Most/Least Favorite Philosopher and Why?

[BeBMan]

BTW could you guys include some - in your eyes - "must-read" books of your favourite philo heroes?

That would be interesting to me, since I´m mostly read German philosophers until now , Kant, Hegel etc. But what exactly should I read from the others? Most of them surely have written a lot. Any recommendations would be nice

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Ned
Favorite: Orwell
Least favorite: Marx

Orwell was an amazing writer and thinker, but he wasn't much of a philosopher. The more philosophical bits of his writings are pretty uninteresting (take a look at the second half of The Road to Wigan Pier.
Oh and right-wingers who love Orwell need to be smacked around the head liberally with Homage to Catalonia.

but impressed based on reading of Fukiyama

Ug, don't remind me of Fukayama. I can't remember a serious publish work more chockfull of BAMing than his End of History. Blech.

Oh and add Lenin to the list of philosophers I despise, I've never seen so much vicious venom as in his writings.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Boshko
Ug, don't remind me of Fukayama. I can't remember a serious publish work more chockfull of BAMing than his End of History. Blech.

There is one merit in End of History: it is a nice introduction to Hegel's and Marx's historical dialectism. Now, if we want this introduction, maybe we should rather read the philosopher he copies from.

And there is a second merit: End of History teaches you how bull**** looks like. Very important for any newbie philosopher

[C0ckney]

Oh and right-wingers who love Orwell need to be smacked around the head liberally with Homage to Catalonia.

the same could be said for left wingers, many of whom got their knickers in a twist when that book was published

but much as i like orwell (although i disagree with some of the things he says), you're right when you say he isn't really a philosopher.

[Bosh]

the same could be said for left wingers, many of whom got their knickers in a twist when that book was published

Well all of the leftists I know that like Orwell (me included) like him because of Homage to Catalonia.

[Berzerker]

UBoris -

Yes it does. Because, again, the human history is an history of people plundering others- those who rise above the rest are the better plunderers. Anyway, there has only been oligarchies throughout history- democracy is only about alternating them with some influence of the people.

Words have meanings and oligarchy means rule by a few, nothing more, nothing less. If we used your logic, then the definition of democracy requires plunder because that's what we see in democracies too.

I think you don't seem to get my point here. Bastiat's position cannot be held- because there can't be any justice in partial restitutions, since those who have commited the unfixable plunders would be at an undue advantage over the others.

That's your position, not Bastiats. He's not obsessed with advantages or dis-advantages. And your solution to past plunder is future plunder regardless of who committed the plunder in the past so why do you even mention it since it isn't relevant to your position? Past plunder to you is nothing more than an excuse to commit future plunder, not a desire to end plunder and seek redress for the past.

Is my argument "we can't fix the past so we should continue"? sorta. But you're being dishonest here, because that's my thesis, and certainly not my demonstration, which you seem to be dodging.

What does that mean? It's your thesis but not your "demonstration"? You said Bastiat's philosophy is flawed because of past injustice which you seem to think he is obliged to correct while you can't fix the past either.

First, what I said here has nothing to do with "someone else is doing it, so we are justified". It was rather intended as a demonstration of a simple fact: everyone is doing it. I'm not drawing any conclusion here... yet.

Not everyone is doing it.

Someone was forcing him: his name is "starvation".

Starvation isn't a person.

And someone was profitting from this starvation to impose unfair conditions: Nike.

Unfair in your mind, if the people employed by Nike believe it's unfair it's up to them to seek employment elsewhere. Nike doesn't exist to feed you...

(BTW, it is far from sure that sweatshops are paying more than local industries.

*sigh* If they were paying less they wouldn't exist if the higher paying local industries needed workers.

In fact, many of them are profitting from the quick increase of population in the third world and the subsequent lack of good agricultural land to offer their disgusting jobs as the only alternative).

"Sweatshop" owners aren't responsible for the lack of agricultural land and if those jobs were so disgusting people wouldn't be taking them. But their options before those jobs were obviously not as good or they wouldn't have agreed to employment with Nike.

Do you have any serious argument against Marx' conception of alienation, which states that as soon that someone owns the means of productions, he is at an undue advantage that must be counterbalanced by the law?

Not any argument you'd consider serious given your contempt for freedom. Should children be taken from their families and raised in state institutions so parents can't give them "undue" (you should define that word since you keep using it) advantages? Just how far do you plan on going with your ideology?

A poor's labor, which is his only wealth, can be abused in an outrageous way, because everyone needs a shelter and some food.

Business owners aren't responsible for your needs.

There can't be any freedom in deciding whether or not you want to have them. You do, and you follow the rules of those who could be providing those.

Freedom means the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action. Freedom is not an exemption from nature nor is it an excuse to steal from others.

And what next? As soon as the means of production are owned, then they must be inevitably transferred when the owner dies. This is the root of "oligarchy".

And what happens when the vast majority of people transfer their wealth to their offspring when they die?

Don't make me laugh. Scabs should be (and are in some countries) illegal. They are a direct attack against the worker's only possible power: their workforce.

You're changing the subject, you accused "robber barons" of calling in the police to beat up strikers and that's left wing propaganda. Strikers attacked "scabs" and tried to shut down businesses that wouldn't give in to their demands, that's when these "robber barons" asked for protection.

Just think of it a second: if an employer can dispose of its workers at will and get other ones, why can't workers dismiss their employer at will and get the one they wish?

They can, it's called "take this job and shove it".

Of course, this is absolutely unthinkable. But disallowing scabs is the least we can do.

The least you can do for whom? The unemployed who want the jobs? How "compassionate" of you.

Otherwise, we can only have a ridiculous, one-sided 'free' market in the field of employment.
I would go farther and say that there is a major problem in the conception of property on which your reasoning seems to be based. The fact is, there comes a point where the most efficient way you can gain property is through rental of someone else's labor, which is oftentimes its sole property. But in most current conceptions, the 'physical' property supercedes the 'potential' one which lies in workforce. The idea that one has the right to benefit from his work to its full extent only holds true when you own the facilities, because the vast majority of human beings receive less than the amount of work they are doing, while a minority of them receives much more (i.e. the millionaires). Labor is not only a tool towards property; it is a kind of property in itself that is not and never will be respected in an unrestricted capitalist system.

So if all I have is my labor, someone else is supposed to buy me land, build me a shop, buy me machinery, and everything I need to produce my product because I'm not free until the state forces someone else to do all this for me?

Now back to our history books. It was only in the beginning of the 20th century that strikes were legalized. So all the oppression that had occured before had nothing to do with the scabs or the invasion of private properties: being a worker on strike was strictly illegal anyway. You must be naive to believe that workers were only brutalized when they invaded private properties. The barons and the governments abused their power up to their houses, persecuted them in the streets, and didn't have any qualms about asking the Cossacks or whatever force needed for help.

Can we leave Russia (a dictatorship) out of it and talk about the USA? Strikers were not attacked for quitting or striking, they were attacked when they tried to shut down businesses and for harassing "scabs". And Bastiat would oppose any business owner who tried to use the state to compel people to work for him.

Hell, even in the 50s, my grandfather went to jail because he was on strike- which was not even supposed to be illegal anymore.

You mean he was imprisoned for walking off the job to get a better contract? Nonsense.

Note the irony: the rich, who usually conceive prosperity as a tool to achieve greater goals, such as happiness, justice, artistic endeavours, or justice, are acting the opposite. Their social rhetoric, based on the economic thinking, would have everyone a mere tool in the gearing towards productivity and wealth. They are enslaving the poor's workforce into being a 'tool of their own tool' and are selling it as an absolute good, which will bring democracy everywhere, etc.

And you claimed you don't advocate socialised plunder? You ooze Marxism...

I think this shows your misconception of what a State really is. A State is an organization that holds the monopoly of violence over a given territory.

That's an immoral state, we have the right of self-defense in our state. A monopoly on retribution perhaps, but not violence.

Usually, this monopoly has been sort of granted by consensus, but sometimes it is taken over by brute force. In this, a State is an extension of the individuals' power, and not an independant entity which inherited its monopoly from some kind of 'divine' right, who would then seek to expand it because of an inalienable mission.

Agreed, the state derives it's moral authority to act from the moral authority of the individuals to act. So, explain how you obtained the moral authority to plunder the property of others, and if you cannot, how did the state derive it's moral authority to plunder on your behalf.

In fact, what Bastiat describes as a State- something that wages a perpetual war in order to increase its plunder, is much more similar to what a Corporation really is: an organization whose sole duty, defined by a legal charter, is to generate profit and redistribute it proportionally to every shareholder's stance in the company.

A corporation doesn't force me to either work for it or buy it's products. We don't have that choice when it's the state "asking" for our labor and property.

True, the larger the State, the higher the possibility of a small bureaucratic bourgeoisie class rising from its existence, whose sole objective would be to increase its power and nurture its wealth from the State itself. But the truth is not quite like this: this small bourgeoisie has usually been kept at bay (think of the various welfare states who have undergone privatization and service cuts to reduce taxes as an example of this). And a State's goals in using its 'violence monopoly' have rarely been absolutely clear and defined. They are much more of a mosaic of the variable interests underlying those who have founded it than anything as obvious as a Corporate charter.

What are you responding to?

Now to my point:

Bout time.

a State is not a Corporation intent on plundering for itself; it is a 'violence monopoly' which can be used by anyone already part of the civil society, by whatever means he can use to access the power (example: a coup, a political donation, a vote, or outright bribery) to enforce its own plunder. Therefore, each and every 'plundering' commited by the State (a meta-entity) has been done on behalf of someone in the society (a micro-entity) wishing to profit for himself.

Can't people buy stock in corporations? It is ironic how you listed voting with coups and bribes when obtaining this monopoly on violence, quite telling.

So, let's answer your question here:

4 paragraphs later and you finally get to my question.

yes, the oppression and the conquests of the colonization and industrial era have been commited directly on behalf of the oligarchs, who at the time had appropriated for themselves the major part of the Western States' structure to fulfill their private agenda. The unfair laws against labor unions and the securizing of mines in Africa are a prime example of this.

STATES did this, not corporations.

He may or he may not, I don't mind.

Well it matters if you're going to argue his philosophy is flawed.

What I do mind, however, is the fact that Bastiat's proposals will in no way put an end to any plunder.

Only because you believe it's plunder if I make a product and someone else buys it or if I agree to pay someone to help me make the product.

The system he puts forward can only result in Anarcho-Capitalism, which, is by definition, the apotheosis of plundering by a financial oligarchy who, once the welfare states are of no more help to them, would tear them apart to build their own law, now that they have the necessary billions.

Build what laws? Obviously Bastiat opposes any law used to plunder, but you conveniently ignore that.

Do I really want my 'share of the loot'? Well, I'm not here to depict my private life in detail, but I can assure you that from my family background, I have been personally much more of a 'looted' than a 'looter'- that is, if we follow your logic in which abusing someone else's labor does not count as plundering...

If someone agrees to give me money in exchange for my labor, they aren't "abusing" my labor and that isn't plunder.

Given that:
-every human throughout history has been plundering;

False.

-every state has;

Probably.

-every corporations has

False.

-that most humans and corporations will continue to do it if there is no strong police force to prevent them

A police force you'd employ to plunder.

I believe that the violence monopoly held by the state is merely a 'compromise', a moderating tool between each and every small or larger plundering done by the elemets of a society.

Like I said, Bastiat wanted to end plunder and you want to expand it. And you say his philosophy is flawed because of past plunder which you use an excuse for future plunder.

It is false to assume we can base human societies and rules of living on something else than plunder, because the desire for profit is strictly amoral (for most anyway); what we can do, however, is to create welfare states that provide everyone in need for health, food, education and basic shelter, that have a strong police force, and above all, consider their political subjects (the individuals) more important than the purely economic ones (the corporations, who can confer substantial power to any individual).

How does one consider the individual more important than a corporation when individuals make up the corporation?

In that way, whatever 'plundering' will ever be going on, it will greatly reduce the worst consequences this could have: starvation, absence of healthcare, child labor, etc.

Only by expanding the plunder. So why do you bother feigning outrage at plunder when you fully support it?

Well, I certainly understand your point. But my real position here is a pragmatic one: plunder has and will always be going on anyway. That is a rule of life. The two worst cases of plunder are those of anarcho-capitalism and those of socialism: in the middle of both are our current social-democracies, based on regulated capitalism and wealth redistribution. The best thing we can do about it is to base our states on fundamental principles, by which we would strive to give everyone the means to have equal chances in our cruel world, so that the only plunder we 'suffer' is one aimed at achieving this goal, while in the same time being compassionate to the 'losers' who find themselves in desperate conditions. This is the kind of compromise that brings moral freedom to everyone, social stability, and relieves us of most of the fundamental fears (to die unfairly), while at the same time allowing for a partial economic freedom way sufficient to allow people to become extremely wealthy, should they feel the need to.
The State is a social contract which is ours to define; a corporation whose goals we can choose at will. Don't let economic freedom gobble them up.

So plunder is moral freedom now?

[Whaleboy]

And here I was thinking Drogue and myself were the undisputed master of long posts....

[BeBMan]

Then you never read a longer philosophy thread where Berz posted in.

Noobs

[Ramo]

Favorite: Orwell

Ned's favorite philosopher is a pinko socialist.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ramo

Ned's favorite philosopher is a pinko socialist.

Actually, Ned is a very weird lefty: he has lefty concerns, but an impressively right-wing perception of reality.

[Evil Knevil]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Actually, Ned is a very weird lefty: he has lefty concerns, but an impressively right-wing perception of reality.

To be honest, I think he's what the Japanese would call, "a little bit dense".

[Fake Boris]

Berzerker:

This is what I hate so much from written discussions. It can't end anywhere, because you just don't take the time to read the theory behind my thesis, or at least to attack it.

I'd be willing to chat with you if you felt like helping the discussion, but I won't post anything more. Too long and too easily misunderstood.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think he's what the Japanese would call, "a little bit dense".

I did find it funny that Ned listed Orwell . He's a closet socialist!

I would have expected Edmund Burke from Ned... who I also like myself (er.. add him to my list ). He can be considered a philosopher I believe.

[Kuciwalker]

He's a closet socialist!

Actually, he was an open socialist

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Berzerker:

This is what I hate so much from written discussions. It can't end anywhere, because you just don't take the time to read the theory behind my thesis, or at least to attack it.

Welcome to the OT Boris. You gotta make or break your argument in a few sentences. If you can't then, well, you probably shouldn't be discussing long drawn out topics in a forum.