As I’ve stated elsewhere, I’ve been thinking that the greatest hope for mankind politically in the short term is the decentrialization or secession meme. My reasoning is a pragmatic one.
It goes like this :
- Conflict has at it’s root incompatible imagined or desired “real conditions”.
- That the source of these incompatible states are human minds.
- Scarcity of means combined with incompatibility of ends = Conflict.
- The essential question to be resolved is who gets to use the scarce resource.
- Social norms or laws arise in every social group to resolve these incompatibilities, these issues of scarcity.
- At their root such norms have provide a mechanism for predictably (not necessarily peacefully or fairly) resolving or establishing a “legitimate claim of use” of the scarce means.
We’ve lost our way however. The process by which these norms and laws, and the institutions that enforce, enact and produce them, come into existence is an organic and evolutionary one and necessarily so.
Social relationships can be hegemonic, in that there is an unequal power bias in the relationship. The parent-child relationship is the most primal of these type. Historically husband-wife relationships have been that way, and still are in some societies. Manager->worker. Employer->employee, judge → litigant, etc. In an attempt to maintain or enlarge one’s power in various realtionships we find that those in power tend to resist social evolution which would threaten the sources of their power. That’s not to claim that all such resistance isn’t healthy. That’s for another discussion.
Now there are two competing tendencies one to centralize power and bind together hegemonic hierarchies, and one of freedom which struggles to break free from such bonds. Now all such bonds are not illegitimate. But I think the essential nature of freedom is being able to disconnect a bond and assert one’s self-sovereignty, without this you can’t have voluntary societies.
That brings me to my central point in this post. Secession at all levels ought to be encouraged. In the declaration of independence you have a template for such a sovereign assertion of right. Divorce, emancipation(children), firing/quitting a job, voiding a contract, etc. are all versions of the same type of behavior. Allow people to freely disassociate in both directions.
To that end, I’m wondering if we can’t keep an active thread that links active efforts or discussion in the broader social/media context at such efforts.
I don’t know if anyone remembers it, but there was a guy, Ender at endervidualism who used to put out a weekly libertarian compilation of links to articles from theory to anti-war, to individualist news stories, etc. I loved getting that posting once a week. It led me to many of my favorite hangouts.
To that end, here’s a couple of links to interesting news that popped up in my search for secession news on Google today :
### [Spanish Financial Crisis Spurs *Secession* Call in Catalonia](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDQQqQIoADAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Flatino.foxnews.com%2Flatino%2Fnews%2F2012%2F09%2F12%2Fspanish-financial-crisis-spurs-secession-call-in-catalonia%2F&ei=BhpaULjhDYrg0gHVsoGwCA&usg=AFQjCNFK1bIaNjU8i-YIa5onEPJg_L636g&sig2=hQuAE9FAC-gMfPPpQjyJbQ)
NDP reaffirms ‘50 plus one’ enough for Quebec secession talks |
Anyway, just a thought. I miss good news, that’s all. Everytime I hear about Jury Nullification, private cities, secession efforts, gold standard, etc.. I get a little happier. Until it dies away, then I get a little sadder…