Why Not Utopia?

[crazy canuck]

That's ok Grumbles.  The change only makes a difference if you assume you know my full educational background.  But I suppose the subtlety was lost on you as you attempted to puff out your academic chest.  Your attempt to back away from the comment that not one of your professors used the term historical materialism even though you claim, I forget exactly how you elegantly put it, but something like, "done lots of Marxism"  is the usual Grumbler attack style and so should surprise no one here.  We have seen it many times before.

Um, dude, you intentionally quoted someone grossly out of context.  Mid-sentence out of context.  You don't get to do victory laps after doing something so transparently childish.

I will mark you down as someone who didn't understand the contextual take down either.  Some talents are lost on this place.

[Admiral Yi]

   I propose we create a grumbler/cc megathread.

[DGuller]

I propose

I'm flattered.

[Admiral Yi]

   Even without the Oval Office?

[DGuller]

 

[Berkut]

That's ok Grumbles.  The change only makes a difference if you assume you know my full educational background.  But I suppose the subtlety was lost on you as you attempted to puff out your academic chest.  Your attempt to back away from the comment that not one of your professors used the term historical materialism even though you claim, I forget exactly how you elegantly put it, but something like, "done lots of Marxism"  is the usual Grumbler attack style and so should surprise no one here.  We have seen it many times before.

Um, dude, you intentionally quoted someone grossly out of context.  Mid-sentence out of context.  You don't get to do victory laps after doing something so transparently childish.

I will mark you down as someone who didn't understand the contextual take down either.  Some talents are lost on this place.

Amazing how nobody else understands how you are totally right when you are totally wrong. Again.

[KRonn]

Utopianism is the ideological and doctrinal foundation for statism. While utopianism
and statism or utopian and statist are often used interchangeably, the undertaking here is to
probe more deeply into what motivates and animates the tyranny of statism. Indeed, the
modern arguments about the necessities and virtues of government control over the individual
are but malign echoes of utopian prescriptions through the ages, which attempted to define
subjugation as the most transcendent state of man. Utopianism has long promoted the idea of
a paradisiacal existence and advanced concepts of pseudo "ideal" societies in which a heroic
despot, a benevolent sovereign, or an enlightened oligarchy claims the ability and authority to
provide for all the needs and fulfill all the wants of the individual—in exchange for his abject
servitude. 

I think this is an interesting view, perhaps truth to that argument. Who is going to create a utopian society? Is it going to happen as a result of people's choices and a free marketplace of ideas and economy, or will it be done more so by government as society and economy change if the OP article comes to fruition? I'd have to think government, many of the leaders and politicians,  would push such an idea as it gives government a great amount of control over all of society. It's what they try and do now with ever larger government and control. It would seem similar to communism which just turned into totalitarianism because after all, someone had to control and regulate the system and be the elites in charge, which in communism's case is extreme control. So would utopia come about the same way, and devolve into another form of authoritarian or totalitarian, strong arm rule by a government? Or even pretty much start out that way?

[crazy canuck]

I thought I would check Grumbler's claim that historical materialism is a term that wasn't used at the London School of Economics.  Interestingly there was a Journal started at the London School of Economics which was called Historical Materialism.   It is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal which started as a project at the London School of Economics from 1995 to 1998 

[MadImmortalMan]

Utopianism is the ideological and doctrinal foundation for statism. While utopianism
and statism or utopian and statist are often used interchangeably, the undertaking here is to
probe more deeply into what motivates and animates the tyranny of statism. Indeed, the
modern arguments about the necessities and virtues of government control over the individual
are but malign echoes of utopian prescriptions through the ages, which attempted to define
subjugation as the most transcendent state of man. Utopianism has long promoted the idea of
a paradisiacal existence and advanced concepts of pseudo "ideal" societies in which a heroic
despot, a benevolent sovereign, or an enlightened oligarchy claims the ability and authority to
provide for all the needs and fulfill all the wants of the individual—in exchange for his abject
servitude. 

I think this is an interesting view, perhaps truth to that argument. Who is going to create a utopian society? Is it going to happen as a result of people's choices and a free marketplace of ideas and economy, or will it be done more so by government as society and economy change if the OP article comes to fruition? I'd have to think government, many of the leaders and politicians,  would push such an idea as it gives government a great amount of control over all of society. It's what they try and do now with ever larger government and control. It would seem similar to communism which just turned into totalitarianism because after all, someone had to control and regulate the system and be the elites in charge, which in communism's case is extreme control. So would utopia come about the same way, and devolve into another form of authoritarian or totalitarian, strong arm rule by a government? Or even pretty much start out that way?

No, I think the problem with utopia is not that it requires servitude, but that each person's idea of the ideal is different. One man's utopia is another man's hell.

I mean, maybe you could make 75 different utopias in different places and let everyone choose which one to live in, but beyond the extremely impractical it's not possible.

[DGuller]

You can have wars over whose idea of utopia is correct.  That would eventually settle the question.

[Siege]

You can have wars over whose idea of utopia is correct.  That would eventually settle the question.

We already did.
Command/planned economy lost, free market economy won.

[Valmy]

I think that was the joke he was making.

Anyway the platonic Free Market economy did not win since people have assured me we have never had one.

[grumbler]

If Plato ever talked about a free market economy, I don't think he wrote it down.

[Valmy]

The Hayekias

[The Minsky Moment]

The mixed economy won; the "free market" systems were wiped out in the series of Panics from the 1870s through the 1930s.