Comments on: Discrete Political Entities

By: Richard Phillipps

Richard Phillipps — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 10:01:23 +0000

I don’t have the learning to follow most of the argument, but I do know that it is hard to discuss entities in our polity without including possibly the most powerful people, which are the corporate persons. I know they don’t vote, but they wield a lot of political power. And other power.

I am not objecting to this state of affairs; “company” is a plural noun (or was, when people still spoke some form of English) and the invention of corporate personality is probably the most important conceptual jump in the last few hundred years.

Of course my first para is not quite correct, because they are not limited to one polity.

By: cam

cam — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 02:34:28 +0000

Nicholas, I was trying to make the point that they have more in common than they do apart. As you said in that link, all of the 'isms have merit, especially in certain circumstances. Conservatism also has value with its steady as it goes philosophy and seeking historical proof first. Not all conservatism elevates the state above the individual either, Goldwater Conservatism is a good example of the individual remaining dominant while still adhering to conservative principles. I don't really know what it means to attribute different actions I am arguing there that the elevation of the state above the individual immediately makes it discriminative because the first thing lost is the importance of the individual and their political rights (equality). With the aboriginal people it was because we practiced ethnic-nationalism and mono-culturalism it enabled the government to discriminate against those outside of those boundaries. As it turned out we tried to forcifully assimilate those half in and half out to. It was similar with the Chinese in the 1880s. I would imagine that you would be able to find passages in John Stuart Mill reflecting the belief of the time (is it wrong?) that people at different stages of economic, social and political development might benefit from different kinds of government. Yeh that is consistent with Deniehy as well, he believed that it was an ongoing process where the framework of governance had to match the enlightened abilities and practices of its people at any one time with the end goal being moral perfection. But he was the first who saw an Australia utopia.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 01:19:08 +0000

Thanks for the post Cameron. I doubt we’re particularly far apart, but for myself I just take a melange of ingredients from these traditions which I outlined at Troppo here.

I suspect so too do most people. John Howard, Kim Beazley, Bob Brown would all pick and choose what principles they appeal to depending on the circumstances. I don’t really know what it means to attribute different actions – like our behaviour towards aborigines to different motive ideologies (like ‘conservatism’ or ‘nationalism’.)

Though he was probably much more libertarian and optimistic than his contemporaries, I would imagine that you would be able to find passages in John Stuart Mill reflecting the belief of the time (is it wrong?) that people at different stages of economic, social and political development might benefit from different kinds of government.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 16:53:43 +0000

Somewhat unlike the Cam I thought I knew a bit to suggest kneeling before ideologies… now Chris Latham, that’s another prospect altogether!