Politics is the branch of each person's philosophy dealing with proper human relationships. One's politics is one's set of concepts of how to relate with all other human beings. Since everyone who relates with at least one other human has some set of concepts of how to relate, then every human being is a 'politician' who acts in accordance with his concepts. Fundamentally, there are only 2 methods of relating - by force or by trade. A political party is a group of people with roughly the same set of concepts of relationships. With only 2 fundamental methods of relating, force or trade, then fundamentally, only 2 political parties are possible for humans, the Force Party and the Trade Party. The Force Party includes all those who believe it is necessary, desirable and acceptable to use force against the innocent to achieve their social and political goals. The Trade Party consists of all those who believe that only trade is legitimate in relating with the innocent. All political parties but my capitalist Trade Party believe in using force against the innocent to achieve their goals. These uses of force always include the crimes of tax extortion, "Pay or we'll hurt you!", and regulatory extortion, "Obey or we'll hurt you!"
Members of those parties, when they achieve power by whatever means they do so, always regard themselves as superior beings above the natural human law that says that harm to the innocent is a crime. And when a 'current' level of their crimes doesn't solve their problems, their answer is always 'more force; rather than less. They act as though they have never heard of the concept of spontaneous order and try to impose order by force which always increases chaos and disorder.
Amen, Westley. My only quibble would be with the Force/Trade framing, with trade having a rather narrow connotation. To be fair, though, some fraudulent relationships aren't coercion/compulsion strickly speaking, but I like the persuasion/compulsion binary anyway. In any case, spontaneous vs. imposed order is critical here, and we do love our Mises/Hayek.
I should mention that my framing is basically that any institutionalized threat of violence that allows one person or group legally to make another person or group worse off.
This makes me think about how we have a stereotype that all politicians are corrupt. I wonder who has the incentives to promote such a message. It's effect is pretty clear- encouraging most people who are scared of corruption of the soul away.
The main exceptions I see are people who are highly politicized to one specific ideology. And a few scattered thinkers like you.
It's as if we need a purification ritual to let us see that politics is not impure and taboo. (Think of how intellectuals will respond to a person who presents themselves as a 'politician'. Those who fawn would be considered buffoons, those who are repulsed would be considered 'clean' or virtuous. This is at least the image in my mind.)
It is not that all politicians are corrupt that is critical, it is that they are all criminal, some without realizing it. For instance, the Constitution 'authorizes' the criminal actions of harm against the innocent of tax and regulatory extortion. If they would just think for a minute, they would realize they couldn't extort anything, money or behaviors, from the innocent or benefit from such extortion. I was a knowing willing receiver of stolen goods, my paycheck, a a felon, for 3 years when in the Peace Corps. Was I corrupt or just ignorant. I quit.
Let's replace every public serpent with a rabid dog....and then shoot the dog.
Politics is the branch of each person's philosophy dealing with proper human relationships. One's politics is one's set of concepts of how to relate with all other human beings. Since everyone who relates with at least one other human has some set of concepts of how to relate, then every human being is a 'politician' who acts in accordance with his concepts. Fundamentally, there are only 2 methods of relating - by force or by trade. A political party is a group of people with roughly the same set of concepts of relationships. With only 2 fundamental methods of relating, force or trade, then fundamentally, only 2 political parties are possible for humans, the Force Party and the Trade Party. The Force Party includes all those who believe it is necessary, desirable and acceptable to use force against the innocent to achieve their social and political goals. The Trade Party consists of all those who believe that only trade is legitimate in relating with the innocent. All political parties but my capitalist Trade Party believe in using force against the innocent to achieve their goals. These uses of force always include the crimes of tax extortion, "Pay or we'll hurt you!", and regulatory extortion, "Obey or we'll hurt you!"
Members of those parties, when they achieve power by whatever means they do so, always regard themselves as superior beings above the natural human law that says that harm to the innocent is a crime. And when a 'current' level of their crimes doesn't solve their problems, their answer is always 'more force; rather than less. They act as though they have never heard of the concept of spontaneous order and try to impose order by force which always increases chaos and disorder.
Amen, Westley. My only quibble would be with the Force/Trade framing, with trade having a rather narrow connotation. To be fair, though, some fraudulent relationships aren't coercion/compulsion strickly speaking, but I like the persuasion/compulsion binary anyway. In any case, spontaneous vs. imposed order is critical here, and we do love our Mises/Hayek.
Yes, politics is the jostling for control of institutions, and it's present in neighborhoods, schools, businesses, families, clubs, etc.
The ethics/morality of politics depends, therefore, on:
1) the nature of the jostling;
2) the nature of the control being sought;
3) the nature of the institution itself.
https://goodneighborbadcitizen.substack.com/p/what-is-politics
I should mention that my framing is basically that any institutionalized threat of violence that allows one person or group legally to make another person or group worse off.
sorry: is politics
This makes me think about how we have a stereotype that all politicians are corrupt. I wonder who has the incentives to promote such a message. It's effect is pretty clear- encouraging most people who are scared of corruption of the soul away.
The main exceptions I see are people who are highly politicized to one specific ideology. And a few scattered thinkers like you.
It's as if we need a purification ritual to let us see that politics is not impure and taboo. (Think of how intellectuals will respond to a person who presents themselves as a 'politician'. Those who fawn would be considered buffoons, those who are repulsed would be considered 'clean' or virtuous. This is at least the image in my mind.)
It is not that all politicians are corrupt that is critical, it is that they are all criminal, some without realizing it. For instance, the Constitution 'authorizes' the criminal actions of harm against the innocent of tax and regulatory extortion. If they would just think for a minute, they would realize they couldn't extort anything, money or behaviors, from the innocent or benefit from such extortion. I was a knowing willing receiver of stolen goods, my paycheck, a a felon, for 3 years when in the Peace Corps. Was I corrupt or just ignorant. I quit.