> What do you mean by "decentralise"? Smaller-scope government at a local level? Anarcho-syndicalism?
Yes.
> I suspect many of the same issues would appear.
Nope. When democracy is small enough, the leaders are very close to their voters. This changes everything. See small democratic countries, they do much better at being democratic! I think we can make it smaller, and have the democratic process at neighbourhood/village level. Then go up from there with committees filled with delegates from the local-democracies that are for a specific topic (hospitals in the region, roads, schools -- anything local-democracies want to collaborate with others upon). All taxation and voting should happen on the lowest level.
> All taxation and voting should happen on the lowest level.
While I too am tinkering with these ideas, the trouble with this is that we need massive infrastucture work even outside the context of totalitarian self-promotion; and this is not achievable with small-scale local governments. Nowadays nobody is self-sufficient, as even the most simple things we use require material and labour from all over the world [1] that needs to be excavated, processed, produced, moved, bought and sold. I think that if we were to limit all governments to city-state like beings, economical macro-structures that will be more powerful than those states would form in no time.
Also, as today the term worker has so less to do with the worker of the past two centuries, most of the theories become more and more irrelevant. If we want a better today, we need newer theories. That's exactly what the totalitarians are doing, they're using new methods and theories of marketing to succeed their way to domination of economical systems.
Many utopias are possible, but at the end of the day, if it's not utopia everywhere, it's utopia nowhere. A country cannot isolate itself from the outer world in their excess of happines because that last one depends on global welfare today. It's not the ages that you could stay safe when there's conflict thousands of kilometres away anymore.
> the trouble with this is that we need massive infrastucture work
Sure. :)
But there are two options. Small steps in the right direction (need a lot of work), or revolution (needs even more work).
> I think that if we were to limit all governments to city-state like beings, economical macro-structures that will be more powerful than those states would form in no time.
Ok. In some cases these structures maybe beneficient, even started on behalf of the small-scale super autonomous self-governments. If not those small-scale govts can just ban (or not give them money anymore) them; they are autonomous.
> Also, as today the term worker has so less to do with the worker of the past two centuries
True in the west. Workers here are now "priviledged workers", our economies in the west in need of cheap labor in other places. There the "worker" still exists in its classical form. Here we have a new form, but if you look closely you still see many. To me it is simple, I see capitalists (defined as never "have to" work to survive a fancy life time), and non-capitalists (used to have been referred to as "workers").
> Many utopias are possible, but at the end of the day, if it's not utopia everywhere, it's utopia nowhere.
That raises the bar very high. I look more at it as a one village/neighbourhood at the time kind of thing.
Do you know "I pencil" from Corbett? He's an agorist I believe, dunno. I'm more towards mutualism/anarchism/market-socialism; as I think private property should have limits (otherwise those ideologies are quite similar).
Nothing stops city states from collaborating to build a highway between themselves, where the participants divest the costs amongt all participants (preferably in order of whom benefits the most).
It is a negotiation. It is how underseas fiber cables are laid, how canals are navigated, how the seas and skies are shared.
That sounds susceptible to a lot of "tragedy of the commons" problems. It's hard enough to make the top-10 nations collaborate against climate change - good luck with hundreds or thousands of small communities.
Similarly, this looks like a world in which few rights or standards could be taken for granted, because everything is decided in local committees or "multilateral" deals between some groups of communities: Whether you'll be allowed to trade with or travel into another community will depend on the specific rules and agreements your and the other community decided to take part in.
In those negotiations, communities with natural advantages will likely be able to make better deals and increase their advantage, which may lead to a growing inequality between communities.
Finally, who is going to run large-scale infrastructure like roads, water, the electric grid, the internet, etc? If history is any indication, some gib private actors or a small number of powerful communities. Other communities will have to negotiate with them to be allowed access to the infrastructure - which is great for the private actors because this means there is absolutely no one who has any leverage over them...
Collective will has never solved anything. As always it will be technology.
Whether you'll be allowed to trade with or travel into another community will depend on the specific rules and agreements your and the other community decided to take part in.
At smaller scale it will be much more obvious how important these things are.
In those negotiations, communities with natural advantages will likely be able to make better deals and increase their advantage, which may lead to a growing inequality between communities.
Like now ? Inequality is natural state. War against inequality is just waste of resource.
If history is any indication, some gib private actors or a small number of powerful communities.
Why is that a problem ? Use of force is only injustice in my book. Other than that everything is fair game. Many will be losers and few will be winners. But _everyone_ will fail most of the time. That is, there is no such thing as a private actor or community winning all of the time.
> Collective will has never solved anything. As always it will be technology.
Technology is a tool. There are always humans behind it. (If nothing else, the people designing the algorithms for the AI overlords)
Technology may help us to reach our goals, but in my opinion, it's rather useless if we're not even clear what our goals are.
> At smaller scale it will be much more obvious how important these things are.
And then what? It's obvious today how important clean drinking water is. Still people use access to water as a bargaining power and you might not have access to it if you live in a shitty part of the world and have nothing to offer. I don't see why it would be different here.
> Like now ? Inequality is natural state. War against inequality is just waste of resource.
Then I honestly don't understand the logic of anarcho-capitalists.
So our current system is broken because, even though it has some checks, it still leads to too much accumulation of power.
Therefore we should replace it with a completely unchecked system which will lead to even more accumulation of power - but that's ok because suddenly accumulation of power is actually fine and there is absolutely nothing we could do about it anyway.
How does that make any sense?
> Why is that a problem ? Use of force is only injustice in my book.
In mine, it isn't. But even if it were, who is keeping the communities from using force?
> Other than that everything is fair game. Many will be losers and few will be winners. But _everyone_ will fail most of the time. That is, there is no such thing as a private actor or community winning all of the time.
Yes, dominant powers change over time. For most of human history, that timespan was roughly "every few centuries". If you're talking about human life spans, it's absolutely possible that some groups are winning all the time and everyone else is losing all the time. (Oh, and those events where power actually shifted? They usually weren't very pleasant to live in either)
The whole idea of our current system is to prevent that by imposing restrictions on power.
It would not. But then the water-poor would realize its better to be
practicial than idiological. I believe in real life noone is all-poor. One as
an individual or group has always something to offer. The water-poor/everyone
would realize that there is cost of socialism which not everyone can afford.
> How does that make any sense?
Ancap are not happy with current state of inequality which is due to violence.
Inequality due to trading-power is "ok". Though not bundled with ancapism, wars
against current market leaders are heavely encouraged and just occur naturally.
> If you're talking about human life spans, ...
Though I concur this is not what I said. If you restrict the time period ofcourse
you are going to find all sort of anomolies.
> The whole idea of our current system is to prevent that by imposing
restrictions on power.
Current systems do not distinguish between powers who break NAP and who does
not. If current systems just focus on the former and leave latter alone
not only the unpleasent shifts of powers can be avoided but also
libertarianism/ancapism need not exist.
Thanks for taking the time to explain that stuff, btw. I don't agree at all with the philosophy but I think it's good to understand the logic behind it.
>The water-poor/everyone would realize that there is cost of socialism which not everyone can afford.
Except there are places today where there is a right to clean drinking water for everyone - presumably you and me are living in such places. (That's why I was saying "in shitty countries"). So the "not everyone can afford it" point is not an universal truth. Of course it's true if you build a system that wants to make it true.
>Ancap are not happy with current state of inequality which is due to violence. Inequality due to trading-power is "ok". Though not bundled with ancapism, wars against current market leaders are heavely encouraged and just occur naturally.
I suppose the underlying assumption is that such wars can be won relatively easily and painlessly - I find that assumption highly questionable.
>Though I concur this is not what I said.
Indeed you didn't. My point was that your assumption only holds in time spans that are not practically relevant.
>Current systems do not distinguish between powers who break NAP and who does not.
I don't see why violence is seen as such an important point here. There are lots of other ways I can abuse power that don't involve physical violence.
E.g., suppose I own some land that is crossed by a river that happens to be the major water source for some downstream communities. Now I can build a dam and make all kinds of outrageous demands to the communities and there is little they could do:
- they could try to find alternative water sources - which may be difficult or infeasible, depending on terrain. If I'm determined, I might also make it difficult by bringing as many relevant water sources under my control as possible.
- they could seize my dam or try to drive me away with force - which would violate property ownership and the NAP.
- they could give in to my demands, proving that my interests clearly outweigh the interests of the downstream citizens. Sucks to be them.
Economic warfare is the non-violent weapon. Win is not guranteed but
still its very effective. You as water-blocker will lose something if not due
to downstream community then others.
I also would guess that its a rare scenario otherwise market would have a solution.
> I don't see why violence is seen as such an important point here.
Because a violent actor is much worse. Ancap is solution to one specific problem
not a path to utopia.
But, eventually those "leaders" you seem to trust will find an enemy and unite to "fight" it.
I personally don't see why people even vote, I think the solution is to make sure the internet is protected from "leaders", not by voting and making temporary "rules" with the government, but by making sure it's global and decentralized.
Also, keep in mind that your idea of government won't protect the internet forever.
> But, eventually those "leaders" you seem to trust will find an enemy and unite to "fight" it.
Hopefully the enemy within.
> Also, keep in mind that your idea of government won't protect the internet forever.
First, do most Turks want free or protected access? Lets assume they want free access. If they cannot have it it shows the system of gov't is not democratic enough (or they have "traded" their request in some way, but that's not the case now).
> So what was that you were saying about "trying to fix governments being pointless"?
We should not dress up authoritarianism as something good. But some form of governing needs (and will anyway) to take place. I believe the best place for the center of this to happen in "close by", local, or small-scope.
> Or is this proposal not "a government" in your eyes.
It proposes a collection of most authorative governments, with layers above that are less authoritative and on-topic.
This is the opposite of a nation state, that tends to cluster power/tax-revenue at the top.
Yes.
> I suspect many of the same issues would appear.
Nope. When democracy is small enough, the leaders are very close to their voters. This changes everything. See small democratic countries, they do much better at being democratic! I think we can make it smaller, and have the democratic process at neighbourhood/village level. Then go up from there with committees filled with delegates from the local-democracies that are for a specific topic (hospitals in the region, roads, schools -- anything local-democracies want to collaborate with others upon). All taxation and voting should happen on the lowest level.