Hardly completely different – they both involve common ownership of resources, with all of the problems that entails.

The goal is for individuals and corporations to own the “means of production”

What you’re describing above is not common ownership.

Jed Clampett did not create the oil. His shot may have discovered it, but there is no reason to think that someone else would never have found it, and therefore there is no particularly valid defense for privatizing the value of that natural resource.

No one “creates” anything, they find stuff that already exists and rearrange it (into petrol, into computers, into communications networks, etc). If you can buy the oil that you need and that Jed discovered (and extracted and refined — oil in the ground is no use to anyone), then that’s enough.

Royalties are due to the community for finite natural resources removed from the remaining store, whether the land is titled to a level of government or to a private party, and their value should be reconsidered regularly. (Jed Clampett did not create the oil. His shot may have discovered it, but there is no reason to think that someone else would never have found it, and therefore there is no particularly valid defense for privatizing the value of that natural resource.)

So it’s a personality test. It proves very little. It’s not important whether US leftists are authoritarian or whether they smack their children, but whether leftism is a political philosophy is authoritarian. It quite clearly is.

Given that there are no significant Communist or Maoist parties in the USA, which are both left wing AND authoritarian, this is not so difficult to envision.

Well, I’m no expert on US Communists, but there is no way that one could be a Communist or Maoist and not be authoritarian, since there is no other way to enforce common ownership.

It was Altemeyer who (for his research purposes) came up with the measurable scale of the authoritarian personality which he would use, and sought it ought, and then measured the other political views of individuals who did or did not have that personality.

I don’t think that personlity type should come into this. I might be a dragon, but as long as I’m only a dragon in my own house and not whatever sector your working in, it shouldn’t matter.

If you have a beef with how Altemeyer chose to define the authoritarian personality (he wasn’t the first, but he certainly chose the outline he felt to be more supported), then have at it, but in classic social science and psychological research tradition, Altemeyer defined the personality to be investigated first, and then sought out additional information which could be correlated.

I just find it hard to take seriously. For one thing, “neo-liberalism” is libertarianism, so having them on different axes makes no sense. Do you have any good links where the rational and methodology is explained?

Of course, because because someone has to make decisions on behalf of the “people who created value”, and that someone can only be the state. There is no other way to create a communist society, which is why all communist countries have ended up as totalitarian hell-holes.

The substitution of the State or Party for the people as the rulers, for one thing.

It’s quite clear that “the people” is short-hand / obfuscation for the state in any case. How do “the people” make decisions as a collective — psychically? No, someone has to make decisions on their behalf, otherwise nothing will happen.

I’m not sure it’s been tried, although some people point to parts of Spain just prior to and during the Spanish Civil War. Nor am I sure it’s even possible; once someone has to take charge, it’s not so easy to put “the people” back in the saddle.

It is impossible. Suppression of the natural instinct to trade for personal profit and to regard the biological family as the unit of trust is only possible through state control. Communism must be imposed, while capitalism (in its most generalised form) occurs as soon as it is allowed to.

C-i-P went wrong because the State was neither a good business manager nor, in the end, responsive to the needs of the people. Businesses do a better job of turning a profit that governments do, since making money is their entire object. Representative governments are more responsive to the needs of the people than authoritarian governments that developed under C-i-P.

C-i-P went wrong because it’s a bad system in theory. Businesses are better at guarding their own interests because knowledge is dispersed and not easy for a government to absorb across the economy as a whole.

I think the point is that American liberals are neither, which is why Goldberg’s work is a joke.

American liberals are seemingly not at all liberal, they are statists who equate authoritarian collectivisms with left or right as it suits them, without ever questioning the wisdom of their own collectivist, authoritarian tendencies.

And when confronted with this, they shout loudly.

Anyway, as Altemeyer said, somewhat cryptically, but he said it none the less when asked about Left Wing Authoritarians. He said he went looking for them but they were “as rare as hen’s teeth”.

Yeah, right: there is no left without authoritarianism, because collective economic control presupposes it.

It may be important to remember that Altemeyer was not saying it was theoretically impossible for there to be Left Wing Authoritarians — just that empirically, the Authoritarians found via his research were NOT left wing.

Given that there are no significant Communist or Maoist parties in the USA, which are both left wing AND authoritarian, this is not so difficult to envision.

It was Altemeyer who (for his research purposes) came up with the measurable scale of the authoritarian personality which he would use, and sought it ought, and then measured the other political views of individuals who did or did not have that personality.

If you have a beef with how Altemeyer chose to define the authoritarian personality (he wasn’t the first, but he certainly chose the outline he felt to be more supported), then have at it, but in classic social science and psychological research tradition, Altemeyer defined the personality to be investigated first, and then sought out additional information which could be correlated.

It seems like you’re unhappy that he defined “authoritarian personality” without pre-defining it in political terms, rather the empirical approach he actually used, in which you don’t select on your dependent variable, but first define independent variables.

Yes, perhaps a tiny community in a rich, developed state might be able to survive with common ownership of the means of production, no rational pricing and no private property, but how do actual states do?

Still, it is an intriguing question, simply because I can’t think of a more totalitarian and authoritarian “commune” than any American military base. That’s communism, baby.

Maybe.

Anyway, as Altemeyer said, somewhat cryptically, but he said it none the less when asked about Left Wing Authoritarians. He said he went looking for them but they were “as rare as hen’s teeth”.

Yeah, right: there is no left without authoritarianism, because collective economic control presupposes it.

An interview where Altemeyer expands on this, thanks to Trefayne:

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2007/10/its_a_mad_mad_mad_milgram_worl.html

Doesn’t look like an interview to me, but I did like this:

“A small, energetic, organized minority that’s impervious to reason will always do harm to everybody else.”

Yes, and it happens all the time, because there’s no possible way that a small group of people can effectively manage the affairs of society as a whole. Collect ten Hayek points and shift right down the “neo-lib” axis.

As Mike Huben observes in response to propertarian privatizers in his Libertartianism in One Lesson:

“Private ownership is the cure for all problems, despite the historical record of privately owned states such as Nazi Germany, Czarist and Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China.”

More so-called “humour”. All those states were collectivist, and with the transition of Maoist China to DXP reform and private ownership, we can see exactly the difference with regards to growth.

Some will respond that this can’t be. Learn it, pupster.

“Some”?

Mike debates these issues regularly with the likes of David Friedman.

Anarcho-capitalism is about as coherent as anarcho-communism. As everyone here should know, without solid institutions, capitalism doesn’t work.

I wouldn’t expect that anyone who thinks George Bush or Gordon Brown is a “neo-liberal” would be able to grasp this.

Anarchism = libertarianism? Fascism is not collectivist? Puh-lease…

“As someone noted, rationalism and empiricism were also key concepts of the enlightenment, which is why socialists look to “rational planning”, etc. It is most decidedly not a product of the counter-enlightenment, as fascism undoubtedly is, which is a much later phenomenon.”

That being the case, why did fascists take to rational planning with such enthusiasm?

“All it really is, is a 400-page explication of why the second letter in “NSDAP” was “socialist.””

Pity that so many are unable to admit that this is so.

“What we’ve seen here today is a perfect example of the old saw that some ideas are so very stupid that only a smart person can believe them.”

My thoughts on socialism in a nutshell.

More or less what I was thinking of, although I’m probably more statist than Bienventura Durrutti. ;)

Yes. Cuba. Other poor states around former USSR. See, a necessary ingredient to totalitarianism is definitely some sort of imperialism. You glibertarians always seem to forget that totalitarianism grew out of imperialism.

Fucking commie, why do you hate the free market system?!?!?

The Spanish anarchists? If you want a literary description, read Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. Strictly speaking, it’s anarchic socialism, but it’s a non-totalitarian leftist system, which is essentially what you asked for.

Honestly, what is wrong with some people?

Doughbob’s book might actually be as revolutionary as he hopes it will be. It is a massive exercise in “rebranding,” in changing the terms of the debate.

The best and most successful example of this sort of thing is where the conservative Right in the United States has had a great deal of success re-defining the root causes of the Civil War.

“It wasn’t about slavery, it was about states’ rights.”

Never mind that the Confederates’ constitution contained this little gem:

“No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.”

and this:

The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.

So even if a Confederate State outlawed slavery, the central government’s prohibited it from carrying out abolition.

But its about heritage, right? State’s Rights? Dog-whistle racism?

Likewise, Doughbob’s magnum fartus is to muddy the debate in the eyes of those who can’t be bothered to read source documents. All it really is, is a 400-page explication of why the second letter in “NSDAP” was “socialist.”