Mastodawn

"While some in countries like Germany misguidedly saw noble purpose in their lucrative entanglement with authoritarian regimes, in reality it enriched authoritarians and helped entrench their power as systemic rivals to liberal societies.

"Neo-Idealists are clear that illiberal competitors should not be dealt with in too liberal a way. They recognise that ‘free trade’ of the kind seen in the last two decades in fact boosts autocracies such as China and undermines democracies ..."
2/5

"Yet, particularly given the level of our current dependencies on China, this raises questions over democracies’ sources of growth and prosperity.

Neo-Idealists should therefore embrace ‘friendshoring’ and other ways to increase economic activity within and between democracies. This will come at a short-term cost, which can be thought of as a ‘national security premium’.

"Neo-Idealists have shown they know the price of freedom and are willing to pay it, but they need to go further ..."
3/5

"They need to show how they can transform this national security premium, into an investment in a better future. That will require fully seizing and accelerating both green and technological transitions but also entrenching redistributive models that will spread the costs and benefits of these transitions far more equitably across our societies ..."

4/5

"They should seek to rebalance a global order that even liberalism’s defenders see as “rigged” and thus incentivise both rooted and aspirant democracies to adopt their approach. Just as importantly, they must reform domestic political economic arrangements to share the benefits of freedom more fairly with more of our populations – as the Biden administration seems to have recognised."

5/5

@Richard_Hull thanks for sharing! This is the first time I’ve encountered the term #NeoIdeaism and I like what I see.

It feels like a sibling to #SolarPunk. Both philosophies focus on creating healthy societies. SolarPunk gets there by integrating environmental sustainability and technological (retro-)innovation. NeoIdealism works with economics, trade, governance and labor.

🧵1/5

The main point of conflict I see between #SolarPunk and #NeoIdealism is economic structure.

#SolarPunk has a strong #anticapitalism streak, that asserts #Capitalism is incompatible with surviving #ClimateChange and #SocialJustice

#NeoIdealism might be able to embrace and subsume this critique by including domestic #SocialJustice and #sustainability as key values, and thus essential constraints on #Globalism and #Growth

🧵2/5

This takes me back to the ill-fated Trans-Pacific Partnership (#TPP)

We had a golden opportunity to form an affirmative alliance that stood for #HumanRights, #Democracy, and #FreeMarkets. The American electorate killed the effort because #neoliberalism had failed to deliver the gains from #NAFTA broadly enough.

The #neoliberal project failed to account for (1) adaptation costs for economically displaced individuals, (2) labor & environmental standards, and (3) #resilience

🧵3/5

Current ideological options aren’t good enough!

The #nazis are unproductive reactionaries retreating into hate and fear.

The #neoliberals are sitting on a pile of gold, fiddling while the world burns.

The #Communists (at least those who run countries) are just #authoritarians in Red, sitting next to the Neoliberals on the gold pile of oblivion.

The #environmentalists have the right idea but tend to under-value People in general and #democracy specifically.

🧵4/5

We desperately need an affirmative vision for #21stcentury Earth.

We must address the #climatecrisis while expanding #humanrights and #economicjustice.

Perhaps #SolarPunk and #NeoIdealism are good places to start.

🧵5/5

J Lou Jul 22, 2023

@PeterBronez @Richard_Hull The philosopher with the best vision, which centers democracy and #EconomicJustice through expanded #HumanRights, and accounts for people's equal claim to products of nature, is David Ellerman. His #EconomicDemocracy is described here: https://www.ellerman.org/rethinking-common-vs-private-property/

Rethinking Common vs. Private Property

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a rethinking of the common-versus-private framing of the property rights issue in the Commons Movement. The underlying normative principle we will use is simply the basic juridical principle that people should be legally responsible for the (positive and negative) results of their actions, i.e., that legal or de jure responsibility should be imputed in accordance with de facto responsibility. In the context of property rights, the responsibility principle is the old idea that property should be founded on people getting the (positive or negative) fruits of their labor, which is variously called the labor or natural rights theory of property.

DAVID ELLERMAN

@jlou @Richard_Hull thanks for sharing! Sounds promising, will review.

@PeterBronez @Richard_Hull

AKingsbury Jul 22, 2023

In all honesty, that's the main sticking point for me with #solarpunk. I'm 100% on board with creating sustainable solutions for environmental problems. I want everyone, everywhere, to have access to clean air and water, healthy food, etc. But, as much as I despise crony capitalism, I just cannot bring myself to turn my back on capitalism itself, for all the massive good it's done, largely for the impoverished people in the world. And I don't think I'm alone.

Joshua Barretto Jul 22, 2023

@AlexanderKingsbury @PeterBronez @Richard_Hull To be devil's advocate: why the assumption that capitalism is the *cause* of the enormous wealth and progress of the modern world? Could it not be that this enormous wealth beyond simple subsistence production is better described as the cause of the accumulation of the surplus into the hands of a small number of individuals?

Ben Jul 22, 2023

@AlexanderKingsbury @PeterBronez @Richard_Hull I find talking about Capitalism online is rather pointless because no-one is clear what it means and doesn't mean. Free exchange of things and services? (Except of course of which things and services?) Market mechanisms? Less billionaires? "We care less about stuff"? "Everyone has enough to live"? "Everyone gets what they want"?

Solarpunk is worse for discussions as it's mainly an aesthetic that doesn't even try to be coherent, realistic, specific.

mj Jul 23, 2023

@b3n

Are you saying that you find that people have a clear consensus as to what capitalism is offline?

It's *always* going to be individualized abstractions regarding their emotions & priors. Clear enough to each person, but opaque when brought together.

That is why the elitists continue to prop up ideologies as being integral to the system-- the inevitable disagreements are what keep them in power.

Ben Jul 23, 2023

@MalthusJohn no, of course not. But the context knowledge and time you have offline allows to talk about what people actually want to talk about. - which is never “capitalism.”

@AlexanderKingsbury @PeterBronez @Richard_Hull

MBelcher Jul 22, 2023

“I’m all for a livable planet BUT I am wholly on board with the thing that is making the planet unlivable.”

I guarantee that whatever definition you personally have of capitalism in your head is not the actual definition of capitalism.

@AlexanderKingsbury @PeterBronez @Richard_Hull

Allan Wolfe Jul 22, 2023

I can conceive of well-regulated capitalism being relatively benign. However, when money can buy power, and therefore, legislators, inadequately regulated capitalism becomes a real-world game of Risk, where the powerful gain ever more power until finally only one player/“capitalist” has all the marbles (to mix a metaphor).

AKingsbury Jul 22, 2023

@allanwolfe @PeterBronez @Richard_Hull If the issue is that those with more resources can exercise an outsize influence on the political system, your issue isn't your economic system; it's your political system.