4 ms·

> While a democratic state is different than a private organization in that it derives legitimacy from its voters This is exactly the key core distinction. The

> While a democratic state is different than a private organization in that it derives legitimacy from its voters This is exactly the key core distinction. The purpose of the state is to be the most powerful organization in the room - to constrain other actors. It’s imperative, therefore, that it be democratic and representative. Notably, part of the instinct to break up other large organizations is to prevent them from assembling enough resources to have a supersized impact on the state - the problem with monopoly is that monopolies buy out their competition and neuter regulations, the problem with wealth disparity is the ultra wealthy are sufficiently powerful to move the state in the direction they want it to go. I agree with you generally regarding reducing the overall size of governing bodies and I agree with Terrence about the benefits of small organizations and the drawbacks of large specifically around the investment and perceived ownership of members of those organizations, but having a small state fundamentally requires having small organizations everywhere - and anti-monopoly, antitrust, and anti-wealth concentration - because for the state to be democratic and representative, it must be the most powerful organization in the area it covers, otherwise it’s just a tool for the more powerful to use.

Karrot_Kream 1y ago
I'm actually not advocating for a reduction in the size of government bodies and I'm a bit frustrated about it. I'm not advocating anything about the size of government bodies (though naturally I have my feelings.) I'm confused why people seem to be intuiting this. I'm in fact doubly frustrated because I feel that people seem to be injecting modern political points into something that I feel predates many of our modern problems. My point is: the social problems of disenfranchisement that come from large organizations are a property of their size. They may differ in that they're volunteer based, profit oriented, non-profit in a capitalist system, democratically organized, or several hundred or thousand more distinctions. But I'm going to feel just as disconnected from my national government as I will from the workings of Google as a small shareholder as I will from the NBA as someone that plays pick-up on a basketball court. The experience of going to a minor league baseball game is much more personal than going to a major MLB game. To me the important issue is: the US specifically and the Anglophone West more broadly is seeing a decrease in its small institutions. This decrease predates the modern internet and social media landscape (see Bowling Alone.) I have many, many questions around this. Why is this happening? What is its effect on society? How can we reverse this? Is this something we can reverse? It's an important issue to me because this trajectory is very different outside of the Anglophone West. Japan for example is not seeing the same decline in its small organizations as the US is, despite population reduction. If anything Japanese life is dominated much more by huge conglomerates than US life.
- roughly 1y ago
  That's fair. I think a lot of reactions, mine included, are because most of the time when someone discusses the downsides of a large state, they're advocating for a small one from a libertarian lens, so I think I imputed motives to your arguments. You're right about this generally, though. I've got two different theories for why this is happening. First, I think the US is "individually nomadic" in a way that many other countries and cultures are not - it is unusual, at least in the populous areas, for someone to spend their entire life in one area, and doubly so for an entire family or community to stay geographically colocated long enough to really build durable organizations. I think this changes a bit as people get older, but it's quite normal for someone to move every 5 years or so between the age of, say, 20 and 60. Arguably this is driven by economics - job availability, especially for professionals, is a big reason for these moves. I think there's something self-reinforcing about the trend, as well - notably, as, say, the focus in politics concentrates on the federal government, it becomes harder for people to really see the benefit in local politics. The repeal of Roe v. Wade, for example, is a policy made at the national level with strong impacts locally; similarly the recent change in policy around both trans rights and immigration are hard for people to look past towards local politics (I think this is a mistake - large politics are built on small politics - but I think it's a factor). I'd also suspect impatience plays a part - it's hard to build an organization, it's hard to negotiate status and relationships, it's hard to keep something viable, and we've got a lot of easier routes to dopamine than bothering to meet up with other people now.
- rawgabbit 1y ago
  Hmmm... I would argue the disengagement of citizens and the lack of participation is not strictly because of organizational size. It is the fact these organizations cannot care less about their customers, citizens, or the law. These rogue organizations are typically large. The cause of disengagement is that organizations, large or small, are not responsive to customers needs or citizens needs. In many cases, they are actively working to the detriment of their own customers and the country at large. This is due to regulatory capture. It is that simple.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
Too 1y ago
Like rock paper scissors, there are multiple dimensions to power and the state doesn’t always possess all of them. Media being the most obvious one (fourth estate). Federal bank another. As the split of government and parliament.
- roughly 1y ago
  The state holds the guns, and if it doesn't hold the guns, it's not the thing I'm referring to as the state - fundamentally, the power of the state is the power of violence. Other actors may possess other types of power and other types of coercion, but those either leverage or are constrained by the state power of violence.
  - psunavy03 1y ago
    One could make an argument that the state does not hold a monopoly on violence. It holds a monopoly on the legitimization of violence. You're allowed to use deadly force to protect yourself from death or serious bodily harm in the majority of jurisdictions, provided it is not disproportionate. What matters is that the state declines to prosecute this, but does prosecute the person who hypothetically shoots someone on Fifth Avenue for no reason.
    - roughly 1y ago
      I am specifically not arguing the state has a monopoly on violence - as with the GP, people are imputing arguments I’m not making. It’s the fact that the state cannot have a monopoly on violence that forces the state to be powerful enough that its threat of violence outweighs others (and, bluntly, defines what the state IS, for all practical purposes: it is the entity whose threats of violence supersede all others.)
    - piva00 1y ago
      That's just semantics, for all intents and purposes the monopoly on violence is exactly that: the monopoly on the legitimisation of violence, only the state allows violence, you can only perform a violent act under the provisions the state allows, hence it's de facto and de jure holding the monopoly on violence. Stating this because I'm not sure what differentiation you are trying to achieve with the semantics game, the meaning is the same for any interpretation.
thegrimmest 1y ago
> The purpose of the state is to be the most powerful organization in the room - to constrain other actors I'm not sure this is a universal definition. Some of us just want a state that maintains a monopoly on violence, and otherwise does not constrain peaceful actors. An administration of peaceful coexistence rather than a mandate for cooperation. While administrating the peace does require some absolute power, it is required narrowly, to prosecute true crime, defend from outside threats, and resolve disputes.
- roughly 1y ago
  How is an entity with a monopoly on violence not the most powerful actor in the room? And in what way is administering the peace not constraining other actors?
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    The state is not an entity except in a very abstract sense.
- antonvs 1y ago
  > otherwise does not constrain peaceful actors. Leading to individuals with net worths heading towards a trillion dollars who can just buy the government they want. What you say you “want” is against your own interests.
  - thegrimmest 1y ago
    I'm perfectly happy for some folks to have trillion dollar net worth. I'm glad to negotiate with these folks and their organizations to provide value in exchange for a comfortable living. > just buy the government they want The idea of a constitution and separation of powers is to constrain the types of government that can legitimately exist. This does work to some degree. No matter how wealthy you are, you can't kill people in public. Money is to buy goods and services in a free exchange. When government agents acting in their official capacity accept money or the promise thereof in exchange for official action, this is called corruption. All human systems are corrupt, and no solution to corruption is perfect, but ours is pretty good compared to others.
tjs8rj 1y ago
In today’s world is it actually in our best interest to have the government break up large organizations? Or is that the worse of 2 evils? The state derives a lot of its power globally from wealth, influence, military power (funded by wealth). The state is only as powerful as it is - and only as capable as it is at promoting American interests in the world because it has many of the biggest winner-take-all corporations in its jurisdiction. A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US The meta as a state today is to cultivate as much wealth and power as possible by encouraging super corporations
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  > In today’s world is it actually in our best interest to have the government break up large organizations? I genuinely struggle to think of a social ill we're currently facing that isn't down in one way or another to some mega-entity acting against the public interest with no fears of reprisal because it is "too big to fail." > A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US The US has demonstrated thoroughly it cannot and is not interested in preventing the ascent of a Chinese superpower, simply from the fact that, if you believe them at face value, the current ruling party and administration are absolutely ripping the walls out from the U.S. Government largely to prevent that exact phenomenon, and have utterly failed to do so. And, in their ineptitude, have in fact both made the United States a global embarrassment and left tons of soft power just sitting on the damn table for China to pick up. > A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US ... but we have a lot of these supposed super-corporations. The problem is the United States, contrary to the ramblings of numerous chronically online people, does not actually use it's authority. Those corporations are in fact far more worried about accessing China's market than ours, because we don't regulate and they do, and there's far more Chinese consumers than American ones. Add to it America's consumers are already strip-mined to the studs and China's middle class is growing... I mean. It's just full steam ahead on American irrelevance. I think the real lesson is that when you're the big player already benefiting from global free trade in virtually every single way, laying tariffs on everything and sabotaging foreign investment in your own country is... well. Fucking stupid?

Karrot_Kream 1y ago

I'm actually not advocating for a reduction in the size of government bodies and I'm a bit frustrated about it. I'm not advocating anything about the size of government bodies (though naturally I have my feelings.) I'm confused why people seem to be intuiting this. I'm in fact doubly frustrated because I feel that people seem to be injecting modern political points into something that I feel predates many of our modern problems. My point is: the social problems of disenfranchisement that come from large organizations are a property of their size. They may differ in that they're volunteer based, profit oriented, non-profit in a capitalist system, democratically organized, or several hundred or thousand more distinctions. But I'm going to feel just as disconnected from my national government as I will from the workings of Google as a small shareholder as I will from the NBA as someone that plays pick-up on a basketball court. The experience of going to a minor league baseball game is much more personal than going to a major MLB game. To me the important issue is: the US specifically and the Anglophone West more broadly is seeing a decrease in its small institutions. This decrease predates the modern internet and social media landscape (see Bowling Alone.) I have many, many questions around this. Why is this happening? What is its effect on society? How can we reverse this? Is this something we can reverse? It's an important issue to me because this trajectory is very different outside of the Anglophone West. Japan for example is not seeing the same decline in its small organizations as the US is, despite population reduction. If anything Japanese life is dominated much more by huge conglomerates than US life.

roughly 1y ago
That's fair. I think a lot of reactions, mine included, are because most of the time when someone discusses the downsides of a large state, they're advocating for a small one from a libertarian lens, so I think I imputed motives to your arguments. You're right about this generally, though. I've got two different theories for why this is happening. First, I think the US is "individually nomadic" in a way that many other countries and cultures are not - it is unusual, at least in the populous areas, for someone to spend their entire life in one area, and doubly so for an entire family or community to stay geographically colocated long enough to really build durable organizations. I think this changes a bit as people get older, but it's quite normal for someone to move every 5 years or so between the age of, say, 20 and 60. Arguably this is driven by economics - job availability, especially for professionals, is a big reason for these moves. I think there's something self-reinforcing about the trend, as well - notably, as, say, the focus in politics concentrates on the federal government, it becomes harder for people to really see the benefit in local politics. The repeal of Roe v. Wade, for example, is a policy made at the national level with strong impacts locally; similarly the recent change in policy around both trans rights and immigration are hard for people to look past towards local politics (I think this is a mistake - large politics are built on small politics - but I think it's a factor). I'd also suspect impatience plays a part - it's hard to build an organization, it's hard to negotiate status and relationships, it's hard to keep something viable, and we've got a lot of easier routes to dopamine than bothering to meet up with other people now.
rawgabbit 1y ago
Hmmm... I would argue the disengagement of citizens and the lack of participation is not strictly because of organizational size. It is the fact these organizations cannot care less about their customers, citizens, or the law. These rogue organizations are typically large. The cause of disengagement is that organizations, large or small, are not responsive to customers needs or citizens needs. In many cases, they are actively working to the detriment of their own customers and the country at large. This is due to regulatory capture. It is that simple.
- actionfromafar 1y ago

Too 1y ago

Like rock paper scissors, there are multiple dimensions to power and the state doesn’t always possess all of them. Media being the most obvious one (fourth estate). Federal bank another. As the split of government and parliament.

roughly 1y ago
The state holds the guns, and if it doesn't hold the guns, it's not the thing I'm referring to as the state - fundamentally, the power of the state is the power of violence. Other actors may possess other types of power and other types of coercion, but those either leverage or are constrained by the state power of violence.
- psunavy03 1y ago
  One could make an argument that the state does not hold a monopoly on violence. It holds a monopoly on the legitimization of violence. You're allowed to use deadly force to protect yourself from death or serious bodily harm in the majority of jurisdictions, provided it is not disproportionate. What matters is that the state declines to prosecute this, but does prosecute the person who hypothetically shoots someone on Fifth Avenue for no reason.
  - roughly 1y ago
    I am specifically not arguing the state has a monopoly on violence - as with the GP, people are imputing arguments I’m not making. It’s the fact that the state cannot have a monopoly on violence that forces the state to be powerful enough that its threat of violence outweighs others (and, bluntly, defines what the state IS, for all practical purposes: it is the entity whose threats of violence supersede all others.)
  - piva00 1y ago
    That's just semantics, for all intents and purposes the monopoly on violence is exactly that: the monopoly on the legitimisation of violence, only the state allows violence, you can only perform a violent act under the provisions the state allows, hence it's de facto and de jure holding the monopoly on violence. Stating this because I'm not sure what differentiation you are trying to achieve with the semantics game, the meaning is the same for any interpretation.

thegrimmest 1y ago

> The purpose of the state is to be the most powerful organization in the room - to constrain other actors I'm not sure this is a universal definition. Some of us just want a state that maintains a monopoly on violence, and otherwise does not constrain peaceful actors. An administration of peaceful coexistence rather than a mandate for cooperation. While administrating the peace does require some absolute power, it is required narrowly, to prosecute true crime, defend from outside threats, and resolve disputes.

roughly 1y ago
How is an entity with a monopoly on violence not the most powerful actor in the room? And in what way is administering the peace not constraining other actors?
- rightbyte 1y ago
  The state is not an entity except in a very abstract sense.
antonvs 1y ago
> otherwise does not constrain peaceful actors. Leading to individuals with net worths heading towards a trillion dollars who can just buy the government they want. What you say you “want” is against your own interests.
- thegrimmest 1y ago
  I'm perfectly happy for some folks to have trillion dollar net worth. I'm glad to negotiate with these folks and their organizations to provide value in exchange for a comfortable living. > just buy the government they want The idea of a constitution and separation of powers is to constrain the types of government that can legitimately exist. This does work to some degree. No matter how wealthy you are, you can't kill people in public. Money is to buy goods and services in a free exchange. When government agents acting in their official capacity accept money or the promise thereof in exchange for official action, this is called corruption. All human systems are corrupt, and no solution to corruption is perfect, but ours is pretty good compared to others.

tjs8rj 1y ago

In today’s world is it actually in our best interest to have the government break up large organizations? Or is that the worse of 2 evils? The state derives a lot of its power globally from wealth, influence, military power (funded by wealth). The state is only as powerful as it is - and only as capable as it is at promoting American interests in the world because it has many of the biggest winner-take-all corporations in its jurisdiction. A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US The meta as a state today is to cultivate as much wealth and power as possible by encouraging super corporations

ToucanLoucan 1y ago
> In today’s world is it actually in our best interest to have the government break up large organizations? I genuinely struggle to think of a social ill we're currently facing that isn't down in one way or another to some mega-entity acting against the public interest with no fears of reprisal because it is "too big to fail." > A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US The US has demonstrated thoroughly it cannot and is not interested in preventing the ascent of a Chinese superpower, simply from the fact that, if you believe them at face value, the current ruling party and administration are absolutely ripping the walls out from the U.S. Government largely to prevent that exact phenomenon, and have utterly failed to do so. And, in their ineptitude, have in fact both made the United States a global embarrassment and left tons of soft power just sitting on the damn table for China to pick up. > A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US ... but we have a lot of these supposed super-corporations. The problem is the United States, contrary to the ramblings of numerous chronically online people, does not actually use it's authority. Those corporations are in fact far more worried about accessing China's market than ours, because we don't regulate and they do, and there's far more Chinese consumers than American ones. Add to it America's consumers are already strip-mined to the studs and China's middle class is growing... I mean. It's just full steam ahead on American irrelevance. I think the real lesson is that when you're the big player already benefiting from global free trade in virtually every single way, laying tariffs on everything and sabotaging foreign investment in your own country is... well. Fucking stupid?