Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with politicaltheory

What are the day-to-day details of a world based on Social Credit?

cowbellemoo — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:06:15 -0800

What are the day-to-day details of a world based on Social Credit? How do companies conduct their business? How are civic services accomplished? A friend and I are trying to understand the theory and we're getting hung up on a practical conception or application of it. I follow with the concept of Cultural Inheritance, the critique of traditional credit as anti-social, the more results-driven look at production, the confluence of money with democratic power ("voting with money"), income security, and the radical de-centralization of power. But what does it look like? I realize that economic/political models have endless permutations, but is there a standard Social Credit Utopia you could describe to me?

How would, say, a home get sold? What business models would companies follow? How is education conducted? Big civic things, too, like how would a park be built? A newfangled communications infrastructure? Sanitary services? Disaster relief?

Hail to the Chief

l33tpolicywonk — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:13:20 -0800

Trying to figure out if there is an "ism" or "acy" word for a governmental system of ruler worship (i.e. like the ancient Egyptian systems which considered their rulers Gods). Any specific terms for this?

Stages of revolution?

kensanway — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 08:21:41 -0800

I'm looking for a certain political theorist's description of the different stages of national revolutions. I think it's Max Weber, but I'm not sure. The basic theory says that there are three stages to any revolution, starting from an elite core, to a larger mainstream body, and then ending in a larger synthesis upon which the revolutionary group becomes indistinguishable from the mainstream. Does anyone know where this is from?

Republicanism 101 for Teen Liberals

stet — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:22:11 -0800

CogentRightWingThinkerFilter: A friend of mine has a younger sister who is a well-educated and politically savvy 16-year-old liberal Democrat. In the interests of broadening her horizons, what sources for Republican or right-wing politics would you recommend for her? Since this young woman resides deep in the blue territory we've all heard about, she has little exposure to the American right other than the trained monkeys that infest television and the popular media. Obviously, this isn't limited to the right, so I'm not looking for right-wing equivilents to Michael Moore or Jon Stewart. Something like a conservative Harper's magazine would be more the goal. Or, if there is some sort of seminal book on conservative politics that is well-reasoned and well-argued, that would also fit the bill. Polemic works or anything that uses the word "Liberal" as a synonym for evil are not what I'm looking for. I'd like her to have an understanding of the reasons the good, honorable, and thoughtful conservatives exist.

Spreading Democracy

amberglow — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 08:44:59 -0800

PoliticalTheoryFilter: Given that all forms of government are eventually unsustainable or only last a certain time for whatever reason, does spreading Democracy to places that never had it actually hasten its decline? (tiny bit more inside) see Feudalism, Empires, Communism, City-States, etc

I think Communism (or the Roman Empire) may be the most closely related thing--when the USSR, for instance, gathered in satellite states behind the Iron Curtain, didn't that make it too hard to sustain?