Political Theory

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

Anenome — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 09:32:48 GMT

grant.w.underwood:

the kinds of people who fulfill these roles might be city fathers

I agree with your findings in the whole post, but do you think city fathers would be enough? You dont think people will start demanding more?

I have thought a great deal about this. There needs to be a default thing that happens when someone stands up in the middle of a crowd facing some crisis and says in desperation, "Someone needs to do something!" In those moments government sprouts its first leaf in societies and soon grows into the towering oak that soaks up all the sunlight for miles around. It's in those moments when someone will give another power, power even over them, and it is in the nature of those with power to try to retain that power long-term. So, we must inculcate in a free society a mechanism that short-circuits this desire, a new way must become the default. There must be an aswer.

My solution is that when people feel societal cooperation is needed, people should form ad hoc organizations, private organizations, and fund the solution they want done, and put someone in charge of it.

In short, that societal decision making, when done corporately, should be done in the form of a private corporation. The activities of this corporation should be financed by means of volutnary subscription, or perhaps by selling shares.

If this were formalized a bit, what you'd have is a replacement for politics and a replacement for taxation, every bit able to do all the things political organizations have historically done, except preserving voluntarism.

My usual example has been bridge-building. A community decides it wants a bridge. In today's day and age, that would occur by begging money out of tax payers, perhaps asking for a temporary transportation tax, or a bond to be issued, etc. Then the city would bid it out, etc., and oversee it.

In my proposed scenario, this is replaced by the people forming an ad hoc committee on the formation of a new bridge. Interested parties get together and being talking about it, advertising the idea through the community, then forming a company and via the company selling shares in the creation of a bridge.

It could be financed a bit like Kickstarter, where no one gets charged if they don't raise the needed amount.

With the bridge built, each investor would be able to receive a share of the revenues produced by the bridge and share in its management decisions. Which would be a million times better than the current model of participatory government which never turns a profit and extracts value by force.

So, my roundabout answer here is that if you can replace via free-market mechanisms what need the politician and government have historically filled, then you can forever mute the call for government to fill that need. Once people see that a better way exists, that it's cheaper, freer, and more effective and efficient, I think they'll understand the value of it and choose it preferably to any other model of corporate decision-making, including traditional government.

Traditional government only stands today because people think it is a requirement for courts and police and national defense to function. And they understand intuitively the need for those services, but have never even imagined that it might be possible to serve those needs as free-market services.

Of course, the more services the US gov fills, the harder it gets to imagine and accept life without it. We have mail service, public schools and universities and student loans, social security, medicare, and now national healthcare, and the list goes on endlessly.

Which is why libertarians will trailblaze this new ad hoc society, because we're the ones who've thought through the conceptual chain and seen how it can work and thus are comfortable about that sort of society, and indeed excited by the promise of it. The ad hoc private organization is a viable government replacement, and I can imagine it doing all sorts of things, including forming nationwide mutual-aid societies, charities, and the like.

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

grant.w.underwood — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:22:41 GMT

the kinds of people who fulfill these roles might be city fathers

I agree with your findings in the whole post, but do you think city fathers would be enough? You dont think people will start demanding more?

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

jmorris84 — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:22:21 GMT

grant.w.underwood:
I dont, but governments do. If country A puts a tariff on sugar from country B. Country B will put a tariff on Coutry A's imported corn.

I'm not sure I follow what you are trying to say here.

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

grant.w.underwood — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:18:38 GMT

Do you take out your anger against companies who have absolutely no association with other companies who do upset you?

I dont, but governments do. If country A puts a tariff on sugar from country B. Country B will put a tariff on Coutry A's imported corn.

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

grant.w.underwood — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:15:39 GMT

Companies don't tend to aggress

no, but they have. It would be rare, but they still have done it in the past and present (present probably a lot has to do with government backing).

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

jmorris84 — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:09:38 GMT

grant.w.underwood:
oh good more reason for foreign nation x to invade. you are all responsible for company A's agression. Someone needs to control you free people!

Do you take out your anger against companies who have absolutely no association with other companies who do upset you?

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

Anenome — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:07:50 GMT

grant.w.underwood:
oh good more reason for foreign nation x to invade. you are all responsible for company A's agression. Someone needs to control you free people!

Companies don't tend to aggress, do they? Aggression destroys profits.

If a company does aggress, the logical thing for a foreign nation to do is to sue it in court for damages, etc.

Excel: "When the ambassador asks the free people who their chieftain is, they should reply that they are all chieftains in their own right.

Indeed.

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

Anenome — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:01:20 GMT

grant.w.underwood:

I think it is important to understand people's need for government. The whole world isnt under the control of governments on accident. Since governments do form, so do political leaders. As a free society we must recognize that need and establish foundations that will ward it off. And i believe a president/leader would do that. Even if that role is just to smile for the cameras and have a scotch on the rocks with prime ministers and kings of the world. Yes, overtime the need of the people for that job will decline once they understand a free society and once foreign nations figure out how to deal with a free society.

This is an important point, at least the beginning part about people needing...

But the question is what is the actual nature of that need. It is being fulfilled currently by politicians and government generally, but there's no reason why that particularl fulfillment must be the only structure that can fulfill that human need, if we understand that need.

The need is not for government, but for something much more elemental. The need for leadership, for protection, for an authority to appeal to when wronged, for something like a societal parent-figure.

In a free society, the kinds of people who fulfill these roles might be city fathers--respected members of society that people look up to. They don't necessarily have to have any position related to coercion however that could bring them to be called government. And if a city elected them as something like honorary mayor for a term or w/e, then it would mock the former function of having politicians while neutering the coercive abilities of a mayor down to nothing. But it would be ad hoc, you don't need to create some law creating this position and controlling for it. You just need a group of people willing to finance whatever he's suppose to do. He can't speak for anyone else anyway and has no power at all except that of a private citizen.

But another fact about such a position is that, since it's not deciding anything for other people, there need not be only one individual. You could have many people in that position if there were some need for it.

If you really did have something that the whole community was interested in and needed a rep for, it's likely the community would decide ad hoc fashion to send a representative and may give them limited ability to decide an issue for them. But such would not constitute a government, and would be rather rare.

But it would be dangerous to do so. That exact mechanism is how we got the Constitution :\

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

grant.w.underwood — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:58:27 GMT

oh good more reason for foreign nation x to invade. you are all responsible for company A's agression. Someone needs to control you free people!

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

excel — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:50:57 GMT

When the ambassador asks the free people who their chieftain is, they should reply that they are all chieftains in their own right.

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

jmorris84 — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:39:18 GMT

grant.w.underwood:
No, but if you ask me where a company is im going to say at the mall. If i have a problem with a company in the mall im going to talk to the manager, but if the manager tells me to go screw myself then im going to goto the mall manager. In the case of a free society.... there is no mall.

Then the mall manager would be at the top of the chain of command or communication in our situation and thus the person a foreign country would be interacting with in the event that a dispute needed to be resolved, based on our example; correct? So do we agree, then, that we didn't need to elect a "President" to represent everyone else living as free people on this land mass that has not been forcefully taken by a government and were able to settle a dispute, instead, with a private land owner?

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

Anenome — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:38:55 GMT

grant.w.underwood:

Anenome - ya i agree. though why would you be against an elected official? I think it would add to its respectability domestically and foreign.

I'm fine with an elected representative as long as that rep claims to rep solely the people who voted for him to do so, and any expenses paid by voluntary donation. I would be against any institutional representative--you couldn't make such a position without instituting the basis of a government, which could then lead to an actual government.

In other words, any representative would be a private representative, not a public one.

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

grant.w.underwood — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:30:31 GMT

Do you go to a mall and associate all of the private companies inside the mall with each other or do you treat them all as individual companies?

No, but if you ask me where a company is im going to say at the mall. If i have a problem with a company in the mall im going to talk to the manager, but if the manager tells me to go screw myself then im going to goto the mall manager. In the case of a free society.... there is no mall.

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Re: Shortcoming of a free society

jmorris84 — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:20:48 GMT

grant.w.underwood:
but you look at those companies as American companies. And if it wasnt America in a free society it will still be from 'free land mass country x' or whatever people would call the free society.

I look at them as companies who are forced to pay a tax to a group of people who call themselves "government." Regardless of that fact, they are still a private company and I wouldn't go to any other private company that doesn't associate themselves with or represent them to settle a dispute with said company simply because it makes no sense. Do you go to a mall and associate all of the private companies inside the mall with each other or do you treat them all as individual companies? I feel as though the same logic can be used in our discussion with free people.

Re: Shortcoming of a free society

grant.w.underwood — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:08:52 GMT

but you look at those companies as American companies. And if it wasnt America in a free society it will still be from 'free land mass country x' or whatever people would call the free society.

and i think you are right in the LONG run, but I dont think so in the short run (and in terms of nations the short run can be decades).