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

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

> 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.

That is not how traditional capitalism is understood (corporations did not
exist when capitalism as a theoretical concept and idea originated); nor
does capitalism in economic theory define capitalism as "corporate power"
even after the advent of corporate capitalism.  What you are putting forth
is revisionist ideologically based theory here.  

While it may be true that in practice  capitalism may very well equate
influence in society with the number of dollars you control; but that is not
part of the theory of Capitalism.  Furthermore, even your assertion that
capitalism says "your influence in society depends on the number of 'dollar
votes' you control" does not imply or necessarily a notion of corporate
power; it could equally apply to non-corporate organizations and entities.
Hence, your assertion contradicts your understanding of capitalism as being
corporate power or even corporate based. 

I do accept that with the rise of large corporate entities in the business
sphere of society and their dominance as actors in the economy we have
experienced a change in capitalism from sole proprietary capitalism to
corporate capitalism in practice, which has resulted in a revision of
capitalist theory and practice while maintain the myth that it is the same
as capitalism of old and as set for by traditional capitalist theory.  But
it probably is not inconsistent with the notion and practice corporate
democracy (which some would call fascism in theory).  Namely, fascism being
that corporate entities not people are the actors or citizens of the
democracy. The corporate actors may let individuals go through the
ritualized symbolic act of voting and think that they are participating in
the decision-making and policy formation while they vote with their economic
resources in terms of manipulating the masses and controlling the candidates
in those elections as well as with their ability to define the range and
scope of alternatives that are considered by the government and its agents.




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

I agree that a liberal society of any form need not be a democratic (in any
philosophical tradition) society.  It was you who connected the two in your
post.  I merely noted that the traditional English liberal tradition within
political philosophy has a basis and grounding in individualism, equality of
interests, and a common societal being defined as that which produces the
greatest good for the greatest number of individuals based on a calculus of
their individual combined pleasures and pains wherein each individual is
treated as being of equal value.  I further noted that said philosophy was
compatible with a given tradition of theory on the notion of democracy in
political philosophy. Ironically, if accepts the collectivist concept of
democracy (i.e., such as one that employs Edmund Burke's notion of "virtual
representation" or some similar formation or such as one which holds that
the State exists with the consent of the citizenry and government reach
decisions and take actions to achieve or further the common good of the
collective as an entity not the individuals as entities), then democracy
cannot really qualify as being liberal in the English tradition of
liberalism.

But back to John's original complaint about constructing lists where all the
items on the list comprise all the items in the universe being considered.
If one says all Presidents are on a given list as having a given set of
properties and not others where none of the Presidents are excluded from the
list, then the list tells us nothing about the universe except that it is
different from some other universes made up of a different set of
non-comparable items - such as comparing a list of U.S. Presidents against a
list of Catholic Popes or the leadership of other countries where some or
all on the alternative lists do not have those qualities.



-----Original Message-----
From: C. G. Estabrook [mailto:galliher at illinois.edu] 
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 10:17 PM
To: LAURIE SOLOMON
Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net; KAREN MEDINA; CARL ESTABROOK
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] binary criterion of war/not war

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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