RE: Let’s Divide Law-Enforcement: Natural Law vs. Positive Law
Estonia uses digital democracy, works relatively well...needs improvements though. At some point in the near future, encryption and security can be made better to allow digital democracy to work better.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's why I was an anarchist for a long time. I'm still almost an anarchist. Politicians shouldn't have much discretionary power. They should be able to be recalled and replaced on a whim. I'm more into democratic confederalism and delegative democracy. No one should ever rule over anyone else. Abolish rulers. The flip side of the ruthless corrupt/cut-throat side of human nature is the mutual aid side. Cf. Peter Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid" The bad parts of human nature are encouraged by capitalism. We need to create more libertarian institutions in order to foster the better aspects of our nature. Dogs are like blank slates...their environment and socialization determines their nature. If you put them with mean dogs and abuse them, they'll be vicious and mean too. If you raise them in a dog-fighting ring, of course they'll snap at people. If you reward them for violence, they'll be violent. If you instead raise them in a nice environment, with love and compassion, and award them for obedience and non-aggressive behaviour, they'll develop a peaceful nature. Humans are similar. Human nature can go either way. If you make institutions and rules that foster mutual aid, cooperation, and compassion then that's what people will tend towards. Capitalism encourages the opposite.
I would submit that Estonia is under far less pressure by corrupt elements, and this may contribute to their relative success. However, I concede that potential exists for safer electronic communications, including voting. Steemit, AFAIK, hasn't been hacked at all - yet. People have accidentally given away their keys, but people do stupid things, and that's not hacking. So there's a model for relatively secure voting that potentiates monetary gain in Steemit.
However, Steemit is also a sad evidence of a failed system of government due to other kinds of corruption. The GINI here is worse than any nation extant, probably worse than any nation's GINI ever that can be determined with any accuracy. Were Steemit a government, there'd have been a revolution long ago.
The fact we can't string the bastards up is the only thing keeping it going =p
This DESPITE the strong altruistic sentiment at all levels.
I agree that capitalism tends to encourage, even groom, corruption, at least discourages beneficence.
And while dogs, and people, do generally respond as you describe, some dogs, like some people, are just born mean, and no matter what you do, can't be trusted.
Generally, though, treating people right will encourage them to treat others so as well. Given a system that no longer is based on scarcity, what we think of as human nature now, might well prove to be mostly bad training.
I sure hope so!
Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Switzerland, et al. also have the benefit of smaller size. Are you familiar with the ideas of Leopold Kohr ("Breakdown of Nations") and E. F. Schumacher ("Small is Beautiful")? Basically, the argument goes that smaller nations are easier to govern efficiently without too much corruption; inefficiency and corruption accompany overgrowth.
I've not read those authors specifically, but it's something I've observed all my life. I was raised on an island in Alaska, and live in a village today, because of that exact thing.
Well, that and the proximity to wildlands.
But, nonetheless, I have observed horrifying corruption in my hometowns, everywhere, no matter how small the village, of governmental power, up to and including the worst, murderous, violent drug dealing thugs wearing badges.
It's endemic to power, that thugs seek it, and small towns just let small time crooks get it, instead of big time crooks.
At least, everywhere I've been, and that includes EU, and in most states of the USA.
This is why I don't hew too keenly to the concept of the monkeysphere. A government of three people inevitably becomes two wolves and a sheep having dinner.
Just for the record, I'm personally anti-authoritarian and libertarian, very much influenced by anarchism too. Still borderline anarchist in many ways.
Pretty hard to miss that, from your posts. I much prefer the term Autarch, rather than Anarchist, as Anarchy is without rules, while Autarchy is self ruled.
I think the difference is subtle, but profound.
Regardless of the soundness of theory, unless means of dealing with corruption can be found, neither any system of government can end up much preferable to another, nor the lack of government.
It is perhaps slightly preferable that governmental power and monopolies aren't available to corrupt, however. Might slow them down, while they devise and form institutions to put in service, rather than just take them over.
Anarchy does NOT mean without rules. It actually means "without rulers." There's a big difference. There's a ton of literature out there on the topic of laws and law-enforcement within an anarchist society. It's more about taking discretionary power away from politicians and officials. No cop or politician should be a ruler, someone with arbitrary authority to rule over others. That's why anarchists talk about things like imperative mandate and representative recall, altering the role of representatives. The delegates, within anarchist systems, theoretically, don't have any arbitrary or discretionary power to create rules. The rules have to come from the bottom up, through deliberation and consensus in grassroots assemblies. The delegates/representatives, then, have an imperative mandate: they can only vote in accord with consensus pre-determined by their constituents. And they are instantly recalled and replaced if they do otherwise. There are still rules and legislation, but the role of representatives as rulers is done away with. And the rules or laws still have to be enforced, but that might be done through communal police forces on a rotational basis (no career cops) and the officers would have no discretionary or arbitrary authority. They wouldn't be able to be rulers over people, but only enforcers of rules that were consented to by the community.
I prefer anarchism to autarchism, just from having a grasp of anarchist ideas. Autarchy is more individualistic and less structured, as far as I understand. Buy, I also think that the autarchy vs. anarchy thing may just be a distinction without a difference, kind of like voluntaryism vs. individualist anarchism (which aren't really even distinguished any more, in spite of Auberon Herbert's assertion that voluntaryism is not anarchism).
Well, what would even be the point of such then? Delegates and representatives are presently little more than chokepoints where power can be seized from constituents en masse.
Direct democracy, liquid democracy, would be far less prone to corruption. Delegates, were they able to be proxied, and the proxies withdrawn at will, might be capable of forced integrity, but only insofar as proxies could be withdrawn at will.
As to Anarchy, if there are no rulers, how can there be rules? While it's an epistemelogical and pedantic ruse, and as you point out, in effect there isn't practical difference between Anarchic and Autarchic systems, I just reckon the latter is a more accurate description - and hasn't been saddled with the connotation with chaos Anarchy has.
Delegative democracy or some form of representation was historically (and somewhat still) necessary because we have never perfected any process of direct democracy that is scalable. With the perfection of digital voting and encryption, maybe we will in the near future. Direct democracy was always the anarchist goal, but delegative democracy was necessary in order to get it to work on any large scale.
As for rules vs. rulers... If you perfect democracy and achieve a consensus-based system, then everyone is a ruler. But if everyone is a ruler, no one is a ruler—no one is ruled over by anyone else, autonomy reigns. There's a certain failure of language here that causes the dialectic to swirl and collapse in on itself as the distinctions lose their distinctness. It's kind of like the question of public ownership vs. private ownership in a Georgist (land value tax) framework. Do Georgists advocate private property or communal ownership? The answer is yes! The distinction starts to break down.