Discussion»Questions»Politics» The world used to argue Communism vs. Capitalism. These days it's Authoritarianism vs. Democracy. Amirit? What's better?
It's authoritarianism vs liberty. Democracy is just the authoritarianism of the majority.
I'd say it was more accurate to call it collectivism vs individualism. Truly free countries are constitutional republics that restrain the authority of state to prevent it ever undermining individualism.
Look.. I'd be happy to discuss the real movement towards authoritarianism in the world, but you'd rather say, "yup, dem librhuls is STOOPID and EBIL.. Amirit?"
Communism and the path to to it was just the big authoritarian threat in the collective mind at the time. It still is an authoritarian threat, but more people are comfortable with it and there are also equally sized threats as well.
Sadly the left and the right both are heavily starting to embrace authoritarian ways equally.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 20, 2017 8:57 AM MDT
This will not address your Q directly, but the topic of much interest to me... I think our current system rewards people who have certain elite skill sets, and ignores people who may bring even more value into society but outside that elite set.
Example: my cousins cattle ranch on 10,000 acres of fragile, semi-arid land. The beef is outstanding nutrition, and the land is healthy and stronger than when they arrived there in the 1960's...they use time-tested methods developed over many generations.
But 10,000 acres and they cannot even make ends meet without outside work, continuing this ranch only because they truly believe in what they are doing. This kind of individualism, this wisdom for the land and quality of food, needs to be encouraged, somehow.
* * * When I was researching a post from Trumpian Zeitgeist I started reading about Nordic democracy; I will look into that more. TZ prolly will differ with me long-run in many ways, but I find his views inspiring and informative.
Zeitgeist 