Is Liberalism a new form of dictatorship? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Modern liberalism. Civil rights and liberties, State responsibility to the people (welfare).
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#14589104
Liberalism is no ideology, it reflects only the will of the people. This how I perceived the message from the so called free world, or this is how they have been advertising it for us. However, there are few areas which are strictly tabooed by the Liberals, such as; homosexuality, feminism, racial issues, Antisemitism, Banking-System, ...etc.
So Liberalism is Nothing else, but a new well designed practice, to achieve their goals by converting other people to their vision of life, without provoking their resistance instinct, eventually, like any lunatics who consider their values as a holy agenda that must be applied on all human societies.
#14589562
No but prohibiting opinion against them is not liberal at all, and is the beginning to prohibit more and more in the future. I just mentioned it as example, to criticise the hypocrisy of the Liberals and not to against the homosexuals.
Homosexuality is ancient, and is just as old as humanity is, and humanity has always tolerated them, the Liberals are doing the opposite they gave a privilege to homosexuals, woman,etc. just to create anti-movements and spread hate nothing else.
#14595686
Welcome all new people to Pofo!

It's nice to see so many new faces.

This being said, the liberals are, as was mentioned, an old form of dictatorship--the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie.

A few things to note here:

1. The Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie is not the dictatorship of an individual, but the dictatorship of a class.

2. The dictatorship is material. In the same way that Franco represented the will of the people, the people were forced to conform through material means even if they were theoretically free. For instance, everyone in a liberal society has the theoretical freedom to speak to their representatives. In material reality, however, only a few very wealthy people can do so.

3. It is nothing new, nor are the points being brought up. But this is neither good, nor bad, it simply is. For more than a century it's been commented upon how the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie reform culture into their own image:

Marx and Engels wrote:The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.


Liberalism is the ideology of the bourgeoisie. And, incidentally, what many call, "conservatism," is just liberalism too.
#14595693
mikema63 wrote:Depends on what specifically you mean by dictatorship.


Liberalism can be it in any sense of the word. See everything from Robespierre and Bonapartism to Pinochet and liberal/libertarian use of transitional dictatorship (capitalism as a prerequisite for freedom and democracy, preference for liberal dictatorship over illiberal democracy).

Then there is of course the Marxist sense as the dictatorship of a class.
#14595701
If a dictatorship is government by force - @ bayonet point, for instance; then no, liberalism - concerned about the process as well as the content of government - can't be a dictatorship. The USSR, Communist China, Cuba & other similar governments are not liberal. They are dictatorships - where the government (or better still, the party) arrogate to themselves all legitimate power & force of arms. Any power or force outside their purview is defined as illegitimate.

If liberalism expresses the will of the people, isn't that justification enough for what government does? Or did I misunderstand what you're saying? It seems to me that the areas you carve out - homosexuality, women's rights, etc. - are not taboo areas to liberals. That concern for the rights of groups marginalized by the old regime defines liberalism, in its concern to expand political & social rights across the board, & not merely reserve them for the elites.

& certainly liberalism doesn't think of its values as a holy agenda - far from it, & probably diametrically opposed to the very notion. Liberals may or may not be religious - but I don't think liberals as a group regard religious strictures as binding upon the citizens of the nation, for all time & places, & regardless of circumstances.
#14595703
Explain the chilean dictatorship then? How can a dictatorship be non-liberal and yet be explicitly trying to create a liberal society and pass liberal reforms?

The Chilean dictator Pinochet killed tons of socialists who had won in Chile and created the dictatorship to make Chile a liberal country.
#14595705
The Immortal Goon wrote:For instance, everyone in a liberal society has the theoretical freedom to speak to their representatives. In material reality, however, only a few very wealthy people can do so.
I have spoken to my representative on two occasions. I'm considering going to speak to the new MP shortly. Its completely untrue in Britain at least that you have to rich to get to speak to your representative. The Bolsheviks on the on the other hand really were a dictatorship. Every form of independent working class organisation was ruthlessly smashed. When the workers of Kronstadt ,the vanguard of the 1917 revolution, rose up to ask for free elections, Trotsky boasted that "We shot them down like partridges." The whole Russian empire was turned into one giant slave labour camp.

I went to East Berlin before the Wall came down. I saw for myself what these so called workers paradises were really like. Our societies are so wonderful we need machine guns and walls to keep people out. Communism was so awful they needed machine guns and walls to keep people in.
#14595708
mikema63 wrote:Explain the chilean dictatorship then? How can a dictatorship be non-liberal and yet be explicitly trying to create a liberal society and pass liberal reforms?

The Chilean dictator Pinochet killed tons of socialists who had won in Chile and created the dictatorship to make Chile a liberal country.


Pinochet was the head of a junta. Juntas kill people, especially Leftists, liberal priests, religious, intellectuals, labor leaders, writers, poets, newspapermen, reporters, professors, teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, & on & on. The junta didn't make Chile a liberal country.

They made a desert, & called it paz.
#14595715
southwest88 wrote:
Pinochet was the head of a junta. Juntas kill people, especially Leftists, liberal priests, religious, intellectuals, labor leaders, writers, poets, newspapermen, reporters, professors, teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, & on & on. The junta didn't make Chile a liberal country.

They made a desert, & called it paz.


Asked about the liberal, non-democratic rule by a Chilean interviewer, Hayek is translated from German to Spanish to English as having said, "As long term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. [...] Personally I prefer a liberal dictatorship to democratic government devoid of liberalism. My personal impression – and this is valid for South America – is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich ... ctatorship

Juntas and other transitional dictators that rule with the blessing of the liberal-imperialist West definitely do create liberal countries, that is their purpose (in contrast to fascists, who at least don't intend to be mere anti-communist puppets). They are useful because they rigidly defend private property, are key to economic (and eventually political) liberalization, and in the meantime turn people away from leftism with nationalist ideology. They essentially act as an emergency state actor that purges the nation of undesirables which would make the liberal's 'democracy' difficult, then the dictatorship falls out of use and we get a liberal-democracy success story based on pruned demographics. This applies to many touted Asian success stories especially, like South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, etc.

Liberal dictatorships had their most use during the cold war, where the conflict zones were in the global south. But even preceding that arch-liberals like Mises, Churchill, etc. went as far to praise an illiberal dictatorship (fascism) for saving Europe. Even fascism can serve an (unintentional) transitional role, which would also explain Western rehabilitation of fascist bureaucrats and inertia towards the anti-fascist struggle in the 30s.

Also, even disregarding all of this it makes no sense to say it is impossible to have a liberal dictatorship. What the hell do you think jacobinism and revolutionary liberalism in general was about? That was a dictatorship at least in relation to enemies of the revolution, as well as anyone that wasn't a straight white male property owner.
#14595729
mikema63 wrote:The constitution filled with liberal rights and creating a liberal framework was just a fluke?


Um, yah. Presumably it was the same set of marketing 'droids who (in Iraq I) had the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US's daughter testify @ a presser under the hot lights while the cameras rolled that her child had been ripped from an incubator in Kuwait & bashed against a wall & killed, while the marauding Iraqis made off with the incubator, light bulbs, etc. (echoes of Soviet Far East troops in Berlin in WWII). It was pretty effective, as no one in the mass media seemed to recognize the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter. & the daughter cried on cue, & we were all quite sorry for her. (She was single, unmarried, & hadn't had a child @ that point, as I recall. But no matter, "The play's the thing ...")
#14595737
Conscript wrote:...

(Quote): Asked about the liberal, non-democratic rule by a Chilean interviewer, Hayek is translated ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich ... ctatorship

Juntas and other transitional dictators that rule with the blessing of the liberal-imperialist West definitely do create liberal countries, that is their purpose (in contrast to fascists, who at least don't intend to be mere anti-communist puppets). They are useful because they rigidly defend private property, are key to economic (and eventually political) liberalization, and in the meantime turn people away from leftism with nationalist ideology. They essentially act as an emergency state actor that purges the nation of undesirables which would make the liberal's 'democracy' difficult, then the dictatorship falls out of use and we get a liberal-democracy success story based on pruned demographics. This applies to many touted Asian success stories especially, like South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, etc.

...


Yah, I keep running into Hayek's name. I'll have to look into that, too.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet

"From its beginning, the new military government implemented harsh measures against its perceived opponents.[8] Various reports and investigations claim that between 1,200 and 3,200 people were killed, up to 80,000 people were interned and as many as 30,000 were tortured during the time Pinochet was in government.[9][10][11] As of 2011, the official number of deaths and forced disappearances stands at 3,065.[12]"

(My emphasis - more @ the URL)

So, a little death, a little internment, a little torture. Plus the people who broke under torture, & never quite reintegrated. Plus the children orphaned or born to political undesirables who were later disappeared. Well, there you have nice healthy children - & there were military & political apparatchiks with empty arms who always wanted children but somehow the Lord saw fit not to comply. What's the harm, eh? Plus, think of it as OJT for the people we later hired to do interrogations & wet work for us in Iraq, Afghanistan & various unnamed places around the World. Good to know that not a sparrow may fall ...
#14595752
Let me see...

You can't disagree with a liberal in any way or get called a hater and a bigot.

You can't say no to them.

They will not let you defend yourself.

They have no sense of innocent until proven guilty or benefit of the doubt.

The only thing liberals care about is money and power.

They never hold themselves to the same standards they demand everybody else.

They are an ends justify the means people. It's okay to hurt people to correct their behavior to liberal ideology through shaming, smearing, and blaming.

Yep.

They do not value freedom of speech nor the constiution, nor can they understand that the constitution was meant to limit government power.

They want an all powerful all seeing government to take care of everybody.

Yep. I'd call that a dictatorship.
#14595815
Rich wrote:I have spoken to my representative on two occasions. I'm considering going to speak to the new MP shortly. Its completely untrue in Britain at least that you have to rich to get to speak to your representative.


That's true enough, and I was low balling for new members that didn't want a wall of text yet—but to go on with the point in general, do you really think that your opinion is as important to the representative as the opinion of the UK director of BP?

When you honestly think about it, I don't see how one could say it is true. Is your freedom of expression as free as Rupert Murcoch's? I would dare say that he can express himself in a far more clear and open manner than you can. Is the freedom to lower production costs in your factory the same for you as for a factory owner?

In these, and really any, form of abstract freedom a liberal regime provides, the wealthy actually can exercise that freedom. The poor get the assurance that they could if they were theoretically in another class.

Rich wrote:The Bolsheviks on the on the other hand really were a dictatorship. Every form of independent working class organisation was ruthlessly smashed.


Actually, the Bolshevik Party was notoriously pro-working class organizations. What you're referring to would have happened under the Communist Party post Lenin. Remember, Lenin argued that unions were needed to keep the government, which was not a workers' government, in check. The theory of Socialism in One Country, later, is what damned the policy.

And anyway, is there a liberal country that didn't destroy every independent working class organization that they had? In the United States and UK, all over the western world, the solution to workers asking for a union was to send the police and then the military out to crush them.

Rich wrote:When the workers of Kronstadt ,the vanguard of the 1917 revolution, rose up to ask for free elections, Trotsky boasted that "We shot them down like partridges." The whole Russian empire was turned into one giant slave labour camp.


Yes, you love to use this argument and then slither away from the thread when it falls apart.

1. Trotsky was not even at the Kronstadt rebellion, nor was he in charge of the Red Army at the time.
2. The workers of Kronstadt from the 1917 revolution were not there in 1921 (here if you want a secondary source).

More than that, you're a smart guy. Let's say that you founded a new state. Now let's say that there's a civil war. Let's throw on that almost every other major country is also simultaneously invading you.

Would you really take your best, most loyal troops and put them on the far end of the board where there was no trouble to sit for half a decade? Or would you use those troops where needed and replace the far end of the board where there is no trouble with your less dependable troops?

The facts, and basic logic, are clear enough. The people rebelling against the Bolsheviks in 1921 were not the Bolsheviks in 1917.

southwest88 wrote:If a dictatorship is government by force - @ bayonet point, for instance; then no, liberalism - concerned about the process as well as the content of government - can't be a dictatorship. The USSR, Communist China, Cuba & other similar governments are not liberal. They are dictatorships - where the government (or better still, the party) arrogate to themselves all legitimate power & force of arms. Any power or force outside their purview is defined as illegitimate.


But we both know that I could find a dozen instances where the US, UK, France, or whatever, had a government that used force. Which would mean that, in your theory, there is no such thing as liberalism.

Iron Ant wrote:Let me see...

You can't disagree with a liberal in any way or get called a hater and a bigot.

You can't say no to them.

They will not let you defend yourself.

They have no sense of innocent until proven guilty or benefit of the doubt.

The only thing liberals care about is money and power.

They never hold themselves to the same standards they demand everybody else.

They are an ends justify the means people. It's okay to hurt people to correct their behavior to liberal ideology through shaming, smearing, and blaming.

Yep.

They do not value freedom of speech nor the constiution, nor can they understand that the constitution was meant to limit government power.

They want an all powerful all seeing government to take care of everybody.

Yep. I'd call that a dictatorship.


Of course, I want to underline, that in the context many of us are using conservatives are liberals too. We're using the actual (not political, which in some contexts is still acceptable) definition of liberalism:

Britannica wrote:Liberalism, political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others; but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty...

...Their [economic] advice to government was “laissez faire, laissez passer” (“let it be, leave it alone”). This laissez-faire doctrine found its most thorough and influential exposition in The Wealth of Nations (1776), by the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith. Free trade benefits all parties, according to Smith, because competition leads to the production of more and better goods at lower prices. Leaving individuals free to pursue their self-interest in an exchange economy based upon a division of labour will necessarily enhance the welfare of the group as a whole. The self-seeking individual becomes harnessed to the public good because in an exchange economy he must serve others in order to serve himself. But it is only in a genuinely free market that this positive consequence is possible; any other arrangement, whether state control or monopoly, must lead to regimentation, exploitation, and economic stagnation.
#14595818
The Immortal Goon wrote: ...
southwest88 wrote: If a dictatorship is government by force - @ bayonet point, for instance; then no, liberalism - concerned about the process as well as the content of government - can't be a dictatorship. The USSR, Communist China, Cuba & other similar governments are not liberal. They are dictatorships - where the government (or better still, the party) arrogate to themselves all legitimate power & force of arms. Any power or force outside their purview is defined as illegitimate.


But we both know that I could find a dozen instances where the US, UK, France, or whatever, had a government that used force. Which would mean that, in your theory, there is no such thing as liberalism.

...
[/quote]

The difference lies in arrogate to themselves all legitimate power & force of arms. In the US, the consent of the governed is explicit & restated in periodic elections. The late USSR & others often reported very high participation rates in elections, & enormous pluralities for their slate of candidates. In the Western counties in general, elections are real - & the results are often enough imperfect - from the POV of parties that would prefer to rule instead of govern. Thus real elections prevent radical changes in policy, which helps explain why Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan & the USSR destroyed themselves, although it took the Soviets 75 years to do so.

But yes, in general, governments are ceded the lawful use of force - so long as the majority of the voters agree.

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