Voting is such bullshit. It's not actual political participation. Most people didn't vote, sure, but they ran their own lives. Voting was immaterial. The more we have been removed from REAL self-determination -- i.e. being reduced to pawn-consumers via industrialism -- the more we have sought ersatz self-determination via "Democracy". But it's BS, because most people are ill-informed and they want some mythical magic answer via The Government Should Do... which rarely works out.
At any rate, that kind of old-school eltism gave us Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. Democracy gave us prohibition, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. :p Mass democracy always leads to tyranny because people don't actually respect one another, they just want to boss each other around. That's why DECENTRALIZATION is king, and that's a position I've maintained as a knee-jerk Republican, a college social democrat, a post-college left-libertarian, a libertarian, and now a whateverthehellIam.
By 'decentralisation' I *presume* you mean the end of Federal government. Does that mean 50 independent autonomous States or would you take it further than that?
How will the leaders of these decentralised states/areas be chosen if not through some kind of voting system? Or are you thinking of states/cities/towns who have ad hoc 'leaders' either emerging organically or as circumstances demand? How do you propose stopping individuals or groups simply 'taking power' for their own ends/benefits? How will decentralised 'powers' overcome attacks from outside their borders? SO many questions!
I think decentralisation might be a nice idea but I don't think its practical for a whole host of reasons. It *might* be achievable in a post-scarcity future in a much depopulated world, but I don't think its reasonably possible in this one or one that can be conceived of in the near-term.
Oh, and I very much disagree with the idea that mass democracy *always* leads to tyranny! Sure there's been the odd case here & there and from time to time, but there's plenty of examples of democracies that have been such for a LONG time - indeed getting *more* democratic as the decades go by... Where do you get that idea/belief from?
It's possible for the federal government to exist with a large measure of decentralization: that's what we had in the early republic, along with a strong implementation of subsidiarity -- letting matters be handled by the smallest, most local able authority. That will come whether we want it or not, because DC is so bloated, its debt so monstrous, that things will fall apart -- possibly in my lifetime. We'll see smaller republics, possibly even independent city-states when there's a city that's markedly different from its surrounding state (Austin, say).
Some of your questions hint to the reason I don't call myself an anarchist though I'm very sympathetic to their contentions: there simply is no steady-state political structure. Humans are tribal, gang-oriented, and all we've done with states is create a great big gang, put it in a fancy robe or a tie or what have you, and then -- in exchange for some services-- we consent to being generally bullied. Some gang-states are more generous than others -- always easy to be generous with other people's money -- and some not.
I overspoke with "always" -- I'm thinking of the way rulers like Caesar, Lenin, Hitler, and the Dreaded Orange Man ride to power on the back of masses. The larger the mob, the more they want, the more power invested in the ruler, and -- boom, you have authoritarianism. Sometimes it is authoritarianism dressed respectably, like Augustus' principate: the Empire existed, but it wore the old Republic's clothes. I suspect future historians will label this era of American history as our own principate.
@ Stephen: Oh, I *really* don't see the US falling apart any time soon. Almost certainly not in our lifetimes anyway! Longer term? Who knows... If it does fall apart though, it's not going to be pleasant for *anyone*.
I have Anarchist sympathies myself and have had for at least 30-40 years. The ideas are pretty intoxicating but, the more I read and the more I learned, I soon realised that 1) such a society would not be allowed to exist in harmony with its neighbours and 2) it just wouldn't 'work' in the real world even without hostile external forces.
I think that hierarchical power structures as as natural for humans as breathing. I'd bet that such things are hardwired into our DNA from *very* early in our evolution. Sure, it's possible to devise other social-political structures but they'd be harder to build and harder to maintain. To us hierarchies are second nature requiring little additional thought processing. Even with the inevitable infighting and power grabs, hierarchies are stable at the macro-level over LONG periods. I'm afraid that they're here to stay.
I certainly don't think that authoritarianism is anything like inevitable. There's always going to be a minority of people who *want* to the led and who don't *want* to think for themselves. Like there's *always* going to be people who want to be a version of a 'supreme-leader' and those who are happy to enable such and ride on their coat tails to glory & wealth. But I don't think that, generally, *most* people want that. The 'trick' is to prevent authoritarianism from happening in the first place. History teaches us - or SHOULD teach us - that 'successful' authoritarian regimes do not end well...
@ Marianne: The Electoral College is *weird* - a system **designed** to prevent the will of the people in the "land of the free". It's like you get to vote for your President and then a handful of *other* people get to decide if they agree with you (or not) and THEY decide the outcome. OK, it's not *quite* that crude but still... WEIRD.
6 comments:
Voting is such bullshit. It's not actual political participation. Most people didn't vote, sure, but they ran their own lives. Voting was immaterial. The more we have been removed from REAL self-determination -- i.e. being reduced to pawn-consumers via industrialism -- the more we have sought ersatz self-determination via "Democracy". But it's BS, because most people are ill-informed and they want some mythical magic answer via The Government Should Do... which rarely works out.
At any rate, that kind of old-school eltism gave us Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. Democracy gave us prohibition, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. :p Mass democracy always leads to tyranny because people don't actually respect one another, they just want to boss each other around. That's why DECENTRALIZATION is king, and that's a position I've maintained as a knee-jerk Republican, a college social democrat, a post-college left-libertarian, a libertarian, and now a whateverthehellIam.
By 'decentralisation' I *presume* you mean the end of Federal government. Does that mean 50 independent autonomous States or would you take it further than that?
How will the leaders of these decentralised states/areas be chosen if not through some kind of voting system? Or are you thinking of states/cities/towns who have ad hoc 'leaders' either emerging organically or as circumstances demand? How do you propose stopping individuals or groups simply 'taking power' for their own ends/benefits? How will decentralised 'powers' overcome attacks from outside their borders? SO many questions!
I think decentralisation might be a nice idea but I don't think its practical for a whole host of reasons. It *might* be achievable in a post-scarcity future in a much depopulated world, but I don't think its reasonably possible in this one or one that can be conceived of in the near-term.
Oh, and I very much disagree with the idea that mass democracy *always* leads to tyranny! Sure there's been the odd case here & there and from time to time, but there's plenty of examples of democracies that have been such for a LONG time - indeed getting *more* democratic as the decades go by... Where do you get that idea/belief from?
It's possible for the federal government to exist with a large measure of decentralization: that's what we had in the early republic, along with a strong implementation of subsidiarity -- letting matters be handled by the smallest, most local able authority. That will come whether we want it or not, because DC is so bloated, its debt so monstrous, that things will fall apart -- possibly in my lifetime. We'll see smaller republics, possibly even independent city-states when there's a city that's markedly different from its surrounding state (Austin, say).
Some of your questions hint to the reason I don't call myself an anarchist though I'm very sympathetic to their contentions: there simply is no steady-state political structure. Humans are tribal, gang-oriented, and all we've done with states is create a great big gang, put it in a fancy robe or a tie or what have you, and then -- in exchange for some services-- we consent to being generally bullied. Some gang-states are more generous than others -- always easy to be generous with other people's money -- and some not.
I overspoke with "always" -- I'm thinking of the way rulers like Caesar, Lenin, Hitler, and the Dreaded Orange Man ride to power on the back of masses. The larger the mob, the more they want, the more power invested in the ruler, and -- boom, you have authoritarianism. Sometimes it is authoritarianism dressed respectably, like Augustus' principate: the Empire existed, but it wore the old Republic's clothes. I suspect future historians will label this era of American history as our own principate.
I do think the States need a new way of choosing their government. A democratic one.
@ Stephen: Oh, I *really* don't see the US falling apart any time soon. Almost certainly not in our lifetimes anyway! Longer term? Who knows... If it does fall apart though, it's not going to be pleasant for *anyone*.
I have Anarchist sympathies myself and have had for at least 30-40 years. The ideas are pretty intoxicating but, the more I read and the more I learned, I soon realised that 1) such a society would not be allowed to exist in harmony with its neighbours and 2) it just wouldn't 'work' in the real world even without hostile external forces.
I think that hierarchical power structures as as natural for humans as breathing. I'd bet that such things are hardwired into our DNA from *very* early in our evolution. Sure, it's possible to devise other social-political structures but they'd be harder to build and harder to maintain. To us hierarchies are second nature requiring little additional thought processing. Even with the inevitable infighting and power grabs, hierarchies are stable at the macro-level over LONG periods. I'm afraid that they're here to stay.
I certainly don't think that authoritarianism is anything like inevitable. There's always going to be a minority of people who *want* to the led and who don't *want* to think for themselves. Like there's *always* going to be people who want to be a version of a 'supreme-leader' and those who are happy to enable such and ride on their coat tails to glory & wealth. But I don't think that, generally, *most* people want that. The 'trick' is to prevent authoritarianism from happening in the first place. History teaches us - or SHOULD teach us - that 'successful' authoritarian regimes do not end well...
@ Marianne: The Electoral College is *weird* - a system **designed** to prevent the will of the people in the "land of the free". It's like you get to vote for your President and then a handful of *other* people get to decide if they agree with you (or not) and THEY decide the outcome. OK, it's not *quite* that crude but still... WEIRD.
True. That's why most US Americans don't seem to want to understand what democracy really means.
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