3 ms·

The amount of voice possessed by customers and employees of commercial organizations might be theoretically lower than what citizens possess with respect to pol

by Gormo 13y ago

The amount of voice possessed by customers and employees of commercial organizations might be theoretically lower than what citizens possess with respect to political organizations (although in practice, I'm not sure there's much difference), but with political institutions, the capacity for exit is essentially nonexistent, whereas with commercial institutions, it's fully available to all participants. In terms of the ability to assert one's freedom, I'd regard exit as being of far greater importance than voice. > but governments do get a lot closer to that ideal Why do you believe that the "ideal" you're positing is the best one to maximize human freedom? Democracy is still a kind of uniform, monopolistic rule. I'll also point out, as an aside, that you're channeling this conversation into a debate opposite sides of a false dichotomy: the existing forms of centralized government and commercial corporation are hardly the only two viable models for social institutions: there's a vast range of alternatives that offer a variety of risk-reward tradeoffs. That false dichotomy is also based on the presumption that people must outsource responsibility for a wide range of elements of their lives to some external institution. But what about people who want to take direct responsibility for their lives, or create their own social institutions in conjunction with like-minded others for that purpose? How are they not hamstrung by attempts to create universal monopolies?

tripzilch 13y ago
> (although in practice, I'm not sure there's much difference) You really ought to qualify that with "where" in practice there isn't much difference. In the US, yes, obviously your government is pretty much entirely bought by corporations to such extent that I'd be hard-pressed to even call it a de facto democracy. There's other parts in the world however, that have multiple political parties, that actually have radically different viewpoints on a wide variety of topics, which are not merely deemed "the lesser evil" by many[0] of their supporters ... some (this depends on the party) even depend on their supporters for input on what policy course to take. Sounds pretty utopian, but such places do exist. [0] you can never please everyone, of course > Why do you believe that the "ideal" you're positing is the best one to maximize human freedom? I don't. Nor do I believe it is right to merely maximize human freedom. You need to maximize both freedom and happiness, didn't you ever take a course on ethics? If you only have one but not the other you get terrible badwrong things. To clarify further, it felt weird to defend democracy in my previous post. I don't usually do that, I think it's a very imperfect solution, but it's still the best option that I know of. > Democracy is still a kind of uniform, monopolistic rule. Sure, it's just that most alternatives that I know or heard of generally fail on the "who's going to take care of the elderly and the disabled?" criterion. In particular the ones that aim at purely maximizing freedom are generally proposed by young and healthy individuals that either don't realize or don't care that part of society will be left rotting in the streets that way. You cannot judge a society by how it treats the average individual, you can only judge it by how it treats those who are worst off. > I'll also point out, as an aside, that you're channeling this conversation into a debate opposite sides of a false dichotomy: the existing forms of centralized government and commercial corporation are hardly the only two viable models for social institutions: there's a vast range of alternatives that offer a variety of risk-reward tradeoffs. I didn't mean to do that, I'm not even sure that I did. > That false dichotomy is also based on the presumption that people must outsource responsibility for a wide range of elements of their lives to some external institution. But what about people who want to take direct responsibility for their lives Yeah usually that means these people want to be free of the burden to also take responsibility for the lives of those who cannot (or not to a useful extent). There are exceptions of course, but people that do this by their own motivations, are pretty rare, definitely not enough to take care of the problem. Even if you take into account that most (but definitely not all) will take care of their own families (but not everybody has that luxury either). > or create their own social institutions in conjunction with like-minded others for that purpose? How are they not hamstrung by attempts to create universal monopolies? It is my experience that, unless such social institutions are in fact governments (or something very similar, religion, giant computer, etc), these communities will fail after about 30+ years when generation-churn sets in and the amount of "like-minded others" in the community starts to dwindle. It's perfectly possible to start some beautiful communal living project where everybody knows what's what because they all believe the same thing, and it can go very well for a while, make a beautiful space to live, etc. However, as soon as the original founders start to disappear (or can't do their part anymore), and if there is no "construct" that is somehow bigger than the individuals that makes sure the values of the society are kept as they were intended, it'll fall apart. Such a construct is called a government (or something very similar). For a real-life example of this happening, see Christiania in Kopenhagen, Denmark. Beautiful idea, really fallen apart. If you ever visit Kopenhagen, check it out, not for what's left of the hippie art and community ideals, but for the broken roads, windows and alcoholics. It's very educational. Fortunately there's an actual state just a few blocks away.
- Gormo 13y ago
  > You really ought to qualify that with "where" in practice there isn't much difference. It's true everywhere to some extent. I'd suspect that extent is likely a function of scale; the broader the scope and greater the impact of political power, the more likely it is to be disconnected from any viable mechanism of restraint or accountability. > In the US, yes, obviously your government is pretty much entirely bought by corporations to such extent that I'd be hard-pressed to even call it a de facto democracy. I don't understand this obsession with corporations. Any political system of sufficiently concentrated power is going to be controlled by whatever faction has the means to manipulate it. Whether that manipulation is expressed via money, social connections, Machiavellian ruthlessness, or some other mechanism, the end result is the same. There's simply no such thing as a government that's uniformly accountable to every person in equal measure. If you think your own country - whichever it is - is immune to this, you're probably not looking closely enough. > Yeah usually that means these people want to be free of the burden to also take responsibility for the lives of those who cannot (or not to a useful extent). No, I don't think it does. Again, that false dichotomy is showing up; it's implicit in your viewpoint, even if you're not consciously articulating it. People's duties toward others are a function of their actual relationships with those others; the mutual obligations and the mechanisms of reciprocal accountability by which people involve themselves in each other's lives are properly defined by those people themselves. In other words, every particular relationship or community is a society unto itself, and its members have the right to make their own rules and set their own standards, in the manner that they choose, without being shoehorned into conformity with abstract universals imposed by some external institution. The political state is properly a failsafe mechanism, to be invoked if and when disputes and controversies that arise within substantive social contexts aren't contained and resolved within those social contexts; its legitimate role is judicial, not legislative. The state is not properly the a priori driver of social norms or the definer of mutual obligations. What you're calling "democracy" is a bit of a misnomer, because it doesn't have its roots in any substantive demos that actually exists; it gets its theoretical mandate from an abstraction of society, not the actual thing. > There are exceptions of course, but people that do this by their own motivations, are pretty rare, definitely not enough to take care of the problem. Even if you take into account that most (but definitely not all) will take care of their own families (but not everybody has that luxury either). Then your own system isn't enough to take care of the problem either, because no matter what institutional forms you create within society, that society is always composed of the same people, bearing the same motivations. The logic of "people are too stupid/selfish/evil to manage things on their own, so lets put some institution controlled by those same people in charge of everything!" is quite obviously broken. If anything, the existence of political will sufficient to create policy in aim of certain social objectives is evidence that there indeed is sufficient will for society to just work towards those objectives directly, without using politics, and without people misdirecting their energies and resources into dysfunctional institutions that generate unnecessary conflict. And when people eschew politics, and just work to address the problems they care about, they'll probably be a lot more successful at it. > It is my experience that, unless such social institutions are in fact governments (or something very similar, religion, giant computer, etc), these communities will fail after about 30+ years when generation-churn sets in and the amount of "like-minded others" in the community starts to dwindle. I'm glad you've managed to gain experience of social institutions administered by giant computers - that solid empirical data will surely reveal some important truths :) In seriousness, though, this doesn't appear to be the general case at all. The vast majority of our social infrastructure - language, art, commerce, law itself - has been developed and sustained over millennia by bottom-up emergence, not by institutional fiat. If anything, the rise of centralized state power over the past century or so has eroded them and made them more susceptible to failure, not less so. It's actually given us the worst of both worlds with respect to the conservative/radical dichotomy: by imposing top-down uniformity on society, it eliminates the opportunities for experimentation and innovation at the micro level, which are the source of all real progress, while forcing everyone into patterns defined entirely according to abstractions and rationalizations at the macro level, denying us the ability to refine our social infrastructure against real experience. > For a real-life example of this happening, see Christiania in Kopenhagen, Denmark. I'm well aware of Christiania; and I'll say that I'm not sure that the organizing principles of that particular community were necessarily the most suited to long-term survival - which is fine; we learn from failed experiments - but I'm also aware that its decline wasn't entirely a matter of its own defects, but that it was in part actively undermined by the "official authorities".

by Gormo 13y ago

tripzilch 13y ago

> (although in practice, I'm not sure there's much difference) You really ought to qualify that with "where" in practice there isn't much difference. In the US, yes, obviously your government is pretty much entirely bought by corporations to such extent that I'd be hard-pressed to even call it a de facto democracy. There's other parts in the world however, that have multiple political parties, that actually have radically different viewpoints on a wide variety of topics, which are not merely deemed "the lesser evil" by many[0] of their supporters ... some (this depends on the party) even depend on their supporters for input on what policy course to take. Sounds pretty utopian, but such places do exist. [0] you can never please everyone, of course > Why do you believe that the "ideal" you're positing is the best one to maximize human freedom? I don't. Nor do I believe it is right to merely maximize human freedom. You need to maximize both freedom and happiness, didn't you ever take a course on ethics? If you only have one but not the other you get terrible badwrong things. To clarify further, it felt weird to defend democracy in my previous post. I don't usually do that, I think it's a very imperfect solution, but it's still the best option that I know of. > Democracy is still a kind of uniform, monopolistic rule. Sure, it's just that most alternatives that I know or heard of generally fail on the "who's going to take care of the elderly and the disabled?" criterion. In particular the ones that aim at purely maximizing freedom are generally proposed by young and healthy individuals that either don't realize or don't care that part of society will be left rotting in the streets that way. You cannot judge a society by how it treats the average individual, you can only judge it by how it treats those who are worst off. > I'll also point out, as an aside, that you're channeling this conversation into a debate opposite sides of a false dichotomy: the existing forms of centralized government and commercial corporation are hardly the only two viable models for social institutions: there's a vast range of alternatives that offer a variety of risk-reward tradeoffs. I didn't mean to do that, I'm not even sure that I did. > That false dichotomy is also based on the presumption that people must outsource responsibility for a wide range of elements of their lives to some external institution. But what about people who want to take direct responsibility for their lives Yeah usually that means these people want to be free of the burden to also take responsibility for the lives of those who cannot (or not to a useful extent). There are exceptions of course, but people that do this by their own motivations, are pretty rare, definitely not enough to take care of the problem. Even if you take into account that most (but definitely not all) will take care of their own families (but not everybody has that luxury either). > or create their own social institutions in conjunction with like-minded others for that purpose? How are they not hamstrung by attempts to create universal monopolies? It is my experience that, unless such social institutions are in fact governments (or something very similar, religion, giant computer, etc), these communities will fail after about 30+ years when generation-churn sets in and the amount of "like-minded others" in the community starts to dwindle. It's perfectly possible to start some beautiful communal living project where everybody knows what's what because they all believe the same thing, and it can go very well for a while, make a beautiful space to live, etc. However, as soon as the original founders start to disappear (or can't do their part anymore), and if there is no "construct" that is somehow bigger than the individuals that makes sure the values of the society are kept as they were intended, it'll fall apart. Such a construct is called a government (or something very similar). For a real-life example of this happening, see Christiania in Kopenhagen, Denmark. Beautiful idea, really fallen apart. If you ever visit Kopenhagen, check it out, not for what's left of the hippie art and community ideals, but for the broken roads, windows and alcoholics. It's very educational. Fortunately there's an actual state just a few blocks away.

Gormo 13y ago
> You really ought to qualify that with "where" in practice there isn't much difference. It's true everywhere to some extent. I'd suspect that extent is likely a function of scale; the broader the scope and greater the impact of political power, the more likely it is to be disconnected from any viable mechanism of restraint or accountability. > In the US, yes, obviously your government is pretty much entirely bought by corporations to such extent that I'd be hard-pressed to even call it a de facto democracy. I don't understand this obsession with corporations. Any political system of sufficiently concentrated power is going to be controlled by whatever faction has the means to manipulate it. Whether that manipulation is expressed via money, social connections, Machiavellian ruthlessness, or some other mechanism, the end result is the same. There's simply no such thing as a government that's uniformly accountable to every person in equal measure. If you think your own country - whichever it is - is immune to this, you're probably not looking closely enough. > Yeah usually that means these people want to be free of the burden to also take responsibility for the lives of those who cannot (or not to a useful extent). No, I don't think it does. Again, that false dichotomy is showing up; it's implicit in your viewpoint, even if you're not consciously articulating it. People's duties toward others are a function of their actual relationships with those others; the mutual obligations and the mechanisms of reciprocal accountability by which people involve themselves in each other's lives are properly defined by those people themselves. In other words, every particular relationship or community is a society unto itself, and its members have the right to make their own rules and set their own standards, in the manner that they choose, without being shoehorned into conformity with abstract universals imposed by some external institution. The political state is properly a failsafe mechanism, to be invoked if and when disputes and controversies that arise within substantive social contexts aren't contained and resolved within those social contexts; its legitimate role is judicial, not legislative. The state is not properly the a priori driver of social norms or the definer of mutual obligations. What you're calling "democracy" is a bit of a misnomer, because it doesn't have its roots in any substantive demos that actually exists; it gets its theoretical mandate from an abstraction of society, not the actual thing. > There are exceptions of course, but people that do this by their own motivations, are pretty rare, definitely not enough to take care of the problem. Even if you take into account that most (but definitely not all) will take care of their own families (but not everybody has that luxury either). Then your own system isn't enough to take care of the problem either, because no matter what institutional forms you create within society, that society is always composed of the same people, bearing the same motivations. The logic of "people are too stupid/selfish/evil to manage things on their own, so lets put some institution controlled by those same people in charge of everything!" is quite obviously broken. If anything, the existence of political will sufficient to create policy in aim of certain social objectives is evidence that there indeed is sufficient will for society to just work towards those objectives directly, without using politics, and without people misdirecting their energies and resources into dysfunctional institutions that generate unnecessary conflict. And when people eschew politics, and just work to address the problems they care about, they'll probably be a lot more successful at it. > It is my experience that, unless such social institutions are in fact governments (or something very similar, religion, giant computer, etc), these communities will fail after about 30+ years when generation-churn sets in and the amount of "like-minded others" in the community starts to dwindle. I'm glad you've managed to gain experience of social institutions administered by giant computers - that solid empirical data will surely reveal some important truths :) In seriousness, though, this doesn't appear to be the general case at all. The vast majority of our social infrastructure - language, art, commerce, law itself - has been developed and sustained over millennia by bottom-up emergence, not by institutional fiat. If anything, the rise of centralized state power over the past century or so has eroded them and made them more susceptible to failure, not less so. It's actually given us the worst of both worlds with respect to the conservative/radical dichotomy: by imposing top-down uniformity on society, it eliminates the opportunities for experimentation and innovation at the micro level, which are the source of all real progress, while forcing everyone into patterns defined entirely according to abstractions and rationalizations at the macro level, denying us the ability to refine our social infrastructure against real experience. > For a real-life example of this happening, see Christiania in Kopenhagen, Denmark. I'm well aware of Christiania; and I'll say that I'm not sure that the organizing principles of that particular community were necessarily the most suited to long-term survival - which is fine; we learn from failed experiments - but I'm also aware that its decline wasn't entirely a matter of its own defects, but that it was in part actively undermined by the "official authorities".