[Peace-discuss] binary criterion of war/not war

[C. G. Estabrook]

Capitalism (understood as corporate power) and democracy are indeed 
contradictories.  The latter has one person/one vote as an ideal; the former 
says your influence in society depends on the number of "dollar votes" you control.

And a liberal society (even the utilitarian form you sketch) need not be very 
democratic to qualify as liberal.


LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
> 
> Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] binary criterion of war/not war
> 
>> The existence of an elite does not make a liberal democracy not to be one
> 
> While I have not kept up with the current writings in political philosophy,
> back in the day when I was a political science and sociology student in both
> undergrad and graduate school, I had political theory and philosophy as one
> of my field of specialization.  From what I remember from those days, the
> concept of liberalism as found in English political philosophy had main
> grounding in Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and James Mills (the father of
> J.S. Mills), which itself had some derivation from Thomas Hobbes.  It placed
> emphasis on the individual with the collective being governed on the basis
> of a summing up of pleasure versus pain values of all the individuals where
> all pleasures and all pains had the same equal value in the equation (push
> pen is as good as poetry in terms of its value) and the taking of state
> action in accordance with the principle that the state should act in a way
> that will give the most pleasure to the most individuals and cause the least
> pain to most individuals.  This was not an elitist philosophy per se and did
> not say any one group was better or their interests were worth more than any
> other.  
> 
> The notion of democracy, the notion of liberty or freedom, had several
> different traditions and meaning in political philosophy - not just one.
> The tradition that place emphasis on an individualistic idea of "one man,
> one vote" or all citizens were to be equal participants in governmental
> decision-making and policy formation, while typically restricted to those
> who under the cultural definitions of the time were deemed to be "men" or
> "citizens" with everyone else being excluded, presumed that government would
> as a result act in the interest of the majority of the 'citizens."  Then
> came representative democracy where representative were selected on the
> basis of one citizen one vote with the majority or plurality of the votes
> determining who would officially represent the interests of the voters and
> act in their behalf.  Theoretically, this was not an elitist philosophy
> either once one accepted that the group defined as citizens were the
> universe that the notion of democracy applied to and not to the general
> population as a whole.
> 
> The point is as I said it all comes down to depending on how you define
> terms.  However, if the existence of an elite does not make a liberal
> democracy not a democracy as you suggest, then I fail to see any difference
> between fascist dictatorships and liberal democracy except the necessity
> under a fascist dictatorship to have corporations, which did not exist to
> any extent before middle and late industrial period of human history.
> Without the notion of corporations the comparison becomes one of a
> dictatorship versus a democracy where it boils down to the rule of the many
> versus the rule of the few.  Therefore, if - in empirical reality and
> practice - the existence of an elite does not nullify the existence of a
> democracy, then the notion of democracy in the traditional Greek sense and
> the English Liberal sense becomes meaningless.  
> 
>> From the Greeks to the suppression of political discourse by PR in
> contemporary 
>> America, political philosophy -- on means and ends -- was always a group 
>> enterprise.  That's what "political" means.
> 
> As far as I am concern, the above is a non-sequitor and not very clear a
> statement at that.  Are you saying that political philosophy was or has been
> always a group enterprise; or are you saying that political philosophies on
> the means and ends of the State have always focused on the purposes of the
> State which was viewed as a group enterprise?  Even if you are suggesting
> the latter, there have been both individualistic and collectivistic notions
> of what the goals, purposes, and ends of the State as a group enterprise
> should be and individual based and collectivist based views of the means to
> achieve the goals, purposes, and ends of the State as a group enterprise
> (i.e., a socio-cultural and economic community). This is one of the features
> that differentiates Anglo-American (and Greek and pre-industrial revolution
> English and European political discourse) from European political discourse
> after the industrial revolution. By the way that is also what "social" and
> "cultural" also mean - a group enterprise.  Again depending on how one
> defines terms and cuts the pie, the specifics of what "political," "social,"
> and "cultural" refers to varies as does the referents for "polity,"
> "economy," "society," and "community."  However, I fail to see how this
> relates to the topic in question since we are discussing collectivities and
> not individuals.
> 
>> The late Australian social scientist Alex Carey wrote, "The 20th century
> has 
>> been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The
> 
>> growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of
> corporate 
>> propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
> 
> 
> As for Carey's statements, corporate power can be read to stand for elite
> and democracy can be read as standing for the masses.  In which case,
> elitism is not compatible with democracy in the sense that control over
> government decision-making and policy by an elite and for the elite is not
> compatible with control over governmental decision making and policy by and
> for the masses.  If he means for these terms to stand for something else,
> then I have no idea what he is talking about or what he was stating.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: C. G. Estabrook [mailto:galliher at illinois.edu] 
> Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 5:53 PM
> To: LAURIE SOLOMON
> Cc: 'John W.'; 'Peace-discuss List'; 'Karen Medina'
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] binary criterion of war/not war
> 
> The existence of an elite does not make a liberal democracy not to be one;
> in 
> fact it may be necessary. (On the concept, see e.g. Francis Fukuyama, "The
> End 
> of History and the Last Man" [1992] -- altho' I'm not recommending
> Fukuyama's 
> particular argument.)
> 
>  From the Greeks to the suppression of political discourse by PR in
> contemporary 
> America, political philosophy -- on means and ends -- was always a group 
> enterprise.  That's what "political" means.
> 
> The late Australian social scientist Alex Carey wrote, "The 20th century has
> 
> been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The 
> growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of
> corporate 
> propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
> 
> 
> LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
>>> I'm surprised to hear you argue that there's no difference between a
>>> fascist dictatorship and a liberal democracy. I though only hard-core
>>> radicals said that. It's ridiculous.
>> Depending on how one defines one's terms, in theory, there may be a 
>> difference or differences; but in practice, show me one liberal democracy 
>> that exists or ever has existed.  They have all tended toward elitism of
> one
>>  form or another, toward some type of dictatorship of a special group over
>> the others- be it bureaucrats, elected representatives, business or trade 
>> interests, workers and labor interests, the educated, the well born,
> etc.), 
>> and toward promoting, sustaining, and maintaining some established value 
>> system as the socially sanctioned, culturally dominant and politically 
>> correct one. In the real world, the differences all boil down to a matter
> of
>>  degree and not a matter of kind.
>>
>>> It's at least as ridiculous to think that we can't imagine a better
> polity
>>> (and economy) than we have now.
>> It is just as ridiculous to assume that one persons imagining is the exact
> 
>> same or even similar to another's or that your view of the better polity 
>> would be mine or anyone else's.  The real question is if it is ridiculous
> to
>>  image a better polity than we have now without also imagining a realistic
>> and effective way to achieve it as well and be willing to give up
> everything
>> to bring about its implementation.  Otherwise, all one is doing is
> engaging
>> in an exercise in mental masturbation.
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net 
>> [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. 
>> Estabrook Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 2:42 PM To: John W. Cc:
> Peace-discuss
>>  List; Karen Medina Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] binary criterion of
> war/not 
>> war
>>
>> I'm surprised to hear you argue that there's no difference between a
> fascist
>>  dictatorship and a liberal democracy. I though only hard-core radicals
> said
>>  that. It's ridiculous.
>>
>> It's at least as ridiculous to think that we can't imagine a better polity
> 
>> (and economy) than we have now.  It's difficult to get there, of course.
>>
>> John W. wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 8:26 PM, Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com 
>>> <mailto:kmedina67 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> wake me up when one of you figures out a better system of
>>> government, in
>>>> terms of your ONE stupid binary criterion of war/not war.
>>> This does bring up an interesting question. I don't think that the type
> of
>>> government has much to do with whether a country will go to war.
>>>
>>>
>>> You're correct; type of government has nothing at all to do with it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> What does make a difference?
>>>
>>> I suppose smaller, less powerful countries tend not to declare war on
>> their
>>> big, powerful neighbors [there are notable exceptions to this rule]. But
>> in
>>> order to have small countries, large powerful countries would also need
> to
>>> exist and the big powerful countries would be tempted to create empires.
>>>
>>>
>>> That's right.  But I was not speaking only of one country against
> another,
>> as
>>> we traditionally define countries.  In many countries, perhaps especially
> 
>>> the smaller ones, two or more groups of people fight and kill one another
> 
>>> over power.  In our own nation, gangs fight and kill one another over 
>>> "territory", etc.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I suppose that a country made up entirely of Quakers and Mennonites would
>> not
>>> start a war. But I don't think religion is a good way to separate people 
>>> into countries. [Though I have noticed that Mormon children consistently 
>>> share their toys the most readily of all the children I have observed.]
>>>
>>> I suppose that if all the countries were on equal footing with regards to
> 
>>> resources and access to the basic needs, then there would be less
>> temptation
>>> to go to war.
>>>
>>>
>>> Less, perhaps, but far from zero.  Remember, most of the wars are started
>> by
>>> the leaders of the wealthier, more powerful countries who want to be even
> 
>>> MORE wealthy and powerful.  Greed has no limit, and it is inherent in
>> human
>>> nature.  Perhaps less so in the Quakers and Mennonites.  ;-)  And of
>> course
>>> in AWARE members.  ;-)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I think that every 7 years, everything needs to be re-distributed
> equally.
>>>
>>> It would be lovely, but it would do very little to end war.  And who is
>> going
>>> to supervise the redistribution?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -karen medina
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
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