What are you?

It seems to me that many, if not most, people don't actually know where they fit in terms of what they believe politically.  They seem to have a vague understanding of concepts, but do not have a full grasp of issues.  This makes them very malleable for a politician.  It has been said that "unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything."  This can be no more true than in the realm of politics.  How many people really know what they believe and why they believe it?  After all, if you have a vague idea that you want to help people, you might support policies and politicians that are inconsistent with other beliefs that you hold just because it sounds good.  That would be one of the more benign outcomes.  At any rate, if we don't know what we really think on issues, then how are we supposed to make educated judgements.  We aren't, and the politicians know this, which is why they tend to appeal to our populist and communitarian sides...because they sound good when they do.

It is important to make these distinctions.  After all, most issues have a spectrum or range in which you can fall.  If you don't know where on the range you are, then you can be swayed in either direction much more easily.  Take abortion.  The two extremes of this belief are abortion on demand at anytime for anyone or no abortion ever for any reason.  Most people do not fall at either of the extremes and politicians know this.  However, politicians will use phraseology specifically crafted to sway you in one way or another.  For instance, a politician who wants abortion but wants to appeal to people on the no abortion end of the spectrum will use things like abortion should be rare but legal, whereas a politician who is closer to the no abortion end of the spectrum will use phrases like I value life, but a woman has to make her own decision thus implying choice.  Neither of these statements say anything in reality, because the guy who values life will vote against abortion more often than not and the guy who wants it to be rare will vote for it.  If you think otherwise, I submit you are naive.

Nonetheless, this is a specific example of why people should know what they stand for and why.  If you can state your reasons to yourself and justify them to yourself, then you are less likely to be swayed by the propaganda of politicians.  So, to assist in this, I will provide some context to commonly misunderstood political and economic concepts.  First of all, some definitions.

Democracy - A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
Republic - a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them or in recent years, this has been horribly misdefined as a state whose head is not a monarch.
Tyranny - a government in which absolute power is vested in a single ruler.
Anarchy - the absence of government or a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority.
Oligarchy -  government by the few or a government where a small group exercises control.
Communism - a theory advocating the elimination of private property and a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed.
Socialism - a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole or

in Marxist theory, the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Austrian School - Forerunner of unrestrained free market (libertarian) economics, its central concept is that the coordination of human effort can be achieved only through the combined decisions and judgments of individuals and cannot be forced by an external agency such as a government. It emphasizes complete freedom of association and sovereignty of individual property rights.

Keynesianism - The main plank of this theory is the assertion that the aggregate demand created by households, businesses and the government and not the dynamics of free markets is the most important driving force in an economy. This theory further asserts that free markets have no self-balancing mechanisms that lead to full employment. Keynesian economists urge and justify a government's intervention in the economy through public policies that aim to achieve full employment and price stability.

Democracy, Republic, Tyranny, Anarchy and Oligarchy are political realities that are independent of economic theories.  The Austrian School and Keynesian economics are economic theories that are independent of political realities.  This should be pretty straightforward.  Then come Communism and Socialism.  These are primarily economic theories but have political implications because of how they have been implemented historically.  In fact, as I see it, there are really only 4 types of political entities.  Government of the people (Democracy and Republic), government of the one (tyranny), government of the few (Oligarchy) and no government at all (anarchy).  Anarchy is not really able to survive for an extended period of time.  When a society or group fall into anarchy, they always emerge shortly thereafter with one of the other three forms, so I'm not sure we can even call it a political entity.  You ask about monarchies or theocracies, etc.?  Well, a monarchy is nothing more than a King with his advisors.  Therefore, it is an oligarchy at best and a tyranny at worst.  A theocracy is a simple oligarchy, only instead of secular leaders lording over the populace, you have religious leaders doing it.

The Austrian School of Economics and Keynesian Economics are the two most common forms of thought in economics today.  Generally, an economist is one or the other.  However, some economists seem to think they can take the positive parts of both and merge them together.  I disagree with this perspective because I think the two systems are not fundamentally compatible.  The Austrian School relies on the market and the interactions of individuals to drive the economy whereas the Keynesians rely on the government and public policy to do so.  The Austrian School widely support capitalism as the best method to pursue for an economy.  Capitalism is not without its faults and it is those faults that the Keynesians believe they can fix.  They believe that through government policy, regulation and intervention, that the up and down cycles inherent in capitalism can be mitigated, resulting in a stable economy.  For full disclosure, I tend to believe as the Austrians do.  However, I agree with the Keynesians in one respect.  I do think that government can effect the economy.  However, unlike the Keynesians, I don't envy a stable economy.  To me, a stable economy does not result in full employment, but rather in persistently high unemployment.  At least, that has been the result where Keynesianism is heavily practiced.  In any system where you have highs, there must also be lows.  This is how things just work.  You can control the lows, I don't deny that, but you do so only by stifling the highs as well.  Therefore, instead of a great economy with shorts downturns and depressions like we experience with capitalism, we end up with little to no economic growth over a long period of time with Keynesiansm.  Both support a free market in theory, but a market that is heavily regulated in order to produce desired results as advocated by Keynesians is not really a free one, is it?

That brings us to what communism and socialism really are.  Communism is a utopian society where there is no private property and everything is shared equally among the populace.  It is not inherently an oppressive ideological regime.  However, in a society where everything is shared and there are no property rights, what happens if an individual chooses not to participate in the cooperative?  That's the conundrum with communism.  It can't support the rights of the individual...at least not on a large scale.  Sure, this theory might work in small communities, but human nature would interfere with it on any large scale thus requiring an oppressive government to maintain it.  Socialism allows for the concept of property rights, but really stresses governmental control of the means of production.  So, while someone may own their own company, they must be submissive to the will of the government in how they run that company, how they set their prices, how they pay their workers, etc.  Socialism would be hard pressed to survive for very long in a truly free market believing society.  However, socialism was really meant to be a transitional step between capitalism and communism.  The communists understood that you couldn't just take people's property aware without problems, so they advocated a transition away from private property to communal ownership by using socialism as the method of transition where the state would gradually control more and more of the economy until the communist utopian ideal was realized.  There is a reason that the Soviet Union called themselves the Soviet Socialist Republics, after all.  They didn't see themselves as communists in the same way we did because the ideal was never achieved.  Therefore, one could argue that Communism, as an ideal, has never been fully realized anywhere in the world and that the groups we call communists are simply those who believe in the ideas of communism but are actually practicing socialism.

That brings us to the point of my post.  Many people complain about the various political parties, the various trains of thought, and particular politicians in this country.  They call them things that just don't really make sense.  Many are afraid of a Republican theocracy if certain elements of the Republican Party were to gain a majority.  This is highly unlikely.  At worst, we might end up with a few religious laws that can always be repealed in a future administration.  After all, there is a reason the founders require a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the states to agree in order to amend the constitution.  Some are afraid of a fascist government.  This is usually directed in the Republicans direction, but in recent years has also been directed at Democrats.  This is not something that is unlikely from either side of the aisle.  Anyone who believes in a large government and that it can be used to help the people is in danger of supporting a populist leader that could take us into a fascist state.  Many also fear a socialist state or a tyranny.  Both of these are also entirely plausible.  After all, Ben Franklin said the founders had given us a Republic, if we could keep it.  He understood, as did many of the founders, that tyranny was only one generation away from taking hold.  So, the only way to prevent tyranny in a Republic, is to protect the rights of the people from the government.  The only true role of government in a Republic is to protect our rights.  Anything else leads down a path that eventually ends in Oligarchy or tyranny.  At least, that has been the historical pattern, time and time again.  Only constitutional Republican forms of government have fostered the rights of the people in history.  And yes, you can have a constitutional republic that is a monarchy or an oligarchy, as long as primary power is not vested in the executive but is instead dispersed, which is what our system of checks and balances is supposed to ensure.  This is why a country like Great Britain can sometimes support the rights of its people but can also easily succomb to a tyrant, because the power is not dispersed enough.

At any rate.  Do you know what you are?  Do you know what you believe in?  Is it freedom or equality?  Is it Keynesianism or Austrianism?  Is it Republicanism or Socialism?  Is it Anarchism or Totalitarianism?  Once you know what political system you believe works and what economic system you agree with, only then can you truly know who to vote for.  After all, if you are a Keynesian, but you believe in individual property rights, then it is not in your best interests to vote for a politician who advocates communitarian principles because even though such principles can be consistent with Keynesian thinking, they are inconsistent with a believe in individual rights and property rights.  I consider myself to be a classical liberal.  This basically means I believe in maximum economic freedom and maximum personal freedom.  To put it another way, I am an Austrian School Republican (political theory not party).  There aren't many people with whom I agree with in our government because the average Republican is a Keynesian Oligarch with the business class exercising control whereas the average Democrat is Keynesian Oligarch with the political class exercising control.  Neither of these options appeal to me...do they appeal to you?