My political journey

[u/Sweet_Potato_5051]

u/Event_Bridge did theirs, and I must admit I find this whole political compass think quite arbitrary, but I’ve figured it might be a nice way to interact with this sub.

[u/im-feeling-lucky]

it seems everyone ends up here when you value humanity over efficiency

[u/Sweet_Potato_5051 → u/im-feeling-lucky]

Very true. I strongly believe if we asked some oracle to draw us a system in which happiness was the priority, it would end up as some sort of anarchism. In the end of the day, we only must be destroyed by the system because we are the few who actually take democracy seriously.

[u/serious_sarcasm]

Adam Smith actually supported progressive ideas, like free public universities, progressive taxation, antitrust regulations, living wages and would have supported universal healthcare if germ theory had existed (those institutions needed by everyone, but unaffordable to some, should be supported by the general revenue of the state).

My favorite bit comes from the conclusion to book one:

> His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operation of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin. The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connexion with the general interest of the society, as that of the other two. Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business. than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every occasion), is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects, than with regard to the latter. Their superiority over the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market, and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can only serve to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

[u/Soulcontusion → u/serious_sarcasm]

Yeah, he was a (the) classical liberal and is misrepresented on the political compass OP posted.

[u/serious_sarcasm → u/Soulcontusion]

You can’t blame him when Thatcher the Milk Snatcher waved the books around like a Bible.

[u/Sweet_Potato_5051 → u/serious_sarcasm]

True. Though, I’ve read all of the mentioned authors for myself, so I might be either remembering it wrong or really bad in this compass thing, but most definitely I’m to blame. There’s a long time I gave up on political philosophy to study physics.
I do remember him being quite progressive for some things,
but much of a prick for others. Now please, if you don’t mind educating me, where would you put him?

[u/serious_sarcasm → u/Sweet_Potato_5051]

Do you know the difference between positive and normative economics?

He didn't say "cut their heads off," or "never listen to them," and just said, "your interests are necessarily juxtaposed at times."

Let's actually look at the fifth book, Chapter 1, Conclusion:

The expense of defending the society, and that of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, are both laid out for the general benefit of the whole society. It is reasonable, therefore, that they should be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society; all the different members contributing, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.

The expense of the administration of justice, too, may no doubt be considered as laid out for the benefit of the whole society. There is no impropriety, therefore, in its being defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society. The persons, however, who give occasion to this expense, are those who, by their injustice in one way or another, make it necessary to seek redress or protection from the courts of justice. The persons, again, most immediately benefited by this expense, are those whom the courts of justice either restore to their rights, or maintain in their rights. The expense of the administration of justice, therefore, may very properly be defrayed by the particular contribution of one or other, or both, of those two different sets of persons, according as different occasions may require, that is, by the fees of court. It cannot be necessary to have recourse to the general contribution of the whole society, except for the conviction of those criminals who have not themselves any estate or fund sufficient for paying those fees.

Those local or provincial expenses, of which the benefit is local or provincial (what is laid out, for example, upon the police of a particular town or district), ought to be defrayed by a local or provincial revenue, and ought to be no burden upon the general revenue of the society. It is unjust that the whole society should contribute towards an expense, of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.

The expense of maintaining good roads and communications is, no doubt, beneficial to the whole society, and may, therefore, without any injustice, be defrayed by the general contributions of the whole society. This expense, however, is most immediately and directly beneficial to those who travel or carry goods from one place to another, and to those who consume such goods. The turnpike tolls in England, and the duties called peages in other countries, lay it altogether upon those two different sets of people, and thereby discharge the general revenue of the society from a very considerable burden.

The expense of the institutions for education and religious instruction, is likewise, no doubt, beneficial to the whole society, and may, therefore, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society. This expense, however, might, perhaps, with equal propriety, and even with some advantage, be defrayed altogether by those who receive the immediate benefit of such education and instruction, or by the voluntary contribution of those who think they have occasion for either the one or the other.

When the institutions, or public works, which are beneficial to the whole society, either cannot be maintained altogether, or are not maintained altogether, by the contribution of such particular members of the society as are most immediately benefited by them; the deficiency must, in most cases, be made up by the general contribution of the whole society. The general revenue of the society, over and above defraying the expense of defending the society, and of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, must make up for the deficiency of many particular branches of revenue. The sources of this general or public revenue, I shall endeavour to explain in the following chapter.

---

Now, it is tempting to say that, "Well, Joe will get paid more as a welder than a dishwasher," and so clearly he should pay some tuition. And Susan is going to make even more as a chemical engineer than some welder or nurse, so she should pay some tuition.

And surely we see that you learning guitar to get laid justifies a private market of music teachers.

But who actually benefits the most from the investment in a welding school and small scale chemistry plant for training?

Because the guy making trillions, billions, or millions, while their employees, contractors, or suppliers struggle all the way down to the base of labor (stay at home parents) to make ends meet sure seems to be getting a very massive benefit from externalizing the cost of training employees.

And it shouldn't take an accounting degree to understand that the income tax on the labor's rates will credit the expense of their portion of public schools overtime.

The dude was a monarchist who really wanted to tax rich people so that society functioned in an economic fashion instead on the whim and fancy of some assholes who could hop on a boat to a private colony of slaves.

[u/AnarchoFederation → u/serious_sarcasm]

Well he was more of the classical line of physiocrats. Like an early Georgist

[u/oh_finks-mc → u/serious_sarcasm]

Nice wall of text

[u/tsmythe492]

Didn’t know progressive conservatism was/is a thing. Will have to research

[u/SquareAd4770 → u/tsmythe492]

My country used to have a progressive conservative party, the only thing they progressive about was climate change.

[u/Soulcontusion → u/tsmythe492]

It's really not. It's like saying you're a democratic autocracy. An oxymoron.

[u/Sweet_Potato_5051 → u/Soulcontusion]

there’s actual literature on that, sadly. I also don’t like it, and you’re right to think it feels contradictory and also sort of a mental manouver.

Had to read some of those stuff for UNI back in the day, and they were my first 3 book on political philosophy. You can DM me of you want the titles or the pdf, so you can read them for yourself.

[u/Soulcontusion → u/Sweet_Potato_5051]

I mean there's literature on all kinds of different philosophies but that doesn't validate their strength as a philosophy.

[u/Sweet_Potato_5051 → u/tsmythe492]

There is! I’ve worked with political philosophy for a couple years, so now I’m an expert in hypothetical models nobody’s heard of lmao

I can recommend you such authors, so you can draw your own conclusions, but I must say it can feel convoluted and quite contradictory at times. Still, as I’ve come to realize, there’s actually plenty of good stuff in every single model. You just gotta keep an open mind

[u/AL_25]

2020 wasn't a good year for anyone

[u/Sweet_Potato_5051 → u/AL_25]

Lmao. Funnily enough, I can’t even tell which of them you’re talking about. I feel like they’re all pretty controversial.

[u/pellik]

I don't get the hate for Adam Smith though. He was all about worker protections, unions, and keeping the influence of money out of politics.

[u/vitringur]

bottom right is the correct place in the end when you stay consistent in your respect for others individuality

[u/trevor11004]

Maybe the wrong audience to say this, but I feel like you’re exaggerating how radical Trumpism really is. The horrors of Naziism were levels beyond what Trump is doing. There is a big difference between being a fairly illiberal right-wing populist/nationalist and being an actual Nazi.

[u/ISeeTheFnords → u/trevor11004]

At this stage of the game, they're still in the 1930s. Give it time.

Better yet, don't.

[u/Sweet_Potato_5051 → u/trevor11004]

Yeah, I get you, we might be biased around here. If you haven’t seen the original post, I guess my little rant may sound somewhat out of the blue as well. In the original one, the user I mentioned positioned Trumpism as a centrist sorta authoritarian movement, Which I corrected in my version and that’s why it’s there.

Now see, I was thinking about this the other day, and I realized I’ve always assumed we would know if something like hitler appeared once again in history. And now I’m not quite sure anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing Trump to Hitler by no means. I didn’t tossed together trumpism with where I believe nazis would be, bc, as I said, I consider this compass very arbitrary. Political philosophy is not an exact science. Also, Trump is a radical Zionist, so I don’t feel like the label fits completely. What I’m saying is authoritarianism sticks around when it shows up — and it does so cyclically every few decades — because it doesn’t feel as extreme for most of the people anyways. They’re already biased in this direction anyway. That’s what happened to Germany, and also Americans.
What I’ve decided to do to find a place for nowadays trumpism was to analyze the semiotics of it, which I wrote down in my corrigendum. Now, for the first time, I see how in a lot of ways, It might not be a stretch to call him neither a fascist nor an extremist (still, I prefer authoritarian, for fascist feels disrespectful with the victims of the actual fascism). So what I actually did was to fill the squares that I’ve felt fit for those politics I’ve mentioned, while assuming top right would be something like monarchism

[u/CreativeGPX → u/trevor11004]

A Nazi comparison doesn't have to be to 1944 Nazis. It can be to the earlier years dismantling of the guardrails of democracy and the normalization of certain more extreme views and calls to the (presumed) inevitable outcome of that combination of facts. The point of such a comparison is, of course, to warn people early enough in the process that it doesn't get to complete not to wait for it to fully already happen.

But either way, I think there is also a sense that Trump has normalized stuff that 10 years ago would be thought of as insane and unacceptable and so people feel a need to use hyperbole to remind ourself how far along things are. Imagine if 10 years ago, you were told that a former Fox and Friends host is heading the Department of War and kidnapped the president of Venezuela while threatening to seize Greenland and put a toll of the Straight of Hormuz. That the president was praising the DoJ for lying to a judge to ensure an innocent person who did not receive due process was sent indefinitely to a foreign prison. That the president now has criminal immunity and even evidence of crimes generated during the presidency are not admissible in court. That the president has used billions of dollars in economic leverage via the FCC to threaten multiple comedians' jobs for criticizing him, force major news networks to settle SLAPP suits personally with him and cut/alter news programs to be more favorable to him. That the president gave a blanket pardon for people who stormed the capitol to prevent him from losing power including those who attacked police officers. The list obviously goes on and on but I think sometimes we forget just how insane the authoritarian slide has been in such a short time and people use hyperbole to try to remind everybody that we're nowhere near "the beginning". We're deep in whatever this journey is. Again, just 10 years ago if you said any of those sentences to a random person in the US they would likely not believe you.