There is zero competition of ideas in political science. Mostly variations of the same thing happening in every country (big powerful state, mixed social/capitalist economies).
This was tried. It was called The United States of America. The 9th and 10th amendments to the constitution delegated an enormous amount of powers to the states to try their own experiments, with the federal government standing by to adjudicate interstate disputes and maintain standards of currency and commerce.
Then Lincoln came along.
If only our public schools taught kids the real meaning of the war of northern aggression.
1: The civil war was not, by definition, a civil war. The south never fought for control of the north. The definition of a civil war is both side fighting for control of the whole.
2: The states joined the union of their own volition, they weren't conquered. The "Civil War" changed the notion of free states. Now the states are subservient by force to the federal government.
3: Lincoln didn't free the slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation decreed that slaves in rebel states were free. Slave states loyal to the north got to keep their slaves. So, Lincoln freed slaves in lands he had no control over.
4: Lincoln oversaw the first national conscription law in which the government is allowed enslave citizens to war. You can't be a free country AND force people to their death.
Lincoln is popularly considered the angel of liberty to an enslaved people, but in reality he did more to enslave all of us to an all powerful federal government.
Are there any good books/films about the civil war that are recommended?
Some books have a different angle. Many books written generally about the history of liberty in the US will specifically cite the "Civil War" and it's negative consequences.
There's also a book called "The Real Lincoln". I haven't read it, but it might be one of the few books that casts a critical eye on the precedents Lincoln set.
Sorry, there's nothing specific that I've read, just a bunch of sources combined.
It's hard to compete when the government claims a monopoly on violence and will use it against non-violent citizens.
I think this is because political science, to me, seems like a lagging indicator of whats going on in the political sphere of the world (at least when it comes to "current issues").
It is also very telling that established powers feel very threatened by Nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twenty-somethings who haven’t talked to the opposite sex in five or six years, yet academics seem to not be able to clearly frame what is really going on (maybe to the benefit of those who are marginalized by the status quo for that knowledge will most assuredly be used against them).
Though Hayden hinted about it, there are some fundamental things going on here that stand in the way of such analysis, after all one cannot truly fight that of which one does not understand…
Peasants, the vast majority, to me, seem far too distracted with the machinations of the corporate state, which allow cover for ghosts to move within the machine…
This is definitely not true.
> Mostly variations of the same thing happening in every country (big powerful state, mixed social/capitalist economies).
That's politcoeconomic engineering, not political science. And its not the same thing going on everywhere -- you see lots of things that don't meet that in the world, as well as a pretty broad range of "socialist/capitalist" mixes with pretty divergent poles -- its just that the succesful ones look pretty similar.
But then, that's true of successful designs in many engineering domains.
Might be a stretch, but take Cuba for an example.