this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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In this third article in a series I argue that populism is--at least in part--fueled by an inarticulate rage against Legalist forms of government.

https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/defanging-populism-by-getting-stuff?r=4ot1q2&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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[–] Taalnazi@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

If anything, you get things done more effectively if rules are clear and straightforward.

One could make a lot of exceptions to rulings. Like literacy tests being made more difficult for black people.

Or...

One could make that stuff more accessible to everyone, by educating everyone equally and well, free from both homeschooled illiteracy and from fear-filled rampages.

Capitalism is the enemy of all who seek to seize liberty. Only through full anarchocommunism can all be freed.

[–] CloudwalkingOwl@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

"Capitalism is the enemy of all who seek to seize liberty. Only through full anarchocommunism can all be freed."

Agreed. My concern is always how to get from where we are now to where we want to be.

One of the problems that I tangentially referred to, but didn't get into because of space constraints is the way capitalism is colonizing governance. Any large project or disagreement brings in highly-paid consultants like ants to a picnic. And for them, there is every inducement to stretch-out the process as long as possible because they get paid by the hour. I wonder how long things would stretch if all consulting contracts were by the job instead of by the hour?

[–] Taalnazi@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

What I personally think would be a nice way is to set up thrift shops, have communally owned farms and woods. They'd work together and give each other priority in giving goods.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago
  1. Offers a proof
  2. Repeats premise from title
  3. Doesn't provide proof as promised
[–] kbal@fedia.io 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There's legalism, and then there's legalism. There are intricate and restrictive laws that make it impossible for people to get both good and bad things done, and then there are intricate and restrictive traditions that form the basis for our system of government by keeping parliament from ending up with only the power to put a rubber stamp on whatever diktats came out of the PMO this week. Putting Poilievre and Trudeau so near the opposite extremes of your scale leaves very little room for anyone more legalistic or more autocratic than them.

[–] CloudwalkingOwl@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago

Of course, there are nuances. The graphic was only a mechanism for showing readers that there is an issue that is orthogonal to the standard left-right continuum. When someone comes up with a way of measuring legalism objectively (sorta like the way the Gini coefficient measures inequality), I'll think about parsing things out with more precision. ;-)