back to square one: this bit for you, this bit for you".

[rotting bones]

Nothing in my proposal precludes the existence of farmer think tanks. If farming expertise is being offered by farmers, most voters will be more likely to listen to them IME. Furthermore, since the voters are locals, they will probably have some idea which farming experts are trustworthy and have given useful advice in the past.

The problem with my system is that it's very socialist in a bad sense. If an eccentric has made enemies of everyone in the region, that guy is probably fucked. Then again, even under capitalism, the only thing shielding you from such effects is wealth. What the current system does is allow wealthy psychopaths to get away with snubbing everyone. This is not a good thing. Currently, people are training themselves to think like psychopaths to get ahead in life. Also, this doesn't protect the oddball eccentrics who deserve protection from hidebound conservatives. I'm hoping having human rights baked into the constitution will shield such people to some extent.

[jcb]

Are you mad at Bernie Sanders? AOC? Elizabeth Warren? Zohran Mamdani? Black and Hispanic Democrats? Then say so, and explain why.

No! Those are the people I like!

Are you mad at Bill Clinton or Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer still? They aren't liberals.

So what are they? Anyways, according to your definition of "liberal", *I'm* a liberal! Fine, but I disprefer that word, because it implies a dedication to capitalism that I don't share. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR65ZhO6LGA )

Are you concerned about the working people being disappeared by Trump's thugs, or knocked down by Trump's inflation, or by Trump's war on unions, or Trump's war on health care, or Trump's coddling of AI?

Yes. Currently, the Democrats are poised to win in 2026 and probably in 2028. I'm concerned that after they win (assuming that Trump's next attempted coup fails), out of a misguided sense that they need to appeal to "the middle", they'll be complacent and refuse to make any permanent substantive positive change, effectively being Diet Republicans, which will disappoint people and just set the stage for another Republican victory the next election. The American system will not be able to withstand fascists breaking things from the inside forever.

[Raphael]

Yes. Currently, the Democrats are poised to win in 2026 and probably in 2028. I'm concerned that after they win (assuming that Trump's next attempted coup fails), out of a misguided sense that they need to appeal to "the middle", they'll be complacent and refuse to make any permanent substantive positive change, effectively being Diet Republicans, which will disappoint people and just set the stage for another Republican victory the next election. The American system will not be able to withstand fascists breaking things from the inside forever.

This.

[Travis B.]

Are you mad at Bernie Sanders? AOC? Elizabeth Warren? Zohran Mamdani? Black and Hispanic Democrats? Then say so, and explain why.

No! Those are the people I like!

Are you mad at Bill Clinton or Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer still? They aren't liberals.

So what are they? Anyways, according to your definition of "liberal", *I'm* a liberal! Fine, but I disprefer that word, because it implies a dedication to capitalism that I don't share. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR65ZhO6LGA )

Bill Clinton and Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer are centrists, whereas "liberal" in the sense that Zompist used is closer in meaning to social democrat.

And yes, many Americans who call themselves "socialists" are really social democrats in practice, in that while they may dislike capitalism, they have committed themselves to making capitalism kinder and gentler first and foremost.

Of course, the problem is that if one sets up a dichotomy between social democracy on one hand and left-accelerationist "revolution or bust" approaches on the other hand that refuse to do anything now to mitigate the impacts of capitalism here and now, social democracy becomes much more attractive simply because left-accelerationism will just result in far more misery and damage to the environment being done by capitalism, and may actually result in increasing reaction rather than bringing about the desired revolution.

Then, one may ask, what is to be done? I would personally say work on taking over the Democratic Party from within (as trying to create a third party is self-defeating) while simultaneously working on building popular organization from the ground up outside it, with a mind to mitigating the impact of capitalism in the short term while building the basis of the new society in the long term.

Are you concerned about the working people being disappeared by Trump's thugs, or knocked down by Trump's inflation, or by Trump's war on unions, or Trump's war on health care, or Trump's coddling of AI?

Yes. Currently, the Democrats are poised to win in 2026 and probably in 2028. I'm concerned that after they win (assuming that Trump's next attempted coup fails), out of a misguided sense that they need to appeal to "the middle", they'll be complacent and refuse to make any permanent substantive positive change, effectively being Diet Republicans, which will disappoint people and just set the stage for another Republican victory the next election. The American system will not be able to withstand fascists breaking things from the inside forever.

Agreed.