Topic: If Anarchy can work, how come there are no historical records of it working? - page 15. (Read 17188 times)

Did you?

Did you read the question?  I say the ideas were evident in the 1640s in a way that they were not during the War of the Roses which implies they evolved in that period.  That's debatable  - I could be a decade or 2 out - but to call that assertion "flawed" is stupid.

We both know that the two of us are not gonna have a fruitful discussion, so I'm not gonna get into one again, but I will tell you this.

Anyone who has a degree in political science can tell you (or: should be able to tell you) that the name is misleading, since politics does not adhere to typical scientific standards; it's not falsifiable and it's not repeatable (especially not in an enclosed environment).

That does not mean that political science (or any other non-beta type of science) is useless, or at least I do not think it is. I think it can certainly teach us useful stuff, but it is very important to realize that it is not science in the "traditional" sense of the word. We cannot prove anything in a scientific manner; the usefulness rests in the discussions more than anywhere else. We can pose ideas and discuss hypothesis, in this way we can even get to some sort of estimation of probability, but we must always realize there just is no real way of knowing anything in any scientific way.

In other words, political science is paradoxically only useful if you first realize that it's actually not science at all.

In this case, I think you are projecting modernism - the believe in progress as based on science - on non-scientific concepts like politics, or freedom. If political science tells us anything, it is that we can not do that. We can not say whether or not the concept of freedom has progressed, at least not in a scientific way as you seem to be suggesting.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism and/or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

Aside from you presenting those flawed ideas as an answer.

Irrelevant.  If you want to discuss seventeenth century ideas and why they got it wrong, make a thread for it.  Its nothing to do with the NewLiberty's question.

And we're back to my point of those ideas being wrong. No more and no less than an earth-centric solar system. And for many of the same reasons.

And we are back at my point about the evolution of ideas between the War of the Roses and the 1640s.  Thanks for the diversion. 


No-one knows.  A few countries can point to specific events that turn their history on its head and shaped their destiny.  For example, the Japanese can make a direct link between the arrival of Perry, the rulers seeing that if they didn't adapt damn fast they would be colonised and the Meiji era.

Most of the rest of us live in countries where cultures have evolved over centuries and are still changing.  The US, Ireland and the UK have a regard for personal freedom, taxation based on democratic consent and property rights that was clearly visible in the 1640s during the English civil war.  100 years before, none of those things mattered. 

And our shared political culture hasn't really had a major change since then.

As is pretending they were right. And again, I'm not discussing freedom. Never have been. Only consent, democracy, and taxation.

The Danes are free in both senses of the word.  They can make decisions but they are provided for if it all goes wrong.  I dont' get what your problem is with that.  Poverty is not a social good.  The absence of poverty does not mean the absence of making decisions.

Oh ffs.  Politics is not Political Science. Providing a link to a political science page doesn't make politics a science.  If you want a forum where topics are limited to topics of a political science curriculum and posts use that kind of methodology, apply to the mods for a new forum.  It will be a very quiet forum!

Ideas evolve.  Regardless of what you want to achieve, acting superior to people who died centuries ago because you "know" what freedom is while they only knew the "illusion of freedom" is ridiculous.  

fascinating story - thanks for posting

Yea, in the same way that an absence of someone telling me what to do creates necessity, coercion or constraint in choice or action if I'm unable to think for myself and make my own choices.  Again, this goes back to definition 'c', where freedom has to be qualified as freedom 'from' something.

In the 'Danish' case, that's Freedom from poverty.  My example of 'Freedom from making decisions' still stands.  So, is 'Freedom from making decisions' freedom?

Um.  Of course it isn't. But the absence of economic security creates necessity, coercion or constraint in choice or action.  So providing economic security can legitimately be called providing freedom.  You may not want it to happen because you believe that the threat of poverty is a moral benefit but you have to accept that not everyone will agree with you.

Really? I'll ask a black man if he thinks today's society is superior to the one in the 1850s, see what he thinks. I'll let you know. (And yes, politics is a science.)

No, I want to build a society based on superior understanding of human nature, as opposed to clinging to old, fallacious traditions. You defending democracy this way is like defending slavery by saying "It was good enough for them."

Because economic security is not necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.  I understand there are those who think that 'economic freedom' is 'wealth equality', but that's an obfuscation of sub-definitions 'a' and 'c'.

Why did you skip
": the quality or state of being free: as
a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action"

It was top of the list.  And the Danish idea fits perfectly with it.

Politics is not science.  1000 years ago, slavery was fine and abortion a huge evil.  Now its the opposite.  That means morality changed - it doesn't mean that we are superior beings to those that were alive back then.

You are claiming that you are more moral or more clever than people who came before you because your ideas are more up to date than their ideas is pompous.  I'd love not to mention it, really.  But you do seem to want to lord it over the people who died for the "illusion of freedom" just because you don't agree with what they saw as freedom centuries ago.

So, is the Danish definition 'Freedom from anxiety about economic insecurity'?  I suppose you can use the ablative form to really twist freedom around.

Perhaps someone defines freedom as 'Freedom from making decisions.'

But it did not last, which I would consider to be a pretty vital aspect of 'it working'. It didn't last, therefore it didn't really work.

Great post.