[uBeR]

While you bash community college psychology, this seems like community college psychology more than anything else (if I'm going to be nice about it). I doubt even this would get much attention in a community college.

You say humans will believe anything another human being tells them. I call that nonsense. Case in point: I believe virtually nothing you wrote in this post. What if I called you an imbecile? Would you believe you were one? By your own theory, you'd have to. But at the same time, if you mother ever called you smart, you'd have to simultaneously have to hold that incongruous belief. That's quite some theory.

You also say children shouldn't be told not to do things. But you also believe this will lead to a crimeless world, where police are no longer needed. Sounds like more rubbish to me. A child, for example, might not realize it's not okay to hit his or her sibling if it's never taught to him or her. He or she might grow to realize it over time, but he or she won't know it at that instance because it's well understood that children lack the cognitive and empathetic abilities of adults. The same might be true if a child were to steal from a store, which is fairly common.

My belief is opposite of yours: Kids need to be taught that their actions are wrong. Even you admit some actions are "objectively wrong." But you believe a child's fragile ego will be harmed if they're told that their objectively wrong behavior is wrong. You then believe this telling of children that their wrong behavior is wrong will lead to politicians making laws that outlaw bad things like, say, murder. So your contention is that laws against things like murder and theft are wrong, because this constitutes "control" and is an abridgment of the freedom of people who wish to follow "their natural desires." Your contention is that if we just let people adhere to "their natural desires" rather than create laws (or forms of control) that outlaw (or limit) "objectively wrong" things, that the world would be such a wonderful and beautiful place, based on "spontaneous order" and "self-organization." Of course, it doesn't take a whole lot of insight to see this is plainly absurd. We know, for example, that things like murder, rape, kidnapping, theft, and warfare exist even in stateless societies.

You use examples from "two majority schools of thought," i.e. liberalism and conservatism (though these "schools of thought," which are virtually the same belief systems in every respect, are minority views outside of the United States). For example, you say the liberal tendency to check economic imprudence is based on a politician's learning as a child that "objectively wrong" things like theft and murder are wrong. What you ignore in your economic examples is that there are certain facts that are virtually undisputed in any serious scholarship. Take the example of externalities. Every serious economist recognizes that, in a free market system, there exists what are referred to as externalities. That's objective. Laws are therefore created to limit these undisputed negative externalities, e.g. pollution. It's not because some politician was told not to do something as a child. It's because the academic literature, which is thorough and established, objectively tells us these things exist and that they ought to be controlled for fairly obvious reasons. It's objective, not subjective, in other words.

To be clear though, I'm not here to legitimatize state power, authoritarian tendencies, or other control and power structures. If you look at the leftist tradition, which is rich and robust, there has always been an inherent distrust and criticism of illegitimate power and control systems. It is essentially the libertarian tradition. Libertarianism, remember, was born out of the leftist imagination and Enlightenment thinking. (The word "libertarian" of course has taken on a very corrupt and perverse meaning today, particularly within the United States, where its meaning has come to signify the very opposite of what it has always meant.) These early thinkers, who are sometimes referred to as classical liberals, people like Smith, Humboldt, Mill, and Jefferson, railed against the free market system. They did so not because they loved control, but rather because they recognized the illegitimacy and corruption of free markets, which resulted in very coercive and authoritarian structures. That tradition has continued through today, particularly in left libertarian and anarchistic currents. If you look at modern libertarians (real libertarians, that is), for example in anarcho-syndicalism, they seek to dismantle the current capitalistic system due to its authoritarian structure, and replace it with a freer system, for example one based on workers rights, freedom, and the common good. One method some theorist have advocated is placing checks on the capitalist regime, for example through laws (until it can be fully dismantled and replaced). To the rightist (e.g. you), this might look like someone who's just looking to control, but in reality its a means to achieve the end of the dismantling what is seen as a very illegitimate power structure that is antithetical to human liberty, even more so than the state or laws it creates.

So when you actually bother to look at the leftist tradition, it's very much based on abolishing authoritarianism structures, creation of self-organization, and a fulfillment of human liberty. This might mean dismantling authoritarian economic systems, e.g. capitalism, and replacing them with freer or more democratic economic systems, e.g. in syndicalism or socialism (real socialism, that is). But it is not just on the economic front. They seek also to dismantle all illegitimate power, whether it be in familial relationships, cultural norms, societal practices, traditions, or other institutionalized structures and conventions, i.e. beyond just the authority of the state. That is the heart of true libertarianism.