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Libertarianism and Communism
Sep. 24th, 2007 10:21 amI keep planning to write a lengthy essay about why otherwise intelligent people believe in and advocate for libertarian or communism.
Then a commenter named "Albatross" over on Making Light wrote a very insightful comment about people misunderstanding the model of a complex system for the reality of the system. Teresa Nielson Hayden very kindly bumped it to a full post. It's brief, but well worth a full reading. Go check it out and come on back.
So, Part One of the post is done. Paraphrasing from the post, Albatross says that some models are "rhetorically strong." They sound good, and it's easy to make compelling arguments with the model. The problem is, the models are lousy predictors of what will actually happen if the called-for changes are made. This is the fundamental failure of libertarianism and communism. One does what the ideology says, but the desired results fail to appear.
Part Two of the essay was going to be why certain types of people are advocates for one or the other of these ideologies. I may still write that one of these days.
Then a commenter named "Albatross" over on Making Light wrote a very insightful comment about people misunderstanding the model of a complex system for the reality of the system. Teresa Nielson Hayden very kindly bumped it to a full post. It's brief, but well worth a full reading. Go check it out and come on back.
So, Part One of the post is done. Paraphrasing from the post, Albatross says that some models are "rhetorically strong." They sound good, and it's easy to make compelling arguments with the model. The problem is, the models are lousy predictors of what will actually happen if the called-for changes are made. This is the fundamental failure of libertarianism and communism. One does what the ideology says, but the desired results fail to appear.
Part Two of the essay was going to be why certain types of people are advocates for one or the other of these ideologies. I may still write that one of these days.
