Where do you draw the line before we get to North Korea?

[Barney]

In this thread I'm trying to gather things that have been said in a few different threads and keep seeming to return to this one point.

In that thread I was really kicking myself for talking too much. I should have left it at "where is the line? How much can the government take from people before it is theft?" But I went and added "who get's to decide?" so you didn't address the real concern. Certainly the politicians in the "people's" republic of North Korea insist that the people are in agreement with the present rule. And maybe many of them are. But surely we can recognize that at some level of authoritarianism it is no longer a good thing. Or maybe, as long as the dictator is "good" and "benevolent" we will agree with more and more authoritarian rule because they agree with our sensibilities. Which is where propaganda enters the scene. If you can convince everyone that you are good and benevolent then you can act in authoritarian ways and garner praise.

I do think there are certain moral questions we do want the government to weigh in on despite that capitalism might [I assume you meant 'not'] permit it. However, I'm very tepid on this front because I don't see any clear lines where we can say this is too far. If there is no clear stopping point for the government then nothing prevents a continuous erosion of people's freedom and a continuous accumulation of power and control by the government. Would it be worth allowing brothels if it means we can prevent North Korean style authoritarian rule? Probably so. Does this mean brothels are morally good? No. It means preserving our freedom to choose is more valuable than coercing others to behave in ways that we would like.

it does trouble me that the debate so often forces people to extremes: anything less than pure capitalism is a step in the direction of socialism, and that makes you a socialist! To which I answer: look at all the countries of Western Europe, and also Canada, Australia, New Zealand. They have never been socialist, yet they are far less capitalist than America.

I can't find the other bit I'm looking for. You said somewhere that if we want to see the consequences of a policy we have to look at the cases where it is applied with the purest consistency in order to see where it leads. North Korea is the clearest and purest example of anti-capitalistic politics. This means that North Korea is where every nation is headed if it does not adhere to capitalist/libertarian principles. Or at least, maybe not every nation will end up like that, but to the extent that it redistributes wealth, it is contaminated with the same poison and is less healthy as a result.

So really the question is: can we draw the line somewhere so we are not 100% capitalist and yet not contaminated with the evil that led to North Korea? And because it seems quite hard to draw that line in any scientifically clear and unambiguous way, we are so afraid of becoming like North Korea that we think it best not to dare draw that line. Best to stick to pure capitalism which is the only way to be sure we'll never become like North Korea.

I think this argument is a bit naive, but I understand that it comes from a desire to live in the purest way possible. Jesus said "Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48) and so we should strive for the most perfect politics, just as we strive for perfection in every other area of life. If we have identified North Korea as the purest evil, then any compromise in that direction is a compromise in the direction of evil. Ergo, the only way to avoid evil is to be its opposite: capitalist.

I'm going to digress for a minute but I hope the relevance is perceived.

The Morality of Balance
Aristotle taught that virtue is the balance between two bad extremes.

• Courage is the mean between cowardice and recklessness.
• Moderation is the mean between starvation and gluttony.
• The person who handles finances well is standing in the mean between being a miser and being a spendthrift.
• Your house can be too messy, but it can also be too clean to the point where you are obsessed with keeping it clean.
• You can exercise too little and become sedentary, but you can also exercise too much to the exclusion of other important areas of life.

It goes on and on. The point is that I see politics like this: a just, compassionate, and ideal nation is one that sits in the balance between the extremes of the far-right and the far-left, between socialism and libertarianism. Neither of the systems when pursued in its purity will lead to human beings flourishing as the creatures they are meant to be. Finding the right balance is very difficult and a perpetual challenge, but that is the right challenge to pursue, rather than flying to one extreme out of horror at the excesses of the other extreme.

That is why it doesn't trouble me if I can't "draw the line" to avoid North Korea with any scientific precision. Running a nation is immensely complex and I wouldn't expect to understand everything it entails, or to have a blueprint for exactly how much welfare should be given, etc. I trust that, if I pursue the truth wholeheartedly, I my instincts will get closer to the perfect balance, perhaps before my reason and ability to articulate.

The main difference, then, is that I see North Korea as one extreme to avoid, but you see it as the only extreme to avoid, which is why you have gone to the other extreme. Note that libertarianism (of the type that calls all taxation theft) is comparable in many ways to the other extreme in america - that of the far-left and its identity politics. Both are moral ideologies that nobody has ever held in history or around the world until quite recently; both are held primarily only by white Westerners; and both find their roots in one Christian principle that has been separated from the other principles that balanced it and taken to its furthest logical extreme.

[Ondrej]

Aristotle taught that virtue is the balance between two bad extremes

Each of these examples is directed at an individual, exhorting them not to take the easy path but also not to consume themselves with the problem. None of these examples apply to government.

a just, compassionate, and ideal nation is one that sits in the balance between the extremes of the far-right and the far-left, between socialism and libertarianism.

It is quite strange that libertarianism is now far-right. Where did fascism go? In my mind less government is the balance. Authoritarianism sits at both ends looking largely the same though with different names. In the middle is the government handcuffed, gagged, and with a gun to the back of its neck. Yes it has power but it is thin and conditional and very limited. Libertarianism is not the extreme it is the middle where the government has the least power. The right goes further than that. But that end is so defeated that liberty is now far right. Which is precisely why we now need to draw some lines for the left. That you are unconcerned with your inability to draw some lines is rather telling. Who will draw them? It clearly won't be me. And if it is not you then I suppose someone to the left of you will stand up and say this is too far? But the further left you go the more it is frowned upon to draw hard lines. Being progressive is synonymous with compromising with those further left than you, standing for nothing except acceptance. Unless of course it disagrees with the acceptance. Then it's not acceptable. So, no lines will be drawn. They can't be. It would be intolerable, unaccepting.

[Barney]

Ok fair enough, I was trying to keep things simple to make the point clear but I agree it's more complicated than that. Libertarianism doesn't really belong on the left-right spectrum at all, because some of its principles are far right and others are far left. You seem only to agree with the far-right ones, so you are not a pure libertarian - for example, you want to place restrictions on immigration.

What I meant was that libertarianism is an extreme position - going north or south, if you like, some other direction than left or right. It is ideologically purist, collapsing many complicated questions into a few simple rules ("theft is theft"; "I have a right to choose how I spend what I earn", etc.) and refusing to acknowledge complexity around issues like taxation, ownership, collective responsibility.

Libertarianism is clearly not "in the middle." How can I tell? Because no nation has ever implemented it. From a libertarian perspective, every nation in the world is compromised, is failing to adhere to the pure and simple rules of theft and property rights - especially first world nations with their welfare systems (which are generally understood to be based on Christian principles of compassion).

That you are unconcerned with your inability to draw some lines is rather telling. Who will draw them? It clearly won't be me. And if it is not you then I suppose someone to the left of you will stand up and say this is too far? But the further left you go the more it is frowned upon to draw hard lines.

Again, 'we', the democracy, will draw them. It's not only with issues like welfare that it's hard to draw the line. It's equally hard on issues that you have already admitted taxation is legitimate for. Where do you draw the line on how much to pay the politicians? Where do you draw the line on how much to spend on prisons, roads, the military? Who gets to decide? Perhaps someone to the right of you will stand up and say this is too far - we should steal even less from the rich and make our prisons even more intolerably inhumane, our military even tinier, our roads even less well maintained. Who gets to decide these things? You can't avoid that question no matter what your politics is. It might be better to heed your own advice on the whole question (assuming that you have as little control over government policy as you have over climate change, which I think is true):

Go live meaningfully, not worrying about things you do not control. Don't try to split hairs over whether you "need" this or that. You need nothing. What is your objective? What things will facilitate that? Don't treat yourself like a slave but pursue your objectives. Be honest. Work hard. Be on time. Be presentable. Honor your father and mother. Be kind. Be patient. Be generous. Consider others as more important than yourself. Love your enemy. Bless those who persecute you.

If that is true, then let's forget about politics altogether alongside forgetting about climate change. Let's just work hard at our own personal morality without worrying about which government is in power and what they're going to do next - after all, we can't control it, right? And whatever they do, they can't take away anything we need, because we need nothing.

[Ondrej]

Libertarianism is clearly not "in the middle." How can I tell? Because no nation has ever implemented it.

Well, at the founding of the US it was far more libertarian than now. The goal was to establish a country that was as free from coercive forces of government as possible. There was no property tax or income tax for example. There was no welfare or attempts to redistribute wealth. This task was taken up by the church (where it should be).

The US fared well on this style of government. It was the wild frontier, but also the land of opportunity.

Where do you draw the line on how much to pay the politicians? Where do you draw the line on how much to spend on prisons, roads, the military? Who gets to decide? Perhaps someone to the right of you will stand up and say this is too far - we should steal even less from the rich and make our prisons even more intolerably inhumane, our military even tinier, our roads even less well maintained. Who gets to decide these things?

Yes, you make a good point. These things have to be decided somehow and the way we currently do it is by voting for politicians who will, we hope, do what they said they will do.

I feel like it is not quite fair to flip the table around and run the questions back at me, though. Well, it is fair but it's not quite the same direction. What I mean is, there is a fundamental limit to freedom. It doesn't "get worse" than freedom. And because you are free, you are free to design whatever institutions to address whatever concerns you like. There does not seem to be a slippery slope toward freedom but away from freedom. Freedom has to be fought for and kept with great care. We do see slippery slopes toward authoritarianism. This has happened over and over in the 20th century. Where do we see countries slipping uncontrollably toward freedom and then a total dissolution of the government. Has it ever happened even once? It just doesn't seem like a real danger.

Let's just work hard at our own personal morality without worrying about which government is in power and what they're going to do next - after all, we can't control it, right?

I'm with you on that. Except then what will we argue about. For the most part politics has a small impact on my day to day life. You're the only one I debate with.

And whatever they do, they can't take away anything we need, because we need nothing.

True, but they can take away plenty of things that I want.

[Barney]

I thought it was more suitable to reply to this in this thread.