Another point of view is that elections are way to make people believe they are represented and therefore won't fight a state that maintains the monopoly of force, which can impose taxation, arbitrary laws, and a lot of other attacks to individual freedoms that people wouldn't be keen to accept naturally.
A society where democracy can not work because it would be "corrupted by bourgeoisie" has even lower chances of making anarchism work IMHO.
We HAVE to make democracy work.
Actually, reading it reminded me of another such book I had read a while ago. Qaddafi's Green Book, where he lays down his ideal system, the Jamahiriya.
On paper, it is pretty cool: every matters of state are decided by local assemblies that can call for a higher level assembly when deemed necessary. But devil is in the detail. The Guide has a final say, in a bit of an unspecified way, exactly how Maknho stays pretty vague on the whole decision process.
I am sure that if Qaddafi had been defeated in his youth, many anarchists would be musing about this system in the way we do Makhno's.
[1] http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/org_plat.ht...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book_(Muammar_Gaddaf...
Qaddafi's green book is just a rehash of the council democracy. But yes, it can certainly be implemented differently - just as you can have a multi-party representative democracy on paper that is a totalitarian dictatorship in practice, as in e.g. DPRK.
I think better examples of functional democracy along these lines can be seen in the Zapatista-controlled areas in Mexico, and especially in Rojava/AANES. Rojava is interesting because they have an actual written social contract that captures the details of the electoral system, which is not very typical for such forms of governance: https://www.scribd.com/document/441234886/Social-Contract-of...
A paraphrase of a bit from the Makhno article on Wikipedia:
""" The first Congress of the Confederation of Anarchists Groups issued five main principles:
1) Rejection of all political parties
2) Rejection of all forms of dictatorships (including the dictatorship of the proletariat, viewed by Makhnovists and many anarchists of the day as a term synonymous with the dictatorship of the Bolshevik communist party)
3) Negation of any concept of a central state
4) Rejection of a so-called "transitional period" necessitating a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat
5) Self-management of all workers through free local workers' councils """
There may be a discussion to be had about these principles, but they certainly do not sound like "a railroad towards dictatorship" to me.
Edit: Minor fixups
[...]
As a result, democracy is merely one variety of bourgeois dictatorship, its fictitious political freedoms and democratic guarantees are a smokescreen designed to conceal its true identity. " [1]
In his "constructive part" [2] he carefully avoids talking about assemblies or votes. It is clear he does not know really how to solve conflicts and just hope none will arise.
He also mentions the need of an army to have a unity of command, but just specifies this must be decided quickly, without giving clear advice on how to do that without dreaded centralization nor democracy.
[1] http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/general.htm
[2] http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/constructiv...
The words "democracy" "vote" "majority" appear nowhere else in his proposal.
Have some reading about argumentative ethics, it derives natural law based on private property through the means of logic:
I am of the opinion that it is good that individuals have total ownership over their mind and bodies, but it is just that: an opinion. I can't demonstrate it.
If I could somehow infer it being a "natural law" it would not be a satisfying justification, it would just be a naturalistic fallacy. Most of human society's goals are to fight against "natural order" because we, collectively, aim at unnatural things like justice and fairness.
Specifically, I think this is nonsensical:
"Second, it must be noted that argumentation does not consist of free-floating propositions but is a form of action requiring the employment of scarce means; and that the means which a person demonstrates as preferring by engaging in propositional exchanges are those of private property."
It is a well accepted rule in logic and debate that propositions have merit on their own, therefore the way they are stated is irrelevant, whether they consume scarce means or not.
The jump from scarce means to private property is laughable.
Actually I have a hard time charitably following his reasoning. It is obvious the conclusion he wants to reach, but it is hard to understand where he sees an unfolding of logic arguments.
Even if his claims were true, which are, if I understand correctly, that the mere fact of engaging in a moralistic discussion presupposes the speakers assume a kind of private property instinctively, it does not follow that this presupposition is correct.
That's a naturalistic fallacy. It can be used to justify domination, sharing, violence, death of the weak. Using it to defend something as obviously artificial as private property is news to me, and I think pretty hard to defend, but even if it did, it presupposes we should care about "natural law", something most philosophers learned to dismiss since the 19th century.
I think you are being very polite in your assessment.
Or is it the case that you simply don't like the content and therefore you dismiss it using whatever excuses you find convenient?
If property rights are derived by the ability to argue then babies can't own property. But they can... If the argument is that someone else does the argument on behalf of the baby then anything can use that argument.
We see other numerous counter examples - court cases on behalf of animal rights, collectively owned property etc.
It's a simple circular argument disguised in lots of complicated writing.
You missed the point about the ability of performing arguments. Babies and children might not be able to argument at the moment, but they are capable of argumentation. Therefore, for as long as they don't achieve maturity, tutors can act in the interest of the child.
Animals, on the other hand, can't argument at all, therefore are not capable of holding negative property rights.
Bear in mind that positive rights can't be reasoned without failing at Hume's razor, for the simple reason one can't have rights over other people's property. Collective property can't be reasoned either. In any case, I invite you to try to reason about said "rights" without resorting to positive law.
Which other articles didn't you like and that you claim are "nonsensical"?
This is the "shifting sands" technique that was previously mentioned.
Counterexamples are simple to find: a baby with a terminal disease, a mature person in a vegetative state.
Animals, on the other hand, can't argument at all, therefore are not capable of holding negative property rights.
So you say. And yet animal cruelty rules are a good counterexample.
Bear in mind that positive rights can't be reasoned without failing at Hume's razor, for the simple reason one can't have rights over other people's property.
Of course they can. Building code rights are a good example. Appealing to Hume's razor is another example of the technique on that site - it makes it sound like something is factual whereas actually it is completely non-obvious that it applies at all.
It seems that you believe that positive law (meaning: law that you "think" is right and want to impose on others) is perfectly reasonable.
The deal with argumentative ethics is that it derives natural law through logic reasoning. You may not like it, you may hate the conclusions it achieves, but it's only way you can build an ethical system that allows for the pacific co-existence of individuals in a way that is perennial in time and space that we can possibly agree on (but not necessarily will). Once you start removing constraints (eg. no need to allow for pacific co-existence, or no need for being perennial), then pretty much anything goes, and we're in the authoritarian/totalitarian land we live with today.
In any case, it really doesn't matter what I think or what you think, as decentralization removes the ability states and governments to exist, law will be progressively handled by the free market. How do you believe that law will be handled in a competitive environment, with no government, no "constitution" and Kelsen's pyramid for people to bow to?
In the end the only thing we can possibly agree on is that we hold negative rights on other people's properties. Even if someone doesn't agree on that, the market will find a way to record that person's actions against other's property in a distributed database, which can make the life of that person a living nightmare in a fully technologically decentralized society. We are not there though, so let's have authoritarian ideas pushed right and left while we can.
Both of our biases should not affect if the argument is valid. If I can find counter examples to that argument that simply then there is something wrong with the argument.
we're in the authoritarian/totalitarian land we live with today.
Ignoring the pejorative judgement ("authoritarian/totalitarian"), yes indeed we are in the land we live in today.
I'm not interested in an ethics system for some world that lives as a thought experiment.
Except that you didn't. All you did was to state your opinions against the argument without any reasonable refutation.
Let me help you a bit by over-simplyfing the logic:
- If I state an argument to you, it can either be true, false or indeterminate. No matter what argument you make to me in that regard, you'd end up agreeing with that argument, which means that specific argument is "a priori". Moreover, you can only reach a conclusion about my argument by being you, which means you need to have control over your own thoughts to achieve that conclusion (self-ownership)
- If we define ethics as the minimal set of rules that we agree upon in order to maintain our voluntarily stable pacific relationships over time and space, the only possible way we can achieve those ethics is through an argumentative process (I invite you to think of a refutation of that statement)
- Self-ownership can't be maintained (therefore invalidating the time and space requirement) without some means (food, water, shelter, etc). Those means are scarce, and can only be used by a single person at a time. So if we define property as something that is scarce (therefore delimitable) and is being used (therefore modified and protected), private property is a necessary requirement for sustaining self-ownership.
- In conclusion: A minimal system of ethics require arguments to be produced. Arguments require self-ownership to be produced. Self-ownership require private property to be sustained. Therefore if the aim is to achieve a minimal system of ethics that allow for the stable and pacific co-existence of individuals over time and space, the agreement on private property is required -- and that itself constitutes the minimal ethical.
That said, it doesn't mean that you'll agree with anything I exposed. By not agreeing, however, you are implicitly agreeing (by stating an argument). The moment you generate an argument, by the means of logic, you're agreeing on the minimal ethics of private property (although you may not be acting in alignment with that ethics).
1. is actually two propositions, the first one unnecessary to the discussion. But useful to frame the second part as as self-evident as the first one.
2. is simply false. We could agree to a relation of dominance. Several non-violent ways of doing that through cultural, religious, familial, societal means have existed in the past. Luckily for you, 2. is also totally useless to the argument being made.
3. Yes, if you define private property as the act of eating and drinking, then it is consubstantiated with our human condition. That's not the definition generally admitted though. My son (who is 5 yo) does not own anything, yet he eats food I own, is sheltered at our place, receives water we pay for. Does it make him incapable of reasoning? He frequently argues, occasionally reasonably.
Actually this jump from scarce to private property is the main problem of the argumentation. Scarce things don't have to be owned. That's the whole subject of the debate, you can't just assume it is true to prove it is true.
4. follows from 3 so I consider it invalidated. I'll just ask this: is a slave unable to produce arguments? Or do you consider a slave owns their body, food, water, shelter?
Doesn’t the first step conflate verification of truth with truth?
It's about deriving the minimal ethical that we can agree upon using a logic derivation.
If the aim is to determine possible agreement it requires arguments.
Coming up with arguments require private property, starting with self ownership, and extending it to objects that can be delimited, modified, and protected.
Turns out the requirement for private property is the minimal ethical, as we can only agree (or disagree) that we can form arguments.
"> Moreover, you can only reach a conclusion about my argument by being you, which means you need to have control over your own thoughts to achieve that conclusion (self-ownership)"
I don't see this as a given at all. A conclusion can be formed about some "arguments" (eg, X > Y) by mechanical means and others by other non-thought based means (drawing lots, dice etc).
Lemma (2) ("If we define ethics as the minimal set of rules that we agree upon in order to maintain our voluntarily stable pacific relationships over time and space, the only possible way we can achieve those ethics is through an argumentative process") is false in many ways.
For one thing "voluntarily" ignores the numerous cases of involuntary peaceful relations. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) gave Europe its longest period of peace in history and was not voluntary.
Secondly there are numerous protocols that lead to peaceful coexistence without argument. Hereditary rule and collectives are good examples.
Lemma (3) ("Self-ownership can't be maintained (therefore invalidating the time and space requirement) without some means (food, water, shelter, etc). Those means are scarce, and can only be used by a single person at a time.") is incorrect.
There are numerous examples of collectives where people do not own food and just use what they need. Hunter-Gather societies are another example.