Have a look into libertarian socialism aka anarchism (among other ideologies). An internally consistent ideology that accounts for humanitys shitty side while maximizing human freedom. With a decent track record to boot
Unfortunately so many are indoctrinated through language to not understand such an abstract. Anarchism/anarchy is "chaos". Not to mention the horrible representation of the much more visible oxymorons. Anarcho-capitalists are a contradiction in themselves.
But there is one compelling argument for people to learn and understand it. Understanding it will piss off anarcho-capitalists and Big L Libertarians to no end. And take away any of the mystique or good will others might have towards them. No freedoms but social freedoms. If you have a freedom that is personal to you that others do not get to enjoy or share. That is a privilege and not a freedom. And even pointing this out will cause both groups to sethe and sputter ineffectually
I’ve read most of his books and missed this, or it never stuck with me.
Thanks for posting it. Dude was smart.
I’d like the source, please.
3rd edit:
Asimov, The Sun Shines Bright, Ch. 17 Nice Guys Finish First!, pp 124.
It's actually a footnote and not part of the text, so here's some context:
Within these units co-operation has been brought about, despite the natural
tendency to destructive competition, by the application of governmental authority,
internal police and, most of all, the strictures of custom, social pressure and religion.
The general advance in the size of the units within which co-operation is
maintained has, at the present day, produced governmental control over a population
of 950 million people in China; 22 million square kilometres of area in the Soviet
Union; and one third of the real wealth of the world in the United States.
The advance has not been smooth and steady. The stresses of internal decay and
external pressure have led to the fall of empires and the periodic destruction of central
authority and its replacement by smaller units. Such periods of regression usually
result in a 'dark age'. (4)
—
(4) There are people who, disturbed by 'big government' today and its tendency to curb the advantages they
might gain if their competitiveness were allowed free flow, demand 'less government'. Alas, there is no such
thing as less government, merely changes in government. If the libertarians had their way, the distant
bureaucracy would vanish and the local bully would be in charge. Personally, I prefer the distant
bureaucracy, which may not find me, over the local bully, who certainly will. And all historical precedent
shows a change to localism to be for the worse.
—
Today, the world undergoes centrifugal decomposition politically, as the old
European empires break up and as cultural minorities demand nations all their own;
but economic units continue to grow larger and the only economic unit that makes
sense today is the whole planet.
In one way, it's the political units that count, for it is they who wage war. Though
peace is maintained within the units (if we ignore endemic crime and violence, and
occasional terrorism, rebellion and civil war) there is war between them.
City-states warred against each other interminably in ancient Greece and in
Renaissance Italy; feudal estates did so in medieval Europe and early modern
Japan; nations did so in early medieval China and modern Europe, and in all cases
until modern times there were conflicts with barbarians on the fringes.
The intensity and destructiveness of the conflicts shows a general rise with
advancing technology, so that despite the growing size of the units within which co-
operation can be counted on, competitiveness may still win out. Destruction still
threatens to outpace the capacity for recovery.
We now live at a time when the outcome clearly hangs in the balance. One more all-
out general war and civilization will probably be destroyed - possibly for good.
Indeed, even if the realization of this keeps the war from happening, the existence
of potential conflict keeps the minds and energy of all the competing nations on each
other as the enemy and not on those true enemies which threaten us all -
overpopulation, resource depletion and technology inadequacy.
Nasty guys will finish last.
Hes not wrong, just didn't have the zeitgeist to add climate change to the list.
"Nice Guys Finish First," collected in the book "The Sun Shines Bright," but originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Asimov published four books in 1980: Casebook of the Black Widowers, How Did We Find Out About Oil?, In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954–1978 and How Did We Find Out About Coal?
Of those, Casebook of the Black Widowers was a collection of mystery short stories and the "How Did We Find Out About" books were childrens' non-fiction, which leaves only In Joy Still Felt as a potential candidate for this quote. I downloaded an EPUB version of this book and did a search for "libertarians" and found nothing.
Either the OP got the year wrong, or they just pulled this quote out of their ass.
Hm. Did a search for a couple quotes from the text. Absolutely no returns on 4 search engines. One would think Asimov’s work would be pretty easy to find, especially a quote so timely. I’m now skeptical.
"The Sun Shines Bright" is the book where it was collected, but it was originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Yeah, it looks like it's from the article "Nice Guys Finish First!" That article was apparently published in a magazine in 1980, so technically the OP is right, although it wasn't collected into a book until the following year.
"The Sun Shines Bright" is the book where it was collected, but it was originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
"The Sun Shines Bright" is the book where it was collected, but it was originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
I just did a search on both of those books and "libertarians" doesn't show up. It wouldn't make sense for it to be in a Foundation book anyway, since those are science fiction books set in the distant future and don't mention contemporary political movements directly.
The book was already identified in this thread, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Foundation. It's a compilation of a bunch of non-fiction magazine articles. Why are you still beating this horse?
I'm not trying to start shit or anything like that, I'm genuinely curious. What do you consider to be fiscally conservative, and how would that differ from what you consider to be fiscally progressive?
Being fine with taxes seems like something someone who would apply a conservative label to themselves appears a bit contradictory. I get it, I'm a libertarian socialist and would abolish taxes (among many other things) given the right conditions. Which might look contradictory on the surface depending on your understand of socialism.
It depends on the flavor of conservative, it's just been a while I've seen people describe themselves specifically as fiscally conservative. And a lot of the people I've known to use that term are very much free market types that dislike any form of regulation, taxation or government interference in industry/commerce.
Im not going to put a label on you that you don't welcome but your (brief) description of your preferred economic policy is in line with the "left leaning" side of liberals, and old establishment democrats. Austerity politics is big in the DNC, despite their virtue signaling. (I was re-reading this and noticed I assumed you were from the US, apologies if you're not.)
Wouldn't you consider taxes to be a form of wealth distribution? On paper, the wealthy are supposed to pay taxes to fund public projects. That's obviously not how that happens but I'm sure we can both agree that this is how it's sold to us. It's quite literally taking more money from the wealthiest than the poorest and using that money for the betterment of all, which the less wealthy individuals in society benefit the most from.
In California, something like 53% of the land is public or state property meaning that California has even more land for the public to use than Washington. Poor sap tricked himself into thinking Texas was so great. Texas is a shithole. Sorry not sorry.
Oh yeah, when I first heard of BLM camping, I had to look it up, because there are very few opportunities for it here in the mid-Atlantic states. I had no idea such a thing existed.
It's the ultimate lie of Neoliberalism - it's not about Freedom for people (when you are born into a World were all places you could sleep in or grow your food in are owned, you are not Free), it's about Freedom for Money. Neoliberalism actually strengthens the rights of property, reducing the rights of non-owners.
So if you aren't one of the 1% you're even less Free under Neoliberalism than straight Capitalism.
Neoliberalism has Neofeudalism as end-form. The goal is to get back to feudal times, where Lords would be the factual government on their territory, just that it would be justified through god given ownership, rather than god given priviledged status.
Just want to point out that there is a difference between "Libertarian Capitalism" and "Libertarian Socialism"; and as per usual, the capitalists were the one who stole the label.
Libertarian socialism is an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist political current that emphasises self-governance and workers' self-management. It is contrasted from other forms of socialism by its rejection of state ownership and from other forms of libertarianism by its rejection of private property. Broadly defined, it includes schools of both anarchism and Marxism, as well as other tendencies that oppose the state and capitalism.
The oxymoron "Libertarian Capitalism" is an propagandistic rebranding of landlord feudalism, engineered by a right-wing grifter who thought Adam Smith was a pinko commie.
It's taken seriously by the folks who despite all of the evidence, think trickle-down economics is a good idea. It's a joke to everyone else.
the ideological justification behind privatizing everything is to make every man a king. the thing about that is, it means that any time you leave your kingdom you have to deal with several fickle idiot kings whose rules can change from moment to moment and who can ignore everyone and do whatever he wants without appeal. with public ownership there is one king, and he may suck but there are limits on what he can do and if we all don't like what he does we can replace him or change the limits.
In my early 20's I thought I was a Libertarian, but that ended when I figured out they oppose all gun regulations, because after Columbine mass shootings only got more numerous and not less.
The Western US is really pretty special this way, I think. When traveling other countries, even really pretty views or nice beaches, it's a little depressing many times there's just no wildish place to picnic or camp or wander freely without a guide or agenda.
TBH, "libertarianism" was originally a left-wing ideal. Proudhon famously said "property is theft" and Malatesta (the most famous libertarian from Italy, where I live) was an anarchist. Right-wingers just co-opted the term like they did with many others.
(like they co-opted d'annunzio, a famous Italian poet. Now everybody knows him as "a fascist" but the nation he founded, the free state of Fiume, was the first nation to recognize the USSR (and the USSR recognized them back, irrc) He was also a member of a left-wing party, saying he was "going towards life" But as always, fascists appropriated a lot of things ideated by him.
Worker's unions had real power in Fiume, compare it to fascist Italy where they were basically 100% subservient to the party and you start to get a more nuanced and "controversial" picture of d'annunzio and Fiume. I suggest people that believe him to be a fascist to study him more, that's all, from a guy that lives in Italy and has studied him. Rant over. )
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.
Surprise surprise, the biggest supporters of "small government" just want to own everything themselves. Who could've seen that coming?
Oh, right, literally anyone with a brain.
Communism is very similar in this way. It's great on paper, and then people put it into practice...
There is a big difference though. Communism acknowledges collective goals and responsibilities. Libertarianism denies them.
Incidentally I thought both philosophies sounded somewhat reasonable when I was around 13.
...it is EVEN BETTER
Have a look into libertarian socialism aka anarchism (among other ideologies). An internally consistent ideology that accounts for humanitys shitty side while maximizing human freedom. With a decent track record to boot
Unfortunately so many are indoctrinated through language to not understand such an abstract. Anarchism/anarchy is "chaos". Not to mention the horrible representation of the much more visible oxymorons. Anarcho-capitalists are a contradiction in themselves.
But there is one compelling argument for people to learn and understand it. Understanding it will piss off anarcho-capitalists and Big L Libertarians to no end. And take away any of the mystique or good will others might have towards them. No freedoms but social freedoms. If you have a freedom that is personal to you that others do not get to enjoy or share. That is a privilege and not a freedom. And even pointing this out will cause both groups to sethe and sputter ineffectually
It's a reasonable philosophy to start out with... when you're young. Some people mature at different ages than others.
Isaac Asimov called it back in 1980.
I’ve read most of his books and missed this, or it never stuck with me.Thanks for posting it. Dude was smart.I’d like the source, please.
3rd edit:
Asimov, The Sun Shines Bright, Ch. 17 Nice Guys Finish First!, pp 124.
It's actually a footnote and not part of the text, so here's some context:
—
—
Hes not wrong, just didn't have the zeitgeist to add climate change to the list.
"Nice Guys Finish First," collected in the book "The Sun Shines Bright," but originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Found it, thank you very much.
Asimov published four books in 1980: Casebook of the Black Widowers, How Did We Find Out About Oil?, In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954–1978 and How Did We Find Out About Coal?
Of those, Casebook of the Black Widowers was a collection of mystery short stories and the "How Did We Find Out About" books were childrens' non-fiction, which leaves only In Joy Still Felt as a potential candidate for this quote. I downloaded an EPUB version of this book and did a search for "libertarians" and found nothing.
Either the OP got the year wrong, or they just pulled this quote out of their ass.
Hm. Did a search for a couple quotes from the text. Absolutely no returns on 4 search engines. One would think Asimov’s work would be pretty easy to find, especially a quote so timely. I’m now skeptical.
E: found it, see previous edit.
"The Sun Shines Bright" is the book where it was collected, but it was originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Found it, thank you!
The year is wrong: it's 1981, from "the sun shines bright"
Yeah, it looks like it's from the article "Nice Guys Finish First!" That article was apparently published in a magazine in 1980, so technically the OP is right, although it wasn't collected into a book until the following year.
"The Sun Shines Bright" is the book where it was collected, but it was originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
This is fucking great, and a point I've tried to argue with some family several times. Power exists, it is just a matter of where.
What book/article is this from?
"The Sun Shines Bright" is the book where it was collected, but it was originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Foundation bro. Probably "foundation" or "prelude foundation".
I just did a search on both of those books and "libertarians" doesn't show up. It wouldn't make sense for it to be in a Foundation book anyway, since those are science fiction books set in the distant future and don't mention contemporary political movements directly.
Foundation goes over government heavily dude, like very heavily.
The government of a space empire so far in the future that humans don't even know what planet they originally came from anymore.
Correct, governmental systems don't change that much.
Similarly the reader does know since robots - empire and foundation are all one contiguous series.
The book was already identified in this thread, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Foundation. It's a compilation of a bunch of non-fiction magazine articles. Why are you still beating this horse?
Is this still true? There have been significant advances in mass surveillance.
Uh huh... https://thetexan.news/state/texas-state-news/texas-ranks-lowest-state-in-personal-freedom-according-to-cato-institute/article_077f2458-8d61-11ee-acda-e3032902d205.html
Hahaha it's number 1 on campaign financing freedom
I literally laughed out loud when I got to that part. Everything in personal freedom was so low then campaign financing hit
Interesting… Overall Texas is 16 and NY is 50.
Edit: as a matter of fact, the bottom of that list looks very blue.
I'm not trying to start shit or anything like that, I'm genuinely curious. What do you consider to be fiscally conservative, and how would that differ from what you consider to be fiscally progressive?
Being fine with taxes seems like something someone who would apply a conservative label to themselves appears a bit contradictory. I get it, I'm a libertarian socialist and would abolish taxes (among many other things) given the right conditions. Which might look contradictory on the surface depending on your understand of socialism.
It depends on the flavor of conservative, it's just been a while I've seen people describe themselves specifically as fiscally conservative. And a lot of the people I've known to use that term are very much free market types that dislike any form of regulation, taxation or government interference in industry/commerce.
Im not going to put a label on you that you don't welcome but your (brief) description of your preferred economic policy is in line with the "left leaning" side of liberals, and old establishment democrats. Austerity politics is big in the DNC, despite their virtue signaling. (I was re-reading this and noticed I assumed you were from the US, apologies if you're not.)
Wouldn't you consider taxes to be a form of wealth distribution? On paper, the wealthy are supposed to pay taxes to fund public projects. That's obviously not how that happens but I'm sure we can both agree that this is how it's sold to us. It's quite literally taking more money from the wealthiest than the poorest and using that money for the betterment of all, which the less wealthy individuals in society benefit the most from.
In California, something like 53% of the land is public or state property meaning that California has even more land for the public to use than Washington. Poor sap tricked himself into thinking Texas was so great. Texas is a shithole. Sorry not sorry.
This was a huge shock for me when I moved east. I should have looked at the BLM access maps before moving.
Oh yeah, when I first heard of BLM camping, I had to look it up, because there are very few opportunities for it here in the mid-Atlantic states. I had no idea such a thing existed.
OP learns freedom is for the rich.
Kind of. This also hurts the rich, unless they're really want to pay for a theme park experience.
I don't care how rich you are, nobody is buying 44% of Washington state.
Texas sounds like hell
It's known for it's one star rating
I just had to. Would make for a nice bumper sticker if it didn't get you shot down here
Ha! Clever.
Only outside of winter. For winter it's hell frozen over.
No, that's in Michigan.
Represent!
No, that would be most of Russia
Have you tried not being poor and buying your own dirt bike track and forest to hunt in?
It's the ultimate lie of Neoliberalism - it's not about Freedom for people (when you are born into a World were all places you could sleep in or grow your food in are owned, you are not Free), it's about Freedom for Money. Neoliberalism actually strengthens the rights of property, reducing the rights of non-owners.
So if you aren't one of the 1% you're even less Free under Neoliberalism than straight Capitalism.
Neoliberalism has Neofeudalism as end-form. The goal is to get back to feudal times, where Lords would be the factual government on their territory, just that it would be justified through god given ownership, rather than god given priviledged status.
It is the same thing though.
Just want to point out that there is a difference between "Libertarian Capitalism" and "Libertarian Socialism"; and as per usual, the capitalists were the one who stole the label.
Interesting distinction. Could you or another explane it? My Political "chops" aren't that good yet.
Wikipedia - Libertarian socialism
It's usually a synonym for Anarchism.
The oxymoron "Libertarian Capitalism" is an propagandistic rebranding of landlord feudalism, engineered by a right-wing grifter who thought Adam Smith was a pinko commie.
It's taken seriously by the folks who despite all of the evidence, think trickle-down economics is a good idea. It's a joke to everyone else.
the ideological justification behind privatizing everything is to make every man a king. the thing about that is, it means that any time you leave your kingdom you have to deal with several fickle idiot kings whose rules can change from moment to moment and who can ignore everyone and do whatever he wants without appeal. with public ownership there is one king, and he may suck but there are limits on what he can do and if we all don't like what he does we can replace him or change the limits.
In practice "every man is a king" means he with the most cash is actually a king and everyone else is their serf. It's a return to feudalism
why do you think the people with the most cash push it so hard?
In my early 20's I thought I was a Libertarian, but that ended when I figured out they oppose all gun regulations, because after Columbine mass shootings only got more numerous and not less.
Libertarians are not reasonable people.
I also used to think I was libertarian until I started being exposed to the injustices of capitalism. I am no longer libertarian
Oh, hey, same (more or less).
I need somewhere to dort bike
d o r t
The Western US is really pretty special this way, I think. When traveling other countries, even really pretty views or nice beaches, it's a little depressing many times there's just no wildish place to picnic or camp or wander freely without a guide or agenda.
TBH, "libertarianism" was originally a left-wing ideal. Proudhon famously said "property is theft" and Malatesta (the most famous libertarian from Italy, where I live) was an anarchist. Right-wingers just co-opted the term like they did with many others.
(like they co-opted d'annunzio, a famous Italian poet. Now everybody knows him as "a fascist" but the nation he founded, the free state of Fiume, was the first nation to recognize the USSR (and the USSR recognized them back, irrc) He was also a member of a left-wing party, saying he was "going towards life" But as always, fascists appropriated a lot of things ideated by him. Worker's unions had real power in Fiume, compare it to fascist Italy where they were basically 100% subservient to the party and you start to get a more nuanced and "controversial" picture of d'annunzio and Fiume. I suggest people that believe him to be a fascist to study him more, that's all, from a guy that lives in Italy and has studied him. Rant over. )
Nestor Makhno, the Ukrainian anarchist, referred to himself as a libertarian, I believe.
It's actually a bit of a complicated story: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/william-gillis-from-stirner-to-mussolini
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.
They do respect the right to private property.
Exactly, what they were lamenting about was a lack of access to more socialist approaches where things are held in commons. Delusional.