Anarchy is not based on politics; it is based on markets. And as noted, leadership is a marketable commodity. If you want to stick with theory, that is probably a good choice for you.
those are ?
What’s that even supposed to mean ? I was using ‘politics’ to mean interpersonal relations.
So your natural elite is concerned with politics and it’s the ‘enabler’ of peaceful activities ? You’re a typical statist who believe that peace can only exist if ‘enabled’ by some top-down, hierarchical mechanism.
But what does that have to do with being a “natural elite”. Leadership is a skill that can be learned.
It is a skill that is most likely learned from parents, hence the skill of leadership will pass down from one generation to the next.
That’s why dynastic monarchy is a god-sanctioned form of government.
I use the term “natural” in the sense that it would be an organic elite arising from the transactions of a market-based society, unlike the current elite that would never have risen to such status without government externalities.
The current ‘elite’ is an olgarchy which as you point out can’t exist in a free-market. So mentally remove all legal privileges and you’ll see that the elite/oligarchy vanishes…and no new elite takes its place, unless, again, by ‘elite’ you mean the people who make more money by voluntary means…or the best people at playing the piano, or something like that.
If you assert a right to do something, they will be the people you pay to defend that right.
How wrong you are. You see, you still believe that rights exist only if granted by the state or a quasi-state ‘voluntary’ oligarchy. But that’s not what anarcho -libertarianism is about. In a free society people will ‘naturally’ recognize individual rights and the minority who doesn’t (i.e. ordinary thieves) will be dealt with by PDAs, not by any kind of ‘natural oligarchy’.
Ironically, your description of how “natural elites” arise (I.E. “from the transcations of a market-based society”) is bottom up market democracy. Where you get the illusion that currently existing political democracy actually is bottom up is beyond me, considering that the democratic governments are still exclusive oligarchies in which the decision-making is entirely top-down in nature. Genuinely bottom-up decision-making (particularly by consumers) is actually an inherent part of market anarchism.
No. I agree that rights exist a priori, but not everybody agrees on the scope of such rights. Thus, if you assert a right to host an orgy on your front yard, you will have to pay for protection from people who don’t think you have such a right, either by buying them off or hiring a PDA with more guns than them.
Because morons elect morons. Does that help?
A public education system that Leaves No Child Behind, regardless of the fact that many of them are stupid and violent?
Hollywood?
Democratic government that asserts that every idiot with a pulse deserves a say?
Tenured professors who say rap is music just like Bach is music?
I mean, really, where could I possibly get the idea that the currently existing political democracy is actually bottom up.
No, it doesn’t help. In political democracy, the actual meaningful decision-making power is still held by an exclusive oligarchy. There is nothing bottom-up about it, policies are still set from the top-down by an elite and only certain moneyed interest groups have direct access to meaningful patronage with them. It doesn’t matter if people elect them, the people don’t actually have meaningful decision-making power. Why you fail to see this and insist on acting as if the current system is somehow actually representative of the masses is beyond me. I think the problem is that you tend to approach currently existing democracies as if they actually function as a means of public control and scrutiny. They don’t.
The public education system is run by bureaucracies. There is nothing bottom-up about it.
Are you ignorant enough to actually think the people do have a meaningful say? Seriously, you should know better.
What does this have to do with anything (other than your personal preferance for music, which is irrelevant)?
Because you should very well know that public control in a so-called democracy is illusory! Democracy is just an ideological tenet to achieve legitimacy by fooling the people into thinking that they are in control of things. Unfortunately, you’ve actually bought into the bullshit that it actually is publicly controlled, only you approach it from the perspective of a conservative hatred for the commoners. Come on, you should know better than to accept the assumption that the public actually controls things in our political systems. Just because a political system has elections and a small elite of so-called representatives doesn’t mean that people have any meaningful decision-making power over policy.
The current system exists because the masses want it. If they didn’t, we would have a different system. Recall that virtually all the ruling monarchies were overthrown by democratic majorities.
That claim is nonsense, and if true, legitimizes all states under libertarian reasoning (it’s voluntary - RIGHT?).
Surely you are not so ignorant as to not realize that political systems take on a life of their own, isolated from the will of their subjects? No state system is actually representative of the public in any accurate sense, even if it gives itself a “democratic” flavoring. All state systems, including so-called democracies, are ultimately controlled by oligarchies. I am not represented by democacy, and neither are those who think they are. Those who actually control the democracies (oligarchies, not “the people” as such), for all intents and purposes, can make whatever decisions they like once in power, regaurdless of the public. The public does not implicitly endorse whatever the state does just because the state calls itself a “democracy” and offers slim pickins from what it originally stole to the commoners as bait.
You need to redirect your hatred towards the state, not towards the fleeced masses.
I don’t believe it is nonsense, and I don’t think your conclusion is correct.
Byzantine is saying, if I understand him correctly, that the masses haven’t revolted, and in fact, keep voting. It’s not that it voluntary, it’s majority. If people wanted anarchism in the majority, we would probably have it. The notion of the slavemaster on top by force or command, is a fallacy. The slavemaster is on top, because people do not recognize that they are slaves. They call him President or Prime Minister or King or Director or such. But he is there because at one point recently, even today, people want him there.
BP, are you going to admit you’ve not read de La Boetie, or that you you have selective memory?
I hardly see how either one of them must be exclusively correct, given the examples of both in our state (i.e. both “The citizens are not to blame for Slavery being perpetuated” & “The citizens are to blame for not realizing Slavery is being perpetuated”).
Additionally, both points helps clarify required strategy in the broader picture.
I have read La Boetie. I think some of you are putting your own spin on him in the process of interpretation, because by no means do I conclude from reading La Boetie that the masses are actually represented by their political systems, the conclusion is that political systems are partially dependant on civil obedience, which is partially dependant on the perpetuation of ideology. These are two different matters entirely. It by no means necessarily follows from the fact that people are civily obedient that they actually purposefully or ideologically support the political system as a whole, or that the political system is genuinely representative of their demands and preferances. Clearly, voluntary market mechanisms are what genuinely reflect a society’s demands, not political systems. Political systems are chunky one-size-fits-all schemes, even in so-called “democracy”.