I'm struck by what their implicit function seems to be: to do whatever it takes to prevent "bank runs". They could do a lot of meddling under that banner.
Troubling. I thought maybe the federal reserve was a primary roadblock, but if there's one crutch organization there's probably several.
It's called a Cathedral for a reason. Mutually supporting structures. And yeah, the FDIC has a lot of lee-way to try and preserve the financial system, everything does. Bureaucracies, politics, and the law bend over backwards to protect the monetary system, because it is the critical point of soft-power.
If a commercial service can't even handle informed individual investment to the degree that we replace corporatism with crowdfunding, what hope is there for government?
This is what republicanism is for. Yeah, sure, anachro-capitalist utopia and all that, but in reality all anarchistic systems will tend to collapse. However, if you set several different tiers of government against themselves, and make them perpetually compete against each other, while forcing higher tiers to derive power from lesser tiers, you can get a stable system from the perpetual coopetition. It's not individualism, but it's a stable approximation.
Why not democracy? Have a democratic voting procedure for every bit of legislation; give towns the opportunity to self-destruct. I don't think media's too big of a danger against it, people that really care will know to do more research than checking the news broadcast - people that don't care will make bad decisions regardless of being manipulated.
In fact, I think the bad decisions getting passed could be a great motivator for everyone to stop fucking around and get serious about legislation. As it stands, no one really has to take responsibility, they can blame the implementation/interpretation of their elected (and unelected) officials.
make them perpetually compete against each other
How is this possible for a government system? I know how it'd work in normal free market business (remove red tape to allow competition to arise), but I don't think that would apply for a government.
Have a democratic voting procedure for every bit of legislation; give towns the opportunity to self-destruct.
Now you're pushing out direct democracy which is particularly a bad form of democracy. Basically it turns everything into government by rabble and special aggrieved interests.
people that really care will know to do more research than checking the news broadcast - people that don't care will make bad decisions regardless of being manipulated.
And people that put significant investment into research will always be outnumbered by people who put no effort in at all.
I think the bad decisions getting passed could be a great motivator for everyone to stop fucking around and get serious about legislation. As it stands, no one really has to take responsibility, they can blame the implementation/interpretation of their elected (and unelected) officials.
I agree that learning is necessary, but what you're looking for is personal responsibility. Democracy defuses that. You'd be better off with randomly assigned dictators every year.
The wider a democracy is, the more it defuses responsibility. You're kinda gonna get stuck having to play a balancing act.
How is this possible for a government system?
Governments primarily act through coercion. Your objective is basically keep them at each other's throats by never letting them be able to dominate one another. You want to keep them constantly fighting for personal control against one another. The smaller governments get together to refuse the authority of the bigger ones. The bigger ones always face internal power struggles. The smaller ones face shifting alliances. No one ever really seems to have an advantage, and the only way for anyone to actually pass laws to effect society is when they are forced to accept enough of a consensus to pass laws with a significant majority.
Basically it turns everything into government by rabble and special aggrieved interests.
Well, I agree that it'd turn out pretty rough if applied to our present large scale society, so let me walk it back and try again.
I actually think that'd be a way to describe the feature of small scale communities. It rapidly becomes a problem when you have multiple communities participating in the same vote, but if each community is only allowed to vote for affecting their own borders, what's the problem? Any border sharing of multiple communities will carry strife and negotiations with it, so that doesn't change much - cities can even continue being like a nightmare.
You could even require a majority vote of 90%+ in such small scale communities without totally paralyzing legislation, since it's not far off to assume that members of a community would have shared interests.
Edit (unclear point): direct democracy should only be a problem when people have changes forced upon them by people that do not (or can not) represent their interests. Reduction of scale should diminish this problem.
what you're looking for is personal responsibility. Democracy defuses that.
That is something I'd like, but how does democracy defuse it? Is there a form of government that does not? I thought it'd be the best at permitting the interests of all involved to be represented, even if no one is able to get a win for their interest. If I want to pursue something unpopular, like permittinng non-pasteurized dairy to be sold, I'd prefer throwing my vote into an empty bucket rather than trying to find a representative that promises to help and totally won't betray any other interests.
I'd probably advocate for a meddling system to make sure that the rats fleeing sinking ships are known to be associated with failure when they try to vote in their new homes. No need to get harsh with it, allow each community to handle that information in their own way. If they're fully integrating, the new host community likely won't care. But I also realize that this is reminiscent of a social credit score and feel like that marks some failure on my part.
Within specific communities, any legislative failures could have repurcussions for the people that voted for it, as each community would be free to have whatever rules they like for their members (excluding the prevention of leaving, ideally). Yes, it could get stupid, but that's a feature to me, because success means nothing when you could never fail. I think it's only cruel or accelerationist when scaled up.
The smaller governments get together to refuse the authority of the bigger ones. The bigger ones always face internal power struggles. The smaller ones face shifting alliances.
Isn't this basically returning to our roots? It sounds like the vision of the founding fathers might fit with this, though maybe I don't know their vision really well.
It's called a Cathedral for a reason. Mutually supporting structures. And yeah, the FDIC has a lot of lee-way to try and preserve the financial system, everything does. Bureaucracies, politics, and the law bend over backwards to protect the monetary system, because it is the critical point of soft-power.
This is what republicanism is for. Yeah, sure, anachro-capitalist utopia and all that, but in reality all anarchistic systems will tend to collapse. However, if you set several different tiers of government against themselves, and make them perpetually compete against each other, while forcing higher tiers to derive power from lesser tiers, you can get a stable system from the perpetual coopetition. It's not individualism, but it's a stable approximation.
Why not democracy? Have a democratic voting procedure for every bit of legislation; give towns the opportunity to self-destruct. I don't think media's too big of a danger against it, people that really care will know to do more research than checking the news broadcast - people that don't care will make bad decisions regardless of being manipulated.
In fact, I think the bad decisions getting passed could be a great motivator for everyone to stop fucking around and get serious about legislation. As it stands, no one really has to take responsibility, they can blame the implementation/interpretation of their elected (and unelected) officials.
How is this possible for a government system? I know how it'd work in normal free market business (remove red tape to allow competition to arise), but I don't think that would apply for a government.
Now you're pushing out direct democracy which is particularly a bad form of democracy. Basically it turns everything into government by rabble and special aggrieved interests.
And people that put significant investment into research will always be outnumbered by people who put no effort in at all.
I agree that learning is necessary, but what you're looking for is personal responsibility. Democracy defuses that. You'd be better off with randomly assigned dictators every year.
The wider a democracy is, the more it defuses responsibility. You're kinda gonna get stuck having to play a balancing act.
Governments primarily act through coercion. Your objective is basically keep them at each other's throats by never letting them be able to dominate one another. You want to keep them constantly fighting for personal control against one another. The smaller governments get together to refuse the authority of the bigger ones. The bigger ones always face internal power struggles. The smaller ones face shifting alliances. No one ever really seems to have an advantage, and the only way for anyone to actually pass laws to effect society is when they are forced to accept enough of a consensus to pass laws with a significant majority.
Well, I agree that it'd turn out pretty rough if applied to our present large scale society, so let me walk it back and try again.
I actually think that'd be a way to describe the feature of small scale communities. It rapidly becomes a problem when you have multiple communities participating in the same vote, but if each community is only allowed to vote for affecting their own borders, what's the problem? Any border sharing of multiple communities will carry strife and negotiations with it, so that doesn't change much - cities can even continue being like a nightmare.
You could even require a majority vote of 90%+ in such small scale communities without totally paralyzing legislation, since it's not far off to assume that members of a community would have shared interests.
Edit (unclear point): direct democracy should only be a problem when people have changes forced upon them by people that do not (or can not) represent their interests. Reduction of scale should diminish this problem.
That is something I'd like, but how does democracy defuse it? Is there a form of government that does not? I thought it'd be the best at permitting the interests of all involved to be represented, even if no one is able to get a win for their interest. If I want to pursue something unpopular, like permittinng non-pasteurized dairy to be sold, I'd prefer throwing my vote into an empty bucket rather than trying to find a representative that promises to help and totally won't betray any other interests.
I'd probably advocate for a meddling system to make sure that the rats fleeing sinking ships are known to be associated with failure when they try to vote in their new homes. No need to get harsh with it, allow each community to handle that information in their own way. If they're fully integrating, the new host community likely won't care. But I also realize that this is reminiscent of a social credit score and feel like that marks some failure on my part.
Within specific communities, any legislative failures could have repurcussions for the people that voted for it, as each community would be free to have whatever rules they like for their members (excluding the prevention of leaving, ideally). Yes, it could get stupid, but that's a feature to me, because success means nothing when you could never fail. I think it's only cruel or accelerationist when scaled up.
Isn't this basically returning to our roots? It sounds like the vision of the founding fathers might fit with this, though maybe I don't know their vision really well.