“Its really annoying how you do that, and not just to me, but to everyone you argue with. You put words in our mouths and thoughts in our brains which we do not have, then you point out how stupid we are for thinking and speaking that way. Its unfair, and infuriating. I used to think you did it maliciously and deliberately as a cheap rhetorical tactic, but now I think I see why.

“With you its always black or white, no gray. You are incapable of reconciling opposing concepts simultaneously into a working synthesis. You must reject one totally, and embrace the other completely. No middle ground, your way or the highway. For you, the only alternative to 1890s satanic-mill capitalism is the Cambodian killing fields. I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell you this, but you are dialectically challenged.”

Its really annoying how you do that, and not just to me, but to everyone you argue with. You put words in our mouths and thoughts in our brains which we do not have, then you point out how stupid we are for thinking and speaking that way. Its unfair, and infuriating. I used to think you did it maliciously and deliberately as a cheap rhetorical tactic, but now I think I see why. With you its always black or white, no gray. You are incapable of reconciling opposing concepts simultaneously into a working synthesis. You must reject one totally, and embrace the other completely. No middle ground, your way or the highway. For you, the only alternative to 1890s satanic-mill capitalism is the Cambodian killing fields. I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell you this, but you are dialectically challenged.

For the record, I feel about politicians (and government bureaucrats) exactly the same way I feel about their analogues, businessmen (and professional manager/executives). They are both careerists and bureaucrats. They are psychologically and culturally indistinguishable from lawyers. Individually, they may be very nice, decent people, but as a class, their interests differ from mine. I don’t trust any of them. I have spent decades working for both private industry and government, and I can honestly report the two experiences are indistinguishable.

Anarchists, the original Libertarians, before the latter were co-opted by capitalism, rejected both government AND business. They understood that underneath the neckties, they’re both the same guy.

Ever heard of Elisee Reclus, the 19th century anarchist geographer? Or his professional and political colleague, Pyotr Kropotkin. They’re in Wikipedia.

You have no concept of class, that is, a set of individuals (or even of collectives) that have shared interests. True, companies may compete with one another, but they quickly cooperate when faced with a common threat (like a union, or a foreign competitor, or a troublesome regulatory agency). Medieval nobles were always fighting each other, but they moved together when faced with a common problem, like a peasant’s revolt, or a cheeky monarch (remember King John and Magna Carta?).

Even when there is no active, organized collusion, the system is always stacked against the little guy. It may be just as hard for an employee to get a new job, or find a new provider for a vital service, as it was for a serf to find a new baron to work for. It’s not as bad now as it was during the laissez-faire Gilded Age, but its getting worse every day. We’re heading back to late 19th century economic conditions, and some of us aren’t exactly looking forward to them.

You always rely on the market to deny the asymmetry betweeen worker and employer, or buyer and seller, but the market only works imperfectly, This is especially the case in times like ours, when the barons (or the businessmen) join forces and use their economic resources to manipulate economic or social conditions–and political activity– for the benefit of their class. In other words, they are GAMING THE FREE MARKET, to use Robert’s exquisitely useful phrase.

This is a major source of tension in all capitalist democracies, and this tension isn’t necessarily a bad thing, provided the equilibrium doesn’t swing too far one way or the other.

Needless to say, this disequilibrium is usually at its worst during Republican administrations. The Conservative constituency, and those poor deluded fools who fancy they are a part of it, feel they are entitled to special privileges. After all, they are the producers, the makers, the nice folks with a work ethic. The 47% are just a bunch of low-life dead beats who want money for nothing and chicks for free. Those of us who just work here, and haven’t fooled ourselves into thinking we are ideologically or genetically entitled to be managers and entrepreneurs, may have different ideas.

As for occasional persuasion being better than coercion, well, phrased that way, who could disagree? But continuous and systematic repetition is barely distinguishable from indoctrination. The marks have all been brought up in a media-savvy society. They aren’t all buying it anymore. We recognize a marketing campaign when we see one.

I uploaded the relevant excerpt from Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” here.

No discussion required or even encouraged, just wanted to put it out there for the record.

If there was just one giant corporation in America, and not tens of thousands of businesses with tens of thousands of different bosses and millions of jobs in thousands of categories.

Everything you say in this context seems to imply some form of indentured servitude where if you lose a particular job you’re cast permanently into the outer darkness. This hasn’t been my experience. Heck, going by what I know of your biography, it hasn’t even been yours.

The average worker changes jobs 11 times in their life. That’s ten times they’ve kicked the dust of some company off their shoes and moved onward, and often upward. This has become even more common in recent times as the era of the lifetime job and gold watch fades away, and employment becomes more fluid.

There may be a few workers so unskilled or incapable that they’re chained to a particular business location, but I’ve never seen or met one.

For most Americans, your scenario doesn’t actually exist in the real world.

Your boogeyman is largely imaginary.

It still boggles my mind that this kind of thing bugs you, but (for example) assigning total authority for the nation’s health care to a cadre of unelected bureaucrats in Washington doesn’t seem to bother you a bit.

When did you decide you couldn’t trust the motives of businessmen, but you could unfailingly trust the motives of politicians? Especially given the historical record?

It’s a hell of a lot easier to dump a lousy boss than it is to dump a lousy political system.

As for what I do here now and then, attempted persuasion is at the completely opposite pole from coercion. It’s how civilized people handle opposing views.

As for the Heinlein matter, I believe the quote is in Starship Troopers, where there is an attempt to determine the qualifications for the franchise. One of Rico’s teachers asserts that scientists are motivcated by personal curiosity, a selfish motive that benefits the community, but is not a marker for leadership. nor an urge to serve the community. He concludes only a demonstrated willigness to risk ones’ welfare for the commonwealth should be considered as qualification for the right to vote. (Hmmm…that sounds vaguely leftist to me…).

The quote made an impression on me because when I read the book as a naive adolescent, I assumed scientists, with their superior intellect and relative disdain for wealth and power, would make the ideal rulers. Heinlein convinced me I was mistaken.

You claim no desire for political power, and you may well be sincere, but you also refuse to accept that ownership of the means of production and communication is the ultimate form of political power, he who controls economics, controls politics. Economic power is power, pure and simple. There is no getting away from that. Political power flows from economic wealth, not the other way round.

That’s an authority box you can’t even see, so I guess its too much to ask you think outside of it. When a man, or a class of men, can hire you, fire you, pay you what they want, sell you everything you need at the prices they choose, and when they own or otherwise control the infrastructure of society and the flow of information, they own you, totally. The fact that they compete with each other (as well as collude in your exploitation due to coincident class interests) offers us no guarantee of choice. Street gangs and feudal barons go to war with each other, too.

They may be benign despots, perhaps even enlightened ones, but when push comes to shove, you are the one who’s expendable. Not them.

Tom, the basic difference between you and me is that you admire businessmen, and trust their motives. I fear them. And (with a few notable exceptions) I don’t particularly like them.

As for the “libertarian dictator”…well, Tom, you insist on guiding the conversation on this blog to this one topic, and you won’t take no for an answer, or tolerate any opposing position. That’s as good an indicator of central authority as I can think of. You are determined to alter the way I think because it cannot be reconciled with your view of reality.

The fact you might be mistaken has never entered your mind. Neither has the fact we might both be mistaken

A true empiricist would conclude from history and observation that the main requirement for leadership on this planet was an overwhelming lust for power and absolute control, and an ability to coerce obedience and loyalty from large numbers of people.

A community organizer would probably have these traits. Scientists and engineers, if they’re any good at their jobs, don’t.

Einstein on the presidency of Israel:

“I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel [to serve as President], and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it.

All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions.

For these reasons alone I should be unsuited to fulfill the duties of that high office, even if advancing age was not making increasing inroads on my strength. I am the more distressed over these circumstances because my relationship to the Jewish people has become my strongest human bond, ever since I became fully aware of our precarious situation among the nations of the world.”

A polite way of saying that a brilliant man immersed in objective reality would make a crappy politician.

As for Heinlein, I don’t think he ever said anything like that.

Here’s what he did say:

“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria.

The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”

I don’t want political power, and except for extremely limited functions, I don’t want anybody else to have it either. You can’t seem to comprehend this, which is why you keep trying to shoehorn me into some kind of “libertarian dictator.” You can’t think outside of the central authority box.