"But you're also free from things like worry about medical bills for yourself and famly. Or from worrying about the cost of college tuition for your kids. Even in ultra free market capitalistic Switzerland, this is so. Tuition at a top class Swiss university costs less than $2000 a year."
you're mistaking the cage for freedom.
clearly, the larger issue is not left vs right but authoritarian vs libertarian, but the left has been the lead on the authoritarian charge for 30 years or more, just like they were in the 60's and 70's and just like they were in the 30's.
the populace becoming entranced by and dependent upon the baubles they offer where liberty used to be is precisely they goal of those on the top of the pile over there and precisely how they stay there by suppressing social mobility.
Every State's ultimate goal is the optimal subjugation of its host population to enable it to maximize the resources it is able to extract from the capite censi for its own benefit.
When seen correctly, every action the State takes is directed to this end. All forms of redistribution (the cage) are simply the State adapting to the lowest level of perceived value the particular population it afflicts will tolerate to continue to be coerced and robbed.
This truth has been known since antiquity, but only by the few, which is why after ten millennia of being abused and robbed by rulers, we are still surrounded by legions of useful idiots who cheer for their own oppression.
Someday, perhaps, this will change, but probably not today.
"Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books. Roman tyrants invented a further refinement. They often provided the city wards with feasts to cajole the rabble, always more readily tempted by the pleasure of eating than by anything else.
The most intelligent and understanding amongst them would not have quit his soup bowl to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, ‘Long live the King!’ The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.”
~ Etienne de La Boétie, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, 1548
A young UK based writer (philosophy PhD, working as a delivery driver to fund his writing) has written a very good article on how the unions drove (and continue to attempt to drive) the corona debacle in the UK. The theory is slowly getting mainstream media attention.
Gato, with all respect, I am certainly not mistaking cages for freedom.
In Western Europe, you’re free to benefit from social policies, and you’re free not to use them. You’re not obliged to send your children to public schools. You can send them anywhere you want, INSEAD, Oxford, MIT, Northwestern, La Sorbonne, wherever. Or, for younger ones, to my old private east coast high school (current annual tuition $35,000).
You don’t have to use the health services that are at your disposal. You can travel the world for the service you want. Just as Americans sometimes fly to Europe for specialized treatments.
These social institutions aren’t baubles or bribes, anymore than Medicare is one. They are understood social services.
Similarly, Western Europe has remarkable social mobility. Quality of life and standards of living in the original core EU countries have been exceptionally high for decades. And any EU citizen is free to move to any of the 25+ EU countries, find a better job, start a business, etc. And millions do move, every year. They can even set up in Switzerland and Norway, which are not a member countries.
On the other hand, I agree one could make a strong baubles + suppression argument for places like the Emirates or Saudi Arabia, which are absolute totalitarian monarchies (ironically, staunchly supported by the USA). Or many of the dozens of countries around the world that are perennially under military dictatorship.
"But you're also free from things like worry about medical bills for yourself and famly. Or from worrying about the cost of college tuition for your kids. Even in ultra free market capitalistic Switzerland, this is so. Tuition at a top class Swiss university costs less than $2000 a year."
you're mistaking the cage for freedom.
clearly, the larger issue is not left vs right but authoritarian vs libertarian, but the left has been the lead on the authoritarian charge for 30 years or more, just like they were in the 60's and 70's and just like they were in the 30's.
the populace becoming entranced by and dependent upon the baubles they offer where liberty used to be is precisely they goal of those on the top of the pile over there and precisely how they stay there by suppressing social mobility.
and it has worked.
"you're mistaking the cage for freedom."
Exactly right.
Every State's ultimate goal is the optimal subjugation of its host population to enable it to maximize the resources it is able to extract from the capite censi for its own benefit.
When seen correctly, every action the State takes is directed to this end. All forms of redistribution (the cage) are simply the State adapting to the lowest level of perceived value the particular population it afflicts will tolerate to continue to be coerced and robbed.
This truth has been known since antiquity, but only by the few, which is why after ten millennia of being abused and robbed by rulers, we are still surrounded by legions of useful idiots who cheer for their own oppression.
Someday, perhaps, this will change, but probably not today.
"Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books. Roman tyrants invented a further refinement. They often provided the city wards with feasts to cajole the rabble, always more readily tempted by the pleasure of eating than by anything else.
The most intelligent and understanding amongst them would not have quit his soup bowl to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, ‘Long live the King!’ The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.”
~ Etienne de La Boétie, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, 1548
My Good God.
Thanks
A young UK based writer (philosophy PhD, working as a delivery driver to fund his writing) has written a very good article on how the unions drove (and continue to attempt to drive) the corona debacle in the UK. The theory is slowly getting mainstream media attention.
https://twitter.com/BenIrvineAuthor/status/1429889081647972355?s=19
https://whistleblowerphilosopher.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-unions-and-u-turns.html?m=1
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/barricaded-from-covid-reality-by-government-and-media/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2021/09/21/cancer-backlog-scandal-much-worse-think/
Gato, with all respect, I am certainly not mistaking cages for freedom.
In Western Europe, you’re free to benefit from social policies, and you’re free not to use them. You’re not obliged to send your children to public schools. You can send them anywhere you want, INSEAD, Oxford, MIT, Northwestern, La Sorbonne, wherever. Or, for younger ones, to my old private east coast high school (current annual tuition $35,000).
You don’t have to use the health services that are at your disposal. You can travel the world for the service you want. Just as Americans sometimes fly to Europe for specialized treatments.
These social institutions aren’t baubles or bribes, anymore than Medicare is one. They are understood social services.
Similarly, Western Europe has remarkable social mobility. Quality of life and standards of living in the original core EU countries have been exceptionally high for decades. And any EU citizen is free to move to any of the 25+ EU countries, find a better job, start a business, etc. And millions do move, every year. They can even set up in Switzerland and Norway, which are not a member countries.
On the other hand, I agree one could make a strong baubles + suppression argument for places like the Emirates or Saudi Arabia, which are absolute totalitarian monarchies (ironically, staunchly supported by the USA). Or many of the dozens of countries around the world that are perennially under military dictatorship.