>Substanbtive equalkity means the resources,
>conditions, and effective power to exercise those rights in a manner that
>is
>righly equal in efficacy to anybody else.
>
>Tahir: Well this doesn't say very much about the kind of human community in
>which this is possible. Even acepting your rather vague definition, I can't
>see how the liberal conception of freedom could bring this about.
It can't. Conceptions don't bring about social change. Class struggle dies.
>"Those rights" above refers to equality before the law.
Among others, that is one right.
>Now you say that you should somehow have the resources, etc. to exercise
>your legal rights. But it is the law that prevents anyone from gaining the
>resources etc. that are equal to everyone else's.
Depends on what the law says, doesn't it? Besidesm I don't argue for equality of resources, for the reasons Marx gives in the CGP.
>I'm not any sort of legal expert, but I do think I know that the
>institutions of law were created in the first place largely to safeguard
>private property, i.e. existing private property.
I am a legal expert, an aameteur historian of law, and you are quite right. But what has that do with anything? A socialsit law would have different purposes.
>Very funny, you start with the law and then say that we must all get the
>resources etc. to become efficaciously equal before the law. Weird and
>confused.
I don't believe taht I have been that unclear. I start with social struggle, not law. LAw is a product of tahts struggle. I explained that I am historical materialist.
>
> >Tahir: Well whether I have anything better is not the point.
>
>It certainly is.
>
>Tahir: You know what I am arguing for and that is communism.
And you accused me of being vague!
>I have also mentioned that I regard this as commensurate with Hegel's
>notion of absolute ethical life. This cannot be achieved on the basis of of
>a (legal or moral) system that recognises only the freedom of the
>autonomous subject. This is liberal democracy.
I like Sittlichkeit as much as the next fella. But I have studied the Philosophy of Right, and I find Hegel's story about how Sittlichkeit can be realized in what is to all effects a liberal democracy rather attractive in outline. I think I am a better Hegelian than you, and Hegel a real liberal.
> I think on even a moderate and open leftist list such as this one, the onus is on you to show that your substantive notion of equality (which apparently would involve massive redistribution of resources and prevention of capital accummulation such that the power of one would not overwhelm the "rights" of another) is compatible with liberalism. You've done nothing in any of your posts to make that argument.
I bactually don't see the problem. If we had laws vesting property rights in a democratic state and prohibiting anys ubstantial inheritance, requiring worker control, would that prohibit the prorection of freedom of political association and speech, therunning of competitive elections, allowing everyone to vote? I genuinely don't get it.
>>Tahir: Again the only way that this could become interesting on a leftist
>>list is if you are prepared to explain: e.g. You have a critique of
>>capitalism, you say. But you are in favour of the market. So you are in
>>favour of money, the wage relation, the dominance of commodity exchange,
>>the accumulation of capital. No? Please tell me where this is critical of
>>capitalism; I'm not seeing it yet. What is this socialism and how would it
>>come about through your beloved liberal democracy?
Look thsione up in the archives. I've been on this round at great length several times before, and haven't the energy to do it now. Buta verys hort answer: what do you think the capitalsists would call it if we took their property away, instituted worker control of production anddemocratic control of investment, and abolished wage labor?
>Tahir: OK in a nutshell: A human community in which people give freely of
>their creative and productive powers and share the product equally freely.
\
Again, _I'm_ being vague?
>
>Tahir: Justin, you're defining the alternatives without any reference here
>to marxism or communism, despite everything that's gone before.
Yah. That's on purpose.
>You know I'm not advocating a state of any kind, nor am I supporting either
>democracy as we know it or a regression to some sort of pre-democratic
>polity or whatever.
OK, but I am still in the darak about what you are advocating.
>Tahir: Perhaps not, but I have seen nothing in any of your arguments to
>show that you want anything really except just more of the same.
Interesting. Maybe is I should apply for a federal judgeship, use you asa reference.
>You want to be the forever good guy fighting the forces of evil in the
>courtroom, defending the ungrateful marxists, etc. etc., deeply cynical,
>but still romantic enough to believe that these values on which the system
>is based still have some meaning, etc. etc.
That's true.
>Did you consume a lot of Raymond Chandler novels at an impressionable age?
>
Matter of fact, yes. Does that mean I get the slinky girls, too?
>
>Tahir: Because the contradiction is in your formulation right here.
>Remember that I said that liberal democracy is one of the two main
>political expressions of capitalism, the other being rightwing
>dictatorship. Now you propose public ownership, worker's control etc. and
>you want to bring this about through the institutions of liberal democracy,
>presumably by voting in a radical social democratic party.
I didn't asy anything about how this would come about.
>But long before that party gets into the hot seat and starts expropriating
>property and giving control to workers etc. (what's liberal about that I
>don't know) it will be swept aside by the real economic powers that be, who
>will have absolutely no intention of having their property made "public" or
>giving "control" to workers. Liberal democracy is only there when the
>masses can be persuaded to consent to the rule of the ruling class; when
>they don't consent liberal democracy goes out of the window.
That's a real problem, I grant you. It better not be afatal objection, because it's the central problem for the left in a democratic society.
>
>
>I didn't say MINIMAL govt, nightwatchman
>state, I'm not a Locke-Nozick libertarian. I said LIMITED government,
>basically that the govt must be given specific powers by the people, and
>the
>people have a lot of rights against the govt, free speech and the like. How
>does that promote capitalism?
>
>Tahir: Oh Justin where does one even begin!
Don't fucking condescend tome, you twerp.
>Now Justin, without wanting to be arrogant, I really will only continue
>with this if you can take the discussion to a slightly higher level than
>what you've done so far.
>
Fuck off, pardon my French.
jks
_________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com