Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Classical Liberal Thought--revival or interpretive crisis?

To expand on Classical Liberal Thought--revival or interpretive crisis? 

I caught this by 

Ayn Rand, and the Social Darwinian elitist reptiles, who go around masquerading as classical liberals or libertarians, would be disgusted that a man of his brilliance would have wasted his life helping the weak, and undermining the market.

Unfortunately, when conservatives have not just ignored classical liberal principles, they have often been quite reptilian—in a most deceptively hypocritical way. Adam Smith would be shocked by the conservatives in congress who are so ardent in cutting back health care for children—but will not touch the massive American killing machine. Like all the classical liberals he found nationalism to be economically and morally destructive—all the costs being born by individuals—all for  for the  benefit  of predatory politicians, governments and their partners in crime.

And then he would gag over the way these conservative politicians misuse his ideas of limited government and “free markets”,to grant favors to ,and partner the government racket with, big financial and corporate concerns

This kind of articulates some of what I was trying to get across.

  1. Most of the "activists" and everyday GOP voters are pushing nonsensical theory via Ayn Rand Utopian-fiction (sociopathic-fiction?)
  2. The core classical liberal philosophy they claim to adhere to doesn't fit with the tradition---i.e. they don't know their intellectual history
As I noted in the earlier post, I believe attempts at promoting classical liberal thought in the political realm must come to terms with the realities of modern industrial economies, where multinational bureaucratic corporations are just as influential, if not more influential, than nation-states on the lives of individuals.  The core themes of classical liberal thought are still valuable, but a failure to interpret the impacts of industrialization on these principles leads to public policies that undermine the ability of individuals to retain meaningful liberty and autonomy in their day to day lives. 

I think arguments that there is a revival of classical liberal thought in the form of Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, or the “Tea Party movement” is in fact be the outcome of private power harnessing modern forms of mass media and using the financial backing of major players within the investor class to buy off politician and subsidize think-tanks to spit out bullet points to feed filter back into the political discourse so that everyday citizens on the ground spout talking points they are confident the "experts" they read are correct about.

As Warren Buffett has noted in the past--class warfare is going on right now and his class is winning.

He who controls the past controls the future but right-libertarian talking points are based on faulty premises.

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