Music Banter - Introduction to Political Literature

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When I get back later I'm going to talk about Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and those guys. Get ready for Social Contract Theory! Woowoowoo!

Those people are boring. Voltaire and Descartes are actually enjoyable reads.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Double X (Post 578383)

Those people are boring. Voltaire and Descartes are actually enjoyable reads.

We have a philosophical elitist...

Seriously, anyone who can make a good argument for Hobbes' philosophy being boring is like God. I mean, his books are maybe a bit dull, but the philosophy is interesting. At the time it was ground breaking.

fuck john locke, i hate that bitch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inuzuka Skysword (Post 578472)

I meant the actual english, not the ideas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleepy jack (Post 577424)

There was some interest in the original book club thread of reading more political stuff and I decided I'd make this. I'm basically going to branch out from the classical Liberalism of Adam Smith (I should start with Aristotle but I don't want to take this forever by going through a bunch of governments. Instead I'll go through what's mostly relevant to modern government and then talk about Aristotle last) and try and hit on all the ideologies as they sprouted up as well, hopefully, give an understanding about where they came from.

Adam Smith and Classical Liberalism
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In 1776 Scotsman and Economist Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations. This book is the foundation of the classic Laissez-Faire economy and in it Smith argued that the wealth of nations had nothing to do with gold or silver but had everything to do with goods and services. This was contrary to a popular notion at the time called Mercantilism which basically argued a nation's wealth was in its gold and silver. Which proved not to work out all the well for some people, Spain followed that thought process in looting the new world and they actually grew poorer. So you can see here that Smith wasn't exactly talking out of his ass or anything.

Smith argued that government interference with the economy actually stunts growth. He believed if you let the government have one business monopolize an industry you're banishing competition as well as lower prices and better products which leads to economic stagnation. He believed that instead you should leave the economy alone if you wanted prosperity.

Now the argument against this was "won't complete deregulation lead to chaos?" The answer Smith provided was no. He believed the market would be the one to regulate the economy because the efficient goods will sell more and the inefficient ones won't (unless you bail those inefficient ones out thus stifling the efficient ones who don't have million dollar bail outs of course.) He believed in a completely free market, an 'unseen hand' would regulate and correct the economy.

This philosophy, that societies are best with the least amount of government interference, took on the name Liberalism. It was practiced in America (and to a lesser extent still is today) because they loved the idea of "gtfo government." Now classical Liberalism is a bit confusing, because you're saying "Hey isn't that fiscal Conservatism? Or Libertarianism?" And you'd be right! But I will get into that when it comes though I'll offer an answer now. Classical liberalism in the late nineteenth century basically split into two schools: conservatism and modern liberalism and those later broke down when the prefix "neo" was invented.

Book To Read:
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

You can complete your reading with David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus or Jean-Baptiste Say.

this is f*cking brilliant, i actually understood an article with the word 'economy' in it. Why pay to learn?

The two most important books in political science in the 20th Century:

John Rawls - A Theory of Justice (1971)
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Robert Nozick - Anarchy, State, and Utopia(1974)
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The first contains social liberal argumentations, the second is the neo-liberal response. John Rawls is probably my favourite philosopher in the last 100 years.

The Contractualists
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Why should a government exist at all? This is the basic question that Rousseau, Hobbes and Locke explored. They all agreed that in principle humans had joined in and observed a social contract but they differed on many points.

Hobbes believed that life in the "state of nature" must have been terrible. He imagined before civil society humans mustve been in a war against every individual except yourself. He imagined it was a life of "no arts; no letters; no society and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." He believed to avoid this humans were turn to any form of government over anarchy as a civil society was rationally in their best interests.

Locke was a bit happier (but in my opinion probably not as accurate) he believed the original state of nature wasn't so bad. In fact he made it sound like it wasn't that bad at all. There was tolerance, equality and none of that fear of violent death stuff but why would the people abandon such a Garden of Eden type life? I don't know Locke theorized it was because they couldn't secure anything as their was no money or deeds or courts so everything was uncertain and up in the air. To fix this problem people formed a civil society.

Rousseau believed life in the original state of nature was also pleasant, in fact it was all gravy. He believed prior to civil society we were "noble savages" and it was actually society that corrupted us. He once said man is born free but everywhere is in chains. He wasn't all doom and gloom about society though, he did believe it could improve. He believed a just society would be a voluntary community with a well of its own. He believed the society would have a general will that wasn't about the individual but about the group as a whole. He believed if people were bad it was society's fault and he believed in a good society you should "force men to be free" if they're bad. Sound like totalitarianism? A lot of political scientists see the roots of it in his philosophy.

I do want to add, though I'm trying to be fairly objective here that I believe Hobbes was more accurate than Locke. I think Hobbes was probably right in a general sense. Anyway I'll leave you with this thought: Rousseau laid the groundwork for the French Revolution while Hobbes and Locke laid the groundwork for the founding fathers.

So to summarize I wrote a three part haiku:

Hobbes was violent death,
Locke was property rights,
R and noble savage.

It's an avant-garde haiku.

Suggested Reading:
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
Two Treatises of Government by John Locke
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I think it probably depends, I don't think that pre-civilized life was necessarily solitary since early man probably needed to live in tribes to survive, and perhaps short, but if its fulfilling then perhaps its better than a long, drawn-out life in which there is little sense of accomplishment. As for "brutish" vs "noble," those are perspectives I would rather just abandon. Although we tend to think of tribal members as being surrounded by death and uncertainty, you could just as easily say that they are surrounded by mystery and have more control over their lives than we do. They knew how to live in harmony with nature, how to hunt and find edible foods, and they knew that eventually they would die and would be able to do little about it. We, on the other hand, feel like we have much more control, when in fact our lives are constantly in the hands of others... the surgeons and doctors we trust, the technology we rely on, and with nuclear weapons and knowledge of black holes and supervolcanoes and germ warfare and bla bla bla we more than ever fear an unnatural, unpredictable blinking out of existence. Of course, most of us are relatively comfortable so...