Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Bloggish reflections

I started this blog about six months ago, as an experiment. It's been fun and interesting, including the debates in the comments (which have sometimes gotten a little heated, as debates sometimes do). More than that, it's given me an opportunity to think through some issues and put those thoughts into words. And it's provided me at least with a way to store and tag links to some excellent content elsewhere on the Web. But six months is a good run for an experiment, and a good point to pause to examine the results. So, just to whom it may concern, this is a notice that posting will likely be interrupted, at least for now.

Oh, and thanks to all who've looked in thus far....

39 comments:

  1. If you'll permit my 2 cents: Six months really isn't much of a run for a blog "experiment." It might be enough time for you to know how much or how little you enjoy doing the work (and that may be your main concern), but it's not long enough to establish what your potential readership is. I've been reading blogs since about 2001, and while I try to keep looking around, the truth is that I'm pretty set in my ways and tend to spend my time on the fairly large set of blogs that I've gotten used to. I don't look around for new ones nearly as much as I once did. I'm betting there are a lot of people like me. And in the case of your blog, I've only known about it for about 3 weeks (and I'm a fan)! Based on the number of comments I see, not many other folks know about it either, and it is likely to take a long time to build up a strong readership. So if your concern is that you're not being noticed, I don't think you've given yourself enough time.

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  2. Thanks for the 2 sense, Anon. I think the two kinds of concern you mention -- enjoying the work itself, and gaining readers -- are both factors, and are related (the work being more enjoyable the wider it's read). In any case, I was beginning to feel a bit burdened, and felt I should take a breather. But I take your point, and I'll definitely look at getting back in the saddle after a bit. And I certainly appreciate the feedback -- cheers!

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  3. The writing of dogmatists, whether right or left becomes tiresome, rather quickly. You claimed not to be conservative, but your writing has been consistently right-wing--perhaps yr not the Sarah Grizzly sort of repub, but ...aligned with the Aynnie Rand libertarian klan, nearly as dangerous a creature as the usual GOP yokel.

    However I grant you at times raised cogent points on the shallowness and superficiality of American liberals, as with the hysterical reaction to Juan Williams and the mosque fiasco.... But anyone who ever read the cliffsnotes to actual progressives---whether Rawls, Galbraith, or Bertrand Russell, even Marxy Marx, or Thomas Jefferson---realizes that democratic leaders of the US have little to do with real progressive values.

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  4. "Right wing" is distinct from "conservative", and these days the people who might truly be described as progressive -- as opposed to ones who currently fancy themselves such, including your Cliffs Notes names -- are on the right. That's because they're the ones advocating real, long-range change that can move us forward. Ironically, it's the latter-day liberals and the so-called "progressives" who might be better described as conservatives of the left, since they fear and fight any change to their statist, tax-n-spend, pseudo-elitist status-quo. In that context, I'd say you're right to see real (i.e., right wing) progressives as "dangerous", but only to the old, tired, and fading nostrums of the left.

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  5. Meta-galt's usual spin--anyone who supports govt. intervention of any type supports the "old", tired liberal ways, status quo, when in fact the laissez-faire capitalism you argue for ad nauseum is old, far older than Miss Rand's corpse--like Rothschilds old. The de-reg movement of the 90s (bipartisan supported) produced many of our current econ. problems, anyway, regardless of what the Teabaggers chant. Now, libertarianism/de-reg may be good for you, and maybe yr cronies (like your mysterious backers); but you then insist it's good for all, when that's been falsified repeatedly.

    (and Im quite convinced you never did get around to reading the Rawls wiki---then, that's fairly typical of the know-nothing rechts, UND links)

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  6. ... in fact the laissez-faire capitalism you argue for ad nauseum is old....

    Adam Smith certainly goes back a ways, but laissez-faire, however old an idea, has not yet been realized, largely bacause, in the last century, free markets encountered serious reaction in the form of communism, fascism, and New Dealism. But free markets have re-emerged primarily because they've been shown, repeatedly, to be "good for all" in the long term.

    You're right, though, I can't be bothered with the Rawls wiki. Some time ago I read Rawls' A Theory of Justice, but he was effectively refuted by the first sentence of Nozick's Preface to Anarchy, State, and Utopia -- look it up.

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  7. . It's not a sentence but a lengthy chapter on Rawls' ToJ, and Nozick grants that social cooperation would be a rational choice in many situations. Some moderate conservatives picked up on the Win-Win from Rawls (overlooking the real force of the OP and Diff. Principle).

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  8. Here's the sentence: "Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)."

    Nozick has more to say about Rawls, certainly, but that's all he need to have said. And that says nothing whatsoever about social cooperation, the value of which is obvious, but which is something quite distinct from social coercion.

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  9. Social cooperation forms the central theme of ToJ, and that's what Nozick discusses in his chapter on Rawls. For that matter, show me where Rawls denies the Lockean sort of right as it applies to civil liberties, ie Due process, etc. Rawls affirms that, but not the libertarian-capitalist "rights" of Nozick-land, ie the right to be Stevie Wynn.

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  10. ... show me where Rawls denies the Lockean sort of right as it applies to civil liberties....

    What happens if/when Lockean rights come into conflict with the Difference Principle?

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  11. PS: Who's Stevie Wynn, and why does Rawls deny him/her the right to be Stevie Wynn?

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  12. Why, Wynn's a big vegass playah who owns the Bellagio, etc. Instantiate another of yr fave tycoons--Gates, Buffett, Ellison, etc.

    Then, you don't accept rationality (one of Rawls' ...posits) nor do you believe in Justice. So, according to Meta-galt materialist-atheo-criteria, whoever has the biggest stack of chips at the end wins.

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  13. Wins what?

    Rationality and justice (with or without the capital J) are fine, but Rawls' core notions of "original position" and "difference principle" have little to do with either.

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  14. Rationality and justice (with or without the capital J) are fine, but Rawls' core notions of "original position" and "difference principle" have little to do with either.


    No, you simply don't understand his argument via the Veil of Ignorance. Rawls-speak may be a bit bureaucratic and 'Merican--and some reject his ideas merely because of that. But the accusation of "obviousness" doesn't really mean anything. It may be somewhat obvious--then Hobbes argued that it would generally be in citizens' interest to agree to certain covenants, etc. Or Locke and the Founders (Locke's version of the social contract may be a bit more severe and moralistic than Hobbes', IMHE). Rawls is def. in the Hobbesian tradition, but he adds an egalitarian element via OP and DP (then Hobbes started with a similar position, but many fratboys never got that) that the usual capitalist biz major can't stomach; ie a rational person would ceteris paribus (ie, not during war, famine, riots, revolutions, etc) favor equality and market mechanisms that are designed to favor the least well-off. The ToJ's not Einstein, but ....as cogent as any political theory of the last few decades. It does demand a certain modicum of rationality--thus Rawls pissed off Darwinian-capitalists (ie, you), and their marxist-materialist cousins.

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  15. It does demand a certain modicum of rationality....

    "Rationality". You keep saying that word -- I do not think it means what you think it means.

    Even without talking about the whole artifice of "original position" -- which takes an already artificial notion of political society as a "contract" and blows it up to ridiculous proportions -- but even given his his silly premise that a society is something that can be engineered to achieve some god-like, utopian notion of justice, his conclusions are absurd on their face. Why would a "rational person" prefer social arrangements favoring the least well-off, even if they didn't know what their position would be -- why not take a chance that you'd be among the better off? Wouldn't that depend on the nature of the social arrangements?
    E.g., arrangement A produces a given spectrum of conditions; arrangement B produces a different spectrum that makes the lower 10% slightly worse off but the upper 90% much better off -- why wouldn't a rational person favor arrangement B, since she would have 9 chances out of 10 of being much better off?

    And this doesn't even start to get into which arrangement allows for greater mobility across conditions. Nor does it yet touch on Rawls' malignant notion of things like individual character as matters "luck", which, far from being means by which individuals could improve their lot, would be held against them. Etc., etc.

    Once again, try to actually demonstrate some rationality, as opposed to resorting to juvenile epithets like "frat boys" and "capitalist biz major".

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  16. No, YOU need to read the actual argument, Meta-galt. Rawls discusses your scenario of A vs B arrangements (ie equality, vs class divisions, and a high probability of being in the upper class, via low of plebes--)--some might gamble and choose inequal distribution, ie to be among wealthy, as per your glaringly obvious point---. But that leaves out the issue of existing social-historical conditions (Rawls does not start as did Hobbes from a state of nature), and shall we say, the division of labor; with any Rawlsian sim-city modelled on the real world, your chances are far greater you will be a poor 3rd worlder, not a Tory baron (ie, "luck"). It's a construct concerning distribution, but meant to be applied to the real world.

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  18. which is to say your arrangement B has little to do with existing reality---the great majority are poor, and very few wealthy. Given a scenario of....A assured middle class equality, OR B (ie real world) 70% chance of being dirt poor, perhaps 25% of middle class, 5% of Paris Hiltoness, rational humans would choose A. The original position can be refined to obtain the contract, in other words.

    Then, even the Prisoner's Dilemma (and related analogies) suffices to show that in many circumstances a cooperative model would be in a person's best interest. Now, I don't deny a Nietzschean-or Darwinian sort, or Aynnie Rand zombie might object for various reasons, including the gambling point. But the Nietzschean who just denies the entire scenario more or less just refuses to play chess whatsoever.

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  19. which is to say your arrangement B has little to do with existing reality---the great majority are poor, and very few wealthy.

    First, before capitalism, that was certainly true, and is still true in areas where capitalism has yet to be achieved. Capitalism, however, has made virtually everyone wealthy as compared to their pre-capitalist or socialist alternatives -- and it's done so despite often increasing disparities of wealth (so much for substantive equality).

    Second, note that, to the extent Rawls' theory has any sort of policy implications, it makes no sense to apply it to the entire world, since no one is in a position to do anything about the entire world's policies.

    Third, in any case, the general point holds that Rawls absurdly artificial and irrelevant concoctions of "original position", "veil of ignorance", etc. would only lead a rational person to choose an alternative that maximizes the product of gain times probability of that gain -- not one that simply maximizes the condition of the worst off.

    Fourth, as I've already said, the issue in dispute is not "cooperative models", it's coercive models.

    And finally, none of Rawls' concoctions begins to address the issue of individual rights, which again means that his whole enterprise is effectively nullified by Nozick's sentence quoted above.

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  20. Rawls absurdly artificial and irrelevant concoctions of "original position", "veil of ignorance", etc. "veil of ignorance"

    well, yes a darwinian-atheist might think that, just as he scoffs at an old statue of Lady Justicia, or Jefferson's old bullsh*t line about "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness" etc.

    Few people (even Rawlsians) would claim that ToJ offers some perfectly-worked-out system of distributive justice, but you're simply not getting the basic point on cooperation (or, really the original position). Maybe start with the ebonics version of the Prisoner's Dilemma.

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  21. Also, you again reveal that you have not bothered even with the cliffsnotes to the ToJ. JR discusses rights under Justice as Fairness. The OP/DP schema does result in obligations and duties, at least as Rawls presents it--he uses the idea of "playing by the rules of a game" (ie baseball, or chess, what have you). Rational people would choose that, according to JR. Now, there may be criticisms. But you aren't making them, apart from the most obvious not-applicable point. The American and French revolutions were probably also considered non-applicable or dreamy in 1750 or so.

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  22. Actually, I like Jefferson's old line and have nothing against the statue.

    I don't know where you're getting this Prisoner's Dilemma thing from -- neither it nor Game Theory in general have anything to do with Rawls. Perhaps you're getting confused between Rawls (who does talk about "cooperation" but doesn't like to dirty his hands with the coercion his forced equality requires) and a book named The Evolution of Cooperation which is based on the PD.

    As for Rawls and individual rights, I know he recognizes the term and understands the need to say something about it, but I don't think he really grasps the concept. For him, such "rights" are just part of the terms worked out by everyone unanimously in the mythical "original position" -- and since such a thing never actually happened (and wouldn't pertain to anyone who hadn't participated even if it had), "rights" become secondary artifacts to be manipulated now by Rawls himself in such a way as to obtain his primary notions of "distributive justice". Once he's got his Myth of the Original Position working, in other words, rights have no force or reality for him other than as rhetorical devices.

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  23. Nyet. I have ToJ and Nozick's pseudo-techie libertarian manifesto as well. Rawls alludes to the Prisoner's Dilemma a few times, and does touch on it (in a lengthy note) as a model of non cooperation, and non zero sum where the apparent "most rational" decision (ie, best interest) would make them worst off--now, the relation of the P.D. to the overall Rawlsian schema, OP/DP, etc involves a bit more explaining, but the idea is essentially the same (and not so far from the Hobbesian contract, as JR notes, tho'....justified ). And as I said above (and you ignored) a few conservatives picked up the "Win-Win" scenario from Rawls and game theory . You simply have this biz major faith that "game theory" means zero-sum or something-- missing out even on the cheesy moderate hype of the 70s-80s (a misreading of Rawls).

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  24. Okay, thanks for pointing out the note, which I'd either missed or forgotten about. But I don't think Rawls, when he says that there wouldn't be a problem if both prisoners knew they were both utilitarians, etc., understands the point of the game any better than you do. which is that, in this situation, self-interest undercuts social interest, regardless of one's professed beliefs.

    I largely ignored your remarks about "Win-Win" because they made no more sense than your usual drivel about "biz majors". But as an aside I'll revert to Axelrode's book, "The Evolution of Cooperation" -- which notes that in computer simulations of an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, a simple strategy called "tit for tat" dominates other, more complicated ones, and will tend toward (i.e., will "evolve" toward) a stable cooperative solution on both sides. Which is interesting, but quite removed from Rawls and his "principles of justice".

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  26. You don't understand the ...analogy of the P.D., which is not really a game anyway (though the "game" geeks make use of it)--and not that profound but does show that at times the optimal decision, even economically speaking, might involve a slight sacrifice and....cooperation. And it's not "far removed" from Rawls. That's exactly what Rawls is discussing, along with the Pareto material, etc. The O.P. (via the Veil of Ignorance...) is a form of the P.D., or variation at least. You simply don't care for his conclusions.


    What the other person would know or not is an issue--that's the point. If they act via normal self interest, and rat each other out, they will be worse off then had they stayed silent (or plead the fifth in mobster terms). But even that level of cooperation probably offends the Aynnie Rand biz-major or egotist.

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  27. The essence of the Prisoner's Dilemma is the isolation of the parties, which Rawls at least grasps, and which invalidates any comparison with his OP. But, by your statement that the PD "is not really a game anyway", your careless reference to "the Pareto material, etc.", and your continued bleating about biz-majors, I can see you really have no idea what you're talking about and are just kicking up dust.

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  28. This thread has become another dead-end in morfland, but one can't help but note your odd, rightist readings of Locke (probably per Nozick) Some of us actually read Locke on the Social Contract. Locke routinely makes all sorts of dreamy, utopian--and religious--assumptions about the foundations of moral and political life--like people will respect each other's "rights", whatever rights are, even in a state of nature (now, Nietzsche does laugh at that). Locke doesn't prove something like "rights" exist either...except as a prudential "mutual respect" (intuitionism, as Rawls called it)--though he does offer an early labor theory of value, actually quite leftist--ie, for the commons' "right" to the products of their own labor--not the landlord or capitalist. ).

    Locke was def. "more moral" --than Hobbes, even a type of Leveller-- and his ideas on politics, economics ethics, so forth are not a blueprint for conservatism or even libertarianism, though idiots such as Rand and Nozick have insisted otherwise. Locke's anti-monarchistic political writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau--and the French Rev.--, and Jefferson of course (who regularly opposed the Tory schemes of Hamilton). Marx quotes Locke at times, usually approving. Boring old pettifoggers perhaps-- but you shouldn't mention writers you simply don't understand or never read.

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  30. the isolation of the parties, which Rawls at least grasps, and which invalidates any comparison with his OP.

    Wrong. The Veil of Ignorance perhaps? Isolation of the agent, at least. One chooses the optimal social-situation from a position of not-knowing what other people will choose--quite directly related to the Prisoner's Dilemma. I didn't say they were equivalent. The economists' spins---equilibrium of various forms--FOLLOW from the political foundation, the Contract, are predicated upon it--people wouldn't discuss equilibrium in a state of nature.

    That's all Rawls wanted to do--is show the rational basis of the contract (rational at least in...optimizing sense), and thus distributive justice. Both Hobbes and Locke would approve in spirit, most likely--even if many modern pseudo-Lockeans might protest the Difference Principle, much as rich teabaggers protesting higher taxes.

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  31. Ah, so now you want to change the subject to Locke -- you must have an Illustrated Comic of the 2nd Treatise. Re: PD not being a game, do you even know what a "game" is?

    And this is especially funny: "but you shouldn't mention writers you simply don't understand or never read." Do you ever have a mirror handy when you write this stuff, J?

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  32. The Veil of Ignorance perhaps?

    The mere re-appearance of a term doesn't make for a logical analogy. In this case, the "ignorance" referred to is ignorance of one's placement in society, not to ignorance of one's fellows' choices in the OP -- i.e., pretty much the opposite of the situation in the PD game. No doubt the reason Rawls himself treated the PD in a footnote.

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  33. No, you mentioned Locke above. Thus my delayed response. Locke has a social contract as well, like Hobbes, Rousseau, ...Jefferson and...Rawls (and Kant, in a different sense). It's not a blueprint for conservatism.


    Again, the Prisoners Dilemma is only a small part of Rawls's schema. But it suffices to show the cooperative model, even if not exactly equivalent to the Original Position, and really the need for something like a social contract based on egalitarian ideas--then, one might find something like a social contract, ie non-aristocratic models, not only in Hobbes, etc but in Roman and greeks, even Aristotle--and dare we say, the New Testament, as Locke realized.

    Finally, I didn't say it was ...unassailable.
    Nihilists of all types, even the republican sort of greedy, capitalist nihilist most likely will reject Rawls (or Locke, or Jefferson and the US-Con for that matter), --the default code of 'Merican libertarianism being "don't get caught" (and most mainstream demos are libertarian as well, tho perhaps not fond of the NRA).

    A leftist subversive of whatever sort might also reject Rawls--ie, in effect believing that Rawls may have had noble intentions (or not), but his egalitarian reforms and contractualism, however aggressive or elegantly argued, will not suffice to overturn capitalism, nor likely even penetrate the bourgeois consciousness (ie, you).

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  34. Meta-galt may be off doing some crystal-meditation or something, but it should be noted that Axelrode's ideas in "The Evolution of Cooperation" (at least per the Wiki summary ) do not seem so far removed from Rawls's model of distributive justice. Cooperation would in many cases be more beneficial, even evolution wise, than opposition and strife (or predatory capitalism)--Kropotkin had said much the same (Rawls often sounds a bit Kropotkinish).

    The cynics and/or anti-rationalists may, however, raise various points to the "evolutionary" cooperative models and those social scientists who believe altruism may be verified by a select few instances of wolves or bees or whatever species cooperating. Wolf packs may cooperate at times. Alpha wolf daddies also will eat a few pups from a big litter. I doubt even the most hardened Darwinist would say we should therefore follow wolves, our mammalian cousins, and legalize infant cannibalism (which actually might benefit the family, if lack of resources, etc).

    Thus there are good reasons to retain something like a specifically human Rationalism (rather than mere mammal-ness). Even if one establishes that a large proportion of the human population does not meet a "rationality criteria", the few remaining might. Rawlsian rational choice, refined, therefore may work as establishing a vanguard of sorts. The Bolsheviks did something like that via chess matches.

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  35. I don't know how you guessed I was crystal meditating, J, but it's good to see that you've looked up Axelrod, at least as far as the Wikipedia. That entry is verbose, by the way, and seems to be pushing an agenda of its own -- something you always have to beware of wrt Wikipedia anyway -- but it's at least interesting in its own right.

    The general line of this whole type of moral/political inquiry, however is quite different from that of social contract theory of any sort, from Hobbes to Rawls. If there's one line that illustrates this, it's the following: "As Trivers says, it 'take[s] the altruism out of altruism.'[24] The Randian premise that self-interest is paramount is largely unchallenged, but turned on its head by recognition of a broader, more profound view of what constitutes self-interest." Among the lessons drawn is this one: "Don't be envious", which is an implicit contradiction to all schemes of forcible wealth re-distribution, including Rawls'.

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  36. Well, you didn't read my point contra the "naturalist fallacy": that some species cooperate at times in no way suffices as proof that humans do, or should, or will. Within species, some animals might--kinship behavior or something. Many, and I suspect the great majority, don't, and still proliferate. Sharks for example attacking a whale carcass more or less go mad, and at times start devouring each other (as that philosopher Melville described...Queequeg has no illusions about some cute, green nature). Or the wolf example. Humans aren't animals, morf.

    There are a few interesting bon mots from Hobbes on the Axelrod wiki regarding the need for coercion-. Regardless of the utopian dreams of a Kropotkin, Axelrod-like greens, religious people (including Lockeans), or even Rawls, history shows that humans rarely cooperate without some type of statist coercive power constraining them. A cynical view, perhaps, but ...Hobbes kept it real. "Cooperation" generally happens via gunboats, or something like that.

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  37. "Cooperation" generally happens via gunboats, or something like that.

    There speaks the real voice of the lefty.

    I would say that "Hobbes kept it real" for the social contract theorists -- he demonstrated that the notion of a fictitious "social contract" can be used to justify any social arrangement you like, including monarchy.

    Humans actually are animals, J, but they're cultural animals, meaning, among other things, that they cooperate better than sharks or wolves. That's speaking of capitalists, of course, not socialists, where the gunboats have been shown, historically, to be indispensable.

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  38. Some consider Hobbes' politics rightist; others leftist. In reality Hobbes was a pragmatist of sorts, not really Tory or whig though I suspect he was ultimately anti-monarchist, at least in hereditary sense, but was trying to stay on good terms with Chas II), and one of his covenants was that the sovereign seek the peace, whenever possible. Perhaps an early socialist of a sort, but not a maoist. The Founders had read the Leviathan (Madison, especially) but kept it to themselves.

    Capitalists have plenty of gunboats. The US Navy has a few boats, er supercarriers, now off the south of Japan. I'm not down with NK, but ...given the last few years--the last 60 years--it's not like the US is wearing the white hats.

    Baboons don't write Leviathans.

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