In the about me section on this site I briefly touched on my political and economic beliefs, and said that at some point I would link to a post going into further depth. This is that post. For those who have been reading my writings for a while, my beliefs will hardly come as a surprise, but to those that are surprised, sorry for that! I have been called an extremist, socialist, radical, feminazi (ironic considering I'm a Jew), crazy faggot, and many other things, but I like to think of myself as a libertarian socialist in the tradition of Noam Chomsky. I care deeply for liberation, rationality, progressivism, and equality, and in this post, I will explain why. A lot of my writing on this website is structured in an academic format, particularly in respect to APA formatting for in-text citations. I will not be doing that in this post as I do not want this to act as a proof for my beliefs, but rather an expression of them. I will, all the same, include relevant citations as to how I have come to my beliefs, and selected readings that I think are valuable in some way. And as a quick disclaimer: the following descriptions will be Utopian, as they are an illustration of my values and desires, not practical, actionable steps to achieve my values. I might write a future post about my practical, actionable opinions, but for now, this is a utopian description of my ideals.
I'm Lexi, nice to meet you! I'm queer, I'm a woman, I'm a Jew, I'm a libertarian, and I'm a socialist. At some point I will talk more about who I am, but for now some of that will remain strictly implied for my own safety, and the safety of the people closest to me. Know that the current state of the world is terrifying to me, and it should be terrifying to you, too.
As a Libertarian in the traditional sense, and somewhat Americanized sense, I am strongly in favor of personal freedoms, liberties, and individual expression. I do not believe any state should have the authority to prevent people from living the lives they want to live insofar as those lives do not infringe upon the autonomy of other individuals (with a few exceptions, such as in the case of minors, who should have some restricted freedoms due to an inability to consent to the social exchanges that facilitate total autonomy, such as sex or contractual agreements). Autonomy is the highest order right, and all other rights and rules extend downward from autonomy. My body, my choice, etc., but for everything. I am in favor of total drug legalization, legalizing sex work, legalizing victimless crimes, and advocating for radical personal expression. People should be able to do whatever they want with their lives so long as what they're doing does not prevent other people from doing whatever they want with their lives, etc. This means that actions like rape, murder, and enslavement are explicitly forbidden in my worldview, but actions such as drug use, sex work, sexual expression of all kinds, body modifications of all kinds, and if one chooses, freed from manipulation, suicide. One's life is their own, and their own life should be lived however they want to live it. In this sense, I structure morality and the social rules of society into 5 distinct categories:
Morally Virtuous:
An action that is the purest form of moral right, and is to be commended, and celebrated but not expected. This includes acts of self sacrifice, acts of liberation, and acts of servitude towards the common good (that do not violate previously held principles and expectations).
Morally correct/morally expected:
An action that is morally good, and expected to be performed by all individuals in a society. This is primarily just the respect of others autonomy, i.e. not violating the autonomy of others, but also includes aspects of personal responsibility, such as parental responsibilities to their (born) children, and any poltical figure's responsibilty towards the people they serve, and other similar things that are morally correct actions, but are also expected moral actions. If someone does not perform these actions, they are commiting a type of immorality.
Morally neutral:
An action that does not affect one's moral standing, and is neither morally good or morally bad. These may include personal expressions of autonomy that do not negatively affect others ability to actively express their own autonomy (with previously stated exceptions in mind), day-to-day actions of personal maintenance such as eating food, drinking water, and sleeping, or the consumption of art.
Morally incorrect:
The opposite of morally correct actions, or the failure to uphold moral expectations, i.e. the violation of someone's autonomy, and other similar violations of moral expectation.
Morally corrupt/evil:
Any action that is not only an abandonment of moral expectations, but the intentional violation of those moral expectations with malice intent, i.e. murder, rape, etc.
This set of moral categorizations is the framework underwhich moral rules, and social rules, are applied within my libertarian worldview. This is to say that, despite being an anarchist, I do not believe in the commonly held view of anarchy by non-anarchists (rulelessness), and indeed have a set of moral expectations under which laws and practices ought to be based upon. The difference between the functional application of these moral rules in my social worldview compared to the way things currently work is a radical departure of criminal justice. This is to say, the abolishment of prisons as they currently exist as centers of punitive justice, and instead create a system of rehabilitative justice underwhich those who violate the moral rules of society are upheld by the collective rule of that society. This is to say, a police force as it currently is would not exist, and instead would be replaced with individuals who are granted the right of the defense of autonomy only up to the point that they are upholding that autonomy. This is a slight departure from some anarchist thinkers, as this does mean that some individuals are granted the ability to inflict violence upon others within society, but only under the condition that they are elected by the people they serve to perform this function, and are held to the same moral standards and expectations as all other individuals in society. In this sense, the police officer serves as another elected representative of the personal liberties of the community of individuals they serve, and can be removed from that position by that same community if that community deems it essential to do so. Thus, the police as they would exist within my worldview would not be the violent arm of whatever the current administration is, but would instead be the genuine protectors of the community and its common need for the personal autonomy of all those within said community. Some might argue that this focus upon communal good, radical democracy, and community service steps upon the stated goal of personal autonomy (i.e. freedom to do as you wish includes the freedom to violate the preexisting societal rules, or to act solely as an independent entity). I reject this notion, as I am arguing for a different view of freedom--not the freedom to necessarily do absolutely anything you want, but instead the freedom to maximally express one's autonomy; this is to say, freedom to live freely, not freedom to do all that one wills to. This means that things like taxation would be a societal expectation, and that there would exist a set economic structure under which taxes might be tracked and collected, which is itself a violation of the autonomous ability to do with one's personal posessions (i.e. currency in this instance) as they wish, as the effective use of taxation could facilitate social goods that would serve the ability for each person who pays taxes to be able to exist comfortably in a state of maximal expression.
What this might look like is a set of rules and laws that must be followed, as adminstered and protected by community-elected officials, that allows for all individuals, regardless of ability, to maximize their ability to self-express and self-actualize. This radical positivist view of society would allow for, for instance, a universal basic income, under which every single person is alloted a certain amount of money that would allow them to live safely regardless of the work they choose to do, and everyone's needs, whether that be healthcare, transporation, and/or basic necessities are to be met by the society itelf. This frees up the ability for each person within that society to maximize their own self-actualization and expression, as they are not concerned with the day-to-day essentials of existence.
Related to this autonomy, the society that I am proposing would be a direct democracy, under which each person, by acting as a voting citizen, controls the government in equal measure to every single other voting citizen. No citizen, even elected officials, should be granted superior voting power to anyone else, and there should be special exceptions to allow for experts in relevant fields to communicate to and reach all voters to allow for informed voting decisions. Related to informed voting, it would be an expectation within all educational programs to instill the principles of informed and responsible voting, with the basic function, structure, method, and purpose of voting being clearly and explicitly stated to all students. Although I do not want to make voting compulsory, I would want to incentivize voting to an extreme degree to encourage as strong voter turnout as is possible without violating someone's ability to reject the principle of voting itself. Related to the ability to reject the principles of society, I would not want to hold any person to the rules and values of the society if they don't want to. I would want the ability, effectively, for someone to opt-out if they want to; this would mean not paying taxes, not voting, not adhereing to the laws of the land (to an extent), but would also mean they would not be allowed to use the public goods of everyone else's labor or voting potential. This means they would no longer be able to use hospitals, roads, public transportation, or any other publically funded aspect of society, and must instead live entirely independent from that society. This fundamentally means that opting-out of the government is an option, but is not encouraged due to the difficulties of opting-out.
The basic structure of this government would be similar to the structure of the United States government, in that there would be separate branches of the government with different responsibilities, and each branch would be designed in such a way that each is "checked" by all others. No single branch of the government should have superior power to any other, and in fact, being in the government should not mean that any single person in that governmental position should have authority over any other person in society. Instead, these government officials would serve as a means under which the minutia and particulars of governance might be simplified to allow for as little disruption to the ability for each person to self-actualize as possible, while still maximizing the individual power each person has, and minimizing the amount of power any one person might acquire. What this might mean is that an elected official might manage the budget, with budget proposals approved by the relevant local communities that are affected by that budget, or diplomats might be elected to interface with other countries to facilitate effective foreign relations, etc. What this does not mean is any particular supreme authority within governance such as an executive office, nor does it mean that actions might be taken on a governmental level without the majority consent of the general populace. The exact distribution of governmental power that I envision is not going to be fully described now as it goes beyond the scope of this post, but I do intend on writing more about it in the future. Key to all of these principles of governance is, however, the radical acceptance of the collective opinion. If this entire system is voted away, the opinion of the collective people should be followed, and the system abandoned, as radical autonomy includes the ability for people to collectively decide that the government should not function the way it had been functioning.
These social principles of autonomy extend themselves to the rights and freedoms of minorities and other groups within society. I am a radical advocate for the liberation of all oppressed peoples, and firmly believe that every single person ought to be given the exact same ability to maximize their autonomy as everyone else, and we must recognize the ways in which the world as it currently is prevents the oppressed from maximizing their autonomy, even if we were to give equal rights to all groups. Thus, justice requires more than just having equal rights, but requires the redistribution of society's power to everyone, not just the few powerful white, cis, straight, men that currently hold that power. This redistribution means correcting the wrongs of the past through a rebalance of power that allows for the oppressed people of the world to recoup lost ground, and reach a point of default equal potential. Only when and if that equal potential is reached may we truly be said to be on equal enough footing to cease to require the redistribution of power. This redistribution of power might look like a disproportionate number of a given minority group represented in government to allow for their needs to be served, as well as enshrined protections for protected groups of people to ensure that their needs are not violated by the collective majority. For instance, transgender people, despite making up a very small percentage of the population, would have governmental representation in this ideal, and would have their rights protected as a group. These protected classes act as the exception to the rule of collective overturning of the functions of governance, as there is potential for exploitation via the masses due to collective hate if this hate is left to fester. In the name of redistribution, let's talk about my economic beliefs.
I am a socialist--this means, foundationally, that I believe that the means of production ought to belong to the workers who use them, but larger than that, I believe that the economy, the government, and everythingthere upon should belong to the people who use it. This is to say, although currency and personal property should exist, they should exist only insofar as the distribution of the currency necessary to own personal property should be owned by everyone. This means that the federal control of taxation should not be viewed as money paid upon a government, but instead money paid upon the collective good of everyone, and what is done with that collective money should be decided by the collective people. This direct economic approach also means that we ought to remove the hierarchical distribution of money entirely. Money can exist, as it is a convenient means of controlling and acquiring personal property, but private propery should not exist, nor should the accumulation of personal wealth be encouraged or even allowed. This means a much stronger application of progressive marginal taxation, in which the the more money you bring in, the more that money is taxed, thus preventing any one person from becoming too wealthy, and too powerful.
Everyone should have roughly the same spending power, and that spending power should equal the amount of money that is necessary not just to cover basic essentials, but to allow for self-actualization. The important phrase here being spending power--not income, as different incomes will be equivalent to different spending potential depending upon where you are, and as such, there should be a set mathematical formula under which spending power is continually calculated through the account of inflation, the cost of common goods, and the general economic conditions within a given environment. In this framework, there is some kind of market--a market of personal property and acquisitions, under which what is produced in a personal, private sense is determined based upon common spending patterns, i.e. the investment into computer manufacturing through collectivist democratic factories is determined based upon the collective need or desire for these goods, and whatever the cost of acquiring these personal goods on average should determine the individual income of a person such allowing them the equal spending power of every single other person. This does mean that more niche desires may not be satisfied as easily on the face of it, but this is accounted for by the allowance for niche desires and personal goods to be produced by individuals or groups of individuals who have the desire to do so. These individuals, and to a larger extent all individuals who choose to work in the creation of goods or services that generally benefit the community at large, should be incentivized by the ability to keep a percentage of the profits of their goods, with a certain percentage taxed to feed back into the universal spending-power-based income of all individuals in the community. Thus, you may grow additional personal income, but not to an extent so large that you might be placed in an exploitative position of authority.
Related to this, all workers within any factory, office, or organization would receive a flat salary regardless of the job they perform, and every single person within each organization would serve as a democratic equal, rather than any single person owning the entire organization. The exception here being if an organization is made up by a single individual, that one individual would hold supreme authority over their organization, but once it has grown to more than one individual, any additions to that organization are given a percentage control of that organization to prevent a hierarchical structure from forming, as these structures encourage exploitation. Fundamentally, the distribution of power should be flat, with elected officials being, at any time, able to be taken from power as per the collective vote of every person, and every single elected official is, at all times, only allowed to exist in that position insofar as the collective people consent to them being there.
I am not the ultimately correct person. I know that I could be totally wrong and stupid for thinking any of this is a good idea, and the fact that most of these ideas have not been tried in practice should be a demonstration that I could be totally wrong. As such, I am willing to change nearly every single aspect of this post if sufficient reasons are provided. I am not a socialist by pure ideology, but am a socialist by pragmatism. It seems to be at this time that socialism, and in particular the variety of libertarian socialism described in this post, is the best means under which to maximize my moral values of rule consequentialism. If I'm wrong in this, or indeed wrong to even be a rule consequentialist, I would abandon these beliefs to better adhere to whatever the best approach might be. So if you disagree with me, I encourage you to vocalize it; disagreement in general is something I strongly encourage, and I am always willing to hear alternatives, critiques, and rejections of my ideas. I am not so supremely intelligent, nor am I so supremely arrogant to think that everything I currently believe is the best thing to believe, and no one else could provide me with a better way of being. In fact, I can almost guarantee that there are major flaws in my world view that no one has told me yet, or I have not read yet. So if you think I'm stupid for thinking how I do, challenge me, and maybe I'll change my mind! In fact if you are right, and can explain why you're right to me, I will change my mind.
Dawson, M. (2013). Late Modernity, Individualization and Socialism: An Associational Critique of Neoliberalism. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.
Asimakopoulos, J. et al (2012) The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics.theanarchistlibrar.https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/deric-shannon-anthony-j-nocella-ii-john-asimakopoulos-the-accumulation-of-freedom.pdf
Berry, D., et al. (2017). Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Red and Black. theanarchistlibrary.https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/edited-by-alex-prichard-ruth-kinna-saku-pinta-david-berry-libertarian-socialism.pdf
Chomsky, Noam (2010). Language and Politics. Black Rose Books. ISBN 10: 0921689349
Marxists.org(n/d) Anarchist Resources: On Anarchist Theory, Anarchist practice, and the struggle between Marxists and Anarchists. marxists.org.https://www.marxists.org/subject/anarchism/index.htm
Dawson, Matt (2013). Late Modernity, Individualism and Socialism: An Associational Critique of Neoliberalism. Palgrave MacMillan.DOI 10.1057/9781137003423
I feel the need to repeat something I asserted in the beginning of this post as per some thought, and consideration of potential criticism that it might receive. I am aware that this is not a practical explanation of how to achieve the political ideals that I described in this post; I am aware that this is exceptionally utopian/idealistic. I did not write this as a source of praxis, instead I wrote this as an illustration of my ideals through a description of what an "ideal" society might look like for me personally. I think it is incredibly valuable to see what a perfect society looks like for each person, as the society that they create says a lot about who they are and what they believe. What I choose to prioritize, and what I choose not to prioritize, communicates a lot about who I am politically. In the future, I'm going to write a piece of actual praxis that details what I, in a more practical sense, would like to see in the world in the next 30ish years. This is why I typically describe myself as an idealistic libertarian socialist, but a practical social democract/democratic socialist. If I'm talking about the specific policies that I support, how I vote, who I vote for, and what direct political action I take, the difference between myself and a typical bernie bro is fairly non-existent. Sure, my underlying beleifs might be more radical than theirs, but the practical implementation of my beliefs compared to theirs is not meaningfully distinct. I am a registered democrat, I voted for Biden, I voted for Harris, I supported Bernie before I was old enough to vote, and then Hillary when he lost the nomination. I had a Bernie sticker on my laptop throughout college leading up to the 2020 election. I've gone to protests, I've done political outreach, I've infiltrated far right platforms on the internet to fight the growth of fascism within online spaces. All of this is to say that I am aware of the importance of pragmatism, and have lived a very pragmatic political life outside of this website. That being said, if you want a document that allows you to best predict my political views on any topic I have not explicitly written about, there is no document better than this one. For instance, you can probably predict that I am very pro-free speech, pro 2nd ammendment, and other similar libertarian positions that have more in common with the typical American conservative than American liberal, despite also being a passionate feminist, anti-racist, anti-fascist, and being pro-queer liberation. So, if your concern with this post is a lack of consideration of practical implementation of the ideas presented, consider the purpose of the document is not to present a practical future that I am actively working towards, but rather an ideal society that my current practical actions are performed in accordance with the ideology it is built upon.
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