From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sat Aug 10 2002 - 08:05:20 MDT
On Wednesday, August 07, 2002 3:30 PM Rafal Smigrodzki
rms2g@virginia.edu wrote:
> I tend to think such limits will curb the abuse of power, but
> eventually
> the powerful or the power-lusting will find a way around them, just as
> constitutional limits on power have no prevented the US government
> from
> growing into almost every nook and cranny of American life -- and now,
> it would seem, world life. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be tried,
> but I tend to think they will decay faster than a market anarchy
> solution. (Granted, no social arrangement is going to eternally
> prevent
> a class system from arising, but at least market anarchy will probably
> put the most and the most effective barriers in the way of preventing
> statism from arising in the first place.) Why not go for the gold?
>
> ### But what stops a market anarchy from decaying?
>
> (didn't we discuss this some time ago?)
Let me use another analogy. We can built better engines, but, perhaps
we can never built a perfect energy -- one that works with 100%
efficiency. Market anarchy, to me, is a more efficient engine than
minarchy -- even, I believe, minarchy with a sortitionist selection
process.
After all, even under anarchy, people can use sortition to select -- or
they can decide to let the high-IQ people make the rules. This will
happen, especially, if they outcompetes other methods. They will still,
however, face competition under market anarchy where under your
"demarchy" -- I only put it in quotes because I believe someone else
used the term many years before you to mean something different (perhaps
"sophocracy" would be more accurate: "rule by the wise") -- the method
would be kind of final and power would be concentrated and ripe for a
takeover. I fear that it would only be a little while before clever
people take over the system and use it for their ends.
Even with your bicameral legislature, this does not completely remove
the incentives toward abusing power. (It certainly does not stop
do-gooders either.)
Let me put this another way. The thing we fear the most here, I
believe, is a central government that is either inept and corrupt or
just plain arbitrary and destructive. (Kind of like the difference
between late Soviet Communism and Stalinist Era Soviet Communism.)
Yeah, it's not the only thing to fear, but governments out of control
tend to be much more nasty and harder to treat or cure than other social
ills.
At least, with anarchism, in order for society to get to that level, a
central government has to be formed first. With minarchy or demarchy,
it's already in place and one merely has to outmaneuver the checks and
balances to remove the constraints on governmental power.
It's kind of like starting out in life with good genetics, a healthy
diet, and an exercise program. Sure, you can still get unlucky and get
cancer and you'll still age, but you'll, on average be better off than
the person who starts out with bad genes, who doesn't eat right, or
whose main exercise is flicking the remote for the TV.
Hey, I just found a list of links that might prove helpful in this
discussion. See also "Historical Examples of Anarchy without Chaos" at
http://libertariannation.org/b/history.htm
Cheers!
Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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