A road that we will surely run into many times this semester are peoples view on politics. This is the reason I wanted to do research on something that will ultimately be influenced by class discussions on politics. Hejdavek from Havel's book claims that "Socialism is the off-spring of Liberal-Democratic traditions." Since we have this ideology that the United States is a pure democratic society, I would like to challenge that assumption. Recent policy changes in the current administration have almost mirrored characteristics of a modern day socialist society. Historically most socialist societies have failed. Is the United States at risk of becoming a socialist society with all of its efforts to make everyone equal? Is there a good balance between a Democracy and Socialism? Is the United States unique? These are questions I hope to answer in my research. I will be looking at Marx's model for showing how socialism can turn into communism and making comparisons to the United States.
I think the question of personal liberty and "living in the truth" in the context of free market capitalism and social democratic capitalism is very interesting. Which, or which combination, keeps "us" away from post-totalitarianism? This chart you have here seems more a political ad than a representation of Marx's model. You need to start from a place without the value judgments: "reward laziness," "invasive government," et al., because they misrepresent the actual situation and they elicit the same kinds of value-laden judgments from the other side: "rewards selfishness," "punishes the poor and the non-white," etc. That won't get you anywhere. But there are real important questions here: does government assistance produce "helplessness" (a form of alienation and living within a lie)? Does the free market turn everyone and everything into a commodity (another form of inauthenticity). I think this is where you ought to focus your attention. Stay away from political campaign rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking that the political debate going on right now between moderate (big money) conservatives (Romney), small government conservatives (Santorum, Gingrich), Libertarians (Paul), and big governments Democrats (Obama) might be a very interesting place for you to apply your critique.
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