You need Leviathan to prevent the ambitious few from taking control, without itself becoming the means for them to take control.
2. Say your society doesn't have such a custom (which is most existing societies). Now what? How do you mold society into such a consensus that nobody will think of violating it? Do you think that creating such a consensus is easier than creating a government to limit the power of the powerful?
2. I don't agree with you about most societies. Most people prefer their own social circles to have similar ability, intelligence, income, even physical attractiveness. That's the revealed preference for a society. We're not ants or bees that choose hierarchies when we don't have to. So by existing societies I assume you mean, the one global society that manifests differently everywhere but is really all the same and can't be escaped. Since people hate hierarchy it will not surprise you when I point out that this particular society only exists due to extreme violence and disinformation. So instead of thinking about molding a consensus, let's think instead about removing the violence and disinformation and then we can see what people really want. As for the easiest way of doing that, I don't know, but at least we don't need to go around saying that the current system is necessary.
2. Again, what you say is true in the small. But my city shows no such preference, and we're all trying to live together here. So, no, I don't mean "one global society", but I mean something much larger than my ultimate frisbee group.
> Since people hate hierarchy it will not surprise you when I point out that this particular society only exists due to extreme violence and disinformation.
Don't put words in my mouth (or reactions in my emotions), especially ones I don't agree with. This society exists due to much less violence and much less disinformation than the historical norm; I don't think it's fair to characterize it as "only existing due to violence and disinformation". That may be your characterization; it certainly isn't mine. Nor do I think that "people hate hierarchy" is a fair characterization.
In fact, I think you're mistaking your preferences for a universal. And I think you're taking what your ideology says about society as the truth, without honestly evaluating society.
Control is social. One person cannot literally control the food supply in the sense that they personally created all of it, guard it like a dragon, and distribute it. Many other people are involved at all steps. If the would-be dragon violates social norms on not being a hoarding jerk, they can be ejected. If your response is now something like "It's not literally one person but they will have guards and police, now what?", this starts getting into the discussion about violence.
> 2. Again, what you say is true in the small. But my city shows no such preference, and we're all trying to live together here. So, no, I don't mean "one global society", but I mean something much larger than my ultimate frisbee group.
To clarify, by global society I meant the one society dominated by European-style nation-states where money can buy anything, or at least a good substitute. With enough money you can monopolize the food supply or anything else. Where is there a strong, what we might call legally-enforceable rule against being rich? If such a place existed and mattered, it would be bought out or made illegal.
The point I'm making is that all societies today above "the small" are manifestations of the global society I just mentioned, created in Europe hundreds of years ago and spread in multiple waves throughout the world. So if we're counting up societies that permit extreme wealth differences and those that don't, in the first group we have: today's global society and a handful of historical and invariably brutal kingdoms and empires; in the second group we have: all "small" societies today and the vast majority of human societies before encountering early modern European expansion. The societies permitting extreme wealth are weird aberrations in world history. We should not count every modern city as an independent data point about what kind of society people prefer.
For (1) and (2): as far as the number of people, the way to do it would be decentralized. A neural network is an example. Or your brain: a cell in your brain's right hemisphere may never interact with a cell in the left hemisphere, yet your brain works. A more real-world political example would be a collection of neighborhood councils and guilds in a city, as just one option.
> Don't put words in my mouth (or reactions in my emotions), especially ones I don't agree with.
That was a rhetorical statement, a more cutesy way of saying "A, therefore B." I'm sorry if it bothered you.
> This society exists due to much less violence and much less disinformation than the historical norm; I don't think it's fair to characterize it as "only existing due to violence and disinformation". That may be your characterization; it certainly isn't mine.
Today's society is mostly due to fossil fuel and a little bit due to technical advancement. The vast inequalities are what are due to violence and disinformation. Imagine a job where all your output is given to your boss and all you get is a cot to sleep on and simple food. What would it take for you to stay at that job? How do you think a unionization effort would go? Could you use the word "violence" to describe any of this? Now consider that as of 2020, 2153 billionaires had more wealth than 4.6 billion people: https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/worlds-billionaires-....
> Nor do I think that "people hate hierarchy" is a fair characterization. > > In fact, I think you're mistaking your preferences for a universal. And I think you're taking what your ideology says about society as the truth, without honestly evaluating society.
It's important to distinguish consensual hierarchy from forced hierarchy. A group can agree to let someone lead in some area where they are skilled: we'll let you drive the car because you're a better driver. I don't think anyone likes forced hierarchy though: I will beat you if you don't let me drive. I don't think that's an ideological preference.
But do you think that many people prefer associating with people with much different skill, intelligence, education or income? For example, would you like to be on a programming team where you could clearly rank skill from worst to best? If so, I'd be interested in having you walk me through why you think that.
Yes, I agree, it's never just one person. And yes, there's probably going to be violence when someone threatens the food supply. But that's exactly one of the things that bugs me about anarchy. It seems to me that it is vulnerable to a group that is willing to use violence in greater intensity (or with greater organization) than the anarchy is able to employ in return.
And if you're going to say that anarchy can decide to do violence, yes, I agree. But it seems to me that centuries of experience have shown that those most effective at doing violence are very thoroughly organized, which seems to me to be kind of the opposite of anarchy.
> So if we're counting up societies that permit extreme wealth differences and those that don't, in the first group we have: today's global society and a handful of historical and invariably brutal kingdoms and empires; in the second group we have: all "small" societies today and the vast majority of human societies before encountering early modern European expansion.
I think that's a rather ahistorical perspective. Take, for example, China or India around 1000. Or Mali, whose emperor Mansa Musa is believed to have been the wealthiest individual in history. Or the Aztec or Inca empires. Or...
I'll give you that the Aztecs and Incas were brutal. I don't know about Mali. But if you're going to say that China and India were brutal, then you're going to have to say that most of history was brutal.
> But do you think that many people prefer associating with people with much different skill, intelligence, education or income? For example, would you like to be on a programming team where you could clearly rank skill from worst to best? If so, I'd be interested in having you walk me through why you think that.
I'm in an ultimate frisbee group where there's some fairly clear distinctions in skill level. It's not quite a strict hierarchy, because skill has multiple axes - someone could be slower but have a better handle. Still, there are definitely better players and worse players. But we just divide into approximately equal-strength teams, and go have fun.
> > Don't put words in my mouth (or reactions in my emotions), especially ones I don't agree with.
> That was a rhetorical statement, a more cutesy way of saying "A, therefore B." I'm sorry if it bothered you.
Well, others here do it sometimes with malice, or at least with manipulative intent, so I've become rather sensitive to it. Sorry if I jumped on you.
The trick is to stop the problem before violence is a possibility, for example rotate who is in control of the food supply, or ensure a distributed food surplus so that any interruptions can be dealt with in time. It's important though to also imagine a society where people can count on having their basic needs met and everyone is integrated into the social network, in which case wanting to order people around would be thought of as perverse, and someone taking over some vital resource for personal gain wouldn't be a problem you'd need to constantly prepare for.
> But it seems to me that centuries of experience have shown that those most effective at doing violence are very thoroughly organized, which seems to me to be kind of the opposite of anarchy.
I think this is a historical accident. We can name many centralized organizations today, companies and countries, with completely inept leadership. Conversely we can look at the history of trade unions, or the Republicans in the Spanish civil war, for flatter organizations that did well. Arguably the overthrow of the Tsarist government by the Bolsheviks is another example, in the sense that they accomplished their literal goal of taking over, not in the sense that the authoritarian rule that followed was good (it wasn't).
It may very well be that when push comes to shove centralized organizations outperform organizations with more decentralized leadership in certain crucial ways but I don't think we've had a good test yet to say either way. Nor, I hope we agree, should we say that just because a particular system is better at violence that it's a better system in general.
> I think that's a rather ahistorical perspective.
It's hard to say because it's the relatively recent flood of fossil fuels that have allowed for extreme wealth and thus extreme wealth differences. But today's society might be the first where only money matters. Even in historic actual empires, social rules could constrain the emperor and wealth generally. If nothing else anyone rich enough to rival the emperor or god-king might be killed.
The history of kings and rulers is full of horrifying anecdotes such as being buried with servants or mutilating political opponents. Crucially this brutality is associated with the rulers and not the everyday people. Were some better than others, sure, but I think that we'd find every king or emperor with a non-trivial reign routinely used means to maintain their rule that both we and their contemporary subjects would consider terrible.
> I'm in an ultimate frisbee group where there's some fairly clear distinctions in skill level. It's not quite a strict hierarchy, because skill has multiple axes - someone could be slower but have a better handle. Still, there are definitely better players and worse players. But we just divide into approximately equal-strength teams, and go have fun.
Thank you for sharing. I'll point out though that even though you're happy with the situation, the skill discrepancies are something that you are working around and not seeking out. Maybe it would be easier if everyone was roughly the same and people could group off in any old random way.
> Well, others here do it sometimes with malice, or at least with manipulative intent, so I've become rather sensitive to it. Sorry if I jumped on you.
No problem, in fact I'm trying to work on speaking more plainly so I appreciate the call-out.