Brainpolice : Centralization, Decentralization

Competition and Cooperation

Brainpolice — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:34:00 GMT

In the economic sense of the term, competition refers to the incentive to better appease a multiplicity of demands, and cooperation refers to the most efficient and ethical means of meeting such demands. An individual's demands are better met through cooperation and production than through isolation and destruction. Competition does not refer to a war of all against all or atomism, it refers to a process in which decentralized cooperation is employed in the attempt to fulfill a dynamic and variant latticework of demands. Monopoly, on the other hand, refers to the lack of competition, the imposition of a singular or more limited array of options through coercive means. Competition and monopoly are therefore dichotomous in this sense, as competition entails a multiplicity of options pursued freely. Competition is a reflection of there being multiple methods of cooperation and multiple ends that cooperation can be used to pursue, and as such there is no absolute dichotomy between competition and cooperation.

Individualism does not regaurd the individual as if they exist in a vacuum, it merely recognizes the individual's sovereignty as co-existing with interpersonal relations, and that it is a fundamental building block of a society. It is erroneous to present a false dichotomy between uniformity and atomism, when neither of the two reflect the nature of an individual let alone a society. Society qua society is founded on voluntary cooperation, but this does not conflict with individual sovereignty. Voluntary cooperation is merely the net effect of people making use of their individual sovereignty, and competition is merely a reflection of the diversity of wants that people pursue as sovereigns. While interpersonal relations are something to take into account, the individual still retains their independance from the transgressions of others in an equilibrium, which aknowledges the competitive element of society that is responsible for creativity and innovation.

Cooperation and production is not an ethical imperative in and of itself, it is something that one has a greater incentive towards in conditions of equal liberty. However, one ultimately retains their sovereignty to not produce and not participate in a particular organization or interaction that they didn't explicitly consent to. In a voluntary society, the methods in which one cooperates and the extent to which there is a binding obligation to cooperate can only be in a contractual context in which consent is explicitly given prior to the enforcement of the obligation. One does not have an unchosen positive obligation to be a member of a particular organization or to participate in its process of decision-making. The implication of this is not the negation of society as such, but the decentralization of society as a consequence of people entering and exiting from a wide array of contractual agreements.

The coercive imposition of uniformity stifles cooperation. It disincentivizes and erodes at competitive alternatives that otherwise would have been fostered through cooperation, and it violates the individual's sovereignty. Coercion is anti-cooperative by its very nature, as it can only establish a parasitic relationship or a zero sum game, while cooperation is geared towards mutual benefit or reciprical relationships. Centralization and monopoly can only establish the elimination of individual choice in the process of cooperation, and therefore the elimination of competition. Competition is necessary to counteract thea rbitrary imposition of a particular set of preferences, otherwise there is no genuine cooperation to speak of, only subservience. Cooperation is not something that is centrally planned or coercively enforced, it is a process of spontaneous order.

Does Social Evolution Necessitate Decentralization?

Brainpolice — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:36:00 GMT

Social evolution can be thought of in terms of increased complexity. Simple forms of organization are uniliteral and homogenous, while more complexity in an organizational structure implies pluralism. Increased plurality, combined with a finite number of variables or resources to work with, implies smaller units. The more complex that a pattern is, the harder it is to understand or calculate or predict it from a central point or plan. The more simple and centralized that an organization is, the harder it is to keep track of all of the variables involved (I.E. the calculation problem comes into play).

It follows that as the complexity of an economy or society increases, entropy occurs as attempts at central planning fail and become increasingly obsolete methods for organization. Social evolution would seem to point in the direction of increasingly smaller social units and an increase in the diversity of social units both relative to eachother and in terms of their internal nature. This would seem to imply the long-term inevitable collapse of states and large organizations in general as being "unfit" for the proper environment for human developement. In short, at some point the social and economic interactions of people in and of itself starts to outpace currently existing institutions.

While the calculation problem is usually used to show how state-socialism is an impractical failure, it also implies its ultimate demise. And it additionally functions nicely as a much more broad theory of institutional analysis in general that may extend to certain non-governmental institutions. An organization is an organization and the calculation problem is ultimately an organizational theory in addition to being an economic theory. The calculation problem essentially proves that decentralization is more efficient than centralizaton as methods of economic organization. When integrated with theories of spontaneous order and social evolution, the calculation problem starts to have a new and increased significance.

But while social evolutionary and economic theories are very helpful in understanding such matters, ultimately sucessful social evolution depends on the driving force of social revolution and some degree of beneficial change in the general ideological atmosphere. Progress results from sucessful and beneficial deviations from the norm, which in turn implies concepts such as civil disobedience and education. Societies start to stagnate when they become too apathetic to develope and use independant mechanisms to counter the negative and harmful traits of the existing organizational structure. That is, the seeds of sucessful social evolution are to be found as far outside of and as independant from the existing organizational structure as possible.

The Paradox of "State's Rights"

Brainpolice — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:26:00 GMT

One of the most well known American legal traditions is state's rights. State's rights is essentially the idea that each individual state should retain its sovereignty or independance from the federal government. The idea is that each state may have its own varying laws and precedents that the federal government may not supercede. It's as if each state is thought of as being its own nation in and of itself, and before the formation of the federal government this quite literally was the case. Afterall, each American state is roughly the size of an entire European nation, sometimes or even often larger. The idea of state's rights would not have been formed if it weren't for the establishment of a larger apparatus, a federal government that each state is supposed to be a part of.

The idea of state's rights can be used in two basic ways: to stop the federal government from forcing a law on a state, or to stop the federal government from removing or defying a state's law. In other words, state's rights can be used to oppose federal laws and to support state laws. The former function of state's rights can be used to delegitimize and defy the federal government. But the latter function of state's rights presents a problem if one is trying to abide by an objective standard of justice, for theoretically state's rights can be used to uphold and preserve a state's unjust law. To be clear, this does not mean that the federal government is any more justified, but it does show that state's rights is an inconsistant standard for justice since it can be used to legitimize state governments.

From a libertarian anarchist perspective, none of the governmental entities in question are legitimate. The federal government doesn't have "rights" and neither do the states. Only people have rights. The doctrine of state's rights is problematic in that it may leave free reign for state governments to do just about anything. It may function to limit the powers of the federal government, but it does nothing to limit the powers of the state governments. In other words, it sets up a double standard of justice between the levels of government, and for this reason it may lead to some ugly results. It seems inconsistant for one to proclaim that the federal government may not do X but the state of Ohio may. Either X is right or wrong, hence the precise entity or people engaging in X is entirely irrelevant. It matters not if it is 100000 people, one person, France, America, Ohio or Kentucky that is enforcing X.

For example, it seems absurd for one to proclaim that "it is illegitimate for the federal government to impose drug prohibition laws, but the states may impose drug prohibition laws". This would shift debate on the issue from a matter of the justice of drug prohibition itself to a matter of which entity or level of government may prohibit drugs. But for the libertarian anarchist and the proponent of ethical consistancy, that is entirely irrelevant. Drug prohibition is illegitimate altogether as a matter of principle, and therefore it would be no more legitimate for the state of Ohio to enact and enforce such laws then it would be for the federal government to do so. State's rights is problematic to the extent that it is used as a mechanism to legitimize the laws and policies of state governments in defiance of rational principles of justice. It could theoretically be used to legitimize anything a state does that is not explicitly prohibited by the constitution, and the question of what the constitution prohibits the states from doing is rather open ended to begin with.

The issue of integration and segregation is often debated about in the context of state's rights. The fact of the matter is that while the federal government most certainly engaged in an injustice by establishing forced intregration, state's rights was used to legitimize and sustain forced segregation. It's a lose-lose situation no matter which perspective one approaches it from. If the federal government is allowed to impose a ban on discrimination that encompassed all of the states, then property rights are violated. On the other hand, if the states are allowed to make discrimination legally binding or obligatory within their territories, then property rights are violated. Both forced segregation and forced integration are illegitimate, and both the federal and state governments are illegitimate. To the extent that state's rights was used to preserve the power of the states to have a policy of forced segregation, it was an incredible injustice.

State's rights is only useful to the extent that it may stop the federal government from enforcing an unjust law on all of the states, so that there is at least some possibility that certain states will not have that law. This helps avoid a "one-size-fits-all" approach being shoved down the throats of the entire country. It certainly is potentially more beneficial to have more variance between the states so that there is at least some possibility for one to persue alternatives. However, internal to each state, the exact same problem presents itself. An individual state may still enact and enforce an unjust law. And with respect to smaller entities within the state, it is likewise a "one-size-fits-all" approach. The counties and cities have no choice but to be herded into a uniform model by the state. So why not continue the principle and have "county's rights" and "city's rights"? If it is followed through consistantly, one eventually stops at individual rights, the only real kind.

The advantage of state's rights that is commonly pointed out is that one has the ability to "vote with your feet" between each state in order to persue alternatives. This makes a certain level of sense. However, is this not merely the exact same thing as the "love it or leave it" sentiment that is usually applied to entire nations? When people object to their own nation's way of doing things, sometimes they are told that they can just move. But this retort avoids addressing the problem and only begs the question. In short, it assumes the legitimacy of the nation-state to begin with. But from the viewpoint of the libertarian anarchist who rejects the legitimacy of states, the burden of proof is on the state or those defending it to justify it. If the individual is truly sovereign and legitimately owns their property, then they should not have to move. Rather, the state should stop coercing them and trying to claim partial control over their property. This is true of smaller state entities as much as it is of large nation-states. If states do not legitimately control their territories, then state's rights is a very inconsistant creed.

None of this is meant to imply that the federal government should be given more powers. On the contrary, it is meant to imply that the powers of all levels of government are illegitimate as a matter of principle and that libertarians should be more skeptical towards the creed of state's rights than many of them tend to be. State's rights is a very inconsistant and moderate form of decentralization, a vain attempt to simulate free association and competition through large and arbitrary political units or territories. In comparison to the level of decentralization that anarchism entails, a regime of state's rights is still fairly authoritarian and centralized. Perhaps the traditional model for America is not nearly as decentralized as some libertarians would like to think.

Organization and Conflict: Free Association vs. Politics

Brainpolice — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:00:00 GMT

Free association and competition resolves conflict while politics, especially democratic politics, enables and ultimately depends on conflict. All disagreements between people about how to organize can theoretically be resolved through free association, as they have the choice to either disassociate/secede or come to a mutual agreement (in short, to voluntarily intregrate). The result is inherently polycentric/pluralist. Free association essentially leads to increased complexity and smaller social units.

In contrast, in a political atmosphere everyone within an arbitrarily and unjustly claimed and controlled territory battles eachother over which particular interest group imposes their preferantial type of organization onto everyone. The result is inherently monocentric or monopolistic. Politics essentially leads to imposed uniformity and very haphazard and blockish social units. It's inherently a "one size fits all" approach to organization that eliminates competition, and hence all meaningful alternatives.

In an atmosphere of free association, noone may legitimately impose their preferential form of organization on anyone else, either directly (through rulership itself) or indirectly (through democracy). Instead, a diverse array of types of organization and an intricate pattern emerges precisely as a consequence of the lack of a singular imposed power monopoly. An atmosphere of free association could be thought of as being more conductive to favorable social evolution than politics because the increased complexity involved allows for more possibilities, while politics limits the possibilities and therefore creates stagnation.

There would be no reason, in an apolitical society, for there to be conflicts over matters such as what should be taught in schools, gay marriage, the ten commandments on the court house steps, who should be allowed in or out of political borders, who will build the roads, who should own the means of production, what goods and services are allowed and not allowed, and so on. For people would be free to associate and disassociate in order to each get what they prefer for themselves without anyone else being forced into it, and therefore they compete on a voluntary basis.

From the perspective of someone who accepts the principle of free association, they cannot rule anyone else and noone else can rule them. There is no need for them to institutionalize their preferances, for they can persue their preferances by associating with likeminded people, persuasion and intregrating their ideas with that of others. But in the democratic political mindset, one's preferances must be binding upon everyone and institutionalized. From the perspective of politics, it is legitimate and necessary for there to be a monopolistic standard, and the only alternative would allegedly be complete chaos and destruction.

So long as someone consistantly accepts the principle of free association, it should become rather clear that everyone's personal and cultural preferences do not necessarily have to lead to conflict and violence, but may instead be rendered rather neutral if not meaningless by merely taking a "live and let live" approach. Socialists, capitalists, primitivists, racists, multiculturalists, feminists, religionists, atheists and any other group among the endless slew of groups out there can all mutually win through free association without any need for coercion.

It is only when politics enters the picture that conflict is institutionalized and enabled on a large scale. Since the alternatives of free association are disincentivized in a political atmosphere, the individual has little choice but to either engage in civil disobedience or asquiesce to the political process and consequentially take a more active role in the conflict. Endless conflict takes place over who will control the reigns of institutional power and what they should impose onto everyone. Political means are inherently opposed to the voluntary or social or economic means of free association.

PaleoConservaNationalistTarians

Brainpolice — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:50:00 GMT

There has been a lot of hooting and hollering lately in libertarian circles, particularly as it relates to the Ron Paul campaign. This seems to be representative of a broader conflict between "culturally left" and "culturally conservative" libertarians. It is becoming commonplace for critics and opponents of Ron Paul, as well as people who are simply neutral to him, to be labeled "CosmoBeltwayCentralistTarians". It is important to note that this is a cluster-concept or a package deal term. It lumps multiple distict ideas together into one: cosmopolitanism, association with the beltway and support for centralization. But it is disingenous to imply that all of these things inherently imply the other. It is even more disingenous to imply that libertarian critics and opponents of Ron Paul inherently must be on the pro-war bandwagon. Lumping pro-war, cosmopolitanism, centralization, association with and criticism and opposition to Ron Paul together into one package deal is simply unfair. Especially as it relates to anarchist and anti-voting critics who see the Ron Paul crowd as being the true "beltway libertarians".

What exactly is cosmopolitanism anyways? Philosophical cosmopolitans are moral universalists: they believe that all humans, and not merely compatriots or fellow-citizens, come under the same moral standards. The boundaries between nations, states, cultures or societies are therefore morally irrelevant. Based on this understanding of cosmopolitanism, how can any libertarian possibly object to it? Is libertarianism not based on the non-aggression principle, and does the non-aggression principle not apply consistantly to all human beings? If the non-aggression principle is only applied to certain nations or other such groups of human beings, then it no longer is being consistantly applied. Cosmopolitanism can be seen as a logical extension of individualism in that moral standards apply to individual human beings, not exclusively to group-identities.

Some would have us believe that cosmopolitanism (and the opposition to nationalism and political borders that comes along with it) inherently implies support for global government, but this is not necessarily the case. It is true that some cosmopolitans may come to the conclusion that there needs to be a global government, but under logical examination their conclusion is actually inconsistant with cosmopolitanism because a global government will be run by an exclusive and small group of individuals who are not held to the same moral standards as everyone else. Even a global government would lack universal application of moral principles. No, the logical conclusion of cosmopolitanism is not global government, but the exact opposite: no government. To the philosophical anarchist, governments are illegitimate in part precisely because they represent an inconsistant application of morality. Along with reasons having to do with the problem of territorial monopoly, the anarchist may very well oppose political borders because they represent artificial divisions that allow moral inconsistancy.

On the question of centralization and decentralization, it is often implied that left-leaning libertarians and libertarian opponents of Ron Paul object to decentralization and favor federal dictation when it comes to certain issues. But this is also fallacious. Take the issue of abortion for example. Sometimes pro-choice libertarians are accused of supporting the idea that the federal government should essentially mandate abortion everywhere, and therefore favor centralization. But at least for this pro-choice libertarian's perspective, that's not exactly how it works. Once again, we are trying to consistantly apply principles. Many pro-choice libertarians would not support a federal ban or federal subsidization of abortion. But the point is that the same principle should apply to the states and localities. If it is true that the state has no legitimate authority to decide on the issue in either direction, then in principle no level of government may outlaw or subsidize abortion. Principles must apply consistantly.

It is of course true that a state's rights approach to the issue would be preferable to a federal approach, but a state's rights approach is still not entirely consistant. In short, from the fact that centralization at the federal level is potentially much worse then state's rights, it does not follow that states or localities may legitimately have carte blanch to do just about everything that the federal level is prohibited from doing. Decentralization, taken to its logical conclusion, leads to individual sovereignty. State's rights is actually a rather moderate form of decentralization. At least from an anarchist libertarian perspective, states of any sort don't have any rights. Individuals do. So the point is: go ahead and leave such issues to the states, but don't just stop there. Keep pushing for consistancy. Keep pushing for more and more decentralization. Don't just transfer governmental powers to the state or local levels and then suddenly fully support those powers.

Another disingenous set of claims is that "left-libertarians" and libertarian opponents of Ron Paul are erroneously defining libertarianism as a lifestyle, making it seem as if libertarianism requires one to personally support alternative lifestyles and "culturally left" causes. But strangley enough, I have yet to meet a left-libertarian that actually has made such a claim. On the one hand, this accusation is fallacious in that it equates support for the liberty of people to engage in such "culturally left" activities with active support for and participation in those activities. Someone may radically support someone's right to engage in all sorts of activities that they do not actually personally favor. On the other hand, this charge could easily be leveled at "culturally conservative" libertarians who appear to imply that cultural homogeniety, traditionalism and religiosity is a requirement for a functional free society. In the atempt to achieve such things, there is always a dangerous temptation to use political power. What many left-libertarians fear is not the freedom of people to hold and practise culturally conservative lifestyles, but the possibility that they will be enforced through political means. But this does not mean that culturally left libertarians are themselves going to support political means in order to deliberately attack things such as religion and racism.

Insofar as the culture question is concerned, no particular cultural views or practises are a requirement for a libertarian society. This is libertarianism in a narrow sense, as a political philosophy in which whatever is voluntary gets a green light. However, libertarianism as a broad philosophy may very well be seen as being compatible with certain cultural causes, and that some cultural sentiments and practises may be more conductive to a free society then others. It is important to emphasize the difference between cultural views or practises being a requirement and being compatible and/or conductive. No serious left-libertarian would claim that you have to be an anti-racist and secularlist in order to be a libertarian. However, they would quite likely see such views and causes as being compatible with libertarianism. They may very well approach libertarianism in a broad sense in which there are non-governmental forms of coercion or oppression that deserve opposition. Afterall, states are not the only institutions that violate the non-aggression principle. Why should private organizations that engage in fraud and coercive usury, along with religious institutions that instigate conflicts, be given a free pass?

While there may certainly be some legitimate criticisms of libertarian deviations towards the "left", deviations towards the "right" deserve close scrutiny. If there are "CosmoBeltwayCentralistTarians", there are also "PaleoConservaNationalistTarians". There is of course nothing inherently wrong with a libertarian holding "culturally conservative" views, but some of these people hardly can be described as consistantly keeping them personal and not supporting political means towards their ends. A "PaleoConservaNationalistTarian" may harbor any combination of the following traits: nationalism, populism, opposition to immigration, support for protectionism, constitutionalism, pro-family, sympathies for monarchy, anti-abortion, anti-secularism and racism. To the "PaleoConservaNationalistTarian", the white anglo-saxon is America's persecuted majority. Behold the white proleteriet's burden! Multiculturalism and secularism are viewed exclusively as being a political system that is enforced onto the persecuted majority of white Christians. Opposition to government mandated religion is equated to persecution of Christians. Accordingly, we must close and secure "the borders", deport the evil Mexicans who are "stealing our jobs", buy American products only, fight toothe and nail for conservative judges, try to get abortion illegalized at the state (or federal) level and support theocracy on the "local level".

While many of these libertarians quite likely have wonderful track records on questions of war and foreign policy, it seems that they have a tendency to reconcentrate such militartistic means into domestic police powers. Since they are nationalistic, they may very well see a "proper role" for the military and paramilitary forces on our own domestic soil: to stop people from entering the territory and to monitor those who do enter the territory for drugs, disease, criminal records, citezenship and visas. According to these people, if an individual does not have the explicit permission of the government, they may not own property, have a job or possess any negative rights whatsoever within the territory. Without such permission, the government has free reign to kidnap you and forcibly exile you from the territory. Additionally, allegedly there is nothing wrong with the government using the tax-payer's money to fund gigantic border fences and maintain a massive immigration beureacracy to keep track of who is who and where they are. Oh, and you can kiss the free market in language goodbye, since the government must mandate uniformity in language all across the country. "National sovereignty" is a high priority, higher then individual sovereignty apparently.

Some of these same people who would gladly do away with the federal department of education simultaneously have no problem with local school boards dictating the curriculum to be taught children. Indeed, all things that the federal government is not supposed to do, "the community", or what in reality is more local state bodies acting in the name of "the community", may legitimately decide. Collectivism (which always is imposed by what amounts to an oligarchy in reality) at the federal level is bad, but apparently collectivism at the more homely level has free reign. This approach may be more libertarian then having the federal government do such things, but it certainly is not consistantly libertarian. There are many double-standards that may be supported in a more local way. Forced integration bad, forced segregation good. Government-enforced secularism bad, government-enforced religiosity good. Clearly, the "PaleoConservaNationalistTarians" are not innocent when it comes to the use of political means towards their ends, particularly if the means are not federal.

Then there is their support for constitutionalism and the "rule of law". The problem here is that the "rule of law" is a myth and libertarian theory has long since debunked the common conception of the social contract. Of course, there's also the problem that enforcing the law for the sake of it being the law is not consistant with any libertarian conception of law. Libertarianism involves an independant theory of justice that whatever the law happens to be must be held up to. There is also a post-ponement arguement often made, which essentially states that because the current system and certain set of laws exist, it should be enforced for the time being until certain things are done away with first. Only when certain things are gone, such as the welfare state, can we move on to persueing other goals, so claims the "PaleoConservaNationalistTarian". Strategically, this only keeps the system in place. Such an attitude in itself post-pones change. Such gradualism is perpetuity in practise. Libertarianism is "radical" in that it always keeps pushing for the ultimate goal, it does not post-pone one section of its own goals by putting them to the side until other goals are first met, or it does not obtain (partially or fully) a goal and then stop there and be content with the status quo when there are other goals to be met or the goal is not fully met yet.

The problem with "PaleoConservaNationalistTarians" is that in the attempt to preserve traditions and create homogeniety they sometimes end up supporting political means. PaleoConservaNationalistTarians hold onto a historical view that is conservative in that they glorify the past. Tradition is to be preserved at all costs, while deviations are to be opposed toothe and nail. PaleoConservaNationalistTarians wish to "restore the Republic". But clocks cannot be turned back. In the attempt to turn clocks back, however, a lot of damage can potentially be done.

Checks and Balances: Two Kinds

Brainpolice — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:37:00 GMT

Checks and balances should be a fairly familiar concept to Americans. The standard definition of checks and balances is that the state must be broken up into multiple segments that function as checks against eachother's power and perform different functions, while these segments still remain within one central institution. Traditionally, the idea is that there must be three separate branches (executive, legislative and judicial) within one central government in order to prevent the accumulation of power into one group. At least superficially, this view slightly recognizes the principle of decentralization. Another somewhat more powerful conception of checks and balances is the idea that there must be multiple and separate levels of government, each with their own branches and jurisdictions, and that in order to combat the accumulation of power, individual states or parishes and cities should remain "independant" from the central state.

This is the doctrine of internal checks and balances. Both separation between branches and levels of government are internal theories of checks and balances. But how well do these theories stand up in the face of logic and empirical evidence? Not very well. The fundamental flaw in the idea that separation between branches within one institution will stop power from being concentrated should be fairly obvious: it is still within one institution. There is theoretically no "third party" outside of that institution functioning on a check on it, which is to say that the overall institution is a judge in its own case. The supreme court is still part of the federal government. All historical evidence shows a great deal of collusion between branches, and when there is collusion between branches, there is centralization of powers into one expanding group. Clearly, merely having three branches under one institution will not stop power from accumulating in that institution. Much heftier criterion must be met.

While the doctrine of state's rights is a step up from this, since it maintains at a minimum that there should be a multitude of jurisdictions within the overall territory bestowed to the central government, it nonetheless contains a similar flaw. The states are still ultimately subject to the territorial dominion of the federal government and there is once again collusion between the levels of government. If a central government still exists, it doesn't matter how many territorial jurisdictions that one tries to split the central state's control into, political power is still concentrated at a central point. Surely expanding the amount of people in the government or the number of sub-governments within a government's territorial monopoly is not necessarily a way to restrict political power. In order to at least be a "pure" advocate of "state's rights", one must support a more radical approach, with no federal government.

Once one has made it to this point, the same problem keeps repeating itself at each level of government. The states in themselves would now be the central governments, only over smaller territories. The size of the dominion of power may have been reduced, but the essential feature of territorial monopoly is still maintained. Counties, parishes and cities would synergize with and the states. If the states were gotten rid of, the counties would be the territorial monopolies and the cities and towns would synergize with them. And even down to the city-state level, the problem of territorial monopoly would persist. The advantages of so-called "state's rights" or "city's rights" mostly only have to do with the size of the territorial monopoly, but they do almost nothing to address the problem of territorial monopoly itself. All such mechanisms are ultimately within the structure of the institution of the state itself. A monopoly cannot be broken up without competition from other institutions external to it.

This is why external checks and balances are much stronger and more meaningful than internal ones. Checks and balances in which governmental institutions are held in check by non-governmental ones, which requires a separation between buisiness and state, constitutes an example of external checks and balances. An honest private institution that opens up a buisiness in competition with the state in a particular area, which inherently requires that the given buisiness not engage in any kind of patronage and protectionism with the state, is functioning as a check on state power by providing an alternative option for people and lowering dependance on the state. The improvement of technology and the availability of private alternatives to the state in a given field, and the long-term decrease in prices it often leads to, can function as an external "check and balance" on the state much better than any internal "check and balance" ever can.

On the other hand, a private institution that colludes with the state is participating in the centralization and expansion of power. Indeed, the leaders of such institutions become part of the ruling class. When such synergy between industry and government takes place, various buisinesses start to become more centralized, modeled more similarly to the structure of the state than would otherwise have been possible. When buisiness starts to merge at the hip with the state, this presents an oppurtunity to obtain and expand political power for both select private interests and members of the government itself. The union of church and state is a perfect historical example of territorial monopolies further centralizing and expanding as a consequence of collusion between the state and external organizations. The ultimate end of such collusion is the merging of a more multi-centered order into one large central organization.

In a sense, everyone who is outside of the ruling class of a given society is a potential check on political power, by the mere virtue of not being within or in control of it. There are many external methods of checking and resisting political power, which includes various types of civil disobedience and economic decisions. From the perspective of an individual as a consumer, withdrawing consumption from the state's "services" and merely patronizing a private alternative at a lower price and participating in peaceful black markets is an important haven from state power. On the other hand, actively and enthusiastically participating in the state's "services" transforms one into either a state of dependance on the state, or worse, part of the ruling class. Here too, collusion has a negative effect because it is internal to the institution. It's working within the system, which is precisely why it does not work.

Economic incentives is a very important check and balance on state power. A defining feature of the state as an organization is that it is an externalizer of costs, which is to say that those who hold the political power in a society do not actually bear the costs of the laws and policies that they work with. Therefore, mechanisms that internalize costs provide a disincentive towards political power. Political power cannot be obtained or maintained without externalizing costs through mechanisms such as taxation and eminent domain. If the state is denied access to external resources then it will eventually crumble, as the state as an organization depends entirely on the production of those who are not in it. If it is either cut off from recieving that production then political power obviously cannot be maintained for very long.

The ultimate check on political power is philosophy. In short, it is impossible to maintain or expand political power without the propagation of ideological ideas in favor of political power or encouraging resignation to it. What ideas people adhere to ultimately effects the course of history. All that is required to combat political power is the action of withdrawl of support to the best that one can manage. And in order for this to be done, it must be philosophically accepted that the only possible checks against the state that can possibly exist are external to the institution because the institution of the state is a compulsory territorial monopoly regaurdless of what one tries to do with it internally. It is logically inconsistant to maintain that one can reduce, restrict or abolish political power by using political power, and it is nonsensical to claim that one can provide checks and balances on an institution through mechanisms that are entirely within the framework of that very institution and when that institution has a territorial monopoly.

What about so-called "competition" between nation-states? If there can be said to be anything resembling checks and balances between goverments, it would be the total lack of both collusion and offensive intervention between governments. When states engage in economic hegemony with eachother they begin a gradual trend towards international or global government, taking the centralization process to the extreme of there being virtually no territory immune from being within the jurisdiction of the government monopoly. International government possesses all of the problems previously mentioned about federal and state government. It just conglomerates power even more than nation-states and has a larger monopolistic jurisdiction.

Modern state warfare essentially cannot be done without collusion and contracting with particular banking and buisiness interests through contracting. War is the most costly endeavor a government can possibly engage in and it can only be waged by externalizing the costs, particularly through the mechanism of monetary inflation and borrowing from from foreign governments and banking interests. War has historically been a means of maintaining and expanding political power. As such, it would be disingenous to use it as an example of free competition. It is, by definition, a flexing of state power, of monopoly. Even if a state is overthrown by another, the victor state usually has increased power when the smoke clears. War has been the main mechanism of expanding state power throughout history.

In conclusion, it should be clear that true checks and balances lies within the domain of private and decentralized mechanisms that are external to and not in any kind of collusion with any political power. That is, market competition is true checks and balances, while the state can only attempt to simulate competition in vein. The more standard concept of checks and balances, while a well intended attempt to form a structural means for restricting political power, is incredibly mistaken in its premises as to how the state functions as an institution. It is rather niave about the nature of political power. In order to truly have checks and balances, the state as an organization must be questioned altogether and participitation in the activities of and consumption of the loot of such an organization must begin to be abandoned in favor of a multitude of alternatives.