Random Thread

[Richard W]

I may probably be misremembering, but haven't there been a few countries that were socialist while also retaining a monarchy? (Thailand comes to mind...though i may be conflating it with something else)

You may be thinking of the other Buddhist kingdom, Cambodia.

[WeepingElf]

I may probably be misremembering, but haven't there been a few countries that were socialist while also retaining a monarchy?

How do you class Nordic societies?

I wouldn't call them socialist - rather, social democratic.

[Travis B.]

I may probably be misremembering, but haven't there been a few countries that were socialist while also retaining a monarchy?

How do you class Nordic societies?

I wouldn't call them socialist - rather, social democratic.

I agree. The key element to socialism is social ownership and management of capital, whereas Scandinavia's really just had kinder, gentler capitalism, i.e. social democracy.

[Moose-tache]

I think there are, currently, at least two Dukes of Anjou. One is the current légitimiste pretender to the French crown (and if I get my wacky royalist cranks right, the grandson of the aforementioned Jaime). The other is a Charles-Philippe d'Orléans, who is I think a cousin of Jean d'Orléans, the orléaniste pretender (who by tradition holds the title of Comte de Paris.)

Indeed no one in their right mind is going to call any of these dudes 'king of France', but they do get people to call them Count of Paris or Duke of Anjou.

(If you're curious: both sides are a bunch of fascist nuts.)

How are their chins?

[Travis B.]

I think there are, currently, at least two Dukes of Anjou. One is the current légitimiste pretender to the French crown (and if I get my wacky royalist cranks right, the grandson of the aforementioned Jaime). The other is a Charles-Philippe d'Orléans, who is I think a cousin of Jean d'Orléans, the orléaniste pretender (who by tradition holds the title of Comte de Paris.)

Indeed no one in their right mind is going to call any of these dudes 'king of France', but they do get people to call them Count of Paris or Duke of Anjou.

(If you're curious: both sides are a bunch of fascist nuts.)

How are their chins?

I thought it was the Habsburgs who had the screwed-up jaws.

[WeepingElf]

How do you class Nordic societies?

I wouldn't call them socialist - rather, social democratic.

I agree. The key element to socialism is social ownership and management of capital, whereas Scandinavia's really just had kinder, gentler capitalism, i.e. social democracy.

Yep.

[keenir]

I may probably be misremembering, but haven't there been a few countries that were socialist while also retaining a monarchy? (Thailand comes to mind...though i may be conflating it with something else)

You may be thinking of the other Buddhist kingdom, Cambodia.

thats the one; thank you.

I may probably be misremembering, but haven't there been a few countries that were socialist while also retaining a monarchy?

How do you class Nordic societies?

I can name their countries - at least most of them.

[Man in Space]

Reposting here since it was the last post on the previous page and ended up in the middle of a conversation—

Anybody willing to be a pen pal/language buddy for someone trying to learn Polish? Willingness to tolerate the basic conversations and topics at first (since I’m starting the book) is a huge plus.

[Moose-tache]

I think there are, currently, at least two Dukes of Anjou. One is the current légitimiste pretender to the French crown (and if I get my wacky royalist cranks right, the grandson of the aforementioned Jaime). The other is a Charles-Philippe d'Orléans, who is I think a cousin of Jean d'Orléans, the orléaniste pretender (who by tradition holds the title of Comte de Paris.)

Indeed no one in their right mind is going to call any of these dudes 'king of France', but they do get people to call them Count of Paris or Duke of Anjou.

(If you're curious: both sides are a bunch of fascist nuts.)

How are their chins?

I thought it was the Habsburgs who had the screwed-up jaws.

Even in the extremely unlikely event that these guys don't have eight Hapsburg cousins each (who are only five separate people), they would probably develop fucked-up bone structure out of convergent evolution.

[Ares Land]

'Fucked-up' is perhaps too strong (YMMV) but there is, shall we say, an unusually close family resemblance.

As for Nordic countries... social-democracy is pretty tame these days, but it was pretty far to the left in the 70s.
There's an interesting chapter on Sweden in Piketty; the social democratic reform were very ambitious -- Sweden went from extremely inegalitarian and plutocratic (I mean, even by late 19th century standards) to one of the more egalitarian countries.

[Raphael]

I wrote another blog post. This one might ruffle some feathers:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... -the-left/

[alice]

I thought it was the Habsburgs who had the screwed-up jaws.

And in a wonderful example of the Oneness of Person and Universe, somebody once told me that the reason that European Spanish has /θ/ was "because the Habsburgs all had hare lips".

[bradrn]

I wrote another blog post. This one might ruffle some feathers:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... -the-left/

If anything, this doesn’t seem feather-rufflish enough. I think some concrete examples where you disagree with leftists would be useful, because at the moment I’m finding it a bit too abstract to understand properly.

(Also, with regards to libertarianism, I’ll just link this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/02/21/c ... t-stories/, especially parts II and IV. I’m not a libertarian at all — quite the contrary, in fact — but reducing it to ‘only the state has power’ seems a bit unfair.)

[Ares Land]

I wrote another blog post. This one might ruffle some feathers:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... -the-left/

Very interesting, though I can't entirely agree

Left-wing movement, these days, tend to be very specifically about power dynamics that are specifically not institutionalized.

Feminists will insist that there is a power dynamic between genders; right-wingers will insist that these don't exist any longer, and that the fight is over (after all, all institutionalized male dominance has long been done away with, so in their view, the issue has long been moot.)
Ditto with race relations. (Again, a caricature of the right-wing position would be: there have been no racist laws in the books for ages, so what is all that fuss about?)

A second point of disagreement is that power structures are remarkably stable over time. Let's take a look at Florence: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wealth ... 1463662410
And that's a city that spent practically the last 600 years undergoing mass political upheavals; turns out social class persisted remarkably well in spite of all this.
(Anecdotally, since we talked about French aristocracy earlier; despite considerable efforts expanded at cutting heads off, a French person with an aristocratic name today is still very likely to enjoy a fairly comfortable social position.)

(Also, with regards to libertarianism, I’ll just link this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/02/21/c ... t-stories/, especially parts II and IV. I’m not a libertarian at all — quite the contrary, in fact — but reducing it to ‘only the state has power’ seems a bit unfair.)

The libertarian position is indeed more nuanced but I'd argue ultimately it amounts to the same thing. When confronted with abuse coming from private actors, reactions generally tend to be a) denial b) insisting that this is somehow still the state's fault c) deploring the fact but insisting that nothing can be done about it.

[Raphael]

I wrote another blog post. This one might ruffle some feathers:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... -the-left/

Very interesting, though I can't entirely agree

Left-wing movement, these days, tend to be very specifically about power dynamics that are specifically not institutionalized.

Feminists will insist that there is a power dynamic between genders; right-wingers will insist that these don't exist any longer, and that the fight is over (after all, all institutionalized male dominance has long been done away with, so in their view, the issue has long been moot.)
Ditto with race relations. (Again, a caricature of the right-wing position would be: there have been no racist laws in the books for ages, so what is all that fuss about?)

Perhaps "institutionalized" was the wrong choice of word. I should have gone with "systemic" or "structural". Most feminists definitely see the Patriarchy as a systemic and structural thing; ditto for most anti-racists' view of racism.

A second point of disagreement is that power structures are remarkably stable over time. Let's take a look at Florence: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wealth ... 1463662410
And that's a city that spent practically the last 600 years undergoing mass political upheavals; turns out social class persisted remarkably well in spite of all this.
(Anecdotally, since we talked about French aristocracy earlier; despite considerable efforts expanded at cutting heads off, a French person with an aristocratic name today is still very likely to enjoy a fairly comfortable social position.)

Interesting. I still think that there are good examples of all the forms of reversals of fortunes that I listed, though.



bradrn: Ares Land has already commented on the libertarian thing. As for my concrete disagreements with the positions I'm criticizing, well, for one thing, all too often, if an individual member of an oppressed or downtrodden group turns out to have horribly bigoted or prejudiced views, some people on the Left will insist that we shouldn't care about or criticize that kind of thing, because the person doesn't have the structural power to do any real harm. I see that position as dangerously naive and short-sighted, because who has how much power might change over time.

Second, as far as I'm concerned, anyone who is effectively able to make at least some people obey them has at least some amount of power, so, for instance, I see a successful local bully as a powerful person, even if they don't fit into the standard left-wing view of who "the powerful" are.

[Travis B.]

To me the so-called "Libertarians" are highly misguided in their conception of power, specifically because they refuse to acknowledge that power need not require the state to exist, and in particular, the so-called "anarchocapitalism" would lead to the modern state being replaced with private fiefdoms that would effectively be miniature states, no less oppressive (and very likely more oppressive) than the states they replaced. Conversely, a highly institutionalized democratic state is less oppressive than what the "Libertarians" envision precisely because they institutionalize the ultimate veto power over those in control of society - namely the state institutions and the capitalists - in the form of elections voted in by the people. Ironically, a more powerful democratic state is less oppressive because it can bring the capitalists and others holding power beneath it more effectively to heel, and conversely a weaker state gives the capitalists more ability to have their way with the people.

[Ryusenshi]

The "Libertarians" also like to complain about how the State is synonymous with bureaucracy and red tape. In my experience, large companies can be just as bureaucratic as any ministry.

[Raphael]

The "Libertarians" also like to complain about how the State is synonymous with bureaucracy and red tape. In my experience, large companies can be just as bureaucratic as any ministry.

I have sometimes, when I was particularly frustrated with the red tape at some private enterprise I was dealing with, thought to myself "A government agency wouldn't be able to get away with that...".

[Travis B.]

The "Libertarians" also like to complain about how the State is synonymous with bureaucracy and red tape. In my experience, large companies can be just as bureaucratic as any ministry.

Precisely. "Libertarians" really have a myopic view of how the world works.

[bradrn]

Perhaps "institutionalized" was the wrong choice of word. I should have gone with "systemic" or "structural". Most feminists definitely see the Patriarchy as a systemic and structural thing; ditto for most anti-racists' view of racism.

Ah, this makes a lot more sense now. I read ‘institutionalized’ as ‘formally codified in law’.

To me the so-called "Libertarians" are highly misguided in their conception of power, specifically because they refuse to acknowledge that power need not require the state to exist, and in particular, the so-called "anarchocapitalism" would lead to the modern state being replaced with private fiefdoms that would effectively be miniature states, no less oppressive (and very likely more oppressive) than the states they replaced. Conversely, a highly institutionalized democratic state is less oppressive than what the "Libertarians" envision precisely because they institutionalize the ultimate veto power over those in control of society - namely the state institutions and the capitalists - in the form of elections voted in by the people. Ironically, a more powerful democratic state is less oppressive because it can bring the capitalists and others holding power beneath it more effectively to heel, and conversely a weaker state gives the capitalists more ability to have their way with the people.

This is essentially my criticism of the movement as well.