- 16 Jul 2017 04:11
#14823944
ITT I explain most of my core political views.
First of all, I believe in political realism which is:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/polreal/
As a slight refinement of political realism, I believe in a kind of Social Darwinism; specifically, that organizations (which I define as any group of people knowingly working towards a common set of goals) in pursuit of their goals, by the very nature of the reality we live in, must first acquire the means to achieve those goals (i.e. power over other organizations, people, and nature). This leads to a form of natural selection whereby the organizations that are the most successful in obtaining power are the most likely to survive. Hence, human societies tend to evolve in a way that increases their power over nature, their members, and other societies.
Also check out Elite Theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory
Among the Elite Theorists I particularly agree with Gaetano Mosca, Robert Michels, C. Wright Mills, G. William Domhoff and James Burnham. Of those, the idea of the iron law of oligarchy in particular appeals to me:
Also worth checking out is Galbraith's The New Industrial State.
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My main political goal is the establishment of a political party whose sole goal is to obtain, maintain, and extend its power, first over a country, and then the world. Its main ideology should be extremely collectivist, that is, its members must be completely subordinate to the party in that they psychologically identify with the party, seeing themselves as mere cells in its body.
Here are some quotes from Orwell that explain this concept:
Meritocracy is also an important concept here:
This is pretty much the essence of it. If you need me to clarify anything or are curious about my opinions on any present-day issues, feel free to ask.
EDIT: Also, with regard to economics, I think that we need a centrally planned economy.
First of all, I believe in political realism which is:
Political realism is a theory of political philosophy that attempts to explain, model, and prescribe political relations. It takes as its assumption that power is (or ought to be) the primary end of political action, whether in the domestic or international arena. In the domestic arena, the theory asserts that politicians do, or should, strive to maximize their power, whilst on the international stage, nation states are seen as the primary agents that maximize, or ought to maximize, their power. The theory is therefore to be examined as either a prescription of what ought to be the case, that is, nations and politicians ought to pursue power or their own interests, or as a description of the ruling state of affairs-that nations and politicians only pursue (and perhaps only can pursue) power or self-interest.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/polreal/
As a slight refinement of political realism, I believe in a kind of Social Darwinism; specifically, that organizations (which I define as any group of people knowingly working towards a common set of goals) in pursuit of their goals, by the very nature of the reality we live in, must first acquire the means to achieve those goals (i.e. power over other organizations, people, and nature). This leads to a form of natural selection whereby the organizations that are the most successful in obtaining power are the most likely to survive. Hence, human societies tend to evolve in a way that increases their power over nature, their members, and other societies.
Also check out Elite Theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory
In political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the state which seeks to describe and explain the power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and policy-planning networks, holds the most power and that this power is independent of a state's democratic elections process. Through positions in corporations or on corporate boards, and influence over the policy-planning networks through financial support of foundations or positions with think tanks or policy-discussion groups, members of the "elite" are able to exert significant power over the policy decisions of corporations and governments. An example of this can be found in the Forbes magazine article (published in December 2009) entitled The World's Most Powerful People, in which Forbes purported to list the 67 most powerful people in the world (assigning one "slot" for each 100,000,000 of human population).[1] The basic characteristics of this theory are that power is concentrated, the elites are unified, the non-elites are diverse and powerless, elites interests are unified due to common backgrounds and positions and the defining characteristic of power is institutional position.[2]
Even when entire groups are ostensibly completely excluded from the state's traditional networks of power (historically, on the basis of arbitrary criteria such as nobility, race, gender, or religion), elite theory recognizes that "counter-elites" frequently develop within such excluded groups. Negotiations between such disenfranchised groups and the state can be analyzed as negotiations between elites and counter-elites. A major problem, in turn, is the ability of elites to co-opt counter-elites.
Elite theory opposes pluralism, a tradition that assumes that all individuals, or at least the multitude of social groups, have equal power and balance each other out in contributing to democratic political outcomes representing the emergent, aggregate will of society. Elite theory argues either that democracy is a utopian folly, as it is traditionally viewed in the conservative Italian tradition, or that democracy is not realizable within capitalism, as is the view of the more Marxist-compatible contemporary elite theory permutation.
Among the Elite Theorists I particularly agree with Gaetano Mosca, Robert Michels, C. Wright Mills, G. William Domhoff and James Burnham. Of those, the idea of the iron law of oligarchy in particular appeals to me:
The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties.[1] It claims that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an "iron law" within any democratic organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of organization.[1]
Michels' theory states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies. Michels observed that since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy, power within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise.
Also worth checking out is Galbraith's The New Industrial State.
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My main political goal is the establishment of a political party whose sole goal is to obtain, maintain, and extend its power, first over a country, and then the world. Its main ideology should be extremely collectivist, that is, its members must be completely subordinate to the party in that they psychologically identify with the party, seeing themselves as mere cells in its body.
Here are some quotes from Orwell that explain this concept:
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were- cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" (3.3.14, O’Brien)
"You are thinking," he said, "that my face is old and tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigor of the organism. Do you die when you cut your finger-nails?"
He turned away from the bed and began strolling up and down again, one hand in his pocket.
"We are the priests of power," he said. "God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan 'Freedom is Slavery." Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone-free-the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body-but, above all, over the mind.
Meritocracy is also an important concept here:
In principle, membership of these three groups is not hereditary. The child of Inner Party parents is in theory not born into the Inner Party. Admission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the age of sixteen. Nor is there any racial discrimination, or any marked domination of one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans of pure Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party […] Its rulers are not held together by blood-ties but by adherence to a common doctrine […] The Party is not a class in the old sense of the word. It does not aim at transmitting power to its own children, as such; and if there were no other way of keeping the ablest people at the top, it would be perfectly prepared to recruit an entire new generation from the ranks of the proletariat. In the crucial years, the fact that the Party was not a hereditary body did a great deal to neutralize opposition […] The essence of oligarchic rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. (2.9.58, Goldstein’s Manifesto)
This is pretty much the essence of it. If you need me to clarify anything or are curious about my opinions on any present-day issues, feel free to ask.
EDIT: Also, with regard to economics, I think that we need a centrally planned economy.