RE: Should anarchists abolish the commons?
As a follow up to my last comment left here, I'll note that social protocols, shunning, shaming, etiquette, peer pressure, customs, taboos and the like have all proven highly effective at regulating human conduct outside of governments and markets, and even often within them. In other words, reputation plays a key role in all successful commons.
Essentially, as is currently evolving right here on Steemit, the "community" comes to "agree" on certain customs, taboos and ettiquette designed to protect the commons from being exploited while also making it available to all in a "fair" way. Those who violate the agreed customs, taboos and ettiquette are shunned or shamed by the overwhelming majority. This shunning/shaming makes life more difficult than it need be for the violater. Eventually the violater learns that life is better following the custom than evading it. We saw this right here on Steem when the new reputation system was unveiled. People with low reps were marginalized and mostly either left the ecosystem or begged for forgiveness and agreed to modify their behavior.
It doesn't perfectly prevent individuals from exploiting the commons, but it does it well enough to be effective in most instances. And technologies with built-in reputation systems, like Steemit, will make that even easier in the future.
Honest question, since I'm new to these discussions: is enforcement by shunning and shaming and social ostracization and taboos - to the extent they're effective - deemed preferable by anarchists to a government that enforces cultural norms that have been considered explicitly by representatives, written into available laws, etc? If so, why?
Good question. I'm pretty new to voluntarism, so I'm not authority (I'd love to hear what @lukestokes has to say on this), but my understanding is that anarchist are first and foremost opposed to all forms of physical coercion. Since reputation systems are not physical and arguably not coercion (after all, we should all be able to associate only with folks we want, and avoid associating with folks we don't), I believe they'd be considered acceptable.
Thank you! But it seems if that kind of thing consistently worked, the government wouldn't need implicit violent threats either. I like the point about free association, which I can see looks different with governments, and makes me think.
I guess my main question is why think there wouldn't be more, and more arbitrary, coercion in anarchy. For all that's wrong with the US (in my view), even if I had the easy choice to opt out of government completely and go to an old-Australia lawless place, I really don't think I'd want to - and I think I wouldn't want to in large part because I suspect I'd be the victim of way more "might makes right" coercion.
Anarchy doesn't mean "no rules". It means "no rulers". The key to anarchy (and any successful commons) is development of widely-accepted rules (or customs) and a system that rewards compliance and cooperation while penalizing rule-breaking.
The trick is to make breaking the rules more difficult/costly/troublesome than complying with the rules. There are dozens of well-documented ways to do this, but blockchains are a hugely important innovation that will facilitate this in ways that were previously impossible.
Bitcoin provides a perfect example. Anyone can, in theory, launch a 51% attack against the Bitcoin network by acquiring sufficient computing power. However, because acquiring this power is very expensive, deploying it in ways that destroy the value of the bitcoins one would gain from the attack is irrational. Anyone with that much computing power would be far better off economically if they devoted it to mining bitcoins legitimately, and thereby making the network even more secure, rather than to attacking the network and destroying the value of the coins they would gain.
So, in systems like that, there's simply no need for physical coercion, arbitrary or not.
There will always be a small minority of irrational people who refuse to comply for one reason or another. The key is to make sure that their non-compliance doesn't jeopardize faith in the whole system. It usually won't, unless they resort to physical force, in which case the majority who follow the system are justified in using physical force to defend themselves.
I'm not an anarchist, so I cannot speak for them, but I think the point was more of whether is was possible for anarchists to be able to manage the commons. Whether shaming etc. is preferable or not doesn't matter as much. I think many anarchists are just fed up and would rather figure out a way to live together without a system that is easily corruptible (govt). Even if it means using techniques that aren't preferred.
I have to say It does often look to me, too, like that's what the anarchist says: "the current system is imperfect, so let's chuck it all out and hope that's better." But that doesn't seem a charitable reading. I hope they (at least think they) have positive reason to prefer anarchy! And if we don't care whether the technique is better, there are lots of ways to "manage" a commons - like commandeer it, burn it to the ground, etc ...
Yeah, I agree that reputation has to be a crucial part of it. One speed bump is that people also tend to value anonymity, which seems hard to reconcile with reputation.
I agree. I was a huge advocate of anonymity (prior to Steem), and still am, but I know see the extraordinary benefits of real-life reputation systems.
This can be seen internationally as well. If countries misbehave, you start with sanctions and embargos (shunning/shaming). If they continue to misbehave, then violence is usually next. But this is all done without a coercive world government, only a voluntary UN etc.
Yeah without organized laws and governments, agents must manage some other way. But I still don't get why the non-governmental way - even on the global scale - is better.
Anarchist believe it's better because it's more moral. It's more moral because it's voluntary (free of physical coercion). All forms of government ultimately derive their power from implicit or explicit threats of violence, which is understandably offensive to many.
Thank you! I certainly get the impulse to avoid coercion. But could you explain a little more? I still don't understand how the kind of sanctions imposed by whatever cultural group in power in the Rifkin scenario aren't also implicit / explicit threats of violence. Say their initial shaming etc don't work - will they not resort to violence, or at least suggest they would, in order to ensure compliance? (If shaming / non-violent sanctions always worked, there would no longer be need for implicit threats of violence in a government, either.)
@sean-king, Sorry to approach you this way; this is wildly off-topic. I'm trying to launch a new content aggregation service called the Lost Content Digest. I'm finding articles by new authors who missed their first payout, but deserve something more. I'm going to be writing articles that feature several of these missed articles, and then I'll send the SBD proceeds of my article to the authors of the lost articles, hopefully generating them some income and followers.
Is this something you'd be interested in supporting?
Absolutely. How can I help?
For now, the first article needs upvotes. I'll be posting new issues as I collect content for them; can I contact you when new issues are up for your votes?
What this really needs is a group of "benefactor" whales who would put posts from me that are tagged #lostcontent-digest onto their bot upvote lists.