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RE: Iceland To Hold New Election Due to Prime Minister's Family Support For A Long Term, Convicted, Child Rapist.
"...the outcome of any form of democracy is that the will of some is forced onto others who disagree"
I just wanted to point out that this is only true of extant democratic systems. I have previously attempted to craft a system whereby democratic means of growing voluntarist governance were employed, here on Steemit.
There was little response, but that doesn't mean such a system isn't possible. I am not a populist leader, and neither the most lauded author, so my own failure to create such a system in no way implies a completely voluntarist means of democratic governance isn't possible.
Democracy, also, isn't the only means whereby tyranny can be accomplished, and isn't even the most common. Simple force suffices, and long has.
Thanks!
Thanks for your comment. I'm not sure I understand how voluntarist governance is not an oxymoron. I understand that voluntarism is simply an agreement among the community to participate in activity in a strictly voluntary way and so if agendas are set which are not agreed upon, then no particular individual is required to participate. Governance implies government and thus hierarchy and thus also an element of coercion for it to exist, since it is unlikely that everyone in society is going to agree to hierarchy.
Having looked up the definition of tyranny I realise now that there are other definitions beyond the common use for the word to mean government abusing it's power. So to be clear, I was referring to the kind of 'authorised' tyranny that governments often 'legalise' and attempt to justify through indoctrination and 'normalisation' of their preferred form of imbalance.
You govern your actions. If we agree to, you and I can govern our actions according to rules that we both find amenable. We would then be in a voluntary government. No one who hasn't agreed would be included in that government, if we didn't force them to be. Any hierarchy we agree on would neither affect anyone we didn't force it on.
Others could agree to govern themselves by quite different rules, and yet our government and theirs could still conduct affairs, unless their rules were such that such intercourse wasn't possible, just as extant governments do. Even if two governments were so incompatible they couldn't conduct business with one another, they wouldn't necessarily be enemies, as long as neither was intent on aggression.
There is no limit to the number of governments that can be established, including governments of single individuals that established no rules at all, that were autarchies that would have to conduct business with other governments on a case by case basis, per such agreements with those other governments as those others found necessary.
This mutual agreement system was what I essayed to establish, but it is a daunting task to determine what rules you will live by, and to write them out, and I wasn't able to get much traction here.
Regarding tyranny, if a guy has an army at his back, and decides that I am gonna follow his rules or die, and I am unable to resist his force or flee, he is a tyrant, and I am fucked. No democracy required.
OK, fair enough - I'm still not really clear how that could work any better than simple anarchy. The Ubuntu movement has set up voluntarist towns in South America and Africa - yet as I understand their model, they function using a traditional 'tribal' idea of having 'elders' who make key decisions. To me that is not necessarily any better than any other form of hierarchic system.
The problem is always 'power over' - so what is the outcome if I am part of a group of people who form a collective and have governance through voluntary agreement and someone who has 'sway' for one reason or another decides something that I don't like and cannot live with? My only option is to leave... So, then I have to leave my friends and family to avoid having to conform to what I don't like. When examined in thought this might sound fine, but in practical terms that is not a simple situation at all.
Essentially, the core issue here is personal empowerment and the presence of balance or imbalance. If there is any barrier that stops me from being free and doing what I need/want to do - such as, for example, the barrier of land 'ownership' that has evolved to be imbalanced - then no amount of removal of hierarchy will solve the problem and we are back to feudalism.
I agree about your definition of tyranny and again it all comes back to personal empowerment, part of which is being empowered enough to not go along with the commands of a tyrannical 'leader' who forces you into his/her army.
Well, with such a basis for further agreement to 'ride' on, business would be easier to conduct. Maybe not, but it seems that having known points of agreement already established through prior examples would make drafting other ancillary agreements easier, and avoid much revision.
And as to the example you provided of a commune, that is a part of the problem with communes. It is a good example of real world issues communes actually face, and people have to decide how to handle. Being authorized to make a decision doesn't make that decision necessarily easy, however.
Regarding extant property, I haven't had my morning coffee yet, so am gonna have to defer that issue.
That is a thorny problem, and I'm pretty sure I alone will not come up with the solution.
Edit: I failed to address the Ubuntu movement you mentioned. This would be another example where knowing what their governance model is would make it easier for me, or you, to decide whether we wanted to participate.
I, like you, am not enamored of a council of elders making decisions for me. Such a hierarchy is less than ideal, and I'm agin' it.