- 25 Mar 2012 12:42
#13924500
I remember postings every once in a while updates on PoFo of our changing ideological outlook. I've generally been pretty stable, being between 2004-2011 a fairly typical antiwar liberal/social democrat. I've changed a little recently, notably flirting with Europeanism when I came to Brussels and seeing the incredible power of WikiLeaks/Occupy/Anonymous. I figure it is a good time to take stock.
Democracy & Internet: I’ve a new awareness of the need for national democracy (to some extent the only kind possible) and its corollaries: debate, transparency, free media, the rule of law, etc. This may sound trivial but it’s the only way to both effectively and legitimately affect politics. This has been a fairly sterile topic. Forms of democracy have spread since 1945 and 1989 to all parts of the world (Latin America, Russia, Africa, Turkey…) but if anything its quality declined in the West.
With Internet (which I used to think politically insignificant), there are truly amazing prospects for the radical democratization of our politics: Establishment media are unnecessary (see HuffPo, TPM, rightwing freakshow, blogs), totally transparent government action is possible (see WikiLeaks/Assange, Assad email hacking), and we can engage in direct, unmediated debate (Twitter, Occupy/Indignados, etc).
My general instinct is that government should be as transparent and democratic as possible, with “elites” being as controlled as possible. With the Internet, there is potentially no limit to this tendency. We can literally create neo-Athenian direct e-democracy, with constant citizen participation, yearly election of leaders and generals, and constant referenda on fundamental issues (such as wars, taxes, welfare, constitutional issues).
Having read and learned a bit about Ancient Athens, I feel some nations should experiment with this kind of democracy. It is amazing how a powerful and successful State such as Athens could be so democratic (about 10% are legal citizens), given the constraints of that time (primitive technology, illiteracy, rural society). States who were such democracies would be qualitatively superior, and probably stronger in many ways, to those which are not.
More generally, we are moving to a society where individual autonomy and spontaneous collaboration (even in apparently small ways, CouchSurfing, carpooling..) are spreading and the role of corporate/governmental bureaucracies is declining. That old dream of freedom which motivated Orwell, and as many Marxists as Libertarians...
Social democracy: Redistribution, real progressive taxation, real meritocracy, free education, aggressive monetary/budgetary policy to stimulate growth and employment. Keynesians have been entirely vindicated in the eurozone crisis in particular, which has forced the ECB to tear up the Germano-Ordoliberal rulebook to prevent Depression. More generally, egalitarian capitalist societies are simply superior – in terms of crime, health, democracy, equality of opportunity, social cohesion/breakdown, etc – to less egalitarian ones.
Peace, Gaullism & anti-imperialism: I remain entirely convinced that in general imperialism and militarism are disastrous for both the victim nations (death, destruction, anarchy) and the criminal nations (loss of national wealth, weakening of democracy and law, strengthening of abusive elites). Today the world is still overwhelmingly dominated by American imperialism and its vast, limitless and lawless operations in the Islamic “arc of crisis”.
We should work towards a world defined by peace, international law, and balance between great nations. For Europeans, this means halting all active subversion of these principles and reviving the antiwar spirit of 2003 against the Iraq invasion, generalizing it to Afghanistan, Libya, Israel/Palestine, and ensuring our governments cannot commit such aggression (against public opinion) again. We have completely failed in this respect.
Like De Gaulle did in much less favorable circumstances, we should verbally resist, abstain from all collaboration wars of aggression, and perhaps even actively undermine the American Empire. This would in the short- and long-run be in Europe’s self-interest: As American power declines we should be actively cultivating good relations with other world powers, and in particular with our Russian and Arab neighbors (the latter in particular should not be sacrificed to American or Israeli ambitions, a self-evidently idiotic policy).
Europeanism: 1) Europe should be democratic. 2) Europe should be for peace, law and independence. 3) Europe should be united. I believe in those tings in that order. European integration is worthless if it violates principles 1) and 2) (which it does constantly). The eurozone is effectively an anti-social, bureaucratic tyranny, and an economically disastrous one at that. It will need radical reform, likely a revolution of thought in Germany, for it to be worthwhile.
Radical ideologies: I stand by what I have long argued on this board, concluding that Communism/Libertarianism/Fascism all remain some combination of irrelevant and/or stupid (and have been stupid since at least the 1960s triumph of liberal democracy, the social market economy, mass society and consumerism, etc).
Environmentalism: Important, but I have a hard time getting worked up about these issues. Factory farming, most GMOs, over-consumption, oil dependency, obesity, carbon emissions, etc, are all bad. In the long run we need to move towards sustainable consumption, resource efficiency, renewables, etc. Developed nations like the U.S.A., Canada and Russia will need to move to basically Euro-Japanese levels of consumption/pollution (or even less). Nuclear is not only defensible but absolutely necessary from a climate perspective.
Democracy & Internet: I’ve a new awareness of the need for national democracy (to some extent the only kind possible) and its corollaries: debate, transparency, free media, the rule of law, etc. This may sound trivial but it’s the only way to both effectively and legitimately affect politics. This has been a fairly sterile topic. Forms of democracy have spread since 1945 and 1989 to all parts of the world (Latin America, Russia, Africa, Turkey…) but if anything its quality declined in the West.
With Internet (which I used to think politically insignificant), there are truly amazing prospects for the radical democratization of our politics: Establishment media are unnecessary (see HuffPo, TPM, rightwing freakshow, blogs), totally transparent government action is possible (see WikiLeaks/Assange, Assad email hacking), and we can engage in direct, unmediated debate (Twitter, Occupy/Indignados, etc).
My general instinct is that government should be as transparent and democratic as possible, with “elites” being as controlled as possible. With the Internet, there is potentially no limit to this tendency. We can literally create neo-Athenian direct e-democracy, with constant citizen participation, yearly election of leaders and generals, and constant referenda on fundamental issues (such as wars, taxes, welfare, constitutional issues).
Having read and learned a bit about Ancient Athens, I feel some nations should experiment with this kind of democracy. It is amazing how a powerful and successful State such as Athens could be so democratic (about 10% are legal citizens), given the constraints of that time (primitive technology, illiteracy, rural society). States who were such democracies would be qualitatively superior, and probably stronger in many ways, to those which are not.
More generally, we are moving to a society where individual autonomy and spontaneous collaboration (even in apparently small ways, CouchSurfing, carpooling..) are spreading and the role of corporate/governmental bureaucracies is declining. That old dream of freedom which motivated Orwell, and as many Marxists as Libertarians...
Social democracy: Redistribution, real progressive taxation, real meritocracy, free education, aggressive monetary/budgetary policy to stimulate growth and employment. Keynesians have been entirely vindicated in the eurozone crisis in particular, which has forced the ECB to tear up the Germano-Ordoliberal rulebook to prevent Depression. More generally, egalitarian capitalist societies are simply superior – in terms of crime, health, democracy, equality of opportunity, social cohesion/breakdown, etc – to less egalitarian ones.
Peace, Gaullism & anti-imperialism: I remain entirely convinced that in general imperialism and militarism are disastrous for both the victim nations (death, destruction, anarchy) and the criminal nations (loss of national wealth, weakening of democracy and law, strengthening of abusive elites). Today the world is still overwhelmingly dominated by American imperialism and its vast, limitless and lawless operations in the Islamic “arc of crisis”.
We should work towards a world defined by peace, international law, and balance between great nations. For Europeans, this means halting all active subversion of these principles and reviving the antiwar spirit of 2003 against the Iraq invasion, generalizing it to Afghanistan, Libya, Israel/Palestine, and ensuring our governments cannot commit such aggression (against public opinion) again. We have completely failed in this respect.
Like De Gaulle did in much less favorable circumstances, we should verbally resist, abstain from all collaboration wars of aggression, and perhaps even actively undermine the American Empire. This would in the short- and long-run be in Europe’s self-interest: As American power declines we should be actively cultivating good relations with other world powers, and in particular with our Russian and Arab neighbors (the latter in particular should not be sacrificed to American or Israeli ambitions, a self-evidently idiotic policy).
Charles de Gaulle, press conference, 23 July 1964 wrote:According to us, Frenchmen, Europe must be European. A European Europe means that it exists through-itself and for-itself, in other words that in the centre of this world it must have its own policy. Yet, precisely, it is that which some reject, consciously or unconsciously, who claim to want to achieve it. Deep down, the fact that Europe, having no policy, should remain submissive to that which comes from the other side of the Atlantic seems to them, still today, normal and satisfactory.
Europeanism: 1) Europe should be democratic. 2) Europe should be for peace, law and independence. 3) Europe should be united. I believe in those tings in that order. European integration is worthless if it violates principles 1) and 2) (which it does constantly). The eurozone is effectively an anti-social, bureaucratic tyranny, and an economically disastrous one at that. It will need radical reform, likely a revolution of thought in Germany, for it to be worthwhile.
Radical ideologies: I stand by what I have long argued on this board, concluding that Communism/Libertarianism/Fascism all remain some combination of irrelevant and/or stupid (and have been stupid since at least the 1960s triumph of liberal democracy, the social market economy, mass society and consumerism, etc).
Environmentalism: Important, but I have a hard time getting worked up about these issues. Factory farming, most GMOs, over-consumption, oil dependency, obesity, carbon emissions, etc, are all bad. In the long run we need to move towards sustainable consumption, resource efficiency, renewables, etc. Developed nations like the U.S.A., Canada and Russia will need to move to basically Euro-Japanese levels of consumption/pollution (or even less). Nuclear is not only defensible but absolutely necessary from a climate perspective.
A stubborn porcupine: heredity & nationhood. Meditate, brother!
« Artists are the antennae of the race. »
« Artists are the antennae of the race. »