Resentment and the State

Applause, applause, applause. I couldn't have said it better myself. We should have real self-government (anarchism and direct democracy), the collective ownership of the means of production, the equal distribution of goods and services, and the abolishment of the state and all coercive institutions.

the equal distribution of goods and services, and the abolishment of the state and all coercive institutions.

Actually, anarchism makes a nice counterpoint. The key point to my argument is that the state criminalises direct self-provision - capitulation to the state's terms becomes a survival necessity. This is the 'crime' of which I spoke.

In an anarchism, I envisage one of two possibilities: one where the group takes responsibility for its own, e.g. it provides food and shelter for the whole group, for instance by having its own agriculture and housing plan; the other in which self-provision is protected. Freeloading, then, is self-regulating: anyone who does not add value to the group as at least free to provide for himself.

In a centralised government that includes government of agriculture and housing, as I said, direct self-provision is criminalised - the state has robbed us of this freedom. The only just action is ensuring all are provided for: including freeloaders. Since the state has not afforded them the possibility of isolationist existence, it cannot justifiably insist on making basic provisions a condition of employment. Such provisions should be a necessary payment for these rights. 1 + -1 = 0: balance. The state has reneged on this, what should be their end of the bargain. But the state is big, and I am small, and so I have to pay while it may sit on its hands.

I really don't think you can realistically get this. I think people rely more on the concept then the practice of it. I'll try to explain what I mean by pointing out another flaw in the have all's with no effort.

A little while back (being lazy here) there was a thread about using technology to release the individual from the burden of forced production and given equal opportunity for life necessities.

That is all fine and dandy but it neglects something.

If you want to automate everything you have to change many factors not just one factor. For example. Power.

Power doesn't just magically appear at your home. Most of it travels along high tension power lines which need to be monitored daily, yes, daily. This requires individuals not some automated robot. Also this job is very risky and requires lots of training. If you are not sure what I am talking about I'll explain.

These high tension power lines can not be assessed from the ground, they require the use of a helicopter which requires a pilot. You could not automate the pilot for this job. It requires very skilled flying and assessment for it to work, something our current technology simply could not safely achieve. The pilot takes a worker up to the tops of these power towers and drops them onto the tower. If the helicopter is not properly grounded it will damage the helicopter and the worker. Hence the danger with the job. The workers job is not something that can be done with a robot either since it requires a physical presence. They attempted to use cameras to complete the job but it was discovered to miss much of the defects that a person can easily see. So they stick with an actual person over automated cameras.

Okay I apologize for a long explanation but here is my conclusion. This high risk job can not be automated, therefore how is it fair for those who do similar risky jobs who get the same house or food as a person who works a less risk intensive job? It can't be fair, won't be fair, and isn't fair. Therefore you would have to supply a higher standard of living for those who do higher risk jobs. As soon as you start to give one person more than you completely break this Utopian idea.

This doesn't even account for medical care or other such systems which would also probably be tagged onto equal distribution.

I don't want to make a long debate out of this, as it was done with the last thread, but here's a quick response.

Automation technology, robotics, and AI improve in a relatively short amount of time. Humans are becoming less and less necessary for most the of positions in the industries. This trend shows no sign of letting up, and so we can only expect it to increase. The motto of capitalism (cheapest labor for the largest profit) only insures that technology will continue to be used to make expensive labor less and less necessary. That job is more than likely to be replaced by automation in the near future. Is it fair for goods and services to be equally distributed to a worker who has a high risk job and one that has a low risk job. I think most people would find that fair because 1. the worker can quit the job whenever he wants, and 2. in a commune, every role is considered to be as important as the next. Everyone plays their part. Greed, egoism, and selfishness are the only reasons why one man wants more goods and services than the next man.

Okay, you stepped all over the point that it couldn't be automated. So reusing that will not help you at all. I'll give you this other little tid bit of info you can happily check out.

On board modern aircraft carriers they have to monitor the movements of the workers and the objects on the deck of the ship to make sure things don't get bound up or bottleneck.

Thinking that a computer system could make the job easier to manage they went ahead and designed software to monitor and track these movements. They came to discover that using the software was actually more problematic than using actual models. It was not the fault of the software, or the user, using the software but that the simple 3D model compared to a 2D screen was a loss in performance for the system. It actually lowered the data result for the person monitoring the movements.

I am an avid user of technology but there are cases when technology simply can not solve the problem or the use of the technology actually lessens the quality of the service.

Your whole response to the worker being allowed to quit is sort of a cop out. Because we could assume the same for any scenario. We are not talking specifically about the worker but the fact that there is a demand for said worker. The riskier the job, the more benefits one will adamantly demand from the work.

You are not going to get people to be happy about placing their life in danger for the same pay as a job where there is no risk or less risk. It just won't happen without due compensation for those risks, which is usually in the form of a higher wage.

But saying all that there is still other aspects that are being neglected. There are going to be jobs that simply can not be filled by automation. That will lead to certain individuals receiving less or required to do more than another. Hench a break down in the Utopian concept, that is unless it is forced labor. But I won't go into forced labor again...

I didn't step over the point that some things can't be automated right now. In fact, I basically acknowledged it by saying that technology improves, and automation, robotics, and AI is being improved by us everyday. I'm saying that eventually the vast majority of these jobs are more than likely to be filled by machines, causing unemployment and mass decreases in consumption. This debate is going on right now in the ethics of technology.

You know, whenever someone talks about improving society, you always have cynics like you that call it utopian as a way to belittle the idea. Tell me, what is utopian about this idea?

In regards to the worker demanding more benefits, you're assuming that in a classless, moneyless society, where goods and services are distributed equally and without limits, workers will demand that they get more goods and services than someone else. That assumption has no basis in anything other than selfishness and egoism. It's actually quite petty and reflective of the values of the monetary system and the economic inequality it induces. You're stating this assumption as if it's fact.

But saying all that there is still other aspects that are being neglected. There are going to be jobs that simply can not be filled by automation. That will lead to certain individuals receiving less or required to do more than another. Hench a break down in the Utopian concept, that is unless it is forced labor. But I won't go into forced labor again...

How can social contact, based upon emerging centralisation and growth of the state in the 17th century, remotely close to the very decentralised and anti-statist feudal system?

On this front, and in an attempt to inject a little on-topicness, it isn't necessary either to automate everything or force labour. As I said in the OP, people will work of their own volition as a course to increase their personal wealth, however that wealth is measured. Rejecting money or personal property is not a key tenet of anarchism in the broadest sense - only the rejection of the state unifies all anarchisms. If the best job available is in the sewers, someone will do it. One's person's crutch is another's advantage.

---------- Post added at 12:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:48 PM ----------

Anarchism is a great ideal political philosophy. It's certainly a good thing promote the ideal, not least because anything that hurts unthinking dogma (and we are unthinkingly dogmatic about democracy) is a good idea.

In practise, I believe anarchism is not feasible on these population density scales. Anarchism relies on the decision of the individual to be social or be isolationist, and since the former has much greater survival advantages, the former is chosen. It is the individual who creates the government.

This either/or cannot occur with modern population levels (by modern, I mean like the last thousand years). A single self-ruling nation is impossible and local self-ruling groups are open targets for exploitation by antisocial elements. Because the population is so dense, such elements never face an isolationist existence.

This prediction is what gave anarchy a bad name - it became synonymous with chaotic self-indulgence and exploitation via activities we associate with crime in our current society. Anarchy connotatively came to mean an orgy of crime, and anarchists had to change their name to anarchism to rid themselves of those connotations, but the fundamental problem hasn't gone away. Anarchism can only succeed in the absence of anonymity, and high population densities ensure some level of anonymity.

I don't believe that anarchism or self-government is unfeasible. I believe that we've been brainwashed into believing that it's unfeasible. I do, however, agree that it wouldn't work in the current economic system we have because of the crime that this current system generates. I believe that anarchism can only work in a society that doesn't run on monetary exchange for goods and services, and where goods and services are distributed equally by the community itself.

Desire, desire for a better way drives us to examine alternative societies, the problem is we cant change society in revolutionary ways like it may have been possible in the late 19c and early 20c.Gradual progressive realisations of our limitations by the current mode of state control may bring a modification if both sides accept their need to change.Mass unrest would lead to unimaginable suffering,we must learn to adapt rather than throw Molotov's at our repressive democracies.

I think this ignores the fact that the success of the original anarchisms - early socal groups - was in survival advantage over antisocial or non-social activity. Social groups were small (not anonymous) and widely spread. A freeloader exploiting one group would be rejected by that group, leaving the freeloader isolated. Even if the freeloader happened upon another social group, they wouldn't likely accept him because they didn't recognise him as part of that group - he would be seen as a competitor only.

This cannot work with present day population levels. The social groups are too large and too close together, allowing a freeloader to run a savage burn on one group and move on to the next. The social groups would naturally become the exploited masses of a new burdgeoning elite to their own detriment.

This isn't being blinded by the current system - it's a simple description of how people behave. I've thought long and hard about the feasibility of anarchism because I do believe, in principle, it is the more just method of government. But anarchism relies on providing a survival advantage to social behaviour. Anarchism in today's population levels would provide a massive survival advantage in choosing antisocial behaviour.

When you say freeloader, what exactly do you mean?

Are you saying that humans will be anti-social without the existence of a state or central authority?

Doesn't that contradict the highly social element of human nature? Also, the community could still exile individuals who do not uphold the ethics of the community.

Preventative measures, like education and community reinforcement, can be very effective in preventing corrosive behavior. Punishment can still be enforced by exile or self-defense, and rehabilitation for corrosive behavior, while encouraged by the community, can still be voluntary like the rehabilitation of drug addicts.

In reference to your original post; are you saying that the state should provide goods and services in light of the unfair demands that it forces on the individual? Is this not statist-communism?

The freeloader is the biggest threat to a self-governing group: the individual who takes what he can and gives nothing back. Like a pirate.

No, like I said, naturally forming self-governing social groups encourage social behaviour, so long as the options are either join in or fend for yourself.

The highly social element of human nature is the recognition than it's advantageous to work together than work alone. BTW I'm not saying all individuals will tend toward antisocial behaviour, simply that, in a population of our magnitude, there will be many antisocial elements. It stands to reason: if there's a resource, someone will exploit it. Dense anarchic groups are a resource.

As for exile, dense populations are more anonynous - we cannot account for everybody. We may exile one freeloader who will just move into another group, while accepting another freeloader exiled from another group. Because the population density is so large and groups so close together, we cannot form small enough and disparate enough groups that may self-govern - the competition is simply too high.

Yes. Minimum dietary requirements met and reasonable housing and clothing provided for every individual irrespective of their contribution to society. Employment should not be a survival concern. It's the only just approach.

But this is not to say that all goods and services should be provided free - simply basic human needs the right to which the state has robbed from the individual. Above our minimum requirements, we may purchase food, confectionary, clothes, cars, toys, books, whatever in the fashion of our favoured capitalist democracy. And people will spend. People have been shown to spend money they don't even have on things they don't need to survive. It goes without saying the economy is vouchsafed even when people don't need to spend to survive.

So you're saying that people will steal the goods of the anarchistic society? Why would they steel if the goods were provided for free? It would be impossible to steal the goods if you're a part of the community because the resources belong to everyone within the community.

I'm confused. So now you're saying anarchistic self-government would work if it provides those two options?

So some people will be anti-social for the sake of being anti-social?

Why would they exploit a resource if there's no value in exploiting the resource? Are you saying that groups will form outside of the anarchistic governments and will become pirates?

That would seem to be counter productive to the person who wishes to exploit the resources of the anarchistic communities, as it would make it harder for them to survive, and the anarchistic communities would defense themselves at all costs. The odds and benefits are against him no matter which way you look at it.

Pirates do what they do for the same reason all economic criminals (crimes for profit or related to goods) do what they do. Pirates and all thieves rob and steal because goods and services are not distributed equally. The goods produced by the resources will be provided to everyone free of charge and without limits.

Can you use a more specific term than freeloader, like pirate or thief if that's what you mean?

The anarchistic communities can be federated on an international level, making it impossible for the pirate to hide without a notice being sent to every community within the federation. If the thief is anonymous, then there is always defense of the resources.

Then again, I don't know if there would be a such thing as a thief if that person is a part of the community. The goods produced by the resources are as much his property as anyone else within the community. If it's a person who has isolated themselves for some senseless reason, then the anarchistic communities will have to defend themselves against pirates.

Are you insisting that we maintain the monetary system or that we discard it. This is very important because you're talking about the state providing goods free of charge.

If you favor keeping the monetary system, then how would the state be able to afford this welfare system? Wouldn't you need to highly tax the wealthiest to give to those of lower classes? That's more like socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat.