Originally posted by inimalist
who said it was the highest authority?
Every group of people has the seeds of a state. If you have two lazy roomates and need to yell at them to get them to do the dishes, you're exhibiting the sort of needs that led to governments existing to begin with.
Originally posted by King Kandy
What is the highest authority?
God?
I actually don't really know how to answer the question...
In a system that is designed to share power in a horizontal manner among stakeholders, there isn't an absolute authority
to preempt the "oh, there is no way to make the powerful do something if there is no absolute authority", that is true of any system that allows for individuals to obtain any power whatsoever. Unless the state is the greatest power broker in all avenues, those who are powerful could easily overturn any political system through non-compliance.
America would be f-ed if Wal-Mart just arbitrarily decided to disobey their laws, such is the same with other huge companies, or even mass scale civil disobedience. Democracy offers no more protection from this than does any other system that has even a modicum of freedom
Originally posted by King Kandy
A group that passed regulation in the way you suggested would certainly have more authority than those they were regulating.
not really... the regulators and the regulated are part of the stakeholders
Originally posted by King Kandy
Every group of people has the seeds of a state. If you have two lazy roomates and need to yell at them to get them to do the dishes, you're exhibiting the sort of needs that led to governments existing to begin with.
it lead to some form of "social contract"
I don't think anything inherent in that presupposes and institution with no other purpose than to dictate resolutions about people's behaviour
Originally posted by inimalist
one of the strangest mistakes people make about anarchy is assuming that it is the lack of any form of governanceit is the lack of a formal state. authority can actually be justified in some instances, and a council of people that are made up of stake-holders in a community is certainly in a much better position to make justifiable restrictions on business than is an institution where politicians and CEO are essentially interchangeable
So if it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and behaves like a duck but we call it a dragon it must be a dragon.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
So if it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and behaves like a duck but we call it a dragon it must be a dragon.
so any time people organize at all it is a "state"?
if we had to make some collective descision about some rule on this forum, it would be a state?
Originally posted by inimalist
God?I actually don't really know how to answer the question...
In a system that is designed to share power in a horizontal manner among stakeholders, there isn't an absolute authority
to preempt the "oh, there is no way to make the powerful do something if there is no absolute authority", that is true of any system that allows for individuals to obtain any power whatsoever. Unless the state is the greatest power broker in all avenues, those who are powerful could easily overturn any political system through non-compliance.
America would be f-ed if Wal-Mart just arbitrarily decided to disobey their laws, such is the same with other huge companies, or even mass scale civil disobedience. Democracy offers no more protection from this than does any other system that has even a modicum of freedom
I think in a system where corporations are the greatest power, they would assume the function of the state and we might as well call them the state anyway. Whatever body has the most decision making power is the government in practice, whether this is wal-mart or the citizens councils you described.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
So if it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and behaves like a duck but we call it a dragon it must be a dragon.
Well, either way, I think we should consider that we be more inclusive in our definition. If we go by Sym's we might as well throw out the word anarchy. It will not make what these types of anarchists call anarchy go away though, it'll just make it not have a specific term to use in discussion, which does nothing but hinder conversation, no?
Originally posted by King Kandy
Oh, I 100% agree. Non-compliance is the best tool for defeating policies you don't like. That's what I was referring to in another thread when I said society couldn't force anything on people if enough people refused to accept it.I think in a system where corporations are the greatest power, they would assume the function of the state and we might as well call them the state anyway. Whatever body has the most decision making power is the government in practice, whether this is wal-mart or the citizens councils you described.
I think coercion is really what we are looking for. At the end of every decision in a state is a gun (figuratively). That has not to be true for voluntary community groups.
Originally posted by inimalist
so any time people organize at all it is a "state"?if we had to make some collective descision about some rule on this forum, it would be a state?
Fair enough. I don't see where to draw the line between "state" and "body that isn't a state but performs all the same functions". That (what defines being a state) actually sounds like an interesting discussion in and of itself.
Originally posted by Bardock42
I think coercion is really what we are looking for. At the end of every decision in a state is a gun (figuratively). That has not to be true for voluntary community groups.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Oh, I 100% agree. Non-compliance is the best tool for defeating policies you don't like. That's what I was referring to in another thread when I said society couldn't force anything on people if enough people refused to accept it.I think in a system where corporations are the greatest power, they would assume the function of the state and we might as well call them the state anyway. Whatever body has the most decision making power is the government in practice, whether this is wal-mart or the citizens councils you described.
well, ok...
if you want to describe any form of human organization as a state, sure, I suppose that is your perogative. But, isn't it kind of like the arguments about God? sure, you can define God in such a way that it can't not exist (God is everything), but this is hardly the "God" atheists or other skeptics are referring to when they speak of it, and only a vast minority of theists.
Like, the things that make an institutional state, run from the top down by people who are not the stakeholders of the policies they enact, different from the "state" I described aren't trivial. Even if you want to call them both a "state", it has almost universally been the unjustified use of power by a centralized institution that anarchists have fought against and critiscized. I'm more of a philosophical anarchist, so I couldn't give you my vision of Utopia, but for those who have outlined "anarchist" societies, social organization has always existed. It is the central institutional power that they want done away with.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Fair enough. I don't see where to draw the line between "state" and "body that isn't a state but performs all the same functions". That (what defines being a state) actually sounds like an interesting discussion in and of itself.
admittedly, any such line would be arbitrary. I can't imagine you don't see fundamental differences between the type of state argued against by anarchists and the type argued for?
Originally posted by Bardock42
I think coercion is really what we are looking for. At the end of every decision in a state is a gun (figuratively). That has not to be true for voluntary community groups.
No punishments for anything beyond a stern talking to? I can't think of any way to abuse that. Not a single one.
Originally posted by King Kandy
If a voluntary community group doesn't have any coercive power, then it doesn't really have the capacity to do actual regulation. So I don't think inimalists councils would fit that description.
if all the people who have a stake in the descision are involved in the process of regulation, who would need to be coerced?
Originally posted by inimalist
well, ok...if you want to describe any form of human organization as a state, sure, I suppose that is your perogative. But, isn't it kind of like the arguments about God? sure, you can define God in such a way that it can't not exist (God is everything), but this is hardly the "God" atheists or other skeptics are referring to when they speak of it, and only a vast minority of theists.
Like, the things that make an institutional state, run from the top down by people who are not the stakeholders of the policies they enact, different from the "state" I described aren't trivial. Even if you want to call them both a "state", it has almost universally been the unjustified use of power by a centralized institution that anarchists have fought against and critiscized. I'm more of a philosophical anarchist, so I couldn't give you my vision of Utopia, but for those who have outlined "anarchist" societies, social organization has always existed. It is the central institutional power that they want done away with.
Originally posted by inimalist
if all the people who have a stake in the descision are involved in the process of regulation, who would need to be coerced?