Krugman on whether the rich really need the rest of us

[nebris]

By Gaius Publius on 3/11/2012 09:15:00 AM

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Paul Krugman has a nice column on Republican attitudes on education, contrasting "social conservative" Santorum's approach with "economic conservative" Romney's. I'll let you go read; it's excellent.

But I want to point out the following (my emphasis):
But what about

Comments

[ragnarok20]

One last thing: The rich don't need us insofar as the state exists. Given that the state is a monopoly on the coercive use o force (that is, they have the "legal" right to influence your life and ways of belief regarldless of any objections to the contrary), it is a simple fact that the state athroughout human history has existed towards one end and oneend alone" The elimination of humanity's free will. These are the kind of peopke who believe that they know what kind of life is best for you, despite all epistemological evidence to the contrary. You are your own person and you, better than anyone else, knows what is best for you. (At least, you have a better idea given that you have access to your own thoughts, which no one else does.) Given that you know your own goals better than anyone else, you have the riht to pursue them insofar as you don't interfere with another's equal right to do the same. After all, that is the basic tenet of libertarianism. Sure, go around and be douchebag, but if you punch someone then yoour actions

[nebris]

The Hive will always defeat The Individual.

~M~

[ragnarok20]

The individual is the basic political unit. While the individual itself cannot exit separate from the collective, as we are not some Lockean tabula rasa the fact remains that the collective is an abstraction from the concrete fact of individual existence.

[nebris]

The Collective defines The Individual far more than the other way round.

We're conducting this interface with English text. That shapes how we think and act. It precedes us and will exist after we're gone. And that is simply one example.

~M~

[ragnarok20]

I get that, I've got degrees in philosophy and political science. But it's not about what defines who we are, because that is a vast and deep subject, but insofar as a political system is concerned, it must be based on the individual since that is concrete, and the collective is an abstraction and one must not reify an abstraction because it multiplies causes beyond necessity.

it must be based on the individual since that is concrete

[nebris]

That is a false assumption. It is based upon the illusion that we all all rational autonomous beings. Nothing could be further from the truth. We're a pack species at best, a herd species at worst.

~M~

Re: it must be based on the individual since that is concrete

[ragnarok20]

Again, this is some reification bullshit, where you take the concept of the group and place it above the the concrete existence of the individual

Re: it must be based on the individual since that is concrete

[nebris]

Reification, schmeification. You can deny the reality of the collective till the cows come home. That don't make it so.

But you're one of those so-called 'rugged individuals' and to admit the above would amount to a personal annihilation.

And I don't care. Like I said above, you're not my target demo.

~M~

..that link's to a book 'in progress' btw..and I DO have it all figured out..lol

Re: it must be based on the individual since that is concrete

[ragnarok20]

You cannot conceive the many without the one. - Plato

You cannot conceive the many without the one. - Plato

[nebris]

So I should allow my blood platelets an equal vote on how I run my life? I suppose they might do a better job at it than the good citizens of Mississippi. lol

And it is typical of the shallowness of Libertarian thought that you'd quote a control freak proto-fascist like Plato to 'prove' the sanctity of The Individual. He'd have had the lot of you put to death without a second thought.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Spock. =)

~M~