tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post8965406788401271786..comments2024-03-28T22:32:50.562+00:00Comments on Liberal England: John Pugh, public debt and the nature of the stateJonathan Calderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00730157683743989696noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-51952390837653522782010-08-31T19:22:23.120+01:002010-08-31T19:22:23.120+01:00This comment has been removed by the author.Jock Coatshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15550558005508328017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-90331306476846513852010-08-31T19:21:47.769+01:002010-08-31T19:21:47.769+01:00"misguided right wing theorists"?
Lenin..."misguided right wing theorists"?<br /><br />Lenin wrote:<br /><br />"They themselves share, and instil into the minds of the people, the false notion that universal suffrage “in the present-day state" is really capable of revealing the will of the majority of the working people and of securing its realization."<br /><br />...and...<br /><br />"the real business of “state” is performed behind the scenes and is carried on by the departments, chancelleries, and General Staffs. parliament is given up to talk for the special purpose of fooling the "common people"."Jock Coatshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15550558005508328017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-52876255241629926822010-08-31T14:10:46.631+01:002010-08-31T14:10:46.631+01:00Tristan is wrong in saying I 'seem to be sugge...Tristan is wrong in saying I 'seem to be suggesting' that the only collective action is state action. Why would I say something as silly as that?<br /> Nonetheless the state is A form of collective action and a useful one at that. <br />As for the state having 'aspirations' , it wasn't my intention to 'reify' the state( quite the reverse) but to point out that the state's actions/decisions result directly from the actions/decisions of its people. Such actions/decisions can be assumed to have intentions- things they aspire to bring about. <br /><br />On a more basic point should honest politicians allow all us individuals to pretend that state action/policy and its failures- all happens on its own. <br /><br />My goal was not to create a monster of the state but to try to deprive misguided right wing theorists of their traditional bogeyman - an alien,oppressive organisation of unknown origin,staffed by Kafkaesque bureaucrats, pursuing a perverse agenda. I know this sounds a bit like a few institutions we know but that's not what a democratic state is supposed to be ! Is it ?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-74536653812024785522010-08-30T17:38:20.611+01:002010-08-30T17:38:20.611+01:00Quoting Dworkin: We want government, for instance,...Quoting Dworkin: <i>We want government, for instance, to select methods of education, to sponsor culture, and to do much else that looks, on the surface, like endorsing one set of personal values against another and therefore contradicting liberalism.</i><br /><br />Who is this "we"? I'm a fan of classical music and so benefit from state subsidies when I go to the opera or to a concert, but I'm not sure that the state should really be sponsoring culture. It's very difficult to do so without imposing one person's taste on everyone else's. Perhaps low or no VAT for tickets to any kind of musicial or art event would be a non-imposing form of subsidy?<br /><br />And John Stuart Mill emphatically did not think that the state should "select methods of education". He education to be universal (policed by publicly-set exams), but wanted to leave the maximum latitute to parents as to <i>how</i> they educated their children. (See On Liberty ch. 5: http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/233/16560 and search for "universal education")<br /><br />Incidentally, that paragraph has the earliest reference I know of to what we now call school vouchers: Mill says that the state should pay the school fees of poor children, but not decide where they go to school.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11171985623642790407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-40885984824508989512010-08-29T23:28:24.073+01:002010-08-29T23:28:24.073+01:00as though we can always achieve the same individua...<i>as though we can always achieve the same individually as we can collectively.</i><br /><br />There's a fallacy here - John Pugh seems to be suggesting that the only way to do something collectively is through the state, which is false.<br /><br />Libertarians might (rightly) argue that the state prevents people from acting collectively - that is a large thrust of the libertarian left argument.<br /><br />As for the democratic state - it emerged from a few concessions given by the ruling classes to keep those they rule a little happier. All it really provides is a means to choose between slightly different groups of the ruling class who perpetuate policies which are almost identical except for a few, minor, areas.<br /><br /><i>The crucial idea, it seems to me, is the idea of imagination. The liberal is concerned to expand imagination without imposing any particular choice upon imagination.</i><br /><br />Very true- but the state is incapable of that. Those who make up the state will always seek to use the means at their disposal to enforce their preferred choices on people.Tristanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15395992764678278326noreply@blogger.com