Simonjester wrote:
moda0306 wrote:
No statists!!!???
So you either have married, or would only marry, an anarchist?
stat·ist - an advocate of statism
stat·ism - concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry
i still have doubts about the usefulness of your "accept or support any state at all = statisem" definition of statist.
it just seems more useful and meaningful (and common) to define it as somebody wants to
increase or supports large amounts of the concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government
I don't find that definition very useful either. Wanting to INCREASE the role of a central government at least measures from an objective alternative (what we have right now).
But to say you want a "large" central government doesn't give us much to work with in terms of perspective. I always went with the Wikipedia definition:
"In political science, statism is the belief that the state should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree."
But I am for lower taxes, and the federal government getting out of certain areas of intrusion, but expanding the federal government in others. Overall, my federal budget (king for a day) would be lowe than it is now, methinks.
Does that make me a statist? What if I like it right where it's at, but you consider "where it's at" to be a MASSIVE government, and therefore meets your second criteria of "statist."
It seems to me that using a movement from a current form of government, while somewhat fixed in nature and therefore easier to judge, is relatively irrelevant. This means that someone in a stateless society could be a "statist" if he advocated for some limited government, but someone in N. Korea would be a "non-statist" if they advocate for a slightly less intrusive government.
Further, even if I can measure the quantitative elements of a government (budget) and measure my preferences against that, what about the qualititative elements? Perhaps I believe endorsing war and promoting pollution via infrastructure priorities to be FAR more intrusive on my freedom than universal healthcare and Social Security. Am I a statist if I advocate shrinking conservative preferences but maintaining and growing liberal ones?
It's a BS term, actually, if you ask me. Most people are in favor of having a government agent point a gun at someone else's head to perform some state function. If you don't, you're an anarchist (and you still have to decide what property norms you think are legit). If you do, you believe in the existence of the state, and all that this implies at even the smallest level. Everything is just a matter of form and degree at that point. I think trying to attach labels to it all serves to confuse and divide moreso than to clarify and hone our arguments. At least my definition has a very defined, fixed point of reference (belief in roles of the state). Yours is relative to the government you're advocating change its policy, and what the definition of "large amounts" really is. Arbitration is an industry. Security is an industry.
The only reason the term "statist" is useful as you describe it, is that everyone knows what someone of conservative ilk means when they state it: "Someone who wants to hold different guns to different heads to get what they want out of government." Liberals don't usually use the term, and anarchists are so few and far between and they mean it the way I mean it... anyone who advocates for government.
Simonjester wrote:
that's actually not an unreasonable position, large is in the eye of the beholder, i can certainly cut the supports large amounts of to make the definition more acurate, perhaps it makes more sense if you take it to imply the minarchist view that we should have the absolute minimum amount of government necessary for society to function and statist is defined as being any more than that, then the argument becomes, are the functions, expansion or current size more or less than what is necessary? bringing it back to a debate about reality, over one of strange absolutes where everybody (except for a dozen internet weirdo anarchists) are statists and the word becomes meaningless.
so the improved version is "somebody who wants to increase the size of or supports more government than is necessary" with the concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government
i think now that i have tried to word it more carefully it makes more sense? "maybe" (i am typing fast and thinking little so it may need work)
saying "any state at all = statist " seems like an attempt to weaken the meaning of the word to make it useless, or a strange over reaction, as if those who are using it are doing so as a slur and they are imagining the speaker spiting on the ground each time it is said (and some right wingers may be... it sounds that way to me to sometimes and i am damn close to anarchist )
) would be a rebel and fight, if it is slowly built up around you one small bit of crud at a time you are likely to submit without noticing you have done so. (and the low info types even more so)