with regard to some arguments i'm getting into, i want to draw your attention to an extremely obvious fact: the let's say non-libertarian left, from obama leftwards, represents a profoundly hierarchical philosophy. in a number of ways, but most simply in this: the solution to any problem or non-problem is more government power and more state domination of resources. if the right countenances an extreme economic hierarchy, the left countenances an extreme political hierarchy. some people are vastly politically privileged in this society: officials and those they coddle. most people sort of might vote, but actually do not wield any political power at all. the idea that the left is egalitarian is not entirely false: well, that's the rhetoric, and they are opposed to constructing this hierarchy based on race, class, gender, or sexual orientation. but the entire conception rests on something like a total assymmetry of power, which comports well with the sort of technocratic/education-obsessed elist left of the moment. your'e dependent on us because you need our help. but you're not going to be making your own decisions (let's say about what to eat), because we're better to do that for you. what both sides are not really good at making obvious is that the two hierarchies tend to coincide in the long run, or i guess sort of oscillate to some degree as we swing left and right.
now, the idea that you could develop a political philosophy over a century or two and not see the incredibly obvious fact that your own philosophy is extremely hierarchical does not, let's say, speak very well for the theories and theorists in question, who one must suspect are either incapable of grasping the most obvious facts or who are incredibly self-deluded or seduced somehow by theory. well, one of the theories would be that only economics is real and so only economic hierarchies are real hierarchies: but the next bureaucrat who makes your life a misery might be no richer than you are, same with your prison guards, your inspectors, etc. but you can't say their power is unreal. i just want to assert to you too, that the hierarchy of power your philosophy consists of originates in violence, and would collapse without its threat and application.
