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Let me respectfully disagree with what the real problem is. The real problem is not Russia. You are absolutely right that Russia wants influence in Ukraine. You
by snitko 13y ago
Let me respectfully disagree with what the real problem is. The real problem is not Russia. You are absolutely right that Russia wants influence in Ukraine. You are right that Yanukovych is a thief. But the real problem is people believing they need someone to reign over them. You think you can elect better politicians, who can put your interest in front of their own self-interest; who will not steal while chanting about EU integration? To me it's absurd how people in Eastern Europe look at west in admiration of their quality of life, yet fail to see how politicians in the west lie and steal and abuse their power.
Unfortunately, I can see how this Ukraine revolution can turn out. I believe the opposition will prevail and new leaders will be elected. Will they be able to remove all corrupt bureaucrats? No they won't. Those people will stay in their place, like the mafia. And they will corrupt everyone else around them. EU integration is just words to calm the public down. Real issues are never addressed by politicians.
The only true worthwhile revolution comes when people realize they don't need anyone to rule them. When the majority realizes that, no more revolutions and violence can follow.
- scribu 13y ago> The only true worthwhile revolution comes when people realize they don't need anyone to rule them. When the majority realizes that, no more revolutions and violence can follow. Indeed, in an anarchy, you don't have any regime to stage revolutions against. But violence? Oh, you'd get plenty of that. It would just be distributed, instead of organized: survival of the fittest.
- snitko 13y agoStates did a great job convincing people that anarchy == violence. Yet what is the evidence for that? If you look at history, an average state over the course of, say, 10 years, murdered more people than the bloodiest of all anarchists did over his lifetime. And then you should also understand that anarchy doesn't mean no laws and policing. It means that people choose to live by the laws they want (and not by voting, but by becoming customers of different law firms) and people choose private protection agencies to pay to instead of being bitten by state police troopers if they disobey. If people decide they don't like the service, they stop paying and go to a competitor. Now try doing that with a state and taxation.
- ajuc 13y agoMy law firm (also a protection service) has simple rules - in all conflicts with clients of other law firms our clients are right by default. We have the best security enforcers, so we can deliver on that rule, too. We may be expansive, but having your home burned cause you signed with inferior security provider is far more expansive, right? How exactly this situation differs from payign mafia for protection? At least with state there's just one mafia to pay off, and you can vote for the godfather every few years.
- snitko 13y agoIf that's the rule of your firm then it is going to go out of business pretty fast. Why? Because if you insist that your clients are always right then you will inevitably get into violent conflicts with other firms. Violence is expensive and since you can't really print money and raise taxes like governments do, you only have this limited amount of money from your customers. As a businessmen, you want to make money, not lose it. Thus, you'd have to really calculate whether it is better to lose a couple of your customers and money by not insisting they are right when they obviously are not, or lose a lot more money by getting into violent conflicts. Conflicts which, by the way, you will inevitably lose, because other firms don't have the rule you have and decide to resolve conflicts among themselves peacefully, while you, on the other hand, are at war with all of them. Apply logic to your hypothetical situation instead of FUD and you will see how things will work. Governments are simply monopolies on power and law and we know very well monopolies do not work out good for customers.
- scribu 13y agoSo if other firms can decide to resolve conflicts among themselves peacefully, then they can also decide to band together into a federation that serves their interests. Monopolies form because they're efficient. If you say that regular people will prevent that, then you're just back to having violent revolutions, except against monopolies, instead of governments.
- 13y ago
- marcosdumay 13y agoWell, that's quite a jump from "people ... don't need anyone to rule them" into anarchy. Why do you think both concepts are equivalent?
- snitko 13y agoActually that's what I meant, indeed, so he was spot on. Anarchy means no rulers. It doesn't mean absence of law and order and violent gangs of rapists running on the streets with molotov cocktails and baseball bats. Law and order are provided not by a violent monopolist (government), but instead by the free market.
- marcosdumay 13y agoYeah, ok, then you are jumping to the same conclusion, and my comment was completely orthogonal to the discussion. Anyway, still offtopic, I'm quite eager for the reasons why you both discard democracy (no rulers, but government exist) without even a comment (am I missing something that obvious?).
- snitko 13y agoI don't suggest governments should exist. I think you had mistaken law and order for government. Think of it this way: law and order are services. Government is just one way of providing those services.