4 ms·

I am not sure how would you protect and distribute resources without (democratic) state. I am big fan of democracy, and no state (or similar structure) seems li

by js8 11y ago

I am not sure how would you protect and distribute resources without (democratic) state. I am big fan of democracy, and no state (or similar structure) seems like an idea that goes against democracy. And without democracy, I don't see how society can be considered fair, and protect its weaker members from harm.

chopin 11y ago
I am not convinced that democracy protects weaker members of society (let two wolves and one sheep elect what the dinner will be...). Rule of Law does. Democracy gives you a say in politics. Rule of Law gives you a safe life (at least from governmental actions). I concede that both may be not unrelated. But this is not necessarily the case.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- js8 11y ago
  > let two wolves and one sheep elect what the dinner will be First of all, one important rule of democracy is that you cannot vote about stripping someone's right in democracy (or alternatively, the democratic decisions have to be reversible), otherwise you will get Russell-style paradoxes. The existence (or not) of democracy itself cannot be decided democratically; this is often neglected but nevertheless important rule. Second, your example is unrealistic. There are far less wolves then sheep in the real world (literally!). In the real world, this is not really a big concern, because you wouldn't want to live in society where are more wolves than sheep anyway.. Almost every social technology (including evolved human cooperation) is predicated on this being false. Of course, there are other things that are important for society and orthogonal to democracy - as you mention, for example, rule of law. But I disagree with rule of law you're safe from government actions - the state is typically the actor who enforces the law. So I very much disagree with the sentence "Rule of Law gives you a safe life (at least from governmental actions)." I would like to see an example of society where this is true due to it not being democratic; since democracy effectively gives you control over government actions.
  - MikeNomad 11y ago
    I think this might meet all thr criteria you are looking for... The United States is not a Democracy, it is a Representative Republic. It happens to use _some_ bits from the democracy toolbox. As to any back-and-forth regarding people's rights being voted away and courts of law re-establishing them, there is the issue of slavery, and most recently, gay marriage.
    - js8 11y ago
      > The United States is not a Democracy This is very obviously false. It may have been established with not that intent, but today (especially after progressive movement) it's one of the most advanced democracies in the world. Of course there is still a long way to go. For example, there is paper from Cato Institute that showed (on different U.S. states) more democracy leads to better management of state budget. > people's rights being voted away This is misrepresentation - people's right are not being voted away; what happens in these cases is that social progress is not as fast as some liberals would want. (In other words, there is a huge difference between regress and slow progress.) Democracies are conservative, as most normal people are (and this is arguably good engineering practice). And slavery was actually supported by the representation (you're actually contradicting yourself here a bit, if you want to blame democracy for slavery, then you shouldn't say that U.S. wasn't democracy).
jrk_ 11y ago
Well, in theory anarcho-capitalism should also ensure a fair distribution of resources. It's one of several currents of the Libertarian philosophy. I found an interesting write-up about some real-life Libertarian societies here: [1]. The most prominent problem with the view on resources is, that the prevailing mindset about nature is that it's a free resource. Which is fatally wrong! Again, in theory anarcho-capitalism should fix this also, but personally I don't trust individuals overcoming their greed for a greater good. [1] http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/has-a-libertarian-society-ever-existed/ http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/has-a-libertarian-society-...
- nyan4 11y ago
  >capitalism >fair
  - jrk_ 11y ago
    Not a contradiction. The capitalism Smith describes is actually fair.
- js8 11y ago
  > Which is fatally wrong! I don't buy the idea that there are no free resources in the world. It seems very obviously false, it seems isomorphic to labor theory of value, and leads to logical contradictions (such that value is not monotonic in effort). At minimum, there are other actors in the world that produce value; take for instance a hen producing an egg. The egg is valuable and is produced by the effort of the hen (scavenging for food). Yet we cannot assign this value to any person, it just comes for free from nature.
  - jrk_ 11y ago
    I was thinking more about resources like clean air and water. Humans used to pollute rivers and air because they treated it as a free resource. However, the cost of air pollution are health problems. There is no such thing as free lunch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain't_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch#Meanings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain't_no_such_thing_as_a...
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
A stateless society could still be democratic, but at a much more decentralized threshold. (per-neighborhood, per-cooperative, etc.)
- js8 11y ago
  Why these are these not just some mini-states? And how you ensure that some community is not ostracized by some other community of bullies?
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    They're not really "states," but autonomous voluntary regions. After all, if everyone can opt out of the terms of a central monopolistic state, then they cease to be states in the normal sense of the term, since no monopoly on legitimate initiation of force is held and free travel between "borders" is permitted. This is the so-called "panarchy" arrangement and emerges organically from most forms of anarchism. Every community is responsible for its own defense, which it can hire out or assemble itself.
    - js8 11y ago
      Well, you call those "voluntary" but how is that going to work in practice? Being/wanting to take new members into the community is at odds with people knowing each other well (and being able to rely on one another). If people can voluntarily enter/exit any region/community they want, what prevents criminals to just leave without justice? And if not, it goes against the idea of being voluntary member of the community. I think there needs to be some balance of these two opposing forces. At minimum, I would love to see these anarchist ideas backed up by some computer model.

by js8 11y ago

chopin 11y ago

I am not convinced that democracy protects weaker members of society (let two wolves and one sheep elect what the dinner will be...). Rule of Law does. Democracy gives you a say in politics. Rule of Law gives you a safe life (at least from governmental actions). I concede that both may be not unrelated. But this is not necessarily the case.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
js8 11y ago
> let two wolves and one sheep elect what the dinner will be First of all, one important rule of democracy is that you cannot vote about stripping someone's right in democracy (or alternatively, the democratic decisions have to be reversible), otherwise you will get Russell-style paradoxes. The existence (or not) of democracy itself cannot be decided democratically; this is often neglected but nevertheless important rule. Second, your example is unrealistic. There are far less wolves then sheep in the real world (literally!). In the real world, this is not really a big concern, because you wouldn't want to live in society where are more wolves than sheep anyway.. Almost every social technology (including evolved human cooperation) is predicated on this being false. Of course, there are other things that are important for society and orthogonal to democracy - as you mention, for example, rule of law. But I disagree with rule of law you're safe from government actions - the state is typically the actor who enforces the law. So I very much disagree with the sentence "Rule of Law gives you a safe life (at least from governmental actions)." I would like to see an example of society where this is true due to it not being democratic; since democracy effectively gives you control over government actions.
- MikeNomad 11y ago
  I think this might meet all thr criteria you are looking for... The United States is not a Democracy, it is a Representative Republic. It happens to use _some_ bits from the democracy toolbox. As to any back-and-forth regarding people's rights being voted away and courts of law re-establishing them, there is the issue of slavery, and most recently, gay marriage.
  - js8 11y ago
    > The United States is not a Democracy This is very obviously false. It may have been established with not that intent, but today (especially after progressive movement) it's one of the most advanced democracies in the world. Of course there is still a long way to go. For example, there is paper from Cato Institute that showed (on different U.S. states) more democracy leads to better management of state budget. > people's rights being voted away This is misrepresentation - people's right are not being voted away; what happens in these cases is that social progress is not as fast as some liberals would want. (In other words, there is a huge difference between regress and slow progress.) Democracies are conservative, as most normal people are (and this is arguably good engineering practice). And slavery was actually supported by the representation (you're actually contradicting yourself here a bit, if you want to blame democracy for slavery, then you shouldn't say that U.S. wasn't democracy).

jrk_ 11y ago

Well, in theory anarcho-capitalism should also ensure a fair distribution of resources. It's one of several currents of the Libertarian philosophy. I found an interesting write-up about some real-life Libertarian societies here: [1]. The most prominent problem with the view on resources is, that the prevailing mindset about nature is that it's a free resource. Which is fatally wrong! Again, in theory anarcho-capitalism should fix this also, but personally I don't trust individuals overcoming their greed for a greater good. [1] http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/has-a-libertarian-society-ever-existed/ http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/has-a-libertarian-society-...

nyan4 11y ago
>capitalism >fair
- jrk_ 11y ago
  Not a contradiction. The capitalism Smith describes is actually fair.
js8 11y ago
> Which is fatally wrong! I don't buy the idea that there are no free resources in the world. It seems very obviously false, it seems isomorphic to labor theory of value, and leads to logical contradictions (such that value is not monotonic in effort). At minimum, there are other actors in the world that produce value; take for instance a hen producing an egg. The egg is valuable and is produced by the effort of the hen (scavenging for food). Yet we cannot assign this value to any person, it just comes for free from nature.
- jrk_ 11y ago
  I was thinking more about resources like clean air and water. Humans used to pollute rivers and air because they treated it as a free resource. However, the cost of air pollution are health problems. There is no such thing as free lunch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain't_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch#Meanings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain't_no_such_thing_as_a...

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

A stateless society could still be democratic, but at a much more decentralized threshold. (per-neighborhood, per-cooperative, etc.)

js8 11y ago
Why these are these not just some mini-states? And how you ensure that some community is not ostracized by some other community of bullies?
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  They're not really "states," but autonomous voluntary regions. After all, if everyone can opt out of the terms of a central monopolistic state, then they cease to be states in the normal sense of the term, since no monopoly on legitimate initiation of force is held and free travel between "borders" is permitted. This is the so-called "panarchy" arrangement and emerges organically from most forms of anarchism. Every community is responsible for its own defense, which it can hire out or assemble itself.
  - js8 11y ago
    Well, you call those "voluntary" but how is that going to work in practice? Being/wanting to take new members into the community is at odds with people knowing each other well (and being able to rely on one another). If people can voluntarily enter/exit any region/community they want, what prevents criminals to just leave without justice? And if not, it goes against the idea of being voluntary member of the community. I think there needs to be some balance of these two opposing forces. At minimum, I would love to see these anarchist ideas backed up by some computer model.