[lojban-beginners] Re: Words for Politics and Economics

[Greendogo <pcm1123@gmail.com>]

I agree.  I realized this as I was going about my day after asking the
question.  But I don't think it makes it a bad thing either.  Other
political cultures should be addressed, but I figure that why not
start with the US.

I had a problem asking for the translations of political parties
because those words mean something different than what they originally
did and what they did 100, 50, and even 10 years ago.  The words
themselves show this in their construction.  Democrat should obviously
start with someone who believes in democracy, and Republican should be
someone who believes in republicanism (or that the state structure
should resemble that of a Republic).  However, in English they have
cultural political baggage.  So which definition do we want?  Do we
have two words for each definition and nuance, or do we have one word
(mimicking their English counterparts) because we want to tie their
meanings together?

That's why I quickly realized that language construction is hard and
that I'm glad I'm not responsible for it.

Another problem is that trying to ask a group of people to come up
with words for political groups or political philosophies when those
groups or philosophies are under-represented in the group of people is
not a good idea.  It would be best if the people who ascribe to the
politics or beliefs in question could be consulted for the underlying
meaning in keywords from their viewpoint before someone ends up
embedding incorrect or negative connotations in the words.  This
probably fixes itself, though, if the words enter common use and the
people using them decide they want a new word.

Also, Objectivism (the Ayn Rand variety) is a life philosophy that
mostly falls in the sphere of Libertarianism, with strong minarchist/
capitalistic tendencies, as well as proscribing athiesm and
selfishness and a bunch of other things.  I used this as an example
for philosophies and political ideologies that are closely related to
larger umbrella terms (in this case, objectivism is closely related to
Libertarianism/Capitalism/Anarchy/Athiesm/Egoism).  I could have also
added terms to the list like Maoism, Marxism, Nazism, Neoconservatism,
Neoliberalism and a slew of -isms that are slight variations of the
same thing but are prefaced by a different prefix for the purpose of
classifying it to a specific geographical or cultural source and to
highlight the minute differences in execution.  But I figured that
would be superfluous, since we could just extrapolate the structure
from the examples I already gave.

On Feb 28, 10:03 am, Remo Dentato <rdent...@gmail.com> wrote:
> While some of the words are fairly general, I feel some are very
> specificy to US (like Democrat and Republican that, I guess, are the
> US major parties).
>
> Others seems to me very technical like "objectivism" (I have no idea
> who Ayn Rand is!)
>
> However I would love to see your first translations and start
> discussing the options!  Probably the [jbofanva] group would be more
> appropriate, though.
>
> I would really love to see those words properly shaped in lojban.
>
> remod.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:59 AM, Greendogo <pcm1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > So I checked some of the dictionaries floating about and I wasn't able
> > to find "words" to use in political discourse.  I made a list of
> > several words I'd like to know the Lojban equivalents for, including
> > some basic English nouns and words used to refer to people of
> > different political leanings:
>
> > Politics
> > Economics
>
> > Democrat
> > Republican
> > Libertarian/libertarianism
> > Liberal
> > Conservative
> > Socialist
> > Statist
>
> > Liberty
> > Freedom
> > Slavery
>
> > Property
> > Rights (natural rights)
> > Rights (guaranteed rights)
> > tax/taxation
>
> > democracy
> > republicanism
> > capitalism
> > communism
> > socialism
> > fascism
> > dictatorship
> > monarchy
> > anarchy
>
> > minarchism
> > anarcho-capitalism
>
> > union (i.e. workers' union or teachers' union)
>
> > objectivism (pre-Ayn Rand variety)
> > Objectivism (Ayn Rand variety)
> > Tribalism
>
> > currency
> > fiat-currency
> > commodity
> > stock
> > stock market
> > bond
> > stock broker
> > recession
> > depression (economic variety)
> > boom-bust cycle
> > inflation
> > deflation
> > bubble (economic variety)
> > embargo
> > tariff
> > sanction
>
> > corruption
> > monopoly
> > military
> > military-industrial complex
> > industry
> > business
> > corporation
> > population
> > citizen
> > migrant
> > immigrant
> > nation/country/state
> > nationalism
> > patriotism
> > spy
> > treason/traitor
> > border
> > war
> > civil war
> > revolution/revolt
> > terrorism
> > trade
> > enemy
> > ally
> > navy
> > army
> > air force
> > soldier
>
> > propaganda
> > subterfuge
>
> > president
> > senator
> > representative
> > congressman
> > parliament
> > general
> > king/queen
> > dictator
> > emperor/empress
> > sovereign
> > chieftain
> > prime minister
> > wanker
>
> > constitution
> > bill
> > act
> > amendment
>
> > political party
> > partisanship
>
> > vote
> > pluralism
> > oligarchy
> > bureaucrat/bureaucratic/bureaucracy
> > rule
> > law
> > regulation
> > reform
> > repeal
>
> > Alright, I tried to come up with everything I could that wasn't too
> > far away from the subject of politics and economics.  I thought of
> > adding things in like nazi-ism or maoism, but they seemed to be too
> > specific for this beginning list.  I'm sure there's more, so feel free
> > to add in translations for words you think of on your own that fit the
> > topic.
>
> > I know talking about politics on a forum is just asking for trouble,
> > so please don't get into any arguments about what's the best political
> > philosophy or anything like that if you can avoid it.  If you have a
> > translation for one of the words up above, you might also break it
> > down to show why the word is what it is, if applicable, but it isn't
> > necessary.
>
> > Politics and language are my two great loves, so it would be nice to
> > have the words for my favorite subjects to talk about while learning
> > Lojban, hence the purpose of this thread.  Have fun!
>
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