this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
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I think you're ascribing too much benign intention to something which was realistically the result of a complex power struggle between monarchs, nobles, intellectual elites, and a new class of merchants/financiers where everyone was trying to use everyone else to fuck everyone else in their favour and riling up the proles as needed.
It's not some planned genius system carefully crafted for utmost morality. It's a way for rich business owners to get a slice of the pie normally reserved for nobles while offering enough compromises/threat of revolt to keep the smaller but culturally and militarily powerful class of old money happy enough.
Your participation as a prole is highly limited, you are basically unable, short of mass violence, to hold anyone accountable for any particular decision; you are not allowed to force certain things to even be discussed or debated. It is not a system made for you to participate in, it is a system where you have some (extremely limited) participation because your class of people were a piece on someone else's board.
Compared to actual democratic institutions which work by consensus and direct representation, or representation at the continued will of a consensus body it is a joke. It does not require your consent, and what little privilege you have does not extent to any practical considerations in your life (housing, work etc) which remain dictatorial.
Dream bigger dude.
@naevaTheRat "Actual democratic institutions which work by direct representation"
...such as?
what do you mean? Any number of things... The system you have with your friends to decide who hosts the next movie night, your community astronomy club annual meeting, your Union, idk what are you involved in? What is this question even? Democratic decision making is as old as time and as varied as the seasons.
@naevaTheRat democratic decision making doesn't mean you all get what you want. To the extent that government is democratic - to that extent we submit ourselves to the will of the people. Quite often having to abide by decisions we don't agree with. Often our elected representatives are Slaves to compromise and party policy.
I thought you could give an example of a government sized democracy doing better.
Don't put words in my mouth, democracy has nothing to do with getting what you want is has to do with participation and voice in the decision making process.
We have almost no representation in government, no choice as to whether or not we are bound by it, we have no democracy at work, deciding economic priorities anything like that.
You've been told you live in a democracy but aside from being told that what evidence is there that you do? Can you even fire the government? Your boss? Do you really have a voice?
here's a Democratic government.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation
@naevaTheRat violent overthrow is one way of changing government. Conservative forces can also stage a coup. Once the new government has power, what then? Appoint ourself as the head of secret police. Then we are back at the start. Just different people being oppressed. I confess my outlook is far more menshevik and gradual. Apologist really. A gradual conservative coup seems to be under way in Australia.
Are you high? They're just an example of Democratic governance that's all.
@naevaTheRat Not really familiar with the Zapatista movement. "Can you even fire the government?" Was your question. What is the point of having ideal governance if it can be fired? You are correct in that we vote seldom for a party rather than for policy. I am not sure anarchy is a great alternative
I want some of whatever you're on, this is incoherent. The gov system you're defending can be fired by the GG or through a DD resolution. Mechanisms to fire governments are in all non totalitarian systems I'm aware of.
Suppose you vote me in on my platform of not killing you, but surprise! I lied! you can't hold me accountable for 3 (or 6!) years. That is obviously messed the fuck up, if you have no power to recall me I'm not representing you, I'm just someone who convinced you to give me some power for a while.
why do you dream so small? why are you convinced that it's this pathetic little dribble of political power or we murder each other in the streets. Fuck dude, anarchic societies are usually pretty peaceful even in the case of zero external government. Anthropologists have spilled a lot of ink on this.
@naevaTheRat Still getting my head around concept of anarchy. To some extent, it seems like the ultimate extension of 'separation of powers' in that decisions are decentralised. Not only to each individual, but each moment.
I don't really know what you mean? anarchy can involve centralised decisions but only by consent.
E.g. agreeing to follow to plan of someone for laying out a community garden is anarchic if you are not obligated to do so.
Actual anarchy in the real world often involves lots of committees and community groups both explicit and customary. It's hard to do much without organisation, but the difference is bottom up "we want a garden so we form a committee to plan it" vs top down "We are building a garden here for your community enrichment" "but we want a sports ground here" "silence peasants"
@naevaTheRat
Thankyou. Your use of the the word anarchic makes a lot of sense.
Anarchy just means without heirarchy. I only brought it up in passing that humans are actually pretty cool and it takes a lot for us to be violent and horrible. Like in societies with no central government people are usually pretty fine so the sort of lockeian "red in tooth and claw state of nature" argument as a defense of this shitty compromise governance apparently holding us back from chaos doesn't actually stand.
Cards on the table I am an anarchist, I think humans are broadly awesome and wonderful apes. I think we do bad stuff when faced with very non ape-compatible choices like whether to deploy militaries but most of those are only enabled by supressing our anarchic tendencies.
When we have to resolve disputes like taking out the garbage, who's round is it at the pub, should we support a school's project etc we're really cool and sensitive. It's why I believe in proper democracy, even stuff like the mondragon corporation do so much better because of democracy.
@naevaTheRat
I have been reading a little about the society of our primate relatives and whole-heartedly agree that our cooperative nature is innate. Stress can cause us to behave in more primitive ways, using only our lizard brain - we tend to think only of preserving our own vegetative functions. I think some people carry that level of trauma around with them.