- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Shame...

In Reply to: The key difference between a classical liberal and a statist posted by Shannon Medlock on June 20, 1999 at 14:31:16:

: In my opinion, the root of statism is born out of a contempt for people and the belief that they are inherently bad, whereas libertarianism is a political-economic belief on the assumption that people are essentially good. Totalitarianism, whether in the form of communism or despotism, begins with the presupposition that people are unfit to rule themselves, whether because of mass stupidy, immorality or whatever; and therefore need rules, regulations, bureaucrats and despots to be ruled by.

What a shame that such an erudite explanation of the doctrines of classical Liberalism should be mixed in with such abject rubbish and ignorance.

Given:
1:That communism is largely also a child of the Enlightenment.
2:Proposes the *abolition* of the state.
3:Beleives in full and total democracy, and freedom.
4:Desires to end the slavery of division of labour.
Then we can assume that Communism is not predicated upon some version of Hobbesian conservatism or original sin.

Further, classic Liberalism's stance on the state, paraphrasing Paine (his fine tome is not to hand), is that the state exists as a correction for the evils of mankind, so to the extent that a state exists, we find that it is solely tehre where humans are failing (according to classic liberalism- I really don't recall, btw- J.S.Mill wanting to see the end of the state, he far too greatly feared teh 'tyranny of the majority' (That is the impoverished majority who may end his life of easy and plenty).

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