The biggest problem with democracy is, of course, that being oppressed by violent thugs enforcing bad, evil laws invented by self-serving sociopaths who win popularity contests isn’t really a lot different from being oppressed by violent thugs enforcing bad, evil laws invented by self-serving sociopaths who are descended from other self-serving sociopaths who were on the winning side of some war centuries ago. Without a solid constitution guaranteeing individual rights against a government whose powers are strictly enumerated, how the oppressor class justifies its tyranny is of little consequence to anyone who doesn’t have a say in the proceedings. After all, “democratic” American institutions approved of the claimed ownership of human beings until mid-19th century; the violent oppression of racial and ethnic minorities until the mid-20th century; the violent oppression of most sexual minorities until the beginning of the 21st century; and the violent oppression of some sexual minorities (not to mention the de facto violent oppression of some minority groups and the de jure oppression of others) to the present day. As a member of one of those groups, I can assure you that it’s cold comfort to know that the rapist thugs trying to destroy my life employ excuses made up by many power-mad busybodies rather than by a few power-mad busybodies, or that those busybodies were supposedly picked by “the people” than by a god or gods.
At one time, one’s religion was almost entirely determined by where one was born; Greeks followed the Greek religion, Egyptians the Egyptian religion, Chinese the Chinese religion, etc. Most people simply followed the religion they were born into, and the few who questioned it were, in general, either banished or violently murdered. But as humans started moving around more and even mixing with people who were born in different places, they became more tolerant of foreign religions; to be sure, there were still plenty of jihads, witch hunts, inquisitions and the like, but in the truly great cities a number of different religions might coexist with little friction. And in the modern world, most developed areas are home to people of at least several different religions, and many choose to have no religion at all. But while religion has thus developed to be less intrinsically tied to circumstances of birth than it was for most of human history, its twin sister nationality has barely developed at all. It was very easy for me to renounce Catholicism; I didn’t have to move or lose my friends or property, and the only social consequence was some disapproval from a few members of my family. And while it’s certainly true that renouncing religion is a lot harder than that in some places (for example, in some parts of the Muslim world), renouncing nationality is universally difficult (and sometimes virtually impossible). Renouncing Americanism would require me to lose my home, my friends, and many of my assets; I’d have to get used to different ways, possibly even learn a new language, and could look forward to being seen as an outsider in my new land for the rest of my life.
It doesn’t have to be this way; some political thinkers have proposed that government, which we conceive of as rigidly connected to a physical territory, could be as borderless as religion has largely become. People could choose a government as they can now choose a religion; they would be subject to that government’s laws and taxes (and reap whatever benefits it offered) just as they now are subject to the restrictions and tithes (and reap whatever benefits) of their chosen religion. No doubt most would stay with their nationality of birth, just as most people stick with their native religion; there would probably be large areas where most people belonged to one nationality or another, just as the majority of Brazilians are Catholic, the majority of Iraqis are Muslim and the majority of Indians Hindu. But nobody would be forced to uproot and lose everything merely to change government, and being stateless or anarchist would be no more difficult than being agnostic or atheist currently is in the Western world. If you want a different model of how this would work, consider insurance companies; nobody thinks it’s weird or threatening that their friends or neighbors pay premiums (taxes) to a different organization and have different benefits and limitations (laws) than they do. Want a nanny state that takes most of your income and has lots of laws but provides all kind of benefits? You can have that. You want a police state where armed goons watch you through cameras and then leap into action to “protect” you at the touch of a panic button? I’m sure some government will offer that. A theocracy? Sure, but your neighbors can still sin like crazy if they contract with a secular government. And naturally, some would choose no government at all.
Obviously there are a LOT of problems and complications with this idea; for example, mineral rights have long been divorced from the property under which they lie, but what about common resources like air and water? Treaties would need to be worked out for that. Roads and other civil engineering projects could be free to the citizens of the government or governments which built them, while others paid a toll (toll tags could parse this automatically). Violent crimes would probably be handled by the victim’s government, subject to whatever treaties & reciprocal agreements it had with the offender’s; violent crimes committed by anarchists would automatically be handled entirely by the government of the victim, thus providing an incentive for everyone to contract with some government, if only for legal protection in case a citizen of a “presumption of guilt” state decided to point at them. Governments could still require residence in a certain place if they wanted, just as certain cults do, and every government would maintain some capital territory in which its power was absolute (just like companies, universities, etc have their own campus rules and security forces). But in general, people would be free to choose the government that was right for them, and within a few centuries people would consider our current “You must obey us or die because you are within this set of imaginary lines” system as barbaric and monstrous as we consider forced religious conversion.
[…] via A Matter of Choice — The Honest Courtesan […]
First of all, I prefer to call our nationality USian because “America” is the whole Western Hemisphere. And I feel that us USians are stuck with one another, because we are who is here.
Secondly, I am careful to distinguish between the USian nationality and the US Government. The USG is despicable and irredeemable and must be overthrown. It is not a democracy. In its elections the people get to decide which is the lesser evil. A lesser evil is still evil. The apparent division between the parties is illusory. It is simply a tactic to distract us from the essential evil of the USG, which is actually controlled by the Multinational Oligarchic Empire.
Yes! I am convinced in a hundred years or so humanity will look back at government with the same horror with which we now regard slavery!
I’m surprised how few people realize that the nation state is a very modern structure organized around jingoistic language and religious beliefs primarily between the 18th and 20th century. The nation state only took complete control globally at the end of WWI, largely at the insistance of European powers that looked to organize foreigners in ways that made it easier to control them.
Given that we estimate civilization goes back roughly 14,000 years at this point, we are talking about a very small time horizon and there is little guarantee this structure will continue as people increasingly realize the Leviathan bargain imposed on them at birth costs far more than the limited advantages it provides.
We’re already seeing the beginning nation states strain to stay relevant with the increasing disconnect between rural and city dwellers world wide (The yellow shirts in France, the Arab spring, Trump supporter in the US). Look at any polling or electoral map in the world and it’s clear places like New York and London increasingly have more in common than a New York and Peoria.
We may not live long enough to see this, but I suspect we are currently moving towards a more city-state based model as interests diverge. Nuclear weapons have made Universal War too costly, so cities no longer depend on the deep population depth of rural areas to conscript large standing armies to wipe each other out.
While I’m cynical the current nation state built on violence, force, coercion, surveillance and mass incarceration will give up its power without a fight that drags its subjects through a living hell, I have more faith in future localism in more humane societies like Switzerland to limit the danger of sociopathic authoritarians and never met a prison cell they didn’t approve of. I hope your vision of a more humane society not ruled by democratically authorized mob thugs has a future as well.
I’m curious, which of “some political thinkers” did most to bring you here?
For me the big one was David Friedman, partly because The Machinery of Freedom was also my introduction to the economic way of thinking.
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It’s not just hypothetical. Something like this exists to a degree on native american reservations where there is a distinct tribal government with jurisdiction over territory and people that overlaps with other local/state/federal jurisdictions. Not sayin it works great, but it exists.
While the idea is nice, I think it would immediately start to be exploited and then begin to actually make things even worse. The human race is simply not advanced enough as a whole to self-govern in a good way at this time by whatever model. It is unclear to me whether it will ever get there.
All government is intrinsically exploitative and exploitable. If you’re waiting for a kind that isn’t, be prepared to wait long enough for a different species to evolve to intelligence that can be trusted with power.
I am not saying I am waiting for that. I am saying that this idea may make things even worse with the current mixture of people it would need to be able to work with. The attack here would be people exploiting this form of government.
That is a silly objection. It’s enormously less expoitable than a monopoly of government. The people who most obviously exploit that being, of course, politicians and everyone who works for it. But not limited to that.
Might as well say if I don’t light my house on fire, it’ll remain flammable.