sc4r
12th October 2003, 18:25
A discussion on another site prompted me to think about ideologies in a new way. I think I see that there are 6 basic types of ideology other than an overtly oligarchic feudalism.
Socialist. Which would include all the various Communist, Anarchist, Marxist, and Social Democratic views commonly expressed. These people would be defined by wanting equal rights extended to all people everywhere and wanting those rights to include a fairly strong degree of basic equality ensured through political means.
Capitalist Which includes really only 'lassez faire capitalists' and similar minded types. These people would equally want to see equal rights for everybody everywhere, but would accept at most only minimal enforced equality. They would see Liberal Property rights as ensuring a sort of equality of opportunity (even if they are wrong about whether it actually does).
National Socialists Who would believe as Socialists do but would restrict the granting of rights only to people within their nation/Society. Such people should not wish to exploit outsiders, they really should not want to even mix or trade with them. This is of course the historic name for Nazi's, who are, however, I feel better really described within this Schematic as Imperial Socialists.
National Capitalists Who would prevent outsiders from joining in the capitalist fray within their nation. Like National Socialist they should be very isolationist both in terms of obtaining benefits and incurring costs. This society would quickly self destruct I believe as the people within it did become stratified into classes as Marx predicted. They'd become eithjer 'Capitalist Imperialists' or feudal, or change.
Imperialist Socialists Who would grant rights to people inside their society but would happily exploit outsiders in any way possible.
Capitalist Imperialists Who would allow capitalism within their own nation but prevent ousiders from even being one of the few benefiting from it. They would 'ring fence' the benefits but export the costs.
Its my belief that America (and most of the western world) is a strange mixture of National Socialism and Capitalist Imperialism by this schematic.
Its my believe that all 'socialists' should embrace people everywhere as equals and seek full Socialism but should not be afraid to embrace a partial version of National Socialism (in the sense used here only) as a way towards implementing full socialism; as a way of 'ring fencing benefits'; not exporting costs, and growing. Note that it would be important to me that they were not 'National Socialist' in attitude, only in fact, at any point in time.
To me this schematic clearly shows up what distinguishes Moral from Immoral; and what distinguishes long term workable from not. The two fundamental ideas are both moral in principle; but one of them is not sustainable or acceptable to me as moral in practise. Nationalists are moral but very limited in their vision. Imperialists are philosophically immoral as members of the human race (since they abitrarily define an 'us' which excludes much of humanity and agree to exploit it).
Obviously I have an axiomatic view of 'morality' which means that to treat any person as being fundamentally different from any other is wrong. Someone not holding this as axiomatic might disagree with me about the word to be used, but would presumably agree with the objective substance of what results. Equally obviously someone whose axiomatic beliefs were so different from mine would not be someone I could easily co-operate or communicate with anyway; because no amount of rational discussion will resolve differences which are not implicit in the rationale but in the starting assumptions.
Note also that it is not implicit in any of the above that any particular method of making a society cohesive and functional given the opposing dynamic of peoples individuality will work. I think it obvious from my previous posts that while I might see Anarchy (for example) as moral, I do not think it cohesive or functional.
Like I said I only just came up with this way of looking at things. Can anyone improve upon it, or show up the flaws ?
Socialist. Which would include all the various Communist, Anarchist, Marxist, and Social Democratic views commonly expressed. These people would be defined by wanting equal rights extended to all people everywhere and wanting those rights to include a fairly strong degree of basic equality ensured through political means.
Capitalist Which includes really only 'lassez faire capitalists' and similar minded types. These people would equally want to see equal rights for everybody everywhere, but would accept at most only minimal enforced equality. They would see Liberal Property rights as ensuring a sort of equality of opportunity (even if they are wrong about whether it actually does).
National Socialists Who would believe as Socialists do but would restrict the granting of rights only to people within their nation/Society. Such people should not wish to exploit outsiders, they really should not want to even mix or trade with them. This is of course the historic name for Nazi's, who are, however, I feel better really described within this Schematic as Imperial Socialists.
National Capitalists Who would prevent outsiders from joining in the capitalist fray within their nation. Like National Socialist they should be very isolationist both in terms of obtaining benefits and incurring costs. This society would quickly self destruct I believe as the people within it did become stratified into classes as Marx predicted. They'd become eithjer 'Capitalist Imperialists' or feudal, or change.
Imperialist Socialists Who would grant rights to people inside their society but would happily exploit outsiders in any way possible.
Capitalist Imperialists Who would allow capitalism within their own nation but prevent ousiders from even being one of the few benefiting from it. They would 'ring fence' the benefits but export the costs.
Its my belief that America (and most of the western world) is a strange mixture of National Socialism and Capitalist Imperialism by this schematic.
Its my believe that all 'socialists' should embrace people everywhere as equals and seek full Socialism but should not be afraid to embrace a partial version of National Socialism (in the sense used here only) as a way towards implementing full socialism; as a way of 'ring fencing benefits'; not exporting costs, and growing. Note that it would be important to me that they were not 'National Socialist' in attitude, only in fact, at any point in time.
To me this schematic clearly shows up what distinguishes Moral from Immoral; and what distinguishes long term workable from not. The two fundamental ideas are both moral in principle; but one of them is not sustainable or acceptable to me as moral in practise. Nationalists are moral but very limited in their vision. Imperialists are philosophically immoral as members of the human race (since they abitrarily define an 'us' which excludes much of humanity and agree to exploit it).
Obviously I have an axiomatic view of 'morality' which means that to treat any person as being fundamentally different from any other is wrong. Someone not holding this as axiomatic might disagree with me about the word to be used, but would presumably agree with the objective substance of what results. Equally obviously someone whose axiomatic beliefs were so different from mine would not be someone I could easily co-operate or communicate with anyway; because no amount of rational discussion will resolve differences which are not implicit in the rationale but in the starting assumptions.
Note also that it is not implicit in any of the above that any particular method of making a society cohesive and functional given the opposing dynamic of peoples individuality will work. I think it obvious from my previous posts that while I might see Anarchy (for example) as moral, I do not think it cohesive or functional.
Like I said I only just came up with this way of looking at things. Can anyone improve upon it, or show up the flaws ?