Great post. [:D]
No. It would be a (large) step towards true mob-rule, however. Democracy is evil; why would you want a purer form of evil?
If you were interested in being the second coming of Stalin would you fancy your chances more in a country subscribing to representative democracy or in a country subscribing to direct democracy? I am most interested in throwing logs at the feet of prospective Stalins. Mobs are much more benign in comparison, I am happy to take my chances with them.
Let me remind you the institution of plebiscite is the most used in Switzerland. The country hosted Lenin and a host of other agitators for a time, but somehow not one of them found it fertile ground for an old fashioned totalitarian takeover.
No changes we want are necessarily possible. But if it could be fixed, all you would have to do is allow anyone opt out of it that wants to.
Marko,
Good post man. Some real food for thought there.
Bigger than Russia?
that is why the united states is constitutional republic with checks and balances not a democracy
Folks need to go back and watch the two videos I posted…
What I really get from it is necessity for two-pronged resistance. Everybody is always saying how guerillas always win and that you can not win when you are fighting not an army but a people. Maybe that is true if moral victory is meant because it is certainly not true in the physical sense. Where are now guerillas in Western Armenia? How long now until they prevail?
I notice that many anarchists are enthusiastic about non-violent resistance. I think this is great. Non-violence is a great way of paralysing the enemy. It is the best weapon in the arsenal of the propaganda war, which is the war to de-legitimize the enemy war effort. It cuts down on his room for manoeuvre until he is left without any means of fighting you. It worked great for Nelson Mandela, Bobby Sands and Ghandi (who IMO was foremost a conniving pragmatic who saw passive resistance as the most efficient strategy open to Indians). But it would have done diddly-squat if they had been dealing instead with Einsatzgruppen or the NKVD. Against a certain kind of enemy non-violent resistance and all the propaganda effort in the world will do absolutely nothing.
So in such a case the only resistance that actually constitutes resistance is the kind with rifle in hand. As said picking up a rifle and playing guerilla is no guarantee of victory but it certainly has its place. Anybody would have advised the German Jews in 1941, not to go stage some sits ins, but to start shooting, which would have given them slightly better chances of survival.
But on the other hand lets take the Irish who, had they spent the same amount of time ambushing the Brits they spent singing songs about ambushing the Brits, would have inflicted something like half a million casualties. Lets imagine that instead of most of them just complaining vocally about the British, they had in 1919 to the man walked into the forest, put on war paint and proceeded to extinguish a company worth of British every day and then for good measure if at all possible impaled their heads on pikes. When would they achieve their independence and at what cost? Maybe after several decades and hundreds of thousands of dead. And certainly no John Lennon nor Paul McCarthy would have ever written a pro-Irish song. They would have been absolutely foolish to do this. Being English speakers and having access to the British press and the parliament their position was much stronger in the moral sphere than in the physical sphere so it is only correct that they concentrated their effort on an enemy weak point rather than its strong point. Even ostensibly terrorist PIRA was later acutely aware of this. They quickly learned that the only sort of bomb planting in England that actually advanced rather than put back their cause was the sort they warned about before the detonation so that nobody died in it.
There were even cases where the whole war was won without firing a shot, solely through the use of non-violent resistance, in a sense this was the case with every peaceful instance of de-colonialization and with the disintegration of the USSR and so forth, but because no fighting took place we do not even think of it as a war when it really is. The case that best demonstrates that this is the case that I know of is what is called the Green March. In 1975 Morocco sent an army to occupy Spanish Sahara and to end Spanish rule there. The twist - this army consisted of unarmed civilians thus the Spanish troops could not fire on it. It was a de-colonial war won solely by the means of propaganda war that de-legitimized and paralysed the enemy - a non-violent march of 350,000 people.
Of course had the Spanish been real baddies that would not have been possible. So what I am saying is that in most wars of liberation the propaganda aspect is in theory as important as the physical aspect and also that in most cases both are required. Even where de-colonialisation happened peacefully it would for the most part not have happened without the understanding of colonialist powers that resistance is non-violent only for the time being and that unless they retreat violent resistance will follow eventually. At the same time however even in as vicious war of de-colonialisation as was the American War in Vietnam propaganda war played an enormous role. The US had within its arsenal the means to kill every last Vietnamese. Who is to say that without the efforts of American socialists and radicals (who were really on the side of the Vietnamese as far as propaganda war was concerned) the Vietnamese would not have suffered the fate of Armenians or American Indians?
Think of the rifle-in-hand resistance as the land forces and propaganda efforts (including non-violent resistance) as the strategic forces. The guerillas or the land forces fight the enemy forces deployed on the ground while the propagandists or the strategic forces are making it harder for the enemy to send in replacements and reinforcements.
So how much of each to use? How should the capital be divided between the direct and the strategic option? Well this is where a fully voluntary society shines. We let the market decide. No central planning. Who the hell knows how much resources should go into each? How do you even begin to determine this? There are so many factors to take into account. Communications, language, cultural differences, existing attitudes, military situation… Simply every person decides for himself so you end up with the balance that takes into account a giant base of knowledge and opportunities.
So while there are no guarantees that resistance like this has to be successful - there are no guarantees that even if you have great number of active fighters and succeed in greatly limiting what forces the enemy may deploy against you that those forces won’t be sufficient to kill or imprison every one of you in a giant Waco reenactment regardless - compulsion free society has to have the best chance of emerging victorious and victorious at the lowest price in death and suffering possible from a situation like this because it has to be the best manager of its resources and will strike the near optimal balance between shooting and broadcasting.
And it would seem I am not at all in uncharted territory.
Well, that’s would indeed seem to make sense. But than we’d fail to explain why such flaties as the , and , although being ripe for the taking (militarily) when never even invaded (OK, skip Hitler). would just seem to be one more case of a country which, due to its liberalism, should have been off-limits militarily. So again, there must be something else.
But you post brought an idea to mind: the , and demark, although liberal, where not decentralized, while and where. So, perhaps a decentralized polity can only be sustained in a naturally dispersed environment, i.e. mountainous range. Folks, I’m moving north
I posit that a region could be politically decentralized, but would have to have some other sense of solidarity against the more statist neighbors to survive. Take the Boers vs. the Asian Indians in their attempts to repel the English. I agree that geography can help, but I don’t think it is completely necessary.
I agree, and I’m very tempted to hark back to “breaking points” as the deciding factor.
The Netherlands was not decentralised? The Seven Provinces were not decentralised? It was a confederation. The most decentralised polity on the continent bar HRE.
Belgium only exists since the 1830s. It is an artificial buffer state owing its existence and continued survival to great power politics so I really don’t know why are you bringing it up. Its survival showcases just about nothing.
Don’t modify facts to fit your points now. Poland was not liberal. Powerful magnates being free from worry that their serfs will seek redress with the king or the courts is not liberalism. The liberal constitution of 1791 was specifically designed to take power away from the magnates and made certain to do away with liberum veto.
Oh what a mystery indeed. Maybe you have not heard of Concert of Europe and of balance of power politics? You don’t just go around invading anyone you can defeat 1 on 1.
So, you’re advocating a central power to strip (abusive) power form local lords? Can any large state be any better than many small states? Would become liberal by centralizing political power and alow its parliament to legislate everything a majority could ask for?
What I’ve always found annoying in socialist versions of history is that every time some socialist government flops (every time, that is) they come up with “but that was not socialism, that was [insert stupid legal term here]”. That fails to convince. We should not step into the same shoes: “ failed but it was not liberal although it possesses all the attributer that should have made it liberal. was decentralizes in a feudal way, not liberal way, it was tolerant in a tribal way, not liberal way, it prevented liberal central powers, not a statist central power. You see, is liberal (because it’s successful), is feudal (because it failed”.
So, why failed to become liberal (suppose that) even if it had all the right institutions?
So, , the and remained unviolated because balance of power required it, while was demeed sacrificable? Or Hitler refused to invade (mountainous) and (plain) because of balance-of-powers considerations (or aout of fear of their mighty armies?)? Balance-of-powers was a result, not the cause, of European peace. Peace only materialized because the costs of invading a free-trading, free-immigration country that more than the invasion turns up. So, again, why did fail to develop free trade, protection of foreign capital and immigration even if it had a perfectly decentralized, ala Hoppe, political structure?
Not only that, but it was invaded twice in that period, and its existence was mostly during the “100 years peace”.
Take Austria-Hungary and Serbia in 1914, for instance.
At waging war, certainly.
I think it depends on what era of history you are speaking of. By the third partition of Poland, Belgium did not yet exist, Denmark and Norway were still one country, and the Netherlands were a global empire, rich enough to hire enough Hessians to lay a serious smackdown, and they could also cut off the spice import to your neighborhood.
Sweden had claimed neutrality, had a somewhat fascistic monarchy in place and was willing to cooperate with the Germans. Why bother invading?
Because foreign nationals asserting monopoly of control over large ethnically diverse populations does not a liberal, decentralized state make.
So you made a reply of some length in which you made no mention of the issue of centralisation/decentralisation of the Netherlands? I suppose it is better than if you persisted in your folly and continue to claim it was not decentralised, but I think an admission that what you claimed as fact was completely false and that just the opposite was the case would have been better - and appropriate.
I am not advocating anything. I am discussing history. You are the ideologue with an agenda/pet theory here.
At the core of what freedom is are property rights. A system which empowers property owners is a system compatible with freedom and a system which empowers aggressors against property owners is a system which hinders freedom. Since serfs are the rightful owners of the land they work a system which grants them the most means of defence of their property is that which does the most for freedom. This is what is meant by liberalism among libertarians.
Says Mr.Breaking Point.
What are you talking about? Who said anything about her having all the right institutions? Stop making all these half-baked assumptions.
While everyone else here, me included, treads cautiously freely admitting they don’t have an extensive knowledge of Poland you feel yourself easily qualified to drop in with such heavy hitters as “decentralized political system, venetian style elective monarchy, a good army, legendary tolerance and liberal climate and an almost totally paralytic central government” and “all the right institutions”.
What are you talking about? I don’t know that Poland had all the right institutions. I don’t know that it had all the wrong institutions. I just know enough to know it was not liberal.
What now, we are going to have a discussion about 18th century geopolitics?
The partition of Poland could happen precisely because it did not threaten the balance of power. Since it was neighboured by three separate powers all interested in her territory they could divide it jointly and thus none of them would gain an advantage over the other two.
Had in place of working jointly one of them schemed to gobble up the whole of Poland for itself the other two however would need to intervene.
Also important was that Sweden and the Ottomans the two powers which had an interest in a strong Poland to act as counterbalance to Russia and Austria had by this time entered a steep decline and were thus unable to intervene.
So now we are going to talk about what went on in Hitler’s mind??
Hitler did not invade Switzerland because it was a near worthless piece of real-estate. It has absolutely no strategic value whatsoever. Why waste troops that can be used in places that actually matter on the arsehole of Europe?
He did not invade Sweden because he did not need to. Everything he wanted from Sweden (iron and volunteers for 5th SS ) he could get without invading them. He did however invade Norway to make sure that that was the case.
This is even bigger nonsense than the centralised Netherlands assertion. This really discredits you as someone knowledgeable of history. No matter how internally liberal and thus prosperous small states could only survive because Europe was relatively politically fragmented and thus there were always multiple rival major powers nearby to guarantee the independence of small states against each other since their failing into the hands of a major power competitor would increase the power of their competitor in relation to them. Great Britain, the status quo power par excellence, spent a quarter of a millenium involving itself in continental wars for just this purpose - to maintain a continental balance of power so as to prevent a rise of a continental state powerful enough that it would be able to outmuscle it on the seas.
For a free society to emerge and flourish there seems to be a few prerequisites. One of the most important being a population that feels secure from aggression. The small nations on the continient were relatively secure because their large neighbors found them to be more useful as buffer states or political pawns.
England tended to have one of the weaker central governments (relative to the times) than other major powers. This was in part due to it being geographicly isolated as an island. The United States also has a strong tradition of freedom in large part due to there being an ocean between it and any dangerous states.
Poland was under constant threat of military and political aggression from its neighbors. Russia and Prussia were in the middle of rapid territorial expansions and the resources in Polish territory were more valuable than a Polish state.
You’re very right, and I was very wrong about the Netherlands being centralized. I just avoided mentioning it since I know how “trigger-happy” can I become and produce long posts, so I try my bets to cut non-debatable issues. But than again, that was my mistake.
I don’t necessarily agree with serfs being rightful, homesteading owners of land (suppose that McDonald’s employees are considered ‘rightful owners of the place’ 2000 years form now) , but let’s skip that point as it is of scan interest in this thread.
Now, I have a habit of skipping intermediate steps in brevity’s sake, and that is often confusing. I stopped wandering what a libertarian system was supposed to be some time ago, and instead I started wondering (and still am) which institutions can bring abut such system. So, let’s skip the fact that Poland was well-know n as a very tolerant place and just say that it was not liberal at all, or at least less so than its neighbors. The most important question remains, namely how can Poland be illiberal while having what one expects to be liberal institutions? And this brings us to…
That’s what I know to be true from my scant knowledge of the country and period in question. If you pretend me to put a “that’s only a tentative and non scientific-grade research though but I have the impression that…” before my every statement, do so yourself before asking it of others. I have always assumed, in every discussion, that that was implied in everyone’s comments, uncles the posts explicitly speaks of someone largel-than-average knowledge in some field.
Now, I’m sorry I’ll have to quote form the Wikipedia article, but if you know of autors who disagree with the following descriptions, I will take back such claims.
“Golden Liberty [the political doctrine of the day - my comment] created a state that was unusual for its time, although somewhat similar political systems existed in the contemporary city-states like the Republic of Venice.”
A konfederacja was an ad hoc association formed by Polish-Lithuanian nobility, clergy, cities or military forces in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the attainment of stated aims. Such “confederations” acted in lieu of state authority [emphasis mine] or to force their demands upon that authority." [an ad-hoc union? To me, it seems much better than devolution of powers to local constables - the ‘normal’ road to decentralization]
That is just my perception. Feel free to challenge it
.
" Each new king had to subscribe to King Henry’s Articles, which were the basis of Poland’s political system (and included near-unprecedented guarantees of religious tolerance)"[emph. mine]
As per Liberum Veto.
Now, do these seem like institutions that would, in theory, further liberalism? They certainly seem so to me.
You are right, it was my bad to indulge in such discussions. It strayed us far from the theme.
Perhaps well get the chance elsewhere to discuss how foolish it is to except small states to retain independence (instead of being partitioned like all war conferences have done) because there are a few major powers around.
That’s me![;)] Well, I try to employ what to me would seem a fair amount of reason and to me would likewise seem some degree of praxeological and historical knowledge to my breaking point analysis, while just saying “yes, both Poland and Switzerland had similar institutions but one became liberal and the other disappeared altogether because the neighbors of the latter decided so” is not very convincing. But than again, it’s just me.
So, in general my question is this: if Poland was a decentralized and tolerant polity (at least more so than its neighbors), how could it succumb to such neighbors? Entirely a matter of combined military might? Perhaps, it’s just that feel uneasy with such “they had bigger armies” explanations.