Non-leftist political influences thread

[zoot_allures]

Yet_Another_Boring_Marxis has a general political influences thread. I thought it might interesting for people to name which non- or even outright anti-leftists have influenced them politically.

I'm only interested in "positive" influence: the ideas you agree with, that have become part of your own views.

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

Kant.

[zoot_allures]

Kant.
Could you elaborate?

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

Could you elaborate?

Transcendental idealism, mostly.

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

Oh, and a bit of Keynes.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Nietzsche.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Genghis Khan.

EDIT: Did someone seriously just say Keynes?

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

We're all Keynsians now!

[l'Enfermé]

inb4"Stalin"

[Art Vandelay]

Stirner, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer.

[l'Enfermé]

None of these are "political influences" with the exception of maybe Stirner(Stirner is a philosophical influence on 9mm however, so he told them, so even Stirner isn't a political influence).

And seriously if Keynes is a political influence for you, you should be restricted.

[Clarion]

Milton Friedman, in his more pragmatic moments, makes some criticisms of social democracy and the welfare state which are just as valid for revolutionaries as reactionaries.

Nietzsche, for his critique of normative ethics.

Hacker culture and its various off-shoots.

Hobbes, for his no bullshit materialist view of the realtionship between people and the state.


None of these are "political influences".

You have an overly narrow definition of political.

[Art Vandelay]

None of these are "political influences" with the exception of maybe Stirner(Stirner is a philosophical influence on 9mm however, so he told them, so even Stirner isn't a political influence).

And seriously if Keynes is a political influence for you, you should be restricted.

I thought this was for philosophical influences as well, non-leftist political influences, I'm not sure, maybe Machiavelli. As for the Keynes nonsense, yeah sounds like it should be spouted from OI.

Edit: the guy with the Keynes sig is a self proclaimed 'choskyian,' what a surprise.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

And seriously if Keynes is a political influence for you, you should be restricted.

Really? Wouldn't we then have to restrict every post-Keynesian and Institutionalist on the board?

[l'Enfermé]

Really? Wouldn't we then have to restrict every post-Keynesian and Institutionalist on the board?
One can hope!

[Let's Get Free]

Probably Khalil Gibran and James Baldwin.

[ed miliband]

most of my political influences are non-leftist, gilles dauve being a particular favourite.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Before I got into this whole communism thing, I was interested in American philosophical currents like the works of Thoreau and Emerson. Actually a writing class I took in high school is what initially got me interested in political topics. Also I appreciate some writers on the right like HL Mencken, even though I obviously disagree with a lot of what he wrote and a lot of people on the left would probably find it quite offensive. He had an extremely large distrust for "mass movements", though, which I share in some ways.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

None of these are "political influences" with the exception of maybe Stirner(Stirner is a philosophical influence on 9mm however, so he told them, so even Stirner isn't a political influence).

And seriously if Keynes is a political influence for you, you should be restricted.

Bull to the shit.
One can be an influence on your thinking without agreeing with everything they said. For example, Marx was influenced by Hegel, classical economists and so forth. Sould he have been restricted for being influenced with non-leftists. Of course not!

You are confusing influence with all out agreement.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

And seriously if Keynes is a political influence for you, you should be restricted.

This is kinda silly because alot of academic Marxist economists have been talking about the overlap between Post-Keynesian crisis theory and Marxist crisis theory, so I think It'd be silly to ban what could possibly be an interesting intersection.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Russeau, with the idea of social contract.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Russeau, with the idea of social contract.

This is pretty shocking. But I have something in common with TRA23.

My non-leftist influences are enlightenment thinkers, like Rousseau, the Jacobins and other bourgeois revolutionaries of those days.

There are some things to learn from Humanism, like Erasmus, although that is not too political anymore.

[ed miliband]

This is kinda silly because alot of academic Marxist economists have been talking about the overlap between Post-Keynesian crisis theory and Marxist crisis theory, so I think It'd be silly to ban what could possibly be an interesting intersection.

and good marxists, like andrew kliman, have been demolishing them.

[Art Vandelay]

Before I got into this whole communism thing, I was interested in American philosophical currents like the works of Thoreau and Emerson. Actually a writing class I took in high school is what initially got me interested in political topics. Also I appreciate some writers on the right like HL Mencken, even though I obviously disagree with a lot of what he wrote and a lot of people on the left would probably find it quite offensive. He had an extremely large distrust for "mass movements", though, which I share in some ways.

This made me realize I forgot Theoreau! Although I consider him to be a individual anarchist of sorts. He was huge in my intellectual development.

"The government which governs best, governs not at all."

[Yuppie Grinder]

most of my political influences are non-leftist, gilles dauve being a particular favourite.

I assumed we didn't mean post-left communists.