Anarchy could never work.

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no. circumstances and disparity of opportunity have a lot to do with it.



do you consider the zeitgeisters logic to be as flaky as that of creationists?



the things i list above are among the things that perpetuate the status quo. the perpetuation of the status quo is in the interest of the obscenely rich and powerful. to me this appears obvious, but if you can be more specific about what you want examples of, i'll certainly try.[/quote]
TBH I do need the help on this. You're saying that there are powers that benefit greatly from the stratification of society. I can understand stratification of essentially a capitalist class and, in the information age, a white collar middle class, but I can't see a use for the broke and destitute. If you can point out who has a great use for an underclass, what moves they're making, and how it works - not in full detail of course but just enough salient stuff for me to understand what you're trying to say that you see, that should do it.[/quote]



according to marx, unemployment is a prerequisite of capitalism. he went into great detail on this in the book quoted above, where he talked about capitalism's need for a reserve army of labour. in short, you could look at it as the inverse of competition in provision of goods keeping prices low, in that a bottom level of workers unemployed and in and out of precarious employment keeps wages low due to competition and hence maximises surplus value.



i think holding out until we all have materials replicators might be akin to the lack of realism displayed by the zeitgeisters. besides, the evidence of such phenomena as planned obsolescence suggests a motive among capitalists that wouldn't particularly facilitate such developments. look at, for instance, the opposition among vested interests to oil alternatives.



a correction on my point above for clarity, i meant to say the rich are certainly not proletaires, however i think you got the gist of what i was getting at.

going back to marx again, those in the middle ground between proletarian and bourgeois he referred to as petit-bourgeois. the distinction is the point at which enough capital is accumulated to reinvest in the production of capital, i.e. wealth accumulation, and they generally need to expend their own labour power alongside those whose labour power they purchase.



but the mainstream media is owned and run by the ruling classes. so much of what goes on goes unreported by the mainstream media simply because it is not in the interest of the mainstream media to report it, and so much of what is reported is presented in a skewed and distorted manner. this becomes clear simply from a cursory browse through the pages of independent media providers who do not have financial interests in the issues they are reporting. this is related to the idea of the system providing concessions where necessary, but it certainy doesn't empower the populace. rather i tend to think the inverse.



but we aren't talking specifically about individuals here, rather social classes. regardless, the obscenely rich clearly consistently wield more power than the abjectly poor



but this is exactly the point of our discussion. the system as it stands requires an army of oppressed, disempowered poor people to do these sh***y jobs at the behest of their ruling class masters as they have no other means of subsistence. far from an optimal or ideal arrangement for the majority.



sounds good in theory, but unfortunately doesn't work out so in practice. the carrots of which you speak are essentially on a string. in real terms, wages for the poor are decreasing. if you earn only enough to get by until your next paycheck, live a subsistence existence, have a bank account that's consistently on empty towards the end of the month, we can't really see it as a reward for labour spent. it is a carrot on a string as long as their is no real long term improvement and gain for the worker.

and the people who you cite as proving their talents in leadership and organising people, in terms of lower paid menial work, are more often than not domineering task masters paid to keep their underlings in line in a culture of fear. i've worked enough dead end jobs in the past, and spoken to enough people in similar situations, and read enough accounts of bullying and intimidatory tactics in the workplace for this to be fairly clear.



anarchism doesn't preclude designated forums, it, in fact, advocates them. everyone is equal in an anarchist society, however this doesn't mean people do not fulfill roles within the community. discussion and dialogue are facilitated at the local level, ground rules are set as to who chairs meetings, arbitrates discussion etc. but these activities are not carried out by specialist third party bodies, rather roles are circulated people given temporary and rotating responsibilities for representation at federated councils etc. where bigger decisions need to be hammered out.

That was meant in terms of job openings that the poor with the right skill sets or aptitudes could move up to.


That's quite an important distinction, and its probably a better one to make in your case right off the start. Then again, the two richest men in the US are by your definition 'not rich'. In the US as well, you might be surprised, there are also many old-blood rich who've gone quite left of center on their politics (probably for the same reason movie stars do - they have all this money, maybe less praise or fame for the simply 'rich', but the same gnawing sense that they have an unearned pool of resources).


I'd have to investigate that one. The criticisms I heard was that what your suggesting (internal competition) is what was specifically lacking today and that the current incentives - if indeed conservative - weren't conservative in a particularly recognizeable form.


My question was which paths to getting rich essentially make someone a sociopath by definition. You may have answered that question with clarifying that the self made rich aren't 'the' rich, though I'm still not sure if that's the full picture or not from your perspective.


It at least needs a strong deligation structure. Clearly the barbarism needed in such a structure lessens greatly as we progress scientifically and intelluctually as a global culture but to get the things done that we need to that still needs to be the case - not a 'ruling' class so much as a 'system' of some type that can delegate responsibility and move humans to the needed actions. Without 'something' along these lines you don't have much and worse, organization of efforts and finances gets aweful.



I wouldn't disagree that its widely varied, especially on the 20% outliers. To talk about 'human nature' though isn't to say that all people are corrupt and evil. Its to say that the squeeky wheels - everything from the utterly violent to the socially violent to the con artists and everyone else essentially shape what other people need to do in order to find safety for themselves and their families. In that sense its the people at the bottom of the barrel that often define the obligations that those who aren't like them are stuck with - it really ends up being a natural habitat with predators, pray, protectors, etc. just that its all human on human for the most part.

When you have a set of behaviors that are built, from the ground up, to deal with threats and do what we all essentially want to do - minimize pain and distress as much as possible - these things shape what we do. It shapes cultural attitudes, it shapes perceptions, it essentially and sadly - necessarily - hardens people. At the same time though it creates a need for certain obligaions as well as it creates a need for may behaviors that are done to reinforce the safety of the people as well as it changes how things need to be done. Its a bit difficult to explain all the ways that this ties back to the need for 'a' system of some type, but a lot of it is not to claim that humans are evil so much as to claim that anything that works and works well is vulnerable if its left out in the open and available to attack.


I don't know how this works in Europe but in the US the rich do not and cannot have their money sitting in bank accounts without being taxed through the nose. Their money is mostly wrapped up in investments. In that sense when you consider them 'rich' and speak of 'net worth' its the companies they own, the holdings those companies have, its far more stakeholders than 'them'.


Then you need to be clear with yourself on this - bad apples would need to be deported, jailed, or simply offed. I'm not casting any moral judgment any which way on that prospect, just letting you know that this is an issue that an ararchistic society would need to deal with. There's, even worse, the nihilistically bored who'd perhaps still have as much as ever sociopathic tendencies and end up having the desire to rise up whatever ranks there would be in society, win people over, lie, deceive, and show their colors later in life - even do plenty of damage before the broader population of an area was able to see them in the light of day for who and what they were.



The problem isn't what 'needs' to happen but rather what 'does' happen and the personality types that lend themselves to certain roles.


Two things on this: you might live in a bubble in terms of thinking that most people share your intelligence, secondly people who haven't necessarily made it to power but who'd be of the type of sociopathic ruling class ilk just not come to pass yet - you or anyone else might have a heck of a time ever seeing them or realizing what they are until its too late. At the present time everything's pretty static so seeing who's who isn't a particularly big challenge comparatively speaking.


Well, I'll at least tell you why I brought it up. Africa needs food, next infrastructure, next industry of its own and the ability to pursue those ends. Good farming techniques and aid in infrastructure building are the most important things we could do for them. That said though - any kind of aid - would decrease to near nothing if we threw away monetary systems and had no sense of what we could realistically give. Being able to quantify progress or quantify extra resources is something you can't get away from and have much hope for efficiency nor abundance to share (even if hypothetically the megalomanic rich were eating the majority of that abundance up).


To go from Dickonsonian to now its pretty clear that its steadily become less malevolent and more benevolent, even if it still has quite a long way to go in being the system that would truly 'take care of' people. That forward march shows no sign of stopping and you have to rememeber, every new generation is a new generation and they're taking in the new ethics, new standards, of their peers and their generation. The generation of the 1920's was different from that of the 40's, of the 60's, of the 80's, of the 2000's, and similarly the behaviors of the rich, of corporations, of pretty much anyone go with the times.

At this point as well its become increasingly more responsive to its customer base. When's the last time you heard any company or auto maker say "You can have my product in any color you want - as long as its black"?



talking about credit cards is not talking about giving people actual, real and tangible responsibility for themselves and for their community. this is a false premise.[/quote]
I was giving credit cards as an example because they're a combustable responsibility or techinically a liability with some benefits. Those are the types of responsibilities that when mishandled/mismanaged can break a society.

That said you do have me curious - what kinds of responsibilities are you talking about? I can think of many things that I would consider responsibilities but I'm still vague on which ones you'd want to employ in order to enfranchise people in the process.


But you're already somewhat contradicting yourself. If you reward someone for doing good work its an implied punishment to those who don't do good work and aren't rewarded. You have to figure out where your egalitarianism ends and your meritocracy begins. To even grade people based on merit you're headed at least somewhat back toward a capitalistic system where people's mobility (meaning I suppose in the spectrum from poor to upper-middle class) has a lot to do with their innate abilities.


I might have been a bit too vague, when I said people who would burn a house down I literally meant people who would burn a house down. It wasn't a value judgment on them, no was it an attempt to band the 'disabled' (which I'm technically a part of myself) together. On the other side of that I've had a laugh when I've talked about my 'disability' and had certain members of the forum jump on me or other people saying similar things with knee-jerk platitudes and tautologies about how ASD isn't a 'disability'. I suppose since you get all types I try not to worry about perfect sensorship and, if what I say needs explaining I'm happy to do so. Also when I mentioned the people who are too lazy or don't care I was in most cases refer to other groups but didn't really explain that well.

Regardless - the thing I do realize about the world is that it seems most people can have the realization that they're kind of just here, they weren't brought here by choice, and that if they don't want to participate in society there's no one who can 'make' them. I agree with you that people generally don't give into that kind of nihilism unless the dissincentive is already stacked pretty high. At the same time though the jury is still out on what can really be done about that; not what we'd 'like' to work but what will work vs. what won't.


I know that but they're also caught in a self-created vicious circle with crime, drug 'abuse' (which I'll gladly deliniate from 'use' - two very different things IMO), throwing themselves at having kids out of wedlock and without financing (in America LBJ had a big role in that), that makes the social norms worse and from there makes it even harder for people born into that to get out.


How does anarchism resolve that? It sounds great in promise but I need to hear something in the way of actual content. How does the 'community' decide to distribute? Is it equal to all? How would that be compatible with any amount of meritocricy? Without meritocricy how do you get anyone to take the crap jobs that need to be done?


That worth and meaning is fully relative and sadly it seems like there's really little you can do to give people worth without getting into the taking from someone else territory. You can enertain people, keep them plugged in to virtual reality, perhaps simulate their success, but reality itself and such terms as worth and meaning are on too slushy of a ground already to ever say that any definition can be universally held, let alone that it can be given to all based on its subjectivity.


Not being antagolistic here, what is 'real responsibility' from your perspective? Can't respond to that unless I know what you're getting at.


How do you compensate people with rare abilities and talents for taking on jobs that just about rack up brain damage and leave them pretty stressed out and exhausted much of the time?


From the way capitalism is moving its looking like the obscenely wealthy tiny majority are as human as anyone else and want the things that everyone's working towards - if that's the case that they're at the helm.


In your argument the rich need to be a class of psychopaths. There's no evidence to extent that they're majority psychopathic.


Well right, it couldn't be a physical revolution at all.


By the time you deapathize the masses you have a political process in place, a big shift in public opinion and, from all the evidence I'm seeing - surprisingly little resistance from the rich.

The challenge is; there's only one type of idea that can deapathise the masses like that and get people moving in harmony - something that *works* and holds up under scrutiny on the strength of its own intellectual merits. That's what alternative economic and social philosophies still haven't yielded yet.

I hate to say it - they, creationists, and bits of what I'm hearing here, seem to all be very needy and faith-based of central axioms. The psychopathic rich is something that, if anarcho-communists or TZM people don't have, doesn't work. 'Human nature' also has to be mostly because of capitalism - which is something that, against history, can't be falsified.


We've been bridging Marx's gaps for the last couple centuries. We're to the point now where Unions have the power to carve up and cannibalize their respective companies; they've essentially done so in Detroit.


That would be assuming that I'm saying things would be exactly the same as they are until that day and time where material replicators were available for every household. There's a trail of innovation that leads there as well and along that trail the situation would keep improving for all. Material replicators is just a point in time that works well for a tidy analogy of how innovation will change society.


My question is: how do you get people to do these things without compensation?


A couple observations; 1) 'mother nature' was our oppressor prior to the industrial revolution, 2) we'd rather have what the rich have, not simply bring them into the fold and force them as well to endure our hardships - the later might be cathartic but it doesn't gain any real victory. If many different types of work, at this point, aren't done - we're all toast. Unstringed carrots in the sense you give them might be imaginary items, especially when carrots themselves for the most part as an analogy are consumeables.


I've worked at several food service and 'dead end' jobs, it must be different here in America on a lot of levels. At worst we have raunchy work politics between coworkers, sometimes drawing in managers, and tyranny of social comformity issues though, then again that's different sort of problem than working for a taskmaster. Our workplace ugliness is apparently much more horizontal rather than vertical.


It already sounds like you're just talking about full democracy. At a local level that's a great idea provided that people can stay educated, know the local issues, and reach conclusions on a continuing basis that works. At the same time though you will have practical limits to that and plenty of times where it would be impractical (for the sheer number of people involved) to do anything other than send delegates from each area to debate and discuss issues. Sound familiar?

i thought that was what you meant, it didn't really make sense in reply to my stating that capitalism benefits the ruling classes. it does, and to say that the middle and upper class provides jobs for the poor isn't going to convince me otherwise. wage labour is the enemy of marxism and anarchism, remember?



how do you come to this conclusion? if you read my statement again, you will see that if these two men have obscene amounts of money, i would define them as rich regardless of how they got it. not really making sense here, i think you've misunderstood me.



not so hugely surprising, the modern notion of the left here in the uk, i.e. the labour party (taking the definition of left in very broad sense, but whatever) was born out of the fabian society, a bunch of aristocratic bourgeois intellectuals.



you should investigate it. thatcher introduced internal markets to the nhs in the early eighties and subsequent governments have introduced progressively more conservative policies, opening the service up more and more to private market forces, ironically with the labour party dealing the worst blows. all the while the nhs has become progressively worse and far, far less efficient and effective. admin costs more than doubled within about three or four years due to outsourcing, double handling etc. as one single example that i was reading in an old unison article at work the other day. the perhaps most ridiculous aspects of this being PFI and foundation trusts. the handling of the nhs has been a complete shambles and can be held up as a counter point to the notion that the market model promotes efficiency. in many cases it simply doesn't.



My question was which paths to getting rich essentially make someone a sociopath by definition. You may have answered that question with clarifying that the self made rich aren't 'the' rich, though I'm still not sure if that's the full picture or not from your perspective.[/quote]

i think you misread this, as what i typed above was that self-made or not, the rich are the rich.

thousands of pages have been devoted to corporate sociopathy, i don't think i need to go into examples here.



it appears from previous posts that, as an extension of what you are saying here, capitalism will gradually and progressively become less and less oppressive. but the problem is that the capitalist system is a self-perpetuating machine. don't you think that at some point it will actually become a hindrance to scientific and intellectual, and generally human and humane progress?



yes, i agree with you here. i would be surprised, though, if you would not conclude that a system that promotes rampant self interest, greed and ruthlessness would not exacerbate such problems rather than mitigate them.



my problem with your point here is that you appear to be implying that anarchism would perpetuate this through the lack of any coherent structure and ground rules. however we have already established that this is not the case. in fact, anarchism is a system, just a profoundly different system than the one that currently operates.



but this doesn't detract from my point. yes, the rich move their money around with a view to maximising accumulation and minimising tax. this doesn't take away from the fact that wide disparities in wealth contribute to relative scarcity overall.



i'm well aware of this. i do, however, believe, that nihilistic boredom would be far less prevalent in a system other than that which exists now.



again, i'm short on time and will have to truncate your post. it's an interesting discussion and there are points further down to which i do wish to reply, however i do wonder if aspects of our discussion are becoming circular, and you're getting somewhat ahead of me in terms of volume of replies. it's unfortunate nobody else seems to be chiming in which might permit the discussion to flow better given my limited posting time...

i'll try and get back to the rest of this post later tonight.

No worries, I'll wait till you're done with the follow-up.

As for other people not chiming in, I think the sensation of trying to keep up with conversation tends to border on brain-damage. If someone's immediately fascinated with the issue they may keep up but, that's few and far between.

the problem, though, isn't leaders per se, it's rather leaders with the power to compel. if the masses were mobilised, educated and empowered in a revolutionary period... always going back to the russian revolution is imprudent, it was fraught with flaws, hence the outcome.



again this would be a problem to be watchful for during a revolutionary period or in a pre anarchist/communist stage, however i think where an anarchist or communist society is established, this wouldn't be so much of a concern as you seem to think. much easier for sociopathic types to rise up the ranks of a hierarchical, authoritarian power structure and emerge at the top than it would be in a society with a flat structure and a fundamental tenet against coercion and compulsion. such motivations would be easily detected and rooted out.



the intervention of the west in the third world is fraught with problems, though. again, don't want to derail the discussion by opening this can of worms, if this discussion gets nearer to a conclusion at some point we can spin it off to a new thread, it could make for another interesting discussion.



it might outwardly appear so, however in reality things are gradually getting worse for the poor. in the uk for example, the welfare state has systematically been transformed into a penal state, real wage levels are dropping, poor and vulnerable people are being denied services and benefits they need to survive, workers are increasingly disempowered, unions decimated, the health service decimated etc. etc. i concede that it's not black and white though.



consumer choice doesn't equate with freedom, though.


I was giving credit cards as an example because they're a combustable responsibility or techinically a liability with some benefits. Those are the types of responsibilities that when mishandled/mismanaged can break a society.[/quote]

yes, but on the scale of what we are talking about it's not relevant. you're looking at the topic from the perspective of where we are now rather than an objective overview.



again, just a quick half reply typed over pre work coffee and cigarette. i'll try and get back to the rest, and to your next post, later in the day...

giving people full control over their own life, which can't ever happen when they're financially dependent upon selling their labour to a ruling class, benevolent or otherwise, and having a real say and real power invested in the activities and decisions made within the community. and this doesn't equate to things like voting. i mean real input.



it's not in any way a matter of grading. esteem and respect are not finite commodities like money. if a person gains respect, it's not at the expense of another. no one would subsequently attract disdain. i think we might be thinking about different senses of meritocracy. if it involves material reward, then no, however i don't think there is anything wrong with people gravitating towards positions in society for which they are well suited. just not in the way this happens now. as you know, i don't think governance should come from fixed, rigid institutions that hold power over the people at large. people should be encouraged to be multi-faceted. we have far too fixed a notion of how social organisation should work, when really i think there are so many unexplored and potentially far more functional alternatives.



fair enough. i might have over-reacted here, and it's likely due to my coming across people through work who at certain points in their lives have been in unfortunate situations and less than optimal psychological states (often resultant of such situations) which have led to incidents happening, that have subsequently led to their future being dictated by said historical incidents when the chances of a repeat performance given current presentation and circumstances are so slim, and the incidents in the first place being equally down to inappropriate placements and lack of support structure, and general failings of the system... ok, personal rant over...

anyway back on point... the notion of an anarchist society specifically implies far stronger community links and a much more rigourous support network existing within the community. if people need support, those around them, relatives etc., would be far better placed to provide needed care and support. lip service is paid to this at the moment in the uk, with the introduction of self directed support for disabled people and those with learning difficulties and mental health problems, but it is only lip service. the policy is fairly transparent as nothing more than a ploy to cut spending, and there are many cases that make this glaringly obvious, including more than one that are currently going through the courts.

to tiresomely go back to marx again, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.



i'd still be insistent that this is actually encouraged, directly or otherwise, by capitalism, and that to some extent at least it would be mitigated by an anarchist society, or even really any society in a more left leaning and less authoritarian direction.

the other problem being that people are essentially forced to participate in society as things are now. non participants, for any number of reasons, simply end up homelessness, mental health, and crime statistics.



i know. it's a vicious circle. the problem is that many believe it's their only choice, and for some their is indeed at least some truth in this belief.



in a society where a bin man is respected as much as a scientist - because let's face it, bin men fulfil a fairly essential role, arguably as essential as the scientist - the bin man will have a far greater degree of motivation than if he simply has to fulfil his function because circumstances have led to him being able to do nothing else. the motivations of the scientist take care of themselves, he pursues his career because he loves what he does and understands that he is making a great contribution to society. money as a motivator inevitably leads to unsatisfactory results. people should indulge in such a profession because it is their vocation.

additionally, many of the really sh***y jobs could fairly easily be automated. their is a very real antagonism between capitalism's need for a reserve of unemployed workers, it's attendant need for menial labour, and real evolutionary progress for humanity.



when there are people sleeping on the streets and living in homeless hostels contrasted with those with more than enough money than they and their descendants could hope to spend in their lifetime, it is really objective reality. redistribution of wealth is an ultimate necessity, and part of the reason why an egalitarian society is highly unlikely ever to exist without violent revolution of the oppressed classes.



outlined this further back up the thread.



why would this happen? their natural abilities would predicate that they would gravitate towards such a vocation.



of course they're at the helm. but again we meet an un-surmountable antagonism. they might think that things aren't really so great, but they generally don't think that their wealth should be spread across society as a whole. this leads again to the notion of the missionary and benevolent rich, which is not satisfactory on any level.



no, they don't need to be psychopathic. but the system over which they preside does display elements of the pathology of sociopathy.



why not?



i'm just not so sure about this. i don't see any evidence that the rich are ready to devolve their status.



we don't really know that. many philosophies have been proposed that remain untested. the problem remains the current system and those with a vested interest in allowing it's continued perpetuation.

ha ha, it's becoming something of a brain strain for me to keep up. it's unfortunate, as it's only when a debate really develops to this extent and moves beyond facetious comments and suchlike that new common ground and simultaneous new disagreements and antagonisms arise. input from other posters might help to open the debate up a bit. but oh well... real life commitments notwithstanding i'll do my best to keep up.

I've just lucked out in that work has been *really* dead. Not the most encouraging thing for going concern but it is what it is.

The thing about ideas though, especially new ones, is that they need scrutiny. Like science the more their inspected with a fine tooth comb the better they look if they hold up. It seems like this is something you're really passionate about and the trick is knowing how to explain it from top to bottom (either yourself or who ever is the most out front making the case of it - preferably anyone). Also, I think its a good reminder that I think most people can be sold an idea on its merits and that most of us fundamentally want the same things, just that we still live in a world where the particulars haven't been scintifically ironed out and leave a lot of room open to perspective. Here in America there's too much of a tendency I think of parties or groups to be too cynical to have any kind of conversation out of immediate dismissal - it's been like that since the late 90's and it hasn't helped us much at all.

Its all the more important that they're crystal clear on what they stand for and exactly what the system should or shouldn't look like - to the point where any deviation at all would be cause for significant alarm. That degree of composure though still sounds more practical for an evolution than a revolution.


Sociopaths, like us, have a disability though - the difference with them being that they're ability to be chameleons is significantly better because they don't lack the theory of mind nor are they overwired in their processing centers to where the wiring competes. From their MO it seems like they can blend into anything. The trick is, having an apparatus that can keep them quarantined to a specific piece of a puzzle rather than any sweeping authority.

I suppose my auditing background comes in here as well and one of the first things I think of is you never give someone both physical and accounting custody of an asset. It may make the process more complicated and cumbersome but it helps mud out and obfuscate attempts at corruption.


Fair. I think we'd agree on most of the basics and likely it would be a bit of bickering over what we believe is being done, could be done by who, etc.


I get the impression that you might want to take a trip to America one of these days if you can get the funds together. I only say that because I've heard consistantly that, at least with England, the middle class here live like England's upper class and our lower class live like England's middle class. That could be part of the disconnect.

Also, regarding economies of scale, the British Isles would likely have significantly less of a problem being run by much smaller autonomous groups where most commerce can be done by ocean easily rather than the USA where you have a sizeable stretch of interior to traverse, we're already past 300 million people and its amazing that we're even holding it together with that kind of population quantity. China can because its an authoritarian regime, India kind of isn't and another poster in a different thread made mention that India will always have the drop on us in terms of production - the problem is their states can't agree on tarrifs and there's bickering between states that likely goes back thousands of years - we started with a clean slate and our UCC (uniform commercial code) which kept us from having the problems that history tends to lend.

With that said though the transportation of needed resources, raw materials, etc. from point A to point B across any larger land mass would essentially impovrish that landmass if it doesn't have a ruling set of principles and some type of arbitration higher than the localities to sort inter-community disputes.


Product recalls and things of that nature might be a better example but I get that we're talking across systems though and we're still talking about Toyota's with sticky gas peddles or whatever else it is that people bought from working wages.


I think the most helpful thing - for the argument in favor of anarchism - is if you can really specify the responsibilities you speak of in this sense and how they work. To have a highly educated and nonfleasible core group leading the charge on this we're talking about needing crystal clear arguments and, clearer arguments than the current system can provide in its favor.

i had planned a response to your post but given that my cognitive function is not what it might be following a nice bottle wine, i'll leave this quote and hopefully follow up our discusion in the morning, time permitting...

Horizontal structures of that nature need really good system architecture. To sell that one you need that first and formost. You'd need to sell that as readily to a COSO/COBIT specialist as you would the common man, as you would to a legal scholar, a construction contractor, a doctor, an IT or DB admin expert, etc. etc.


I perhaps didn't mean a different meritocricy but perhaps I'm used to hearing from people left of center that egalitarianism is the core but then again it seemed like the egalitarian part was taken to obsessive/compulsive extents to where even merit-based inequality was seen as a wrongful act. If you're simply talking about equality in the eyes of the law and then extending equality in a few more economic aspects but careful not to crush meritocricy under the weight of that then its a better proposition.


Essentially what you're talking about though is a bit more like a conservative philosophy around the other side where the power really resides with the localities. It seems like the trick is, really tying the commuties together strongly as well to the point where you've got something like a carbon fabric or a neural network of power as a result. I'd never suggest it can't be done, just that you're still essentially looking at finding means which rethink the whole way human beings have handled public forum in mass up until this point. Its by no means a small or easy target. Again, not one to pass on because of what the benefits could be if someone can answer that question but its definitely something that needs practical answers before the idea gains popular appeal.


When I was younger my biggest confusion with looking at how things were done is that I wondered why people didn't hang together, if they lived in poverty why not try to make it as cordial and bearable for each other as possible instead of escalating crime as a response. It had been impressed upon me for a long time that it was a cultural response, that politicians as well were - in aggregate with the media - often out to start race and class war for the sake of votes for whoever gave handouts, and that the family had been disintegrating largely due to the way policies were sculpted which meant that families in poverty essentially couldn't get the help they needed unless the father left, at which point the more kids the more stamps - after which contagium of moral hazard went wild and, from that system essentially laying a tire track down their backs the essentially became a group of people who, as a result, couldn't come up with anything that they were about.

As an adult, I've heard things spelled out so many ways, also as a full determinist its strikingly clear that nothing and no human action comes from a vacuum - its a blend of genetics, circumstance, ideas, and how the three mesh. I always had the notion too that the lower the income the more cutthroat each gender was with the other in terms of mating and perhaps that's how culture gets crass - ie. back at the age where I was wondering why the poor simply didn't try to build stronger and better communities ethically to soften the blow or even reverse the impact and change their communities - I was also living with a belief in Adam and Eve and, realizing that we are nothing other than monkeys, I understand a little better how the human condition and how our genes and fundamental instincts do all they can to keep us at war with each other, even more over genetic resources than physical ones.

I would definitely agree on this though - tighter nit communities are needed for two reasons: 1) as much as pure libertarians may dislike my saying this, a culture doesn't do well if it doesn't know what its about and have the organization to talk about it often (yes, presiding 'morals' and goals even if a-religious in nature), and 2) Part of the big problem with inner city crime is anonymity of character - that you can make a steaming mess, walk away, and in most senses be able to start over without much effort; for some people that's a way to run from pain, for others though its a new way of finding fresh victims and largely being insulated from the consequences of their actions.


You'd also have to stop the snake oil salesman who get their income on race-baiting and sewing cynicism for their own benefits. They'd be just as much of a problem for any system as they would capitalism.


I think the reproductive scarcity thing would need a pretty strong blow dealt to it as well somehow. As far as I can tell I can't escape the impression that its the root of the need for oneupsmanship, pettiness, etc.. I don't want to say that I'm making a proposition like legalize prostitution for all genders or whatever have you, I'm thinking that our culture needs to come to face with that as the core of our stratification problems and figure out what we do with that antisocial part of us that still leads us as if we were living in the jungle and needing to buck each other (male or female) for dominance.


I get what your saying, just suggesting that its far from the end all be all. Maybe not be a vital point, and its not an argument against advocating that the poor be brought up, just that 'meaning' itself is a bit of a mirage.



Lower pressure environment, got it.


Where I still disagree with you; real wealth consists of much more than money and much more than what we can financially account for in that sense. Its kind of like how a neighborhood appreciating in value from an improvement in the downtown area doesn't mean that its a direct detraction from another, nor does the enhancement of intellectual property that proliferates outward have a direct dollar correlation to the wealth of the people it helps, nor a direct correlation to a life saving drug.

If I were to take my thoughts a bit farther and condense them down I'd say that yes, the wealthy have more power than the middle or lower classes but, I get the impression that by the time your a multimillionaire the increase in power between being that or a multibillionaire or even the richest person alive gets smaller and smaller in terms of how much social 'power' it gives (to put it a bit clearer I'd suggest it has greatly diminishing return). The laws in this country keep them from really being able to throw those dollars into dominating the political system. Yes, they can fund advertisements, they can fund lobbyists if their megawealthy and have the full weight and credit of a corporation beneath them, they can get press coverage and Forbes covers if they're in the top, but true power to crash democracy isn't something they have. Legalities still put a roof on how much influence they yield just like they can put a floor on the amount of influence that an impoverished individual has. One of our bigger problems has been with the latter and how some politicians will weild their predicament by essentially buying their votes.

Overall though it seems like the rich are generally of Winston Churchill's mindset - ie. capitalism being the second worst system to everything else - and given a real solution that holds up to accounting, internal integrity/security, and any other proper academic scrutiny, I don't think it would yield a wild backlash. The mentality and 'closer to God' notion of rich vs. poor has been dropping as the rich and poor aren't as socially isolated from one another as they once were. The rich of course would be dead set against a system that simply cleans them out for cathartic value, and I'm sure even a good system they'd realize they were getting the short end of the deal, but I get the impression that they'd have to comply in the end. A well-written and intellectually sound idea is something that can't be defeated and is as lock-tight as fate. Then again that's the key, 'if' that particular idea fits that description.


I might have answered this above. An air-tight idea is more potent than any sort, any gun, any bomb. An air-tight idea is something more akin to gravity or thermodynamics in that its a newly unveiled force of nature. Things like that completely change people's concepts of everything.

IMHO if an idea for a new type of government necessitates violent overthrow it means that idea needs to go back in the oven till its ready. Otherwise oversights and unanswered questions are being answered with the barrel of a gun and a very loud and clear 'Because I say so'. Those last four words constitute one of the most rabidly anti-progress thoughts ever held by man.


Because at this point its still not about them moving over for a better ideology and if there is a better ideology out there, no one's done that idea any justice yet in debate and detail. Short of that it simply looks like extortion attempts by political means and smells of Lenin, Castro, Gueverra, and Robespierre. Its like anyone poor, rich, middleclass; engage a person antagonistically and you get a like response.


The masses only move to that extent if its a sure shot and they know its giving them a better world (or at least in this day and age - demogogery might have done it in the pre-media days, it can't now).

That said, you can't mobilize any nation against itself for the sake of 'testing' a theory. No sane person would go along with that.

I'd still say your author speaks from a day and age where the monochrome white rich were across town from the poor and neither group really met or interacted, let alone really had anything more than a vague intellectual sense that the other group was human.

Fast forward to now and you get stories like a British Sri Lankan immigrant of the Talma becomming a world-famous star and having a near marriage to a billionaire in the US who's a rock/raggae/punk musician and environmentalist who looks more like a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on paper than a generational silver-spoon elitist. No doubt Mark Zuckerberg has all kinds of other hipster millionaire and billionaires all over Facebook. You've also got a pretty decent music producer, perhaps not the greatest stage performer though, making waves with her sort of blue-grass and folk-influenced electronica these days albeit she really bit it pretty badly on Saturday Night Live last month but, lots of trance and dubstep producers have been remixing her nonetheless.

No, I don't think telling the rich - no matter how che, hip, groovy, or hackey-sacking and vegan they might become - "Hey, we're going to repossess everything you own - hope you don't mind!" will ever be a particularly smooth one-liner to start a conversation but there's still a big difference between a stick-up as I just mentioned and authentic progress. A stickup is a stickup, standing in the way of progress is a group of ludites trying to break industrial machines or ban them, or being part of the ID crowd. As much as the rich like having what they have, I don't think anyone wants to be 'that guy', especially if its strikingly clear and they're treated in a super-hospitable way that its clear that its not the former situation (ie. extortion) but the later. I'll admit too - they may be laggards and they may be testing the water, seeing who else makes the move before they do and are crossing their fingers hoping people aren't being executed or grossly mistreated. That kind of revenge reflex though is exactly what's wrong with 'overthrow' as well though. We live in a universe with no free will, where people technically are what they are and where they're set down anyway, penalizing people for that in either direction when given a choice not to is suspect.

I confess that I didn't really understand the definition of anarchy when referring to political philosophy.
I actually agree with it now that I have a better understanding.

I think the problem is that its not 'anarchy', its essentially democratic socialism with a few specific tweaks. I get the sense that democratic socialism ends up being such a fuzzy term simply because so many people with so many ideas weren't able to bite their tongues until they really got together, had a conference, and worked out the details of what they believed to be the best system of it. When an arbitrary name gets chosen, heck, call it 'Horizontal Conservatism' it just gets dicey because terms that already have loaded meanings are getting rehashed before there's any proper name recognition.

Not sure anarchy and democratic socialism would be the same thing, as socialism indicates the existence of a government.