Turns out if Niall Ferguson had the Ring, he’d use it to abolish all Rings. (CHT Gary.)
I don’t think you can get rid of top-down hierarchical systems via a top-down hierarchical method. That’s why counter-economics makes better sense in terms of political strategy. Still, coming from the laudator imperii it’s a move in the right direction. (Though the notion that rulership was indispensable prior to recent developments in information technology is rather difficult to defend in the light of actual history.)
“Though the notion that rulership was indispensable prior to recent developments in information technology is rather difficult to defend in the light of actual history.”
There were good rulers and bad rulers. Things might be pretty bad with bad rulers. But on almost every occasion when there were no rulers, there was chaos and war.
Based on a record like that, the notion that rulership is dispensable can only be defended through the distorting lens of a theory.
You used to have many ideas. Now you seem to have only one. What happened?
“But on almost every occasion when there were no rulers, there was chaos and war.”
So almost every human society before the emergence of the state in the fourth millennium BC was chaotic and dysfunctional?
What do you call your notion that rulership is indispensable? An un-theory?
I have heard this idea argued before, that anarchism is an “ideology of the future” so we shouldn’t be too concerned if some technological level (e.g. electricity, cell phones) has to be achieved for anarchism to be viable. I disagree. Anarchism is fundamentally an ethical idea – that other people aren’t you property, to use RL’s favorite formulation. The idea that such a thing is contingent on historical progressions seems weird if not outright false.
I don’t know why you’d want to get rid of top-down heirarchic systems. When the majority of people are half wits with the management skills of a dying hyena I see plenty of room for improvement by top-down heirarchic management; so that responsible people are – you know – responsible.
Frankly, if it was to Superman or something, I’d just as soon enslave myself to them and not have to worry about decisions ever again. Granting that Superman doesn’t exist, the same still applies to a lesser degree as regards the knuckle-dragging primates and the .02% who have a functional neocortex.
If “the majority of people are half wits with the management skills of a dying hyena,” what sort of people are most likely to end up in charge of these hierarchies?
Certainly half-wits, but that is why you need a system of selection; i.e. voluntary submission and selection for efficacy with some coherent and self-reinforcing test. I am not arguing for political rulership, rare cases aside that almost always selects for unimaginative toads and when it does put people of competence into power (Caesar Augustus) it’s not exactly clear that we want a supergenius running a giant bandit gang.
My objection is more towards ‘anti-authoritarianism’ and ‘anti-heirarchalism’ in general, I don’t think they even make any sense. Anything other than endless combat is going to have heirarchy and authority, in a market law system it is going to be property owner. This is more multilateral and less obviously obscene than the incentives that exist in political orders, but it is still heirarchy and authority none the less.