[Peace-discuss] War and peace again

[C. G. Estabrook]

That's what I argued in the July 4 flyer.

The factitious separation of political and economic serves to protect 
the economic order from criticism.  Obviously the major political 
questions -- now the war and health care -- are also questions about the 
economic order. --CGE


Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> Let's remember that some labels are political while others are
> economic.
> 
> Social democracy sounds great to me (and no, I won't hold my breath
> for its happening here anytime soon. Worth working for, however.)
> 
> Free-market/ capitalist democracy is an oxymoron.
> 
> Jenifer
> 
> */"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>/* wrote:
> 
> Hostility to democracy has been commonplace in American politics,
> from the Founding Father's assertion that "those who own the country 
> ought to govern it," to the open contempt for democracy shown by the
> Neocons. But such hostility is rarely asserted as an ideal,
> especially by those presumed to be opposed to war and racism. People
> are usually embarrassed about being opposed to democracy.
> 
> The central assertion of the Enlightenment was that freedom was an 
> essential component of human nature. "I have sworn upon the altar of 
> God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of
>  man," said Jefferson. Some authority may be justified, of course --
> I am right to assert my authority over my four-year-old to prevent
> her running into the street. But authority doesn't exist by right --
> it needs to justify itself.
> 
> It is the task of democracy to establish justified authority. For 
> example, there are those in the community who act against the freedom
> of others, occasionally with violence, and they need to be stopped
> and stopped quickly, and violence may be necessary to do it. A
> democracy will need a police force -- but it should be under
> democratic control.
> 
> But authoritarianism (unjustified authority) is a civic vice, while 
> democracy is a virtue. It's a perversion of Aristotelian moral theory
>  to see political virtue as a mean between authoritarianism (a vice)
> and democracy (a virtue). (It also produces an infinite regress, sort
> of Hegel in reverse.) Aristotle thought that virtue declined in two 
> directions to vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency (e.g., 
> courage is opposed to foolhardiness as well as to cowardice). Thus 
> civic virtue (social order) lies between the vices of excessive law 
> (authoritarianism) and lawlessness (anarchy).
> 
> We do not say that political virtue is a balance between violence and
>  peace. Peace is the ideal, even though (justified) violence may 
> sometimes be necessary for its attainment. Democracy is the ideal,
> even though (justified) authority may be necessary for its
> attainment. (Hence the right of revolution.)
> 
> What Aristotle actually said about democracy was that it would 
> necessarily be undermined and destroyed by authoritarianism in a 
> situation of inequality. Inequality and democracy are contradictory, 
> Aristotle thought, so you had to restrict one or the other. The US 
> founding fathers, who were well educated in the classics, understood 
> the problem -- and chose to limit democracy, not inequality. Madison
> wrote that the Constitution was designed "to protect the minority of
> the opulent against the majority" -- i.e., it was set up to restrict
> the democratic impulses of Americans (e.g., Shays' Rebellion, 1786)
> so that the rich wouldn't be threatened with redistribution of their
> wealth.
> 
> The political spectrum does not run from authority to democracy, but 
> from authoritarianism (on the Right) to democracy (on the Left). 
> Anarchism -- a political theory to be sharply distinguished from the 
> state of anarchy, although the distinction is often and purposely 
> confused -- is at the far Left end. Anarchism doesn't mean no rules, 
> just no rulers. An anarchist society -- a free association of 
> workers/producers (which is what human beings are) -- would
> necessarily be a highly organized society. There would have to be a
> good deal of democratic authority, but no authoritarianism.
> 
> Oscar Wilde once said, "Socialism is a good idea, but it would take
> too many evenings." All anarchists are socialists, but not all
> socialists are anarchists. The 20th century acquainted us with the
> phenomenon of authoritarian socialism -- right-wing socialism -- but
> affords few examples of the non-authoritarian sort.
> 
> Lenin of course recognized the phenomenon in his 1920 book "Left-Wing
>  Communism -- An Infantile Disorder." He was against it.
> Authoritarians are opposed to democracy.
> 
> --CGE
>