Suppose I own a chemical company and I have two options for disposing waste, a cheap option and an expensive option. The cheap option is to just pour the waste directly into the river. The expensive option is to buy a $100M waste treatment machine which keeps the chemicals out of the river. If I pour the waste into the river, the town downstream will need to buy a $100M water treatment upgrade to prevent the chemicals from enter their drinking water.
No matter which option I choose, the cost of disposing my chemical company's waste is $100M. The only difference is whether I pay the cost, or I unload the cost onto the residents of the town. Choosing to make others pay is called "externalizing" the cost, or creating a negative externality. In a way, my externalizing the cost is a way of transferring $100M out of the pockets of the community members and into mine. By forcing them to pay for my costs I rightfully owe them the money I pocketed. But, as long as the government doesn't force me to pay, I can get away with this theft. In the example, the cost I'm saving by dumping is the same as the cost the community is losing. Overall, the cost to society is the same, it's just a question of who's paying for it. But, in reality, externalizing a cost can make the overall cost to society much higher than if the people responsible had just paid it themselves. And it is also not always so clear what constitutes an externalized cost, and what's just an unfortunate cost of an industry existing. There are two ways to assess whether a business or industry is illegitimately dumping it's costs on society: our intuitive way, and a more objective way. Intuitively, we expect that if everyone does something one way, and they always have, then it's fine. So, if a certain kind of cost has always been externalized, we may not judge it to be an externalized cost (especially if it's not obvious how the business could have avoided externalizing that cost). But, rather than just going on our intuitions, we can approach the question systematically in order to develop a clear picture of who is really responsible for paying for what. For any possible act that could be performed by an industry, business or individual, we can make a comparison between the total state-of-affairs of how the world would be if they don't perform the act, and how it would be if they do perform the act. For any act that anyone would be interested in performing, there will be some expected positive consequences, even if those positive consequences are only of benefit to the those performing the act. For almost all acts there will also be negative consequences. When we add up all the consequences - that is, all the ways that the act-performed world would be different from the act-not-performed world - we can determine if the act had an overall positive or negative effect. While this is an overly simplified account of how to evaluate an act, we can see how this kind of approach can help us decide whether an act should be performed or not. This thought experiment alone doesn't tell us whether any costs have been externalized or not. Figuring that out requires an extra step. But before getting to that, some people may be wondering if it is really possible to objectively evaluate various consequences to be positive or negative. If someone has a speaker playing music on the bus, some people might evaluate it as positive and others as negative. Using the method described above, two different people might come up with different ways of evaluating the consequences of an act, making the whole exercise worth nothing more than someone's biased opinion. To be more objective, we can imagine finding out how much money it would be worth to society as a whole to choose one state-of-affairs over the other as an average of everyone's (idealized perfectly-informed) opinion. This way, we're not just adding up all the positive and negative consequences of an act, we're also averaging every person's individual evaluation and weighting those evaluations appropriately. Thinking back to the example of the chemical company dumping waste into the river, we can see how this rough evaluation method works. For acts in which costs are externalized, the externalizer's evaluation of state-of-affairs in which the cost is externalized will be have a positive monetary value (otherwise they wouldn't be interested in externalizing the cost in the first place), whereas the average evaluation of that state-of-affairs by all other people will have a negative monetary value (otherwise no costs would be externalized). But such an evaluation doesn't necessarily imply that the act shouldn't occur. For example, imagine again that the only consequence of my chemical company dumping waste in the river was that the town had to upgrade water treatment, but now suppose the upgrade would only cost $50M rather than $100M. That means that the total value of dumping the waste into the river is positive $100M to me and negative $50M to everyone else. If we add up the positive and negative consequences of dumping, we end up with positive $50M. In this limited example in which we don't have any other concerns (environmental or otherwise) to worry about, it makes the most sense to dump the waste into the river. But that still doesn't solve the problem of me stealing $50M (the cost of the water treatment upgrade) from the community members. While dumping in the river is the right choice in this case, the financial outcome isn't. Because a cost is being externalized, I now owe the community members the $50M it is costing them.
0 Comments
The combined implications of our behaviour and conscious beliefs form our extended beliefs. Extended beliefs constitute our entire understanding of the universe. When there's a conflict between any two extended beliefs, we experience dissonance and angst. For example, when I ate meat, my behaviour implied some blend of the following extended beliefs: that the animals were not suffering, that my eating the meat wasn't causing the animals to suffer, that it didn't matter if the animals suffered, etc. However, such extended beliefs were in conflict with other extended beliefs that implied that I was causing animals to suffer unnecessarily, and that I shouldn't eat meat. Deep down my extended beliefs included the knowledge that, if I had personally and intimately known any of the animals I was eating, I would have loved them and my heart would have broken seeing them killed. My general understanding of the world implied that I was causing the murder of beings that mere circumstance had prevented me from knowing and loving. In order to continue eating meat, which I enjoyed, I was forced to suppress from consciousness the conflict among my extended beliefs. I had to board up part of my mind and forbid myself from thinking certain thoughts. My mind had to constantly fight with itself, and my refusal to face the truth prevented me from being at peace. My later choice to observe the truth required me to stop eating meat, and in doing so, I was able to more comfortably see the universe the way my extended beliefs required.
Even though I've been able to free myself from my angst-causing self-deception in regards to eating meat, I'm still not whole. I am fully aware that there are people in this world who are in desperate poverty. I am fully aware that climate change is likely going to drive millions of future humans and sentient non-human animals into extreme suffering and premature death. I am fully aware that the billionaire-class uses control over essential resources to obtain wage slaves who do their bidding. I am also am fully aware that problems are getting worse, and that if nothing is done, they will cause more and more desperation. In the same way that it's only by chance I don't intimately know and love any of the animals I used to eat, it is similarly by chance that I don't know and love any of the people whose lives are in danger. Somewhere there is an impoverished parent who would easily give everything to save their child at risk. It is only by chance that I don't love that child, but I have the means to contribute towards saving them and many others. I live a privileged lifestyle in a wealthy country. I spend my money consuming things that the parent would happily give up to save their child. I consume when I could participate in saving someone who only by chance do I not know and love. If I continue to consume, I will be forced back into blinding myself to the extended reality in my mind. I will be forced back into an unconscious conflict with myself, and I will continue to not be at complete peace. There are a number of different questions one can mean when one asks which political ideology you subscribe to. One question might be: "What is the ideal form of social organization that we should aspire to?" Another might be: "What should we make happen right now (in order to eventually reach the ideal)?" Or, a third might be: "Of the real possibilities available to us right now, which is the most agreeable?"
It's easy to conceive of situations in which these three questions have very different answers, that is, when achieving the ideal is only possible through a series of less than ideal situations - perhaps even some situations which are worse at that moment than some other available situations. If a person says their goal is to have bread, we don't criticize them as being inconsistent when, in the absence of bread, they eat potatoes or make dough. In such a situation, it's clear to us that the reason the person isn't eating bread is because bread isn't available, and that making dough doesn't mean the person isn't, in the long run, actually making bread. An "anarchist", in the sense of "a person who views the ideal social organization to be state-free (or, better, coercion-free)", isn't inconsistent for supporting, say, environmental protection laws - which can only exist in the context of the state. Perhaps the anarchist in question sees the progression of society towards a stable anarchism as involving a first step of having environmental protection laws. Or perhaps the anarchist in question thinks that anarchy is an ideal that society isn't presently capable of, and that, in the interim, it would be best to protect the environment. None of these positions make that person less of an anarchist in the sense of believing anarchy to be the ideal state of affairs. A person's place of birth (and who they discover their parents to be) is entirely a matter of luck. If you are born in a rich place, you are just lucky. And if you are born in a poor place, you are just unlucky. The only reason we're the ones deciding who can come into a country, rather than the people coming into the country, is the luck of having been born here. Luck is not a legitimate basis for power over where other people are allowed to live. We have no moral right to deny someone the freedom to live in any particular region of the world.
Step 1) Clearly define the policy of contention.
Many disputes arise due to miscommunication. The effort to isolate a simple, practical policy proposal may reveal that, you actually agree. Otherwise, clearly stating the contentious policy allows the remaining conversation to stay on topic and avoid shifting goal posts. Example: Imposing a 2% wealth tax on assets over $100,000,000. Step 2) Identify the costs and benefits of the contentious policy according to the each of the proponent and opponent. All policies are aimed towards one or more ends. Futhermore, all policies have unintended but foreseeable costs and benefits. The proponent and opponent of the contentious policy should each prepare their own list clearly identifying the significant costs and benefits that would result from implementation of the policy. Example: Benefits - Slowing the rate of increasing inequality which is corrupting our political system, generating revenue to fund additional education and create jobs in the education sector. Costs - Spurring capital flight. Step 3) Identify all significant points of disagreement Compare and contrast the two lists and the degree to which each cost and benefit is perceived by each party to weigh in on their overall assessment of the policy. If, after examining the lists, you now agree on the issue of whether the sum of the consequences of the policy would be positive or negative, the dispute is over. Otherwise, identify which aspects of the list you disagree on. There are two ways you can disagree: 1) you disagree on what certain consequences will be, or 2) you disagree on whether certain consequences are positive, negative or even important. Enumerate each significant difference of opinion in the list, and determine whether it is a disagreement of type 1 or 2. Step 4) Using a thought experiment, confirm that you have discovered all the essential sources of the disagreement . The proponent and opponent should each perform the following thought experiment: Suppose each of the enumerated differences of opinion (from step 3) turned out to align with the other person's view. Then ask yourself, if that were true, would your opinion on the policy proposal change? If the enumerated differences of opinion contain the source of the disagreement, both the proponent and opponent of the policy should admit that their opinion on the policy proposal would change. If one or the other party does not think their opinion would change, then return to step 2. Step 5) Using a thought experiment, eliminate nonessential sources of the disageement. It's possible that the enumerated differences of opinion from step 3 include disagreements which aren't relevant to the broader issue about the policy. In order to stay focussed, it is important to eliminate these. We can do that by refining the thought experiment from step 4. Rather than considering how the parties' opinions would change if all of the enumerated differences of opinion from step 3 were to align with the other person's view, now consider how the parties' opinions would change with each of the enumerated differences of opinion individually, one at a time. If one of the party's opinions on the broader policy issue would change on a change to just one of the enumerated differences of opinion, then all others can be discarded. Similarly, different combinations can be considered. If one of the party's opinions would change considering a combination of fewer factors, then that also allows for other factors to be eliminated. After this step, we have isolated the core reason for the disagreement over policy. Step 6) Repeat steps 1-5 to now isolate the reasons for the differing opinion on the reasons isolated through stage 1. Set aside the first disagreement (stage 1), and now start again to work on stage 2. Recall that there are two kinds of factors you may have isolated in stage 1: 1) you disagree on what certain consequences will be, or 2) you disagree on whether certain consequences are positive, negative or even important. If one of the factors discovered from stage 1 is of type 1, you will need to consider evidence and other reasons for believing what consequences will follow from the policy. If the factor is type 2. You will have to consider your reasons for believing something to be important. There are proper and improper uses of tools. A hammer is properly used to drive a nail and improperly used to smash someone's head. Money is also a tool. It is properly used as a way to exchange goods for labour and a way to save value for later use. Money has an improper use too: to accumulate the power to coerce others into relinquishing their money.
The fact that someone has accumulated some wealth doesn't mean they should be able to do whatever they want with it. We can all agree that smashing someone's head with a hammer is wrong. One's *ownership* of the hammer is irrelevant. Why then should we think that using wealth to take money from others is okay? There are two kinds of income: the product of work and the product of investment. In some cases they're intermingled (like in the case of business owners who are involved in the operations of the business) but even then it's possible to estimate how much of the income is of each kind by hypothetically imagining separating the ownership role and the work role.
Income from investment is nothing more than a portion of wealth that was created by someone's work, but which is taken by owners simply because of the power that owners possess. To demonstrate this, we can note that investment income is directly transferrable into the work of other people and the products of their work, but requires no work on the part of the investor (sometimes the capital came from work, but the investment income did not). Furthermore, if investors didn't have power, they wouldn't receive any income. The reason I pay my landlord rent is because he has the power to kick me out; I pay him for permission to live here. That's the basic relationship in all investment income. Generally, it's not legit to take something that someone else has worked for simply because you have power over them, but that's not the biggest problem. The big problem is that investment income compounds over time. So, if one person owns a lot, and someone else doesn't own anything, it's easier for the person who owns a lot to expand that ownership and take even more in the future. As long as we think investment income is legit, inequality will continue to increase and spiral out of control. It's commendable if you've saved a pile of wealth entirely from working and haven't earned a cent from investments, but that's rarely the case. In today's vastly unequal world, most ownership is the product of past investment income. A not-anarchist recently gave their attempt at describing anarchism: "I realized that the most meaningful form of anarchism is one that seeks to minimize concentrated power, ie, power concentrated in the hands of a few. It, rather, seeks to spread out power as evenly as possible. (Not completely, but just as much as possible and reasonable, which is, btw, far different from our world today.) Thus, for example, meaningful anarchism seeks _not_ to rid us of govt (for then we'd just get corporations or other powerful individuals or groups taking over ), but rather to have the minimal amount of government we need so that other such groups can't dominate our lives with the exercise of their _own_ (eg corporate) powers. That it is, it seeks a govt that is only just big enough (which would be a LOT smaller and much different from what we have now.)"
That's almost, but not exactly anarchism. True anarchism is against government entirely - even a minimal government. The nuance of the theory isn't in the SIZE of government, but rather in the definition. First of all, anarchists aren't against social organization, as long as people's participation is voluntary and free from coercion. So anarchists are only against coercive forms of government (which is basically anything we commonly think of as a government anyway). Not often discussed, however, is that anarchists are not just against "government" coercion, they're against any kind of coercion at all. So, if an anarchist is against a semi-democratic government (like ours), that anarchist would be doubly against the "corporations or other powerful individuals or groups taking over". A society isn't an anarchist one as long as ANYONE is being coercive and exercising power over others. Trading a coercive "government" institution for a coercive "non-government" institution doesn't move us towards anarchy - and in many cases, eliminating a socialist, liberal democratic government in favour of unchecked authoritarian rule by some non-government people with big guns would be a move even farther away from anarchy. So, there are degrees in how close any given state of affairs is to anarchism and the question of how close we are doesn't hinge on how much "government" there is, but rather how much coercion there is. A democracy is closer to anarchism than a dictatorship, and a direct, consensus-based decision-making system is even closer still. A liberal legal system limited to compassionate treatment of troubled people who perform harmful antisocial acts is closer to anarchism than a restrictive legal system which metes out harsh punishment to deviants. An unarmed group of deescalation-oriented peacekeepers is closer to anarchism than a heavily-armed, aggressive police force. A system with more commons is closer to anarchism than one in which everything is privately owned. A more equal distribution of goods is closer to anarchism than extreme inequality. Ultimately, an anarchist doesn't distinguish any difference in principle between a "government" and, say, playground bullies. They are both just groups of people using threats to make you do what they say. True anarchy requires building a society in which nobody is even trying to control others. We need to build a society of caring, intelligent people. That's why an anarchist utopia may be a long time off in the future. Someone recently asked a question in a forum: Question: How do you prevent people from taking control in an anarchist society? Seems you need coercion, which means you need people in positions of power, which means anarchy is impossible so long as they are those who want to control others. And there are always those types. This is the major point of confusion for most non-anarchists. Understanding anarchism requires turning things on their head and looking at politico-economics from a completely different perspective. Anarchism is not exactly what people think it is. Bear with me. First of all, you have to look at the political spectrum in terms of degrees. Take a look at this graph: Every society in history has fallen somewhere in the middle of this graph. The extremes are all impossible to achieve. For example, suppose in an ultimate communist society, the state controls the production of everything, and everyone gets the same package of goods which includes two loaves of bread and one bag of rice. If you don't like bread and your neighbor doesn't like rice, you will trade. But that's market trading of private property! So the society isn't ultimately communist after all - it's close, but not quite. The same applies to each of the four corners, including anarchism. The question is not "which extreme corner can we make work in theory?" because we can't make any of them work in theory. Instead, the question is, "Which direction is the best way to move?" Anarchists say we need to move in the direction of the bottom left corner. (Our society is presently rapidly moving in the direction of the top right corner.) So, your question, "How do you prevent people from taking control in an anarchist society?" is akin to asking a communist, "How do you prevent people from trading the bread they are given for the rice someone else is given?" The first answer would be, you're taking the theory to extremes and ignoring the substance. The main thing anarchists are saying is that any improvements to any society are made by moving down and to the left on that graph. The other issue is whether coercion can be good. There are two ways of interpreting that question, and so two different answers. In any instance of coercion we have two parties, the coercer and the coerced. The first way of interpreting the question is to assume we already know whether the behaviour of the coerced is being made better or worse through the act of coercion. If the power to coerce is used to stop a person from stealing, then perhaps it has done good. If the power to coerce is used to extort money from a marginalized person, then perhaps it has done bad. So sure, individual instances of coercion can have positive consequences. But that's really beside the point. The more important questions are, "How do we know, in each case, whether the coerced behavior is better than what the behavior would have been otherwise?" and "Who should be given the power to coerce who?" These two related questions are the ones we need to answer if we want to figure out how to set up an ideal society. Even if we do, as you suggest, need coercion, you must also agree that we want to avoid coercion. Your entire example demonstrates this. The very reason you are saying we need coercion is so that we can avoid "people from taking control" (a.k.a. coercion). So we need to figure out which coercion we should allow, and which coercion we should avoid. In almost every case in which we might be tempted to use coercion, the two parties (coercer and coerced) disagree on whether the coercion is good or not. There's no quick and easy way to determine, in each and every case, whether coercion would have a positive outcome. That's because we need to consider the relevant context, and what constitutes relevant context varies from case to case. Should we coerce people not to steal? It depends on the case. Consider the context of robin hood for example. There are a million examples in which theft is good and a million in which theft is bad, but the entire context needs to be taken into consideration when judging. Should we stop these revolutionaries from overthrowing the dominant regime? It depends on the case. What is the character and beliefs of the revolutionaries and the dominant regime? A group of liberal democrats overthrowing a fascist dictator is probably good (depending on the rest of the context). A group of fascists overthrowing a liberal democracy is probably bad (depending on the rest of the context). But if the coercer and coerced almost always disagree, then who should make the final call about whether the coercion in this case is good? The majority? Surely it's at least possible for the majority to be mislead or misinformed. Sometimes someone is fighting to do something wonderful for everyone, and that person is blocked by an uninformed public. What we need is for the coercer and coerced to come to an agreement about what is best. One person having the power to coerce the other eliminates agreement as a possibility, and so it thereby eliminates us ever knowing if perhaps the coerced was actually the justified party. But here's the big leap to understanding anarchism. You are concerned about people taking control, but people already have control (although it may be difficult to see because we are looking at it from inside the system). There are degrees of people having control and exploiting society. At one end of the spectrum are authoritarian dictators. Mid way along are corporate elites controlling a supposedly democratically elected liberal government. And then there are systems even less authoritarian and exploitative that have yet to be achieved - ones with consensus based decision making and worker controlled enterprise. There are some countries in which the regular police do not carry weapons and where criminals are rehabilitated rather than punished. The systems that are less authoritarian and exploitative are (by definition) more anarchist. Surely you agree that the society we presently live in is not perfect. There are two directions we can go from where we are. If our society becomes worse, and more like, say, North Korea, then we are moving in the opposite direction of anarchy. If our society becomes better, and more like Scandinavia, then we are moving in the direction of anarchy. How do you stop people from taking control in an anarchist society? Well, how do you do it even in this society? Surely there is a risk of revolution or insurgency here too. Surely some bad guy could take over somehow. What are the weak spots that we need to patch up even now? The only answer is to increase surveillance and increase the power and authority of the ruling elite. Scrap warrants, let the authorities enter everyone's home at will to search for evidence of dissent. Force everyone to wear a GPS tracker so the authorities can monitor who socializes with who. Reward the public for turning over people who criticize the current regime, then torture the critics to find out everything they know that might threaten the state. In fact, democracy itself (even as restricted as it presently is) might open the door to some popular but ultimately evil dictator - that's what happened with Hitler in Germany. So we should perhaps scrap that too. Notice something about all of these suggestions to make us safe from evil? They themselves are evil. So, how do you stop people from taking control in an anarchist society? The only answer seems to be, by simply handing over control to someone. Your solution (coercion) is the very problem you want a solution for (coercion). The power to coerce is ultimately illegitimate, and it is the very evil that democracy strives to avoid. Anarchy is just democracy taken seriously. ___ If you agree that moving down and to the left is good, then you agree that we shouldn't presently do any of those nasty security measure things I described in my last post to help prop up the current regime and prevent a regime change. Right? But if you believe we shouldn't toss away democracy and civil liberties to preserve the status quo, then WHY shouldn't we? The answer to that question is the same as the answer to the question you're asking me now: because in order to secure a system, you have to make it a shitty system that isn't worth securing. If I have to let you chain me up to prevent someone else from chaining me up, I don't really see the point. I might as well fight to simply not be chained up. Perhaps we should turn this around so you can better understand what I'm saying. How about you describe the perfect system?: one that is both secure against subversion and worthy of protection from being subverted. Then I will explain how that is problematic and then you will see that the only solution is the endless striving for greater freedom (anarchy). ___ Let me put it this way. You suggest that coercion may be necessary to prevent someone from taking control, but someone having the power to coerce simply IS someone having control. So you want to prevent someone from taking control by giving someone control. Can you see how that is self-defeating at best and perhaps even completely incoherent? If someone having control is not desirable (which you must believe it isn't if you're concerned about it being a consequence of anarchy), then surely the only state-of-affairs we should strive for is one in which nobody has control: anarchy. How do we rid the world of coercive organizations? Ha! If I knew the answer to that, I would have done it already. But seriously, I think the most important thing is having an educated public. People need critical thinking skills. People also need to realize the importance of their own engagement with social affairs. They need to see that being passive and handing over the decision making power to others is the first step in becoming a slave. As far as practical policy changes that could move us in the right direction (an anarchist direction), there are a million possible things we could do. I'll list some to give you a general sense of the kinds of changes that remove coercion from society: - Disarm police (like they have done in England) - Disarm ourselves - Replace police with specialists in the particular fields (case by case) such as deescalation of conflict, mental health, etc. - Take punishment out of the legal system, and instead use a science-based approach that helps treat and heal offenders' inclination to hurt others (like they have done in Norway) - Adopt decision making systems that are more consensus-based, direct, proportional, and preference sensitive (!!!) - Eliminate financed political campaigning and contributions to politicians - Replace all privately-owned businesses with cooperatives (!!!) - Eliminate "ownership" of land and natural resources (!!!) But, as I mentioned earlier, the further we go with these anarchist reforms, the greater and greater a degree of public education and engagement is required. So other suggestions might be: - Provide higher-quality education that focuses on (from an early age) critical thinking, logic, philosophy, radical political theory, behavioural economics, positive psychology, etc. - Make university education free of charge - Replace all privately-owned media with cooperatives - Eliminate advertising All of this together would transform the world into something much much more like an anarchist utopia. Getting there will be a long hard journey. ___ Anarchy isn't a power vacuum. A power vacuum is a bunch of people who are willing to be subjugated, but with nobody having yet stepped up to the job of subjugating them. Anarchy is a bunch of people who are not willing to be subjugated. _______ "But why would you try to stop people from being coercive by accepting people being coercive? " Because certain forms of coercion are more ethical than others. I'd rather give someone permission to force a serial killer to be held in a cell than to permit the killer to continue killing. These are very different types of coercion. One is justifiable, I think. But if you give someone power to force people to do stuff, then how do you know that the person you give power to is going to lock the serial killer in a cell rather than be a serial killer? Power corrupts. A serial killer that you haven't given power and authority to is easier to deal with than a serial killer to whom you have given power and authority. So let's not quibble over terms. If you believe that: 1) We should implement direct, consensus-based decision making systems instead of representative, "majority of votes wins" systems 2) The legal system should not include punishment but instead should care about offenders and effectively treat them for their pathology of being willing to harm others 3) Police shouldn't carry weapons, and should instead be volunteering to take the risks involved with defending society from the confused and deluded offenders in a respectful way, and, 4) The private ownership of land, natural resources, the media, and industry, is illegitimate and that these resources should be shared and managed by the people who work and live with them. Then you are, for all intents and purposes, an anarchist (or, if you prefer, a libertarian socialist). There is no substance to our debate, because we believe the exact same thing. Most people who call themselves "social democrats" would not agree to all four (or perhaps ANY) of these suggestions. However, most people who call themselves anarchists would agree to all four. It turns out that the best answer to your question is what I first gave at the beginning of this thread. Please re-read the response immediately below the graph. There are no absolutes in the real world of political economics because the realization of any ideology depends of the actions of every person in society, and it is unimaginable that every person will act in exactly the same way all the time. The world isn't crisp and neat, it's blurry and unpredictable. In any political system, purity and perfection is impossible to achieve. It is no mark against anarchism that it has this in common with every other conceivable ideology. Furthermore, when you are choosing between a set of options, each of which is marginally imperfect in a meaningless way, pointing out and harping on the imperfection of a particular option (while ignoring the faults of the other options) is not helpful. What we need to do is compare the overall quality of the options and determine which is best. In this case, anarchy wins. And it sure seems like you agree. |
Something is wrong with the world. Let's fix it. Archives
December 2020
Categories |